Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A predominant-F/sub 0/ estimation method for CD recordings: MAP estimation using EM algorithm for adaptive tone models

This paper describes a predominant-F/sub 0/ (fundamental frequency) estimation method called PreFEst, which can detect melody and bass lines in monaural audio signals containing sounds of various instruments, While most previous methods premised mixtures of a few sounds and had difficulty dealing with such complex signals, our method can estimate the F/sub 0/ of the melody and bass lines without assuming the number of sound sources in compact-disc recordings. In this paper we propose the following three extensions to our previous PreFEst to make it more adaptive and flexible: introducing multiple harmonic-structure tone models, estimating the shape of tone models, and introducing a prior distribution of its shape and F/sub 0/ estimates These extensions were implemented by the MAP (maximum a posteriori probability) estimation by using the expectation-maximization algorithm. Experimental results with compact-disc recordings showed that our real-time system based on the extended PreFEst achieved performance improvement.
THE FIRST TWO STEPS OF THE INVASION OF HOST CELLS BY BACTERIAL VIRUSES. II

At 37°C. , the attachment of T1 virus to its host cell in solution containing 10–3 M CaCl2 or 10–2 M NaCl is extremely rapid (in the neighborhood of 100 per cent collision efficiency) and irreversible. At 1°C. , the attachment rate is almost equally rapid but largely reversible. If a suboptimal concentration of the necessary ions is employed when T2 virus attaches to host cells, the resulting binding is largely reversible, even at 37°C. Reversible T2 attachment to host cells leaves the cell undamaged and capable of normal reproduction. Irreversible attachment results in death of the cell. Zn++ exercises a specific inhibitory action on the invasion of E. coli B by T1 virus. The virus can still attach to the host cell at a rate closely approximating the maximum value, but the reaction remains reversible and the cell is protected against permanent damage. The protective action of the Zn against T1 invasion is exerted through an action on the cell, rather than on the virus. Studies of the uptake of radioactive Zn65 show that cells become completely immune to T1 invasion when, on the average, 4 x 107 atoms of Zn have been taken up by each cell. Cells killed by ultraviolet irradiation still bind T1 at the maximum rate, but the reaction is reversible even when taking place at 37°C. , in optimum salt concentration. The tryptophane-deficient mutant of T4 bacteriophage requires its specific cofactor for the initial step of attachment to the host cell. These experiments support the picture previously developed that virus invasion of host cells consists in an initial, reversible attachment whose properties are those to be expected from the operation of electrostatic binding forces. The step is followed by an enzymatic transformation which is irreversible, strongly temperature-dependent, and in the case of T1 virus, susceptible to inactivation by ultraviolet radiation. The resistance of mutant cells to specific bacteriophages is of two types, depending on whether the first or second of these steps is blocked.
Application outsourcing: a new business model for enabling competitive electronic commerce

This paper gives an overview of the emerging application service provider (ASP) industry. The ASP model is a new form of application outsourcing (AO) which enables customers to access software applications over the internet. The market for branded application outsourcing services is expected to grow to $21 billion by 2001. The USA, UK and Germany will be the leading players. ASPs offer a new model of outsourcing by providing a contractual service which includes deploying, hosting, managing and renting access to an application via a centrally located facility. This paper introduces a research project currently being undertaken in Silicon Valley in the USA, and in Europe on evaluating application outsourcing using the ASP model. It explores some of the benefits and pitfalls of AO and suggests that three factors will drive the ASP market. They are: market forces including, mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures and strategic alliances; innovation and technical changes, including internet technologies; and business practices, such as core competence thinking and outsourcing practice.
Functional Connectivity Is Altered in Concussed Adolescent Athletes Despite Medical Clearance to Return to Play: A Preliminary Report

