Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Contextual Similarity Regularized Metric Learning for person re-identification

Person re-identification, aiming to match a specific person among non-overlapping cameras, has attracted plenty of attention in recent years. It can be regarded as a visual retrieval task, namely given a query person image, ranking all gallery images according to their similarities to the query. Conventionally, this similarity function is learnt by forcing intra-distances to be small while inter-distances to be large, which are referred to as individual similarity constraints. In this paper, we propose to learn the similarity function by taking into account of both individual similarity constraints and contextual similarity constraints. The context of a query is defined as its k-nearest neighbors in the gallery. We argue that if two images are from the same person, apart from the visual likeness between them, denoted as the individual similarity, they should also possess similar k-nearest neighbors in the gallery, denoted as the contextual similarity. Motivated by this assumption, we propose a new Contextual Similarity Regularized Metric Learning (CSRML) method for person re-identification. The contextual similarity regularization term forces two images of the same person to share similar context. Both individual and contextual similarity constraints are encoded by a large margin logistic loss function and the final problem is solved by the stochastic gradient descent algorithm. Experiments on the challenging VIPeR and CUHK01 datasets show that our approach achieves very competitive performance.
AhR activation increases IL‐2 production by alloreactive CD4+ T cells initiating the differentiation of mucosal‐homing Tim3+Lag3+ Tr1 cells

Activation of the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) by immunosuppressive ligands promotes the development of regulatory T (Treg) cells. Although AhR‐induced Foxp3+ Treg cells have been well studied, much less is known about the development and fate of AhR‐induced Type 1 Treg (AhR‐Tr1) cells. In the current study, we identified the unique transcriptional and functional changes in murine CD4+ T cells that accompany the differentiation of AhR‐Tr1 cells during the CD4+ T‐cell‐dependent phase of an allospecific cytotoxic T lymphocyte (allo‐CTL) response. AhR activation increased the expression of genes involved in T‐cell activation, immune regulation and chemotaxis, as well as a global downregulation of genes involved in cell cycling. Increased IL‐2 production was responsible for the early AhR‐Tr1 activation phenotype previously characterized as CD25+CTLA4+GITR+ on day 2. The AhR‐Tr1 phenotype was further defined by the coexpression of the immunoregulatory receptors Lag3 and Tim3 and non‐overlapping expression of CCR4 and CCR9. Consistent with the increased expression of CCR9, real‐time imaging showed enhanced migration of AhR‐Tr1 cells to the lamina propria of the small intestine and colon. The discovery of mucosal imprinting of AhR‐Tr1 cells provides an additional mechanism by which therapeutic AhR ligands can control immunopathology.
The Novel Small Molecule STK899704 Promotes Senescence of the Human A549 NSCLC Cells by Inducing DNA Damage Responses and Cell Cycle Arrest

The novel synthetic compound designated STK899704 (PubChem CID: 5455708) suppresses the proliferation of a broad range of cancer cell types. However, the details of its effect on lung cancer cells are unclear. We investigated the precise anticancer effect of STK899704 on senescence and growth arrest of A549 human non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cells. STK899704 affected NSCLC cell cycle progression and decreased cell viability in a dose-dependent manner. Immunofluorescence staining revealed that STK899704 destabilized microtubules. Cell cycle analysis showed an increase in the population of NSCLC cells in the sub-G1 and G2/M phases, indicating that STK899704 might cause DNA damage via tubulin aggregation. Furthermore, we observed increased mitotic catastrophe in STK899704-treated cells. As STK899704 led to elevated levels of the p53 pathway-associated proteins, it would likely affect the core DNA damage response pathway. Moreover, STK899704 promoted senescence of NSCLC cells by inducing the p53-associated DNA damage response pathways. These findings suggest that the novel anti-proliferative small molecule STK899704 promotes cell death by inducing DNA damage response pathways and senescence after cell cycle arrest, being a potential drug for treating human lung cancers.
Obtaining personal data and asking for erasure: Do app vendors and website owners honour your privacy rights?

