Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reducing the risk of infection in the elderly by dietary intake of yoghurt fermented with Lactobacillus delbrueckii ssp. bulgaricus OLL1073R-1

Immune senescence potentially leads to an increased risk of infections. It is desirable to augment the immune system and protect against infections by daily consumption of immunostimulatory food. The present study evaluated whether the intake of yoghurt fermented with Lactobacillus delbrueckii ssp. bulgaricus (L. bulgaricus) OLL1073R-1 has an effect on resistance to the common cold. We conducted two independent studies, in which fifty-seven (median age 74·5 years) and eighty-five healthy elderly individuals (median age 67·7 years) were participants. In each study, the subjects were divided into two groups based on age and sex and instructed to eat 90 g yoghurt or drink 100 ml milk once per d over an 8- or 12-week period. A meta-analysis of the results of these two independent studies showed the risk of catching the common cold was about 2·6 times lower (OR 0·39; P = 0·019) in the yoghurt group than in the milk group and the increase of natural killer cell activity was significantly higher in the yoghurt group than in the milk group (P = 0·028). In addition, the quality of life score for the ‘eye/nose/throat’ system after intake was significantly higher in the yoghurt group than in the milk group and the improvement of the score was correlated with the promotion of natural killer cell activity. In conclusion, consumption of yoghurt fermented with L. bulgaricus OLL1073R-1 augmented natural killer cell activity and reduced the risk of catching the common cold in elderly individuals.
Area efficient implementations of fixed-template CNN's

Implementations of fixed-template Cellular Neural Networks (CNN's) with reduced circuit complexity are presented. Considerable improvements in area without performance degradation have been obtained by: (1) using single-polarity signals that reduce the number of transistors required for signal replication and to generate the pseudo-linear output function; (2) using simple current-mode circuits to implement the output pseudo-linear function; and (3) searching for network parameter configurations that solve a particular application using the proposed circuit implementation with less hardware complexity. Experimental results for a CCD-CNN chip prototype with a density of 230 cells per millimetersquared (mm/sup 2/) are also reported.
Regulation of Gene Expression by a Metabolic Enzyme

Gene expression in eukaryotes is normally believed to be controlled by transcriptional regulators that activate genes encoding structural proteins and enzymes. To identify previously unrecognized DNA binding activities, a yeast proteome microarray was screened with DNA probes; Arg5,6, a well-characterized mitochondrial enzyme involved in arginine biosynthesis, was identified. Chromatin immunoprecipitation experiments revealed that Arg5,6 is associated with specific nuclear and mitochondrial loci in vivo, and Arg5,6 binds to specific fragments in vitro. Deletion of Arg5,6 causes altered transcript levels of both nuclear and mitochondrial target genes. These results indicate that metabolic enzymes can directly regulate eukaryotic gene expression.
The effect of horticultural therapy on the quality of life of palliative care patients

ABSTRACT Palliative care patients experience a variety of needs and perceive their quality of life as being only fair. This study adopted a single-group repeated-measure design to investigate the effect of horticultural therapy on the quality of life of palliative care patients using the Quality of Life Concern in End of Life Questionnaire. Significant differences in the domains of “existential distress” and “health care concern” were observed immediately postintervention and at 4 weeks postintervention, respectively. No other significant differences were seen in the other domains or in the total mean score of the outcome measure.
Priority points and cardiac events while waiting for coronary bypass surgery

