Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Nucleosomes in Serum as a Marker for Cell Death

Abstract The concentration of nucleosomes is elevated in blood of patients with diseases which are associated with enhanced cell death. In order to detect these circulating nucleosomes, we used the Cell Death Detection-ELISAplus (CDDE) from Roche Diagnostics (Mannheim, Germany) (details at http:\\biochem.roche.com). For its application in liquid materials we performed various modifications: we introduced a standard curve with nucleosome-rich material, which enabled direct quantification and improved comparability of the values within (CVintraassay:3.0–4.1%) and between several runs (CVinterassay:8.6–13.5%), and tested the analytical specificity of the ELISA. Because of the fast elimination of nucleosomes from circulation and their limited stability, we compared plasma and serum matrix and investigated in detail the pre-analytical handling of serum samples which can considerably influence the test results. Careless venipuncture producing hemolysis, delayed centrifugation and bacterial contamination of the blood samples led to false-positive results; delayed stabilization with EDTA and insufficient storage conditions resulted in false-negative values. At temperatures of −20 °C, serum samples which were treated with 10 mM EDTA were stable for at least 6 months. In order to avoid possible interfering factors, we recommend a schedule for the pre-analytical handling of the samples. As the first stage, the possible clinical application was investigated in the sera of 310 persons. Patients with solid tumors (n=220; mean=361 Arbitrary Units (AU)) had considerably higher values than healthy persons (n=50; mean=30 AU; p=0.0001) and patients with inflammatory diseases (n=40; mean= 296 AU; p=0.096). Within the group of patients with tumors, those in advanced stages (UICC 4) showed significantly higher values than those in early stages (UICC 1–3) (p=0.0004).
Beneficial therapeutic effects of physical training and relaxation therapy in women with coronary syndrome X.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE New types of illness are being identified continuously. Owing to the demands for evidence-based practice, physiotherapeutic interventions need to be investigated scientifically prior to application in a new patient population. Coronary syndrome X (syndrome X) is a chronic pain disorder with exercise-induced chest pain despite angiographically normal coronary arteries. Patients with syndrome X constitute a therapeutic problem with considerable residual morbidity associated with functional limitation and reduced quality of life. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of physical training and relaxation therapy on exercise capacity and quality of life in patients with syndrome X. METHOD A single-blind, randomized controlled trial design was used. Twenty-four female patients aged 41-65 years were randomly assigned to three groups: A, B and C. All groups were similar at baseline for physical fitness level. Group A performed physical training for eight weeks at 50% of baseline VO2max and group B participated in relaxation therapy for eight weeks. Group C acted as control subjects without any intervention. Before and after the eight-week periods, subjects were assessed by means of several measures of exercise capacity and quality of life. RESULTS The measured variables did not change in the control group during the eight weeks. VO2max (< 0.02), work rate (< 0.002) and distance walked during six minutes (< 0.003) increased only after physical training. The tolerated exertion during six minutes of walking (< 0.05) and the health-related quality of life, measured both by the Stress and Crisis Inventory (SCI) and the Sickness Impact Profile (SIP) (< 0.04), improved after both physical training and relaxation therapy. The general coping capacity, measured by the Sense of Coherence (SOC) questionnaire, remained unchanged in all the groups. CONCLUSIONS Female patients with syndrome X benefit from physical training in terms of exercise capacity and quality of life and from relaxation therapy in terms of quality of life.
Local feature embedding for supervised image classification

Local feature embedding considers two constraints: intra-image spatial and inter-image feature affinity in the embedding process. However, it does not work well for the image classification task when the images are with intra-class variation, background clutter, etc. In this paper, we enhance the manifold structure by adding the class label of images into the embedding process. Since class labels are used in the training, our method can be considered as supervised. Four constituents are included in our model: feature consistency, spatial consistency, intra-class compactness and inter-class separability. With the defined Hausdorff distance between two images, different classifiers are exploited for classification. Extensive experiments on seven datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed image classification model.
Genomic basis of the differences between cider and dessert apple varieties