EU Directive 95/46/EC and the upcoming EU General Data Protection Regulation grant Europeans the right of access to data pertaining to them. Consumers can approach their service providers to obtain all personal data stored and processed there. Furthermore, they can demand erasure (or correction) of their data. We conducted an undercover field study to determine whether these rights can be exerted in practice. We assessed the behaviour of the vendors of 150 smartphone apps and 120 websites that are popular in Germany. Our deletion requests were fulfilled in 52 to 57% of the cases and less than half of the data provision requests were answered satisfactorily. Further, we observed instances of carelessness: About 20% of website owners would have disclosed our personal data to impostors. The results indicate that exerting privacy rights that have been introduced two decades ago is still a frustrating endeavour most of the time.
Preclinical characterization of three transient receptor potential vanilloid receptor 1 antagonists for early use in human intradermal microdose analgesic studies

The transient receptor potential vanilloid receptor 1 (TRPV1) is a nonselective cation channel involved in the mediation of peripheral pain to the central nervous system. As such, the TRPV1 is an accessible molecular target that lends itself well to the understanding of nociceptive signalling. This study encompasses preclinical investigations of three molecules with the prospect to establish them as suitable analgesic model compounds in human intradermal pain relief studies.
In vivo comparison of jellyfish and bovine collagen sponges as prototype medical devices

Abstract Jellyfish have emerged as a source of next generation collagen that is an attractive alternative to existing sources, such as bovine and porcine, due to a plentiful supply and providing a safer source through lack of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) transmission risk and potential viral vectors, both of which could be transmitted to humans. Here we compare collagen implantable sponges derived for the first time from the Rhizostoma pulmo jellyfish. A further novelty for the research was that there was a comparison for sponges that were either uncrosslinked or crosslinked using 1‐ethyl‐3‐(3‐dimethylaminopropyl) carbodiimide hydrochloride (EDC), and an assessment on how this affected resorption, as well as their biocompatibility compared to bovine type I collagen sponges. The scaffolds were prepared and examined using sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS PAGE) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The samples were implanted in adult male Wistar rats for in vivo experimentation. Both crosslinked and uncrosslinked jellyfish collagen sponges showed a significant reduction in histopathology scores over the course of the study, whereas the bovine collagen sponge scores were not significantly reduced. Both jellyfish collagen sponges and the bovine sponge were tolerated well by the hosts, and a recovery was visible in all samples, suggesting that R. pulmo jellyfish‐derived collagen could offer compelling biocompatibility with wound healing applications. We also demonstrate that noncrosslinked samples could be safer with better resorption times than crosslinked samples. © 2017 The Authors Journal of Biomedical Materials Research Part B: Applied Biomaterials Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part B: Appl Biomater, 106B: 1524–1533, 2018.
Systematic bias in predictions of new drugs’ budget impact: analysis of a sample of recent US drug launches

Abstract Objective: Expectations about the budget impact of new drug launches may affect payer behavior and ultimately consumer costs. Therefore, we evaluated the accuracy of pre-launch US budget impact estimates for a sample of new drugs. Methods: We searched for publicly available budget impact estimates made pre-launch for drugs approved in the US from 1 September 2010 to 1 September 2015 and compared them to actual sales. Accuracy was calculated as the ratio of pre-launch estimate to actual sales. Quantitative analyses, including multivariate regressions, were used to identify factors associated with accuracy. Results: We identified 25 budget impact estimates: 23 for one of 14 individual drugs and 2 for the category of PCSK9 inhibitors. The ratios of predicted to actual budget impact ranged from 0.2 (estimate was 20% of sales) for secukinumab to 37.5 (estimate was 37.5 × sales) for PCSK9 inhibitors. Mean ratio was 5.5. In multivariate analyses, larger eligible population, more recent estimate year (e.g. 2015 vs. 2012), and being first in class, were associated with statistically significant, greater overestimation of budget impact. Conclusions: For every $5.5 of predicted cost, there was $1 of actual cost to the healthcare system. This study, although based on a small, non-random sample, suggests possible cognitive bias on the part of the estimators. Overestimating budget impact may lead to early access restrictions, higher copays, and other changes that ultimately impact patients. Analysts and non-profits should be attuned to likely sources of error in order to improve their predictions.
Investigation on the Possibility of Increasing the Environmental Safety and Fuel Efficiency of Vehicles by Means of Gasoline Nano-Additive

