Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Potential of Regional Trade Agreements for Extending Social Protection in Health: Lessons Learned and Emerging Challenges

Globalisation induces nation states to build marketplaces that span various countries with the objective of facilitating trade and improving economic competitiveness. International experiences gained from three common markets, the European Union (EU), North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and Common Southern Market (MERCOSUR) allow for drawing some general conclusions that might be helpful for guiding similar processes in other regions and preparing them better for the challenges of human and social rights in open economies. Analysis of existing trade agreements shows that even relevant differences in design, structure, financing, coverage and regulation of health systems in member states do not necessarily prevent them from implementing common block-wide social protection and health service arrangements. Public health activities, epidemiologic surveillance and disease prevention have the potential of being starting points for shared activities of member states in the health field. Bi- or multi-national enterprises are eligible to become focal points of cross-border arrangements and regulations, especially if they are public or publicly administered. In general, coordination and cooperation between countries can be tried out or applied first in border regions where there is a high flow of goods, services and persons. When it comes to implementing the social dimension in the policy and priority setting of trade agreements, motivating spirit, driving forces and the concordance of value-sets in member states are crucial conditions. National governments planning to set up or join regional trade agreements have a broad decision margin regarding the extent to which they include social and human rights in regional trade arrangements. International organisations that are promoting regional economic blocks such as the World Bank, the World Trade Organisation and others should inspire political and economic decision-makers to consider health and social protection as crucial points for international trade. There is a broad array of political options between either strengthening the social dimension of common markets or dissolving the existing regional cohesion in favour of entering strictly market-driven blocks.
HemaMax™, a Recombinant Human Interleukin-12, Is a Potent Mitigator of Acute Radiation Injury in Mice and Non-Human Primates

HemaMax, a recombinant human interleukin-12 (IL-12), is under development to address an unmet medical need for effective treatments against acute radiation syndrome due to radiological terrorism or accident when administered at least 24 hours after radiation exposure. This study investigated pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, and efficacy of m-HemaMax (recombinant murine IL-12), and HemaMax to increase survival after total body irradiation (TBI) in mice and rhesus monkeys, respectively, with no supportive care. In mice, m-HemaMax at an optimal 20 ng/mouse dose significantly increased percent survival and survival time when administered 24 hours after TBI between 8–9 Gy (p<0.05 Pearson's chi-square test). This survival benefit was accompanied by increases in plasma interferon-γ (IFN-γ) and erythropoietin levels, recovery of femoral bone hematopoiesis characterized with the presence of IL-12 receptor β2 subunit–expressing myeloid progenitors, megakaryocytes, and osteoblasts. Mitigation of jejunal radiation damage was also examined. At allometrically equivalent doses, HemaMax showed similar pharmacokinetics in rhesus monkeys compared to m-HemaMax in mice, but more robustly increased plasma IFN-γ levels. HemaMax also increased plasma erythropoietin, IL-15, IL-18, and neopterin levels. At non-human primate doses pharmacologically equivalent to murine doses, HemaMax (100 ng/Kg and 250 ng/Kg) administered at 24 hours after TBI (6.7 Gy/LD50/30) significantly increased percent survival of HemaMax groups compared to vehicle (p<0.05 Pearson's chi-square test). This survival benefit was accompanied by a significantly higher leukocyte (neutrophils and lymphocytes), thrombocyte, and reticulocyte counts during nadir (days 12–14) and significantly less weight loss at day 12 compared to vehicle. These findings indicate successful interspecies dose conversion and provide proof of concept that HemaMax increases survival in irradiated rhesus monkeys by promoting hematopoiesis and recovery of immune functions and possibly gastrointestinal functions, likely through a network of interactions involving dendritic cells, osteoblasts, and soluble factors such as IL-12, IFN-γ, and cytoprotectant erythropoietin.
Foundation of Diagnosis and Predictability in Probabilistic Systems

