Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Adding to the targeted therapy toolbox: BRAF and MEK inhibition in the treatment of BRAF V600E metastatic non-small cell lung cancer

Mutations in the BRAF oncogene are found in approximately 2–4% of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The most common mutation is associated with substitution of glutamic acid for valine at position 600 (V600E) within the BRAF kinase. Targeted therapy against the BRAF V600E mutant kinase has shown efficacy in other solid tumors including melanoma. In this setting, dual inhibition of both BRAF and the downstream mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase (MEK) improves survival compared to BRAF inhibition alone. Planchard et al . published two recent phase 2 trials evaluating the clinical activity and safety profile of second-line BRAF monotherapy (dabrafenib) and BRAF-MEK combination therapy (dabrafenib plus trametinib), respectively, in patients with stage IV BRAF V600E mutant NSCLC. Here, we review the pertinent findings from each of these studies, discuss their significance in context of the current literature, and consider their potential impact on the management of patients with NSCLC in the clinical setting.
Experimental observations of mechanical dilation at the onset of gas flow in Callovo-Oxfordian claystone

Abstract Understanding the mechanisms controlling the advective movement of gas and its potential impact on a geological disposal facility (GDF) for radioactive waste is important to performance assessment. In a clay-based GDF, four primary phenomenological models can be defined to describe gas flow: (i) diffusion and/or solution within interstitial water; (ii) visco-capillary (or two-phase) flow in the original porosity of the fabric; (iii) flow along localized dilatant pathways (micro-fissuring); and (iv) gas fracturing of the rock. To investigate which mechanism(s) control the movement of gas, two independent experimental studies on Callovo-Oxfordian claystone (COx) have been undertaken at the British Geological Survey (BGS) and LAEGO–ENSG Nancy (LAEGO). The study conducted at BGS used a triaxial apparatus specifically designed to resolve very small volumetric (axial and radial) strains potentially associated with the onset of gas flow. The LAEGO study utilized a triaxial setup with axial and radial strains measured by strain gauges glued to the sample. Both studies were conducted on COx at in situ stresses representative of the Bure Underground Research Laboratory (URL), with flux and pressure of gas and water carefully monitored throughout long-duration experiments. A four-stage model has been postulated to explain the experimental results. Stage 1: gas enters at the gas entry pressure. Gas propagation is along dilatant pathways that exploit the pore network of the material. Around each pathway the fabric compresses, which may lead to localized movement of water away from the pathways. Stage 2: the dendritic flow path network has reached the mid-plane of the sample, resulting in acceleration of the observed radial strain. During this stage, outflow from the sample also develops. Stage 3: gas has reached the backpressure end of the sample with end-to-end movement of gas. Dilation continues, indicating that gas pathway numbers have increased. Stage 4: gas-fracturing occurs with a significant tensile fracture forming, resulting in failure of the sample. Both studies clearly showed that as gas started to move through the COx, the sample underwent mechanical dilation (i.e. an increase in sample volume). Under in situ conditions, the onset of dilation (micro-fissuring) is a necessary precursor for the advective movement of gas.
Wound Repair Studies Reveal New Insights to Psoriasis

