Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Differentiation Potential of Parthenogenetic Embryonic Stem Cells Is Improved by Nuclear Transfer

Parthenogenesis is the process by which an oocyte develops into an embryo without being fertilized by a spermatozoon. Although such embryos lack the potential to develop to full term, they can be used to establish parthenogenetic embryonic stem (pES) cells for autologous cell therapy in females without needing to destroy normally competent embryos. Unfortunately, the capacity for further differentiation of these pES cells in vivo is very poor. In this study, we succeeded in improving the potential of pES cells using a nuclear transfer (NT) technique. The original pES cell nuclei were transferred into enucleated oocytes, and the resulting NT embryos were used to establish new NT‐pES cell lines. We established 84 such lines successfully (78% from blastocysts, 12% from oocytes). All examined cell lines were positive for several ES cell markers and had a normal extent of karyotypes, except for one original pES cell line and its NT‐pES cell derivatives, in which all nuclei were triploid. The DNA methylation status of the differentially methylated domain H19 and differentially methylated region IG did not change after NT. However, the in vivo and in vitro differentiation potentials of NT‐pES cells were significantly (two to five times) better than the original pES cells, judged by the production of chimeric mice and by in vitro differentiation into neuronal and mesodermal cell lines. Thus, NT could be used to improve the potential of pES cells and may enhance that of otherwise poor‐quality ES cells. It also offers a new tool for studying epigenetics.
On the Pless-construction and ML decoding of the (48, 24, 12) quadratic residue code

We present a method for maximum likelihood decoding of the (48,24,12) quadratic residue code. This method is based on projecting the code onto a subcode with an acyclic Tanner graph, and representing the set of coset leaders by a trellis diagram. This results in a two level coset decoding which can be considered a systematic generalization of the Wagner rule. We show that unlike the (24,12,8) Golay code, the (48,24,12) code does not have a Pless-construction which has been an open question in the literature. It is determined that the highest minimum distance of a (48,24) binary code having a Pless (1986) construction is 10, and up to equivalence there are three such codes.
Investigating how user avatar in touchless interfaces affects perceived cognitive load and two-handed interactions

In recent years, touchless-enabling technologies have been more and more adopted for providing public displays with gestural interactivity. This has led to the need for novel visual interfaces aimed at solving issues such as communicating interactivity to users, as well as supporting immediate usability and "natural" interactions. In this paper, we focus our investigation on a visual interface based only on the use of in-air direct manipulations. Our study aims at evaluating whether and how the presence of an Avatar that replays user's movements may decrease the perceived cognitive workload during interactions. Moreover, we conducted a brief evaluation of the relationship between the presence of the Avatar and the use of one or two hands during the interactions. To this end, we compared two versions of the same interface, differing only for the presence/absence of the user's Avatar. Our results showed that the Avatar contributes to lower the perceived cognitive workload during the interactions.
Matrine effectively inhibits the proliferation of breast cancer cells through a mechanism related to the NF-κB signaling pathway

Matrine is an alkaloid isolated from Sophora flavescens. The present study aimed to determine whether matrine effectively inhibits the proliferation of breast cancer cells, and the underlying mechanism(s) of its antitumor function. The effects of matrine on the cell viability of ER-positive MCF7 cells, HER2-positive BT-474 cells and highly metastatic MDA-MB-231 cells were measured using MTT and apoptosis assays. Western blot analysis was performed to investigate the expression levels of the inhibitor of κB (IκB) kinase β (IKKβ) in cells treated with or without matrine. It was observed that the matrine treatment resulted in the death of the three types of cancer cells, but significantly less toxicity was observed in the control cancer cells. The experimental results also suggested that the antitumor effects of matrine on breast cancer cells may be associated with the downregulation of IKKβ expression by matrine, as indicated by the western blot analysis results. The present results suggested that matrine may be used as an effective drug candidate for treating breast cancers in the future, following further research.
Opioid Analgesics and Depressive Symptoms in Burn Patients: What Is the Real Relationship?