In discrete event systems prone to unobservable faults, a diagnoser must eventually detect fault occurrences. The diagnosability problem consists in deciding whether such a diagnoser exists. Here we investigate diagnosis for probabilistic systems modelled by partially observed Markov chains also called probabilistic labeled transition systems (pLTS). First we study different specifications of diagnosability and establish their relations both in finite and infinite pLTS. Then we analyze the complexity of the diagnosability problem for finite pLTS: we show that the polynomial time procedure earlier proposed is erroneous and that in fact for all considered specifications, the problem is PSPACE-complete. We also establish tight bounds for the size of diagnosers. Afterwards we consider the dual notion of predictability which consists in predicting that in a safe run, a fault will eventually occur. Predictability is an easier problem than diagnosability: it is NLOGSPACE-complete. Yet the predictor synthesis is as hard as the diagnoser synthesis. Finally we introduce and study the more flexible notion of prediagnosability that generalizes predictability and diagnosability.
Tuning electrical properties of graphite oxide by plasma

The electrical properties of graphite oxide (GO) can be tuned consecutively by treating samples with ammonia and hydrogen plasma. When altering ammonia plasma time from 10 to 4.5 min, large area (greater than 100×100 μm2), n-type, ambipolar and p-type semiconducting reduced graphite oxide (RGO) sheets could be obtained. The highest mobilities of the electron and hole are 5.41 and 2.10 cm2 V−1 s−1 at low operational voltage (3 or −3 V, respectively). When treating a GO film with hydrogen:argon (9:1) plasma, high conductivity RGO was obtained with conductivity around 630 S cm−1. It is anticipated that this study could pave the way towards carbon-based electronics.
Microplate-reader method for the rapid analysis of copper in natural waters with chemiluminescence detection

We have developed a method for the determination of copper in natural waters at nanomolar levels. The use of a microplate-reader minimizes sample processing time (~25 s per sample), reagent consumption (~120 μL per sample), and sample volume (~700 μL). Copper is detected by chemiluminescence. This technique is based on the formation of a complex between copper and 1,10-phenanthroline and the subsequent emission of light during the oxidation of the complex by hydrogen peroxide. Samples are acidified to pH 1.7 and then introduced directly into a 24-well plate. Reagents are added during data acquisition via two reagent injectors. When trace metal clean protocols are employed, the reproducibility is generally less than 7% on blanks and the detection limit is 0.7 nM for seawater and 0.4 nM for freshwater. More than 100 samples per hour can be analyzed with this technique, which is simple, robust, and amenable to at-sea analysis. Seawater samples from Storm Bay in Tasmania illustrate the utility of the method for environmental science. Indeed other trace metals for which optical detection methods exist (e.g., chemiluminescence, fluorescence, and absorbance) could be adapted to the microplate-reader.
Hough-Transform and Extended RANSAC Algorithms for Automatic Detection of 3D Building Roof Planes from Lidar Data

Airborne laser scanner technique is broadly the most appropriate way to acquire rapidly and with high density 3D data over a city. Once the 3D Lidar data are available, the next task is the automatic data processing, with major aim to construct 3D building models. Among the numerous automatic reconstruction methods, the techniques allowing the detection of 3D building roof planes are of crucial importance. Three main methods arise from the literature: region growing, Hough-transform and Random Sample Consensus (RANSAC) paradigm. Since region growing algorithms are sometimes not very transparent and not homogenously applied, this paper focuses only on the Hough-transform and the RANSAC algorithm. Their principles, their pseudocode - rarely detailed in the related literature - as well as their complete analyses are presented in this paper. An analytic comparison of both algorithms, in terms of processing time and sensitivity to cloud characteristics, shows that despite the limitation encountered in both methods, RANSAC algorithm is still more efficient than the first one. Under other advantages, its processing time is negligible even when the input data size is very large. On the other hand, Hough-transform is very sensitive to the segmentation parameters values. Therefore, RANSAC algorithm has been chosen and extended to exceed its limitations. Its major limitation is that it searches to detect the best mathematical plane among 3D building point cloud even if this plane does not always represent a roof plane. So the proposed extension allows harmonizing the mathematical aspect of the algorithm with the geometry of a roof. At last, it is shown that the extended approach provides very satisfying results, even in the case of very weak point density and for different levels of building complexity. Therefore, once the roof planes are successfully detected, the automatic building modelling can be carried out.
Present and future medical applications of microbial exopolysaccharides