Environmental safety problem originated from vehicles requires development and exploration of integrated and effective solutions, which considers the development level of technologies, the cost of their widespread use, the legislation requirements and other relevant aspects. One improvement method of the petroleum-derived fuels characteristics is the use of additives that complement the refining methods and provide ample opportunities to influence the individual characteristics. The aim of this work is to study the influence of the developed multifunctional surface-active nano-additive on the gasoline characteristics and engine performance. The measurement results confirmed the effective reduction of the surface tension of gasoline at the boundary with air, improving the mixture formation in the engine. On the other hand, the saturated vapor pressure was significantly decreased, which dramatically reduces evaporation losses and air pollution by light hydrocarbons. The use of the additive, due to a combination of its surface-active and catalytic action, significantly increases the fuel efficiency of engines and reduces octane requirements, greenhouse gases emissions, as well as noise level during operation of vehicles, and the environmental safety of vehicle operation increases.
Some 2015 Updates to the TC 16 DMT Report 2001

Aims of this paper are (a) To give, at least in part, an overview of the DMT and SDMT developments in the period 2001-2015 (b) Illustrate specific aspects emerged in the years during the use and interpretation of the test (c) Possibly clarify questions that from time to time have arisen during the application of the test to the soil characterization and to the design of geotechnical works. More and more in the years has emerged the centrality of the parameter KD, one of the few in situ parameters able to provide information on stress history, whose knowledge is fundamental for obtaining reasonable predictions of settlements and liquefaction resistance. LITERATURE ON DMT / SDMT A considerable amount of literature concerning DMT and SDMT is available today. A list of basic DMT references, key papers, Standards, Proceedings can be found in the TC16 DMT Report 2001 (this Report is re-included as Appendix A in the Proceedings of this DMT'15 Conference). In the last 15 years many papers on DMT and SDMT have also been published in a variety of Journals and Conferences, in particular in the Proceedings of the International Soil Characterization Conferences : ISC1 Atlanta 1998, ISC2 Porto 2004, ISC3 Taiwan 2008, ISC4 Recife 2012. Many of the key papers can be downloaded from the website : www.marchetti-dmt.it The TC16 DMT Report 2001 and the present 2015 update represent an effort to bring together key information including recent developments on execution, interpretation, applications, possibly to save time to the interested reader.
First report of Cryptosporidium parvum in a dromedary camel calf from Western Australia

Cryptosporidium is an important enteric parasite that can contribute large numbers of infectious oocysts to drinking water catchments. As a result of its resistance to disinfectants including chlorine, it has been responsible for numerous waterborne outbreaks of gastroenteritis. Wildlife and livestock play an important role in the transmission of Cryptosporidium in the environment. Studies conducted outside Australia have indicated that camels may also play a role in the transmission of zoonotic species of Cryptosporidium. Despite Australia being home to the world’s largest camel herd, nothing is known about the prevalence and species of Cryptosporidium infecting camels in this country. In the present study, C. parvum was identified by PCR amplification and sequencing of a formalin-fixed intestinal tissue specimen from a one-week old dromedary camel (Camelus dromedarius). Subtyping analysis at the glycoprotein 60 (gp60) locus identified C. parvum subtype IIaA17G2R1, which is a common zoonotic subtype reported in humans and animals worldwide. Histopathological findings also confirmed the presence of large numbers of variably-sized (1–3 μm in diameter) circular basophilic protozoa - consistent with Cryptosporidium spp. - adherent to the mucosal surface and occasionally free within the lumen. Further analysis of the prevalence and species of Cryptosporidium in camel populations across Australia are essential to better understand their potential for contamination of drinking water catchments.
Comparison of acridine orange, methylene blue, and Gram stains for blood cultures

