Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Missing Image Data Reconstruction Based on Adaptive Inverse Projection via Sparse Representation

In this paper, a missing image data reconstruction method based on an adaptive inverse projection via sparse representation is proposed. The proposed method utilizes sparse representation for obtaining low-dimensional subspaces that approximate target textures including missing areas. Then, by using the obtained low-dimensional subspaces, inverse projection for reconstructing missing areas can be derived to solve the problem of not being able to directly estimate missing intensities. Furthermore, in this approach, the proposed method monitors errors caused by the derived inverse projection, and the low-dimensional subspaces optimal for target textures are adaptively selected. Therefore, we can apply adaptive inverse projection via sparse representation to target missing textures, i.e., their adaptive reconstruction becomes feasible. The proposed method also introduces some schemes for color processing into the calculation of subspaces on the basis of sparse representation and attempts to avoid spurious color caused in the reconstruction results. Consequently, successful reconstruction of missing areas by the proposed method can be expected. Experimental results show impressive improvement of our reconstruction method over previously reported reconstruction methods.
Gastrointestinal Symptoms and Elevated Levels of Anti-Saccharomyces cerevisiae Antibodies Are Associated with Higher Disease Activity in Colombian Patients with Spondyloarthritis

Background Spondyloarthritis (SpA) is a group of articular inflammatory rheumatic diseases that their gastrointestinal manifestations are around 10% of their extra-articular symptoms, supporting that the inflammatory response of the intestinal mucosa could be associated with the clinical status. Objectives To investigate the association between gastrointestinal symptoms and autoantibodies and disease activity between SpA patients, healthy subjects (HS), and patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Methods 102 SpA patients, 29 IBD patients, and 117 HS were included. Autoantibodies as ASCA, ANCA, anti-tTG, anti-DGP, ANA, and IgA were measured. The patients were assessed to evaluate clinical and gastrointestinal symptoms. An association analysis was performed using Chi square test and a logistic regression. Results Significant differences were found for ASCA levels in SpA (28.2%) compared to IBD (14.2%) and HS (6.0%) (p = 0.029), as well as for ANAS in SpA (49.5%) and IBD (37.9%) (p < 0.001) and abdominal pain (p = 0.012) between SpA (54.3%) and IBD (27.5%). Significant associations were found between BASDAI > 4 and gastrointestinal symptoms (p < 0.05) and IgA (p = 0.007). The association for abdominal bloating was maintained (OR: 3.93, CI-95%, 1.14–13.56; p = 0.030). Conclusions Gastrointestinal symptoms, ASCA, ANAS, and IgA levels were associated with high disease activity in SpA compared with IBD and HS.
Actin Enables the Antimicrobial Action of LL-37 Peptide in the Presence of Microbial Proteases*

Background: Bacteria evade host defense peptides by degradation. Results: Actin protects the LL-37 antimicrobial peptide and enables its bactericidal action in the presence of bacterial proteases. Conclusion: Sites of infection and necrosis are likely to contain high amounts of actin that will protect LL-37 from degradation. Significance: Components released from lysed cells can be used to enhance local immunity. Host defense peptides play an important host-protective role by their microcidal action, immunomodulatory functions, and tissue repair activities. Proteolysis is a common strategy of pathogens used to neutralize host defense peptides. Here, we show that actin, the most abundant structural protein in eukaryotes, binds the LL-37 host defense peptide, protects it from degradation by the proteases of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Porphyromonas gingivalis, and enables its antimicrobial activity despite the presence of the proteases. Co-localization of LL-37 with extracellular actin was observed in necrotized regions of samples from oral lesions. Competition assays, cross-linking experiments, limited proteolysis, and mass spectrometry revealed that LL-37 binds by specific hydrophobic interactions to the His-40–Lys-50 segment of actin, located in the DNase I binding loop. The integrity of the binding site of both LL-37 and actin is a prerequisite to the binding. Our results demonstrate that actin, presumably released by dead cells and abundant in infected sites, might be utilized by the immune system to enhance spatio-temporal immunity in an attempt to arrest infection and control inflammation.
The Relationships among Isometric, Isotonic, and Isokinetic Concentric and Eccentric Quadriceps and Hamstring Force and Three Components of Athletic Performance.