Recovery following sports-related concussion (SRC) is slower and often more complicated in young adolescent athletes than in collegiate players. Further, the clinical decision to return to play is currently based on symptoms and cognitive performance without direct knowledge of brain function. We tested the hypothesis that brain functional connectivity (FC) would be aberrant in recently concussed, asymptomatic athletes who had been cleared to return to play. A seed-based FC analysis measured the FC of the default mode network (DMN) (seeds = anterior cingulate cortex, posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), right lateral parietal cortex, and left lateral parietal cortex) 30 days after SRC in asymptomatic high school athletes cleared to return to play (n = 13) and was compared to the FC of high school athletes with orthopedic injury (OI) (n = 13). The SRC group demonstrated greater FC than the OI group between the PCC and the ventral lateral prefrontal cortex, as well as between the right lateral parietal cortex and lateral temporal cortex (with regions both outside of and within the DMN). Additionally, the OI group demonstrated greater FC than the SRC group between right lateral parietal cortex and supramarginal gyrus. When relating the FC results to verbal memory performance approximately 1 week and 1 month after injury, significantly different between-group relations were found for the posterior cingulate and right lateral parietal cortex seeds. However, the groups did not differ in verbal memory at 1 month. We suggest that changes in FC are apparent 1-month post-SRC despite resolution of post-concussion symptoms and recovery of cognitive performance in adolescent athletes cleared to return to play.
TRANSIT: Supporting transitions in Peer-to-Peer live video streaming

The transmission of video content accounts for a large share of today's Internet traffic. While Video-on-Demand (VoD) substantially contributes to this, live streaming events such as video broadcasts from the Olympic Games can cause very high traffic volumes in the short term as well. Such peaks along with high fluctuations triggered by sudden changes in the behavior of users make the design of live streaming systems particularly challenging. Peer-to-Peer (P2P) has proven to be a scalable approach for disseminating content to a large number of users. Accordingly, the body of research offers numerous P2P live streaming approaches tailored towards specific scenarios and assumptions. However, no single approach is able to perform well under all possible conditions. Keeping up a high performance when conditions are changing is a challenge, since topology management and scheduling mechanisms cannot be exchanged easily. Therefore, this paper proposes TRANSIT, a new approach going beyond existing works in that it supports transitions between different live streaming mechanisms. TRANSIT makes different configurations of such mechanisms seamlessly exchangeable to enable the optimal choice of configurations for a wide range of live streaming scenarios. The approach is evaluated using measurement- and trace-based workloads. The results show that TRANSIT is able to maintain a high performance at a low overhead in highly fluctuating environments, whereas static configurations show serious performance degradations.
A comparative study on four oleaginous yeasts on their lipid accumulating capacity

Under the premise of high energy price with estimated petroleum crisis, biodiesel extracted from plant oil, animal fat and microorganisms is considered as a promising replacement for fossil raw material. However, the increasing price of animal feeding and decreasing tillable land for oil plants have brought great difficulty to achieve biodiesel from feedstock plant oil and animal fat. In this study, four oleaginous yeasts including Lipomyces lipofer, Lipomyces starkeyi, Rhodotorula glutinis and Yarrowia lipolytica were compared for their lipid accumulating productivity in different carbon sources: glucose, xylose and a mixture of both glucose and xylose. According to the experimental results, Rhodotorula glutinis had the highest lipid yield in both glucose sole carbon source and mixed sugar in shake flask test. Lipomyces starkeyi was able to utilize xylose as sole carbon source to accumulate lipid with highest yield in shake flask test. In comparison with Lipomyces lipofer, Lipomyces starkeyi had higher lipid yield in both shake flask test and fermentation bioreactors. Yarrowia lipolytica could not utilize xylose sole carbon source and its lipid yield was the lowest one when compared to other three oleaginous yeasts. During fermentation in the bioreactor test, lipid content of Lipomyces lipofer showed a maximum, later the lipid content decreased. A similar peak of lipid content was observed in the fermentation test in bioreactor of Lipomyces starkeyi, but after a temporary decrease the lipid content increased again. Lipid content reached its highest amount at early stationary phase and decreased may be due to lipid remobilization.
Elafin Expression in Mucosa of Fallopian Tubes Is Altered by Hydrosalpinx