Objective Major burn injuries are strongly associated with both psychological trauma and severe pain, and opioids are the mainstay analgesics for the treatment of severe burn pain. The objectives of this study are to find the complex relationship between opioid dose, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms during the acute management of pain in burn patients. Methods The symptoms of depression and PTSD were assessed in 43 burn patients immediately following wound stabilization and 2 weeks after the initial evaluation. Results Total opioid doses and Hamilton Depression Scale (HAMD) scores obtained during the second evaluation were positively but weakly correlated after controlling for age and total burn surface area (R=0.33, p=0.03). Moreover, pain management with opioids was significantly more common in burn patients with low Clinician Administered PTSD Scale scores (evaluation 1) and high HAMD scores (evaluation 2) (F=6.66, p=0.001). Conclusion High opioid dose following acute burn trauma might have correlation with depressive symptoms. Monitoring of depressive symptoms may be important following acute burn trauma and consequent opioids pain management, particularly when PTSD symptoms appear minimal during the early stabilization of patients.
Membrane‐type matrix metalloproteinase‐1 expression and activation of gelatinase A as prognostic markers in advanced pediatric neuroblastoma

Recently a novel membrane‐type matrix metalloproteinase‐1 (MT‐MMP‐1) was discovered to be a specific activator of progelatinase A, and was correlated with tumor invasion. To the authors' knowledge, no information regarding the expression of MT‐MMP‐1 has been reported in childhood malignancies. In this study, the authors attempted to elucidate the specific mechanisms that underlay the invasive behavior of neuroblastoma (NB) cells with respect to the expression of MT‐MMP‐1 and its determined prognostic value, especially in pediatric patients with advanced Evans' Stage IV NB.
A Strategy-proof Pricing Scheme for Multiple Resource Type Allocations

Resource sharing on the Internet is becoming increasingly pervasive. Recently, there is growing interest in distributed systems such as peer-to-peer and grid, with efforts being directed towards resource allocation strategies that incentivize users to share resources. While combinatorial auctions can perform multiple resource type allocations, it is computationally a NP-complete problem. Thus, allocation in large distributed resource sharing systems focuses mainly on a single resource type. We propose a strategy-proof, VCG-based resource pricing scheme for resource allocation in dynamic markets where users behave rationally in meeting their own interest. Our mechanism is designed to meet the needs of large distributed systems, delivering the following key properties: multiple resource type allocations, individual rationality, incentive compatibility for both buyers and sellers, budget balance and computational efficiency. Simulation evaluation of our prototype based on a centralized implementation demonstrates the viability of our approach, as compared to both traditional and combinatorial auctions.
Generate Identity-Preserving Faces by Generative Adversarial Networks

Generating identity-preserving faces aims to generate various face images keeping the same identity given a target face image. Although considerable generative models have been developed in recent years, it is still challenging to simultaneously acquire high quality of facial images and preserve the identity. Here we propose a compelling method using generative adversarial networks (GAN). Concretely, we leverage the generator of trained GAN to generate plausible faces and FaceNet as an identity-similarity discriminator to ensure the identity. Experimental results show that our method is qualified to generate both plausible and identity-preserving faces with high quality. In addition, our method provides a universal framework which can be realized in various ways by combining different face generators and identity-similarity discriminator.
A Strategy to Manage Cache Consistency in a Distributed Mobile Wireless Environment

