Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Normothermic Acellular Ex Vivo Liver Perfusion Reduces Liver and Bile Duct Injury of Pig Livers Retrieved After Cardiac Death

We compared cold static with acellular normothermic ex vivo liver perfusion (NEVLP) as a novel preservation technique in a pig model of DCD liver injury. DCD livers (60 min warm ischemia) were cold stored for 4 h, or treated with 4 h cold storage plus 8 h NEVLP. First, the livers were reperfused with diluted blood as a model of transplantation. Liver injury was determined by ALT, oxygen extraction, histology, bile content analysis and hepatic artery (HA) angiography. Second, AST levels and bile production were assessed after DCD liver transplantation. Cold stored versus NEVLP grafts had higher ALT levels (350 ± 125 vs. 55 ± 35 U/L; p < 0.0001), decreased oxygen extraction (250 ± 65 mmHg vs. 410 ± 58 mmHg, p < 0.01) and increased hepatocyte necrosis (45% vs. 10%, p = 0.01). Levels of bilirubin, phospholipids and bile salts were fivefold decreased, while LDH was sixfold higher in cold stored versus NEVLP grafts. HA perfusion was decreased (twofold), and bile duct necrosis was increased (100% vs. 5%, p < 0.0001) in cold stored versus NEVLP livers. Following transplantation, mean serum AST level was higher in the cold stored versus NEVLP group (1809 ± 205 U/L vs. 524 ± 187 U/L, p < 0.05), with similar bile production (2.5 ± 1.2 cc/h vs. 2.8 ± 1.4 cc/h; p = 0.2). NEVLP improved HA perfusion and decreased markers of liver duct injury in DCD grafts.
Observation of three-photon bound states in a quantum nonlinear medium

Forming photonic bound states Photons do not naturally interact with each other and must be coaxed into doing so. Liang et al. show that a gas of Rydberg atoms—a cloud of rubidium atoms excited by a sequence of laser pulses—can induce strong interactions between propagating photons. The authors could tune the strength of the interaction to make the photons form dimer and trimer bound states. This approach should prove useful for producing novel quantum states of light and quantum entanglement on demand. Science, this issue p. 783 Excited atoms can be used to induce strong interaction between photons and form bound states of light. Bound states of massive particles, such as nuclei, atoms, or molecules, constitute the bulk of the visible world around us. By contrast, photons typically only interact weakly. We report the observation of traveling three-photon bound states in a quantum nonlinear medium where the interactions between photons are mediated by atomic Rydberg states. Photon correlation and conditional phase measurements reveal the distinct bunching and phase features associated with three-photon and two-photon bound states. Such photonic trimers and dimers possess shape-preserving wave functions that depend on the constituent photon number. The observed bunching and strongly nonlinear optical phase are described by an effective field theory of Rydberg-induced photon-photon interactions. These observations demonstrate the ability to realize and control strongly interacting quantum many-body states of light.
Malignancy rate associated with Bethesda category III (AUS/FLUS) with and without repeat fine needle aspiration biopsy

Selection of nodules for surgery diagnosed as Bethesda category III [atypia of undetermined significance/follicular lesion of undetermined significance (AUS/FLUS) category] is important. It was aimed to define the malignancy rates associated with and without repeat fine needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) and to define the contribution of repeat FNAB to triage to surgery or observation in nodules with AUS/FLUS FNAB.
Foxa3 induces goblet cell metaplasia and inhibits innate antiviral immunity.

