Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Temporal noise control for sketchy animation

We propose a technique to control the temporal noise present in sketchy animations. Given an input animation drawn digitally, our approach works by combining motion extraction and inbetweening techniques to generate a reduced-noise sketchy animation registered to the input animation. The amount of noise is then controlled by a continuous parameter value. Our method can be applied to effectively reduce the temporal noise present in sequences of sketches to a desired rate, while preserving the geometric richness of the sketchy style in each frame. This provides the manipulation of temporal noise as an additional artistic parameter, e.g. to emphasize character emotions and scene atmosphere, and enables the display of sketchy content to broader audiences by producing animations with comfortable noise levels. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach on a series of rough hand-drawn animations.
Neoadjuvant therapy of colorectal liver metastases: Lessons learned from clinical trials

Neoadjuvant chemotherapy is increasingly used to improve outcome in patients with colorectal liver metastases (CLM). In patients with unresectable CLM, recent clinical trials evaluate the ability of chemotherapy to increase the resectability rate. In patients with resectable CLM, the objective is to decrease the risk of recurrence after hepatectomy that still remains elevated despite the improvement of the surgical technique. A multidisciplinary approach of patients with CLM is desirable whatever the initial status of resectability. J. Surg. Oncol. 2010;102:932–936. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Association of MBL2 gene exon 1 variants with autoimmune thyroid disease in Brazilian patients

We investigated the association between MBL2 gene exon 1 functional polymorphisms and autoimmune thyroid disease (AITD) in 163 Brazilian patients (87 with Hashimoto thyroiditis, HT; 76 with Graves’ disease) and 214 healthy controls. Individuals carrying MBL2 O allele are at higher risk of developing AITD (OR = 1.58, 95% CI: 1.11–2.26; P‐value = 0.009) and HT (OR = 1.67, 95% CI: 1.09–2.55; P‐value = 0.013) as suggesting a possible role for mannose‐binding lectin in influencing disease susceptibility.
T‐Cell Responses to Mls and to Bacterial Proteins that Mimic its Behavior #

The Mis locus was originally described by Festenstein (1973) as a single genetic locus with four alleles detected by the stimulation of a primary mixed lymphocyte reaction (MLR) between cells of strains identical at the major histocompatibility complex (MHC). The responses detected by Festenstein were at least as intense as those observed in MLRs between strains differing at the MHC, but differed from such responses in being unidirectional and in that no cytolytic T cells were generated. Furthermore, unlike the MHC polymorphisms that elicit primary MLR. , to date it has been impossible to obtain antibodies that inhibit this response or define the product of this locus. The unique biology of this response has intrigued immunologists, leading to intensive study of many aspects of this system, as reviewed in this voltime and elsewhere (Butcher 1988, Janeway et al. 1988a, Abe & Hodes 1988). Perhaps the first question to ask about the Mis locus is: Why study it? The answer lies in the desire of immunobiologists to explain the characteristics of the T-cell response to Mis locus-disparate stimulator cells, which will be referred to simply as the T-cell response to Mis. These characteristics will be described in detail below; for the present, the most critical of these are the fmding that the T-cell response to Mis is unidirectional, stimulates about 20% of all T cells, and involves the recognition of class II MHC by the T-cell receptor (TCR);CD4 complex (see Janeway et al. 1988b), although the response does not show classical MHC restriction. A single genetic polymorphism that can stimulate such a large percent of the T-cell repertoire is certainly worth studying, as it may hold
Tissue inhibitor of matrix metalloproteinases-1 loaded poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) nanoparticles for delivery across the blood–brain barrier

