Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dynamic Analysis of Human Natural Killer Cell Response at Single-Cell Resolution in B-Cell Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma

Natural killer (NK) cells are phenotypically and functionally diverse lymphocytes that recognize and kill cancer cells. The susceptibility of target cancer cells to NK cell-mediated cytotoxicity depends on the strength and balance of regulatory (activating/inhibitory) ligands expressed on target cell surface. We performed gene expression arrays to determine patterns of NK cell ligands associated with B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma (b-NHL). Microarray analyses revealed significant upregulation of a multitude of NK-activating and costimulatory ligands across varied b-NHL cell lines and primary lymphoma cells, including ULBP1, CD72, CD48, and SLAMF6. To correlate genetic signatures with functional anti-lymphoma activity, we developed a dynamic and quantitative cytotoxicity assay in an integrated microfluidic droplet generation and docking array. Individual NK cells and target lymphoma cells were co-encapsulated in picoliter-volume droplets to facilitate monitoring of transient cellular interactions and NK cell effector outcomes at single-cell level. We identified significant variability in NK-lymphoma cell contact duration, frequency, and subsequent cytolysis. Death of lymphoma cells undergoing single contact with NK cells occurred faster than cells that made multiple short contacts. NK cells also killed target cells in droplets via contact-independent mechanisms that partially relied on calcium-dependent processes and perforin secretion, but not on cytokines (interferon-γ or tumor necrosis factor-α). We extended this technique to characterize functional heterogeneity in cytolysis of primary cells from b-NHL patients. Tumor cells from two diffuse large B-cell lymphoma patients showed similar contact durations with NK cells; primary Burkitt lymphoma cells made longer contacts and were lysed at later times. We also tested the cytotoxic efficacy of NK-92, a continuously growing NK cell line being investigated as an antitumor therapy, using our droplet-based bioassay. NK-92 cells were found to be more efficient in killing b-NHL cells compared with primary NK cells, requiring shorter contacts for faster killing activity. Taken together, our combined genetic and microfluidic analysis demonstrate b-NHL cell sensitivity to NK cell-based cytotoxicity, which was associated with significant heterogeneity in the dynamic interaction at single-cell level.
LARGE GLUED-LAMINATED TIMBER BEAMS WITH TWO GRADES OF TENSION LAMINATIONS.

Abstract : Bending strength of 26 glued-laminated timbers were appraised as a basis for more precise design. Part of the beams were manufactured according to present AITC and lumber industry specifications, while the other beams had improved tension laminations. When tested to failure, 11 beams failed at end joints and 15 in the wood. (Author)
Genome Evolution and Phylogenomic Analysis of Candidatus Kinetoplastibacterium, the Betaproteobacterial Endosymbionts of Strigomonas and Angomonas

It has been long known that insect-infecting trypanosomatid flagellates from the genera Angomonas and Strigomonas harbor bacterial endosymbionts (Candidatus Kinetoplastibacterium or TPE [trypanosomatid proteobacterial endosymbiont]) that supplement the host metabolism. Based on previous analyses of other bacterial endosymbiont genomes from other lineages, a stereotypical path of genome evolution in such bacteria over the duration of their association with the eukaryotic host has been characterized. In this work, we sequence and analyze the genomes of five TPEs, perform their metabolic reconstruction, do an extensive phylogenomic analyses with all available Betaproteobacteria, and compare the TPEs with their nearest betaproteobacterial relatives. We also identify a number of housekeeping and central metabolism genes that seem to have undergone positive selection. Our genome structure analyses show total synteny among the five TPEs despite millions of years of divergence, and that this lineage follows the common path of genome evolution observed in other endosymbionts of diverse ancestries. As previously suggested by cell biology and biochemistry experiments, Ca. Kinetoplastibacterium spp. preferentially maintain those genes necessary for the biosynthesis of compounds needed by their hosts. We have also shown that metabolic and informational genes related to the cooperation with the host are overrepresented amongst genes shown to be under positive selection. Finally, our phylogenomic analysis shows that, while being in the Alcaligenaceae family of Betaproteobacteria, the closest relatives of these endosymbionts are not in the genus Bordetella as previously reported, but more likely in the Taylorella genus.
WHEN RENSCH MEETS BERGMANN: DOES SEXUAL SIZE DIMORPHISM CHANGE SYSTEMATICALLY WITH LATITUDE?

