Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pigment Epithelium-Derived Factor (PEDF) Expression Induced by EGFRvIII Promotes Self-renewal and Tumor Progression of Glioma Stem Cells

Epidermal growth factor receptor variant III (EGFRvIII) has been associated with glioma stemness, but the direct molecular mechanism linking the two is largely unknown. Here, we show that EGFRvIII induces the expression and secretion of pigment epithelium-derived factor (PEDF) via activation of signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3), thereby promoting self-renewal and tumor progression of glioma stem cells (GSCs). Mechanistically, PEDF sustained GSC self-renewal by Notch1 cleavage, and the generated intracellular domain of Notch1 (NICD) induced the expression of Sox2 through interaction with its promoter region. Furthermore, a subpopulation with high levels of PEDF was capable of infiltration along corpus callosum. Inhibition of PEDF diminished GSC self-renewal and increased survival of orthotopic tumor-bearing mice. Together, these data indicate the novel role of PEDF as a key regulator of GSC and suggest clinical implications.
Performance of Single-Stage and Dual-Stage EV Battery Chargers for G2V and V2G Operation

In recent years the growth of electric vehicles has increased day by day and this encourages the different G2V, V2G, V2V, V2L, and V2H technologies. In this paper, discussed the bidirectional power flow from the grid to the vehicle or vice versa. V2G technology is very beneficial during peak load periods, voltage regulation, and improvement of power system stability. To implement this V2G technology, it required proper management of the electric battery charger and the charger is capable of flowing the power in either direction. This paper shows the single-stage and dual-stage charger topology to flow the power in either direction i.e. G2V or V2G. This paper also shows the battery can be charged using constant current and constant voltage charging methods. In the single stage, use only the PFC circuit to charge or discharge the battery. In the dual-stage, an active bridge rectifier for AC to DC conversion with an L filter in series with the source has been used and for the next stage, a bidirectional DAB converter with an LC filter for DC to DC conversion is used and a separate control strategy for battery charging & discharging. This paper shows the battery control strategy can charge or discharge the battery at constant current and constant voltage. The performance of this single-stage and dual-stage battery charger is verified by simulations in MATLAB/SIMULINK software and the waveform is verified in real-time using the OPAL-RT system.
Strong Dependence of Extreme Convective Precipitation Intensities on Gauge Network Density

Extreme convective precipitation on subhourly scales is notoriously misrepresented in rain gauge‐based observations, but uncertainties are weakly quantified at the 1 to 30 km scale. We employ a unique observing network, the high‐density WegenerNet and surrounding operational rain gauge network in southeastern Austria, to sample convective precipitation extremes at these scales. By systematically constructing lower‐density networks, we explore how estimated maximum area precipitation depends on observing station density. Using subhourly to hourly temporal resolution, we find a d−0.5(±0.1) power law decay of the event maximum area precipitation over distances d from 1 to 30 km, showing that operational gauge networks underrate extreme convective precipitation falling over small areas. Furthermore, extremes at point scale are found underestimated by operational networks by about 20%. We consider the dependencies representative for short‐duration convective events over similar regions at midlatitudes and the results valuable for high‐resolution climate model evaluation.
Analyzing the Influence of Digital Currency Adoption on Traditional Banking Systems Through Data Analytics: A Study on Emerging Economies

This study delves into the ramifications of digital currency assimilation within traditional banking systems, with a specific emphasis on emerging economies, notably Pakistan. Motivated by the escalating prominence of digital currencies and their potential to disrupt conventional banking practices. The research formulates three hypotheses to scrutinize the interrelationships between digital currency adoption, technological infrastructure, regulatory frameworks, and the operational performance of conventional banks. Employing a structured questionnaire, disseminated amongst professionals in the banking and financial sector, as well as users of both digital currencies and traditional banking services, the investigation unfolds a nuanced understanding from diverse vantage points. The findings elucidate a positive correlation between heightened digital currency adoption and the enhanced performance of conventional banks. Additionally, a robust technological infrastructure and a conducive regulatory environment emerge as pivotal factors significantly shaping the performance of traditional banks in the milieu of digital currency adoption. These empirical results contribute substantively to the extant literature, underscoring the imperative for banks to acclimate to technological progressions and for policymakers to cultivate regulatory frameworks that strike a judicious balance between innovation and financial stability. While the study proffers valuable insights, it remains cognizant of its limitations in scope and propounds directions for future research, advocating for broader geographical representation and the exploration of other nascent technologies within the realm of finance.
A static analyzer for large safety-critical software