Mobile computing environments are characterized by slow wireless links and relatively underprivileged hosts with limited battery powers, predisposed to frequent disconnections. Caching data at the mobile hosts (MHs) in a wireless network helps alleviate problems associated with slow, limited bandwidth wireless links, by reducing latency and conserving bandwidth. Battery power is conserved by reducing the number of up-link requests. A mobile computing environment is a distributed system, thus when data at the server changes, the client hosts must be made aware of this fact in order for them to invalidate their cache otherwise the host would continue to answer queries with the cached values returning incorrect data. The nature of the physical medium coupled with the fact that disconnections from the network are very frequent in mobile computing environments demand a cache invalidation strategy with minimum possible overheads. In this paper, we present a new cache maintenance scheme, called AS. The objective of the proposed scheme is to minimize the overhead for the MHs to validate their cache upon reconnection, to allow stateless servers, and to minimize the bandwidth requirement. The general approach is i) to use asynchronous invalidation messages, and ii) to buffer invalidation messages from servers at the MH’s Home Location Cache (HLC) while the MH is disconnected from the network and redeliver these invalidation messages to the MH when it gets reconnected to the network. Use of asynchronous invalidation messages minimizes access latency, buffering of invalidation messages minimizes the overhead of validating MH’s cache after each disconnection and use of HLC off-loads the overhead of maintaining state of MH’s cache from the servers. The MH can be disconnected from the server either voluntarily (e.g. switching off the laptop) or involuntarily (e.g. wireless link failure, handoff delay); we capture the effects of both by using a single parameter s: the percentage of time a mobile host is disconnected from the network. We demonstrate the efficiency of our scheme through simulation and performance modeling. In particular, we show that the average data access latency and the number of up-link requests by a MH decrease by using the proposed strategy at the cost of using buffer space at the HLC. We provide analytical comparison between our proposed scheme and the existing scheme for cache management in a mobile environment [BI95]. Extensive experimental results are provided to compare the schemes in terms of performance metrics like latency, number of up-link requests etc. under both high and low rate of change of data at servers for various values of the parameter s. A mathematical model for the scheme is developed which matches closely with the simulation results.
Oblivious Multi-Party Machine Learning on Trusted Processors

Privacy-preserving multi-party machine learning allows multiple organizations to perform collaborative data analytics while guaranteeing the privacy of their individual datasets. Using trusted SGX-processors for this task yields high performance, but requires a careful selection, adaptation, and implementation of machine-learning algorithms to provably prevent the exploitation of any side channels induced by data-dependent access patterns. We propose data-oblivious machine learning algorithms for support vector machines, matrix factorization, neural networks, decision trees, and k-means clustering. We show that our efficient implementation based on Intel Skylake processors scales up to large, realistic datasets, with overheads several orders of magnitude lower than with previous approaches based on advanced cryptographic multi-party computation schemes.
Transformation of narcissism : what is the process of transforming narcissism for men who have been abusive?

Narcissism is an incomplete stage of development causing narcissistic rage and injury to oneself and others. The narcissistic self is one of humiliation and of being powerless. A phenomenological hermeneutic research format was used to investigate and understand the lived experience of men who have been abusive and are transforming their narcissism. The phenomenon being investigated was approached with respect and sensitivity in understanding the actual lived experiences of the coresearchers. Under this template, research interviews were conducted with six male co-researchers, which produced eight themes. A summary of the findings was provided along with a look at the limitations of this study and implications for counseling that this study may have. My hypothesis is that the incomplete development of the narcissistic person can be overcome through the restoration of feeling, and also through realization of one’s most deepest and essential nature.
Retinoblastoma - Genetic Counseling and Molecular Diagnosis

Retinoblastoma is a malignant embryonal tumour of childhood arising at the expense of retinal cones. It has an incidence of 1 per 15,000 to 20,000 births. In 90% of cases, it is diagnosed before the age of 3 years. The possibility of conservative management depends on early diagnosis (Moll et al., 1996). However, although treatment strategies have advanced considerably, the visual prognosis is still a major source of concern, especially central vision when the tumour is situated at or close to the macula. In two-thirds of cases, the lesion is unilateral and the median age of diagnosis is 2 years. In the other third, the lesion is bilateral and the disease is diagnosed earlier, possibly even during the neonatal period, with a median age of diagnosis of 1 year. Most cases of unilateral and bilateral retinoblastoma are sporadic, with no family history. However, 10 to 15% of all cases of retinoblastoma present a family history. The distribution of cases within the family is compatible with the existence of a tumour susceptibility gene transmitted according to an autosomal dominant mode with high penetrance. In this case, the lesion is usually bilateral and diagnosed at an early age.
HTSeq—a Python framework to work with high-throughput sequencing data

