Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Enhanced CD4 T Cell Responsiveness in the Absence of 4-1BB1

The 4-1BB (CD137) is a member of the TNFR superfamily, and is expressed on several cell types, including activated T cells. Although 4-1BB ligation by agonistic Ab or 4-1BB ligand-expressing APCs can costimulate T cells, the physiological significance of 4-1BB expression in vivo during T cell responses is still being elucidated. In this study, we have addressed the impact on CD4 T cell priming when 4-1BB is absent after gene targeting. Surprisingly, 4-1BB−/− mice generated more enhanced effector CD4 T cell responses to OVA protein in adjuvant, even though Ab responses in 4-1BB−/− mice were normal. Using an adoptive transfer system with OT-II TCR transgenic CD4 T cells, we found that 4-1BB−/− CD4 cells responding in a 4-1BB-sufficient environment had enhanced cell division compared with wild-type cells and displayed augmented clonal expansion during the primary response. This was not due to a developmental defect as 4-1BB-deficient CD4 cells could respond normally to Ag in vitro. These results demonstrate that the absence of 4-1BB can make CD4 T cells hyperresponsive to protein Ag in vivo, suggesting a new unappreciated negative regulatory role of 4-1BB when expressed on a T cell.
Vertical Modification on Depth-Integrated Ice Shelf Water Plume Modeling Based on an Equilibrium Vertical Profile of Suspended Frazil Ice Concentration

AbstractThe ice shelf water (ISW) plume is a prevalent phenomenon at the base of an ice shelf or sea ice adjacent to the ice shelf front. Such plumes may become supercooled and deposit marine ice when they rise. In the existing frazil ice–laden ISW plume models, it is generally assumed that supercooling and frazil ice growth can be adequately treated by using depth-averaged freezing temperature and vertically uniform frazil ice concentration within a plume. In reality, however, the temperature deficit and frazil ice concentration both increase toward the top of the plume. Hence, frazil crystals typically experience a greater deficit than that suggested by the plume’s temperature subtracted from its depth-averaged freezing point. In this study, the authors considered the combined nonlinear effects of vertical structures of frazil ice concentration and thermal forcing within an ISW plume by introducing equilibrium vertical profiles of frazil ice concentration into a horizontal two-dimensional depth-integrat.
A Comparison of Support Vector Machines, Memory-based and Naïve Bayes Techniques on Spam Recognition

This paper presents a comparison of support vector machines (SVM), memory-based learning (MBL) and Naive Bayes (NB) techniques for the classification of legitimate and spam mails. Although there are a number of method-comparative studies regarding spam mail filtering, most of the studies are tested on separate data sets. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of SVM, MBL and NB methods, we have used a common publicly available corpus (LINGSPAM). As MBL and NB methods are previously tested with this corpus, the obtained best parameters are used in the experiments with few changes. On the other hand, intense experiments are made to find the best attribute dimensions with SVMs. Results show that SVM has significantly better performance for no-cost and high-cost cases, but NB performs best when the cost is extremely high.
Improving the Accuracy of Pre-trained Word Embeddings for Sentiment Analysis

Sentiment analysis is one of the well-known tasks and fast growing research areas in natural language processing (NLP) and text classifications. This technique has become an essential part of a wide range of applications including politics, business, advertising and marketing. There are various techniques for sentiment analysis, but recently word embeddings methods have been widely used in sentiment classification tasks. Word2Vec and GloVe are currently among the most accurate and usable word embedding methods which can convert words into meaningful vectors. However, these methods ignore sentiment information of texts and need a huge corpus of texts for training and generating exact vectors which are used as inputs of deep learning models. As a result, because of the small size of some corpuses, researcher often have to use pre-trained word embeddings which were trained on other large text corpus such as Google News with about 100 billion words. The increasing accuracy of pre-trained word embeddings has a great impact on sentiment analysis research. In this paper we propose a novel method, Improved Word Vectors (IWV), which increases the accuracy of pre-trained word embeddings in sentiment analysis. Our method is based on Part-of-Speech (POS) tagging techniques, lexicon-based approaches and Word2Vec/GloVe methods. We tested the accuracy of our method via different deep learning models and sentiment datasets. Our experiment results show that Improved Word Vectors (IWV) are very effective for sentiment analysis.
Modified Double-Edge Triggered Clock Branch Sharing Architecture for Ultra Low Power Design