Abstract Bergmann's and Rensch's rules describe common large-scale patterns of body size variation, but their underlying causes remain elusive. Bergmann's rule states that organisms are larger at higher latitudes (or in colder climates). Rensch's rule states that male body size varies (or evolutionarily diverges) more than female body size among species, resulting in slopes greater than one when male size is regressed on female size. We use published studies of sex-specific latitudinal body size clines in vertebrates and invertebrates to investigate patterns equivalent to Rensch's rule among populations within species and to evaluate their possible relation to Bergmann's rule. Consistent with previous studies, we found a continuum of Bergmann (larger at higher latitudes: 58 species) and converse Bergmann body size clines (larger at lower latitudes: 40 species). Ignoring latitude, male size was more variable than female size in only 55 of 98 species, suggesting that intraspecific variation in sexual size dimorphism does not generally conform to Rensch's rule. In contrast, in a significant majority of species (66 of 98) male latitudinal body size clines were steeper than those of females. This pattern is consistent with a latitudinal version of Rensch's rule, and suggests that some factor that varies systematically with latitude is responsible for producing Rensch's rule among populations within species. Identifying the underlying mechanisms will require studies quantifying latitudinal variation in sex-specific natural and sexual selection on body size.
Nonparametric Approaches to Detecting Differentially Expressed Genes in Replicated Microarray Experiments

Microarrays have quickly been established as an efficient tool for gene expression profiling. In this paper we consider the detection of differentially expressed genes with replicated measurements of expression levels of each gene under each condition. Several authors mentioned that data from microarrays are often not normally distributed, even when suitably preprocessed. Consequently, nonparametric tests, such as the Wilcoxon rank sum test and the Fisher-Pitman permutation test, were recommended. As a further powerful nonparametric test we propose the Baumgartner-Weis-Schindler (BWS) test. However, when the population variances are unequal a significant result in these tests does not necessarily provide evidence for a difference in location. Note that, in data from microarray experiments, heterogeneous variances are common. Therefore, we suggest a two-stage procedure. If the BWS test applied in stage 1 is significant, a test for a difference in location only is carried out in stage 2. A bootstrap test based on the Welch t statistic can be used in stage 2. However, we demonstrate that a rank-based test recently proposed by Brunner and Munzel (2000) is more powerful.
A New Model of AC Resistance in ACSR Conductors

An accurate new model for calculating AC resistance of ACSR conductors has been developed and verified for single, two and three layer conductor designs. Current redistribution was found to be far more important in determining the AC/DC resistance ratio than hysteresis losses in the steel core except in single layer conductors. The model suggests ways of reducing the AC resistance and promises to be a useful design tool.
Impulsive responses to positive mood and reward are related to mania risk

Bipolar disorder is characterised by impulsivity, and recent research suggests it is important to consider more specific forms of impulsivity. In two student samples, we examined associations of self-reported impulsivity with mania risk (Hypomanic Personality Scale, HPS). We hypothesised that mania risk would relate to impulsivity in the context of opportunities for rewarding activities (Delaying Gratification Inventory, DGI), reward pursuit (Fun-Seeking subscale of the Behavioural Activation Scale, BAS), and when experiencing positive affect (Positive Urgency Measure, PUM). In Study 1 (N=823), the HPS was uniquely related to Fun-Seeking and PUM scores. Study 2 (N=482) replicated the correlation of HPS scores with PUM while documenting positive associations between PUM and trait-like responses to positive affect. Findings across both studies stress the importance of considering the role of positive emotion in driving the impulsivity among persons at risk for mania. These findings have implications for refining our understanding of the aetiology of bipolar disorder and for treatment development.
A low-cost multi-target simulator for FMCW radar system calibration and testing

