Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Farm exposures are associated with lower percentage of circulating myeloid dendritic cell subtype 2 at age 6

Early life farm exposures have been shown to decrease the risk of allergic diseases. Dendritic cells (DCs) may mediate asthma‐protective effect of farm exposures as they play an important role in the development of immunity and tolerance. Our aim was to investigate whether the numbers and phenotypes of circulating DCs at age 6 are associated with farming, asthma, and atopy in a selected sample of French and Finnish children from the PASTURE study.
Sample Complexity of Episodic Fixed-Horizon Reinforcement Learning

Recently, there has been significant progress in understanding reinforcement learning in discounted infinite-horizon Markov decision processes (MDPs) by deriving tight sample complexity bounds. However, in many real-world applications, an interactive learning agent operates for a fixed or bounded period of time, for example tutoring students for exams or handling customer service requests. Such scenarios can often be better treated as episodic fixed-horizon MDPs, for which only looser bounds on the sample complexity exist. A natural notion of sample complexity in this setting is the number of episodes required to guarantee a certain performance with high probability (PAC guarantee). In this paper, we derive an upper PAC bound $\tilde O(\frac{|\mathcal S|^2 |\mathcal A| H^2}{\epsilon^2} \ln\frac 1 \delta)$ and a lower PAC bound $\tilde \Omega(\frac{|\mathcal S| |\mathcal A| H^2}{\epsilon^2} \ln \frac 1 {\delta + c})$ that match up to log-terms and an additional linear dependency on the number of states $|\mathcal S|$. The lower bound is the first of its kind for this setting. Our upper bound leverages Bernstein's inequality to improve on previous bounds for episodic finite-horizon MDPs which have a time-horizon dependency of at least $H^3$.
Acquired generalized lipoatrophy (AGL): Highly selective MR lipid imaging and localized 1H‐MRS

Frequency‐selective chemical shift magnetic resonance (MR) imaging was applied on the calf musculature and the abdomen of a patient with acquired generalized lipoatrophy (AGL; Lawrence syndrome), a very rare syndrome affecting selectively several types of adipose tissue accompanied by alterations in glucose and energy metabolism. In addition, 1H‐MRS was used for assessment of intra‐ (IMCL) and extramyocellular lipid stores (EMCL) in the skeletal musculature of the calf. Results from the AGL patient were compared with an age‐matched group of five healthy volunteers. Fat‐selective imaging of the calf revealed a total lack of subcutaneous adipose tissue. No EMCL signal was found in the spectra from the soleus muscle of the AGL patient. IMCL signals were present in the spectra but were clearly lower than in the controls (14% of normal value in the soleus muscle). In abdominal images, subcutaneous fat signal was not detectable, as in the calf, but nearly normal conditions were shown for visceral adipose tissue between abdominal organs. Fat‐selective images showed the liver with high signal intensity, indicating hepatic steatosis combined with hepatosplenomegaly. Modern chemical shift‐selective MR imaging and localized spectroscopy allow a noninvasive and quantitative assessment of tissue composition in patients with disorders of carbohydrate and lipid metabolism. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2000;12:306–310. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
A NOVEL AND EFFICIENT KNN USING MODIFIED APRIORI ALGORITHM

In the field of data mining, classification and association set rules are two of very important techniques to find out new patterns. K-nearest neighbor and apriori algorithm are most usable methods of classification and association set rules respectively. However, individually they face few challenges, such as, time utilization and inefficiency for very large databases. The current paper attempts to use both the methods hand in hand. Here, we have modified the apriori algorithm and used it to classify data for K-nearest neighbor. Modified Apriori helps in finding out only a few of the attributes that mainly define the class. These attributes are named as prominent attributes in this paper. This technique helps in improving the efficiency of KNN to a high extent.
Transforming growth factor betas and their receptors in human liver cirrhosis