Elafin is a natural antimicrobial molecule and a member of the antileukoproteinase (Trappin) family. It is normally expressed in the mucosae of fallopian tubes. Hydrosalpinx is a chronic inflammatory process of the fallopian tubes. The objective of this study is to compare the localization of elafin protein and levels of elafin messenger RNA (mRNA) in the mucosa of oviducts with and without hydrosalpinx. Immunohistochemical analysis was performed on tissue sections of hydrosalpinx (n = 10) and normal tubes (n = 22) from paraffin-embedded blocks, obtained from patients who underwent salpingectomy for benign conditions. The main outcome measure was the intensity of staining with 3,3′-diaminobenzidine calculated by ImageJ software and mRNA expression by real-time polymerase chain reaction. The mean intensity of elafin (mean ± standard deviation) in mucosae of the fallopian tubes was 69.68 ± 24.55 in controls and 32.03±18.16 in patients with hydrosalpinx (P < .0001). Elafin mRNA levels were reduced in hydrosalpinx, although not significantly (P = .05, n = 9 from each group). Therefore, tubal epithelium of women with hydrosalpinx seems to have a lower expression of elafin, an elastase inhibitor and a natural antimicrobial molecule, compared to normal tubes.
Exploring the role of jets in the radio/X-ray correlations of GX 339-4

The Galactic black hole candidate X-ray binary GX 339−4 spends most of its time in the low/hard state, making it an ideal candidate for modeling the assumedly low accretion phase. The radio emission correlates very tightly with the X-rays over more than two orders of magnitude in X-ray flux density, suggesting that the jet plasma also plays a role at the higher frequencies. We compare the predictions of our jet model, with and without acceleration, to thirteen broadband simultaneous or quasi-simultaneous spectra over this changing flux history. In addition, we consider a simple standard thin disk which transitions to an optically thin accretion flow, in order to account for the assumedly thermal optical data seen in some observations. A solution without acceleration cannot describe the data without unrealistic energy requirements, nor explain the non-thermal radio spectrum seen during recent radio outbursts. But because of the low disk luminosity, and possibly the assumed disk geometry, acceleration in the jet is limited only by synchrotron cooling and can extend easily into the X-rays. We present a model which can account for all the broadband spectra included here, by changing only two parameters in the jet model: the input power and the location of the first acceleration zone. However, the model is most sensitive to changes in the jet power, the varying of which can also account for the slope of the observed radio/X-ray correlation analytically. At the highest low/hard state luminosities, the synchrotron self-Compton emission from the jet could be detectable with missions such as GLAST, providing a way to test the extent of the synchrotron contribution. We conclude that jet synchrotron is a possible way to explain the broadband features and this correlation, and discuss ways of incorporating this component into the "standard" corona picture.
DESIGNING AND IMPLEMENTING DISCRIMINANTS FOR LFG GRAMMARS

We extend discriminant-based disambiguation techniques t o LFG grammars. We present the design and implementation of lexical, m orphological, c-structure and f-structure discriminants for an LFG-base d parser. Chief considerations in the computation of discriminants are captur ing all distinctions between analyses and relating linguistic properties to wor ds in the string. Our work is mostly tested on Norwegian, but our approach is indep endent of the language and grammar.
Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology Open Access Prolonged Labour Associated with Lower Expression of Syndecan 3 and Connexin 43 in Human Uterine Tissue

Background: Prolonged labour is associated with greater morbidity and mortality for mother and child. Connexin 43 is a major myometrial gap junction protein found in human myometrium. Syndecan 3 seems to prevail in the human uterus among heparan sulphate proteoglycans, showing the most significant increase during labour. The aims of the present study were to investigate syndecan 3 and connexin 43 mRNA expressions and protein distributions in human uterine tissue during normal and prolonged labour.
How can rAAV‐α‐synuclein and the fibril α‐synuclein models advance our understanding of Parkinson's disease?

