Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Influence of maturation and age on mechanical and biochemical parameters of connective tissue of various organs in the rat.

The mechanical and biochemical parameters of connective tissue components of several organs in rats, e.g. skin, tail tendons and aorta, have been compared. Organ samples have been analyzed at various ages allowing investigation of the changes during maturation and senescence. The age dependent changes in the various organs were quite similar. The parameters indicating strength and elasticity, e.g. ultimate load, ultimate strength, ultimate strain, modulus of elasticity and rate of load increase, rose sharply during the maturation process and decreased during senescence. These values correlated with changes in insoluble collagen but not with those in elastin or glycosaminoglycans as shown in earlier experiments. The relevance of mechanical models to explain age-dependent changes as compared to descriptive correlations between mechanical and biochemical data is discussed.
Poxvirus MC160 Protein Utilizes Multiple Mechanisms To Inhibit NF-κB Activation Mediated via Components of the Tumor Necrosis Factor Receptor 1 Signal Transduction Pathway

ABSTRACT Poxviruses express proteins that limit host immune responses to infection. For example, the molluscum contagiosum virus MC160 protein inhibits tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α)-induced NF-κB activation. This event correlates with MC160-induced IKK1 protein degradation, suggesting a mechanism for the above-mentioned phenotype. IKK1 is stabilized when it associates with the cellular heat shock protein 90 (Hsp90). Here, Hsp90 overexpression restored IKK1 levels in MC160-expressing cells, suggesting that MC160 competitively interacted with Hsp90. In support of this, further investigation showed that a mutant MC160 protein comprising only the C-terminal region (C protein) immunoprecipitated with Hsp90. In contrast, Hsp90 IP with a mutant MC160 protein consisting of only the N-terminal tandem death effector domains (DEDs) (N protein) was dramatically decreased. Since cells expressing either the N or C mutant MC160 protein remained similarly resistant to TNF-α-induced NF-κB activation, the N mutant protein probably utilized a different mechanism for inhibiting NF-κB. One likely mechanism for the N protein lies in its association with the DED-containing procaspase-8 protein, a cellular apoptosis precursor protein that regulates NF-κB activation. Here, IPs revealed that this association relied on the presence of the DED-containing N terminus of the MC160 protein but not the C-terminal portion. These interactions appear to have relevance with NF-κB activation, since the expression of the viral DEDs strongly inhibited procaspase-8-mediated NF-κB activation, an event not substantially altered by the C protein. Thus, the MC160 protein utilizes at least two distinct mechanisms for impeding NF-κB activation, association with Hsp90 to result in IKK1 protein degradation or interaction with procaspase-8.
Regional “Call 911” Emergency Department Protocol to Reduce Interfacility Transfer Delay for Patients With ST‐Segment–Elevation Myocardial Infarction

Background We evaluated the first‐medical‐contact‐to‐balloon (FMC2B) time after implementation of a “Call 911” protocol for ST‐segment–elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) interfacility transfers in a regional system. Methods and Results This is a retrospective cohort study of consecutive patients with STEMI requiring interfacility transfer from a STEMI referring hospital, to one of 35 percutaneous coronary intervention‐capable STEMI receiving centers (SRCs). The Call 911 protocol allows the referring physician to activate 911 to transport a patient with STEMI to the nearest SRC for primary percutaneous coronary intervention. Patients with interfacility transfers were identified over a 4‐year period (2011–2014) from a registry to which SRCs report treatment and outcomes for all patients with STEMI transported via 911. The primary outcomes were median FMC2B time and the proportion of patients achieving the 120‐minute goal. FMC2B for primary 911 transports were calculated to serve as a system reference. There were 2471 patients with STEMI transferred to SRCs by 911 transport during the study period, of whom 1942 (79%) had emergent coronary angiography and 1410 (73%) received percutaneous coronary intervention. The median age was 61 years (interquartile range [IQR] 52–71) and 73% were men. The median FMC2B time was 111 minutes (IQR 88–153) with 56% of patients meeting the 120‐minute goal. The median STEMI referring hospital door‐in‐door‐out time was 53 minutes (IQR 37–89), emergency medical services transport time was 9 minutes (IQR 7–12), and SRC door‐to‐balloon time was 44 minutes (IQR 32–60). For primary 911 patients (N=4827), the median FMC2B time was 81 minutes (IQR 67–97). Conclusions Using a Call 911 protocol in this regional cardiac care system, patients with STEMI requiring interfacility transfers had a median FMC2B time of 111 minutes, with 56% meeting the 120‐minute goal.
Geometrical and texture features estimation of lung cancer and TB images using chest X-ray database

