Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Comparison of Inflammatory Mediators Released by Basophils of Asthmatic and Control Subjects in Response to High-Affinity IgE Receptor Aggregation

Background: In human blood basophils, cross-linking the high-affinity IgE receptor FcΕRI with multivalent antigen activates a signaling pathway leading to secretion of inflammatory mediators and cytokine production. Basophils are known to play an important role in the pathogenesis of asthma but there has been no comprehensive examination of the effectors these cells produce. Here a study of the transcription and release of a selection of chemokines and cytokines from basophils was undertaken. Methods: A Cartesian antibody array provided an effective method of assaying for multiple cytokines and chemokines simultaneously. Results were verified by RT-PCR and ELISA assays. This allowed the comparison of freshly prepared peripheral blood basophil responses to cross-linking of the high-affinity IgE receptor, with and without preincubation with IL-3. Results: Evidence that human blood basophils produce the chemokines MIP-5, eotaxin and GM-CSF was provided by antibody array and RT-PCR analyses. Preincubation with IL-3 enhanced the expression and release of IL-13, IL-8 and mRNA transcripts encoding MIP-5 and GATA2 in basophils from both asthmatic and control subjects. Leptin mRNA transcription, storage and release in basophils are described for the first time. Conclusions: Surveying cytokine and chemokines stored and released by peripheral blood basophils shows that asthmatic and control subjects share similar profiles even when their degranulation responses are distinct. Evidence is provided for the production of leptin, GM-CSF, eotaxin and MIP-5 by peripheral blood basophils. IL-3 preincubation enhances the production and release of IL-8 upon IgE receptor cross-linking.
Re-imagining and re-imaging the development of the East African Rift

The East African Rift (EAR) has fascinated and challenged the geological imagination since its discovery nearly a century ago. A new series of images showing the sequential development of faulting and volcanism along the Rift from 45 Ma to present offers a regional overview of that development. The EAR is the latest phase of the extensive Phanerozoic rifting of the East African continental plate, interwoven with the lithospheric fabrics knitted together during its complex Proterozoic past. South of 5° S, the EAR variously follows or cuts across the Karoo rift trends; north of 5° S, it is almost totally within new or reworked Neoproterozoic terranes, while the Karoo rifts are almost totally outside them. The compilations raise several aspects of rift development seemingly in need of re-imagining, including tight-fit reconstructions of the Gulf of Aden, and the projection of Mesozoic rifts from Yemen to Somalia. Overall, the rifting process does not accord well with a mechanistic paradigm and is better imagined within the Prigoginian paradigm, which accepts instability and disorder within natural processes such as mantle plumes. The structural complexity of Afar and its non-alignment with magnetic anomalies suggests that the seafloor spreading process is, in its beginnings at least, more chaos than order.
Northern and Eastern Enlargement of EMU: Do Structural Reforms Matter?

This paper studies the incentives to join or enlarge a monetary union under alternative assumptions about the extent of market reform within the union and in candidate countries. Lack of labour mobility, wage/price flexibility or fiscal reform brings costs for both new entrants and in the existing union. Countries will only want to join a union where there has been sufficient reform, and where markets are more flexible than their own. But existing members will want the same properties of their new partners as well. Fiscal restrictions, or a lack of fiscal flexibility, will exaggerate this incentive mismatch and may delay the necessary reforms.
Overexpression of the gag-pol precursor from human immunodeficiency virus type 1 proviral genomes results in efficient proteolytic processing in the absence of virion production