We present the realization of a novel radar target simulator, based on a modulated-reflector radar system. The simulator, designed for the 24 GHz frequency band, uses low-cost modulated-reflector nodes for each single target and thus is highly scalable. It is demonstrated, that the concept is able to simulate multiple artificial targets, located at user-selectable ranges and even velocities, utilized within a completely static setup. Furthermore, the concept allows to dynamically adjust the radar cross section of each single target. This future-ready system is perfectly suitable for fast and reliable IF-chain calibration of multi-channel radar systems.
Sterility of C-arm Fluoroscopy During Spinal Surgery

Study Design. Prospective study evaluating the sterility of 25 C-arm drapes after their use during spine surgery. Objective. To use swab samples to evaluate the sterility of draped C-arms at the end of spine surgical cases and assess the integrity of the sterile technique. Summary of Background Data. Intraoperative fluoroscopy is used routinely in the operating room for a variety of spinal applications. Although the C-arm may help the surgeon assess spinal alignment and facilitate the placement of instrumentation, there are concerns that the C-arm may represent a potential source of contamination and increase the risk of developing a postoperative infection. Methods. This study included 25 surgical cases requiring a standard fluoroscopic C-arm that were performed by 2 spine surgeons. Sterile culture swabs were used to obtain samples from 5 defined locations on the C-arm drape after its use during the operation. The undraped technician’s console was sampled in each case as a positive control and an additional 25 C-arm drapes were swabbed immediately after they were applied to the C-arm unit in order to obtain negative controls. Swab samples were assessed for bacterial growth on 5% sheep blood Columbia agar plates using a semiquantitative technique. Results. Contamination was noted on only 1 of 25 negative control drapes at a single location (4%). One hundred percent and 96% of the positive control swabs that were obtained from the negative controls and postoperative drapes exhibited growth, respectively. Although at least some degree of contamination was observed at all locations of the C-arm drape after surgery, the upper 2 sample sites demonstrated the greatest degree of contamination; the incidences of postoperative contamination were significantly greater for the top (56%, P < 0.000001) and upper front of the receiver (28%, P = 0.010) compared to the negative controls. In contrast, the lower front, receiver plate, and midportion of the C-arm were associated with lower rates of contamination (12%–20%). Conclusion. The upper portions of the C-arm clearly exhibited the greatest rates of contamination during spinal operations. This contamination most likely occurs when the undraped portions of the C-arm are rotated to acquire lateral images. As a result, we no longer consider the top portion of the C-arm drape to be sterile in these situations and we believe that avoiding contact with these areas may decrease the risks of intraoperative contamination and possibly postoperative infection as well.
Cascaded Grammatical Relation Assignment

In this paper we discuss cascaded Memory-Based grammatical relations assignment. In the first stages of the cascade, we find chunks of several types (NP,VP,ADJP,ADVP,PP) and label them with their adverbial function (e.g. local, temporal). In the last stage, we assign grammatical relations to pairs of chunks. We studied the effect of adding several levels to this cascaded classifier and we found that even the less performing chunkers enhanced the performance of the relation finder.
Reorganization of Visual Processing in Macular Degeneration

Macular degeneration (MD), the leading cause of visual impairment in the developed world, damages the central retina, often obliterating foveal vision and severely disrupting everyday tasks such as reading, driving, and face recognition. In such cases, the macular damage eliminates the normal retinal input to a large region of visual cortex, comprising tens of square centimeters of surface area in each hemisphere, which is normally responsive only to foveal stimuli. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we asked whether this deprived cortex simply becomes inactive in subjects with MD, or whether it takes on new functional properties. In two adult MD subjects with extensive bilateral central retinal lesions, we found that parts of visual cortex (including primary visual cortex) that normally respond only to central visual stimuli are strongly activated by peripheral stimuli. Such activation was not observed (1) with visual stimuli presented to the position of the former fovea and (2) in control subjects with visual stimuli presented to corresponding parts of peripheral retina. These results demonstrate large-scale reorganization of visual processing in MD and will likely prove important in any effort to develop new strategies for rehabilitation of MD subjects.
Enacting a social ecology: radically embodied intersubjectivity

