Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Establishment of a Mesenchymal Stem Cell Bank

Adult stem cells have generated great amount of interest amongst the scientific community for their potential therapeutic applications for unmet medical needs. We have demonstrated the plasticity of mesenchymal stem cells isolated from the umbilical cord matrix. Their immunological profile makes it even more interesting. We have demonstrated that the umbilical cord is an inexhaustible source of mesenchymal stem cells. Being a very rich source, instead of discarding this tissue, we worked on banking these cells for regenerative medicine application for future use. The present paper gives a detailed account of our experience in the establishment of a mesenchymal stem cell bank at our facility.
Inorganic Nitrate in Angina Study: A Randomized Double‐Blind Placebo‐Controlled Trial

Background In this double‐blind randomized placebo‐controlled crossover trial, we investigated whether oral sodium nitrate, when added to existing background medication, reduces exertional ischemia in patients with angina. Methods and Results Seventy patients with stable angina, positive electrocardiogram treadmill test, and either angiographic or functional test evidence of significant ischemic heart disease were randomized to receive oral treatment with either placebo or sodium nitrate (600 mg; 7 mmol) for 7 to 10 days, followed by a 2‐week washout period before crossing over to the other treatment (n=34 placebo‐nitrate, n=36 nitrate‐placebo). At baseline and at the end of each treatment, patients underwent modified Bruce electrocardiogram treadmill test, modified Seattle Questionnaire, and subgroups were investigated with dobutamine stress, echocardiogram, and blood tests. The primary outcome was time to 1 mm ST depression on electrocardiogram treadmill test. Compared with placebo, inorganic nitrate treatment tended to increase the primary outcome exercise time to 1 mm ST segment depression (645.6 [603.1, 688.0] seconds versus 661.2 [6183, 704.0] seconds, P=0.10) and significantly increased total exercise time (744.4 [702.4, 786.4] seconds versus 760.9 [719.5, 802.2] seconds, P=0.04; mean [95% confidence interval]). Nitrate treatment robustly increased plasma nitrate (18.3 [15.2, 21.5] versus 297.6 [218.4, 376.8] μmol/L, P<0.0001) and almost doubled circulating nitrite concentrations (346 [285, 405] versus 552 [398, 706] nmol/L, P=0.003; placebo versus nitrate treatment). Other secondary outcomes were not significantly altered by the intervention. Patients on antacid medication appeared to benefit less from nitrate supplementation. Conclusions Sodium nitrate treatment may confer a modest exercise capacity benefit in patients with chronic angina who are taking other background medication. Clinical Trial Registration URL: https://www.clinicaltrials. gov/. Unique identifier: NCT02078921. EudraCT number: 2012‐000196‐17.
Gabapentin adjunctive to risperidone or olanzapine in partially responsive schizophrenia: an open-label pilot study

Background There is a great need in the treatment of schizophrenia for a drug, or drug combinations, to improve clinical response with fewer serious side effects. The objective of this study was to explore the therapeutic effects and tolerability of the anticonvulsant gabapentin as an adjunctive in the treatment of patients with partially responsive schizophrenia. Methods Ten consenting patients with a confirmed Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition, Text Revision diagnosis of schizophrenia were identified. All patients failed at least one 12-week treatment trial with risperidone or olanzapine. Gabapentin was added to ongoing antipsychotic treatment with olanzapine or risperidone for eight weeks. The primary outcome measure was the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS). Other scales included the Calgary Depression Scale (CDSS) and the Abnormal Involuntary Movement Scale (AIMS). Repeated-measures multivariate analysis of variance was utilized to examine changes in outcome measures over time with adjunctive treatment with gabapentin. Results There was a significant drop in the PANSS and CDSS scores at endpoint (week 8). There were no significant differences between the two treatment groups with regard to changes in all outcome measures or in AIMS score. The adjunctive treatments were well tolerated and side effects were transient. Conclusion Gabapentin could be used successfully as an adjunct to novel antipsychotics in partially responsive schizophrenia. However, large controlled studies are needed to examine the effectiveness of gabapentin in psychotic disorders.
Development of efficient particle swarm optimizers by using concepts from evolutionary algorithms