Early detection is the most promising way to enhance a patient's chance for survival of lung cancer. One of the most important tasks in medical image analysis is to detect the absence or presence of disease in an image, without having precise delineations of pathology available for training. A computer algorithm for nodule detection in chest radiographs is presented. The algorithm consists of four main steps: (i) image acquisition (ii) image pre-processing; (iii) nodule candidate detection; (iv) feature extraction. Algorithm is applied on two main types of lung cancer images, like Small-Cell, Non-Small-Cell type and as well as on TB database. Total 75 images are used (25 from each category) during experiment to estimate geometrical and texture features. Active Shape Model (ASM) technique is used for lung field segmentation. Gray Level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM) technique is used to estimate texture features.
Simplified and Enhanced Multiple Level Nested Arrays Exploiting High-Order Difference Co-Arrays

Based on the high-order difference co-array concept, an enhanced four-level nested array (E-FL-NA) is first proposed, which optimizes the consecutive lags at the fourth-order difference co-array stage. To simplify sensor location formulations for comprehensive illustration and also convenient structure construction, a simplified and enhanced four-level nested array (SE-FL-NA) is then proposed, whose performance is compromised but still better than the four-level nested array (FL-NA). This simplified structure is further extended to the higher order case with multiple sub-arrays, referred to as simplified and enhanced multiple level nested arrays (SE-ML-NAs), where significantly increased degrees of freedom can be provided and exploited for underdetermined direction of arrival estimation. Simulation results are provided to demonstrate the performance of the proposed E-FL-NA, whereas a higher number of detectable sources is achieved by the SE-ML-NA with a limited number of physical sensors.
Radiometric observations of vines from the green period to the withering

The SMOS REFLEX 2006 field experiment aimed to monitor changes in the L-band (1.4 GHz) emission of vineyards as a function of the plants development. The experiment site was the Valencia Anchor Station, which has been selected as a calibration/validation site for the ESApsilas Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission. This paper presents SMOS REFLEX 2006 and shows the temporal variation of the emissivity. The daily emission decreases from dusk till dawn and then increases again in the daylight hours. This oscillation in the emissivity has a peak to peak variation up to 0.05 (~ 15 K in brightness temperature). Emissivity decreases with time, especially at H-polarisation, due to the increase in the vegetation water content before harvest, and to the increase in soil moisture due to rain events after harvest. The contribution of soil to the measured emissivity is larger after harvest and at incidence angles smaller than 55deg . In this case, an increase in the rock-fraction decreases the mean range of emissivity up to 68%.
Getting into the Game: Legislative Bargaining, Distributive Politics, and Eu Enlargement

This paper examines the relationship between territorial representation and fiscal redistribution in the European Union. Given that small states are over-represented in both the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers, simple models of legislative vote-buying predict that over-represented member states will be favored in the distribution of EU transfers. We examine this proposition for each manifestation of the EC or EU since 1977 with data on agricultural, regional development, and total net transfers.
Seeking for Risk Factors of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) in a Greek National Sample