Psoriasis, a chronic relapsing inflammatory skin disease with a disturbing global incidence of approximately 2%, is an afflicting and disfiguring skin disease with high morbidity (Lomholt, 1964). The disease is characterized by the well-demarcated erythematous plaques with silvery white scales and a predilection for body areas such as the elbows, knees, umbilicus and lumbar area (Schon & Boehncke, 2005). In contrast to normal skin, the dermal vasculature in psoriasis dermis is dramatically increased with large, tortuous blood vessels, accounting for the erythematous appearance or redness of the affected skin regions/psoriatic plaques (Nestle et al, 2009). In addition, the psoriatic epidermis is significantly thickened and acanthotic, due to hyperproliferative keratinocytes with an approximate seven-fold increase in the number of dividing cells in the basal and suprabasal epidermal layers (Castelijns et al, 2000). Keratinocytes of the psoriatic skin are prematurely differentiated, as evident in the incomplete cornification of the stratum corneum, characterized by the retention of nuclei (i.e., parakeratosis) and the loss of the granular layer. The stratum corneum of psoriasiform skin is also thickened (i.e., hyperkeratosis). This heavy disruption of epidermal differentiation and skin barrier homeostasis coupled with altered levels of intercellular adhesion molecules result in the widespread scaling of psoriatic lesions (Christensen et al, 2006). While psoriasis primarily affects the epidermis, the disease has a strong immunopathological basis, with the psoriatic skin being significantly infiltrated with immune cells. Notably, this immune infiltrate has a characteristic distribution and is composed mainly of dendritic cells and macrophages in the dermis, neutrophils in the epidermis and T cells in both layers. Another immunologic feature of the disease is its extracutaneous manifestation of an arthritic condition, which affects approximately 5% of the population and approximately 20% of psoriasis patients (Zachariae et al, 2002; Hueber & McInnes, 2007). However, the direct involvement of the skin and immune system in psoriasiform features complicates and confounds studies of psoriasis. Therefore, despite the detailed documented pathological observations of psoriasis and the vast research efforts aimed at understanding the disease, a key question remains unanswered: is psoriasis provoked by an epidermal or an immunological trigger?
Measuring relative efficiency of secondary education in selected EU and OECD countries: the case of Slovenia and Croatia

This article continues on a number of previous studies by other scientists in investigating secondary education efficiency by applying a non-parametric methodology. In this respect, the purpose of the article is to review some previous studies on measuring the efficiency of public (secondary) education sector as well as some conceptual and methodological issues of a non-parametric approach. Most importantly, the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) technique is presented and then applied to a wide range of EU and OECD countries, including Slovenia and Croatia, to evaluate the technical efficiency of secondary education. The empirical results show that technical efficiency in secondary education varies significantly across the great majority of EU and OECD countries. Both Slovenia and Croatia show a relatively high level of technical inefficiency in their secondary education as they respectively only rank in the third and fourth quartiles among selected countries. Therefore, rationalising public secondary education spending is strongly recommended with possible redirecting of some excessive resources to the tertiary education sector.
Immunization of Basa fish (Pangasius bocourti) against Ichthyophthirius multifiliis with live and sonicated trophonts

The high density of Basa fish (Pangasius bocourti) culture leads to outbreaks of Ichthyophthirius multifiliis (Ich), also knows as white spot disease. In this research, immunization of Basa fish against Ich with live and sonicated trophonts by intraperitoneal (IP) injection was investigated. Anti‑Ich antibody titer was determined using ELISA and Western immunoblotting 21 days post immunization. The results revealed that pre-immunized fish, non‑immunized fish and fish immunized with bovine serum albumin (BSA) at a concentration 65 µg g-1 fish did not show specific antibody against Ich. 21 days post immunization, fish immunized with live trophonts exhibited higher anti‑Ich antibody titer than fish immunized with sonicated trophonts at the same antigen concentration. Fish immunized with 65 µg trophonts protein/g fish live trophonts showed the highest titer 1:1,000 (p<0.05). The results from Western immunoblotting showed two parasite protein bands of 66 kDa and <14 kDa, which reacted with antibodies from serum of immune fish. No fish in the non-immunized group survived. At the same concentration of antigen (65 µg g-1), fish immunized with live trophonts exhibited the highest survival rate, 63.33±5.77% (p<0.05). Therefore, these results are the Basa fish immunizing procedure will be the way to conduct immunization against Ich to prevent disease outbreaks in aquaculture.
SU(2) Quantum Yang–Mills Thermodynamics: Some Theory and Some Applications