Aim The aim of this study was to develop poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) nanoparticles (NPs) for delivery of a protein – tissue inhibitor of matrix metalloproteinases 1 (TIMP-1) – across the blood–brain barrier (BBB) to inhibit deleterious matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs). Materials and methods The NPs were formulated by multiple-emulsion solvent-evaporation, and for enhancing BBB penetration, they were coated with polysorbate 80 (Ps80). We compared Ps80-coated and uncoated NPs for their toxicity, binding, and BBB penetration on primary rat brain capillary endothelial cell cultures and the rat brain endothelial 4 cell line. These studies were followed by in vivo studies for brain delivery of these NPs. Results Results showed that neither Ps80-coated nor uncoated NPs caused significant opening of the BBB, and essentially they were nontoxic. NPs without Ps80 coating had more binding to endothelial cells compared to Ps80-coated NPs. Penetration studies showed that TIMP-1 NPs + Ps80 had 11.21%±1.35% penetration, whereas TIMP-1 alone and TIMP-1 NPs without Ps80 coating did not cross the endothelial monolayer. In vivo studies indicated BBB penetration of intravenously injected TIMP-1 NPs + Ps80. Conclusion The study demonstrated that Ps80 coating of NPs does not cause significant toxic effects to endothelial cells and that it can be used to enhance the delivery of protein across endothelial cell barriers, both in vitro and in vivo.
Identification and Characterization of a Novel Fibronectin-Binding Protein on the Surface of Group A Streptococci

ABSTRACT Understanding the role surface proteins play in the interaction of group A streptococci with epithelial cells is an important step toward the development of new strategies to fight infections. Fibronectin-binding proteins in streptococci and staphylococci have been described as important mediators for adherence to eukaryotic cells. In the present study we describe a new Streptococcus pyogenes fibronectin-binding protein (PFBP). The gene encoding the PFBP protein (pfbp) was identified from an M12 strain genomic library. It encodes a protein of 127.4 kDa which contains the LPXTGX motif characteristic of cell wall-associated proteins in gram-positive organisms and is among the largest surface molecules described for group A streptococci. The pfbp gene is transcribed during cell growth and was present in several class I and II streptococcal strains tested. The deduced amino acid sequence of PFBP exhibits a variable N-terminal region and a conserved C-terminal region when compared to most fibronectin-binding proteins identified from other gram-positive bacteria. The N-terminal region presents a stretch of 105 amino acids with no homology with N-terminal regions of previously described fibronectin-binding molecules, while the C-terminal region contains three repeat domains that share significant similarity with the repeat regions of fibronectin-binding proteins fromS. pyogenes, S. dysgalactiae, and S. equisimilis. The PFBP repeated region, when expressed on the surface of S. gordonii, a commensal organism, binds to soluble and immobilized fibronectin. This study also shows that, in addition to pfbp, a second gene homologous with that of protein F1 (which also codes for a fibronectin-binding protein) is transcribed during cell growth in the same S. pyogenesstrain.
The effect of "mentored" relationships on satisfaction and intent to stay of company-grade U.S. Army Reserve nurses.

This study examined the strategic implications of mentoring relationships perceived by company-grade U.S. Army Reserve nurses. The effects of mentorship on professional socialization, job satisfaction, and intent to stay were examined using the adapted framework of Hunt and Michael. The study population consisted of U.S. Army Reserve nurses from all three components of the ready reserve. One hundred nurses from each category were randomly selected and provided a questionnaire. The questionnaire combined Dreher's Mentoring Scale, Price's Intent-to-Stay Scale, and Hoppock's Job Satisfaction Scale. The overall response rate was 57%. Seventy-two of the 171 respondents reported at least one mentored experience. Findings indicate that mentored nurses report more satisfaction and have a higher intent to stay than nonmentored nurses. Continued research and encouragement of mentoring are recommended.
Efficacy of Plant-Derived and Synthetic Compounds on Clothing as Repellents Against Ixodes scapularis and Amblyomma americanum (Acari: Ixodidae)