OBJECTIVE To assess the risk of important cardiac events while waiting for coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG) in relation to the New Zealand priority scoring system; to compare clinical characteristics of patients referred for CABG in New Zealand with those in Ontario, Canada; and to compare the New Zealand priority scoring system for CABG with the previously validated Ontario urgency score. DESIGN Analysis of outcomes in a consecutive case series of patients referred for CABG. SETTING University hospital. PATIENTS All 324 patients from Christchurch Hospital wait listed for isolated CABG between 1 January 1994 and 31 December 1995. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Death, myocardial infarction, and unstable angina while waiting for CABG; waiting time to surgery. RESULTS Clinical characteristics at referral were very similar, but median waiting time was longer in New Zealand than in a large Canadian case series (212 days v 17 days). While waiting for elective CABG, 44% (114/257) of New Zealand patients had cardiac events: death 4% (13/257), non-fatal myocardial infarction 6% (16/257), readmission with unstable angina 34% (87/257). Priority scores did not predict cardiac events while waiting for CABG. Indeed, death or non-fatal myocardial infarction occurred in 4% (3/76) and 8% (6/76), respectively, of those with priority scores < 35. These people are no longer eligible for publicly funded surgery in New Zealand. CONCLUSIONS Very long waiting times for CABG are associated with frequent cardiac events, at considerable cost to both patients and health care providers. Priority scores may facilitate comparison between countries but such scores did not predict clinical events while waiting.
Cell Geometry Guides the Dynamic Targeting of Apoplastic GPI-Linked Lipid Transfer Protein to Cell Wall Elements and Cell Borders in Arabidopsis thaliana

During cellular morphogenesis, changes in cell shape and cell junction topology are fundamental to normal tissue and organ development. Here we show that apoplastic Glycophosphatidylinositol (GPI)-anchored Lipid Transfer Protein (LTPG) is excluded from cell junctions and flat wall regions, and passively accumulates around their borders in the epidermal cells of Arabidopsis thaliana. Beginning with intense accumulation beneath highly curved cell junction borders, this enrichment is gradually lost as cells become more bulbous during their differentiation. In fully mature epidermal cells, YFP-LTPG often shows a fibrous cellulose microfibril-like pattern within the bulging outer faces. Physical contact between a flat glass surface and bulbous cell surface induces rapid and reversible evacuation from contact sites and accumulation to the curved wall regions surrounding the contact borders. Thus, LTPG distribution is dynamic, responding to changes in cell shape and wall curvature during cell growth and differentiation. We hypothesize that this geometry-based mechanism guides wax-carrying LTPG to functional sites, where it may act to “seal” the vulnerable border surrounding cell-cell junctions and assist in cell wall fortification and cuticular wax deposition.
3D Catheter Shape Determination for Endovascular Navigation Using a Two-Step Particle Filter and Ultrasound Scanning

In endovascular catheter interventions, the determination of the three-dimensional (3D) catheter shape can increase navigation information and help reduce trauma. This study describes a shape determination method for a flexible interventional catheter using ultrasound scanning and a two-step particle filter without X-ray fluoroscopy. First, we propose a multi-feature, multi-template particle filter algorithm for accurate catheter tracking from ultrasound images. Second, we model the mechanical behavior of the catheter and apply a particle filter shape optimization algorithm to refine the results from the first step. Finally, the acquired catheter’s 3D shapes are displayed together with the preoperative 3D images of the cardiac structures to provide intuitive endovascular navigation. We validated our method using ultrasound scanning of the straight and curved catheters in a water tank, and the shape determination errors were 1.44 ± 0.38 mm and 1.95 ± 0.46 mm, respectively. Further, endovascular catheter shape determination was validated in a catheter intervention experiment with a heart phantom. The error of the acquired endovascular catheter shape was 2.23 ± 0.87 mm. These results demonstrate that our two-step method is both accurate and effective. Using ultrasound scanning for shape determination of a flexible catheter will be helpful in endovascular interventions, reducing exposure to radiation and providing rich navigation information.
Development and systematic oxidative stress of a rat model of chronic bronchitis and emphysema induced by biomass smoke