In the first part of this talk, we review some prerequisites for and essential arguments involved in the construction of the thermal-ground-state estimate underlying the deconfining phase in the thermodynamics of SU(2) Quantum Yang–Mills theory and how this structure supports its distinct excitations. The second part applies deconfining SU(2) Yang–Mills thermodynamics to the Cosmic Microwave Background in view of (i) a modified temperature-redshift relation with an interesting link to correlation-length criticality in the 3D Ising model, (ii) the implied minimal changes in the dark sector of the cosmological model, and (iii) best-fit parameter values of this model when confronted with the spectra of the angular two-point functions temperature-temperature (TT), temperature-E-mode-polarisation (TE), E-mode-polarisation-E-mode-polarisation (EE), excluding the low-l physics. The latter, which so far is treated in an incomplete way due to the omission of radiative effects, is addressed in passing.
Determining the modal mineralogy of mafic and ultramafic igneous rocks using thermal emission spectroscopy

The modal mineralogies of 20 mafic and ultramafic igneous rocks were determined from their thermal infrared emission spectra using a linear deconvolution approach, which uses a library of end-member mineral spectra to model a bulk rock spectrum. Over 90% of the modes obtained from thermal emission spectra agree with modes obtained by traditional optical analyses to within the stated error of the optical analyses (5–15 vol%). Library spectra of several compositions within a solid solution series (e.g., plagioclase feldspars labradorite and bytownite) were commonly used in each best fit model and are assumed to represent, in combination, a composition in the rock for which an identical mineral spectrum was unavailable in the library. The accuracy of this assumption was evaluated by calculating a weighted average solid solution composition for plagioclase and/or pyroxenes from the library minerals used in the model best fit of 14 rocks and comparing these compositions to the actual chemistries measured by electron microprobe or the optically estimated An#. The derived solid solution compositions are generally within 10–15 An# (or Mg#) of the measured composition. Modal data derived from the spectra via the deconvolution were summed and converted to weight percent (wt%) oxides for comparison to standard bulk chemistry data. SiO2, Al2O3, and Na2O + K2O were generally slightly overestimated, and FeO and MgO were typically slightly underestimated. Modes and wt% oxides were plotted on standard rock type classification diagrams and provide broadly accurate classifications, demonstrating that the linear deconvolution technique is successful at deriving useful mineralogical information from thermal infrared emission spectra of bulk rock samples. Furthermore, convolution of the laboratory data to spectral resolutions comparable to remote sensing instruments (specifically, the Mars Global Surveyor Thermal Emission Spectrometer) demonstrates only a ∼5 vol% increase in modal uncertainty for minerals present in abundances ≥10 vol%. This study thus provides a strong foundation for the application of this technique to mafic igneous sample spectra from both laboratory and remote sensing instruments.
TASTE FOR VARIETY AND ENDOGENOUS FLUCTUATIONS IN A MONOPOLISTIC COMPETITION MODEL

In past years, imperfect competition has been introduced in several dynamic models to show how markup variability, increasing returns (decreasing marginal cost), and monopoly profits affect the occurrence of endogenous fluctuations. In this paper, we focus on another possible feature of imperfectly competitive economies: consumers' taste for variety as a result of endogenous product diversity. Introducing monopolistic competition [Dixit and Stiglitz (1977), Benassy (1996)] in an overlapping generations model in which consumers have taste for variety, we show that local indeterminacy can occur under the three following conditions: a high substitution between capital and labor, increasing returns arbitrarily small, and a not too elastic labor supply. The key mechanism for this result is based on the fact that, because of taste for variety, the aggregate price decreases with the procyclical product diversity, which has a direct influence on the real wage and the real interest rate.
Conservation Genetics of the Endangered Terrestrial Orchid Pogonia minor in South Korea