Unraveling the genomic processes at play during variety diversification is of fundamental interest for understanding evolution, but also of applied interest in crop science. It can indeed provide knowledge on the genetic bases of traits for crop improvement and germplasm diversity management. Apple is one of the most important fruit crops in temperate regions, having both great economic and cultural values. Sweet dessert apples are used for direct consumption, while bitter cider apples are used to produce cider. Several important traits are known to differentiate the two variety types, in particular fruit size, biennial versus annual fruit bearing, and bitterness, caused by a higher content in polyphenols. Here, we used an Illumina 8k SNP chip on two core collections, of 48 dessert and 48 cider apples, respectively, for identifying genomic regions responsible for the differences between cider and dessert apples. The genome‐wide level of genetic differentiation between cider and dessert apples was low, although 17 candidate regions showed signatures of divergent selection, displaying either outlier FST values or significant association with phenotypic traits (bitter versus sweet fruits). These candidate regions encompassed 420 genes involved in a variety of functions and metabolic pathways, including several colocalizations with QTLs for polyphenol compounds.
The INTERSPEECH 2010 paralinguistic challenge

Abstract Most paralinguistic analysis tasks are lacking agreed-uponevaluation procedures and comparability, in contrast to more‘traditional’ disciplines in speech analysis. The INTERSPEECH2010 Paralinguistic Challenge shall help overcome the usuallylow compatibility of results, by addressing three selected sub-challenges. In the Age Sub-Challenge, the age of speakers hasto be determined in four groups. In the Gender Sub-Challenge,a three-class classiﬁcation task has to be solved and ﬁnally, theAffect Sub-Challenge asks for speakers’ interest in ordinal rep-resentation. This paper introduces the conditions, the Challengecorpora “aGender” and “TUM AVIC” and standard feature setsthat may be used. Further, baseline results are given.Index Terms: Paralinguistic Challenge, Age, Gender, Affect 1. Introduction Most paralinguistic analysis tasks resemble each other not onlyby means of processing and ever-present data sparseness, but bylacking agreed-upon evaluation procedures and comparability,in contrast to more traditional disciplines in speech analysis. Atthe same time, this is a rapidly emerging ﬁeld of research, dueto the constantly growing interest on applications in the ﬁeldsof Human-Machine Communication, Human-Robot Communi-cation, and Multimedia Retrieval. In these respects, the INTER-SPEECH 2010 Paralinguistic Challenge shall help bridging thegap between excellent research on paralinguistic information inspoken language and low compatibility of results, by address-ing three selected tasks. The “aGender” and the “TUM AVIC”corpora are provided by the organizers. The ﬁrst consists of 46hours of telephone speech, stemming from 954 speakers, andserves to evaluate features and algorithms for the detection ofspeaker age and gender. The second features 2 hours of humanconversational speech recording (21 subjects), annotated in 5differentlevelsofinterest. Thecorpusfurtherfeaturesauniquelydetailed transcription of spoken content with word boundaries byforced alignment, non-linguistic vocalizations, single annotatortracks, and the sequence of (sub-)speaker-turns. Both are given
Ethanol-Induced Neurodegeneration and Glial Activation in the Developing Brain