This study was supported in part by a grant from the Foundation for Physical Therapy, Inc. The purpose of this study was to compare the relationships among isometric, isotonic, and isokinetic concentric and eccentric quadriceps and hamstring forces and three components of athletic performance in college-aged, male athletes. Bilateral quadriceps and hamstring muscle torque were obtained (N = 39) using a KinCom(R) for concentric (rate at 60 degrees /sec and 180 degrees /sec), eccentric (rate at 30 degrees /sec and 90 degrees /sec), isotonic, and isometric (knee angles at 30 degrees and 60 degrees ) contractions. Athletic performance was assessed using vertical jump performance, 40-yard dash time, and agility run time. The best predictor of 40-yard dash time was the right peak isokinetic concentric hamstring force at 60 degrees /sec (R = .57; p < 0.05). The best predictor of agility run time was the left mean isokinetic eccentric hamstring force at 90 degrees /sec (R = .58; p < 0.05). There were no significant correlations between any quadriceps or hamstring force and vertical jump. It was concluded that isokinetic eccentric quadriceps and hamstring forces were no better predictors of athletic performance than muscle forces assessed in other ways. However, they may be more predictive of some specific components of performance. J Orthop Sports Phys Ther 1991;14(3):114-120.
Application of the CIPP model in the study of factors that promote intercultural sensitivity

The present study proposes a group of factors (related to self, context and process) favouring the development of intercultural sensitivity. A social diagnosis was performed in the Spanish province of Castellón in order to identify these factors by means of a correlational study. A nonprobabilistic but representative sample consisting of 995 people from 37 different countries living in this province was used. Data were collected by means of an adaptation of the scale proposed by Chen and Starosta (2000) for the assessment of intercultural sensitivity. Results showed four profiles, and their main characteristics were studied. Variables such as country of origin, gender, academic background, number of languages spoken, or the experience of living in a foreign country revealed to have a positive influence on the development of this attitude. Resumen El presente artículo propone un conjunto de los factores (personales, contextuales y de proceso) que favorecen el desarrollo de la sensibilidad intercultural. Para identificar dichos factores se ha realizado un diagnóstico social en la provincia de Castellón (España). Este estudio de tipo descriptivo de carácter correlacional se ha concretado con una muestra de 995 personas de 37 nacionalidades diferentes, constituyendo una muestra representativa, caracterizada por ser de tipo fortuito o accidental. Para recoger la información se ha utilizado una adaptación de la escala de sensibilidad intercultural de Chen y Starosta (2000). El análisis de datos ha permitido identificar cuatro perfiles, de los cuales se han estudiado sus principales características y se ha podido concluir que variables tales como la condición de origen, el sexo, la formación, la cantidad de lenguas que habla o el haber vivido en otro país influyen positivamente para el desarrollo de esta actitud.
Spatial Correlation Analysis of Atrial Activation Patterns during Sustained Atrial Fibrillation in Conscious Goats

