Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Probabilistic Demand Forecasting at Scale

We present a platform built on large-scale, data-centric machine learning (ML) approaches, whose particular focus is demand forecasting in retail. At its core, this platform enables the training and application of probabilistic demand forecasting models, and provides convenient abstractions and support functionality for forecasting problems. The platform comprises of a complex end-to-end machine learning system built on Apache Spark, which includes data preprocessing, feature engineering, distributed learning, as well as evaluation, experimentation and ensembling. Furthermore, it meets the demands of a production system and scales to large catalogues containing millions of items. We describe the challenges of building such a platform and discuss our design decisions. We detail aspects on several levels of the system, such as a set of general distributed learning schemes, our machinery for ensembling predictions, and a high-level dataflow abstraction for modeling complex ML pipelines. To the best of our knowledge, we are not aware of prior work on real-world demand forecasting systems which rivals our approach in terms of scalability.
Identity impairment and the eating disorders: content and organization of the self-concept in women with anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa.

OBJECTIVE The cognitive model of the self-concept was used to test the theoretical proposition that disturbances in overall identity development are a core vulnerability that lead to formation of a fat body weight self-definition and eating disorder symptomatology. METHOD Structural properties of the self-concept, availability in memory of a fat body weight self-schema, and eating disordered attitudes and behaviours were measured in women with anorexia nervosa (AN) (n = 26), bulimia nervosa (BN) (n = 53) and controls (n = 32). RESULTS Women with (AN) and (BN) had fewer positive and more negative and highly interrelated self-schemas compared to controls, and women with BN showed information processing evidence of a fat self-schema available in memory. These self-concept properties predicted eating disordered attitudes and behaviour. DISCUSSION Disturbances in the overall collection of identities--an impoverished self--is an important contributor to eating disorder symptomatology. The development of new positive selves may be an important factor in recovery.
Dental anxiety in a sample of West Indian adults.

AIM The aim of this study was to investigate the level of dental anxiety and its possible causes among people in Trinidad and Tobago. METHOD This is a cross-sectional survey of parents and guardians accompanying children who were attending a paediatric dental clinic. Participants completed a questionnaire while in the waiting room, which included the Modified Dental Anxiety Scale (MDAS), age, gender and occupation. An additional item was included which asked participants to rate the anxiety felt on having a tooth extracted. RESULTS There were 100 participants (81% female). Overall, 40% of participants reported moderate to severe anxiety. Twenty-three per cent of participants had moderate anxiety (MDAS 15-18) and 17% had severe anxiety/phobia (MDAS 19-20). Level of anxiety was related to gender (multiple linear regression, p < 0.05). Proportions of participants were very/extremely anxious of having a tooth drilled (48%), local anaesthetic injection (53%) and extraction (52%). Thirty-six per cent of participants had avoided dental treatment in the past because they were too anxious. CONCLUSION High levels of dental anxiety were found in this sample of Trinidadian adults. The MDAS was able to detect significant elements of that anxiety. The addition of a question on extraction revealed that this procedure may contribute substantially in anxiety toward dental treatment in the Caribbean.
Mutations in half baked/E-cadherin block cell behaviors that are necessary for teleost epiboly

Epiboly, the spreading of the blastoderm over the large yolk cell, is the first morphogenetic movement of the teleost embryo. Examining this movement as a paradigm of vertebrate morphogenesis, we have focused on the epiboly arrest mutant half baked (hab), which segregates as a recessive lethal, including alleles expressing zygotic-maternal dominant (ZMD) effects. Here we show that hab is a mutation in the zebrafish homolog of the adhesion protein E-cadherin. Whereas exclusively recessive alleles of hab produce truncated proteins, dominant alleles all contain transversions in highly conserved amino acids of the extracellular domains, suggesting these alleles produce dominant-negative effects. Antisense oligonucleotides that create specific splicing defects in the hab mRNA phenocopy the recessive phenotypes and, surprisingly, some of the ZMD phenotypes as well. In situ analyses show that during late epiboly hab is expressed in a radial gradient in the non axial epiblast, from high concentrations in the exterior layer of the epiblast to low concentrations in the interior layer of the epiblast. During epiboly, using an asymmetric variant of radial intercalation, epiblast cells from the interior layer sequentially move into the exterior layer and become restricted to that layer; there they participate in subtle cell shape changes that further expand the blastoderm. In hab mutants, when cells intercalate into the exterior layer, they tend to neither change cell shape nor become restricted, and many of these cells `de-intercalate' and move back into the interior layer. Cell transplantation showed all these defects to be cell-autonomous. Hence, as for the expansion of the mammalian trophoblast at a similar developmental stage, hab/E-cadherin is necessary for the cell rearrangements that spread the teleost blastoderm over the yolk.
Olfactory Memory