The expression of the gag-pol polyprotein of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) occurs via ribosomal frameshifting between the gag and pol genes. Because low levels of the gag-pol precursor are naturally produced in HIV-1-infected cells, a limited amount of information is available on the biology of this molecule. To further study this polyprotein, two mutant HIV-1 proviral genomes were created to position the gag and pol genes in the same translational reading frame. The mutations inserted a single thymidine nucleotide at the site of ribosomal frameshifting (nucleotide 1635), which results in the addition of a phenylalanine residue (frameshift 1 [FS1]), or a single adenine nucleotide, which results in the addition of a leucine residue (frameshift 2 [FS2]). Transfection of the mutant proviral genomes into COS-1 cells resulted in the expression of the p160gag-pol polyprotein precursor as well as the proteolytically processed gag and pol gene products. Metabolic labeling of the transfected cells with [3H]myristic acid revealed that the p160gag-pol and p17gag proteins expressed from the mutant genomes were myristylated. While the supernatants from COS-1 cells transfected with wild-type or mutant proviral genomes contained similar amounts of p24 antigen, the levels of reverse transcriptase were, on the average, 10 times greater in the supernatants from cells transfected with the FS1 and FS2 proviral genomes. The cells transfected with the wild-type proviral genome released infectious viral particles, while the mutant proviral genomes released p24 and reverse transcriptase in the absence of detectable particle formation. The mutant proviral genomes were completely noninfectious as determined by coculture of the transfected COS-1 cells with SupT1 cells. These results demonstrate that the gag-pol polyprotein of HIV-1 contains the appropriate signals for proteolytic processing and association with intracytoplasmic membranes in the absence of virion formation.
Vehicle detection by means of stereo vision-based obstacles features extraction and monocular pattern analysis

This paper presents a stereo vision system for the detection and distance computation of a preceding vehicle. It is divided in two major steps. Initially, a stereo vision-based algorithm is used to extract relevant three-dimensional (3-D) features in the scene, these features are investigated further in order to select the ones that belong to vertical objects only and not to the road or background. These 3-D vertical features are then used as a starting point for preceding vehicle detection; by using a symmetry operator, a match against a simplified model of a rear vehicle's shape is performed using a monocular vision-based approach that allows the identification of a preceding vehicle. In addition, using the 3-D information previously extracted, an accurate distance computation is performed.
An Information-Centric Communication Infrastructure for Real-Time State Estimation of Active Distribution Networks

The evolution toward emerging active distribution networks (ADNs) can be realized via a real-time state estimation (RTSE) application facilitated by the use of phasor measurement units (PMUs). A critical challenge in deploying PMU-based RTSE applications at large scale is the lack of a scalable and flexible communication infrastructure for the timely (i.e., sub-second) delivery of the high volume of synchronized and continuous synchrophasor measurements. We address this challenge by introducing a communication platform called C-DAX based on the information-centric networking (ICN) concept. With a topic-based publish-subscribe engine that decouples data producers and consumers in time and space, C-DAX enables efficient synchrophasor measurement delivery, as well as flexible and scalable (re)configuration of PMU data communication for seamless full observability of power conditions in complex and dynamic scenarios. Based on the derived set of requirements for supporting PMU-based RTSE in ADNs, we design the ICN-based C-DAX communication platform, together with a joint optimized physical network resource provisioning strategy, in order to enable the agile PMU data communications in near real-time. In this paper, C-DAX is validated via a field trial implementation deployed over a sample feeder in a real-distribution network; it is also evaluated through simulation-based experiments using a large set of real medium voltage grid topologies currently operating live in The Netherlands. This is the first work that applies emerging communication paradigms, such as ICN, to smart grids while maintaining the required hard real-time data delivery as demonstrated through field trials at national scale. As such, it aims to become a blueprint for the application of ICN-based general purpose communication platforms to ADNs.
Human Obesity: Is Insufficient Calcium/Dairy Intake Part of the Problem?