ABSTRACT We conducted field trials to compare the relative repellent activity of two natural product compounds (nootkatone and carvacrol) with commercially available plant-derived (EcoSMART organic insect repellent) and permethrin-based (Repel Permanone) repellents against adult Ixodes scapularis Say and Amblyomma americanum (L.) (Acari: Ixodidae) by using treated coveralls. One day after treatment, nootkatone and carvacrol provided 100% repellency of I. scapularis adults, with nootkatone maintaining complete protection through 3 d, whereas carvacrol showed steadily declining repellency against I. scapularis during the 7-d course of the trials. Nootkatone was at least as effective against host-seeking A. americanum as against I. scapularis through 3 d. Carvacrol provided little protection against A. americanum adults. Roth natural compounds performed well initially in comparison with the commercial products. After 7 d, nootkatone was the most effective against both species followed in order of activity by Permanone, EcoSMART, and carvacrol. Nootkatone seems to have offer considerable potential as a clothing repellent against both I. scapularis and A. americanum.
Epidemiology of Childhood Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus in Nile Delta, Northern Egypt - A Retrospective Study

Objective: The geographical incidence of type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) varies widely worldwide. Both genetic and environmental factors have been implicated, although environmental factors are still speculative and elusive. More epidemiological studies are needed to uncover such factors. To date, there are no reported studies on the epidemiology of childhood T1DM in Nile Delta, Egypt. We aimed to define the incidence, prevalence and demographic characteristics of T1DM in children (0-18 years) living in the Nile Delta region, one of the most densely populated areas in Egypt. Methods: The study included all T1DM patients aged 0-18 years who lived in the Nile Delta region of Egypt and who were either diagnosed at or referred to Mansoura University Children’s Hospital (MUCH) between 1 January 1994 and 31 December 2011. The hospital files of the patients were reviewed. General population data on the 0-18 year age group in the Nile Delta governorates were also presented. Results: From a total of 1600 T1DM patients, 891 (55.7%) were females (p=0.000) and 935 (58.4%) were from rural areas (p=0.000). Calculated age-adjusted incidence of T1DM in 1996, 2006 and 2011 were 0.7, 2.0 and 3.1/105/year, respectively, while calculated age-adjusted prevalence of T1DM in the same years were 1.9, 15.5 and 26.8/105/year, respectively. Patients presented most frequently in the 5-10 year age group (p<0.000) and in winter months (p=0.009). Conclusion: In this first childhood T1DM epidemiology study in the Nile Delta region of Egypt, T1DM incidence and prevalence were found to show an increase over the past 18 years (1994-2011). Incidence and prevalence were higher in females and more cases were found to originate from rural areas.
Induction of vascular leakage through release of bradykinin and a novel kinin by cysteine proteinases from Staphylococcus aureus

Staphylococcus aureus is a major pathogen of gram-positive septic shock and frequently is associated with consumption of plasma kininogen. We examined the vascular leakage (VL) activity of two cysteine proteinases that are secreted by S. aureus. Proteolytically active staphopain A (ScpA) induced VL in a bradykinin (BK) B2-receptor–dependent manner in guinea pig skin. This effect was augmented by staphopain B (SspB), which, by itself, had no VL activity. ScpA also produced VL activity from human plasma, apparently by acting directly on kininogens to release BK, which again was augmented significantly by SspB. Intravenous injection of ScpA into a guinea pig caused BK B2-receptor–dependent hypotension. ScpA and SspB together induced the release of leucyl-methionyl-lysyl-BK, a novel kinin with VL and blood pressure–lowering activities that are equivalent to BK. Collectively, these data suggest that production of BK and leucyl-methionyl-lysyl-BK by staphopains is a new mechanism of S. aureus virulence and bacterial shock. Therefore, staphopain-specific inhibitors and kinin-receptor antagonists could be used to treat this disease.
On an Isotropic Damage Mechanics Model for Ductile Materials

A new model for combined elastoplasticity and damage is proposed. The model is based on the maximum dissipation principle and implements a strong coupling between plasticity and damage. First the evolution equations of different kinds of phenomenological damage models for ductile materials are discussed. Nonassociated flow rules violate the irreversibility postulate of Ilyushin, the stability postulate of Drucker and the maximum dissipation principle. Some other models use two independent associated flow rules for plasticity and damage. It will be shown that these models are a special case of maximal dissipative models with a weak coupling of plasticity and damage. A strong coupling can be obtained by using a single, smooth yield surface in the space of dissipative forces. This approach, which has not correctly been implemented before, is used in the new model. Uniaxial tension tests with unloadings have been performed to investigate the damage growth in a high strength steel. A good agreement between the experimental results and the model was obtained using elementary ansatz functions for the free energy and the yield function. Unfortunately, the model makes incorrect predictions for multiaxial loadings. A dependency of the damage term in the yield function on the damage variable is introduced to solve this problem. The modified model fits the experimental data for uniaxial stresses very well and shows a qualitatively correct behavior under multiaxial loadings.
Evaluation of Posaconazole Pharmacokinetics in Adult Patients with Invasive Fungal Infection