Microbial exopolysaccharides (EPS) have found outstanding medical applications since the mid-20th century, with the first clinical trials on dextran solutions as plasma expanders. Other EPS entered medicine firstly as conventional pharmaceutical excipients (e.g., xanthan – as suspension stabilizer, or pullulan – in capsules and oral care products). Polysaccharides, initially obtained from plant or animal sources, became easily available for a wide range of applications, especially when they were commercially produced by microbial fermentation. Alginates are used as anti-reflux, dental impressions, or as matrix for tablets. Hyaluronic acid and derivatives are used in surgery, arthritis treatment, or wound healing. Bacterial cellulose is applied in wound dressings or scaffolds for tissue engineering. The development of drug controlled-release systems and of micro- and nanoparticulated ones, has opened a new era of medical applications for biopolymers. EPS and their derivatives are well-suited potentially non-toxic, biodegradable drug carriers. Such systems concern rating and targeting of controlled release. Their large area of applications is explained by the available manifold series of derivatives, whose useful properties can be thereby controlled. From matrix inclusion to conjugates, different systems have been designed to solubilize, and to assure stable transport in the body, target accumulation and variable rate-release of a drug substance. From controlled drug delivery, EPS potential applications expanded to vaccine adjuvants and diagnostic imaging systems. Other potential applications are related to the bioactive (immunomodulator, antitumor, antiviral) characteristics of EPS. The numerous potential applications still wait to be developed into commercial pharmaceuticals and medical devices. Based on previous and recent results in important medical-pharmaceutical domains, one can undoubtedly state that EPS medical applications have a broad future ahead.
Robust control of descriptor discrete-time Markovian jump systems

This paper considers the stochastic stability and the robust control of descriptor discrete-time systems with Markovian jumping parameters. In terms of linear matrix inequalities, a necessary and sufficient condition is proposed, which ensures a discrete-time descriptor Markovian jump system to be regular, causal and stochastically stable. A robust admissibility condition and a robust bounded real lemma are also developed. Based on these, a sufficient condition on the existence of a state-feedback controller which guarantees the robust admissibility and the performance is also given by employing the linear matrix inequality technique. A robustly stabilizing state feedback controller can be constructed through the numerical solutions of linear matrix inequalities. Finally, an example is provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
CORECLUST: identification of the conserved CRM grammar together with prediction of gene regulation

Identification of transcriptional regulatory regions and tracing their internal organization are important for understanding the eukaryotic cell machinery. Cis-regulatory modules (CRMs) of higher eukaryotes are believed to possess a regulatory ‘grammar’, or preferred arrangement of binding sites, that is crucial for proper regulation and thus tends to be evolutionarily conserved. Here, we present a method CORECLUST (COnservative REgulatory CLUster STructure) that predicts CRMs based on a set of positional weight matrices. Given regulatory regions of orthologous and/or co-regulated genes, CORECLUST constructs a CRM model by revealing the conserved rules that describe the relative location of binding sites. The constructed model may be consequently used for the genome-wide prediction of similar CRMs, and thus detection of co-regulated genes, and for the investigation of the regulatory grammar of the system. Compared with related methods, CORECLUST shows better performance at identification of CRMs conferring muscle-specific gene expression in vertebrates and early-developmental CRMs in Drosophila.
Eph-B2/Ephrin-B2 Interaction Plays a Major Role in the Adhesion and Proliferation of Waldenstrom's Macroglobulinemia