The objective of this article is to gain a better understanding of the magnitude of intimate partner violence (IPV) in Greece and to explore factors associated with increased risk of IPV prevalence. A cross-sectional study was undertaken among 1,122 men and women, aged 18 to 65, who are residents of urban areas of Greece. The questionnaire used included 3 sections and 39 items that examined the sociodemographic characteristics of the participants, rate of IPV victimization and perpetration (physical, sexual, emotional), childhood experience of violence, and level of self-esteem. Statistical analysis showed self-esteem to be significantly associated with physical violence victimization and perpetration (odds ratio [OR] = .975, confidence interval [CI] = .955—.996; OR = .972, CI = .951—.993, respectively), whereas experience of abuse during childhood was shown to be a strong predictor in all six models of IPV victimization and perpetration (p < .001). Finally, gender, age and years of cohabitation were some sociodemographic and background characteristics found to increase the risk of specific forms of IPV. Conclusions drawn from the current study should be taken into account in attempts aiming at preventing or ameliorating the problem.
Suboptimal financial policies and executive ownership in the UK: evidence from a pre-crisis

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify firms in the UK adopting a policy of high cash and low leverage and investigate how executive ownership contributes to this decision. Design/methodology/approach – Firms following this policy are identified both by using a fixed classification approach and the analysis of the distribution of cash and leverage. Logit analysis is then used to estimate the probability of adopting the policy as a function of executive ownership. Findings – Extreme financial policies are suboptimal as firms adopting these policies tend to undershoot (overshoot) their target leverage (cash holdings) ratios. The impact of the executive ownership on the probability of adopting this policy is U-shaped, in line with the alignment–entrenchment hypothesis. Practical implications – Despite the substantial presence of non-executive directors in the boards and a significant amount of shareholdings by executive directors, the firms under analysis have adopted suboptimal financial policie.
Hierarchical orthogonal matching pursuit for face recognition

This paper tries to exploit the joint group intrinsics in face recognition problem by using sparse representation with multiple features. We claim that different feature vectors of one test face image share the same sparsity pattern at the higher group level, but not necessarily at the lower (inside the group) level. This means that they share the same active groups, but not necessarily the same active set. To this end, a hierarchical orthogonal matching pursuit algorithm is developed. The basic idea of this approach is straightforward: At each iteration step, we first select the best group which is shared by different features, then we select the best atoms (within this group) for each feature. This algorithm is very efficient and shows good performance in standard face recognition dataset.
Causality graph learning on cortical information flow in Parkinson's disease patients during behaviour tests

Electroencephalographs (EEG) signals of the human brains represent electrical activities for a number of channels recorded over a the scalp. The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the interactions and causality of different parts of a brain using EEG signals recorded during a performance subjects of verbal fluency tasks. Subjects who have Parkinson's Disease (PD) have difficulties with mental tasks, such as switching between one behavior task and another. The behavior tasks include motor and phonemic fluency. This method uses verbal generation skills, activating different Broca's areas of the Brodmann's areas (BA44 and BA45). Advanced signal processing techniques are used in order to determine the activated frequency bands in the granger causality for verbal fluency tasks. The graph learning technique for channel strength is used to characterize the complex graph of Granger causality. Also, the support vector machine (SVM) method is used for training a classifier between two subjects with PD and two healthy controls. Neural data from the study was recorded at the Colorado Neurological Institute (CNI).
Primary mucosal melanoma of the head and neck in Denmark, 1982–2012: Demographic and clinical aspects. A retrospective DAHANCA study

Abstract Background The study was performed to determine the epidemiological, clinical, and histopathological characteristics and prognosis of primary mucosal melanoma of the head and neck (MMHN) in Denmark. Material and methods This was a national retrospective multicenter study of patients diagnosed with MMHN between 1982 and 2012 in Denmark. Data were retrieved from national databases and patient records. Incidence trends were examined for the entire period. We prepared survival curves and performed univariate and multivariate analysis for the period 1992–2012 to identify possible prognostic factors. Results No significant trends in incidence were found in the study period. The three-year overall and disease-free survival rates for MMHN were 46.5% and 35.5%, respectively. Negative margins was an independent predictor of disease-free survival, and age below 65, absence of distant metastases, and low overall TNM stage were predictors of overall survival. Radiotherapy did not improve survival significantly. Recurrence rates were high, even for patients with negative margins. Conclusions MMHN remains a rare disease with a poor prognosis, particularly for patients aged over 65, those with distant metastasis, and those with advanced TNM stage. Importantly, the rate of recurrence is lowest in patients with negative margins.
Cancer screening coverage of south Asian women in Wakefield

