Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Understanding haemodynamic changes surrounding epileptic events in children

The interrelationship between cerebral haemodynamics and epileptic activity has been the subject of study for over 100 years. The overall goal of this PhD is to use and develop multimodal imaging to better understand this relationship in a paediatric population. This has important implications for the localisation of epileptic activity that can aid pre-surgical evaluation and seizure detection. The benefit of interictal epileptiform discharge (IED) suppression in clinical treatment is under debate, considering little is known about their impact on cognitive function. By applying EEG-fMRI, it was found that transient effects of IEDs were responsible for connectivity differences between patients and controls, showing the widespread impact of IEDs on BOLD signal and suggesting the importance of IED suppression for normal functional connectivity. Haemodynamic changes may occur prior to epileptic event onset. Therefore we evaluated the response function (HRF) to IEDs in paediatric focal epilepsy patients, as an HRF was created from simultaneous EEG-fMRI data and found to be beneficial in the delineation of epileptic foci. However, the underlying neurovascular changes seen in this altered HRF still needed to be explored. Therefore EEG-NIRS was utilised to interpret the mechanistic changes found in BOLD during IEDs. NIRS provides the added information of concentration changes of both –oxy and –deoxy haemoglobin rather than relative changes in deoxyhaemoglobin. To perform these experiments a new optode holder applicable to the clinical environment had to be made and tested for efficacy. The best design was a flexible optode grid, as it required no interference with the standard clinical protocol. Once tested in patients, EEG-NIRS found pre-ictal/pre-IED increases in oxygen saturation and oxyhaemoglobin concentrations, thereby corroborating with prior haemodynamic changes seen in EEG-fMRI. Therefore, by utilizing both EEG-fMRI and EEG-NIRS a greater understanding of the haemodynamic changes surrounding epileptic events in children can be obtained.
Cellular basis of regulation of expression of idiotype. I. T-suppressor cells specific for MOPC 460 idiotype regulate the expression of cells secreting anti-TNP antibodies bearing 460 idiotype

An idiotype of the dinitrophenyl-binding myeloma protein MOPC 460 was expressed on a small but significant proportion of anti-TNP antibodies which appeared after in vivo or in vitro immunization of BALB/c mice with three T-independent TNP antigens. In vitro experiments show that the depletion of T cells before culture increased significantly the number of plaques secreting anti-TNP antibodies bearing MOPC 460 idiotype (460Id). T cells from BALB/c mice, but not from C.B20 mice, exhibit this suppressor activity. Plate-binding experiments indicate that the suppressive action of the T-lymphocyte population depends on a cell which can bind to MOPC 460 myeloma protein. The possible role of these normally occurring, idiotype-specific T cells on expression of 460Id in the anti-TNP antibody response of BALB/c mice is discussed.
Factors affecting metastases to non-sentinel lymph nodes in breast cancer

Aims: Because sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsy for breast cancer has become well established, one of the challenges now is to determine which patients require a completion axillary dissection following a positive SLN biopsy. Methods: A prospective database of patients who underwent SLN biopsy for invasive breast cancer from July 1999 to November 2002 (n = 180) was analysed. Fifty four patients (30%) had one or more positive SLN, and all underwent a completion axillary dissection. This subgroup was further analysed to delineate which factors predicted non-SLN metastasis. Results: Twenty six of the 54 patients with a positive SLN had additional metastases in non-SLNs. Significant variables that predicted non-SLN metastasis included extranodal extension (odds ratio (OR), 17.399; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.69 to 178.96) and macrometastasis within the SLN (OR, 6.985; 95% CI, 1.291 to 37.785). Conclusions: In patients with invasive breast cancer and a positive SLN, extranodal extension or macrometastasis within the SLN were both independent predictors of non-SLN involvement.
Organizational behavior of human umbilical vein endothelial cells

