Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Arthroscopic treatment of osteochondral lesions of the talus: Nanofracture versus hyaluronic acid-based cell-free scaffold with concentration of autologous bone marrow aspirate

Purpose: We aimed to evaluate the early clinical and radiological outcomes of arthroscopic one-stage treatment with hyaluronic acid-based cell-free scaffold (HACS) in combination with a concentration of autologous bone marrow aspirate (CBMA) technique compared to nanofracture (NF). Methods: A retrospective evaluation was made of all the patients with focal osteochondral lesions of the talus that were treated between January 2012 and January 2015. Ninety-eight patients met the criteria and were enrolled in the study. Forty-six patients (group 1) were treated with arthroscopic one-stage treatment with CBMA in combination with an HACS. Fifty-two patients (group 2) were treated with NF. Patient demographics and cartilage defect characteristics, the AOFAS and VAS scoring systems were compared between groups. In the evaluation of cartilage repair tissue, the magnetic resonance observation of cartilage repair tissue (MOCART) scoring system was used. Results: No significant differences were determined between the two groups in terms of age (p = 0.874), body mass index (p = 0.621), defect size (p = 0.485), defect depth (p = 0.674), follow-up time (p = 0.512). A significant clinical difference was determined between the two groups according to the AOFAS and VAS scores (p = 0.028, p = 0.046, respectively). The mean MOCART score of group 1 was significantly higher (p = 0.041). Conclusions: Both NF and HACS with CBMA techniques are beneficial in treatment of osteochondral lesions of the talus. Better clinical and radiological results, in addition to higher cartilage quality, could be obtained with HACS with CBMA technique compared to NF.
Calcium Signalling in Plant Biotic Interactions

Calcium (Ca2+) is a universal second messenger involved in various cellular processes, leading to plant development and to biotic and abiotic stress responses. Intracellular variation in free Ca2+ concentration is among the earliest events following the plant perception of environmental change. These Ca2+ variations differ in their spatio-temporal properties according to the nature, strength and duration of the stimulus. However, their conversion into biological responses requires Ca2+ sensors for decoding and relaying. The occurrence in plants of calmodulin (CaM) but also of other sets of plant-specific Ca2+ sensors such as calmodulin-like proteins (CMLs), Ca2+-dependent protein kinases (CDPKs) and calcineurin B-like proteins (CBLs) indicate that plants possess specific tools and machineries to convert Ca2+ signals into appropriate responses. Here, we focus on recent progress made in monitoring the generation of Ca2+ signals at the whole plant or cell level and their long distance propagation during biotic interactions. The contribution of CaM/CMLs and CDPKs in plant immune responses mounted against bacteria, fungi, viruses and insects are also presented.
Learning Low-shot facial representations via 2D warping

Face recognition has seen a significant improvement by using the deep convolutional neural networks. In this work, we mainly study the influence of the 2D warping module for one-shot face recognition. To achieve this, we first propose a 2D-Warping Layer to generate new features for the novel classes during the training, then fine-tuning the network by adding the recent proposed fisher loss to learn more discriminative features. We evaluate the proposed method on two popular databases for unconstrained face recognition, the Labeled Faces in the Wild (LFW) and the Youtube Faces (YTF) database. In both cases, the proposed method achieves competitive results with the accuracy of 99.25\% for LFW and 94.3\% for YTF, separately. Moreover, the experimental results on MS-Celeb-1M one-shot faces dataset show that with the proposed method, the model achieves comparable results of 77.92\% coverage rate at precision = 99\% for the novel classes while still keeps top-1 accuracy of 99.80\% for the normal classes.
Reduction of estradiol in human malignant pleural mesothelioma tissues may prevent tumour growth, as implied by in in-vivo and in-vitro models