Odor‐recognition memory in rodents may provide a valuable model of cognitive aging. In a recent study we used signal detection analyses to distinguish odor recognition based on recollection versus that based on familiarity. Aged rats were selectively impaired in recollection, with relative sparing of familiarity, and the deficits in recollection were correlated with spatial memory impairments. These results complement electrophysiological findings indicating age‐associated deficits in the ability of hippocampal neurons to differentiate contextual information, and this information‐processing impairment may underlie the common age‐associated decline in olfactory and spatial memory.
Astrocytes derived from p53-deficient mice provide a multistep in vitro model for development of malignant gliomas

Loss or mutation of p53 is thought to be an early event in the malignant transformation of many human astrocytic tumors. To better understand the role of p53 in their growth and transformation, we developed a model employing cultured neonatal astrocytes derived from mice deficient in one (p53 +/-) or both (p53 -/-) p53 alleles, comparing them with wild-type (p53 +/+) cells. Studies of in vitro and in vivo growth and transformation were performed, and flow cytometry and karyotyping were used to correlate changes in growth with genomic instability. Early-passage (EP) p53 -/- astrocytes achieved higher saturation densities and had more rapid growth than EP p53 +/- and +/+ cells. The EP p53 -/- cells were not transformed, as they were unable to grow in serum-free medium or in nude mice. With continued passaging, p53 -/- cells exhibited a multistep progression to a transformed phenotype. Late-passage p53 -/- cells achieved saturation densities 50 times higher than those of p53 +/+ cells and formed large, well-vascularized tumors in nude mice. p53 +/- astrocytes exhibited early loss of the remaining wild-type p53 allele and then evolved in a manner phenotypically similar to p53 -/- astrocytes. In marked contrast, astrocytes retaining both wild-type p53 alleles never exhibited a transformed phenotype and usually senesced after 7 to 10 passages. Dramatic alterations in ploidy and karyotype occurred and were restricted to cells deficient in wild-type p53 following repeated passaging. The results of these studies suggest that loss of wild-type p53 function promotes genomic instability, accelerated growth, and malignant transformation in astrocytes.
A heuristic machine learning-based algorithm for power and thermal management of heterogeneous MPSoCs

In this work, we propose a power and thermal management algorithm based on machine learning to control the thermal stresses and power consumption of the heterogeneous MPSoCs. The objectives of the proposed algorithm are increasing the performance and decreasing the spatial and temporal temperature gradients along with the thermal cycling under the power and temperature constraints. Our proposed power and thermal management method is based on a heuristic approach to speed up the convergence of the machine learning algorithm which makes it applicable for general purpose processors. Adopting Q-Learning as the machine learning algorithm, the heuristic approach aids to limit the learning space by suggesting the most appropriate actions to the agent in each decision epoch. The heuristic algorithm employs the current and previous states of the machine learning, as well as the amount of the temperature stress and power consumption of each core to determine the appropriate action for each core, independently. The proposed algorithm is evaluated on 4-core, 8-core and 16-core homogeneous and heterogeneous MPSoCs for some benchmarks in the Splash2 benchmark package. The results reveal a faster convergence of machine learning and more thermal stresses reduction.
Resistance of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 to a Third-Generation Fusion Inhibitor Requires Multiple Mutations in gp41 and Is Accompanied by a Dramatic Loss of gp41 Function

