Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
UN DISPOSITIF D'EDUCATION PARENTALE SENSIBILISATION DES PARENTS A LEUR ROLE D'ACCOMPAGNATEUR DE LEUR ENFANT DANS LE CADRE D'UN MUSEE A CARACTERE SCIENTIFIQUE ET TECHNIQUE

A partir de la prise en consideration de l'importance du role des parents accompagnant leurs enfants (3-5 ans) dans la decouverte d'une exposition interactive a caractere scientifique et technique, la recherche propose : (1) une typologie des modes d'intervention des parents en fonction de leur caractere plus ou moins adapte au contexte des activites et aux capacites des enfants ; (2) la conception d'un Dispositif de Sensibilisation Parentale (DSP) et notamment d'un film - support de debats et de temoignages de la part des parents - qui vise surtout un changement de regard du parent sur son enfant ; (3) une evaluation du DSP. L'etude a ete realisee dans l'exposition des " 3/5 ans " de la Cite des Enfants, a la Cite des Sciences et de l'Industrie a Paris. Au total, 67 dyades parent-enfant ont ete observees (60 dans le cadre de la recherche d'une typologie des modes d'intervention et sept dyades dans le cadre de l'evaluation du DSP) et leurs echanges transcrits et analyses en reference a differents modeles (actes tutoriels, pragmatique conversationnelle et actes de distanciation parentale). L'hypothese selon laquelle une action de sensibilisation prealable des parents a leur role de tuteur a un impact sur la maniere dont ils accompagnent leur enfant se trouve confirmee. Les analyses montrent en effet une evolution marquee et tres individualisee entre leur premiere visite et leur seconde visite au musee, apres que les parents aient ete impliques dans le DSP. Ces donnees sont discutees dans le contexte des etudes sur l'education parentale.
Hemizygosity for the gene encoding glycoprotein Ibβ is not responsible for macrothrombocytopenia and bleeding in patients with 22q11 deletion syndrome

Essentials How thrombocytopenia relates to bleeding in 22q11 deletion syndrome (22q11DS) is not clear. Bleeding severity, platelet count and volume, and GPIBB were examined in patients with 22q11DS. Macrothrombocytopenia and bleeding typified imperfectly overlapping subsets of 22q11DS patients. GPIBB hemizygosity does not cause macrothrombocytopenia or bleeding in patients with 22q11DS.
Elevated circulating cathepsin S levels are associated with metabolic syndrome in overweight and obese individuals

Cathepsin S is highly expressed in subcutaneous and visceral adipose tissue. Cathepsin S correlates with central obesity and contributes to the formation and progression of atherosclerosis. Here, we sought to evaluate the association of serum cathepsin S with metabolic syndrome (MS) in overweight and obese Chinese adults.
Virological outcomes of boosted protease inhibitor-based first-line ART in subjects harbouring thymidine analogue-associated mutations as the sole form of transmitted drug resistance

Abstract Objectives In subjects with transmitted thymidine analogue mutations (TAMs), boosted PIs (PI/b) are often chosen to overcome possible resistance to the NRTI backbone. However, data to guide treatment selection are limited. Our aim was to obtain firmer guidance for clinical practice using real-world cohort data. Methods We analysed 1710 subjects who started a PI/b in combination with tenofovir or abacavir plus emtricitabine or lamivudine, and compared their virological outcomes with those of 4889 patients who started an NNRTI (predominantly efavirenz), according to the presence of ≥1 TAM as the sole form of transmitted drug resistance. Results Participants with ≥1 TAM comprised predominantly MSM (213 of 269, 79.2%), subjects of white ethnicity (206 of 269, 76.6%) and HIV-1 subtype B infections (234 of 269, 87.0%). Most (203 of 269, 75.5%) had singleton TAMs, commonly a revertant of T215Y or T215F (112 of 269, 41.6%). Over a median of 2.5 years of follow-up, 834 of 6599 (12.6%) subjects experienced viraemia (HIV-1 RNA >50 copies/mL). The adjusted HR for viraemia was 2.17 with PI/b versus NNRTI-based therapy (95% CI 1.88–2.51; P < 0.001). Other independent predictors of viraemia included injecting drug use, black ethnicity, higher viral load and lower CD4 cell count at baseline, and receiving abacavir instead of tenofovir. Resistance showed no overall impact (adjusted HR 0.77 with ≥1 TAM versus no resistance; 95% CI 0.54–1.10; P = 0.15). Conclusions In this cohort, patients harbouring ≥1 TAM as the sole form of transmitted drug resistance gained no apparent virological advantage from starting first-line ART with a PI/b.
QuickBird image-based estimation of tree stand density using local maxima filtering method: A case study in a Beijing forest