RATIONALE Goblet cell metaplasia accompanies common pulmonary disorders that are prone to recurrent viral infections. Mechanisms regulating both goblet cell metaplasia and susceptibility to viral infection associated with chronic lung diseases are incompletely understood. OBJECTIVES We sought to identify the role of the transcription factor FOXA3 in regulation of goblet cell metaplasia and pulmonary innate immunity. METHODS FOXA3 was identified in airways from patients with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. We produced transgenic mice conditionally expressing Foxa3 in airway epithelial cells and developed human bronchial epithelial cells expressing Foxa3. Foxa3-regulated genes were identified by immunostaining, Western blotting, and RNA analysis. Direct binding of FOXA3 to target genes was identified by chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing correlated with RNA sequencing. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS FOXA3 was highly expressed in airway goblet cells from patients with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. FOXA3 was induced by either IL-13 or rhinovirus. Foxa3 induced goblet cell metaplasia and enhanced expression of a network of genes mediating mucus production. Paradoxically, FOXA3 inhibited rhinovirus-induced IFN production, IRF-3 phosphorylation, and IKKε expression and inhibited viral clearance and expression of genes required for antiviral defenses, including MDA5, RIG-I, TLR3, IRF7/9, and nuclear factor-κB. CONCLUSIONS FOXA3 induces goblet cell metaplasia in response to infection or Th2 stimulation. Suppression of IFN signaling by FOXA3 provides a plausible mechanism that may serve to limit ongoing Th1 inflammation during the resolution of acute viral infection; however, inhibition of innate immunity by FOXA3 may contribute to susceptibility to viral infections associated with chronic lung disorders accompanied by chronic goblet cell metaplasia.
Complexity of the Soundness Problem of Workflow Nets

Classical workflow nets WF-nets for short are an important subclass of Petri nets that are widely used to model and analyze workflow systems. Soundness is a crucial property of workflow systems and guarantees that these systems are deadlock-free and bounded. Aalst et al. proved that the soundness problem is decidable for WF-nets and can be polynomially solvable for free-choice WF-nets. This paper proves that the soundness problem is PSPACE-hard for WF-nets. Furthermore, it is proven that the soundness problem is PSPACE-complete for bounded WF-nets. Based on the above conclusion, it is derived that the soundness problem is also PSPACE-complete for bounded WF-nets with reset or inhibitor arcs ReWF-nets and InWF-nets for short, resp. ReWF-and InWF-nets are two extensions to WF-nets and their soundness problems were proven by Aalst et al. to be undecidable. Additionally, we prove that the soundness problem is co-NP-hard for asymmetric-choice WF-nets that are a larger class and can model more cases of interaction and resource allocation than free-choice ones.
CEP 1309 Capital Taxation , Intermediate Goods , and Production Efficiency

An important controversy in public finance is whether long-run capital taxes are optimally zero or not, with a broad variety of models supporting each case. This paper examines the question whether capital is special and if so, what the underlying principle could be that explains both types of results. I find that capital is provided without distortions in a wide class of models, i.e. that its marginal product is the same in first and second best. The conditions for this to hold are that the government is able to tax all of capital’s co-factors of production separately and that capital does not enter the utility function. When individually rational behavior leads to sub-optimal capital accumulation, then capital taxes are used to implement the optimal allocation. The intuition is that capital is an intermediate good; optimal taxation seeks to tax endowments and intermediate goods do not have any endowment component.
Osteopontin as a potential diagnostic biomarker for ovarian cancer.

CONTEXT Development of new biomarkers for ovarian cancer is needed for early detection and disease monitoring. Analyses involving complementary DNA (cDNA) microarray data can be used to identify up-regulated genes in cancer cells, whose products may then be further validated as potential biomarkers. OBJECTIVE To describe validation studies of an up-regulated gene known as osteopontin, previously identified using a cDNA microarray system. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Experimental and cross-sectional studies were conducted involving ovarian cancer and healthy human ovarian surface epithelial cell lines and cultures, archival paraffin-embedded ovarian tissue collected between June 1992 and June 2001, and fresh tissue and preoperative plasma from 144 patients evaluated for a pelvic mass between June 1992 and June 2001 in gynecologic oncology services at 2 US academic institutions. Plasma samples from 107 women selected from an epidemiologic study of ovarian cancer initiated between May 1992 and March 1997 were used as healthy controls. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Relative messenger RNA expression in cancer cells and fresh ovarian tissue, measured by real-time polymerase chain reaction as 2(-DeltaDeltaCT)(a quantitative value representing the amount of osteopontin expression); osteopontin production, localized and scored in ovarian healthy and tumor tissue with immunohistochemical studies; and amount of osteopontin in patient vs control plasma, measured using an enzyme-linked immunoassay. RESULTS The geometric mean for 2(-DeltaDeltaCT)for osteopontin expression in 5 healthy ovarian epithelial cell cultures was 4.1 compared with 270.4 in 14 ovarian cancer cell lines (P =.03). The geometric mean 2(-DeltaDeltaCT)for osteopontin expression in tissue from 2 healthy ovarian epithelial samples was 9.0 compared with 164.0 in 27 microdissected ovarian tumor tissue samples (P =.06). Immunolocalization of osteopontin showed that tissue samples from 61 patients with invasive ovarian cancer and 29 patients with borderline ovarian tumors expressed higher levels of osteopontin than tissue samples from 6 patients with benign tumors and samples of healthy ovarian epithelium from 3 patients (P =.03). Osteopontin levels in plasma were significantly higher (P<.001) in 51 patients with epithelial ovarian cancer (486.5 ng/mL) compared with those of 107 healthy controls (147.1 ng/mL), 46 patients with benign ovarian disease (254.4 ng/mL), and 47 patients with other gynecologic cancers (260.9 ng/mL). CONCLUSIONS Our findings provide evidence for an association between levels of a biomarker, osteopontin, and ovarian cancer and suggest that future research assessing its clinical usefulness would be worthwhile.
The impact of YouTube recommendation system on video views