ABSTRACT Background: Epidemiological research and meta-analyses of published data have shown that biomass smoke (BS) is a risk factor for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). However, the link between BS and COPD lacks experimental confirmation. Objectives: To verify whether BS can induce pathologic changes and systemic oxidative stress, which may be relevant to the development of emphysema and chronic bronchitis in rats. Methods: Rats were exposed to BS, cigarette smoke (CS), or clean air (sham) for 14 weeks. During the exposure, the O2, SO2, and CO levels were monitored. Pathological changes in the lungs, systemic oxidative stress, and inflammation biomarkers, together with GSTM1 and GSTP1 mRNA expression in the lung were measured. The glutamate–cysteine ligase catalytic subunit (GCLC) protein expression in the lung was measured using immunohistochemistry and western blotting. Results: The O2, CO, and SO2 levels were 20.31 ± 0.03%, 981.72 ± 64.76, and 2.59 ± 0.26 mg/m3 for the BS group, respectively, while their levels in the CS group were 20.28 ± 0.15%, 745.56 ± 30.83, and 12.64 ± 0.591 mg/m3 respectively. As with the rats exposed to CS, the BS rats showed an increased number of inflammatory cells in the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, an increased pulmonary mean linear intercept and a decreased pulmonary mean alveolar number. Characteristics of chronic bronchitis and peribronchial fibrosis were also found in the BS-exposed rat lungs. Reduced body weight, systemic oxidative stress, and increased GCLC protein expression in the lungs were observed in the rats exposed to BS and CS. Conclusions: BS can cause emphysema and chronic bronchitis similar to that caused by CS, which is accompanied by systemic oxidative stress and inflammation.
Interchangeable functions of Arabidopsis PIROGI and the human WAVE complex subunit SRA1 during leaf epidermal development

The WAVE complex is an essential regulator of actin-related protein (ARP) 2/3-dependent actin filament nucleation and cell shape change in migrating cells. Although the composition of the WAVE complex is well characterized, the cellular mechanisms that control its activity and localization are not well known. The `distorted group' defines a set of Arabidopsis genes that are required to remodel the actin cytoskeleton and maintain the polarized elongation of branched, hair-like cells termed trichomes. Several loci within this group encode homologs of ARP2/3 subunits. In addition to trichome distortion, ARP2/3 subunit mutants have reduced shoot fresh weight and widespread defects in epidermal cell-cell adhesion. The precise cellular function of plant ARP2/3, and the means by which it is regulated, is not known. In this paper, we report that the `distorted group' gene PIROGI encodes a homolog of the WAVE complex subunit SRA1. The similar cell shape and actin phenotypes of pir and ARP2/3 complex subunit mutants suggest that PIROGI positively regulates ARP2/3. PIROGI directly interacts with the small GTPase ATROP2 with isoform specificity and with selectivity for active forms of the protein. PIROGI shares only 30% amino acid identity with its human homolog. However, both WAVE subunit homologs are functionally interchangeable and display identical physical interactions with RHO family GTPases and the Arabidopsis homolog of the WAVE complex subunit NAP125. These results demonstrate the utility of the `distorted group' mutants to study ARP2/3 complex functions from signaling input to cell shape output.
Supplementary Appendix

Maolan Li, Zhou Zhang, Xiaoguang Li, Junyi Ye, Xiangsong Wu, Zhujun Tan, Chang Liu, Baiyong Shen, Xu-An Wang, Wenguang Wu, Daizhan Zhou, Di Zhang, Ting Wang, Bingya Liu, Kai Qu, Qichen Ding, Hao Weng, Qian Ding, Jiasheng Mu, Yijun Shu, Runfa Bao, Yang Cao, Peizhan Chen, Tianyu Liu, Lin Jiang, Yunping Hu, Ping Dong, Jun Gu, Wei Lu, Weibin Shi, Jianhua Lu, Wei Gong, Zhaohui Tang, Yong Zhang, Xuefeng Wang, Y Eugene Chin, Xiaoling Weng, Hong Zhang, Wei Tang, Yonglan Zheng, Lin He, Hui Wang, Yun Liu, Yingbin Liu
Semantic Features of an Enterprise Interface Terminology for SNOMED RT