Background Transforming growth factor betas (TGF-βs) are a group of homologous polypeptides that exert pleiotropic effects on various cell types and stimulate the formation of extracellular matrix and fibrosis. To evaluate whether TGF-β isoforms (TGF-β1, TGF-β2 and TGF-β3) and their receptors (types l-lll) are also of importance in the pathophysiology of liver cirrhosis, we analysed their concomitant expression and localization in human liver cirrhosis. Patients Cirrhotic liver tissue samples were obtained from 17 patients (four women, 13 men) with a median age of 41 years (range 22–67). Normal liver tissues from ten patients (seven women, three men) with a median age of 55 years (range 45–75) served as controls. Methods The tissues were fixed in Bouin's solution and paraffin-embedded for histological analysis. For RNA analysis, freshly obtained tissue samples were snapfrozen in liquid nitrogen and stored at −80°C until analysed. Northern blot analysis was used to examine the expression of TGF-β1, β2 and β3 and their receptors, type I (TβR-I), type II (TβR-ll) and type III (TβR-lll). Immunohistochemistry was performed to determine the localization of the corresponding proteins in the normal and the cirrhotic liver. Results Northern blot analysis revealed enhanced expression (P<0.05) of TGF-β1 (twofold increase), TGF-β2 (threefold increase) and TGF-β3 (8.5-fold increase) and of TβR-ll (threefold increase) mRNA in liver cirrhosis in comparison with normal controls. In contrast, TβR-l (ALK-5) and TβR-lll mRNA expression showed no significant changes. No TGF-β isoform immunoreactivity was present in hepatocytes in either normal livers or in liver cirrhosis. However, in liver cirrhosis, intense TGF-β1 immunoreactivity was present in bile duct and ductular epithelial cells (including ductular proliferations) and In inflammatory cells. In a few sinusoidal lining cells, faint TGF-β1 and moderate TGF-β2 immunoreactivity was present TGF-β3 immunostaining was present in bile duet and ductular epithelial cells, in inflammatory cells and in fibroblast-like spindle cells in liver cirrhosis. For TβR-l and TβR-ll, the immunoreactivity was localized in hepatocytes and biliary cells in normal and cirrhotic liver tissues, with higher intensity for TβR-ll in the cirrhotic liver. Conclusion Enhanced expression of all three TGF-β isoforms and of TβR-ll in liver cirrhosis suggests, their involvement in this fibrotic disorder. The higher immunoreactivity of the three TGF-β isoforms in the bile duct epithelial cells in cirrhotic tissues suggests a possible role of these cells in the pathogenesis of liver cirrhosis.
Increased Skeletal Muscle GLUT4 Expression in Obese Mice After Voluntary Wheel Running Exercise Is Posttranscriptional

Exercise promotes glucose clearance by increasing skeletal muscle GLUT4-mediated glucose uptake. Importantly, exercise upregulates muscle GLUT4 expression in an insulin-independent manner under conditions of insulin resistance, such as with type 2 diabetes. However, the insulin-independent mechanism responsible for rescued muscle GLUT4 expression is poorly understood. We used voluntary wheel running (VWR) in mice to test the prevailing hypothesis that insulin-independent upregulation of skeletal muscle GLUT4 protein expression with exercise is through increased Glut4 transcription. We demonstrate that 4 weeks of VWR exercise in obese mice rescued high-fat diet–induced decreased muscle GLUT4 protein and improved both fasting plasma insulin and hepatic triacylglyceride levels, but did not rescue muscle Glut4 mRNA. Persistent reduction in Glut4 mRNA suggests that a posttranscriptional mechanism regulated insulin-independent muscle GLUT4 protein expression in response to exercise in lean and obese mice. Reduction of GLUT4 protein in sedentary animals upon treatment with rapamycin revealed mTORC1-dependent GLUT4 regulation. However, no difference in GLUT4 protein expression was observed in VWR-exercised mice treated with either rapamycin or Torin 1, indicating that exercise-dependent regulation on GLUT4 was mTOR independent. The findings provide new insight into the mechanisms responsible for exercise-dependent regulation of GLUT4 in muscle.
The Bright Side of Stress-Induced Eating