We show that abstract interpretation-based static program analysis can be made efficient and precise enough to formally verify a class of properties for a family of large programs with few or no false alarms. This is achieved by refinement of a general purpose static analyzer and later adaptation to particular programs of the family by the end-user through parametrization. This is applied to the proof of soundness of data manipulation operations at the machine level for periodic synchronous safety critical embedded software.The main novelties are the design principle of static analyzers by refinement and adaptation through parametrization (Sect. 3 and 7), the symbolic manipulation of expressions to improve the precision of abstract transfer functions (Sect. 6.3), the octagon (Sect. 6.2.2), ellipsoid (Sect. 6.2.3), and decision tree (Sect. 6.2.4) abstract domains, all with sound handling of rounding errors in oating point computations, widening strategies (with thresholds: Sect. 7.1.2, delayed: Sect. 7.1.3) and the automatic determination of the parameters (parametrized packing: Sect. 7.2).
Nucleus reuniens of the thalamus contains head direction cells

Discrete populations of brain cells signal heading direction, rather like a compass. These ‘head direction’ cells are largely confined to a closely-connected network of sites. We describe, for the first time, a population of head direction cells in nucleus reuniens of the thalamus in the freely-moving rat. This novel subcortical head direction signal potentially modulates the hippocampal CA fields directly and, thus, informs spatial processing and memory. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.7554/eLife.03075. 001
Utility of serum immunoglobulin G4 in distinguishing immunoglobulin G4‐associated cholangitis from cholangiocarcinoma

Elevated serum immunoglobulin G4 (sIgG4) is a feature of autoimmune pancreatitis (AIP) and IgG4‐associated cholangitis (IAC); a >2‐fold increase in sIgG4 is considered highly specific for these disorders. Many patients with IAC present with biliary strictures and obstructive jaundice, making cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) an important differential diagnosis. We determined the value of sIgG4 in distinguishing IAC from CCA. sIgG4 levels were measured in a test cohort of 126 CCA and 50 IAC patients. The results were confirmed in a validation cohort of 161 CCA and 47 IAC patients. Of the 126 CCA patients in the test cohort, 17 (13.5%) had elevated sIgG4 (>140 mg/dL) and four (3.2%) had a >2‐fold (>280 mg/dL) increase. Primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) was present in 31/126 CCA patients, of whom seven (22.6%) had elevated sIgG4 and two (6.5%) had a >2‐fold elevation. Of the 50 IAC patients, 39 (78.0%) had elevated sIgG4 and 25 (50.0%) had a >2‐fold increase. The results in the validation cohort were consistent with those of the test cohort. Conclusion: Although elevated sIgG4 levels are characteristic of IAC, some patients with CCA, particularly with PSC, have elevated sIgG4 levels, including a small percentage with a more than a 2‐fold increase in sIgG4. Therefore, sIgG4 elevation alone does not exclude the diagnosis of CCA. Depending on the prevalence of the two diagnoses, the use of a 2‐fold cutoff for sIgG4 may not reliably distinguish IAC from CCA. At a cutoff of 4 times the upper limit of normal, sIgG4 is 100% specific for IAC. (HEPATOLOGY 2011;)
Best Practice Smoking Cessation Intervention and Resource Needs of Prenatal Care Providers