This study aimed to investigate intratumoural estradiol and estrogen-receptors (ERα, ERβ and GPR30) in malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) to understand their function. Here, we report that immunohistochemistry of estradiol showed cytoplasmatic staining in 95% of fifty-seven human MPM samples with a trend toward a negative correlation between estradiol levels and the median post-diagnosis survival time. ERβ was only focally positive in 5.3% of cases, GPR30 and ERα were negative in our cases of MPM. GPR30 was detected mainly in glycosylated form in MPM cells. Moreover, G15, a GPR30 antagonist, induced MPM cell death. Altogether, these data suggest that MPM cells produce E2 interact with glycosylated forms of GPR30, and this facilitates tumour growth. Estradiol was found in MPM cells and plasma from mice mesothelioma xenografts. Concurrent reduction in tumour mass and plasmatic estradiol levels were observed in the mice treated with exemestane, suggesting that the reduction of E2 levels inhibit MPM growth. Thus, it appears that agents reducing estradiol levels could be useful to MPM therapy.
The Effects of Rule Changes on Basketball Game Results in the Men’s European Basketball Championships

Purpose. The aim the study was to analyze the effects of rule changes in men’s professional basketball. Univariate analysis examined game statistics, concentrating only on points scores from selected basketball games and did not include situational variables that may have affected game dynamics. Methods. Data on the results of all games played in the men’s European basketball Championships between 1935 and 2013 were collected and subjected to statistical analysis. Six main rule modifications which directly affected game play were identified in chronological order. Results. The number of points scored and allowed changed significantly after 1956. The greatest changes in game scores as a result of rule modifications were after rule changes in 1956 and after 1984. Conclusions. Rule changes involve processes that modify game conditions and should be validated following reflective analysis.
NOVEL DRUG LOADED DUPLICATE NANOFIBERS AND THEIR IN-VITRO DRUG RELEASE PROFILES

Electrospinning remains the most interesting phenomena for the fabrication of novel morphological polymeric nanofibers which can ultimately be used as drug delivery vehicles and tissue engineering devices. This study presents the formation of novel drug loaded duplicate nanofibers by electrospinning and their in-vitro drug release profiles. The percentage of average number of drug- loaded duplicate nanofibers was calculated as compared to single nanofibers. Three different polymers i.e., ethyl cellulose (EC), cellulose acetate (CA) and polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) were selected as model polymers and ketoprofen (KET) was chosen as model drug. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images showed clear formation of duplicate nanofibers which is appeared to be affected by type of solvent and amount of drug used. In-vitro drug release studies showed that nanofiber mats having hydrophilic polymer content and high drug loaded percentage showing more drug release profiles as compared to those nanofiber mats having hydrophobic polymer content and less drug loaded percentage.
Host-related immunodeficiency in the development of multiple myeloma

Abstract Host-related immunodeficiency is known to play a role in the development of multiple myeloma (MM) from its precursor conditions (monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance, MGUS, smoldering multiple myeloma, SMM). In order to understand the underlying immune changes in this process, we characterized immune patterns from MGUS to SMM to MM. We further sought to identify potential novel immune biomarkers that may predict progression of SMM to MM. We characterized patterns of circulating lymphocytes in 181 patients using multiparametric flow cytometry. We found decreased B- (p = .0003), increased T- (p = .037) and unaltered NK cell proportions from MGUS to SMM to MM. To gain insights into functional variability, we further characterized immunophenotypic lymphocyte subsets, which uncovered differences in CD57 subsets. Specifically, we found that SMM patients who eventually progressed to MM showed decreased proportions of CD57-CD56 + (p = .0061) and CD57-CD16 + (p = .035) lymphocyte subsets. We thus report novel data characterizing the nature of host-related immunodeficiency in the development of MM. We show sequential changes in lymphocyte subsets from MGUS to SMM to MM. We further suggest that CD57 subsets may serve as potential markers of progression from SMM to MM. Our findings support the study of lymphocyte subsets in the search for immune biomarkers. Such markers could provide clinical guidance in managing myeloma precursor disease.
Randomized Comparison of Packed Red Blood Cell-to-Fresh Frozen Plasma Transfusion Ratio of 4: 1 vs 1 1 During Acute Massive Burn Excision