The stand density of trees affects stand growth and is useful for estimating other forests structure parameters. We studied tree stand density in Jiufeng National Forest Park in Beijing. The number of spectral local maxima points (NSLMP) calculated within each sample plot was extracted by the spectral maximum filtering method using QuickBird imagery. Regression analysis of NSLMP and the true stand density collected by ground measurements using differential GPS and the total station were used to estimate stand density of the study area. We used NSLMP as an independent variable and the actual stand density as the dependent variable to develop separate statistical models for all stands in the coniferous forest and broadleaf forest. By testing the different combination of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) thresholds and window sizes, the optimal selection was identified. The combination of a 3 × 3 window size and NDVI ≥ 0.3 threshold in coniferous forest produced the best result using near-infrared band (coniferous forest R2 = 0.79, RMSE = 12.60). The best combination for broadleaf forest was a 3 × 3 window size and NDVI ≥ 0.1 with R2 = 0.44, RMSE = 9.02 using near-infrared band. The combination of window size and NDVI threshold for all unclassified forest was 3 × 3 window size and NDVI ≥ 0.3 with R2 = 0.70, RMSE = 11.20 using near-infrared band. A stand density planning map was constructed using the best models applied for different forest types. Different forest types require the use of different combination strategies to best extract the stand density by using the local maximum (LM). The proposed method uses a combination of high spatial resolution imagery and sampling plots strategy to estimate stand density.
Semantic convex matrix factorisation for cross-media retrieval

When utilising matrix factorisation to extract latent features for cross-media retrieval, semantic information may be lost in the process of factorisation. In addition, many presented approaches directly mapped different modalities into an isomorphic semantic space to conduct the similarity measurement of different modalities, which also resulted in the loss of crucial information. To address these problems, a semantic convex matrix factorisation subspace learning approach is proposed for cross-media retrieval between image and text. The proposed method can extract an intermediate-level feature representation for the high dimensional image modality in order to weaken the loss of information, in the meantime, learn a semantic feature representation with semantic information for the lower dimension text modality to strengthen the discriminated capability. After that, the intermediate-level feature representation of image is mapped into a latent semantic space by a projection matrix. Then the similarity of different modalities can be estimated in terms of uniform dimensional latent feature representations. Experimental results on three benchmark datasets demonstrate the superiority of the proposed approach over several state-of-the-art approaches.
Determinants of Plasma Docosahexaenoic Acid Levels and Their Relationship to Neurological and Cognitive Functions in PKU Patients: A Double Blind Randomized Supplementation Study

Children with phenylketonuria (PKU) follow a protein restricted diet with negligible amounts of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). Low DHA intakes might explain subtle neurological deficits in PKU. We studied whether a DHA supply modified plasma DHA and neurological and intellectual functioning in PKU. In a double-blind multicentric trial, 109 PKU patients were randomized to DHA doses from 0 to 7 mg/kg&day for six months. Before and after supplementation, we determined plasma fatty acid concentrations, latencies of visually evoked potentials, fine and gross motor behavior, and IQ. Fatty acid desaturase genotypes were also determined. DHA supplementation increased plasma glycerophospholipid DHA proportional to dose by 0.4% DHA per 1 mg intake/kg bodyweight. Functional outcomes were not associated with DHA status before and after intervention and remained unchanged by supplementation. Genotypes were associated with plasma arachidonic acid levels and, if considered together with the levels of the precursor alpha-linolenic acid, also with DHA. Functional outcomes and supplementation effects were not significantly associated with genotype. DHA intakes up to 7 mg/kg did not improve neurological functions in PKU children. Nervous tissues may be less prone to low DHA levels after infancy, or higher doses might be required to impact neurological functions. In situations of minimal dietary DHA, endogenous synthesis of DHA from alpha-linolenic acid could relevantly contribute to DHA status.
Aspergillus flavus NRRL 3251 Growth, Oxidative Status, and Aflatoxins Production Ability In Vitro under Different Illumination Regimes