Power consumption plays an essential role in VLSI design. Earlier, the VLSI designers were more concentrated on performance and area, but, gradually, low power consumption became one of the most important factors in VLSI design. Increasing demand and growth of portable devices have increased the demand of power efficient VLSI circuits. In this paper, various conventional low power designs are analyzed and a low power double-edge triggered flip-flop using clock branch sharing technique along with MTCMOS and Voltage Scaling technique has been proposed. All the simulations have been carried out using Cadence EDA tools in 0. 18 μm technology at room temperature. The power consumption has reduced significantly as compared to earlier techniques.
ARM Virtualization: Performance and Architectural Implications

ARM servers are becoming increasingly common, making server technologies such as virtualization for ARM of growing importance. We present the first study of ARM virtualization performance on server hardware, including multi-core measurements of two popular ARM and x86 hypervisors, KVM and Xen. We show how ARM hardware support for virtualization can enable much faster transitions between VMs and the hypervisor, a key hypervisor operation. However, current hypervisor designs, including both Type 1 hypervisors such as Xen and Type 2 hypervisors such as KVM, are not able to leverage this performance benefit for real application workloads. We discuss the reasons why and show that other factors related to hypervisor software design and implementation have a larger role in overall performance. Based on our measurements, we discuss changes to ARM's hardware virtualization support that can potentially bridge the gap to bring its faster VM-to-hypervisor transition mechanism to modern Type 2 hypervisors running real applications. These changes have been incorporated into the latest ARM architecture.
The Effect of Simplifying Dental Implant Drilling Sequence on Osseointegration: An Experimental Study in Dogs

Objectives. To test the hypothesis that there would be no differences in osseointegration by reducing the number of drills for site preparation relative to conventional drilling sequence. Methods. Seventy-two implants were bilaterally placed in the tibia of 18 beagle dogs and remained for 1, 3, and 5 weeks. Thirty-six implants were 3.75 mm in diameter and the other 36 were 4.2 mm. Half of the implants of each diameter were placed under a simplified technique (pilot drill + final diameter drill) and the other half were placed under conventional drilling where multiple drills of increasing diameter were utilized. After euthanisation, the bone-implant samples were processed and referred to histological analysis. Bone-to-implant contact (BIC) and bone-area-fraction occupancy (BAFO) were assessed. Statistical analyses were performed by GLM ANOVA at 95% level of significance considering implant diameter, time in vivo, and drilling procedure as independent variables and BIC and BAFO as the dependent variables. Results. Both techniques led to implant integration. No differences in BIC and BAFO were observed between drilling procedures as time elapsed in vivo. Conclusions. The simplified drilling protocol presented comparable osseointegration outcomes to the conventional protocol, which proved the initial hypothesis.
Human Papillomavirus Prevalence in Invasive Laryngeal Cancer in the United States

Purpose Human papillomavirus (HPV) is a major risk factor for specific cancers of the head and neck, particularly malignancies of the tonsil and base of the tongue. However, the role of HPV in the development of laryngeal cancer has not been definitively established. We conducted a population-based, cancer registry study to evaluate and characterize the genotype-specific prevalence of HPV in invasive laryngeal cancer cases diagnosed in the U.S. Methods The presence of genotype-specific HPV DNA was evaluated using the Linear Array HPV Genotyping Test and the INNO-LiPA HPV Genotyping Assay in formalin-fixed paraffin embedded tissue from 148 invasive laryngeal cancer cases diagnosed in 1993–2004 within the catchment area of three U.S. SEER cancer registries. Results HPV DNA was detected in 31 of 148 (21%) invasive laryngeal cancers. Thirteen different genotypes were detected. Overall, HPV 16 and HPV 33 were the most commonly detected types. HPV was detected in 33% (9/27) of women compared with 18% (22/121) of men (p = 0.08). After adjustment for age and year of diagnosis, female patients were more likely to have HPV-positive laryngeal tumors compared to males (adjusted OR 2.84, 95% CI 1.07–7.51). Viral genotype differences were also observed between the sexes. While HPV 16 and 18 constituted half of HPV-positive cases occurring in men, among women, only 1 was HPV 16 positive and none were positive for HPV 18. Overall 5-year survival did not vary by HPV status. Conclusions HPV may be involved in the development of a subset of laryngeal cancers and its role may be more predominant in women compared to men.
Dietary intake and sources of sodium and potassium among Australian schoolchildren: results from the cross-sectional Salt and Other Nutrients in Children (SONIC) study