Purpose: The ephrin receptors (Eph) are found in a wide range of cancers and correlate with metastasis. In this study, we characterized the role of Eph-B2 receptor in the interaction of Waldenstrom's macroglobulinemia (WM) cells with the bone marrow microenvironment. Experimental Design: We screened the activity of different receptor tyrosine kinases in WM patients and found that Eph-B2 was overexpressed compared with control. Also, we tested the expression of ephrin-B2 ligand on endothelial cells and bone marrow stromal cells (BMSC) isolated from WM patients. We then tested the role of Eph-B2/Ephrin-B2 interaction in the adhesion of WM cells to endothelial cells and BMSCs; the cell signaling induced by the coculture in both the WM cells and the endothelial cells; WM cell proliferation, apoptosis, and cell cycle in vitro and tumor progression in vivo; and in angiogenesis. Results: Eph-B2 receptor was found to be activated in WM patients compared with control, with a 5-fold increase in CD19+ WM cells, and activated cell adhesion signaling, including focal adhesion kinase, Src, P130, paxillin, and cofilin, but decreased WM cell chemotaxis. Ephrin-B2 ligand was highly expressed on endothelial cells and BMSCs isolated from WM patients and on human umbilical vein endothelial cells and induced signaling in the endothelial cells promoting adhesion and angiogenesis. Blocking of ephrin-B2 or Eph-B2 inhibited adhesion, cytoskeletal signaling, proliferation, and cell cycle in WM cells, which was induced by coculture with endothelial cells and decreased WM tumor progression in vivo. Conclusion: Ephrin-B2/Eph-B2 axis regulates adhesion, proliferation, cell cycle, and tumor progression in vivo through the interaction of WM with the cells in the bone marrow microenvironment. Clin Cancer Res; 18(1); 91–104. ©2011 AACR.
Summer monsoon–induced upwelling dominated coastal sea surface temperature variations in the northern South China Sea over the last two millennia

The South China Sea (SCS), situated to the north of the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool (IPWP), is under the strong influence of the Asian monsoon system. However, coastal sea surface temperature (SST) records from the SCS, which are of vital importance to exploring ocean-atmosphere-land interactions behind the Asian monsoon system, remain scarce. Here, we use a sediment core collected at the coast of northern SCS to investigate alkenone-SST variations over the past two millennia. On multi-centennial timescale, SST changes in our record exhibit an opposite pattern to that of Northern Hemisphere temperature and solar irradiance, for example, relatively cool SST during the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and warm conditions during the Little Ice Age (LIA). Together with alkenone content and existing records, we suggest that the regional SST changes result from a strengthening (weakening) of wind-driven coastal upwelling, associated with variability of the Asian summer monsoon intensity during the MWP (LIA).
Optimality study of resource binding with multi-Vdds

Deploying multiple supply voltages (multi-Vdds) on one chip is an important technique to reduce dynamic power consumption. In this work we present an optimality study for resource binding targeting designs with multi-Vdds. This is similar to the voltage-island design concept, except that the granularity of our voltage island is on the functional-unit level as opposed to the core level. We are interested in achieving the maximum number of low-Vdd operations and, in the same time, minimizing switching activity during functional unit binding. To the best of our knowledge, there is no known optimal solution to this problem. To compute an optimal solution for this problem and examine the quality gap between our solution and previous heuristic solutions, we formulate this problem as a min-cost network flow problem, but with special equal-flow constraints. This formulation leads to an easy reduction to the integer linear programming (ILP) solution and also enables efficient approximate solution by Lagrangian relaxation. Experimental results show that the optimal solution computed based on our formulation provides 7% more low-Vdd operations and also reduces the total switching activity by 20% compared to one of the best known heuristic algorithms that consider multi-Vdd assignments only
Disulfide-Intact and -Reduced Lysozyme in the Gas Phase: Conformations and Pathways of Folding and Unfolding

The conformations of gaseous lysozyme ions (+5 through +18) produced by electrospray ionization have been studied in the gas phase using ion mobility mass spectrometry techniques. When solutions containing the disulfide-intact and disulfide-reduced lysozyme are electrosprayed, the gas-phase ions that are produced have distinctly different collision cross sections. Disulfide-intact ions favor two conformer types: a highly folded conformer with a cross section near that calculated for the crystal structure and a partially unfolded conformer that is formed when the ions are injected into the drift tube at high injection voltages. Ions formed from the disulfide-reduced solution have collision cross sections that are much larger than any observed for the disulfide-intact protein, showing that these ions are largely unfolded. Gas-phase proton-transfer reactions in the ion source can be used to favor lower charge states for both solutions. When protons are removed from disulfide-intact lysozyme ions, highly fol.
Revisiting the relationship between the submandibular duct, lingual nerve and hypoglossal nerve.