Previous research suggests that approximately 40% to 50% of the population increase food consumption under stressful conditions. The prevailing view is that eating in response to stress is a type of maladaptive self-regulation. Past research has concentrated mainly on the negative effects of social stress on eating. We propose that positive social experiences may also modulate eating behavior. In the present study, participants were assigned to social-exclusion, neutral, and social-inclusion conditions. In a subsequent bogus taste test, the amount of ice cream eaten and habitual stress-related eating were measured. After being socially excluded, people who habitually eat more in response to stress (stress hyperphagics) ate significantly more than people who habitually eat less in response to stress (stress hypophagics). Conversely, after being socially included, stress hyperphagics ate significantly less than stress hypophagics. The present findings provide the first evidence for complementary adjustments of food consumption across positive and negative situations. Implications of these findings for the relationship of stress and body weight are discussed.
Phosphorylation-site mutagenesis of the growth-associated protein GAP- 43 modulates its effects on cell spreading and morphology

The 43-kD growth-associated protein (GAP-43) is a major protein kinase C (PKC) substrate of axonal growth cones, developing nerve terminals, regenerating axons, and adult central nervous system areas associated with plasticity. It is a cytosolic protein associated with the cortical cytoskeleton and the plasmalemma. Membrane association of GAP-43 is mediated by palmitoylation at Cys3Cys4. In vitro and in vivo, phosphorylation by PKC exclusively involves Ser41 of mammalian GAP-43 (corresponding to Ser42 in the chick protein). To identify aspects of GAP-43 function, we analyzed the actions of wild-type, membrane- association, and phosphorylation-site mutants of GAP-43 in nonneuronal cell lines. The GAP-43 constructs were introduced in L6 and COS-7 cells by transient transfection. Like the endogenous protein in neurons and their growth cones, GAP-43 in nonneuronal cells associated with the cell periphery. GAP-43 accumulated in the pseudopods of spreading cells and appeared to interact with cortical actin-containing filaments. Spreading L6 cells expressing high levels of recombinant protein displayed a characteristic F-actin labeling pattern consisting of prominent radial arrays of peripheral actin filaments. GAP-43 had dramatic effects on local surface morphology. Characteristic features of GAP-43-expressing cells were irregular cell outlines with prominent and numerous filopodia. The effects of GAP-43 on cell morphology required association with the cell membrane, since GAP-43(Ala3Ala4), a mutant that failed to associate with the cell cortex, had no morphogenetic activity. Two GAP-43 phosphorylation mutants (Ser42 to Ala42 preventing and Ser42 to Asp42 mimicking phosphorylation by PKC) modulated the effects of GAP-43 in opposite ways. Cells expressing GAP- 43(Asp42) spread extensively and displayed large and irregular membranous extensions with little filopodia, whereas GAP-43(Ala42) produced small, poorly spreading cells with numerous short filopodia. Therefore, GAP-43 influences cell surface behavior and phosphorylation modulates its activity. The presence of GAP-43 in growing axons and developing nerve termini may affect the behavior of their actin- containing cortical cytoskeleton in a regulatable manner.
Robust frequency-based Audio Fingerprinting

Pure frequency-based audio fingerprint systems have the capacity of handling very short fingerprints while being highly robust to perturbations such as additive noise or compression. However, these approaches are often complex and fail to identify time stretched signals. We propose in this paper two extensions of an existing system and test the robustness of the overall system in different conditions. It is shown that the search strategy adopted allows for a clear reduction of complexity with very limited degradation of performances and that the new system is robust to additive noise and speed changes up to 5%.
A Cheap System for Vehicle Speed Detection

The reliable detection of speed of moving vehicles is considered key to traffic law enforcement in most countries, and is seen by many as an important tool to reduce the number of traffic accidents and fatalities. Many automatic systems and different methods are employed in different countries, but as a rule they tend to be expensive and/or labor intensive, often employing outdated technology due to the long development time. Here we describe a speed detection system that relies on simple everyday equipment - a laptop and a consumer web camera. Our method is based on tracking the license plates of cars, which gives the relative movement of the cars in the image. This image displacement is translated to actual motion by using the method of projection to a reference plane, where the reference plane is the road itself. However, since license plates do not touch the road, we must compensate for the entailed distortion in speed measurement. We show how to compute the compensation factor using knowledge of the license plate standard dimensions. Consequently our system computes the true speed of moving vehicles fast and accurately. We show promising results on videos obtained in a number of scenes and with different car models.
Fasciola hepatica: surface and internal tegumental changes induced by treatment in vitro with the sulphoxide metabolite of albendazole (‘Valbazen’)