OBJECTIVE: To describe smoking cessation interventions by prenatal care providers and to identify factors associated with best practice. METHODS: A mailed survey assessed implementation of the “5 A's” of best practice (Ask about smoking; Advise patients to quit; Assess willingness to quit; Assist with a cessation plan; and Arrange follow-up), practice characteristics, intervention training, resources, barriers, and attitudes toward reimbursement. Each factor in association with provider type and best practice implementation was analyzed. RESULTS: Of 1,138 eligible North Carolina health professionals, 844 responded (74%); 549 were providing prenatal care and returned completed surveys. Most asked about smoking (98%) and advised cessation (100%). Across provider type, one third (31%) consistently implemented all “5 A's” of best practice. Most providers (90%) had at least one material resource (eg, pamphlets), which correlated with nearly 10 times the adjusted odds of best practice (odds ratio [OR] 9.6, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.3–72.9). Seventy percent had at least one counseling resource. Having a counseling resource (OR 2.5, 95% CI 1.4–4.4) and a written protocol to identify staff responsibilities (OR 2.5, 95% CI 1.5–4.3) were equally associated with best practice. More than one half of providers endorsed reimbursement as influential on best practice. CONCLUSION: Best practice is well-established to promote prenatal smoking cessation yet implemented by only one third of prenatal care providers in North Carolina. In this study, best practice was associated with resources, practice organization, and reimbursement. Augmented use of available resources (eg, toll-free hotlines) and adequate reimbursement may promote best practice implementation. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: III
Fast or Frugal, but Not Both: Decision Heuristics Under Time Pressure

Heuristics are simple, yet effective, strategies that people use to make decisions. Because heuristics do not require all available information, they are thought to be easy to implement and to not tax limited cognitive resources, which has led heuristics to be characterized as fast-and-frugal. We question this monolithic conception of heuristics by contrasting the cognitive demands of two popular heuristics, Tallying and Take-the-Best. We contend that heuristics that are frugal in terms of information usage may not always be fast because of the attentional control required to implement this focus in certain contexts. In support of this hypothesis, we find that Take-the-Best, while being more frugal in terms of information usage, is slower to implement and fares worse under time pressure manipulations than Tallying. This effect is then reversed when search costs for Take-the-Best are reduced by changing the format of the stimuli. These findings suggest that heuristics are heterogeneous and should be unpacked according to their cognitive demands to determine the circumstances a heuristic best applies.
Exploring the Potentiality of BiOBr as an Absorber material for the Perovskite Solar Cell

Considering power conversion efficiency (PCE), perovskite materials consist of organic-inorganic-halide compound performs better in contrast to the inorganic-inorganic-halide perovskite solar cells (PSCs) though Organic-inorganic PSCs have an inherent drawback in that it is harmful to organisms and the environment and is very challenging to eliminate from the body. On the other hand, inorganic PCSs are environmental friendly. That's why, more researches are required to find a highly efficient PSCs. In this study, we selected a novel inorganic compound, BiOBr as the absorber layer for our proposed PSC and determine the performance of the proposed cell with highly popular CFTS and $\mathbf{TiO}_{2}$ as hole transport layer(HTL) and electron transport layer(ETL), respectively. In order to compute the band properties of the proposed perovskite material, density functional theory (DFT) was used and the performance parameters $(Jsc,V_{oc}$, FF, efficiency) were determined using SCAPS 1-D software. The obtained efficiency of the $\text{TiO}_{2}$ / BiOBr/ CFTS compound structure was 20.24%.
City Vehicle Routing Problem (City VRP): A Review

Lately, the Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) in the city, known as City VRP, has gained popularity with its importance in city logistics. Similar to city logistics, City VRP mainly differs from conventional VRP in terms of the stakeholders involved, namely the shipper, carrier, resident, and administrator. Accordingly, this paper surveys the City VRP literature categorized by stakeholders and summarizes the constraints, models, and solution methods for VRP in urban cities. City VRPs are also analyzed based on the problem of interest considered by the stakeholders and the corresponding models that have been proposed in response. Through this review, we identify the state of the art of City VRP, highlight the core challenging issues, and suggest some potential research area in this field that have remained underexplored.
Green IS: Are We Still Thinking in Mere Economic Imperatives or Are We Striving for Eco-Effectiveness?