Hosting a collection of millions of videos, YouTube offers several features to help users discover the videos of their interest. For example, YouTube provides video search, related video recommendation and front page highlight. The understanding of how these features drive video views is useful for creating a strategy to drive video popularity. In this paper, we perform a measurement study on data sets crawled from YouTube and find that the related video recommendation, which recommends the videos that are related to the video a user is watching, is one of the most important view sources of videos. Despite the fact that the YouTube video search is the number one source of views in aggregation, the related video recommendation is the main source of views for the majority of the videos on YouTube. Furthermore, our results reveal that there is a strong correlation between the view count of a video and the average view count of its top referrer videos. This implies that a video has a higher chance to become popular when it is placed on the related video recommendation lists of popular videos. We also find that the click through rate from a video to its related videos is high and the position of a video in a related video list plays a critical role in the click through rate. Finally, our evaluation of the impact of the related video recommendation system on the diversity of video views indicates that the current recommendation system helps to increase the diversity of video views in aggregation.
Chandra X-Ray Spectroscopy of the Focused Wind in the Cygnus X-1 System. II. The Nondip Spectrum in the Low/Hard State - Modulations with Orbital Phase

The accretion onto the black hole in the system HDE 226868/Cygnus X-1 is powered by the strong line driven stellar wind of the O-type donor star. We study the X-ray properties of the stellar wind in the hard state of Cyg X-1 as determined with data from the Chandra High Energy Transmission Gratings. Large density and temperature inhomogeneities are present in the wind, with a fraction of the wind consisting of clumps of matter with higher density and lower temperature embedded in a photoionized gas. Absorption dips observed in the light curve are believed to be caused by these clumps. This work concentrates on the non-dip spectra as a function of orbital phase. The spectra show lines of H-like and He-like ions of S, Si, Na, Mg, Al and highly ionized Fe (Fe xvii-Fe xxiv). We measure velocity shifts, column densities, and thermal broadening of the line series. The excellent quality of these five observations allows us to investigate the orbital phase dependence of these parameters. We show that the absorber is located close to the black hole. Doppler shifted lines point at a complex wind structure in this region, while emission lines seen in some observations are from a denser medium than the absorber. The observed line profiles are phase dependent. Their shapes vary from pure, symmetric absorption at the superior conjunction to P Cygni profiles at the inferior conjunction of the black hole.
Thermodynamic contributions of 5’- and 3’-single strand dangling-ends to the stability of short duplex DNAs

Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) melting analysis was performed on 27 short double stranded DNA duplexes containing 15 to 25 base pairs. Experimental duplexes were divided into two categories containing either two 5’ dangling-ends or one 5’ and one 3’ dangling-end. Duplex regions were incrementally reduced from 25 to 15 base pairs with a concurrent increase in length of dangling-ends from 1 to 10 bases. Blunt-ended duplexes from 15 to 25 base pairs served as controls. An additional set of molecules containing 21 base pair duplexes and a single four base dangling-end were also examined. DSC melting curves were measured in varying concentrations of sodium ion (Na+). From these measurements, thermodynamic parameters for 5’ and 3’ dangling-ends were evaluated as a function of dangling end length. 5’ ends were found to be slightly stabilizing but essentially constant while the 3’ ends were destabilizing with increasing length of the dangling-end. 3’ ends also display a stronger dependence on Na+ concentration. In lower Na+ environment, the 3’ ends were more destabilizing than in higher salt environment suggesting a more significant electrostatic component of the destabilizing interactions. Analysis of thermodynamic parameters of dangling ended duplexes as a function of Na+ concentration indicated the 3' dangling ends behave differently than 5' dangling ended and blunt-ended duplexes. Molecules with one 5' and one 3' dangling end showed variation in excess specific heat capacity (ΔCp) when compared to the blunt-ended molecule, while the molecules with two 5’ ends had ΔCp values that were essentially the same as blunt-ended duplexes. These observations suggested differences exist in duplexes with 3’ and 5’ dangling ends, which are interpreted in terms of composite differences in interactions with Na+, solvent, and terminal base pairs of the duplex.
Trajectory Tracking of an Omni-Directional Wheeled Mobile Robot Using a Model Predictive Control Strategy

This paper addresses trajectory tracking of an omni-directional mobile robot (OMR) with three mecanum wheels and a fully symmetrical configuration. The omni-directional wheeled robot outperforms the non-holonomic wheeled robot due to its ability to rotate and translate independently and simultaneously. A kinematics model of the OMR is established and a model predictive control (MPC) algorithm with control and system constraints is designed to achieve point stabilization and trajectory tracking. Simulation results validate the accuracy of the established kinematics model and the effectiveness of the proposed MPC controller.
Toughening and Compatibilization of Acrylonitrile–Butadiene–Styrene/Poly (Ethylene Terephthalate) Blends

The blends of acrylonitrile–butadiene–styrene (ABS)/poly (ethylene terephthalate) (PET) compatibilized by styrene maleic anhydride (SMA) and toughened by ABS high glue powder (ABS-HGP) were prepared by extrusion and injection molding. Adding SMA, the Izod impact strength, elongation at break, viscosity and Vicat temperature of blends were improved. Differential scanning colorimeter showed ABS and SMA hindered the crystallization process of PET and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) showed the domain size of PET in compatibilized blends became small and the distribution appeared to be uniform. ABS-HGP can toughen ABS/PET/SMA blends well. Adding 20 wt% ABS-HGP, the Izod impact strength of the blends improved from 8.9 KJ/m2 to 18.6 KJ/m2 and elongation at break increased from 38.9% to 76.1%. The viscosity of blends was increased a lot because of high glue powder. SEM showed the cavitation of rubber particles was the major toughening mechanism in ABS/PET/SMA/ABS-HGP blends.
Person Re-Identification Using Multi-region Triplet Convolutional Network

Person re-identification is a difficult task due to variations of person pose, scale changes, different illumination, occlusions, to name a few important factors usually diminishing identification performance across different views. In this work, we train a siamese and triplet convolutional neural networks and show that they can achieve promising recognition ratios. In order to cope with spatial transformations and scale changes across multi-view images we employ deformable convolutions in a triplet convolutional neural network. We propose an unified neural network architecture consisting of three triplet convolutional neural networks to jointly learn both the local body-parts features and full-body descriptors. We demonstrate experimentally that it achieves comparable results with results achieved by state-of-the-arts methods.
Natural selection and the predictability of evolution in Timema stick insects