Motivation: A large choice of tools exists for many standard tasks in the analysis of high-throughput sequencing (HTS) data. However, once a project deviates from standard work flows, custom scripts are needed. Results: We present HTSeq, a Python library to facilitate the rapid development of such scripts. HTSeq offers parsers for many common data formats in HTS projects, as well as classes to represent data such as genomic coordinates, sequences, sequencing reads, alignments, gene model information, variant calls, and provides data structures that allow for querying via genomic coordinates. We also present htseq-count, a tool developed with HTSeq that preprocesses RNA-Seq data for differential expression analysis by counting the overlap of reads with genes. Availability: HTSeq is released as open-source software under the GNU General Public Licence and available from http://www-huber.embl. de/HTSeq or from the Python Package Index https://pypi.python. org/pypi/HTSeq. Contact: sanders@fs.tum. de
Mechanisms underlying short‐term modulation of transmitter release by presynaptic depolarization

Presynaptic terminal depolarization modulates the efficacy of transmitter release. Residual Ca2+ remaining after presynaptic depolarization is thought to play a critical role in facilitation of transmitter release, but its downstream mechanism remains unclear. By making simultaneous pre‐ and postsynaptic recordings at the rodent calyx of Held synapse, we have investigated mechanisms involved in the facilitation and depression of postsynaptic currents induced by presynaptic depolarization. In voltage‐clamp experiments, cancellation of the Ca2+‐dependent presynaptic Ca2+ current (IpCa) facilitation revealed that this mechanism can account for 50% of postsynaptic current facilitation, irrespective of intraterminal EGTA concentrations. Intraterminal EGTA, loaded at 10 mm, failed to block postsynaptic current facilitation, but additional BAPTA at 1 mm abolished it. Potassium‐induced sustained depolarization of non‐dialysed presynaptic terminals caused a facilitation of postsynaptic currents, superimposed on a depression, with the latter resulting from reductions in presynaptic action potential amplitude and number of releasable vesicles. We conclude that presynaptic depolarization bidirectionally modulates transmitter release, and that the residual Ca2+ mechanism for synaptic facilitation operates in the immediate vicinity of voltage‐gated Ca2+ channels in the nerve terminal.
Reverse k-Ranks Query

Finding matching customers for a given product based on individual user's preference is critical for many applications, especially in e-commerce. Recently, the reverse top-k query is proposed to return a number of customers who regard a given product as one of the k most favorite products based on a linear model. Although a few "hot" products can be returned to some customers via reverse top-k query, a large proportion of products (over 90%, as our example illustrates, see Figure 2) cannot find any matching customers. Inspired by this observation, we propose a new kind of query (R-kRanks) which finds for a given product, the top-k customers whose rank for the product is highest among all customers, to ensure 100% coverage for any given product, no matter it is hot or niche. Not limited to e-commerce, the concept of customer-product can be extended to a wider range of applications, such as dating and job-hunting. Unfortunately, existing approaches for reverse top-k query cannot be used to handle R-kRanks conveniently due to infeasibility of getting enough elements for the query result. Hence, we propose three novel approaches to efficiently process R-kRanks query, including one tree-based method and two batch-pruning-based methods. Analysis of theoretical and experimental results on real and synthetic data sets illustrates the efficacy of the proposed methods.
Testing for Threshold Effects in Regression Models