Animal models of Parkinson's disease (PD) are important for understanding the mechanisms of the disease and can contribute to developing and validating novel therapeutics. Ideally, these models should replicate the cardinal features of PD, such as progressive neurodegeneration of catecholaminergic neurons and motor defects. Many current PD models emphasize pathological forms of α‐synuclein, based on findings that autosomal dominant mutations in α‐synuclein and duplications/triplications of the SNCA gene cause PD. In addition, Lewy bodies and Lewy neurites, primarily composed of α‐synuclein, represent the predominant pathological characteristics of PD. These inclusions have defined features, such as insolubility in non‐ionic detergent, hyperphosphorylation, proteinase K sensitivity, a filamentous appearance by electron microscopy, and β‐sheet structure. Furthermore, it has become clear that Lewy bodies and Lewy neurites are found throughout the peripheral and central nervous system, and could account not only for motor symptoms, but also for non‐motor symptoms of the disease. The goal of this review is to describe two new α‐synuclein‐based models: the recombinant adeno‐associated viral vector‐α‐synuclein model and the α‐synuclein fibril model. An advantage of both models is that they do not require extensive crossbreeding of rodents transgenic for α‐synuclein with other rodents transgenic for genes of interest to study the impact of such genes on PD‐related pathology and phenotypes. In addition, abnormal α‐synuclein can be expressed in brain regions relevant for disease. Here, we discuss the features of each model, how each model has contributed thus far to our understanding of PD, and the advantages and potential caveats of each model.
Keloid Scarring: Understanding the Genetic Basis, Advances, and Prospects

Keloid disease is a fibroproliferative dermal tumor with an unknown etiology that occurs after a skin injury in genetically susceptible individuals. Increased familial aggregation, a higher prevalence in certain races, parallelism in identical twins, and alteration in gene expression all favor a remarkable genetic contribution to keloid pathology. It seems that the environment triggers the disease in genetically susceptible individuals. Several genes have been implicated in the etiology of keloid disease, but no single gene mutation has thus far been found to be responsible. Therefore, a combination of methods such as association, gene-gene interaction, epigenetics, linkage, gene expression, and protein analysis should be applied to determine keloid etiology.
Self-Referential Information Alleviates Retrieval Inhibition of Directed Forgetting Effects—An ERP Evidence of Source Memory

Directed forgetting (DF) assists in preventing outdated information from interfering with cognitive processing. Previous studies pointed that self-referential items alleviated DF effects due to the elaboration of encoding processes. However, the retrieval mechanism of this phenomenon remains unknown. Based on the dual-process framework of recognition, the retrieval of self-referential information was involved in familiarity and recollection. Using source memory tasks combined with event-related potential (ERP) recording, our research investigated the retrieval processes of alleviative DF effects elicited by self-referential information. The FN400 (frontal negativity at 400 ms) is a frontal potential at 300–500 ms related to familiarity and the late positive complex (LPC) is a later parietal potential at 500–800 ms related to recollection. The FN400 effects of source memory suggested that familiarity processes were promoted by self-referential effects without the modulation of to-be-forgotten (TBF) instruction. The ERP results of DF effects were involved with LPCs of source memory, which indexed retrieval processing of recollection. The other-referential source memory of TBF instruction caused the absence of LPC effects, while the self-referential source memory of TBF instruction still elicited the significant LPC effects. Therefore, our neural findings suggested that self-referential processing improved both familiarity and recollection. Furthermore, the self-referential processing advantage which was caused by the autobiographical retrieval alleviated retrieval inhibition of DF, supporting that the self-referential source memory alleviated DF effects.
Characterization of early pulmonary hyperproliferation and tumor progression and their inhibition by black tea in a 4-(methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone-induced lung tumorigenesis model with A/J mice.