Direct microscopic screening of blood cultures by Gram stain or methylene blue stain is time consuming and frequently insensitive. Therefore, we evaluated a fluorescent-staining procedure that uses acridine orange (AO) at pH 3.5 and compared it with the methylene blue and Gram stain procedures. All smears were prepared within 24 h of receiving the culture, fixed with methanol, and examined without the results of the companion smears being known. AO-stained smears were examined with incident-light fluorescence at 600 x magnification and confirmed at 1,500x magnification. All bottles macroscopically positive within 24 h were excluded from the study. Of 2,946 cultures entered into the study, 204 (6.9%) were positive within 3 days. The sensitivity and specificity of AO based on these culture results were 52 and 98%, respectively, compared with 38% sensitivity and 99% specificity by methylene blue and Gram stains. The AO staining procedure is a simple, sensitive, screening technique for the early detection of positive blood cultures.
Parallelised Bayesian Optimisation via Thompson Sampling

We design and analyse variations of the classical Thompson sampling (TS) procedure for Bayesian optimisation (BO) in settings where function evaluations are expensive but can be performed in parallel. Our theoretical analysis shows that a direct application of the sequential Thompson sampling algorithm in either synchronous or asynchronous parallel settings yields a surprisingly powerful result: making n evaluations distributed among M workers is essentially equivalent to performing n evaluations in sequence. Further, by modelling the time taken to complete a function evaluation, we show that, under a time constraint, asynchronous parallel TS achieves asymptotically lower regret than both the synchronous and sequential versions. These results are complemented by an experimental analysis, showing that asynchronous TS outperforms a suite of existing parallel BO algorithms in simulations and in an application involving tuning hyper-parameters of a convolutional neural network. In addition to these, the proposed procedure is conceptually much simpler than existing work for parallel BO.
Critical Parameters of the In Vitro Method of Vascular Smooth Muscle Cell Calcification

Background Vascular calcification (VC) is primarily studied using cultures of vascular smooth muscle cells. However, the use of very different protocols and extreme conditions can provide findings unrelated to VC. In this work we aimed to determine the critical experimental parameters that affect calcification in vitro and to determine the relevance to calcification in vivo. Experimental Procedures and Results Rat VSMC calcification in vitro was studied using different concentrations of fetal calf serum, calcium, and phosphate, in different types of culture media, and using various volumes and rates of change. The bicarbonate content of the media critically affected pH and resulted in supersaturation, depending on the concentration of Ca2+ and Pi. Such supersaturation is a consequence of the high dependence of bicarbonate buffers on CO2 vapor pressure and bicarbonate concentration at pHs above 7.40. Such buffer systems cause considerable pH variations as a result of minor experimental changes. The variations are more critical for DMEM and are negligible when the bicarbonate concentration is reduced to ¼. Particle nucleation and growth were observed by dynamic light scattering and electron microscopy. Using 2mM Pi, particles of ~200nm were observed at 24 hours in MEM and at 1 hour in DMEM. These nuclei grew over time, were deposited in the cells, and caused osteogene expression or cell death, depending on the precipitation rate. TEM observations showed that the initial precipitate was amorphous calcium phosphate (ACP), which converts into hydroxyapatite over time. In blood, the scenario is different, because supersaturation is avoided by a tightly controlled pH of 7.4, which prevents the formation of PO4 3--containing ACP. Conclusions The precipitation of ACP in vitro is unrelated to VC in vivo. The model needs to be refined through controlled pH and the use of additional procalcifying agents other than Pi in order to reproduce calcium phosphate deposition in vivo.
Similarities in temperature‐dependent gene expression plasticity across timescales in threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus)