OBJECTIVE:To measure the cervical and breast screening coverage of south Asian women in Wakefield, compared with other city residents. DESIGN:Pairwise measurement of screening histories of women whose names appeared to be south Asian, and of non-Asian women matched by date of birth and general practice. Data source—Computerised records of screening histories held by West Yorkshire Central Services Agency, for the eight general practices in central Wakefield. RESULTS:67% of south Asians and 75% of non-Asians had acceptable (not overdue) cervical screening histories (&khgr;2=13.75, p<0.001). 53% of south Asians and 78% of non-Asians had acceptable breast screening histories (&khgr;2=8.5, p<0.01) CONCLUSION:Interventions should be designed to improve coverage for breast screening among south Asian women. The need for such interventions for cervical screening is equivocal.
Power and spreading factor control in low power wide area networks

Low power wide area networks are gaining interest to connect thousands of nodes to the internet of things. However, because the link budget in these networks is huge, nodes suffer from a near-far effect. Nodes far from the base station cannot send to the base station succesfully when closer nodes are transmitting, causing destructive collisions. LoRa, the considered technology in this paper, is a spread spectrum technology. It is known that spread spectrum is also sensitive to this effect. This paper presents a scheme to efficiently optimize the packet error rate fairness inside a LoRaWAN cell. This is achieved by optimizing the power and spreading factor for each node while avoiding near-far problems by allocating distant users to different channels. Simulations show that the packet error rate can be decreased up to 50% for edge nodes in a moderate contention scenario where 1 node per 1000m2 transmits every 10 minutes.
The Micro Dynamics of Macro Announcements

We examine how regularly scheduled macroeconomic announcements for the U.S., Germany and the euro area affect the German stock market, using high–frequency, minute–by–minute DAX data. Our study extends the literature on high–frequency announcement effects in several ways. First, we account for endogenous return dynamics by assessing announcement impacts via response analysis. Second, we examine the announcements effects on market volatility in a more detailed fashion by distinguishing effects of positive and negative surprises. Finally, we adapt the standard weighted–least–squares approach to more adequately analyze both conditional mean and volatility effects.
Combined analysis of T cell receptor gamma and immunoglobulin heavy chain gene rearrangements at the single-cell level in lymphomas with dual genotype.

By prospectively studying immunoglobulin heavy chain gene (IgH) and T cell receptor gamma (TCRgamma) gene rearrangements in 398 lymphoma cases, a dual genotype was observed in 13% of B cell and 11% of T cell lymphomas. According to histological subtype, the highest incidence was observed for mantle cell lymphomas (32%) and lymphoplasmacytic lymphoma (21%) among B cell lymphomas, and for angioimmunoblastic lymphoma (AILT) (46%) and Sézary syndrome (SS) (50%) among T cell lymphomas. To determine whether the dual genotype corresponds to the presence of two distinct monoclonal populations or to the presence of both rearrangements within the same lymphoma cells, single-cell microdissection was used after immunohistochemistry and a single-cell combined IgH and TCRgamma gene analysis was designed after a whole-genome amplification step. This protocol was applied to the study of two nodal B cell lymphomas (one diffuse large B cell lymphoma and one mantle cell lymphoma) and two cutaneous T cell lymphomas (one AILT and one SS). Two cases (SS and mantle cell lymphoma) were true bigenotypic lymphomas, as both IgH and TCRgamma monoclonal rearrangements were detected in the same cells. Conversely, in the diffuse large B cell lymphoma and AILT cases, large CD22+ single cells exhibited only the monoclonal IgH rearrangement but not the TCRgamma gene that was detected in CD3+ single cells. Such an approach allows the identification of true bigenotypic lymphoma among dual genotypic lymphoma. Specific genetic alterations may be further amplified from microdissected cryopreserved material, such as the t(11;14) breakpoint detected in bigenotypic B cells of the mantle cell lymphoma case.
Radiographic Stage Does Not Correlate With Symptom Severity in Thumb Basilar Joint Osteoarthritis

