Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Occult hepatitis B in HIV-HCV coinfected patients

The prevalence of occult hepatitis B infection in HIV infected patients is controversial, varying from less than 1% to 62% in different studies. Blood samples of 111 HIV-infected patients, HCV-positive, HBs antigen negative, followed in the APROCO-ANRS EP11 cohort, were used to detect HBV DNA by using 2 different validated assays (Cobas Amplicor HBV Monitor Test and INSERM U271 qualitative ultra-sensitive PCR), completed when positive by HBV real-time PCR. HBV DNA was found in 6 (5.4%, 95% CI 1.2%–9.6%) patients by at least 1 of these assays, but none tested positive in all 3 assays. All 6 patients had anti-HBc without anti-HBs antibodies; 5 were not on lamivudine. Their median CD4 and CD8 counts were significantly lower and their HIV viral load higher than in the other 105 patients. In conclusion, the prevalence of occult hepatitis B may vary significantly according to the molecular assay used, even though these assays are validated with high specificity and quite high sensitivity. Occult hepatitis B may be encountered in HIV-HCV coinfected patients without anti-HBV treatment, with anti-HBc but without anti-HBs antibodies, and relatively low immunity, suggesting a potential risk of further reactivation, as already sporadically reported.
Vagal afferent innervation of the rat fundic stomach: Morphological characterization of the gastric tension receptor

Although the gastric tension receptor has been characterized behaviorally and electrophysiologically quite well, its location and structure remains elusive. Therefore, the vagal afferents to the rat fundus (forestomach or nonglandular stomach) were anterogradely labeled in vivo with injections of the carbocyanine dye Dil into the nodose ganglia, and the nerves and ganglia of the enteric nervous system were labeled in toto with intraperitoneal Fluorogold injection. Dissected layers and cryostat cross sections of the fundic wall were mounted in glycerin and analyzed by means of conventional and laser scanning confocal microscopy.
Fluid Flow along Venous Adventitia in Rabbits: Is It a Potential Drainage System Complementary to Vascular Circulations?

Background Our previous research and other studies with radiotracers showed evidence of a centripetal drainage pathway, separate from blood or lymphatic vessels, that can be visualized when a small amount of low molecular weight tracer is injected subcutaneously into a given region on skin of humans. In order to further characterize this interesting biological phenomenon, animal experiments are designed to elucidate histological and physiologic characteristics of these visualized pathways. Methods Multiple tracers are injected subcutaneously into an acupuncture point of KI3 to visualize centripetal pathways by magnetic resonance imaging or fluorescein photography in 85 healthy rabbits. The pathways are compared with venography and indirect lymphangiography. Fluid flow through the pathways is observed by methods of altering their hydrated state, hydrolyzing by different collagenases, and histology is elucidated by optical, fluorescein and electron microscopy. Results Histological and magnetic imaging examinations of these visualized pathways show they consist of perivenous loose connective tissues. As evidenced by examinations of tracers’ uptake, they appear to function as a draining pathway for free interstitial fluid. Fluorescein sodium from KI3 is found in the pathways of hind limbs and segments of the small intestines, partial pulmonary veins and results in pericardial effusion, suggesting systematical involvement of this perivenous pathway. The hydraulic conductivity of these pathways can be compromised by the collapse of their fiber-rich beds hydrolyzed by either of collagenase type I, III, IV or V. Conclusions The identification of pathways comprising perivenous loose connective tissues with a high hydraulic conductivity draining interstitial fluid in hind limbs of a mammal suggests a potential drainage system complementary to vascular circulations. These findings may provide new insights into a systematically distributed collagenous connective tissue with a circulatory function and their potential relevance to the nature of acupuncture meridians.
Negotiating demands of social change in young and middle-aged adults from Poland