Epidemiological data have shown that low calcium intake is a risk factor for overweight and obesity. The clinical implications of this relationship have been confirmed in weight loss studies performed in low calcium consumers in whom calcium or dairy supplementation accentuated body weight and fat loss. Up to now, laboratory studies and clinical trials have demonstrated that this effect may be explained by an increase in fat oxidation and fecal loss as well as a facilitation of appetite control. Taken together, these observations suggest that insufficient calcium intake can be part of the obesity problem in some individuals and that an increase in calcium/dairy intake is part of the solution. Key teaching points: • Low dietary calcium intake is a significant risk factor for overweight in adults. • Calcium/dairy supplementation may accentuate the impact of a weight-reducing program in obese low calcium consumers. • Calcium/dairy supplementation promotes fecal fat loss and fat oxidation. • Calcium/dairy supplementation favors a decrease in energy intake and a facilitation of appetite control in obese individuals during weight loss.
Protein structure change studied by hydrogen-deuterium exchange, functional labeling, and mass spectrometry

An automated high-throughput, high-resolution deuterium exchange HPLC-MS method (DXMS) was used to extend previous hydrogen exchange studies on the position and energetic role of regulatory structure changes in hemoglobin. The results match earlier highly accurate but much more limited tritium exchange results, extend the analysis to the entire sequence of both hemoglobin subunits, and identify some energetically important changes. Allosterically sensitive amide hydrogens located at near amino acid resolution help to confirm the reality of local unfolding reactions and their use to evaluate resolved structure changes in terms of allosteric free energy.
Using instantaneous frequency and aperiodicity detection to estimate F0 for high-quality speech synthesis

This paper introduces a general and flexible framework for F0 and aperiodicity (additive non periodic component) analysis, specifically intended for high-quality speech synthesis and modification applications. The proposed framework consists of three subsystems: instantaneous frequency estimator and initial aperiodicity detector, F0 trajectory tracker, and F0 refinement and aperiodicity extractor. A preliminary implementation of the proposed framework substantially outperformed (by a factor of 10 in terms of RMS F0 estimation error) existing F0 extractors in tracking ability of temporally varying F0 trajectories. The front end aperiodicity detector consists of a complex-valued wavelet analysis filter with a highly selective temporal and spectral envelope. This front end aperiodicity detector uses a new measure that quantifies the deviation from periodicity. The measure is less sensitive to slow FM and AM and closely correlates with the signal to noise ratio.
E-Agriculture Development in South Africa: Opportunities, Challenges and Prospects

The global development of information and communication technologies (ICT) has created a new agricultural development paradigm that promises to transform the performance of the agricultural sector and improve rural livelihoods in developing countries. Over the past five years, South Africa has witnessed a swift ICT-led transformation of its public service delivery with major innovations in key development sectors. The growth of e-agriculture is seen as an engine to accelerate agriculture and rural development, promote food security, and reduce rural poverty. This chapter examines e-agriculture initiatives in South Africa. It describes ICT applications in improving the quality of on-farm management decisions, agricultural market information system, e-packaging, product traceability, and online marketing to access lucrative global wine markets. The chapter also highlights key constraints, and identifies considerations to enhance the future prospects for e-agriculture. Given the strategic importance of agriculture in supporting the livelihoods of the majority rural population in South Africa, the successful deployment and effective utilization of ICT is pivotal for sustainable agriculture development and raising the standards of living of marginalized communities. The results of the paper demonstrate that South Africa has made significant strides in e-agriculture and tangible benefits have accrued to the agricultural communities.
Fear of childbirth predicts postpartum depression: a population-based analysis of 511 422 singleton births in Finland

Objectives To study how reproductive risks and perinatal outcomes are associated with postpartum depression treated in specialised healthcare defined according to the International Classification of Diseases (ICD)-10 codes, separately among women with and without a history of depression. Design A retrospective population-based case–control study. Setting Data gathered from three national health registers for the years 2002−2010. Participants All singleton births (n=511 422) in Finland. Primary outcome measures Prevalence of postpartum depression and the risk factors associated with it. Results In total, 0.3% (1438 of 511 422) of women experienced postpartum depression, the prevalence being 0.1% (431 of 511 422) in women without and 5.3% (1007 of 18 888) in women with a history of depression. After adjustment for possible covariates, a history of depression was found to be the strongest risk factor for postpartum depression. Other strong predisposing factors for postpartum depression were fear of childbirth, caesarean birth, nulliparity and major congenital anomaly. Specifically, among the 30% of women with postpartum depression but without a history of depression, postpartum depression was shown to be associated with fear of childbirth (adjusted OR (aOR 2.71, 95% CI 1.98 to 3.71), caesarean birth (aOR 1.38, 95% CI 1.08 to 1.77), preterm birth (aOR 1.65, 95% CI 1.08 to 2.56) and major congenital anomaly (aOR 1.67, 95% CI 1.15 to 2.42), compared with women with no postpartum depression and no history of depression. Conclusions A history of depression was found to be the most important predisposing factor of postpartum depression. Women without previous episodes of depression were at an increased risk of postpartum depression if adverse events occurred during the course of pregnancy, especially if they showed physician-diagnosed fear of childbirth.
Animal Spirits: Affective and Deliberative Processes in Economic Behavior