Mortality and morbidity due to invasive fungal infections have increased over the years. Posaconazole is a second-generation triazole agent with an extended spectrum of activity, which shows a high interindividual variability in its plasma levels, rendering dosing in many patients inconsistent or inadequate. Hence, posaconazole therapeutic drug monitoring, which is easily available in clinical practice, may improve treatment success and safety. The aim of the study was to describe posaconazole pharmacokinetics, and to evaluate the utility of therapeutic drug monitoring for therapy and prophylaxis in a cohort of adult patients. A fully validated chromatographic method was used to quantify posaconazole concentration in plasma collected from adult patients at the end of the dosing interval. Associations between variables were tested using the Pearson test. The Mann-Whitney test was used to probe the influence of categorical variables on continuous ones. A high inter-individual variability was shown. Of the 172 enrolled patients, among those receiving the drug by the oral route (N = 170), gender significantly influenced drug exposure: males showed greater posaconazole concentration than females (p = 0.028). This study highlights the importance of therapeutic drug monitoring in those with invasive fungal infections and its significant clinical implications; moreover we propose, for the first time, the possible influence of gender on posaconazole exposure.
A comparison of psychotherapeutic relationships between physicians and schizophrenic patients when insulin is combined with psychotherapy and when psychotherapy is used alone.

Psychotherapeutic relationships between 18 physicians and 109 schizophrenic patients were compared and contrasted when insulin was combined with psychotherapy and when psychotherapy was used alone, in relation to the outcome of treatment. The patients are divided into an A group (those whose physicians achieved an improvement rate of 70% or higher) and a B group (those whose physicians achieved an improvement rate of less than 70%). Our findings indicate that: 1. Insulin combined with psychotherapy is associated with a numerical increase in improvement only in the B patients (from 34% to 82%). A patients show no numerical gain (the rate remaining at 82%). 2. The higher numerical rate of improvement in the B group when insulin is combined with psychotherapy does not carry with it an increase in quality of improvement. Only one B patient reached the highest grade of improvement and in this case insulin was not used. Nor are qualitative gains associated with the use of insulin in the A patients. 3. The A phy.
Heterogeneous Attractor Cell Assemblies for Motor Planning in Premotor Cortex

Cognitive functions like motor planning rely on the concerted activity of multiple neuronal assemblies underlying still elusive computational strategies. During reaching tasks, we observed stereotyped sudden transitions (STs) between low and high multiunit activity of monkey dorsal premotor cortex (PMd) predicting forthcoming actions on a single-trial basis. Occurrence of STs was observed even when movement was delayed or successfully canceled after a stop signal, excluding a mere substrate of the motor execution. An attractor model accounts for upward STs and high-frequency modulations of field potentials, indicative of local synaptic reverberation. We found in vivo compelling evidence that motor plans in PMd emerge from the coactivation of such attractor modules, heterogeneous in the strength of local synaptic self-excitation. Modules with strong coupling early reacted with variable times to weak inputs, priming a chain reaction of both upward and downward STs in other modules. Such web of “flip-flops” rapidly converged to a stereotyped distributed representation of the motor program, as prescribed by the long-standing theory of associative networks.
Trends in the Carbonyl Core (C 1S, O 1S) → π*C=O Transition in the Near-Edge X-ray Absorption Fine Structure Spectra of Organic Molecules