Levels of allozyme variation, population genetic structure, and fine-scale genetic structure (FSGS) of the rare, endangered terrestrial orchid Pogonia minor were examined for three small and isolated populations (n = 185) in South Korea using 20 putative allozyme loci resolved from 14 enzyme systems. Of the three populations, only one was polymorphic at four loci. Thus, extremely low levels of allozyme variation within populations were found: mean percentage of polymorphic loci was 6.7%, mean number of alleles per locus was 1.07, and mean expected heterozygosity was 0.015. Polymorphic population exhibited a significant deficit of heterozygotes relative to Hardy-Weinberg expectations (FIS = 0.257), suggesting selfing (rate, s = 0.349) through autogamy and biparental inbreeding. Analysis of O-ring function revealed significant aggregation of individuals suggests restricted seed dispersal and patchy distribution of microhabitats within populations. Spatial autocorrelation analyses revealed a significant fine-scale genetic structure (up to ≤ 2 m) within a polymorphic population, and a significantly high degree of population differentiation was found among populations (FST = 0.196). These results suggest that genetic drift, coupled with inbreeding, limited gene dispersal and founder effects would be the main explanatory factors for the extremely low levels of genetic diversity and for shaping the population genetic structure of P. minor in South Korea. Considering the current genetic structure of P. minor, in situ and ex situ conservation of the known populations of the species is suggested.
Title Motion Textures : Modeling , Classification , and SegmentationUsing Mixed-State Markov Random Fields

Amotion texture is an instantaneous motion map extracted from a dynamic texture. We observe that such motion maps exhibit values of two types: a discrete component at zero (absence of motion) and continuous motion values. We thus develop a mixed-state Markov random field model to represent motion textures. The core of our approach is to show that motion information is powerful enough to classify and segment dynamic textures if it is properly modeled regarding its specific nature and the local interactions involved. A parsimonious set of 11 parameters constitutes the descriptive feature of a motion texture. The motivation of the proposed formulation runs toward the analysis of dynamic video contents, and we tackle two related problems. First, we present a method for recognition and classification of motion textures, by means of the Kullback–Leibler distance between mixed-state statistical models. Second, we define a two-frame motion texture maximum a posteriori (MAP)based segmentation method applicable to motion textures with deforming boundaries. We also investigate a new issue, the space-time dynamic texture segmentation, by combining the spatial segmentation and the recognition methods. Numerous experimental results are reported for those three problems which demonstrate the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed two-frame approach.
Modeling social support scores using phone use patterns

Social support is a fundamental concept of interactional behavior and has been consistently linked with higher levels of emotional and physical well‐being. Social support has been shown to be an effective coping mechanism in managing stress and depression and to provide positive experiences that directly enhance overall well‐being and quality of life. The measurement and quantification of social support has generated a great deal of interest in the behavioral science community over the past 10 years. The dominant approach for quantifying individual social support remains self‐reported surveys and generator‐methods, which are costly, attention‐consuming, and fraught with biases. Given the important role played by mobile phones in mediating human social lives, this study explores the use of phone metadata (call and SMS logs) to automatically infer an individual's social support. Based on Sherbourne and Stewart's Modified Social Support survey (MSSS) as ground truth and ten‐week phone data collection for 55 participants, we report that multiple call and SMS based social features are intrinsically associated with social support and perform better than DEMOGRAPHY‐BASED models.
Effects of Social Network Marketing ( SNM ) on Consumer Purchase Behavior through Customer Engagement

 —Social Network Marketing (SNM) has been among the most successful tools in advertising. Knowing how marketing tools can boost number of sales is every marketer’s main goal since it can boost the profitability of a company substantially. This study is aimed to examine how SNM will influence the ultimate consumer purchase behavior among people who often use social networking websites and to investigate the predicted relationships among social network marketing activities, customer engagement and consumer purchase behavior. A quantitative survey was conducted among 50 respondents in the campus of National University of Malaysia (UKM). The results showed positive relationships between customer engagement of social networking and their purchase behaviors.
Inbreeding Effects on Grain Iron and Zinc Concentrations in Pearl Millet