Social and economic changes on the societal macro level, such as globalization, pluralization, and demographic shifts, create new demands that produce stress and require behavioral adaptation. In this large-sample correlational study, which replicates a similar study previously conducted in Germany, we investigated how young and middle-aged adults from Poland (N = 2,541) negotiated these demands. Dependent variables were engagement and disengagement strategies as defined by the motivational theory of life span development. By using planned contrasts between engagement (selective primary, selective secondary, and compensatory primary control) and disengagement (compensatory secondary control) in a repeated-measures ANOVA, we found a strong (η² = .48) preference for engagement over disengagement. Multivariate regression analyses revealed that the engagement and disengagement strategies were only modestly related to sociodemographic characteristics such as age, gender, employment, and partnership status (.00 < |β| < .13). Primary appraisal of the demands in terms of challenge/threat and gains/losses were correlated with engagement and disengagement (.01 < |β| < .16), but direction and size of the coefficients differed from what was previously found in Germany. Secondary appraisal of the demands in terms of their controllability (.04 < |β| < .21) and the perceived load of demands itself (.12 < |β| < .22) turned out to be the most relevant predictors of the engagement and disengagement strategies. By contrasting these results against earlier findings obtained in Germany, we argue that the differences in how people negotiate social change in the two countries are rooted in their different systems of welfare and social security.
A low complexity relay selection & power allocation schemes for cognitive MIMO buffer-aided DF relay networks

In this paper, we consider decode-and-forward (DF) buffer-aided relay selection and transmission power allocation for underlay cognitive radio (CR) network that is equipped with multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna scheme. We propose a low complexity MIMO-based relay selection scheme that maximizes the single-hop normalized rate of the secondary network (SN). Also, we propose a sub-optimal antenna transmission power allocation scheme that maximizes the overall normalized sum rate of the primary network (PN) and the SN. We first derive optimal expressions for antenna transmission power of both the PN and the SN. The derived expressions are then used in an iterative algorithm to produce a near-optimum solution that maximizes the normalized sum rat per time slot. Simulation results are provided to evaluate the performance of the proposed MIMO-based relay selection and antenna transmission power allocation schemes and compare their performance with that of the optimal scenario. Impact of several system parameters including buffer maximum size, interference threshold and number of antennas on network performance are also investigated. Results reveal that the proposed sub-optimal relay selection and antenna transmission power allocation schemes introduce a satisfactory performance with much lower complexity compared to optimal relay selection and power allocation schemes. Findings also show that using buffer-aided relays significantly enhances the SN performance while slightly weakens the performance of the PN.
Optical and Infrared Properties of the 2 Ms Chandra Deep Field North X-Ray Sources

We present an optical and near-infrared catalog for the X-ray sources in the ≈2 Ms Chandra observation of the Hubble Deep Field North region. We have high-quality multicolor imaging data for all 503 X-ray point sources in the X-ray–selected catalog and reliable spectroscopic redshifts for 284. We spectroscopically identify six high-redshift (z > 1) type II quasars (L2–8keV > 1044 ergs s-1) in our sample. Our spectroscopic completeness for the R ≤ 24 sources is 87%. The spectroscopic redshift distribution shows two broad redshift spikes that have clearly grown over those originally seen in the ≈1 Ms exposure. The spectroscopically identified extragalactic sources already comprise 75% of the measured 2–8 keV light. Redshift slices versus 2–8 keV flux show that an impressive 54% of the measured 2–8 keV light arises from sources at z < 1 and 68% from sources at z < 2. Thus, major accretion onto supermassive black holes has occurred since the universe was half its present age. We use seven broadband colors and a Bayesian photometric redshift estimation code to obtain photometric redshifts for the X-ray sources. We find that the photometric redshifts are within 25% of the spectroscopic redshifts for 94% of the non–broad-line sources with both photometric and spectroscopic measurements. The photometrically identified sources show a smooth continuation of the spectroscopically identified sources to redder R-HK′ color with increasing redshift, consistent with the galaxy tracks of evolved bulge-dominated galaxies. Fourteen have colors R-HK′ > 5.7 that would classify them as extremely red objects (EROs). The photometric redshifts of these EROs are all between z ∼ 1.5 and z ∼ 2.5. We use our wide wavelength coverage to determine rest-frame colors for the X-ray sources with spectroscopic or photometric redshifts. We find that many of the X-ray sources have the rest-frame colors of evolved red galaxies and that there is very little evolution in these colors with redshift. We also determine absolute magnitudes and find that many of the non–broad-line sources are more luminous than M, even at high redshifts. We therefore infer that deep X-ray observations may provide an effective way of locating M* galaxies with colors similar to present-day early-type galaxies to high redshifts.
The Computer Revolution in Philosophy: Philosophy, Science, and Models of Mind