Objectives To examine sodium and potassium urinary excretion by socioeconomic status (SES), discretionary salt use habits and dietary sources of sodium and potassium in a sample of Australian schoolchildren. Design Cross-sectional study. Setting Primary schools located in Victoria, Australia. Participants 666 of 780 children aged 4–12 years who participated in the Salt and Other Nutrients in Children study returned a complete 24-hour urine collection. Primary and secondary outcome measures 24-hour urine collection for the measurement of sodium and potassium excretion and 24-hour dietary recall for the assessment of food sources. Parent and child reported use of discretionary salt. SES defined by parental highest level of education. Results Participants were 9.3 years (95% CI 9.0 to 9.6) of age and 55% were boys. Mean urinary sodium and potassium excretion was 103 (95% CI 99 to 108) mmol/day (salt equivalent 6.1 g/day) and 47 (95% CI 45 to 49) mmol/day, respectively. Mean molar Na:K ratio was 2.4 (95% CI 2.3 to 2.5). 72% of children exceeded the age-specific upper level for sodium intake. After adjustment for age, sex and day of urine collection, children from a low socioeconomic background excreted 10.0 (95% CI 17.8 to 2.1) mmol/day more sodium than those of high socioeconomic background (p=0.04). The major sources of sodium were bread (14.8%), mixed cereal-based dishes (9.9%) and processed meat (8.5%). The major sources of potassium were dairy milk (11.5%), potatoes (7.1%) and fruit/vegetable juice (5.4%). Core foods provided 55.3% of dietary sodium and 75.5% of potassium while discretionary foods provided 44.7% and 24.5%, respectively. Conclusions For most children, sodium intake exceeds dietary recommendations and there is some indication that children of lower socioeconomic background have the highest intakes. Children are consuming about two times more sodium than potassium. To improve sodium and potassium intakes in schoolchildren, product reformulation of lower salt core foods combined with strategies that seek to reduce the consumption of discretionary foods are required.
Software Energy Profiling: Comparing Releases of a Software Product

In the quest for energy efficiency of Information and Communication Technology, so far research has mostly focused on the role of hardware. However, as hardware technology becomes more sophisticated, the role of software becomes crucial. Recently, the impact of software on energy consumption has been acknowledged as significant by researchers in software engineering. In spite of that, measuring the energy consumption of software has proven to be a challenge, due to the large number of variables that need to be controlled to obtain reliable measurements. Due to cost and time constraints, many software product organizations are unable to effectively measure the energy consumption of software. This prevents them to be in control over the energy efficiency of their products. In this paper, we propose a software energy profiling method to reliably compare the energy consumed by a software product across different releases, from the perspective of a software organization. Our method allows to attribute differences in energy consumption to changes in the software. We validate our profiling method through an empirical experiment on two consecutive releases of a commercial software product. We demonstrate how the method can be applied by organizations and provide an analysis of the software related changes in energy consumption. Our results show that, despite a lack of precise measurements, energy consumption differences between releases of a software product can be quantified down to the level of individual processes. Additionally, the results provide insights on how specific software changes might affect energy consumption.
The Chlamydomonas Genome Reveals the Evolution of Key Animal and Plant Functions

Chlamydomonas reinhardtii is a unicellular green alga whose lineage diverged from land plants over 1 billion years ago. It is a model system for studying chloroplast-based photosynthesis, as well as the structure, assembly, and function of eukaryotic flagella (cilia), which were inherited from the common ancestor of plants and animals, but lost in land plants. We sequenced the ∼120-megabase nuclear genome of Chlamydomonas and performed comparative phylogenomic analyses, identifying genes encoding uncharacterized proteins that are likely associated with the function and biogenesis of chloroplasts or eukaryotic flagella. Analyses of the Chlamydomonas genome advance our understanding of the ancestral eukaryotic cell, reveal previously unknown genes associated with photosynthetic and flagellar functions, and establish links between ciliopathy and the composition and function of flagella.
Angiogenesis in myocardial infarction. An acute or chronic process?