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the utility of SNOMED RT in support of a natural language interface for encoding of clinical assessments. METHOD Using a random sample of clinical terms from the UNMC Lexicon, I mapped the terminology into canonical data entries using SNOMED RT. Working from the source term language, I evaluated lexical mapping to the SNOMED term set, and the function of the SNOMED RT semantic network in support of a language-based clinical coding interface. RESULTS Ambiguity in the source terms was low at 0.3%. Lexical (language-based) mapping could account for only 48.8% of meaning from the source terms. The RT semantic network accounted for 39.5% of meaning, and supplementing the lexical map this led to 80.2% capture of source content. Error rates in the segment of RT which I reviewed were low at 0.6%. 97.6% of source content could be accurately captured in SNOMED RT. CONCLUSION SNOMED RT supported an accurate and reliable representation of clinical assessment data in this sample. The semantic network of RT substantially enhanced the encoding of concepts relative to lexical mapping. However these data suggest that natural language encoding with SNOMED RT in an enterprise environment is unlikely at this time.
Structure and Content in Language Production: A Theory of Frame Constraints in Phonological Speech Errors

Theories of language production propose that utterances are constructed by a mechanism that separates linguistic content from linguistic structure, Linguistic content is retrieved from the mental lexicon, and is then inserted into slots in linguistic structures or frames. Support for this kind of model at the phonological level comes from patterns of phonological speech errors. W present an alternative account of these patterns using a connectionist or parallel distributed proceesing (PDP) model that learns to produce sequences of phonological features. The model's errors exhibit some of the properties of human speech errors, specifically, properties that have been attributed to the action of phonological rules, frames, or other structural generalizations.
Providing Written Information for Patients: Psychological Considerations

Introduction There have been a growing number of studies highlighting the poor quality of communication in the medical setting-", Poor communication has been shown to have adverse effects on many important outcomes such as patients' satisfaction and adherence to treatment or advice. Many strategies have been put forward to remedy or avoid these problems. Some of these have been based on training packages in communication for medical studentsv'. Similarly, there has been an increasing trend towards patient education in a wide range of health care settings", An alternative, complementary approach has been to devise ways of providing written and other information for patients in an attempt to improve patients' understanding and recall of medical information and to facilitate adherence to advice or treatment. In considering the relevance of psychological factors associated with the provision of written information for patients, a number of different issues emerge. Some of these are associated with assessing the quality and visual presentation of the written text and with ways of maximizing the efficacy of this. Experimental psychologists have made important contributions in this area6,7 but these will not be included in this overview since the recent guidelines on drafting information leaflets appear to have taken on board the main findings from studies of text design and layout", Similarly, experimental psychologists interested in language processing have provided detailed accounts of how written texts are processed and the nature of underlying cognitive processes'', Again this work is beyond the scope of this paper. This paper will attempt to answer a number of fairly basic, empirical questions which are concerned either with patients' attitudes and reactions to the provision of written information or with the effects of written information on patients' knowledge and behaviour. There are a surprisingly large number of studies in this area and these have investigated a wide range of medications and treatments, quite contrasting groups of patients and a variety of approaches to the task of providing written information. Nevertheless, this paper will attempt to look at the broader basic issues and some important psychological considerations. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine Volume 83 May 1990 303
An effective and simple oxygen nanosensor made from MPA-capped water soluble CdTe nanocrystals

CdTe semiconductor nanocrystals (NCs) with 3-mercaptopropionic acid as the ligand exhibit a reversible response towards inter-switching oxygen and argon environments. The photoluminescence response is investigated at multiple oxygen concentrations, NC coverage and excitation intensities, in which all conditions exhibit full recovery upon exposure to flowing argon. The CdTe NC’s large surface-to-volume ratio results in high sensitivity towards oxygen molecules with significant photoluminescence quenching at a concentration of 40 ppm. This suggests a novel approach to the creation of simple, inexpensive and ultrasensitive oxygen nanosensors.
Applying Feature Selection Techniques for Visual Dictionary Creation in Object Classification