Particle swarm optimization (PSO) has been in practice for more than 10 years now and has gained wide popularity in various optimization tasks. In the context to single objective optimization, this paper studies two aspects of PSO: (i) its ability to approach an 'optimal basin', and (ii) to find the optimum with high precision once it enters the region. of interest. We test standard PSO algorithms and discover their inability in handling both aspects efficiently. To address these issues with PSO, we propose an evolutionary algorithm (EA) which is algorithmically similar to PSO, and then borrow different EA-specific operators to enhance the PSO's performance. Our final proposed PSO contains a parent-centric recombination operator instead of usual particle update rule, but maintains PSO's individualistic trait and has a demonstrated performance comparable to a well-known GA (and outperforms the GA in some occasions). Moreover, the modified PSO algorithm is found to scale up to solve as large as 100-variable problems. This study emphasizes the need for similar such studies in establishing an equivalence between various genetic/evolutionary and other bio-inspired algorithms, a process that may lead us to better understand the scope and usefulness of various operators associated with each algorithm.
Globalization and the Demand-Side of Politics: How Globalization Shapes Labor Market Risk Perceptions and Policy Preferences*

Does globalization affect the demand-side of politics, and if so, how? This paper builds on new developments in trade theory to argue that globalization matters, but that its effects on individuals’ perceptions of labor market risk and policy preferences are more heterogenous than previous research has acknowledged. Globalization exposure increases risk perceptions and demands for social protection among low-skilled individuals, but decreases them among high-skilled individuals. This conditional effect is observationally distinct from classic trade models as well as arguments that deindustrialization or ideology predominantly drive such perceptions and preferences. Analyzing cross-national survey data from 16 European countries and focusing both on trade and offshoring, the empirical analyses support the prediction that exposure to globalization affects high- and low-skilled individuals differently, leading to variation in labor market risk perceptions and policy preferences.
Shade: a fast instruction-set simulator for execution profiling

Tracing tools are used widely to help analyze, design, and tune both hardware and software systems. This paper describes a tool called Shade which combines efficient instruction-set simulation with a flexible, extensible trace generation capability. Efficiency is achieved by dynamically compiling and caching code to simulate and trace the application program. The user may control the extent of tracing in a variety of ways; arbitrarily detailed application state information may be collected during the simulation, but tracing less translates directly into greater efficiency. Current Shade implementations run on SPARC systems and simulate the SPARC (Versions 8 and 9) and MIPS I instruction sets. This paper describes the capabilities, design, implementation, and performance of Shade, and discusses instruction set emulation in general.
Effect of Ultrasonic Melt-Treatment on the Eutectic Silicon and Iron Intermetallic Phases in Al-Si Cast Alloys

The ultrasonic melt treatment is highly efficient in controlling the size and morphology of the alpha-aluminum phase in the Al-Si cast alloys. However, the influence of this treatment on the other phases, namely: the eutectic Si and the Fe-intermetallic phases, has not been thoroughly investigated. This study was undertaken to investigate the effect of ultrasonic melt treatment on the morphology and size of these phases. Four Al-Si cast alloys, 384, 380, 356 and 356 (with 0.8% Fe), were considered in this study. The treatment temperatures were varied from about 100oC above the liquidus temperatures down to the Al-Si eutectic temperature, for different treatment times (4 to 54 s). The results showed that the Si particles are only affected by the ultrasonic vibrations when the eutectic reaction takes place under the ultrasonic field, where more compacted and large Si particles are formed. This limited effect was observed only near to the ultrasonic horn. For other investigated conditions, including treatment in the liquid and semisolid states, the Si particles were obviously unaffected by the ultrasonic treatment. On the other hand, the iron intermetallic phases changed their morphology from large plate-like particles to a more compacted globular form, by the application of ultrasonic vibrations at temperatures up to 10oC above liquidus. Treatments at higher temperatures have limited effect on the morphology of the Fe-intermetallic phases. These observations are general and apply to all the studied alloys.
Obesity and associated lifestyle behaviours in Iran: findings from the First National Non-communicable Disease Risk Factor Surveillance Survey