The pathogenesis of pulmonary tumors induced by a tobacco carcinogen, 4-(methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone (NNK), and its inhibition by black tea have been characterized. Female A/J mice (6 weeks old) were treated with a single dose of NNK (103 mg/kg of body weight, i.p.) on day 0, and the cell proliferation index was measured by the incorporation of bromodeoxyuridine (BrdUrd) immunohistochemically. The number of BrdUrd-labeled cells increased in the bronchiolar epithelium from day 2 to day 14, with the highest proliferation rate observed on day 5. By day 35, the BrdUrd-labeling index returned to the level of the control group. Further examination of the day 35 samples revealed the presence of foci of hyperproliferative cells in the bronchiolar epithelium, particularly in the bronchiolalveolar regions. These proliferating bronchiolar epithelial cells (Clara cells) may be the initiated sites for pulmonary tumorigenesis. In this short-term model, administration of black tea polyphenols (0.3%) through the drinking water starting 24 h after NNK treatment significantly inhibited NNK-induced early bronchiolar cell proliferation on day 5. In long-term studies, adenomas were observed in 100% (15 of 15) of the mice at week 16, with 7.8 +/- 0.8 tumors per mouse. At week 52, a malignant tumor incidence of 80% (41 of 51 mice) and a malignant tumor multiplicity of 2.39 +/- 0.19 were observed. The growth patterns of the malignant tumors, which included solid, papillary, and mixed types, may be associated with the cellular origin of the tumor. The cell proliferation indices, as measured by proliferating cell nuclear antigen immunohistochemistry, were significantly higher in dysplasia within adenoma than in adenoma, and significantly higher in adenoma at week 52 than in adenoma at week 16. Administration of black tea, starting 16 weeks after a single dose of NNK, inhibited the progression of adenoma to adenocarcinoma as determined by both malignant tumor incidence and multiplicity. The cell proliferation rate in adenomas was also suppressed by black tea treatment. The present work demonstrates the antiproliferative activities of black tea and its polyphenols. Such activities, at the early and late stages of lung tumorigenesis, may be important for the cancer-chemopreventive activities of black tea.
An Algorithm for Efficient Identification of Branched Metabolic Pathways

This article presents a new graph-based algorithm for identifying branched metabolic pathways in multi-genome scale metabolic data. The term branched is used to refer to metabolic pathways between compounds that consist of multiple pathways that interact biochemically. A branched pathway may produce a target compound through a combination of linear pathways that split compounds into smaller ones, work in parallel with many compounds, and join compounds into larger ones. While branched metabolic pathways predominate in metabolic networks, most previous work has focused on identifying linear metabolic pathways. The ability to automatically identify branched pathways is important in applications that require a deeper understanding of metabolism, such as metabolic engineering and drug target identification. The algorithm presented in this article utilizes explicit atom tracking to identify linear metabolic pathways and then merges them together into branched metabolic pathways. We provide results on several well-characterized metabolic pathways that demonstrate that the new merging approach can efficiently find biologically relevant branched metabolic pathways.
Curcumin enhances the effectiveness of cisplatin by suppressing CD133+ cancer stem cells in laryngeal carcinoma treatment

Chemoresistance is one of the major barriers to chemotherapeutic treatment and it has been established that CD133+ cancer stem cells are responsible for drug resistance in laryngeal carcinoma. In the present study, curcumin and cisplatin were used as a combined treatment to induce the sensitivity of CD133+ cancer stem cells to chemotherapeutic agents and to enhance therapeutic effectiveness. The results revealed that in untreated and cisplatin-treated HEp-2 cell groups, the percentage of CD133+ cells was 4.50 and 6.89%, respectively. However, in the combined treatment group, the percentage of CD133+ cells was markedly reduced to 1.49%, indicating that curcumin may increase the sensitivity of CD133+ cells to cisplatin, leading to the suppression of chemoresistance in HEp-2 cells. Furthermore, the expression of ATP-binding cassette sub-family G member 2 (ABCG2), which is an important gene for chemoresistance, was demonstrated to be reduced in CD133+ cancer stem cells following combined treatment. These results suggest that the combined application of curcumin with chemotherapeutic drugs may be a reliable and effective approach for the treatment of laryngeal carcinoma.