Embodied approaches to cognitive science frequently describe the mind as “world-involving,” indicating complementary and interdependent relationships between an agent and its environment. The precise nature of the environment is frequently left ill-described, however, and provides a challenge for such approaches, particularly, it is noted here, for the enactive approach which emphasizes this complementarity in quite radical terms. This paper argues that enactivists should work to find common cause with a dynamic form of ecological psychology, a theoretical perspective that provides the most explicit theory of the psychological environment currently extant. In doing so, the intersubjective, cultural nature of the ecology of human psychology is explored, with the challenges this poses for both enactivist and ecological approaches outlined. The theory of behavior settings (Barker, 1968; Schoggen, 1989) is used to present a framework for resolving some of these challenges. Drawing these various strands together an outline of a radical embodied account of intersubjectivity and social activity is presented.
Virtual time reference system: a unifying scheduling framework for scalable support of guaranteed services

We propose and develop a novel virtual time reference system as a unifying scheduling framework to provide scalable support for guaranteed services. This virtual time reference system is designed as a conceptual framework upon which guaranteed services can be implemented in a scalable manner using the DiffServ paradigm. The key construct in the proposed virtual time reference system is the notion of packet virtual time stamps, whose computation is core stateless, i.e., no per-flow states are required for its computation. We lay the theoretical foundation for the definition and construction of packet virtual time stamps. We describe how per-hop behavior of a core router (or rather its scheduling mechanism) can be characterized via packet virtual time stamps, and based on this characterization establish end-to-end per-flow delay bounds. Consequently, we demonstrate that, in terms of its ability to support guaranteed services, the proposed virtual time reference system has the same expressive power and generality as the IntServ model. Furthermore, we show that the notion of packet virtual time stamps leads to the design of new core stateless scheduling algorithms, especially work-conserving ones. In addition, our framework does not exclude the use of existing scheduling algorithms such as stateful fair queuing algorithms to support guaranteed services.
Fibrinogen: A Marker in Predicting Diabetic Foot Ulcer Severity

Aims. To examine whether fibrinogen levels are a valuable biomarker for assessing disease severity and monitoring disease progression in patients with diabetic foot ulcer (DFU). Methods. A retrospective study was designed to examine the utility of fibrinogen in estimating disease severity in patients with DFU admitted to our hospital between January 2015 and January 2016. In total, 152 patients with DFU were enrolled in the study group, and 52 age and gender matched people with diabetes but no DFU were included as the control group. DFU severity was assessed using Wagner criteria. Results. Patients with DFU were divided into 2 subgroups based on the Wagner criteria. Mean fibrinogen values were significantly higher in patients with DFU grade ≧ 3 compared to those with DFU grades 1-2 (5.23 ± 1.37 g/L versus 3.61 ± 1.04 g/L). Using ROC statistic, a cut-off value of 5.13 g/L indicated the possible amputation with a sensitivity of 81.8% and a specificity of 78.9% (positive predictive value [PPV] 78.6%, negative predictive value [89.0%]). Fibrinogen values were found to be correlated with CRP levels, neutrophil, and WBC count. Conclusions. Fibrinogen levels might be a valuable tool for assessing the disease severity and monitoring the disease progression in patients with DFU.
State and parameter estimation for field-oriented control of induction machine based on unscented Kalman filter

Modern electric machines are required to have the best possible dynamic performances. In induction machines this is achieved by control strategies that are applied with respect to the flux in the air gap and therefore they require precise information on flux position. This paper proposes an observer with autotuning capability that uses the unscented Kalman filter algorithm for providing on-line estimation of states and parameters of the fundamental wave model of the machine. The algorithm uses power converter reference values of stator voltages, measured stator currents and rotor speed as inputs. Such observer provides accurate estimates of flux position and fundamental stator currents required for e.g. field-oriented control, taking into account machine parameters variability. Design procedure of the observer is presented and both simulation and experimental results are provided.
Interaction of AlSi7Mg with Oxide Ceramics