Ethanol induces neurodegeneration in the developing brain, which may partially explain the long-lasting adverse effects of prenatal ethanol exposure in fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD). While animal models of FASD show that ethanol-induced neurodegeneration is associated with glial activation, the relationship between glial activation and neurodegeneration has not been clarified. This review focuses on the roles of activated microglia and astrocytes in neurodegeneration triggered by ethanol in rodents during the early postnatal period (equivalent to the third trimester of human pregnancy). Previous literature indicates that acute binge-like ethanol exposure in postnatal day 7 (P7) mice induces apoptotic neurodegeneration, transient activation of microglia resulting in phagocytosis of degenerating neurons, and a prolonged increase in glial fibrillary acidic protein-positive astrocytes. In our present study, systemic administration of a moderate dose of lipopolysaccharides, which causes glial activation, attenuates ethanol-induced neurodegeneration. These studies suggest that activation of microglia and astrocytes by acute ethanol in the neonatal brain may provide neuroprotection. However, repeated or chronic ethanol can induce significant proinflammatory glial reaction and neurotoxicity. Further studies are necessary to elucidate whether acute or sustained glial activation caused by ethanol exposure in the developing brain can affect long-lasting cellular and behavioral abnormalities observed in the adult brain.
Iron deficiency anemia and school participation

Iron-deficiency anemia is among the world's most widespread health problems, especially for children, but it is rarely studied by economists. This paper evaluates the impact of a health intervention delivering iron supplementation and deworming drugs to 2-6 year old children through an existing pre-school network in the slums of Delhi, India. At baseline 69 percent of sample children were anemic and 30 percent had intestinal worm infections. Sample pre-schools were randomly divided into groups and gradually phased into treatment. Weight increased significantly among assisted children, and pre-school participation rates rose sharply by 5.8 percentage points - a reduction of one-fifth in school absenteeism - in the first five months of the program. Gains are largest in low socio-economic status areas. Year two estimates are similar, but two methodological problems--sample attrition, and the non-random sorting of new child cohorts into treatment groups--complicate interpretation of the later results.
ranscranial direct current stimulation influences the cardiac autonomic ervous control afael

To investigate whether the manipulation of brain excitability by transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) modulates the heart rate variability (HRV), the effect of tDCS applied at rest on the left temporal lobe in athletes (AG) and non-athletes (NAG) was evaluated. The HRV parameters (natural logarithms of LF, HF, and LF/HF) was assessed in 20 healthy men before, and immediately after tDCS and sham stimulation. After anodal tDCS in AG the parasympathetic activity (HFlog) increased (P < 0.01) and the sympathetic activity (LFlog) and sympatho-vagal balance (LF/HFlog) decreased (P < 0.01), whereas no significant effects eart rate variability
Effect of Nanomaterial Treatment on Geotechnical Properties of A Penang Soft Soil

This study aims to investigate the effect of addition of different nanomaterials, including nano Cu, nano MgO, and nano clay, on the geotechnical properties of soft soil samples from Penang State. Various amounts of nanomaterials (0.05% to 1%) were added to the soil to study their effect on the soil’s compaction characteristics, consistency limits, and compressive strength. Improvements in these geotechnical properties depended on the type of nanomaterials added, and increasing the percentage of each of the added nanomaterials increased the maximum dry density of the soil. The linear shrinkage and plasticity index decreased with increasing nanomaterial content. The unconfined compressive strength increased as the nanomaterial content increased up to a certain percentage in the soil and then decreased afterwards.
Increasing occurrence of antimicrobial-resistant hypervirulent (hypermucoviscous) Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates in China.