This prospective randomized controlled trial compared 1:1 vs 4:1 packed red blood cell with fresh frozen plasma (PRBC/FFP) transfusion strategy on outcomes in children with >20% TBSA burns. Children with >20% TBSA burns were randomized to a 1:1 or 4:1 PRBC/FFP transfusion ratio during burn excision. Parameters measured included demographics, TBSA burn, and Pediatric Risk of Mortality scores. Laboratory values recorded preoperatively, 1 hour, 12 hours, 24 hours, and 1 week postoperatively included prothrombin time, partial thromboplastin time (PTT), international normalized ratio, fibrinogen, protein C, and antithrombin C (AIII). Total number of blood products transfused intraoperatively and during hospitalization was recorded. Forty-five children were enrolled, 22 in the 1:1 and 23 in the 4:1 group. Groups were similar in age, TBSA, and Pediatric Risk of Mortality score. Preoperative fibrinogen, AIII, protein C, hemoglobin, PTT, international normalized ratio, and platelets were similar. In the first two excisions, the 1:1 group received significantly more FFP per patient. Volume of PRBC and overall product transfused did not differ between groups. At 1 hour postoperatively, prothrombin time and PTT were lower and protein C and AIII were higher in the 1:1 group. The 4:1 group was more significantly acidotic 1 hour postexcision. A 1:1 PRBC/FFP transfusion strategy, compared with a 4:1 strategy, decreased postoperative markers of coagulopathy and acidosis immediately after surgery. The strategy did not change the total volume of blood product transfused. This interim analysis was not powered to detect differences in wound healing and length of stay.
Adaptive synchronization of chaotic systems based on speed gradient method and passification

A problem of synchronizing two nonlinear multidimensional systems with unknown parameters is considered. Two general procedures for adaptive synchronization law design based on speed-gradient method are proposed. Conditions ensuring the synchronization are given. The second procedure is based on passification of error system (making it passive by feedback). The results are illustrated by examples: synchronizing a pair of Chua's circuits and a pair of circuits with tunnel diodes. Computer simulation results confirming theoretical analysis are given.
Physical mixing effects on iron biogeochemical cycling: FeCycle experiment

The effects of physical processes on the distribution, speciation, and sources/sinks for Fe in a high-nutrient low-chlorophyll (HNLC) region were assessed during FeCycle, a mesoscale SF6 tracer release during February 2003 (austral summer) to the SE of New Zealand. Physical mixing processes were prevalent during FeCycle with rapid patch growth (strain rate γ = 0.17–0.20 d−1) from a circular shape (50 km2) into a long filament of ∼400 km2 by day 10. Slippage between layers saw the patch-head overlying noninfused waters while the tail was capped by adjacent surface waters resulting in a SF6 maximum at depth. As the patch developed it entrained adjacent waters containing higher chlorophyll concentrations, but similar dissolved iron (DFe) levels, than the initial infused patch. DFe was low ∼60 pmol L−1 in surface waters during FeCycle and was dominated by organic complexation. Nighttime measurements of Fe(II) ∼20 pmol L−1 suggest the presence of Fe(II) organic complexes in the absence of an identifiable fast Fe(III) reduction process. Combining residence times and phytoplankton uptake fluxes for DFe it is cycled through the biota 140–280 times before leaving the winter mixed layer (WML). This strong Fe demand throughout the euphotic zone coupled with the low Fe:NO3 − (11.9 μmol:mol) below the ferricline suggests that vertical diffusion of Fe is insufficient to relieve chronic iron limitation, indicating the importance of atmospheric inputs of Fe to this region.
Intracranial Dural Arteriovenous Fistulae