BACKGROUND In the acute phase of myocardial infarction (acute MI) marked endothelial damage occurs within the first 24h following thrombolysis with streptokinase. We investigated whether this is associated with a change in levels of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF, possibly marking angiogenesis) in the first 24h post thrombolysis compared to chronic MI patients (defined as MI>3 months previously). METHODS We recruited 15 patients (nine male, mean age 59+/-SD 10 years) with first-presentation acute MI, who were given 1.5 million U streptokinase over 1h and aspirin 300mg orally as standard treatment. Plasma samples were taken prior to the start of thrombolysis, followed every 15 min for 1h, at 3h and finally at 24h post-thrombolysis. Baseline levels of measured indices in the acute MI patients were compared to two control groups: (i) 26 chronic MI patients (18 male, mean age 59.9+/-7.0 years); and (ii) 26 apparently healthy controls (17 male, mean age 59.6+/-14.1 years). Plasma VEGF and the soluble form of its receptor Flt-1 (sFlt-1) were measured by ELISA. RESULTS Plasma levels of VEGF were significantly higher in patients with a history of chronic MI compared to patients with acute MI (P=0.007) and healthy controls (P=0.002) with similar levels between acute MI patients and healthy controls (P=0.755). Levels of sFlt-1 in the acute (P=0.013) and chronic (P<0.001) MI groups were lower compared to healthy controls. In the first 24h post-thrombolysis in the acute MI group, levels of sFlt-1 changed significantly (P=0.039), but there was no change in levels of VEGF (P=0.207). CONCLUSION In the first 24h of acute MI, significant changes in levels of VEGF receptor sFlt-1, but not VEGF, are seen. Plasma VEGF and sFlt-1 levels are markedly changed in chronic MI patients, suggesting that the activation of angiogenesis in MI patients may be a delayed response.
Development and evaluation of a multiplexed mass spectrometry based assay for measuring candidate peptide biomarkers in Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) CSF

We describe the outcome of the Biomarkers Consortium CSF Proteomics Project (where CSF is cerebral spinal fluid), a public–private partnership of government, academia, nonprofit, and industry. The goal of this study was to evaluate a multiplexed MS‐based approach for the qualification of candidate Alzheimer's disease (AD) biomarkers using CSF samples from the AD Neuroimaging Initiative.
Evaluating the effects of transient faults on vehicle dynamic performance in automotive systems

Current automotive systems are integrating more and more electronic components in the handling and performance areas, for supporting advanced comfort and safety features. The effects of component or network failures raise serious concerns about the overall vehicle stability and safety. This work proposes a methodology for analyzing at the system level (taking into account both mechanical and electronic components) the implications of transient faults in the electronic part on the overall vehicle response. A prototypical fault injection environment is also presented, and experimental results show how safety specifications for components can be derived from performance objectives set at the vehicle level.
Educational and socioeconomic background of undergraduates and academic performance: consequences for affirmative action programs at a Brazilian research university

This paper describes the results of a detailed study relating the performance of undergraduate students admitted to the State University of Campinas (Unicamp) from 1994 through 1997 and their socioeconomic and educational background. The study is based on a hierarchical model for the relevant variables involved. The main result is that students coming from disadvantaged backgrounds, in both educational and socioeconomic aspects, have a higher relative performance than their complementary group (we propose to call that phenomenon “educational resilience”). We report on an affirmative action program established at Unicamp (for undergraduate admissions), partially motivated by those findings, and present evidence from initial evaluation studies showing its positive impact. Finally, we comment on this study’s and Unicamp’s program’s impact on the present debate about affirmative action access policies in Brazilian HEIs.
An Efficient Heuristic for Betweenness-Ordering