Organizations are under increasing pressure to account for their environmental footprint and to adopt environmental sustainable practices, and information systems can support organizations in becoming more environmentally sustainable. Through the analysis of expert interviews with eleven representatives from organizations concerned with environmental sustainability, and drawing on a conceptual model of information systems and ecological sustainability, we provide evidence that these organizations see key capabilities of information systems in automating, informing, and transforming to support goals related to eco-efficiency, eco-equity, and eco-effectiveness. However, our analysis also suggests that there is still little awareness of the potential of information systems in fundamentally transforming business models and business processes towards eco-effectiveness as the ultimate goal of environmental protection.
Novel Bayesian Vectorcardiographic Loop Alignment for Improved Monitoring of ECG and Fetal Movement

The continuous analysis of electrocardiographic (ECG) signals is complicated by morphological variability in the ECG due to movement of the heart. By aligning vectorcardiographic loops, movement-induced ECG variations can be partly corrected for. Existing methods for loop alignment can account for loop rotation, scaling, and time delays, but they lack the possibility to include a priori information on any of these transformations, and they are unreliable in case of low-quality signals, such as fetal ECG signals. The inclusion of a priori information might aid in the robustness of loop alignment and is, hence, proposed in this paper. We provide a generic Bayesian framework to derive our loop alignment method. In this framework, existing methods can be readily derived as well, as a simplification of our method. The loop alignment is evaluated by comparing its performance in loop alignment to two existing methods, for both adult and fetal ECG recordings. For the adult ECG recordings, a quantitative performance assessment shows that the developed method outperforms the existing method in terms of robustness. For the fetal ECG recordings, it is demonstrated that the developed method can be used to correct ECG signals for movement-induced morphology changes (enabling diagnostics) and that the method is capable of classifying recorded ECG signals to periods of fetal movement or rest (p <; 0.01). This information on fetal movement can also serve as a valuable diagnostic tool.
Risk factors for early onset pneumonia in trauma patients.

STUDY OBJECTIVES The aim of the study was to identify risk factors for early onset pneumonia (EOP) in trauma patients, in order to seek possible intervention strategies. STUDY POPULATION Participants included 124 consecutive trauma patients admitted to a general intensive care unit (ICU) of a university hospital from December 1990 to February 1992 inclusive. DATA COLLECTION The following data were prospectively collected for each patient: demographics, severity of trauma according to the abbreviated injury scale (AIS), severity of coma according to the Glasgow coma scale (GCS), presence of pneumothorax, pulmonary contusion, rib fractures, hemothorax, and mechanical ventilation. All patients were monitored daily during the ICU stay for the onset of pneumonia, sepsis syndrome, septic shock, and adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Criteria for the diagnosis of pneumonia were: core temperature of greater than 38.3 degrees C, a WBC count of 10,000 cells/mm3, purulent tracheobronchial secretions, a worsening of pulmonary gas exchange, and persistent pulmonary infiltrates. All patients with suspected pneumonia underwent quantitative bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) as well as blood cultures; BAL cultures were considered positive when they showed bacterial growth greater than 1 x 10(5) colony-forming unit (cfu)/ml, or less than 10(5), but with the same microorganism isolated in blood cultures. Pneumonia occurring within the first 96 h after trauma was considered EOP. DATA ANALYSIS A stepwise logistic regression analysis was carried out in order to identify factors independently associated with an increased risk of EOP and late onset pneumonia (LOP). RESULTS Overall mortality was 43.5 percent: mortality increased by age and AIS score. Forty one patients (33.1 percent) developed pneumonia: 26 (63.4 percent) were EOP and 15 (36.6 percent) were LOP. In the univariate analysis, an age greater than 40 years, the presence of pulmonary contusion, AIS of more than 4 for thorax and of more than 9 for abdomen, and the absence of mechanical ventilation (MV) during the first 4 days of hospitalization or MV lasting less than 24 h were significantly associated with an increased risk of acquiring EOP. Logistic regression analysis showed that the strongest risk factor for EOP was a combined severe abdominal and thoracic trauma, which increased the risk of EOP by 11 times; an age of more than 40 years and MV of less than 24 h during the first 4 days of hospitalization were also independent risk factors for EOP. Factors associated with LOP were an AIS score of more than 4 for abdomen and a length of MV of more than 5 days. CONCLUSION In a trauma population, a combined severe abdominal and thoracic trauma represents a major risk factor for EOP. Mechanical ventilation administered during the first days after trauma seems to reduce the risk of EOP. As reported in previous studies, mechanical ventilatory support lasting more than 5 days is associated with an increased risk of LOP.
Robust Model Selection for Classification of Microarrays