Culture conditions that favor rapid multiplication of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUV-EC) also support long-term serial propagation of the cells. This is routinely achieved when HUV-EC are grown in Medium 199 (M-199) supplemented with fetal bovine serum (FBS) and endothelial cell growth factor (ECGF), on a human fibronectin (HFN) matrix. The HUV-EC can shift from a proliferative to an organized state when the in vitro conditions are changed from those favoring low density proliferation to those supporting high density survival. When ECGF and HFN are omitted, cultures fail to achieve confluence beyond the first or second passage: the preconfluent cultures organize into tubular structures after 4-6 wk. Some tubes become grossly visible and float in the culture medium, remaining tethered to the plastic dish at either end of the tube. On an ultrastructural level, the tubes consist of cells, held together by junctional complexes, arranged so as to form a lumen. The smallest lumens are formed by one cell folding over to form a junction with itself. The cells contain Weibel-Palade bodies and factor VIII-related antigen. The lumens contain granular, fibrillar and amorphous debris. Predigesting the HFN matrix with trypsin (10 min, 37 degrees C) or plasmin significantly accelerates tube formation. Thrombin and plasminogen activator had no apparent effect. Disruption of the largest tubes with trypsin/EDTA permits the cells to revert to a proliferative state if plated on HFN, in M-199, FBS, and ECGF. These observations indicate that culture conditions that do not favor proliferation permit attainment of a state of nonterminal differentiation (organization) by the endothelial cell. Furthermore, proteolytic modification of the HFN matrix may play an important role in endothelial organization.
The Emergence of Semantic Meaning in the Ventral Temporal Pathway

In the ventral visual pathway, early visual areas encode light patterns on the retina in terms of image properties, for example, edges and color, whereas higher areas encode visual information in terms of objects and categories. At what point does semantic knowledge, as instantiated in human language, emerge? We examined this question by studying whether semantic similarity in language relates to the brain's organization of object representations in inferior temporal cortex (ITC), an area of the brain at the crux of several proposals describing how the brain might represent conceptual knowledge. Semantic relationships among words can be viewed as a geometrical structure with some pairs of words close in their meaning (e.g., man and boy) and other pairs more distant (e.g., man and tomato). ITC's representation of objects similarly can be viewed as a complex structure with some pairs of stimuli evoking similar patterns of activation (e.g., man and boy) and other pairs evoking very different patterns (e.g., man and tomato). In this study, we examined whether the geometry of visual object representations in ITC bears a correspondence to the geometry of semantic relationships between word labels used to describe the objects. We compared ITC's representation to semantic structure, evaluated by explicit ratings of semantic similarity and by five computational measures of semantic similarity. We show that the representational geometry of ITC—but not of earlier visual areas (V1)—is reflected both in explicit behavioral ratings of semantic similarity and also in measures of semantic similarity derived from word usage patterns in natural language. Our findings show that patterns of brain activity in ITC not only reflect the organization of visual information into objects but also represent objects in a format compatible with conceptual thought and language.
Network dynamics with BrainX3: a large-scale simulation of the human brain network with real-time interaction

BrainX3 is a large-scale simulation of human brain activity with real-time interaction, rendered in 3D in a virtual reality environment, which combines computational power with human intuition for the exploration and analysis of complex dynamical networks. We ground this simulation on structural connectivity obtained from diffusion spectrum imaging data and model it on neuronal population dynamics. Users can interact with BrainX3 in real-time by perturbing brain regions with transient stimulations to observe reverberating network activity, simulate lesion dynamics or implement network analysis functions from a library of graph theoretic measures. BrainX3 can thus be used as a novel immersive platform for exploration and analysis of dynamical activity patterns in brain networks, both at rest or in a task-related state, for discovery of signaling pathways associated to brain function and/or dysfunction and as a tool for virtual neurosurgery. Our results demonstrate these functionalities and shed insight on the dynamics of the resting-state attractor. Specifically, we found that a noisy network seems to favor a low firing attractor state. We also found that the dynamics of a noisy network is less resilient to lesions. Our simulations on TMS perturbations show that even though TMS inhibits most of the network, it also sparsely excites a few regions. This is presumably due to anti-correlations in the dynamics and suggests that even a lesioned network can show sparsely distributed increased activity compared to healthy resting-state, over specific brain areas.
Interleukin-6 Gene Polymorphisms, Dietary Fat Intake, Obesity and Serum Lipid Concentrations in Black and White South African Women