Background: We hypothesize that thumb basilar joint osteoarthritis (TBJA) radiographic stage does not correlate with patient-reported measures of symptom severity.Methods: Patients with unilateral TBJA who completed the 11-item QuickDASH (Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder, and Hand), Short-Form 12 Health Survey (SF-12) Mental Component and SF-12 Physical Component surveys were prospectively enrolled in the study. The Eaton-Littler radiographic stage was assigned for each patient. The correlation between the radiographic score and disease stage was calculated.Results: Sixty-two patients (15 men, 47 women; average age, 62.3 years) formed the basis of this study. The average QuickDASH score (and standard deviation) for patients with stage 1 TBJA was 31.5 (11.4); for those with stage 2, it was 37.9 (17.4); with stage 3, it was 30.1 (13.0), and with stage 4, it was 39.4 (12.5). Eaton-Littler stage did not correlate significantly with QuickDASH scores (rho = −0.014, P = 0.91). Neither SF-12 Mental Component scores (MCS-12: rho = 0.019, P = 0.89) nor the SF-12 Physical Component scores (PCS-12: rho = 0.145, P = 0.26) correlated with TBJA stage.Conclusion: Radiographic severity in TBJA does not correlate with validated patient-reported symptom scores. Metrics that link radiographic and subjective components of TBJA may improve surgical decision making and monitoring of treatment response.Level of Evidence: Prognostic, level II
Battery Adaptive Observer for a Single-Particle Model With Intercalation-Induced Stress

Battery electrode particle fracture due to stress generation is a critical mechanism causing capacity fade, and thus reducing battery life. This paper develops a nonlinear adaptive observer for lithium-ion battery state of charge (SOC), electrode particle stress, and solid phase diffusivity estimation using a high-fidelity coupled single particle—mechanical stress model, where the stress submodel captures stress development during lithium-ion intercalation and deintercalation. Simultaneous state and parameter estimation based on coupled single particle and mechanical stress model is extremely challenging because the coupled model is given by highly nonlinear partial differential equations. We address this problem by reducing the coupled model to a nonlinear finite dimensional system. The key novelty of this paper is a nonlinear internal state and parameter estimation methodology, from which the internal stress and the state of health-related parameters are monitored from real-time electric current and terminal voltage measurements. Numerical studies on simulation and experimental data have been conducted to illustrate the performance of the proposed estimation scheme.
Dopamine receptor activity participates in hippocampal synaptic plasticity associated with novel object recognition

Physiological and behavioral evidence supports that dopamine (DA) receptor signaling influences hippocampal function. While several recent studies examined how DA influences CA1 plasticity and learning, there are fewer studies investigating the influence of DA signaling to the dentate gyrus. The dentate gyrus receives convergent cortical input through the perforant path fiber tracts and has been conceptualized to detect novelty in spatial memory tasks. To test whether DA‐receptor activity influences novelty‐detection, we used a novel object recognition (NOR) task where mice remember previously presented objects as an indication of learning. Although DA innervation arises from other sources and the main DA signaling may be from those sources, our molecular approaches verified that midbrain dopaminergic fibers also sparsely innervate the dentate gyrus. During the NOR task, wild‐type mice spent significantly more time investigating novel objects rather than previously observed objects. Dentate granule cells in slices cut from those mice showed an increased AMPA/NMDA‐receptor current ratio indicative of potentiated synaptic transmission. Post‐training injection of a D1‐like receptor antagonist not only effectively blocked the preference for the novel objects, but also prevented the increased AMPA/NMDA ratio. Consistent with that finding, neither NOR learning nor the increase in the AMPA/NMDA ratio were observed in DA‐receptor KO mice under the same experimental conditions. The results indicate that DA‐receptor signaling contributes to the successful completion of the NOR task and to the associated synaptic plasticity of the dentate gyrus that likely contributes to the learning.