In this study we applied both linear and nonlinear spatial correlation measures to characterize epicardial activation patterns of sustained atrial fibrillation in instrumented conscious goats. It was investigated if nonlinearity was involved in the spatial coupling of atrial regions and to what extent fibrillation was organized in the experimental model of sustained atrial fibrillation (AF) in instrumented goats. Data were collected in five goats during experiments to convert AF by continuous infusion of cibenzoline. Spatial organization during AF was quantified with the linear spatial cross correlation function and the nonlinear spatial cross redundancy which was calculated using the Grassberger-Procaccia correlation integral. Two different types of correlation were evaluated to distinguish simultaneous interaction from non-simultaneous interaction, for instance resulting from propagation of fibrillation waves. The nonlinear association length and the linear correlation length were estimated along the principal axes of iso-correlation contours in two-dimensional correlation maps of the nonlinear spatial redundancy and the linear spatial correlation function, respectively. To quantitatively assess the degree of nonlinearity, the association length was also estimated from the linearized spatial redundancy using multivariate surrogate data. The differences between the nonlinear and linearized association lengths indicated that a nonlinear component in the spatial organization of AF predominantly existed in the right atrium. The degree of organization characterized by association length along the short principal axis was higher in the right atrium (15 ± 7 mm) than in the left atrium (8 ± 4 mm). The spatial extension of coherent atrial patches was estimated from a surface of association equal to the area spanned by the principal axes of iso-correlation contours from the redundancy, including the effects from non-simultaneous interaction. Interpreting this area as the spatial domain of a fibrillation wavelet, the results suggest that the mapped region was activated on average by two wavelets in the left atrium and by one wavelet in the right atrium. Therefore, the activation pattern of sustained AF in goats was relatively organized, consistent with type II of AF. It is suggested that the surface of association is a measure of the number of independent wavelets present in the atria during sustained AF, and that larger association lengths result from fewer and larger reentrant circuits.
The Effects of Modulating Temporal Separation and Distractor Identity on Distractor Interference in an Older Population Sample

The phenomenon of distractor interference indicates that information not relevant to the goal is processed and has an impact on goal-directed actions. Recent work in young, healthy participants indicates that distractors presented simultaneously and also 200ms prior to targets have a significant, though attenuated, impact on responses to targets (Kritikos, McNeill & Pavlis 2008; Watson & Humphreys 1998). Beyond this interval, interference starts to diminish (Kritikos et al., 2008; Watson & Humphreys 1998). Incongruent distractors presented 200 ms prior to targets are associated with greater interference than neutral and congruent distractors (Kritikos et al., 2008; Watson & Humphreys 1998). These findings imply that internal representations of irrelevant information are capable of affecting subsequent responses to goals. In the current study, older participants were compared with younger participants to investigate age effects on response times and accuracy to simultaneously presented as well as temporally separated distractors at intervals at/greater than 200ms. The impact of age on response times to manipulations of distractor congruence was also investigated. Simultaneous presentation of target and distrator, as well distractors preceded by the target by 200 ms or I 000 ms, was associated with increased distractor interference for both groups. The presence of incongruent distractors led to increased distractor interference for both groups. During all conditions in both experiments the older group had significantly longer reaction times compared to younger participants and was relatively more accurate in response selection. Overall, the older group's slower response style seemed to be more advantageous, allowing them enough time to think more carefully about their responses. These findings are discussed with reference to Salthouse' s ( 1996) reduced speed of processing theory, which states that normal ageing is associated with generalized slowing of neural transmission. The finding that older participants were accurate in their responses and had no greater difficulty than younger participants in inhibiting incongruent distractors does not support Hasher and Zack's (1998) reduced inhibition theory. Despite overall slower reaction times, older participants demonstrated a preserved ability to inhibit unwanted stimuli in their responses.
CISA: Contig Integrator for Sequence Assembly of Bacterial Genomes

A plethora of algorithmic assemblers have been proposed for the de novo assembly of genomes, however, no individual assembler guarantees the optimal assembly for diverse species. Optimizing various parameters in an assembler is often performed in order to generate the most optimal assembly. However, few efforts have been pursued to take advantage of multiple assemblies to yield an assembly of high accuracy. In this study, we employ various state-of-the-art assemblers to generate different sets of contigs for bacterial genomes. A tool, named CISA, has been developed to integrate the assemblies into a hybrid set of contigs, resulting in assemblies of superior contiguity and accuracy, compared with the assemblies generated by the state-of-the-art assemblers and the hybrid assemblies merged by existing tools. This tool is implemented in Python and requires MUMmer and BLAST+ to be installed on the local machine. The source code of CISA and examples of its use are available at http://sb.nhri. org.tw/CISA/.
The experiential impacts of cognitive function tests upon men with dementia