Centrality measures, erstwhile popular amongst the sociologists and psychologists, have seen broad and increasing applications across several disciplines of late. Amongst a plethora of application specific definitions available in the literature to rank the vertices, closeness centrality, betweenness centrality and eigenvector centrality (page-rank) have been the most important and widely applied ones. Networks where information, signal or commodities are flowing on the edges, surrounds us. Betweenness centrality comes as a handy tool to analyze such systems, but betweenness computation is a daunting task in large size networks. In this paper, we propose an efficient heuristic to determine the betweenness-ordering of $k$ vertices (where $k$ is very less than the total number of vertices) without computing their exact betweenness indices. The algorithm is based on a non-uniform node sampling model which is developed based on the analysis of Erdos-Renyi graphs. We apply our approach to find the betweenness-ordering of vertices in several synthetic and real-world graphs. The proposed heuristic results very efficient ordering even when runs for a linear time in the terms of the number of edges. We compare our method with the available techniques in the literature and show that our method produces more efficient ordering than the currently known methods.
Vertical Axis Rotation Across the Eastern Mono Basin and West‐Central Walker Lane Revealed by Paleomagnetic Data From the Jack Springs Tuff

The mid‐Miocene Jack Springs Tuff (JST) outcrops from the Bodie Hills of eastern California into the western Mina Deflection, Nevada. Distal outcrops of the JST occur northwest of Mono Lake, CA, on a minimally rotated structural block. This provides a reference location for our paleomagnetic study to estimate relative vertical‐axis rotation. A new 40Ar/39Ar age places the eruption of the JST at 12.114 ± 0.006 Ma. Anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility data, once corrected for local tilt and vertical axis rotation, yields a mean imbrication that trends 178°. The probable source of the JST is located in the Huntoon Valley/Queens Valley region. Eighteen paleomagnetic sites constrain mid‐Miocene to recent vertical axis rotation within the region. All sites are discordant to the reference location with variable amounts of clockwise vertical axis rotation ranging from 25° to 104°. We hypothesize that a previously unrecognized early phase of deformation occurred that predates the deformation in the central Mina Deflection. These new data support the hypothesis that transtensional faulting associated with North American and Pacific plate interaction transferred deformation across the Mono Basin region that was partially accommodated by vertical axis rotation. By late Miocene, deformation had stepped east developing the Silver Peak‐Lone Mountain detachment system followed by the structures that presently define the central Mina deflection. This study further demonstrates that deformation occurred east of the Sierra Nevada Mountains at the latitude of the Mono Basin in western‐most Nevada, a region previously thought to be undeformed in terms of clockwise vertical axis rotation.
Exhaled nitric oxide predicts control in patients with difficult-to-treat asthma

We aimed to evaluate the accuracy of baseline exhaled nitric oxide fraction (FeNO) to recognise individuals with difficult-to-treat asthma who have the potential to achieve control with a guideline-based stepwise strategy. 102 consecutive patients with suboptimal asthma control underwent stepwise increase in the treatment with maximal fluticasone/salmeterol combination dose for 1 month. Then, those who remained uncontrolled received oral corticosteroids for an additional month. With this approach, 53 patients (52%) gained control. Those who achieved control were more likely to have positive skin results (60.4% versus 34%; p = 0.01), positive bronchodilator test (57.1% versus 35.8%; p = 0.02) and peak expiratory flow variability ≥20% (71.1% versus 49.1%; p = 0.04). Conversely, depression was more frequent in those who remained uncontrolled (18.4 % versus 43.4 %; p = 0.01). An FeNO value ≥30 ppb demonstrated a sensitivity of 87.5% (95% CI 73.9–94.5%) and a specificity of 90.6% (95% CI 79.7–95.9%) for the identification of responsive asthmatics. The current results suggest that FeNO can identify patients with difficult-to-treat asthma and the potential to respond to high doses of inhaled corticosteroids or systemic steroids.