Intracranial dural arteriovenous fistulae (dAVFs) are typified by pathological anastomoses between meningeal arteries and dural venous sinuses or cortical veins. These fistulae frequently reside within the dural leaflets surrounding a venous sinus, characteristically at the transverse-sigmoid junction but also at the cavernous sinus (CS), superior sagittal sinus, anterior cranial fossa, tentorium, and other locations. dAVFs are distinguished from their pial counterparts (eg, arteriovenous malformations) by their arterial supply from vessels that perfuse the dura mater and lack of a parenchymal nidus.1 dAVFs are rare lesions, accounting for 10% to 15% of all intracranial vascular malformations: 6% of supratentorial and 35% of infratentorial vascular malformations.2 Most frequently, dAVFs affect patients in their middle-to-later years of life (eg, 50–60 years of age). 3 Less commonly, dAVFs occur in younger age groups, including children. There is neither a clear sex predilection nor genetic component to these lesions. Clinical manifestations vary widely and depend on both the hemodynamic properties and location of the fistula. Multiple classification systems have been proposed in an effort to predict which dAVFs are at high risk for new neurological events. Most of these schemes stratify risk based on angiographic appearance of the dAVFs, in particular involvement of a venous sinus and presence or absence of retrograde cortical venous drainage (CVD). Other schemes combine angiographic appearance with mode of presentation, given the impact symptoms related to intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) and nonhemorrhagic neurological deficits (NHND) have on dAVF natural history.4–6 In the following review and synthesis, the authors describe the pathophysiology, classification, mode of presentation, imaging characteristics, natural history, and therapeutic armamentarium for intracranial dAVFs. Particular attention will be given to recent evidence that certain clinical and angiographic features of dAVFs can be used to help stratify risk of future ICH and NHND in an effort …
Triphosphate Reorientation of the Incoming Nucleotide as a Fidelity Checkpoint in Viral RNA-dependent RNA Polymerases*

The nucleotide incorporation fidelity of the viral RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) is important for maintaining functional genetic information but, at the same time, is also important for generating sufficient genetic diversity to escape the bottlenecks of the host's antiviral response. We have previously shown that the structural dynamics of the motif D loop are closely related to nucleotide discrimination. Previous studies have also suggested that there is a reorientation of the triphosphate of the incoming nucleotide, which is essential before nucleophilic attack from the primer RNA 3′-hydroxyl. Here, we have used 31P NMR with poliovirus RdRp to show that the binding environment of the triphosphate is different when correct versus incorrect nucleotide binds. We also show that amino acid substitutions at residues known to interact with the triphosphate can alter the binding orientation/environment of the nucleotide, sometimes lead to protein conformational changes, and lead to substantial changes in RdRp fidelity. The analyses of other fidelity variants also show that changes in the triphosphate binding environment are not always accompanied by changes in the structural dynamics of the motif D loop or other regions known to be important for RdRp fidelity, including motif B. Altogether, our studies suggest that the conformational changes in motifs B and D, and the nucleoside triphosphate reorientation represent separable, “tunable” fidelity checkpoints.
Multi-class ranking based most probable prediction unit selection for HEVC encoding

In this paper, an incremental learning based multi-class Prediction Units (PUs) ranking approach is presented for High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) Rate-Distortion-Complexity (RDC) optimization. In particular, the process of PUs selection is formulated as a binary classification plus multi-class ranking task, and incremental learning is applied for classifier training to better exploit the information in the emerging training data. Furthermore, the proposed most probable PUs selection scheme is incorporated into a joint RDC optimization framework, where the complexity can be flexibly allocated targeting at minimizing computational cost under a constrained RD performance degradation. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach can reduce 53.7% and 50.4% computational complexity on average under low delay P and random access configurations with ignorable RD performance degradation, which outperforms the state-of-the-art approaches in terms of RDC performance.
Digital Suppression of Transmitter Leakage in FDD RF Transceivers: Aliasing Elimination and Model Selection

The transmitter (TX)-induced interference due to power amplifier nonlinearities poses severe desensitization problems to the receiver chain in frequency-division duplexing transceivers. Due to nonlinear signal process involved, a high sampling rate is normally required in the existing digital suppression approaches, which can result in high cost and high power consumption in wideband systems. In this paper, a new digital suppression model is proposed to cancel the TX leakage at baseband with a low sampling rate. The cancellation model is based on the modified decomposed vector rotation model. With the addition of cross-term products, the enhanced model is capable of eliminating the aliasing effect arising from the reduced sampling rate. Theoretical analysis of aliasing elimination is presented, and the algorithm is subsequently verified by both simulation and experiment results, confirming the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed cancellation technique for TX leakage suppression. Compared with conventional solutions, the new approach uses much less hardware resource and consumes much lower power while achieving comparable performance.
Memory replay in balanced recurrent networks