Abstract Objective To assess the national prevalence of overweight and obesity, as well as some associated lifestyle behaviours, for the first time in Iran. Design and Settings This population-based study was performed in early 2005 as part of the World Health Organization (WHO) STEPwise approach to non-communicable diseases’ risk factor surveillance. Dietary and physical activity habits were assessed by WHO questionnaires. Subjects The study population comprised 89 532 subjects aged over 15 years living in the 28 provinces of Iran. Results Overall, 50.4% (n = 45 113) of the participants were male and 64.6% (n = 57 866) were from the urban areas. The national estimates of overweight, obesity and morbid obesity were 28.6%, 10.8% and 3.4%, respectively. Body mass index (BMI) ≥ 25 kg m−2 in men, women, urban residents and rural residents were found in 37%, 48%, 46.7% and 35.5%, respectively. Abdominal obesity was present in 43.4% of women, 9.7% of men, 28.5% of the urban residents and 23% of the rural residents. Overweight as well as generalised and abdominal obesity were more prevalent in the 45–64-year age group. Although there was no significant difference in frequency of consumption of the food groups in subjects with different BMI categories, various kinds of physical activities showed a steady decline with increasing BMI. Conclusions The findings of the present study provide alarming evidence for health professionals and policy makers about the very high prevalence of generalised and abdominal obesity in Iran. The unhealthy lifestyle habits, notably sedentary lifestyles in our community, are the major contributing factors for this emerging public health problem.
Granulocyte-Macrophage Colony Stimulatory Factor Enhances the Pro-Inflammatory Response of Interferon-γ-Treated Macrophages to Pseudomonas aeruginosa Infection

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an opportunistic pathogen that can cause severe infections at compromised epithelial surfaces, such those found in burns, wounds, and in lungs damaged by mechanical ventilation or recurrent infections, particularly in cystic fibrosis (CF) patients. CF patients have been proposed to have a Th2 and Th17-biased immune response suggesting that the lack of Th1 and/or over exuberant Th17 responses could contribute to the establishment of chronic P. aeruginosa infection and deterioration of lung function. Accordingly, we have observed that interferon (IFN)-γ production by peripheral blood mononuclear cells from CF patients positively correlated with lung function, particularly in patients chronically infected with P. aeruginosa. In contrast, IL-17A levels tended to correlate negatively with lung function with this trend becoming significant in patients chronically infected with P. aeruginosa. These results are in agreement with IFN-γ and IL-17A playing protective and detrimental roles, respectively, in CF. In order to explore the protective effect of IFN-γ in CF, the effect of IFN-γ alone or in combination with granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF), on the ability of human macrophages to control P. aeruginosa growth, resist the cytotoxicity induced by this bacterium or promote inflammation was investigated. Treatment of macrophages with IFN-γ, in the presence and absence of GM-CSF, failed to alter bacterial growth or macrophage survival upon P. aeruginosa infection, but changed the inflammatory potential of macrophages. IFN-γ caused up-regulation of monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) and TNF-α and down-regulation of IL-10 expression by infected macrophages. GM-CSF in combination with IFN-γ promoted IL-6 production and further reduction of IL-10 synthesis. Comparison of TNF-α vs. IL-10 and IL-6 vs. IL-10 ratios revealed the following hierarchy in regard to the pro-inflammatory potential of human macrophages infected with P. aeruginosa: untreated < treated with GM-CSF < treated with IFN-γ < treated with GM-CSF and IFN-γ.
BioAIM: Bio-inspired Autonomous Infrastructure Monitoring