This study investigated interactions between dietary fat intake and IL-6 polymorphisms on obesity and serum lipids in black and white South African (SA) women. Normal-weight and obese, black and white women underwent measurements of body composition, serum lipids and dietary fat intake, and were genotyped for the IL-6 −174 G>C, IVS3 +281 G>T and IVS4 +869 A>G polymorphisms. In black women the IVS4 +869 G allele was associated with greater adiposity, and with increasing dietary fat intake adiposity increased in the IVS3 +281 GT+GG and IVS4 +869 AA or AG genotypes. In white women, with increasing omega-3 (n-3) intake and decreasing n-6:n-3 ratio, body mass index (BMI) decreased in those with the −174 C allele, IVS3 +281 T allele and IVS4 +869 AG genotype. In the white women, those with the IVS3 +281 T allele had lower triglycerides. Further, with increasing n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA); triglyceride and total cholesterol:high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (T-C:HDL-C) ratio decreased in those with the −174 C allele. In black women, with increasing total fat intake, triglycerides and T-C:HDL-C ratio increased in those with the IVS4 +869 G allele. This study is the first to show that dietary fat intake modulates the relationship between the IL-6 −174 G>C, IVS3 +281 G>T and IVS4 +869 A>G polymorphisms on obesity and serum lipids in black and white SA women.
Exploring the human and organizational aspects of software cost estimation

Cost estimation is important for planning, scheduling, budgeting and pricing of software development. Previous research has mainly focused on improving estimates and the associated processes. However, there is still a lack of research on human and organizational aspects of cost estimation and informal uses of cost estimates. This paper presents initial findings from a qualitative study addressing these questions. Based on four semi-structured interviews with experienced managers from different software developing organizations we have identified a number of aspects not commonly discussed in the cost estimation literature. The analysis indicates that cost estimates are used not only for prediction and planning, but also play a role in power plays within the organizations based on the stakeholders' differing interests. There are also human and organizational factors that are likely to influence the quality of estimates. We also suggest a basic taxonomy of attributes that could be used to structure the many issues involved in and affecting software cost estimation. We conclude that there are many factors that affect software cost estimation and need to be considered in future research. Longer-term this is important not only for cost estimation but can also be useful to understand how human and organizational factors affect software development processes in general.
Relationship of upflowing ion beams and conics around the dayside cusp/cleft region to the interplanetary conditions

Abstract. The dayside cusp/cleft region is known as a major source of upflowing ionospheric ions to the magnetosphere. Since the ions are supposed to be energized by an input of energy from the dayside magnetospheric boundary region, we examined the possible influence of the interplanetary conditions on dayside ion beams and conics observed by the polar-orbiting Exos-D (Akebono) satellite. We found that both the solar wind velocity and density, as well as IMF By and Bz , affect the occurrence frequency of ion conics. The energy of ion conics also depends on the solar wind velocity, IMF By and Bz . The ion beams around the local noon are not significantly controlled by the interplanetary conditions. The results reveal that ion convection, as well as the energy source, is important to understand the production of dayside ion conics while that of ion beams basically reflects the intensity of local field-aligned currents. Key words. Ionosphere (particle acceleration) – magnetospheric physics (magnetopause, cusp, and boundary layers; magnetosphere ionosphere interaction)
Retraction Notice: Advances in Black Hole Gravitational Physics and Cold Dark Matter Modelling. The Gravity of Dark Matter

One of the most important issues of current physics relates to the presence of cosmological cold dark matter (CDM). In this paper CDM at the Galactic centre is modelled using a previously reformulated type of dynamic Newtonian advanced gravity (DNAg). This DNAg gives results which are technically exactly the same as the general theory of rela- tivity (GTR), in the low and medium mass densities. However, in the high mass densities of supermassive black holes, it predicts a dynamic increase in the force of gravity, which explains the apparent presence of CDM at the galactic centre, and at the cosmological level. Thus on the galactic and cosmological mass scales, these equations allow the apparent pres- ence of CDM to be modelled, and accurately calculated. These dynamic Newtonian advanced gravitational equations also offer readily testable gravitational predictions.
Modification by Buthionine Sulfoximine and-resistant Human Ovarian Cancer Cell Lines and Their Radiation Survival Parameters of Antineoplastic Drug-sensitive Updated