Aspergillus flavus is the most important mycotoxin-producing fungus involved in the global episodes of aflatoxin B1 contamination of crops at both the pre-harvest and post-harvest stages. However, in order to effectively control aflatoxin contamination in crops using antiaflatoxigenic and/or antifungal compounds, some of which are photosensitive, a proper understanding of the photo-sensitive physiology of potential experimental strains need to be documented. The purpose of the study is therefore to evaluate the effect of visible (VIS) light illumination on growth and conidiation, aflatoxin production ability and modulation of A. flavus oxidative status during in vitro experiment. Aflatoxigenic A. flavus strain was inoculated in aflatoxin-inducing YES media and incubated under three different VIS illumination regimes during a 168 h growth period at 29 °C. VIS illumination reduced A. flavus mycelia biomass yield, both during growth on plates and in liquid media, promoted conidiation and increased the aflatoxin production. Furthermore, aflatoxin production increased with increased reactive oxidative species (ROS) levels at 96 h of growth, confirming illumination-driven oxidative stress modulation activity on A. flavus cells.
Improving Tomographic Reconstruction from Limited Data Using Mixed-Scale Dense Convolutional Neural Networks

In many applications of tomography, the acquired data are limited in one or more ways due to unavoidable experimental constraints. In such cases, popular direct reconstruction algorithms tend to produce inaccurate images, and more accurate iterative algorithms often have prohibitively high computational costs. Using machine learning to improve the image quality of direct algorithms is a recently proposed alternative, for which promising results have been shown. However, previous attempts have focused on using encoder–decoder networks, which have several disadvantages when applied to large tomographic images, preventing wide application in practice. Here, we propose the use of the Mixed-Scale Dense convolutional neural network architecture, which was specifically designed to avoid these disadvantages, to improve tomographic reconstruction from limited data. Results are shown for various types of data limitations and object types, for both simulated data and large-scale real-world experimental data. The results are compared with popular tomographic reconstruction algorithms and machine learning algorithms, showing that Mixed-Scale Dense networks are able to significantly improve reconstruction quality even with severely limited data, and produce more accurate results than existing algorithms.
Ameliorative Effect of Withaferin A on Ageing-Mediated Impairment in the Dopamine System and Its Associated Behavior of Wistar Albino Rat

Withaferin A (WA) was evaluated for its neuro-protective efficacy on ageing induced striatal dopamine (DA) and behavioural changes in aged rats. Wistar albino rats were divided into group I – young (3 months), Group II – aged (24 months), Group III – aged rats supplemented with WA (50 mg/kg b.w once in a day for 30 days) and Group IV – young rats supplemented with WA (50 mg/kg b.w). The HPLC assay revealed significant decline in the levels of DA and homovanillic acid (HVA) in substantia nigra (SN) and striatum (ST) of aged rat. A marked decline in motor activity of aged rat was observed through open field, beam walking and grid walking motor experiments. These results indicate that ageing reduces nigro-striatal activity as well as nigro-striatal DA levels. Interestingly, the administration of WA (50 mg\kg b.w) resulted in a substantial resurge of DA and HVA in SN and ST and a significant reversal of motor impairment in aged rats. This study is the first report that evidently determines the neuro-protective efficacy of WA on dopaminergic system of SN and ST in aged rats.
Protein Food Matrix–ZnO Nanoparticle Interactions Affect Protein Conformation, but May not Be Biological Responses