The Bio-inspired Autonomous Infrastructure Monitoring (BioAIM) system detects anomalous behavior during the deployment and maintenance of a wireless communication network formed autonomously by unmanned airborne nodes. A node may experience anomalous or unexpected behavior in the presence of hardware/software faults/failures, or external influence (e.g. natural weather phenomena, enemy threats). This system autonomously detects, reasons with (e.g. differentiates an anomaly from natural interference), and alerts a human operator of anomalies at runtime via a communication network formed by the Bio-inspired Artificial Intelligence Reconfiguration (BioAIR) system. In particular, BioAIM learns and builds a prediction model which describes how data from relevant sensors should change when a behavior executes under normal circumstances. Surprises occur when there are discrepancies between what is predicted and what is observed. BioAIM identifies a dynamic set of states from the prediction model and learns a structured model similar to a Markov Chain in order to quantify the magnitude of a surprise or divergence from the norm using a special similarity metric. While in operation BioAIM monitors the sensor data by testing the applicable models for each valid behavior at regular time intervals, and informs the operator when a similarity metric deviates from the acceptable threshold.
A weakly informative default prior distribution for logistic and other regression models

We propose a new prior distribution for classical (nonhierarchical) logistic regression models, constructed by first scaling all nonbinary variables to have mean 0 and standard deviation 0.5, and then placing independent Student-t prior distributions on the coefficients. As a default choice, we recommend the Cauchy distribution with center 0 and scale 2.5, which in the simplest setting is a longer-tailed version of the distribution attained by assuming one-half additional success and one-half additional failure in a logistic regression. Cross-validation on a corpus of datasets shows the Cauchy class of prior distributions to outperform existing implementations of Gaussian and Laplace priors. We recommend this prior distribution as a default choice for routine applied use. It has the advantage of always giving answers, even when there is complete separation in logistic regression (a common problem, even when the sample size is large and the number of predictors is small), and also automatically applying more shrinkage to higher-order interactions. This can be useful in routine data analysis as well as in automated procedures such as chained equations for missing-data imputation. We implement a procedure to fit generalized linear models in R with the Student-t prior distribution by incorporating an approximate EM algorithm into the usual iteratively weighted least squares. We illustrate with several applications, including a series of logistic regressions predicting voting preferences, a small bioassay experiment, and an imputation model for a public health data set.
The reorganization of synaptic connexions in the rat submandibular ganglion during post‐natal development.

1. The innervation of neurones in the submandibular ganglion of neonatal and adult rats has been studied with intracellular recording, and light and electron microscopy. 2. Intracellular recordings from neurones in isolated ganglia from adult animals showed that about 75% of the ganglion cells are innervated by a single preganglionic fibre. 3. However multiple steps in the post‐synaptic potential (about five on average) were elicited in ganglion cells from neonatal animals by graded stimulation of the preganglionic nerve. The same result was obtained when the preganglionic fibres were stimulated at their emergence from the brainstem, indicating that neonatal neurones are innervated by several different preganglionic nerve cells. 4. The number of preganglionic fibres innervating individual ganglion cells gradually decreased during the first few weeks of life, and by about 5 weeks each ganglion cell was generally contacted by a single preganglionic axon. 5. Synapses were made on short protuberances in the immediate vicinity of the neuronal cell bodies in both neonatal and adult ganglia as shown by staining presynaptic boutons with the zinc‐iodide osmium method, injection of horseradish peroxidase into ganglion cells, and electron microscopical examination. 6. Electron microscopical counts of synaptic profiles per ganglion cell perimeter showed that the number of synaptic contacts made on ganglion cells actually increased during the first few post‐natal weeks, when the number of axons innervating each neurone was decreasing. 7. These results show that in the rat submandibular ganglion there is a reorganization of neuronal connexions during the first few weeks of life which results in a transition from multiple to generally single innervation of ganglion cells.
Unexpected Role for IL-17 in Protective Immunity against Hypervirulent Mycobacterium tuberculosis HN878 Infection

Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), the causative agent of tuberculosis (TB), infects one third of the world's population. Among these infections, clinical isolates belonging to the W-Beijing appear to be emerging, representing about 50% of Mtb isolates in East Asia, and about 13% of all Mtb isolates worldwide. In animal models, infection with W-Beijing strain, Mtb HN878, is considered “hypervirulent” as it results in increased mortality and causes exacerbated immunopathology in infected animals. We had previously shown the Interleukin (IL) -17 pathway is dispensable for primary immunity against infection with the lab adapted Mtb H37Rv strain. However, it is not known whether IL-17 has any role to play in protective immunity against infection with clinical Mtb isolates. We report here that lab adapted Mtb strains, such as H37Rv, or less virulent Mtb clinical isolates, such as Mtb CDC1551, do not require IL-17 for protective immunity against infection while infection with Mtb HN878 requires IL-17 for early protective immunity. Unexpectedly, Mtb HN878 induces robust production of IL-1β through a TLR-2-dependent mechanism, which supports potent IL-17 responses. We also show that the role for IL-17 in mediating protective immunity against Mtb HN878 is through IL-17 Receptor signaling in non-hematopoietic cells, mediating the induction of the chemokine, CXCL-13, which is required for localization of T cells within lung lymphoid follicles. Correct T cell localization within lymphoid follicles in the lung is required for maximal macrophage activation and Mtb control. Since IL-17 has a critical role in vaccine-induced immunity against TB, our results have far reaching implications for the design of vaccines and therapies to prevent and treat emerging Mtb strains. In addition, our data changes the existing paradigm that IL-17 is dispensable for primary immunity against Mtb infection, and instead suggests a differential role for IL-17 in early protective immunity against emerging Mtb strains.
Maximum-Likelihood Estimator of Clock Offset between Nanomachines in Bionanosensor Networks

Recent advances in nanotechnology, electronic technology and biology have enabled the development of bio-inspired nanoscale sensors. The cooperation among the bionanosensors in a network is envisioned to perform complex tasks. Clock synchronization is essential to establish diffusion-based distributed cooperation in the bionanosensor networks. This paper proposes a maximum-likelihood estimator of the clock offset for the clock synchronization among molecular bionanosensors. The unique properties of diffusion-based molecular communication are described. Based on the inverse Gaussian distribution of the molecular propagation delay, a two-way message exchange mechanism for clock synchronization is proposed. The maximum-likelihood estimator of the clock offset is derived. The convergence and the bias of the estimator are analyzed. The simulation results show that the proposed estimator is effective for the offset compensation required for clock synchronization. This work paves the way for the cooperation of nanomachines in diffusion-based bionanosensor networks.
Accounting for taste: using profile similarity to improve recommender systems

Recommender systems have been developed to address the abundance of choice we face in taste domains (films, music, restaurants) when shopping or going out. However, consumers currently struggle to evaluate the appropriateness of recommendations offered. With collaborative filtering, recommendations are based on people's ratings of items. In this paper, we propose that the usefulness of recommender systems can be improved by including more information about recommenders. We conducted a laboratory online experiment with 100 participants simulating a movie recommender system to determine how familiarity of the recommender, profile similarity between decision-maker and recommender, and rating overlap with a particular recommender influence the choices of decision-makers in such a context. While familiarity in this experiment did not affect the participants' choices, profile similarity and rating overlap had a significant influence. These results help us understand the decision-making processes in an online context and form the basis for user-centered social recommender system design.
Instability in gravity-driven flow over uneven surfaces

We consider the gravity-driven laminar flow of a shallow fluid layer down an uneven incline with the principal objective of investigating the effect of bottom topography and surface tension on the stability of the flow. The equations of motion are approximations to the Navier–Stokes equations which exploit the assumed relative shallowness of the fluid layer. Included in these equations are diffusive terms that are second order relative to the shallowness parameter. These terms, while small in magnitude, represent an important dependence of the flow dynamics on the variation in bottom topography and play a significant role in theoretically capturing important aspects of the flow. Some of the second-order terms include normal shear contributions, while others lead to a nonhydrostatic pressure distribution. The explicit dependence on the cross-stream coordinate is eliminated from the equations of motion by means of a weighted residual approach. The resulting mathematical formulation constitutes an extension .