Carbonyl core (C 1s, O 1s) → π*CO transitions are distinctive in the near-edge X-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) spectra of species containing carbonyl groups. These features are used for the chemical microanalysis of organic materials using X-ray microscopy. We have explored the chemical sensitivity of these features in C 1s and O 1s NEXAFS spectra for a series of polymers containing the carbonyl group in a range of different bonding environments. Ab initio calculations are used to explain the origin of the observed trends and to explore the effect that orbital interactions have on the energy of these core (C 1s, O 1s) → π*CO features. The differences between the experimental and the calculated carbonyl core (C 1s, O 1s) → π*CO transition energies are systematic and can be used to develop a semiempirical method for predicting the absolute (experimental) transition energies from the calculated transition energies. This relationship is applied to a large body of calculated transition energy data to .
An Empirical Examination of the Impacts of Decentralized Nursing Unit Design

Objective: The objective of the study was to examine the impact of decentralization on operational efficiency, staff well-being, and teamwork on three inpatient units. Background: Decentralized unit operations and the corresponding physical design solution were hypothesized to positively affect several concerns—productive use of nursing time, staff stress, walking distances, and teamwork, among others. With a wide adoption of the concept, empirical evidence on the impact of decentralization was warranted. Methods: A multimethod, before-and-after, quasi-experimental design was adopted for the study, focusing on five issues, namely, (1) how nurses spend their time, (2) walking distance, (3) acute stress, (4) productivity, and (5) teamwork. Data on all five issues were collected on three older units with centralized operational model (before move). The same set of data, with identical tools and measures, were collected on the same units after move in to new physical units with decentralized operational model. Data were collected during spring and fall of 2011. Results: Documentation, nurse station use, medication room use, and supplies room use showed consistent change across the three units. Walking distance increased (statistically significant) on two of the three units. Self-reported level of collaboration decreased, although assessment of the physical facility for collaboration increased. Conclusions: Decentralized nursing and physical design models potentially result in quality of work improvements associated with documentation, medication, and supplies. However, there are unexpected consequences associated with walking, and staff collaboration and teamwork. The solution to the unexpected consequences may lie in operational interventions and greater emphasis on culture change.
Harmony in Linguistic Cognition

In this article, I survey the integrated connectionist/symbolic (ICS) cognitive architecture in which higher cognition must be formally characterized on two levels of description. At the microlevel, parallel distributed processing (PDP) characterizes mental processing; this PDP system has special organization in virtue of which it can be characterized at the macrolevel as a kind of symbolic computational system. The symbolic system inherits certain properties from its PDP substrate; the symbolic functions computed constitute optimization of a well-formedness measure called Harmony. The most important outgrowth of the ICS research program is optimality theory (Prince & Smolensky, 1993/2004), an optimization-based grammatical theory that provides a formal theory of cross-linguistic typology. Linguistically, Harmony maximization corresponds to minimization of markedness or structural ill-formedness. Cognitive explanation in ICS requires the collaboration of symbolic and connectionist principles. ICS is developed in detail in Smolensky and Legendre (2006a); this article is a précis of and guide to those volumes.
Fine-Grained Resource Scaling in a Public Cloud: A Tenant's Perspective

Growing tenant workload needs and an increasingly competitive market will force cloud providers to operate their data centers at significantly higher utilization levels than seen today. We argue that a key enabler of such cloud ecosystems would be facilities for tenants to engage in fine-grained resource scaling in addition to those offered by current providers. The basic unit of resource scaling exposed by current cloud providers is the canonical interface of virtual machines (VMs) with relatively static resource capacities. This paper describes opportunities and challenges in augmenting this interface to also include fine-grained scaling of CPU and memory within an already procured VM. Qualitative arguments for why this would offer cost benefits for both the provider and its tenants are presented. We focus on the cost-effective operation of a tenant in such an environment via the design of a feedback controller. The efficacy of our ideas is illustrated by implementing a case study in a Memcached tenant workload. Our results are promising and point to an interesting and broad area for further research - e.g., with the real-world workload in our evaluation, up to 50% utility improvement can be achieved by just applying memory scaling, a further 66% improvement can be achieved by coordinating fine-grained CPU and memory scaling.