Because of their nutritional value, zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles (NPs) are applied as a dietary source of zinc, by direct addition to complex, multiple-component food matrices. The thereby occurring interactions of NPs with food matrices may have biological or toxic effects. In particular, NP interactions with food protein can lead to structural deformation of the latter, potentially changing its digestive efficiency and gastrointestinal absorption. In this study, interactions between ZnO NPs and a representative complex protein food matrix, skim milk, were compared with those between NPs and individual components of this food matrix (i.e., protein, saccharide, and mineral). The effects of the interactions on biological responses were investigated in terms of cytotoxicity, cellular uptake, intestinal transport, structural deformation for proteins, and digestive efficiency. The results demonstrated that the physicochemical properties of ZnO NPs were strongly influenced by the protein matrix type, leading to an increased dispersion stability in the complex protein matrix. However, these interactions did not affect cell proliferation, membrane damage, cellular uptake, intestinal transportation, or protein digestive efficiency, although a slight conformational change of proteins was observed in the presence of ZnO NPs. In conclusion, no toxic effects were observed, suggesting the safety of NPs when added to complex food matrices.
Influence of Chemical Enhancers and Iontophoresis on the In Vitro Transdermal Permeation of Propranolol: Evaluation by Dermatopharmacokinetics

The aims of this study were to assess, in vitro, the possibility of administering propranolol transdermally and to evaluate the usefulness of the dermatopharmacokinetic (DPK) method in assessing the transport of drugs through stratum corneum, using propranolol as a model compound. Four chemical enhancers (decenoic and oleic acid, laurocapram, and R-(+)-limonene) and iontophoresis at two current densities, 0.25 and 0.5 mA/cm2 were tested. R-(+)-limonene, and iontophoresis at 0.5 mA/cm2 were proven to be the most efficient in increasing propranolol transdermal flux, both doubled the original propranolol transdermal flux. Iontophoresis was demonstrated to be superior than the chemical enhancer because it allowed faster delivery of the drug. The DPK method was sufficiently sensitive to detect subtle vehicle-induced effects on the skin permeation of propranolol. The shorter duration of these experiments and their ability to provide mechanistic information about partition between vehicle and skin and diffusivity through skin place them as practical and potentially insightful approach to quantify and, ultimately, optimize topical bioavailability.
Therapeutic vaccination using minimal HPV16 epitopes in a novel MHC-humanized murine HPV tumor model

ABSTRACT Therapeutic vaccination as a treatment option for HPV-induced cancers is actively pursued because the two HPV proteins E6 and E7 represent ideal targets for immunotherapy, as they are non-self and expressed in all tumor stages. MHC-humanized mice are valuable tools for the study of therapeutic cancer vaccines – given the availability of a suitable tumor model. Here, we present for the first time an HPV16 tumor model suitable for fully MHC-humanized A2.DR1 mice, PAP-A2 cells, which in contrast to existing HPV16 tumor models allows the exclusive study of HLA-A2- and DR1-mediated immune responses, without any interfering murine MHC-presented epitopes. We used several HPV16 epitopes that were shown to be presented on human cervical cancer cells by mass spectrometry for therapeutic anti-tumor vaccination in the new tumor model. All epitopes were immunogenic when rendered amphiphilic by incorporation into a molecule containing stearic acids. Prophylactic and therapeutic vaccination experiments with the epitope E7/11–19 demonstrated that effective immune responses could be induced with these vaccination approaches in A2.DR1 mice. Interestingly, the combination of E7/11–19 with other immunogenic HPV16 E6/E7 epitopes caused a reduction of vaccine efficacy, although all tested combinations resulted in a survival benefit. In summary, we present the first HPV16 tumor model for exclusive studies of HLA-A2-mediated anti-HPV tumor immune responses and show anti-tumor efficacy of minimal epitope vaccines.
Improvement of global motion estimation in two-dimensional digital video stabilisation methods