The economic conception of human behavior assumes that a person has a single set of well-defined goals, and that the person's behavior is chosen to best achieve those goals. We develop a model in which a person's behavior is the outcome of an interaction between two systems: a deliberative system that assesses options with a broad, goal-based perspective, and an affective system that encompasses emotions and motivational drives. Our model provides a framework for understanding many departures from full rationality discussed in the behavioral-economics literature, and captures the familiar feeling of being "of two minds. " And by focusing on factors that moderate the relative influence of the two systems, our model also generates a variety of novel testable predictions.
An Overview of the SPHINX-II Speech Recognition System

In the past year at Carnegie Mellon steady progress has been made in the area of acoustic and language modeling. The result has been a dramatic reduction in speech recognition errors in the SPHINX-II system. In this paper, we review SPHINX-II and summarize our recent efforts on improved speech recognition. Recently SPHINX-II achieved the lowest error rate in the November 1992 DARPA evaluations. For 5000-word, speaker-independent, continuous, speech recognition, the error rate was reduced to 5%.
A Scalable Asynchronous Cache Consistency Scheme (SACCS) for mobile environments

In the literature, there exit two types of cache consistency maintenance algorithms for mobile computing environments: stateless and stateful. In a stateless approach, the server is unaware of the cache contents at a mobile user (MU). Even though stateless approaches employ simple database management schemes, they lack scalability and ability to support user disconnectedness and mobility. On the other hand, a stateful approach is scalable for large database systems at the cost of nontrivial overhead due to server database management. We propose a novel algorithm, called Scalable Asynchronous Cache Consistency Scheme (SACCS), which inherits the positive features of both stateless and stateful approaches. SACCS provides a weak cache consistency for unreliable communication (e.g., wireless mobile) environments with small stale cache hit probability. It is also a highly scalable algorithm with minimum database management overhead. The properties are accomplished through the use of flag bits at the server cache (SC) and MU cache (MUC), an identifier (ID) in MUC for each entry after its invalidation, and estimated time-to-live (TTL) for each cached entry, as well as rendering of all valid entries of MUC to uncertain state when an MU wakes up. The stale cache hit probability is analyzed and also simulated under the Rayleigh fading model of error-prone wireless channels. Comprehensive simulation results show that the performance of SACCS is superior to those of other existing stateful and stateless algorithms in both single and multicell mobile environments.
On reduced-order modeling of gas–solid flows using deep learning

Reduced-order models (ROMs) have been extensively employed to understand complex systems efficiently and adequately. In this study, a novel parametric ROM framework is developed to produce Eulerian–Lagrangian simulations. This study employs two typical parametric strategies to reproduce the physical phenomena of a gas–solid flow by predicting the adequate dynamics of modal coefficients in the ROM: (i) based on the radial-basis function (RBF) interpolation, termed ROM-RBF and (ii) based on a long–short term memory (LSTM) neural network, termed ROM-LSTM. In the ROM, an advanced technique, namely, Lanczos-based proper orthogonal decomposition (LPOD), is employed to efficiently transform numerical snapshots into the modal coefficients. Validation tests are conducted in a typical gas–solid flow system such as a spouted bed. The coherent structures of the gas–solid flows are shown to be captured by the LPOD technique. Besides, in comparison with the high-fidelity simulations, our proposed ROMs are shown to simulate the gas–solid flows by significantly reducing the calculation time by several orders of magnitude and faithfully predicting the macroscopic properties. In particular, compared to the ROM-RBF, the ROM-LSTM can capture the flow fields more accurately within the gas–solid flows.
Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in Youth Suicide Victims: An Exploratory Study