Recently, microarray-based cancer diagnosis systems have been increasingly investigated. However, cost reduction and reliability assurance of such diagnosis systems are still remaing problems in real clinical scenes. To reduce the cost, we need a supervised classifier involving the smallest number of genes, as long as the classifier is sufficiently reliable. To achieve a reliable classifier, we should assess candidate classifiers and select the best one. In the selection process of the best classifier, however, the assessment criterion must involve large variance because of limited number of samples and non-negligible observation noise. Therefore, even if a classifier with a very small number of genes exhibited the smallest leave-one-out cross-validation (LOO) error rate, it would not necessarily be reliable because classifiers based on a small number of genes tend to show large variance. We propose a robust model selection criterion, the min-max criterion, based on a resampling bootstrap simulation to assess the variance of estimation of classification error rates. We applied our assessment framework to four published real gene expression datasets and one synthetic dataset. We found that a state-of-the-art procedure, weighted voting classifiers with LOO criterion, had a non-negligible risk of selecting extremely poor classifiers and, on the other hand, that the new min-max criterion could eliminate that risk. These finding suggests that our criterion presents a safer procedure to design a practical cancer diagnosis system.
Passive listening to preferred motor tempo modulates corticospinal excitability

Rhythms are an essential characteristic of our lives, and auditory-motor coupling affects a variety of behaviors. Previous research has shown that the neural regions associated with motor system processing are coupled to perceptual rhythmic and melodic processing such that the perception of rhythmic stimuli can entrain motor system responses. However, the degree to which individual preference modulates the motor system is unknown. Recent work has shown that passively listening to metrically strong rhythms increases corticospinal excitability, as indicated by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). Furthermore, this effect is modulated by high-groove music, or music that inspires movement, while neuroimaging evidence suggests that premotor activity increases with tempos occurring within a preferred tempo (PT) category. PT refers to the rate of a hypothetical endogenous oscillator that may be indicated by spontaneous motor tempo (SMT) and preferred perceptual tempo (PPT) measurements. The present study investigated whether listening to a rhythm at an individual’s PT preferentially modulates motor system excitability. SMT was obtained in human participants through a tapping task in which subjects were asked to tap a response key at their most comfortable rate. Subjects listened a 10-beat tone sequence at 11 log-spaced tempos and rated their preference for each (PPT). We found that SMT and PPT measurements were correlated, indicating that preferred and produced tempos occurred at a similar rate. Crucially, single-pulse TMS delivered to left M1 during PPT judgments revealed that corticospinal excitability, measured by motor-evoked potentials (MEPs), was modulated by tempos traveling closer to individual PT. However, the specific nature of this modulation differed across individuals, with some exhibiting an increase in excitability around PT and others exhibiting a decrease. These findings suggest that auditory-motor coupling induced by rhythms is preferentially modulated by rhythms occurring at a preferred rate, and that individual differences can alter the nature of this coupling.