BACKGROUND New hypervirulent variants of Klebsiella pneumoniae (hvKP) are emerging globally, most of which exhibit antimicrobial susceptibility. METHODS A retrospective study was conducted in 88 patients with cultures positive for K. pneumoniae hospitalized in the Beijing You'an Hospital from April 2010 to June 2012. The clinical and molecular data of the hvKP isolates (defined as string test positive) were compared with those of the classic K. pneumoniae (cKP) isolates. RESULTS Overall, 33.0% (29/88) of K. pneumoniae isolates were hvKP. Univariate analysis revealed the following risk factors for hvKP: virulence gene rmpA (odds ratio [OR], 16.92 [95% confidence interval {CI}, 4.842-59.145]), capsule antigens K1 (OR, 3.355 [95% CI, 1.153-9.768]) and K2 (OR, 9.280 [95% CI, 0.987-87.250]), alcoholic hepatitis (OR, 7.435 [95% CI, 1.397-39.572]), liver abscess (OR, 9.068 [95% CI, 1.747-47.061]), metastatic infection (OR, 2.752 [95% CI, 1.100-6.886]), community-acquired infection (OR, 10.432 [95% CI, 3.623-30.033]), sputum isolation (OR, 0.312 [95% CI, .095-1.021]), and HIV infection (<0.001 [not applicable]). Multivariate analysis implicated rmpA (OR, 17.398 [95% CI, 4.224-71.668]) and community-acquired infection (OR, 6.844 [95% CI, 1.905-24.585]) as independent risk factors. The proportion of hvKP isolates increased from April to December 2010, January to September 2011, and October 2011 to June 2012 (to 25.5%, 26.7%, and 54.5%, respectively). Resistance to 14 of 19 tested antimicrobials was found to be significantly greater in cKP compared to hvKP. Importantly, resistance to all the tested antimicrobials, except carbapenems and amikacin, was observed in a proportion of hvKP strains, 17% (5/29) of which expressed extended-spectrum β-lactamase. Furthermore, antimicrobial resistance in hvKP strains increased over time. CONCLUSIONS HvKP strains are being isolated from patients in China with increasing frequency and constitute an increasing proportion of K. pneumoniae strains, indicating an increasing propensity for the acquisition of antimicrobial resistance.
Respecification of vertebral identities by retinoic acid.

In higher vertebrates, the formation of the body axis proceeds in a craniocaudal direction during gastrulation. Cell biological evidence suggests that mesoderm formation and specification of axial positions occur simultaneously. Exposure of gastrulating embryos to retinoic acid induces changes in axial patterns, e.g. anterior and posterior homeotic transformations of vertebrae. These morphological changes are accompanied by changes in the nonidentical, overlapping expression domains of Hox genes. In this report the influence of retinoic acid, administered at the end of and after gastrulation, on vertebral patterns is described. Anterior transformations and truncations affecting the caudal part of the vertebral column characterize animals exposed on day 8 and 9. 4 hours after retinoic acid administration on day 8 + 5 hours, Hox-1.8, Hox-1.9, and Hox-4.5 transcripts were not detected in their usual posterior expression domains, whereas transcripts of the anterior Hox-1.5 gene remained unaffected. 4 days after RA exposure on day 8 + 5 hours, Hox-1.8 expression was shifted posteriorly by an effectively low dose of RA, which induced the formation of supernumerary ribs. Hox-1.8 expression was limited to posterior, disorganized mesenchyme, bulging out neural tube, some intestinal loops and the hindlimb in truncated embryos exposed to a high dose of RA. A causal relation between the delayed activation of posterior Hox genes and anterior transformations or agenesis of vertebrae is discussed. On day 10.5 posterior transformations begin to occur in the cervical region, while later exposures again affect more caudal structures. The distribution of the transformations along the vertebral column indicates an influence of RA on migrating sclerotome cells before they are finally fixed in the cartilagenous vertebrae. The findings show that the mesodermal segments originally specified during gastrulation can be respecified in their second migratory phase, with effects spreading for a second time in a craniocaudal direction. The transformations are discussed with regard to a molecular specification of axial levels by Hox codes, defined as combinations of expressed Hox genes.
Asphalt Mixtures Modified with Sulphur Pellets, Impact on Pavement Thickness