ABSTRACT HIV-1 entry into target cells requires the fusion of viral and cellular membranes. This process is an attractive target for therapeutic intervention, and a first-generation fusion inhibitor, T20 (Enfuvirtide; Fuzeon), was approved for clinical use in 2003. Second-generation (T1249) and third-generation (T2635) fusion inhibitors with improved stability and potency were developed. Resistance to T20 and T1249 usually requires one or two amino acid changes within the binding site. We studied the in vitro evolution of resistance against T2635. After 6 months of culturing, a multitude of resistance mutations was identified in all gp41 subdomains, but no single mutation provided meaningful T2635 resistance. In contrast, multiple mutations within gp41 were required for resistance, and this was accompanied by a dramatic loss of viral infectivity. Because most of the escape mutations were situated outside the T2635 binding site, a decrease in drug target affinity cannot account for most of the resistance. T2635 resistance is likely to depend on altered kinetics of six-helix bundle formation, thus limiting the time window for T2635 to interfere with membrane fusion. Interestingly, the loss of virus infectivity caused by T2635 resistance mutations in gp41 was partially compensated for by a mutation at the base of the V3 domain in gp120. Thus, escape from the third-generation HIV-1 fusion inhibitor T2635 is mechanistically distinct from resistance against its predecessors T20 and T1249. It requires the accumulation of multiple mutations in gp41, is accompanied with a dramatic loss of gp41 function, and induces compensatory mutations in gp120.
Cyclophilin A Is an Essential Cofactor for Hepatitis C Virus Infection and the Principal Mediator of Cyclosporine Resistance In Vitro

ABSTRACT Cyclosporine (CsA) and its derivatives potently suppress hepatitis C virus (HCV) replication. Recently, CsA-resistant HCV replicons have been identified in vitro. We examined the dependence of the wild-type and CsA-resistant replicons on various cyclophilins for replication. A strong correlation between CsA resistance and reduced dependency on cyclophilin A (CyPA) for replication was identified. Silencing of CyPB or CyPC expression had no significant effect on replication, whereas various forms of small interfering RNA (siRNA) directed at CyPA inhibited HCV replication of wild-type but not CsA-resistant replicons. The efficiency of a particular siRNA in suppressing CyPA expression was correlated with its potency in inhibiting HCV replication, and expression of an siRNA-resistant CyPA cDNA rescued replication. In addition, an anti-CyPA antibody blocked replication of the wild-type but not the resistant replicon in an in vitro replication assay. Depletion of CyPA alone in the CsA-resistant replicon cells eliminated CsA resistance, indicating that CyPA is the chief mediator of the observed CsA resistance. The dependency on CyPA for replication was observed for both genotype (GT) 1a and 1b replicons as well as a GT 2a infectious virus. An interaction between CyPA and HCV RNA as well as the viral polymerase that is sensitive to CsA treatment in wild-type but not in resistant replicons was detected. These findings reveal the molecular mechanism of CsA resistance and identify CyPA as a critical cellular cofactor for HCV replication and infection.
Rho-actin signaling to the MRTF coactivators dominates the immediate transcriptional response to serum in fibroblasts

The transcription factor SRF (serum response factor) recruits two families of coactivators, the MRTFs (myocardin-related transcription factors) and the TCFs (ternary complex factors), to couple gene transcription to growth factor signaling. Esnault et al. investigate the role of the SRF network in the fibroblast serum response and demonstrate a critical role for MRTF signaling. MRTF genomic targets encode regulators of the cytoskeleton, transcription, and cell growth, underpinning the role of SRF in the cellular response to mechanical cues.
ZnO functionalization of multiwalled carbon nanotubes for methane sensing at single parts per million concentration levels