BACKGROUND The aim of the study was to evaluate the relations between submandibular duct, lingual nerve and hypoglossal nerve for making a reassessment of this area in fresh frozen specimens. Also, the distance between the angle of the mandible and the vertical line drawn from the point where submandibular duct crossed lingual nerve to the base of the mandible was measured to determine a new landmark for neck surgeons. MATERIALS AND METHODS Fourteen fresh frozen head and neck specimens were dissected and evaluated. A marginal mandibular incision was made from the mastoid process to the chin. RESULTS In 8 cases, lingual nerve was crossing the submandibular duct superiorly; in 5 cases, lingual nerve was crossing the duct infero-medially and in 1 case it was parallel to the duct. In 1 case, lingual nerve subdivided into anterior and posterior branches. In 2 cases, 2 parallel submandibular ducts were found and the lingual nerve was crossing the upper duct from superior. In 1 case, lingual nerve was crossing the duct infero-medially and then it was subdividing into branches superior to mylohyoid. In 12 cases, the course of hypoglossal nerve was classical. In 1 case, hypoglossal nerve crossed the submandibular duct medially and coursed parallel to the tendon of posterior belly of digastric. And in another case, hypoglossal nerve crossed the inferior branch of submandibular duct medially. The other structures in this area were as usual. CONCLUSIONS The main factor for reducing nerve damage during surgery is the understanding of the anatomy of this area.
A diepitopic sequential oligopeptide carrier (SOCn) as mimic of the Sm autoantigen: synthesis, conformation and biological assays

Anti‐Sm (Sm: U1‐U6 RNA‐protein complex) antibodies are usually considered highly specific for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), while anti‐U1RNP (U1RNP: U1RNA‐protein complex) are thought of as diagnostic criteria for the mixed connective tissue disease (MCTD). However, both antibody specificities coexist in SLE and MCTD, in varying percentages. Although the anti‐Sm/anti‐U1RNP immunological cross‐reactivity has been initially attributed to a common motif, PPXY(Z)PP (where X, Y, Z are various amino acids), found in the Sm, U1‐A and U1‐C autoantigens, it appears that the conformational features of the Sm epitopes also play an important role in the immunoreactivity. The PPGMRPP and PPGIRGP main epitopes of the Sm antigen were coupled in duplicate to the tetrameric Ac‐(Lys‐Aib‐Gly)4‐OH, SOC4, carrier to form the [(PPGMRPP)2, (PPGIRGP)2]‐SOC4 construct as a mimic of the native Sm. It was found that: (i) the 310 helical structure of SOC4 allows the epitopes to adopt an exposed orientation, similar to their free forms, that facilitates their recognition from the anti‐Sm antibodies, and (ii) the U1‐RNP cross‐reactivity is minimized. Copyright © 2001 European Peptide Society and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Fragmentation Considered Poisonous, or: One-domain-to-rule-them-all.org

We present effective off-path DNS cache poisoning attacks, circumventing widely-deployed challenge-response defenses, e.g., transaction identifier randomisation, port and query randomisation. Our attacks depend on the use of UDP to retrieve long DNS responses, resulting in IP fragmentation. We show how attackers are often able to generate such fragmented responses, and then abuse them to inject spoofed, 'poisonous' records, into legitimate DNS responses. We also studied how resolvers, name servers, domains and registrars, can defend against our attacks. The best defense is deployment and enforcement of DNSSEC validation. However, DNSSEC must be deployed correctly by both domain and resolver, which is challenging; we hope our results will catalyse this process, but it will surely take long time. In fact, recent study found less than 1 % of resolvers reject responses upon DNSSEC validation failures. Note also that, ironically, adoption of DNSSEC by a domain, is the main reason for fragmented DNS responses (abused in our attacks). We therefore present several short-term countermeasures, which can complement DNSSEC, especially until DNSSEC deployment is complete. We validated our attacks against popular resolvers (Bind and Unbound), and real domains in the Internet.