Critical evaluation is undertaken of the impacts of cognitive function tests upon the experience of men with dementia and their carers. There has been a strong biomedical focus on the efficacy of cognitive function tests, with little attention granted to their broader experiential effects. Primary data from a qualitative study are utilised to demonstrate these impacts. These are presented under four key themes: concerns with regard to the validity of tests; impacts upon self-esteem; shaping carers’ perceptions of the condition; and tests being viewed as a resource that is offered in the absence of more person-centred support. Further research, which specifically focuses on the experiential impacts of cognitive function assessments, is therefore required as a matter of urgency.
Stress-induced Alterations in Mast Cell Numbers and Proteinase-activated Receptor-2 Expression of the Colon: Role of Corticotrophin-releasing Factor

This study was performed in order to assess whether acute stress can increase mast cell and enterochromaffin (EC) cell numbers, and proteinase-activated receptor-2 (PAR2) expression in the rat colon. In addition, we aimed to investigate the involvement of corticotrophin-releasing factor in these stress-related alterations. Eighteen adult rats were divided into 3 experimental groups: 1) a saline-pretreated non-stressed group, 2) a saline-pretreated stressed group, and 3) an astressin-pretreated stressed group. The numbers of mast cells, EC cells, and PAR2-positive cells were counted in 6 high power fields. In proximal colonic segments, mast cell numbers of stressed rats tended to be higher than those of non-stressed rats, and their PAR2-positive cell numbers were significantly higher than those of non-stressed rats. In distal colonic segments, mast cell numbers and PAR2-positive cell numbers of stressed rats were significantly higher than those of non-stressed rats. Mast cell and PAR2-positive cell numbers of astressin-pretreated stressed rats were significantly lower than those of saline-pretreated stressed rats. EC cell numbers did not differ among the three experimental groups. Acute stress in rats increases mast cell numbers and mucosal PAR2 expression in the colon. These stress-related alterations seem to be mediated by release of corticotrophin-releasing factor.
An intrinsic volume functional on almost complex 6-manifolds and nearly Kähler geometry

Let (M, I) be an almost complex 6-manifold. The obstruction to the integrability of almost complex structure N:3 0,1 (M)! 3 2,0 (M) (the so-called Nijenhuis tensor) maps one 3-dimensional bundle to another 3-dimensional bundle. We say that Nijenhuis tensor is nondegenerate if it is an isomorphism. An almost complex manifold (M, I) is called nearly Kahler if it admits a Hermitian form ! such that r(! ) is totally antisymmetric, r being the Levi-Civita connection. We show that a nearly Kahler metric on a given almost complex 6-manifold with nondegenerate Nijenhuis tensor is unique (up to a constant). We interpret the nearly Kahler property in terms of G2geometry and in terms of connections with totally antisymmetric torsion, obtaining a number of equivalent definitions. Weconstructanaturaldiffeomorphism-invariantfunctional I ! R M VolI on the space of almost complex structures on M, similar to the Hitchin functional, and compute its extrema in the following important case. Consider an almost complex structure I with nondegenerate Nijenhuis tensor, admitting a Hermitian connection with totally antisymmetric torsion. We show that the Hitchin-like functional I ! R M VolI has an extremum in I if and only if (M, I) is nearly Kahler.
Does Document Relevance Affect the Searcher's Perception of Time?

Time plays an essential role in multiple areas of Information Retrieval (IR) studies such as search evaluation, user behavior analysis, temporal search result ranking and query understanding. Especially, in search evaluation studies, time is usually adopted as a measure to quantify users' efforts in search processes. Psychological studies have reported that the time perception of human beings can be affected by many stimuli, such as attention and motivation, which are closely related to many cognitive factors in search. Considering the fact that users' search experiences are affected by their subjective feelings of time, rather than the objective time measured by timing devices, it is necessary to look into the different factors that have impacts on search users' perception of time. In this work, we make a first step towards revealing the time perception mechanism of search users with the following contributions: (1) We establish an experimental research framework to measure the subjective perception of time while reading documents in search scenario, which originates from but is also different from traditional time perception measurements in psychological studies. (2) With the framework, we show that while users are reading result documents, document relevance has small yet visible effect on search users' perception of time. By further examining the impact of other factors, we demonstrate that the effect on relevant documents can also be influenced by individuals and tasks. (3) We conduct a preliminary experiment in which the difference between perceived time and dwell time is taken into consideration in a search evaluation task. We found that the revised framework achieved a better correlation with users' satisfaction feedbacks. This work may help us better understand the time perception mechanism of search users and provide insights in how to better incorporate time factor in search evaluation studies.
Reduction of dietary fat absorption by the novel gastrointestinal lipase inhibitor cetilistat in healthy volunteers.