The book presented deep important connections between Artificial Intelligence and Philosophy, based partly on an argument that both philosophy and science are primarily concerned with identifying and explaining possibilities contrary to a common view that science is primarily concerned with laws. The book attempted to show in principle how the construction, testing and debugging of complex computational models, explaining possibilities in a new way, can illuminate a collection of deep philosophical problems, e.g. about the nature of mind, the nature of representation, the nature of mathematical discovery. However it did not claim that this could be done easily or that the problems would be solved soon. 40 years later many of them have still not been solved, including explaining how biological brains made possible the deep mathematical discoveries made millennia ago, long before the development of modern logic, often wrongly assumed to provide foundations for all of mathematics. Later work on these ideas includes the author's Meta-Morphogenesis project, inspired by Alan Turing's work: http://www.cs. bham.ac. uk/research/projects/cogaff/misc/meta-morphogenesis.html Originally published in 1978 by Harvester Press, this went out of print. An electronic version was created from a scanned in copy and then extensively edited with corrections, addtional text, and notes, available online as html or pdf, intermittently updated. This pdf version was created on 2019/07/09.
Comparative Analysis of Pyrosequencing and a Phylogenetic Microarray for Exploring Microbial Community Structures in the Human Distal Intestine

Background Variations in the composition of the human intestinal microbiota are linked to diverse health conditions. High-throughput molecular technologies have recently elucidated microbial community structure at much higher resolution than was previously possible. Here we compare two such methods, pyrosequencing and a phylogenetic array, and evaluate classifications based on two variable 16S rRNA gene regions. Methods and Findings Over 1.75 million amplicon sequences were generated from the V4 and V6 regions of 16S rRNA genes in bacterial DNA extracted from four fecal samples of elderly individuals. The phylotype richness, for individual samples, was 1,400–1,800 for V4 reads and 12,500 for V6 reads, and 5,200 unique phylotypes when combining V4 reads from all samples. The RDP-classifier was more efficient for the V4 than for the far less conserved and shorter V6 region, but differences in community structure also affected efficiency. Even when analyzing only 20% of the reads, the majority of the microbial diversity was captured in two samples tested. DNA from the four samples was hybridized against the Human Intestinal Tract (HIT) Chip, a phylogenetic microarray for community profiling. Comparison of clustering of genus counts from pyrosequencing and HITChip data revealed highly similar profiles. Furthermore, correlations of sequence abundance and hybridization signal intensities were very high for lower-order ranks, but lower at family-level, which was probably due to ambiguous taxonomic groupings. Conclusions The RDP-classifier consistently assigned most V4 sequences from human intestinal samples down to genus-level with good accuracy and speed. This is the deepest sequencing of single gastrointestinal samples reported to date, but microbial richness levels have still not leveled out. A majority of these diversities can also be captured with five times lower sampling-depth. HITChip hybridizations and resulting community profiles correlate well with pyrosequencing-based compositions, especially for lower-order ranks, indicating high robustness of both approaches. However, incompatible grouping schemes make exact comparison difficult.
Proteomic Study for the Cellular Responses to Cd2+ in Schizosaccharomyces pombe Through Amino Acid-coded Mass Tagging and Liquid Chromatography Tandem Mass Spectrometry*S