This paper presents a novel atomic layer deposition (ALD) based ZnO functionalization of surface pretreated multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) for highly sensitive methane chemoresistive sensors. The temperature optimization of the ALD process leads to enhanced ZnO nanoparticle functionalization and improvement in their crystalline quality as shown by energy dispersive x-ray and Raman spectroscopy. The behavior of ZnO–MWCNT sensors in presence of methane concentrations down to 2 ppm level has been compared with that of pristine MWCNTs demonstrating that ZnO functionalization is an essential factor behind the highly sensitive chemoresistive nature of the ZnO–MWCNT heterostructures. The sensor is currently being tested under a range of conditions that include potentially interfering gases and changes to relative humidity.
The Primary Screening Clinical Trials of the TriPath AutoPap® System

The AutoPap Primary Screening System has been approved recently by the United States Food and Drug Administration for the initial screening and quality control of non-“high-risk” conventional cervical cytology slides. A prospective clinical trial using the device compared its performance in terms of sensitivity and specificity for abnormality detection with the current standard of practice, which is represented by initial manual screening and 10% random quality control rescreening. The study showed statistically superior abnormality detection sensitivity by the AutoPap System. In addition, specificity of diagnosis was also improved. Equivalent performance was noted for categorization of slide adequacy and detection of infectious organisms and benign cellular changes. Use of the AutoPap System therefore has the potential to improve the accuracy of cervical cytologic examinations as well as to make a positive impact on the productivity of cytology laboratory personnel.
All-fiber dissipative soliton resonance mode-locked figure-9 thulium-doped fiber laser

Dissipative soliton resonance (DSR) fiber mode-locked lasers (MLL) are attracting a steadily growing interest over the recent years, due to their ability to generate relatively long (ns-scale), strongly chirped and large energy pulses directly inside a main oscillator. Thulium-doped fiber (TDF) DSR MLLs, optionally enhanced with amplification and compression stages, are in high demand in various application areas in 2-μm spectral region, like surgery, LIDAR and remote sensing, microscopy, etc. Figure-8 (F8) TDF laser, emitting 20 nJ pulses from net-normal-dispersion cavity, was demonstrated [1]. More advanced total-anomalous-dispersion F8 cavity, involving double-clad (DC) TDF and two-stage post-amplification, was used to obtain a pulse energy of 66 μJ [2]. The nonlinear amplifiying loop mirror (NALM) was exploited in both experiments as a mode-locking element. Being mainly fiber-based, above-mentioned configurations include some inherently free-space components, such as isolators, which have lower damage threshold, comparing to all-fiber elements. In this paper, we demonstrate the first truly all-fiber figure-9 (F9) DSR TDF laser that emits nanosecond pulses with energies up to 400 nJ, which is to the best of our knowledge a record value of the energies, extracted directly from the DSR oscillator at 2 μm.
Postmortem Toxicology Findings of Acetyl Fentanyl, Fentanyl, and Morphine in Heroin Fatalities in Tampa, Florida

In the last two years, an epidemic of 40 fatal heroin overdose cases has occurred in the Tampa area of Florida. Of these cases, 14 involved fentanyl and acetyl fentanyl. Victim demographics, case histories, toxicology findings, and causes and manners of death for all 40 deaths are presented. In 26 deaths in which acetyl fentanyl or fentanyl were not involved, free and total peripheral blood morphine concentrations were consistent with fatal heroin intoxications, averaging 0.16 mg/L and 0.35 mg/L, respectively. In the heroin cases with fentanyl present (n=7), the average free morphine concentration was 0.040 mg/L, the average total morphine concentration was 0.080 mg/L, and the average fentanyl concentration was 0.012 mg/L. In the cases with heroin, fentanyl, and acetyl fentanyl (n=3), the average free morphine concentration was 0.010 mg/L, the average total morphine concentration was 0.030 mg/L, the average fentanyl concentration was 0.018 mg/L, and the average acetyl fentanyl concentration was 0.008 mg/L. In the cases involving only acetyl fentanyl (without heroin or fentanyl, n=4), the average acetyl fentanyl concentration was 0.47 mg/L and the average acetyl norfentanyl concentration was 0.053 mg/L. The presented cases, with associated drug concentrations, case histories, demographics, and causes and manners of death may help provide assistance with the interpretation of the postmortem findings. Based on case circumstances, autopsy results, and toxicology results, it is evident that fentanyl and/or acetyl fentanyl, when present, contributed to the cause of death.
Superantigen‐induced cytokines suppress growth of human colon‐carcinoma cells