AIMS To assess the efficacy, pharmacodynamics, safety and tolerability of a range of doses of cetilistat, a novel inhibitor of gastrointestinal lipases, in healthy volunteers. METHODS Three Phase I, randomized, placebo-controlled, parallel-group studies were conducted. Enrolled subjects in the three studies (n = 99) received a controlled calorie diet (total intake 2160 calories daily, 30% from fat). Twenty-four subjects were randomized to placebo and 66 were randomized to the following cetilistat doses: 50 mg three times daily [t.i. d. (n = 7)], 60 mg t.i. d. (n = 9), 100 mg t.i. d. (n = 7), 120 mg t.i. d. (n = 9), 150 mg t.i. d. (n = 16), 240 mg t.i. d. (n = 9) and 300 mg t.i. d. (n = 9). Nine subjects received the approved orlistat dose (120 mg t.i.d.). Treatment was for 5 days, with a 2-day run-in period and 1-day post-treatment follow-up. The primary outcome measure was daily faecal fat excretion. Secondary outcomes included plasma lipid levels, tolerability [gastrointestinal adverse events (AEs)] and safety. RESULTS Cetilistat increased faecal fat excretion relative to baseline at all doses. Cetilistat was well tolerated, with gastrointestinal AEs the most common (51%). Steatorrhoea (oily stool) was more frequent in the orlistat group (4.11 events per subject) than in any cetilistat dose group (0.14-1.81 events per subject). Most AEs (98%) were mild or moderate in intensity. CONCLUSIONS Cetilistat increased dietary fat excretion in healthy volunteers receiving a controlled calorie diet. Cetilistat was well tolerated at all doses examined and tolerability appeared to be improved relative to orlistat. Faecal fat excretion in the cetilistat groups was at least comparable to the orlistat 120 mg t.i. d. group.
A membrane-proximal region of the interleukin-2 receptor gamma c chain sufficient for Jak kinase activation and induction of proliferation in T cells

The interleukin-2 (IL-2) receptor (IL-2R) consists of three distinct subunits (alpha, beta, and gamma c) and regulates proliferation of T lymphocytes. Intracellular signalling results from ligand-mediated heterodimerization of the cytoplasmic domains of the beta and gamma c chains. To identify the residues of gamma c critical to this process, mutations were introduced into the cytoplasmic domain, and the effects on signalling were analyzed in the IL-2-dependent T-cell line CTLL2 and T-helper clone D10, using chimeric IL-2R chains that bind and are activated by granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor. Whereas previous studies of fibroblasts and transformed T cells have suggested that signalling by gamma c requires both membrane-proximal and C-terminal subdomains, our results for IL-2-dependent T cells demonstrate that the membrane-proximal 52 amino acids are sufficient to mediate a normal proliferative response, including induction of the proto-oncogenes c-myc and c-fos. Although gamma c is phosphorylated on tyrosine upon receptor activation and could potentially interact with downstream molecules containing SH2 domains, cytoplasmic tyrosine residues were dispensable for mitogenic signalling. However, deletion of a membrane-proximal region conserved among other cytokine receptors (cytoplasmic residues 5 to 37) or an adjacent region unique to gamma c (residues 40 to 52) abrogated functional interaction of the receptor chain with the tyrosine kinase Jak3. This correlated with a loss of all signalling events analyzed, including phosphorylation of the IL-2R beta-associated kinase Jak1, expression of c-myc and c-fos, and induction of the proliferative response. Thus, it appears in T cells that Jak3 is a critical mediator of mitogenic signaling by the gamma c chain.