Cadmium (Cd2+) is one of well-known toxic heavy metal ions. To gain a global understanding how Cd2+ affects cells at the molecular level, we systematically studied the cellular response of the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe to Cd2+ using our integrated proteomic strategy of amino acid-coded mass tagging (AACT) and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. Our proteome-wide investigation unequivocally identified 1133 S. pombe proteins. Of which, the AACT-based quantitative analysis revealed 106 up-regulated and 55 down-regulated proteins on the Cd2+ exposure. The most prevalent functional class in the up-regulated proteins, ∼28% of our profile, was the proteins involved in protein biosynthesis, showing a time-dependent biphasic expression pattern characteristic with rapid initial induction and later repression. Most significantly, 27 proteins functionally classified as cell rescue and defense were up-regulated for oxygen and radical detoxification, heat shock response, and other stress response. Furthermore, the large precursor sequence coverage of our AACT approach allowed us to unequivocally identify and quantitate different isozymes for glutathione S-transferase, which have close similarity in their amino acid sequence. Our quantitative dataset also showed that 80% of the up-regulated proteins found in the S. pombe response were different from those in the Saccharomyces cerevisiae response. The function of some of the key identifications was validated through biochemical assays. It is very interesting that the induction of cysteine synthase expression was not observed in our study, although it has been proven as a critical enzyme to supply free cysteines for the enhancing synthesis of Cd2+-sequestering molecules such as glutathione and phytochelatins in plants and some yeasts. Our quantitative proteomic result instead suggested that, as an alternative mechanism for the detoxification of Cd2+, S. pombe produced significantly higher level of inorganic sulfide to immobilize cellular Cd2+ as a form of CdS nanocrystallites capped with glutathione and/or phytochelatins.
Application of Smoothing Methods for Determining of the Effecting Factors on the Survival Rate of Gastric Cancer Patients

Background Smoothing methods are widely used to analyze epidemiologic data, particularly in the area of environmental health where non-linear relationships are not uncommon. This study focused on three different smoothing methods in Cox models: penalized splines, restricted cubic splines and fractional polynomials. Objectives The aim of this study was to assess the effects of prognostic factors on survival of patients with gastric cancer using the smoothing methods in Cox model and Cox proportional hazards. Also, all models were compared to each other in order to find the best one. Materials and Methods We retrospectively studied 216 patients with gastric cancer who were registered in one referral cancer registry center in Tehran, Iran. Age at diagnosis, sex, presence of metastasis, tumor size, histology type, lymph node metastasis, and pathologic stages were entered in to analysis using the Cox proportional hazards model and smoothing methods in Cox model. The SPSS version 18.0 and R version 2.14. 1 were used for data analysis. These models compared with Akaike information criterion. Results In this study, The 5 year survival rate was 30%. The Cox proportional hazards, penalized spline and fractional polynomial models let to similar results and Akaike information criterion showed a better performance for these three models comparing to the restricted cubic spline. Also, P-value and likelihood ratio test in restricted cubic spline was greater than other models. Note that the best model is indicated by the lowest Akaike information criterion. Conclusions The use of smoothing methods helps us to eliminate non-linear effects but it is more appropriate to use Cox proportional hazards model in medical data because of its’ ease of interpretation and capability of modeling both continuous and discrete covariates. Also, Cox proportional hazards model and smoothing methods analysis identified that age at diagnosis and tumor size were independent prognostic factors for the survival of patients with gastric cancer (P < 0.05). According to these results the early detection of patients at younger age and in primary stages may be important to increase survival.
SOME ASPECTS OF PROCESSING EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIDAR DATA: CLEMENTINE, NEAR, MOLA

The increasing volume of planetary lidar data is creating global datasets of unprecedented resolution and accuracy, and presenting new challenges. From 1971-72, when three Apollo missions carried laser altimeters to the Moon, to the Mars Global Surveyor mission operating the MOLA instrument for nearly 1000 days, the number of planetary ranges has increased by more than 5 orders of magnitude, and accuracy by nearly 3 orders. Significant refinements to orbital and attitude knowledge result from the use of millions of altimetric crossover constraints.
PrivateRide: A Privacy-Enhanced Ride-Hailing Service