A morphological study has been carried out to determine the effect of the active sulphoxide metabolite of the benzimidazole anthelmintic, albendazole (ABZ-SO) on the adult liver fluke, Fasciola hepatica. Whole flukes were treated with ABZ-SO for 12 and 24 h at a concentration of 10 μg/ml. The changes in response to drug treatment were examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and tubulin immunocytochemistry (ICC). No surface changes were apparent following 12 h ABZ-SO treatment, but localized blebbing was observed after 24 h, which became more extensive towards the posterior region of both surfaces. TEM of sections from the posterior midbody region revealed that ABZ-SO caused the accumulation of secretory bodies in the tegumental cells and in their cytoplasmic connections and, after 24 h, just above the basal plasma membrane. Localized blebbing of the apical membrane also occurred. The morphology of the Golgi complexes within the tegumental cells began to change after 12 h treatment with ABZ-SO and, by 24 h, few complexes were observed. A distinct increase in tubulin immunoreactivity occurred after 12 h treatment, but this decreased after 24 h. The results obtained are consistent with those expected for microtubule inhibition. They are discussed in relation to the action of established microtubule inhibitors, as well as the benzimidazole derivative, triclabendazole.
CogniWin: An Integrated Framework to Support Older Adults at Work

Assisting older adults at work is of critical importance in nowadays fast-emerging computerized environments. Therefore, it is paramount to provide support to mitigate age-related cognitive degradation and to relieve their fear towards technological changes. In this demo paper, we present CogniWin, an integrated framework for providing personalized support to older adults at work, which aims to achieve the above goals and to make them feel more positive in prolonging their stay at work. We present an overall description of the system components and the integration architecture, and highlight the benefits of using the system. CCS Concepts • Human-centered Computing ➝ Human Computer Interaction (HCI) ➝ Interactive Systems and Tools.
Strontium D-glutamate hexahydrate and strontium di(hydrogen L-glutamate) pentahydrate.

[Sr(C5H7NO4)]. 6H2O, (I), and [Sr(C5H8NO4)2]. 5H2O, (II), both crystallize with similar strontium-glutamate-water layers. In (I), the neutral layers are connected through hydrogen bonds by water molecules, while in (II), the positively charged layers are connected through hydrogen bonds and electrostatic interactions by interleaving layers of hydrogen glutamate anions and water molecules.
Nonparametric Bayesian Inverse Reinforcement Learning for Multiple Reward Functions

We present a nonparametric Bayesian approach to inverse reinforcement learning (IRL) for multiple reward functions. Most previous IRL algorithms assume that the behaviour data is obtained from an agent who is optimizing a single reward function, but this assumption is hard to guarantee in practice. Our approach is based on integrating the Dirichlet process mixture model into Bayesian IRL. We provide an efficient Metropolis-Hastings sampling algorithm utilizing the gradient of the posterior to estimate the underlying reward functions, and demonstrate that our approach outperforms previous ones via experiments on a number of problem domains.
Consistency of Clinical Diagnosis of Dementia in NEDICES: A Population-Based Longitudinal Study in Spain

Background: Few longitudinal studies have verified the clinical diagnosis of dementia based on clinical examinations. We evaluated the consistency of the clinical diagnosis of dementia over a period of 3 years of follow-up in a population-based, cohort study of older people in central Spain. Methods: Individuals (N = 5278) were evaluated at baseline (1994-1995) and at follow-up (1997-1998). The evaluation included a screening questionnaire for dementia and a neurological assessment. Results: Dementia screening consisted of a 37-item version of the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and the Pfeffer Functional Activities Questionnaire (FAQ). Study neurologists investigated those participants who screened positively (N = 713) as well as 843 who had screened negatively to test the sensitivity of the screening instruments or because they had a positive screening for other chronic neurological diseases. We detected 295 patients among those who screened positive and 13 among those who screened negatively. Three years follow-up evaluation demonstrated 14 diagnostic errors at baseline (4.5%) leading to a final number of 306 patients with dementia. The corrected prevalence of dementia was 5.8% (95% confidence interval [CI] 5.2-6.5). Conclusions: The diagnosis of dementia was highly accurate in this population-based, Spanish cohort study, and our prevalence figures agree with other European surveys. Given the high cost and difficulties of population rescreening and its relatively low yield, we conclude that a single 2-phase investigation (screening followed by clinical examination) provides accurate information for most population-based prevalence studies of dementia.
Hydration water mobility is enhanced around tau amyloid fibers