The magnitude, direction, and pattern of inbreeding effects on trait expression in selfing generations have a direct bearing on single-plant and progeny-based selection efficiency. In the present study on a pearl millet [Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R. Br. ] biofortification initiative, initial random mated S0 bulks of three diverse composites and their S1 to S4 population bulks derived from four generations of selfing were evaluated for 2 yr under irrigated and terminal drought stress for iron (Fe) and zinc (Zn) concentrations. Both Fe and Zn concentrations were higher under terminal drought than under irrigated condition. Inbreeding had no significant effect on Fe and Zn concentrations in one composite and showed significant though marginal increase of both micronutrients in two composites. This finding, not unexpected, was in conformity with the earlier reports of predominantly additive gene effects and marginal partial dominance of genes determining low concentrations of these micronutrients observed in a low frequency of hybrids. The patterns of genetic changes in Fe concentration due to inbreeding were highly significantly and positively correlated with those in Zn concentration in all three composites. These results indicate that simultaneous single-plant and progeny-based early generation selection for Fe and Zn concentrations is likely to be effective to enhance the breeding efficiency for these micronutrients in pearl millet.
Economic Determinants of Capital Flight in Jordan: An Empirical Study

The aim of this study is to estimate the constraints of Capital Flight during the period from 2000 to 2013. The statistical analysis showed a positive statistical significant relationship between the external public debt, taxes, economic openness, previous capital flight, and Capital flight in Jordan. However, it also showed a negative statistical significant relationship between the growth rate of the economy and capital flight. This was together with the most important recommendations of the need to monitor the flight of capital through creating a Department in the central bank to control money flight. Therefore, this was aimed in reducing the external public debts that increase the phenomenon of Capital flight and cooperate with international institutions and the United Nations to locate the place of money flight.
THERMAL CHARACTERISTICS OF MICROCRYSTALLINE CELLULOSE FROM OIL PALM BIOMASS

Extracted cellulose from oil palm empty fruit bunch fiber (OPEFB) was subjected to acid hydrolysis in producing microcrystalline cellulose (MCC). The acid hydrolysis was conducted using 1 % (v/v) sulfuric acid (H2SO4) at varying temperatures of 120, 130 and 140 °C for an hour. The relationship between the thermal behavior and physical properties was investigated by thermogravimety (TGA/DTG) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) as well as x-ray diffractometry (XRD). The hydrolyzed MCC at 120 °C (MCCA) showed the highest thermal stability temperature and percentage of crystallinity at 250 °C and 65.07% respectively. However, hydrolyzed MCC at 130 °C (MCCB) and 140 °C (MCCC) exhibited low thermal stability temperature at 225 °C and 220 °C respectively. The percentage of crystallinity obtained for MCCB and MCCC was 61.18% and 60.64% respectively. This study revealed that the degree of crystallinity for cellulose has positive impact on the thermal degradation temperature of the OPEFB-MCC.
Effect of Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation Stretching (Modified Hold-Relax) on Hamstring Flexibility In subjects Having Chronic Low Back Pain

Low back pain(LBP) is among the leading cause of occupational injury and disability in both developed and developing countries. Sedentary life style is associated with obesity as well as muscle shortening, which in turn is linked to chronic health problems. Among all these factors the hamstring tightness was found to be one of the leading causes for development of LBP. Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation (PNF Modified hold-relax) works on Autogenic inhibition to improve the hamstrings flexibility. 15 subjects were taken in the study. Measurement of the severity of pain by using VAS, degree of hamstrings tightness by active knee extension test and functional disability by modified oswestry disability index was done. The main findings of the present study were that 10 sessions of PNF significantly reduce mean hamstrings tightness (t=4.821, p<0.001), pain at rest (t=4.83, p<0.001), pain on activity (Z = -3.296, p=0.001) & functional disability (Z=-3.302,p<0.001). Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation (PNF Modified hold-relax) improves hamstrings flexibility and reduce pain and disability.
AIR-GAP HEAT TRANSFER OF A PERMANENT MAGNET SYNCHRONOUS MOTOR

It is reported a three-dimensional numerical study for the air-gap heat transfer of a permanent magnet synchronous machine. The objective is to evaluate the air-gap convective heat transfer coefficient. The models and the procedures presented are able to manage annulus flows with uneven surfaces geometries. In such situations applying analytical expressions is not always the most effective approach. The thermal properties of the gap fluid are non-linear, that is, temperature dependent.