ABSTRACT Sulphur Extended Asphalt (SEA) mixtures were used commercially in the 1970s and 1980s in North America as well other parts of the world. Performance properties of Sulphur Extended Mixtures were proven to be equal or even better than conventional asphalt mixtures. However handling and safety issues were of concern, as molten sulphur was difficult to use and occasionally generated H2S emissions. Interest in the use of SEA mixtures has been renewed by the forecast in energy demand and some recent innovations in sulphur technology with the design of modified sulphur in pellet form. The pellets allow easy handling and storage. The modified sulphur pellets are at ambient temperature when added to the Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA) during the mixing process. By keeping the mixing temperature in a range of 125°C—145° C, H2S emissions are virtually eliminated. Modified sulphur pellets have been assessed in the laboratory, in performance tests used to characterize HMA. Intrinsic properties, such as complex modulus and fatigue have been measured and used in an analytical pavement analysis. The aim was to determine how the increase in stiffness affects fatigue life and how it alters a pavement design, in particular the impact on layer thickness. This paper shows that it is preferred to use an analytical method, which accounts for stiffness and fatigue rather than using a method that only utilizes stiffness, as it can propose a layer thickness reduction, which can have a detrimental effect on pavement life.
Semantic Enrichment of a Web Legal Information Retrieval System

Intelligent text information retrieval systems need the capability to deal with the semantics of the content of their text bases. In order to satisfy this requisite it is necessary to extract semantic information from the documents and to be able to make inferences about it. A methodology to semi-automatically transform a traditional web IR system into a semantic aware one is proposed. The methodology is composed by three major steps: construction of an appropriate semantic ontology; text enrichment with semantic in- formation; and construction of the inference engine. In order to create an adequate ontology, natural language processing techniques are applied, such as, partial parsers and lexical information (WordNet). Documents are enriched with semantic informa- tion using the output of the partial parsers and the obtained ontology. Finally, an infer- ence engine based on a declarative programming language - Prolog - is used as the basis for the reasoning process. An application of this methodology to the legal web information retrieval system of the Portuguese Attorney General's Office is described.
Transient stabilization of multimachine power systems with nontrivial transfer conductances

We provide a solution to the long-standing problem of transient stabilization of multimachine power systems with nonnegligible transfer conductances. More specifically, we consider the full 3n-dimensional model of the n-generator system with lossy transmission lines and loads and prove the existence of a nonlinear static state feedback law for the generator excitation field that ensures asymptotic stability of the operating point with a well-defined estimate of the domain of attraction provided by a bona fide Lyapunov function. To design the control law we apply the recently introduced interconnection and damping assignment passivity-based control methodology that endows the closed-loop system with a port-controlled Hamiltonian structure with desired total energy function. The latter consists of terms akin to kinetic and potential energies, thus has a clear physical interpretation. Our derivations underscore the deleterious effects of resistive elements which, as is well known, hamper the assignment of simple "gradient" energy functions and compel us to include nonstandard cross terms. A key step in the construction is the modification of the energy transfer between the electrical and the mechanical parts of the system which is obtained via the introduction of state-modulated interconnections that play the role of multipliers in classical passivity theory.
Osmotic regulation of L-proline transport in Salmonella typhimurium

The transport of proline is important for the adaptation of Salmonella typhimurium to osmotic stress because exogenous proline permits the growth of the organism in media of elevated osmotic strength that would otherwise be toxic. Measurements of the rate of [3H]proline transport in S. typhimurium indicated that the organism has two distinct proline permeases, the ProU and the ProP systems, whose activities increase more than fivefold as a consequence of growth in media containing 0.3 M NaCl or 0.47 M sucrose. Transport via a third proline permease, the PutP system, is not affected by the osmotic strength of the medium. We constructed strains that carry fusions of lacZ to proU or proP, genes that are required for the two osmotically stimulated proline transport systems. Assays of beta-galactosidase revealed that the transcription of the proU gene is increased more than 10-fold as a result of exposure of the cells to 0.3 M NaCl, 0.47 M sucrose, or equivalent concentrations of other solutes that are not freely diffusible across the cytoplasmic membrane. Increased transcription cannot be triggered by methanol, ethanol, and glycerol, substances that are freely diffusible across the membrane, suggesting that the signal for increased transcription might be an osmotic gradient across the cytoplasmic membrane. The proP gene does not show transcriptional regulation of sufficient magnitude to account for the stimulation of [3H]proline transport. Thus, the osmotic stimulation of the ProP system might be mediated by some posttranscriptional event.