Phenotypic plasticity occurs at a variety of timescales, but little is known about the degree to which plastic responses at different timescales are associated with similar underlying molecular processes, which is critical for assessing the effects of plasticity on evolutionary trajectories. To address this issue, we identified differential gene expression in response to developmental temperature in the muscle transcriptome of adult threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) exposed to 12, 18 and 24°C until hatch and then held at 18°C for 9 months and compared these results to differential gene expression in response to adult thermal acclimation in stickleback developed at 18°C and then acclimated to 5 and 25°C as adults. Adult thermal acclimation affected the expression of 7,940 and 7,015 genes in response to cold and warm acclimation, respectively, and 4,851 of these genes responded in both treatments. In contrast, the expression of only 33 and 29 genes was affected by cold and warm development, respectively. The majority of the genes affected by developmental temperature were also affected by adult acclimation temperature. Many genes that were differentially expressed as a result of adult acclimation were associated with previously identified temperature‐dependent effects on DNA methylation patterns, suggesting a role of epigenetic mechanisms in regulating gene expression plasticity during acclimation. Taken together, these results demonstrate similarities between the persistent effects of developmental plasticity on gene expression and the effects of adult thermal acclimation, emphasizing the potential for mechanistic links between plasticity acting at these different life stages.
ESTIMATION OF GENETIC PARAMETERS OF FIRST LACTATION TEST-DAY MILK YIELD USING RANDOM REGRESSION MODELS IN IRANIAN HOLSTEIN COWS

The objective of the present study was to estimate variance components and genetic parameters for milk yield in Iranian Holstein cows, applying Legendre polynomials functions in random regression models (RRM). A total of 34818 test-day (TD) records from 4033 Holstein cows in their first lactation were analyzed. The genetic parameters were estimated by restricted maximum likelihood method and average information algorithm using the WOMBAT software. Varying orders of Legendre polynomials (LP) were used in random regression models. The model considering a 6th-order LP for additive genetic effect, a 5th-order LP for permanent environmental effect and a step function with 10 heterogeneous classes for residual variances (Leg65_10) is more appropriate. Heritability estimates for TD records were highest in the second half part of the lactation, ranging from 0.13 to 0.66. Genetic correlations between TD records were high for consecutive records and decreased as the interval between tests increased, and ranged from -0.41 to 0.99. Genetic correlation estimates of TD records with corresponding lactation yield were highest for mid-lactation. The first eigenfunction suggests that milk yield is mainly controlled by genes with dissimilar effects between early and late stages of lactation. The results suggested that TD yields especially in the second half part of lactation may be used for genetic evaluation.
Early adolescent childbearing in low- and middle-income countries: associations with income inequity, human development and gender equality

Objective. Reducing unwanted adolescent childbearing is a global priority. Little is known about how national-level economic and human development indicators relate to early adolescent childbearing. This ecological study evaluates associations of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), GINI index, Human Development Index (HDI) and Gender-related Development Index (GDI; i.e. the HDI adjusted for gender disparities) with early adolescent childbearing in 27 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) across three time periods. Methods. Among women ages 18–24, prevalence estimates for early birth (<16 years) were calculated by nation, and weighted linear regressions evaluated associations between national indicators and early childbearing. To examine temporal trends, analyses were stratified by year groupings. Findings. Early adolescent childbearing declined over time, with the greatest change observed in Bangladesh (31.49% in 1996/7 to 19.69% in 2011). In adjusted models, GDI was negatively associated with early childbearing, i.e. early childbearing prevalence decreased as GDI increased. In the most recent time period, relative to the lowest GDI group, the average prevalence of early childbearing was significantly lower in the middle (-12.40, P < 0.00) and upper (-10.96, P = 0.03) tertiles after adjustment for the other indicators. These other indicators showed no consistent association with early childbearing. Conclusion. As national-level GDI increased, early adolescent childbearing declined. The GDI, which reflects human development adjusted for gender disparities in educational and economic prospects, was more consistently related to early adolescent childbearing than the absolute development prospects as given by the HDI. While creating gender equality is an important goal in and of itself, the findings emphasize the potential for improved national-level gender equitable development as a means to improve adolescents’ sexual and reproductive health.