Significance Protein aggregation into amyloid fibers and oligomers is observed in a variety of neurodegenerative diseases. The fibers formed by the intrinsically disordered human protein tau, for instance, are one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer disease. In this work, we report on the dynamic behavior of tau hydration water, which we found to be more mobile in tau fibers than in nonaggregated tau. This increase in mobility could promote fiber formation through an increase in hydration water entropy. That hydration water is more mobile around the pathological form of tau corroborates that methodologies sensitive to the diffusion of water, such as diffusion magnetic resonance imaging, could be used to diagnose Alzheimer patients in an early stage of the disease. The paired helical filaments (PHF) formed by the intrinsically disordered human protein tau are one of the pathological hallmarks of Alzheimer disease. PHF are fibers of amyloid nature that are composed of a rigid core and an unstructured fuzzy coat. The mechanisms of fiber formation, in particular the role that hydration water might play, remain poorly understood. We combined protein deuteration, neutron scattering, and all-atom molecular dynamics simulations to study the dynamics of hydration water at the surface of fibers formed by the full-length human protein htau40. In comparison with monomeric tau, hydration water on the surface of tau fibers is more mobile, as evidenced by an increased fraction of translationally diffusing water molecules, a higher diffusion coefficient, and increased mean-squared displacements in neutron scattering experiments. Fibers formed by the hexapeptide 306VQIVYK311 were taken as a model for the tau fiber core and studied by molecular dynamics simulations, revealing that hydration water dynamics around the core domain is significantly reduced after fiber formation. Thus, an increase in water dynamics around the fuzzy coat is proposed to be at the origin of the experimentally observed increase in hydration water dynamics around the entire tau fiber. The observed increase in hydration water dynamics is suggested to promote fiber formation through entropic effects. Detection of the enhanced hydration water mobility around tau fibers is conjectured to potentially contribute to the early diagnosis of Alzheimer patients by diffusion MRI.
Infinite-Horizon Average Optimality of the N-Network in the Halfin-Whitt Regime

We study the infinite-horizon optimal control problem for N-network queueing systems, which consists of two customer classes and two server pools, under average (ergodic) criteria in the Halfin–Whitt regime. We consider three control objectives: (1) minimizing the queueing (and idleness) cost, (2) minimizing the queueing cost while imposing a constraint on idleness at each server pool, and (3) minimizing the queueing cost while requiring fairness on idleness. The running costs can be any nonnegative convex functions having at most polynomial growth. For all three problems, we establish asymptotic optimality; namely, the convergence of the value functions of the diffusion-scaled state process to the corresponding values of the controlled diffusion limit. We also present a simple state-dependent priority scheduling policy under which the diffusion-scaled state process is geometrically ergodic in the Halfin–Whitt regime, and some results on convergence of mean empirical measures, which facilitate the proofs.
Graph-Laplacian PCA: Closed-Form Solution and Robustness

Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is a widely used to learn a low-dimensional representation. In many applications, both vector data X and graph data W are available. Laplacian embedding is widely used for embedding graph data. We propose a graph-Laplacian PCA (gLPCA) to learn a low dimensional representation of X that incorporates graph structures encoded in W. This model has several advantages: (1) It is a data representation model. (2) It has a compact closed-form solution and can be efficiently computed. (3) It is capable to remove corruptions. Extensive experiments on 8 datasets show promising results on image reconstruction and significant improvement on clustering and classification.