We have recently demonstrated that the superantigen staph‐ylococcal enterotoxin A (SEA) conjugated to colon‐carcinoma‐reactive monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) directs T cells to lyse human colon‐carcinoma cells, representing a potential novel tumor therapy. To further analyze the mechanism of anti‐tumor effects of superantigen‐activated T cells, we compared the activity of free and MAb‐conjugated SEA in a long term in vitro co‐culture assay of human peripheral‐blood mononuclear cells (pBMC) and colon‐carcinoma cell lines. Activation of resting T lymphocytes with SEA conjugated to the colon‐carcinoma‐reactive MAb C215 or free SEA resulted in strong inhibition of the growth of all studied colon‐carcinoma cell lines. The growth of WiDr colon‐carcinoma cells was unaffected by the presence of unactivated mononuclear cells, whereas addition of pM concentrations of SEA or C215‐SEA conjugate completely suppressed tumor‐cell growth. The suppressive effect was mediated by both CD4+ and CD8+ T cells and required the presence of MHC‐Class‐ll+ monocytes. The inhibition of tumor‐cell growth was to a large extent mediated by soluble factors present in supernatants from SEA‐ or C215‐SEA‐activated mononuclear cells. Quantitation of cytokine mRNA in SEA‐activated mononuclear cells by the reverse transcriptase‐polymerase chain reaction (RT‐pCR) revealed strong induction of mRNA encoding the cytokines IL‐1α, IL‐1 β, IL‐2, IL‐6, TNF‐α, TNF‐β and IFN‐γ. The use of cytokine‐specific MAb demonstrated that IFN‐γ was of major importance for the tumor‐growth‐inhibitory activity in supernatants of SEA‐activated lymphocytes. Addition of recombinant cytokines to WiDr colon‐carcinoma cells showed that TNF‐α was able to act synergisti‐cally with IFN‐γ to suppress tumor‐cell growth. The local production of tumor‐suppressive cytokines induced by MAb‐targeted superantigens is likely to be of particular relevance for inhibition of the growth of tumor cells not expressing the targeted tumor‐associated antigen.
[Persistence of oxidative stress after heart transplantation: a comparative study of patients with heart transplant versus chronic stable heart failure].

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE Chronic heart failure (CHF) is associated with oxidative stress. Heart transplantation, an important therapeutic alternative in these patients, could reduce oxidative stress by improving cardiac function. Our aim was to evaluate post-heart transplantation oxidative stress. PATIENTS AND METHOD We studied three experimental groups: a) heart transplant recipients without evidence of rejection (n = 11); b) NYHA class III CHF patients (n = 19), and c) healthy control subjects (n = 14). Oxidative stress was assessed by measuring plasma malondialdehyde levels (MDA), and determining the enzymatic activities of glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px), catalase (CAT), and superoxide dismutase (SOD). RESULTS The demographic characteristics of the three groups were similar. Mean time from transplantation was 20.0 4.8 months. Mean MDA plasma levels in heart transplantation and CHF patients were significantly higher than in normal subjects (3.35 0.8; 3.27 1.7 y 0.9 0.3 microM, respectively). GSH-Px activity increased after transplantation compared to control subjects (0.40 0.06 and 0.33 0.05 U/g Hb, respectively), but not the CHF group. A significant decrease in SOD activity was found in the heart transplant vs. CHF group (0.44 0.1 vs. 0.87 0.6 U/mg Hb). There were no differences in CAT values between heart transplant and CHF patients. CONCLUSION These findings demonstrated the presence of permanent oxidative stress in patients who have undergone heart transplantation, characterized by an increase in MDA and a decrease in SOD activity, despite an increase in GSH-Px activity.