The development of new active filters for the melt filtration in aluminum industry requires investigations of the interaction of aluminum and its alloys with novel filter materials. The requested filter effects require information about the wettability and potential chemical reactions between the filter material and the metal. Wetting experiments (sessile drop technique at 950 °C under vacuum) of an AlSi7Mg alloy on oxide ceramics (Al2O3, MgAl2O4, 3Al2O3 · 2SiO2, TiO2) in two different surface qualities are carried out. The results show that in all cases, the wettability determined in case of a polished substrate is in good agreement to those of the coated substrates representing real filters. The measured differences of the contact angles are caused by the increased roughness of the substrates’ surface primarily. All substrates but the pure Al2O3 form reactive systems in presence of the AlSi7Mg alloy.
RMIT University at TREC 2005: Terabyte and Robust Track

RMIT University participated in the terabyte and robust tracks in TREC 2005. The terabyte track consists of the three tasks: adhoc retrieval, efficient retrieval, and named page finding. For the adhoc retrieval task we used a language modelling approach based on query likelihood, as well as a new technique aimed at reducing the amount of memory used for ranking documents. For the efficiency task, we submitted results from both a single-machine system and one that was distrubuted among a number of machines, with promising results. The named page task was organised by RMIT University and as a result we repeated last year’s experiments, slightly modified, with this year’s data. The robust track has two subtasks: adhoc retrieval, and query difficulty prediction. For adhoc retrieval, we employed a standard local analysis query expansion method, sourcing expansion terms for different runs from the collection supplied, from a side corpus, or a combination of both. In one run, we also tested removing duplicate documents from the list of results; in order to predict topic difficulty, we evaluated different document priors of the documents in the result set, in the hope of supplying a more robust set of answers at the cost of returning a potentially smaller number of relevant documents. The second task was to predict query difficulty. To this end, we compared the order of the documents in the result sets to the ordering as determined by document priors. A high similarity in orderings indicated that the query was poor. Two different priors were used. The first was based on document access counts, where each document is given a score that is derived from how likely it is to be ranked by a randomly generated query. The second was directly related to the document size. In this paper we outline our approaches and experiments in both tracks, and discuss our results.
Adaptation in Sound Localization Processing Induced by Interaural Time Difference in Amplitude Envelope at High Frequencies

Background When a second sound follows a long first sound, its location appears to be perceived away from the first one (the localization/lateralization aftereffect). This aftereffect has often been considered to reflect an efficient neural coding of sound locations in the auditory system. To understand determinants of the localization aftereffect, the current study examined whether it is induced by an interaural temporal difference (ITD) in the amplitude envelope of high frequency transposed tones (over 2 kHz), which is known to function as a sound localization cue. Methodology/Principal Findings In Experiment 1, participants were required to adjust the position of a pointer to the perceived location of test stimuli before and after adaptation. Test and adapter stimuli were amplitude modulated (AM) sounds presented at high frequencies and their positional differences were manipulated solely by the envelope ITD. Results showed that the adapter's ITD systematically affected the perceived position of test sounds to the directions expected from the localization/lateralization aftereffect when the adapter was presented at ±600 µs ITD; a corresponding significant effect was not observed for a 0 µs ITD adapter. In Experiment 2, the observed adapter effect was confirmed using a forced-choice task. It was also found that adaptation to the AM sounds at high frequencies did not significantly change the perceived position of pure-tone test stimuli in the low frequency region (128 and 256 Hz). Conclusions/Significance The findings in the current study indicate that ITD in the envelope at high frequencies induces the localization aftereffect. This suggests that ITD in the high frequency region is involved in adaptive plasticity of auditory localization processing.