A large amount of video content has been produced by compact and portable cameras. Several applications have been benefited from such growth of multimedia data, such as telemedicine, business conferencing, surveillance and security, entertainment, distance learning, and robotics. Video stabilisation is the process of detecting and removing undesired motion or instabilities from a video stream caused during the acquisition stage when handling the camera. In this work, the authors introduce and analyse a novel approach that identifies failures in the global motion estimation of the camera by means of local features. Moreover, they propose an optimisation method for computing a new estimate of the corrected motion. Experiments conducted on different video sequences are performed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the developed method. Results obtained with the stabilisation process are compared against the state-of-the-art YouTube method.
The Cytomegalovirus-Specific IL-21 ELISpot Correlates with Allograft Function of Kidney Transplant Recipients

In kidney transplant recipients, the cytomegalovirus (CMV) is frequently causing infection/reactivation and can trigger allograft rejection. To assess the risk of reactivation, the cellular immune response against CMV is increasingly assessed by cellular in vitro methods, such as the interferon (IFN)-γ ELISpot. In the current study we compared the IFN-γ ELISpot with our newly established CMV-specific ELISpot assays determining IL-17A, IL-21, IL-22, granzyme B, and perforin and correlated the results with flow cytometric data and clinical parameters. In 77 kidney transplant recipients, the highest frequency was observed for CMV pp65-specific cells secreting IFN-γ, followed by cells secreting IL-21 (62.9 and 23.2 Δ spot forming cells/105 cells). We observed a positive correlation between the percentage of CMV-specific CD3+ CD4+ CD154+ cells and results of the CMV-specific IL-21 ELISpot (p = 0.002). Results of the CMV pp65-specific IL-21 ELISpot correlated negatively with kidney function (estimated glomerular filtration rate, p = 0.006) and were significantly higher in women (p = 0.005). IL-21, a cytokine involved in aging that is secreted by activated CD4+ T cells, may also impact on allograft function. Thus, the CMV-specific IL-21 ELISpot could become a new tool to assess if CMV seropositivity represents a hazard for the graft.
Scene invariant crowd counting using multi-scales head detection in video surveillance

With a soaring increase in the application of video surveillance in daily life, the estimation of crowd density has already become a hot field. Crowd counting has a very close relationship with traffic planning, pedestrian analysing and emergency warning. Here, a novel crowd counting method based on multi-scales head detection is proposed. The authors' approach first uses gradients difference to extract the foreground of the images and apply the overlapped patches in different scales to split the input images. Then, the patches are selected and classified into different groups corresponding to their gradient distributions, and features are extracted for training. Finally, with the predicting result, density maps of different scales are computed and summed with the perspective map. In particular, the authors' method overcomes the traditional detecting method's deficiencies of low accuracy when facing perspective transformation. Also, experiments demonstrate that this proposed method not only achieved high accuracy in counting but also has outstanding robustness in our data sets.
Towards privacy-compliant mobile computing

Sophisticated mobile computing, sensing and recording devices like smartphones, smartwatches, and wearable cameras are carried by their users virtually around the clock, blurring the distinction between the online and offline worlds. While these devices enable transformative new applications and services, they also introduce entirely new threats to users’ privacy because they can capture a complete record of the user’s location, online and offline activities, and social encounters, including an audiovisual record. Such a record of users’ personal information is highly sensitive and is subject to numerous privacy risks. In this thesis, we have investigated and built systems to mitigate two such privacy risks: 1) privacy risks due to ubiquitous digital capture, where bystanders may inadvertently be captured in photos and videos recorded by other nearby users, 2) privacy risks to users’ personal information introduced by a popular class of apps called ‘mobile social apps’. In this thesis, we present two systems, called I-Pic and EnCore, built to mitigate these two privacy risks. Both systems aim to put the users back in control of what personal information is being collected and shared, while still enabling innovative new applications. We built working prototypes of both systems and evaluated them through actual user deployments. Overall we demonstrate that it is possible to achieve privacy-compliant digital capture and it is possible to build privacy-compliant mobile social apps, while preserving their intended functionality and ease-of-use. Furthermore, we also explore how the two solutions can be merged into a powerful combination, one which could enable novel workflows for specifying privacy preferences in image capture that do not currently exist.