Complex patterns of neural activity appear during up-states in the neocortex and sharp waves in the hippocampus, including sequences that resemble those during prior behavioral experience. The mechanisms underlying this replay are not well understood. How can small synaptic footprints engraved by experience control large-scale network activity during memory retrieval and consolidation? We hypothesize that sparse and weak synaptic connectivity between Hebbian assemblies are boosted by pre-existing recurrent connectivity within them. To investigate this idea, we connect sequences of assemblies in randomly connected spiking neuronal networks with a balance of excitation and inhibition. Simulations and analytical calculations show that recurrent connections within assemblies allow for a fast amplification of signals that indeed reduces the required number of inter-assembly connections. Replay can be evoked by small sensory-like cues or emerge spontaneously by activity fluctuations. Global—potentially neuromodulatory—alterations of neuronal excitability can switch between network states that favor retrieval and consolidation. Author Summary Synaptic plasticity is the basis for learning and memory, and many experiments indicate that memories are imprinted in synaptic connections. However, basic mechanisms of how such memories are retrieved and consolidated remain unclear. In particular, how can one-shot learning of a sequence of events achieve a sufficiently strong synaptic footprint to retrieve or replay this sequence? Using both numerical simulations of spiking neural networks and an analytic approach, we provide a biologically plausible model for understanding how minute synaptic changes in a recurrent network can nevertheless be retrieved by small cues or even manifest themselves as activity patterns that emerge spontaneously. We show how the retrieval of exceedingly small changes in the connections across assemblies is robustly facilitated by recurrent connectivity within assemblies. This interaction between recurrent amplification within an assembly and the feed-forward propagation of activity across the network establishes a basis for the retrieval of memories.
Learning Sparse Structured Ensembles with SG-MCMC and Network Pruning

An ensemble of neural networks is known to be more robust and accurate than an individual network, however usually with linearly-increased cost in both training and testing. In this work, we propose a two-stage method to learn Sparse Structured Ensembles (SSEs) for neural networks. In the first stage, we run SG-MCMC with group sparse priors to draw an ensemble of samples from the posterior distribution of network parameters. In the second stage, we apply weight-pruning to each sampled network and then perform retraining over the remained connections. In this way of learning SSEs with SG-MCMC and pruning, we not only achieve high prediction accuracy since SG-MCMC enhances exploration of the model-parameter space, but also reduce memory and computation cost significantly in both training and testing of NN ensembles. This is thoroughly evaluated in the experiments of learning SSE ensembles of both FNNs and LSTMs. For example, in LSTM based language modeling (LM), we obtain 21% relative reduction in LM perplexity by learning a SSE of 4 large LSTM models, which has only 30% of model parameters and 70% of computations in total, as compared to the baseline large LSTM LM. To the best of our knowledge, this work represents the first methodology and empirical study of integrating SG-MCMC, group sparse prior and network pruning together for learning NN ensembles.
Regioselectivity Prediction of CYP1A2-Mediated Phase I Metabolism

A kinetic, reactivity-binding model has been proposed to predict the regioselectivity of substrates meditated by the CYP1A2 enzyme, which is responsible for the metabolism of planar-conjugated compounds such as caffeine. This model consists of a docking simulation for binding energy and a semiempirical molecular orbital calculation for activation energy. Possible binding modes of CYP1A2 substrates were first examined using automated docking based on the crystal structure of CYP1A2, and binding energy was calculated. Then, activation energies for CYP1A2-mediated metabolism reactions were calculated using the semiempirical molecular orbital calculation, AM1. Finally, the metabolic probability obtained from two energy terms, binding and activation energies, was used for predicting the most probable metabolic site. This model predicted 8 out of 12 substrates accurately as the primary preferred site among all possible metabolic sites, and the other four substrates were predicted into the secondary preferred site. This method can be applied for qualitative prediction of drug metabolism mediated by CYP1A2 and other CYP450 family enzymes, helping to develop drugs efficiently.