Objective: Our study was designed to explore additional outcome variables of a suicide case–control study to determine the association between sexual orientation and gender identity in suicide completion in children and adolescents. Method: Fifty-five child and adolescent suicide victims and 55 community control subjects were assessed using semi-structured, proxy-based interviews and questionnaires regarding sexual orientation and gender issues, psychopathological diagnoses, and service use. Results: In our sample, no significant differences between suicide victims and control subjects were found regarding same-sex sexual orientation nor intimidation related to same-sex sexual orientation. Suicide victims with same-sex sexual orientation were more likely than suicide victims without same-sex sexual orientation, to meet criteria for anxiety disorders. Within the month preceding their deaths, these youth were more likely to have consulted a health professional, a psychiatrist, as well as having been hospitalized, and were more likely to have consulted a psychiatrist in the last year. Conclusions: In our sample, same-sex sexual orientation and gender identity issues do not appear to be more prevalent among youth who die by suicide, compared with youth recruited from the general population, nor for same-sex sexual-related intimidation. While exhibiting comparable levels of general psychopathological diagnoses associated with suicide, suicide victims with same-sex sexual orientation were more likely to meet criteria for anxiety disorders and to have consulted mental health professionals before their deaths.
The use of animated agents in e-learning environments : an exploratory , interpretive case study

There is increasing interest in the use of animated agents in e-learning environments. However, empirical investigations of their use in online education are limited. Our aim is to provide an empirically based framework for the development and evaluation of animated agents in e-learning environments. Findings suggest a number of challenges, including the multiple dialogue models that animated agents will need to accommodate, the diverse range of roles that pedagogical animated agents can usefully support, the dichotomous relationship that emerges between these roles and that of the lecturer, and student perception of the degree of autonomy that can be afforded to animated agents.
Interleukin‐10 genotypes associate with the risk of gastric carcinoma in Taiwanese Chinese

The association of cytokine genotypes with gastric carcinoma (GC) may be influenced by environmental factors and varies among different populations. Few studies have addressed the impact of different cytokine genotypes on the development and progression of GC. We analyzed 11 functional polymorphisms in tumor necrosis factor‐α (TNF‐α), interleukin (IL)‐1, IL‐4 and IL‐10 genes in 220 Taiwanese Chinese with GC and in 230 healthy controls. The risk of genotypes was adjusted with confounding environmental risks. Our results revealed that the frequency of Helicobacter pylori infection [odds ratio (OR) 1.7, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.19–2.56], cigarette smoking (OR 2.02, 95% CI 1.38–2.95) and high IL‐10 producer genotype (OR 2.67, 95% CI 1.29–5.50) was significantly increased in the entire GC patients. Among different subtypes of GC, a higher risk of developing diffuse type (OR 1.64, 95% CI 1.01–2.67) or cardia cancer (OR 2.44, 95% CI 1.13–2.67) was observed for the CT/CC genotype of IL‐4 at the position −590, whereas the high IL‐10 producer genotype was significantly linked with the risk of cardia cancer (OR 3.21, 95% CI 1.06–9.73) or advanced stage (OR 2.29, 95% CI 1.12–4.64). No association was noted between GC and controls in the distribution of IL‐1 and TNF‐α genotypes. Logistic regression analyses revealed that H. pylori infection (OR 1.7, 95% CI 1.14–2.52), cigarette smoking (OR 1.87, 95% CI 1.27–‐2.96) and IL‐10 genotype (OR 2.54, 95% CI 1.24–5.61) are independent risks for GC. Independent effects of IL‐10 genotype, H. pylori infection and cigarette smoking indicate that carcinogenesis of GC is influenced by a variety of host and environmental factors. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.