The optimum integration of chemotherapy and irradiation is of potential clinical significance in the treatment of ovarian cancer. A series of human ovarian cancer cell lines have been developed in which dose-response relationships to standard anticancer drugs have been determined, and the patterns of cross-resist ance between these drugs and irradiation have been established. By stepwise incubation with drugs, sublines of A2780, a drugsensitive cell line, have been made 100-fold, 10-fold, and 10-fold more resistant to Adriamycin (2780melphalan (2780ME),and cisplatin (2780CP). Two additional cell lines, NIHiOVCAR-S""1*8*' and NIH:OVCAR-4(A9+), were established from drug-refractory patients. 2780ME,2780CP,OVCAR-3nu(Afl+>, and OVCAR-4(A9+)are all cross-resistant to irradiation, with D0s of 146, 187, 143, and 203, respectively. However, 2780*Â° remains sensitive to radia tion, with a Do of 111, which is similar to that of A2780 (101). Glutathione (GSH) levels are elevated in 2780ME, 2780CP, OVCAR-S"**9*', and OVCAR-4(A9+>to 4.58, 6.13, 12.10, and 15.14 nmol/106 cells as compared to A2780, with 1.89 nmol/106 cells. However, the GSH level in 2780*Â° is only minimally higher than that in A2780 (2.94 nmol/106 cells). Buthionine sulfoximine, a specific inhibitor of GSH synthesis, significantly increases the radiation sensitivity of 2780ME (changing the D0 from 143 to 95) and 2780CPto a lesser extent, suggesting that intracellular GSH levels may play an important role in the radiation response of certain neoplastia cells. These results suggest that the sequential use of irradiation following chemotherapy with melphalan and cisplatin may be less effective than a combined modality ap proach, which integrates radiation and chemotherapy prior to the development of drug resistance and cross-resistance to
Interaction of Fatty Acid Monolayers with Cobalt Nanoparticles

Stable colloidal suspension of magnetic nanoparticles is challenging owing to both van der Waals forces and magnetic dipolar interactions. Thus, it is essential to coat magnetic nanoparticles with a surfactant during chemical synthesis in order to prepare well-dispersed nanoparticle colloid. In the present study, cobalt nanoparticles (∼15 nm in size) were synthesized with the fatty acid (oleic acid) as a surfactant. The chemical interaction of the surfactant with the Co nanoparticles was studied by using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The results indicated that oleic acid gets chemisorbed as a carboxylate on the Co nanoparticle surfaces, and the two oxygen atoms in the carboxylate are coordinated symmetrically to the Co atoms, leading to the formation of the covalent Co−O bond. This result has implications for the strong interaction between the surfactant and Co nanoparticle, which enhances the stability of Co colloid.
Bcl-2 affects survival but not neuronal differentiation of PC12 cells

Past studies have shown that serum-free cultures of PC12 cells are a useful model system for studying the mechanisms of neuronal death after neurotrophic factor deprivation. These cultures, as well as NGF- deprived cultures of sympathetic neurons, manifest and endonuclease activity that leads to “apoptotic” internucleosomal DNA cleavage. Overexpression of the proto-oncogene bcl-2 blocks apoptotic death in various cell types. To study the actions of this protein in neuronal cells, we derived PC12 cell lines stably transfected with a cDNA encoding human bcl-2. It is reported here that lines expressing high levels of the exogenous bcl-2 protein are protected from both death and apoptotic DNA fragmentation caused by removal of trophic support. However, expression of high levels of exogenous bcl-2 neither mimics nor interferes with promotion of neurite outgrowth by NGF.
Market-sentiment boosted predictions on multi-type time-series