This paper introduces improved methods for visual dictionary creation in an object classification system. In literature, the visual dictionary is often created from a large candidate set of features by random selection or by a clustering algorithm. We apply techniques from feature selection literature to create a more optimal visual dictionary and contribute with a novel feature selection algorithm. As a second step, feature extraction techniques for creating the candidate set are investigated. Subsequently, the size of the candidate set is varied. It was found that the exploitation of feature selection techniques gives a clear improvement of 2-5% in classification rate at no additional computational cost in normal system operation. The proposed algorithm called extremal optimization, outperforms state-of-the-art algorithms. The paper discloses results on candidate set creation using interest point operators. As a general bonus, the evaluated feature selection techniques are generally applicable to any problem that uses a dictionary of features, as typically applied in the object recognition domain.
Impact of induction hardened workpiece hardness on EDM performance

ABSTRACT The objective of this research work is to correlate the impact of thermally induced workpiece hardness with electric discharge machining (EDM) performances and establishment of the modified property responsible for the deviation in change in behavior of output responses in sinking electrical discharge machining process. The response surface methodology with central composite design approach was applied with four controllable input parameters such as pulse-on-time (Ton), pulse-off time (Toff), peak current (IP), and gap voltage (V) for experimental comparative study. In this current analysis, material removal rate, tool wear rate, and energy density were chosen as the desired response variables. It was observed that change in hardness through induction thermal hardening process of the base alloy had a predominant effect on the change in output responses such as material removal rate, tool wear rate, and energy density with strong confirmation. The modified electrical property associated with enhanced workpiece hardness was primarily responsible for alteration in EDM process behaviors. This preliminary assessment for the deviation in the performance of the EDM process with respect to change in hardness will be quite useful for the control settings in the job shop production planning for processing and modifying properties of induction hardened alloy steels.
Unilateral Jaccard Similarity Coefficient

Similarity measures are essential to solve many pattern recognition problems such as classification, clustering, and retrieval problems. Various similarity measures are categorized in both syntactic and semantic relationships. In this paper we present a novel similarity, Unilateral Jaccard Similarity Coefficient (uJaccard), which doesn’t only take into consideration the space among two points but also the semantics among them.
Arsenic trioxide induces G2/M growth arrest and apoptosis after caspase-3 activation and bcl-2 phosphorylation in promonocytic U937 cells.

Arsenic trioxide has recently been shown to inhibit growth and induce apoptosis in acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL), but little is known about the molecular mechanisms mediating these effects. Here we demonstrate that treatment of promonocytic U937 cells with arsenic trioxide leads to G2/M arrest which was associated with a dramatic increase in the levels of cyclin B and cyclin B-dependent kinase and apoptosis. We further show that apoptosis occurs after bcl-2 phosphorylation and caspase-3 activation followed by cleavage of PARP and PLC-gamma1 degradation and DNA fragmentation. The arsenic trioxide-induced apoptosis could be blocked by the protein synthesis inhibitor cycloheximide. In addition, pretreatment of U937 cells with the DNA polymerase inhibitor aphidicolin also blocked apoptosis, but did not cause the arrest of cells in the G2/M phase. The findings suggest that arsenic trioxide exerts its growth-inhibitory effects by modulating expression and/or activity of several key G2/M regulatory proteins. Furthermore, arsenic trioxide-mediated G2/M arrest correlates with the onset of apoptosis.
An Adaptive Distributed Ensemble Approach to Mine Concept-Drifting Data Streams

An adaptive boosting ensemble algorithm for classifying homogeneous distributed data streams is presented. The method builds an ensemble of classifiers by using Genetic Programming (GP) to inductively generate decision trees, each trained on different parts of the distributed training set. The approach adopts a co-evolutionary platform to support a cooperative model of GP. A change detection strategy, based on self-similarity of the ensemble behavior, and measured by its fractal dimension, permits to capture time- evolving trends and patterns in the stream, and to reveal changes in evolving data streams. The approach tracks online ensemble accuracy deviation over time and decides to recompute the ensemble if the deviation has exceeded a pre- specified threshold. This allows the maintenance of an accurate and up-to-date ensemble of classifiers for continuous flows of data with concept drifts. Experimental results on a real life data set show the validity of the approach.