In this article, we develop a general method for testing threshold effects in regression models, using sup-likelihood-ratio (LR)-type statistics. Although the sup-LR-type test statistic has been considered in the literature, our method for establishing the asymptotic null distribution is new and nonstandard. The standard approach in the literature for obtaining the asymptotic null distribution requires that there exist a certain quadratic approximation to the objective function. The article provides an alternative, novel method that can be used to establish the asymptotic null distribution, even when the usual quadratic approximation is intractable. We illustrate the usefulness of our approach in the examples of the maximum score estimation, maximum likelihood estimation, quantile regression, and maximum rank correlation estimation. We establish consistency and local power properties of the test. We provide some simulation results and also an empirical application to tipping in racial segregation. This article has supplementary materials online.
Comparison of conventional Papanicolaou cytology samples with liquid-based cervical cytology samples from women in Pernambuco, Brazil

In the present study, we compared the performance of a ThinPrep cytological method with the conventional Papanicolaou test for diagnosis of cytopathological changes, with regard to unsatisfactory results achieved at the Central Public Health Laboratory of the State of Pernambuco. A population-based, cross-sectional study was performed with women aged 18 to 65 years, who spontaneously sought gynecological services in Public Health Units in the State of Pernambuco, Northeast Brazil, between April and November 2011. All patients in the study were given a standardized questionnaire on sociodemographics, sexual characteristics, reproductive practices, and habits. A total of 525 patients were assessed by the two methods (11.05% were under the age of 25 years, 30.86% were single, 4.4% had had more than 5 sexual partners, 44% were not using contraception, 38.85% were users of alcohol, 24.38% were smokers, 3.24% had consumed drugs previously, 42.01% had gynecological complaints, and 12.19% had an early history of sexually transmitted diseases). The two methods showed poor correlation (k=0.19; 95%CI=0.11–0.26; P<0.001). The ThinPrep method reduced the rate of unsatisfactory results from 4.38% to 1.71% (χ2=5.28; P=0.02), and the number of cytopathological changes diagnosed increased from 2.47% to 3.04%. This study confirmed that adopting the ThinPrep method for diagnosis of cervical cytological samples was an improvement over the conventional method. Furthermore, this method may reduce possible losses from cytological resampling and reduce obstacles to patient follow-up, improving the quality of the public health system in the State of Pernambuco, Northeast Brazil.
Brain atrophy and disability progression in multiple sclerosis patients: a 10-year follow-up study

Objectives To identify MRI biomarkers associated with long-term disability progression in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), and to define the rate of evolution of global, tissue-specific and regional atrophy in patients with MS over long-term. Methods MRI of the brain and clinical neurological assessment was performed in 81 patients at time of first visit and after 5 and 10 years of follow-up. MRI was acquired on 1.5 T scanners. T1-lesion and T2-lesion volumes (LVs) were calculated. Global and tissue-specific atrophy changes were longitudinally assessed, using a direct measurement approach, by calculating percentage volume changes between different time points. Regional tissue volumes for the subcortical deep grey matter (SDGM) structures were also obtained. Disability progression was defined as an increase in Expanded Disability Status Scale of ≥1.0 compared to baseline at 5-year and 10-year follow-up. Results Over 5 years, patients with disability progression showed significantly increased loss of whole brain (−3.8% vs −2.0%, p<0.001), cortical (−3.4% vs −1.8%, p=0.009) and putamen volume changes (−10.6% vs −3.8%, p=0.003) compared to patients with no disability progression. No significant change in white matter (WM) volume was observed when comparing progressing and non-progressing patients. Over 10 years, there was a trend for greater decrease in whole brain volume (−5.5% vs −3.7%, p=0.015) in the progressing patients. No significant changes in LV measures were detected between the patients with and without disability progression. Conclusion This long-term study shows that whole brain, cortical and putamen atrophy occurs throughout the 10-year follow-up of this MS cohort and is more pronounced in the group that showed disability progression at 5, but not at 10 years of follow-up. Overall, GM atrophy showed better association with disease progression than WM atrophy over 5-year and 10-year follow-up.