Although time-series analysis techniques are commonly used in forecasting, most of them are only applicable to numerical and/or categorical data. This paper proposes a multi-type learning approach to improve their prediction accuracy. It is achieved by considering the knowledge from multiple distinct data types together, e.g., numbers and texts. Using this approach, we successfully boosted the prediction accuracy of a proprietary trade recommendation platform. Financial data are investigated due to the availability of their multi-type time-series and their challenging behaviors, such as high volatility. Different from traditional sentiment analysis and topic modeling methods, market-sentiment linked topics are discovered by our proposed models to quantify market conditions. The topics are learned from historical multi-type time-series instead of using a common perception of term polarities. By capturing domain specific knowledge, an impressive 36% improvement in portfolio return is obtained as shown in experiments.
Chandra Limits on X-Ray Emission Associated with the Supermassive Black Holes in Three Giant Elliptical Galaxies

Elliptical galaxy nuclei are the sites of the largest black holes known but typically show little or no nuclear activity. We investigate this extreme quiescence using Chandra X-Ray Observatory observations of the giant elliptical galaxies NGC 1399, NGC 4472, and NGC 4636. The unique Chandra imaging power enables us to place upper limits of 7.3, 15, and 28 × 10-9LEdd for the ~108-109 M☉ black holes in NGC 1399, NGC 4472, and NGC 4636, respectively. The corresponding radiative efficiencies in this band are 4.1, 24, and 620 × 10-6 using Bondi accretion rates derived from the Chandra hot interstellar gas surface brightness profiles. These limits are inconsistent with basic advection-dominated accretion flow models for NGC 1399 and NGC 4472, indicating accretion onto the black hole at ≲10% of the Bondi rate.
ALARM: Anonymous Location-Aided Routing in Suspicious MANETs

In many traditional mobile network scenarios, nodes establish communication on the basis of persistent public identities. However, in some hostile and suspicious MANET settings, node identities must not be exposed and node movements must be untraceable. Instead, nodes need to communicate on the basis of nothing more than their current locations. In this paper, we address some interesting issues arising in such MANETs by designing an anonymous routing framework (ALARM). It uses nodes' current locations to construct a secure MANET map. Based on the current map, each node can decide which other nodes it wants to communicate with. ALARM takes advantage of some advanced cryptographic primitives to achieve node authentication, data integrity, anonymity and untraceability (tracking-resistance). It also offers resistance to certain insider attacks.
Conflict Avoidance in Old Age: The Role of Anticipated Loneliness

Conflict avoidance increases across the adult lifespan. This cross-sectional study looks at conflict avoidance as part of a mechanism to regulate belongingness needs (Sheldon, 2011). We assumed that older adults perceive more threats to their belongingness when they contemplate their future, and that they preventively react with avoidance coping. We set up a model predicting conflict avoidance that included perceptions of future nonbelonging, termed anticipated loneliness, and other predictors including sociodemographics, indicators of subjective well-being and perceived social support (N = 331, aged 40–87). Anticipated loneliness predicted conflict avoidance above all other predictors and partially mediated the age-association of conflict avoidance. Results suggest that belongingness regulation accounts may deepen our understanding of conflict avoidance in the second half of life.
Personalized Ranking Metric Embedding for Next New POI Recommendation

The rapidly growing of Location-based Social Networks (LBSNs) provides a vast amount of check-in data, which enables many services, e.g., point-of-interest (POI) recommendation. In this paper, we study the next new POI recommendation problem in which new POIs with respect to users' current location are to be recommended. The challenge lies in the difficulty in precisely learning users' sequential information and personalizing the recommendation model. To this end, we resort to the Metric Embedding method for the recommendation, which avoids drawbacks of the Matrix Factorization technique. We propose a personalized ranking metric embedding method (PRME) to model personalized check-in sequences. We further develop a PRME-G model, which integrates sequential information, individual preference, and geographical influence, to improve the recommendation performance. Experiments on two real-world LBSN datasets demonstrate that our new algorithm outperforms the state-of-the-art next POI recommendation methods.