Estimating the predictability of evolution Evolution results from expected effects, such as selection driving alleles toward fixation, and stochastic effects, such as unusual environmental variation and genetic drift. To determine the potential to predict evolutionary change, Nosil et al. examined three naturally occurring morphs of stick insects (see the Perspective by Reznick and Travis). They wanted to determine which selective parameters could be used to foresee changes, despite varying environmental conditions. One morph fit a model of negative frequency-dependent selection, likely owing to predation, but changes in other morph frequencies remained unpredictable. Thus, for specific cases, we can forecast short-term changes within populations, but evolution is more difficult to predict when it involves a balance between multiple selective factors and uncertainty in environmental conditions. Science, this issue p. 765; see also p. 738 Frequencies of stick insect coloration and patterning over time are used to determine the predictability of evolution. Predicting evolution remains difficult. We studied the evolution of cryptic body coloration and pattern in a stick insect using 25 years of field data, experiments, and genomics. We found that evolution is more difficult to predict when it involves a balance between multiple selective factors and uncertainty in environmental conditions than when it involves feedback loops that cause consistent back-and-forth fluctuations. Specifically, changes in color-morph frequencies are modestly predictable through time (r2 = 0.14) and driven by complex selective regimes and yearly fluctuations in climate. In contrast, temporal changes in pattern-morph frequencies are highly predictable due to negative frequency-dependent selection (r2 = 0.86). For both traits, however, natural selection drives evolution around a dynamic equilibrium, providing some predictability to the process.
Use of the Godin leisure-time exercise questionnaire in multiple sclerosis research: a comprehensive narrative review

Abstract Purpose: The Godin Leisure-Time Exercise Questionnaire has been a commonly applied measure of physical activity in research among persons with multiple sclerosis over the past decade. This paper provides a comprehensive description of its application and inclusion in research on physical activity in multiple sclerosis. Method: This comprehensive, narrative review included papers that were published between 1985 and 2017, written in English, involved participants with multiple sclerosis as a primary population, measured physical activity, and cited one of the two original Godin papers. Results and Conclusion: There is a broad scope of research that has included the Godin Leisure-Time Exercise Questionnaire in persons with multiple sclerosis. Overall, 8 papers evaluated its psychometric properties, 21 evaluated patterns of physical activity, 24 evaluated correlates or determinants of physical activity, 28 evaluated outcomes or consequences of physical activity, and 15 evaluated physical activity interventions. The Godin Leisure-Time Exercise Questionnaire is a valid self-report measure of physical activity in persons with multiple sclerosis, and further is an appropriate, simple, and effective tool for describing patterns of physical activity, examining correlates and outcomes of physical activity, and provides a sensitive outcome for measuring change in physical activity after an intervention. Implications for rehabilitation There is increasing interest in physical activity and its benefits in multiple sclerosis. The study of physical activity requires appropriate and standardized measures. The Godin Leisure-Time Exercise Questionnaire is a common self-report measure of physical activity for persons with multiple sclerosis. Godin Leisure-Time Exercise Questionnaire scores are reliable measures of physical activity in persons with multiple sclerosis. The Godin Leisure-Time Exercise Questionnaire further is an appropriate, simple, and effective tool for describing patterns of physical activity, examining correlates and outcomes of physical activity participation, and is an advantageous primary outcome for measuring change in physical activity in response to an intervention.
Scaling recurrent neural network language models

This paper investigates the scaling properties of Recurrent Neural Network Language Models (RNNLMs). We discuss how to train very large RNNs on GPUs and address the questions of how RNNLMs scale with respect to model size, training-set size, computational costs and memory. Our analysis shows that despite being more costly to train, RNNLMs obtain much lower perplexities on standard benchmarks than n-gram models. We train the largest known RNNs and present relative word error rates gains of 18% on an ASR task. We also present the new lowest perplexities on the recently released billion word language modelling benchmark, 1 BLEU point gain on machine translation and a 17% relative hit rate gain in word prediction.
ENZYMATIC HYDROLYSIS OF COTTON FABRICS WITH WEFT YARNS PRODUCED BY DIFFERENT SPINNING SYSTEMS

Enzymatic hydrolysis of cotton fabrics with different weft yarns has been studied . The weft yarns used were commercial cotton yarns produced by the carded, combed, open-end, air-jet and core-spun systems . The effects of cellulases hydrolysis on different fabrics were investigated by measuring the weight loss, the amount of glucose released and the breaking load of weft yarns . The results showed that the weight loss and concentration of glucose in hydrolysis vary with the increase of yarn hairiness . Loss of breaking load in shorter treatment times was related to hairiness of weft yams but in longer enzymatic hydrolysis times, strength loss was affected by the amount of glucose released.