Abstract In the past few years, we have witnessed a rise in the popularity of ride-hailing services (RHSs), an online marketplace that enables accredited drivers to use their own cars to drive ride-hailing users. Unlike other transportation services, RHSs raise significant privacy concerns, as providers are able to track the precise mobility patterns of millions of riders worldwide. We present the first survey and analysis of the privacy threats in RHSs. Our analysis exposes high-risk privacy threats that do not occur in conventional taxi services. Therefore, we propose PrivateRide, a privacy-enhancing and practical solution that offers anonymity and location privacy for riders, and protects drivers’ information from harvesting attacks. PrivateRide lowers the high-risk privacy threats in RHSs to a level that is at least as low as that of many taxi services. Using real data-sets from Uber and taxi rides, we show that PrivateRide significantly enhances riders’ privacy, while preserving tangible accuracy in ride matching and fare calculation, with only negligible effects on convenience. Moreover, by using our Android implementation for experimental evaluations, we show that PrivateRide’s overhead during ride setup is negligible. In short, we enable privacy-conscious riders to achieve levels of privacy that are not possible in current RHSs and even in some conventional taxi services, thereby offering a potential business differentiator.
A Socio‐Psychological Perspective on Team Ambidexterity: The Contingency Role of Supportive Leadership Behaviours

In addressing the notion of team ambidexterity, we propose that socio-psychological factors (i.e., team cohesion and team efficacy) may help team members to resolve paradoxical challenges and to combine exploratory and exploitative learning efforts. In addition, we theorize that senior executives may play an important role in facilitating the emergence of ambidexterity at lower hierarchical levels. In doing so, we develop a multilevel contingency framework and propose that the effectiveness of teams to achieve ambidexterity is contingent upon supportive leadership behaviours at the organizational-level. Using multilevel, multisource, and temporally separated data on 87 teams within 37 high-tech and pharmaceutical firms, we not only reveal how team cohesion and efficacy may matter for the emergence of team ambidexterity but also show that the effectiveness of supportive leadership behaviours from senior executives varies across cohesive and efficacious teams.
Sedation with Propofol for Routine ERCP in High-Risk Octogenarians: A Randomized, Controlled Study

OBJECTIVES:Adequate patient sedation is mandatory for diagnostic and therapeutic endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP). In this respect it is known that the short-acting anesthetic propofol offers certain potential advantages for sedation during ERCP, but there are no controlled studies concerning the feasibility and safety of propofol sedation in elderly, high-risk patients.METHODS:One hundred and fifty consecutive patients aged ≥80 yr with high comorbidity (ASA score ≥III: 91 %), randomly received midazolam plus meperidine (n = 75) or propofol alone (n = 75) for sedation during ERCP. Vital signs were continuously monitored and procedure-related parameters, recovery time, and quality as well as patients' cooperation and tolerance of the procedure were assessed.RESULTS:Clinically relevant changes in vital signs were observed at comparable frequencies with a temporary oxygen desaturation (<90%) occurring in eight patients in the propofol-group and seven patients receiving midazolam/meperidine (n.s.). Hypotension was documented in two patients in the propofol group and one patient receiving midazolam/meperidine. Propofol provided a significantly better patient cooperation than midazolam/meperidine (p < 0.01), but the procedure tolerability was rated nearly the same by both groups. Mean recovery time was significantly shorter in the propofol group (22 ± 7 min vs 31 ± 8 min for midazolam/meperidine (p < 0.01)) while the recovery score was significantly higher under propofol (8.3 ± 1.2 vs 6.1 ± 1.1(p < 0.01)). During recovery a significant lower number of desaturation events (<90%) were observed in the propofol group (12%) than in the midazolam/meperidine group (26%, p < 0.01). CONCLUSION:Under careful monitoring the use of propofol for sedation during ERCP is superior to midazolam/meperidine even in high-risk octogenarians.