Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Circulating IgM Requires Plasma Membrane Disruption to Bind Apoptotic and Non-Apoptotic Nucleated Cells and Erythrocytes

Autoimmunity is associated with defective phagocytic clearance of apoptotic cells. IgM deficient mice exhibit an autoimmune phenotype consistent with a role for circulating IgM antibodies in apoptotic cell clearance. We have extensively characterised IgM binding to non-apoptotic and apoptotic mouse thymocytes and human Jurkat cells using flow cytometry, confocal imaging and electron microscopy. We demonstrate strong specific IgM binding to a subset of Annexin-V (AnnV)+PI (Propidium Iodide)+ apoptotic cells with disrupted cell membranes. Electron microscopy studies indicated that IgM+AnnV+PI+ apoptotic cells exhibited morphologically advanced apoptosis with marked plasma membrane disruption compared to IgM-AnnV+PI+ apoptotic cells, suggesting that access to intracellular epitopes is required for IgM to bind. Strong and comparable binding of IgM to permeabilised non-apoptotic and apoptotic cells suggests that IgM bound epitopes are 'apoptosis independent' such that IgM may bind any cell with profound disruption of cell plasma membrane integrity. In addition, permeabilised erythrocytes exhibited significant IgM binding thus supporting the importance of cell membrane epitopes. These data suggest that IgM may recognize and tag damaged nucleated cells or erythrocytes that exhibit significant cell membrane disruption. The role of IgM in vivo in conditions characterized by severe cell damage such as ischemic injury, sepsis and thrombotic microangiopathies merits further exploration.
Palmprint Recognition Using Kernel Spectral Regression Discriminant Analysis and HOG Representation

In this paper, we propose a new appearance based approach for palmprint recognition, which combines Kernel Spectral Regression Discriminant Analysis (KSRDA) method and HOG representation. KSRDA is the kernel version of SRDA which has lower computation complexity than Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA). Meanwhile, HOG representation isn't sensitive to changes of illumination, and has the robustness against deformations because slight translations and rotations make small histogram value changes. As a result, the proposed approach can achieve promising recognition rate. The results of experiments conducted on Hong Kong Polytechnic University Palmprint Database II and the blue band of Hong Kong Polytechnic University Multispectral Palmprint Database demonstrate the effectiveness of proposed approach.
Enabling fair pricing on HPC systems with node sharing

Co-location, where multiple jobs share compute nodes in large-scale HPC systems, has been shown to increase aggregate throughput and energy efficiency by 10 to 20%. However, system operators disallow co-location due to fair-pricing concerns, i.e., a pricing mechanism that considers performance interference from co-running jobs. In the current pricing model, application execution time determines the price, which results in unfair prices paid by the minority of users whose jobs suffer from co-location. This paper presents POPPA, a runtime system that enables fair pricing by delivering precise online interference detection and facilitates the adoption of supercomputers with co-locations. POPPA leverages a novel shutter mechanism - a cyclic, fine-grained interference sampling mechanism to accurately deduce the interference between co-runners - to provide unbiased pricing of jobs that share nodes. POPPA is able to quantify inter-application interference within 4% mean absolute error on a variety of co-located benchmark and real scientific workloads.
EMAP-II sensitize U87MG and glioma stem-like cells to temozolomide via induction of autophagy-mediated cell death and G2/M arrest

ABSTRACT Despite the fact that temozolomide (TMZ) has been widely accepted as the key chemotherapeutic agent to prolong the survival of patients with glioblastoma, failure and recurrence cases can still be observed in clinics. Glioma stem-like cells (GSCs) are thought to be responsible for the drug resistance. In this study, we investigate whether endothelial monocyte-activating polypeptide-II (EMAP-II), a pro-inflammatory cytokine, can enhance TMZ cytotoxicity on U87MG and GSCs or not. As described in prior research, GSCs have been isolated from U87MG and maintained in the serum-free DMEM/F12 medium containing EGF, b-FGF, and B27. TMZ and/or EMAP-II administration were performed for 72 h, respectively. The results showed that TMZ combined with EMAP-II inhibit the proliferation of U87MG and GSCs by a larger measure than TMZ single treatment by decreasing the IC50. EMAP-II also enhanced TMZ-induced autophagy-mediated cell death and G2/M arrest. Moreover, we found that EMAP-II functioned a targeted suppression on mTOR, which may involve in the anti-neoplasm mechanism. The results suggest that EMAP-II could be considered as a combined chemotherapeutic agent against glioblastoma by sensitizing U87MG and GSCs to TMZ.
High-Frequency Oscillations Recorded on the Scalp of Patients With Epilepsy Using Tripolar Concentric Ring Electrodes

Epilepsy is the second most prevalent neurological disorder (~1% prevalence) affecting ~67 million people worldwide with up to 75% from developing countries. The conventional electroencephalogram is plagued with artifacts from movements, muscles, and other sources. Tripolar concentric ring electrodes automatically attenuate muscle artifacts and provide improved signal quality. We performed basic experiments in healthy humans to show that tripolar concentric ring electrodes can indeed record the physiological alpha waves while eyes are closed. We then conducted concurrent recordings with conventional disc electrodes and tripolar concentric ring electrodes from patients with epilepsy. We found that we could detect high frequency oscillations, a marker for early seizure development and epileptogenic zone, on the scalp surface that appeared to become more narrow-band just prior to seizures. High frequency oscillations preceding seizures were present in an average of 35.5% of tripolar concentric ring electrode data channels for all the patients with epilepsy whose seizures were recorded and absent in the corresponding conventional disc electrode data. An average of 78.2% of channels that contained high frequency oscillations were within the seizure onset or irritative zones determined independently by three epileptologists based on conventional disc electrode data and videos.
Efficient Multidimensional Aggregation for Large Scale Monitoring

Today, network monitoring becomes necessary on many levels: Internet Service Providers, large companies as well as smaller entities. Since network monitoring supports many applications in various fields (security, service provisioning, etc), it may consider multiple sources of information such as network traffic, user activity, network events and logs, etc. All these ones produce voluminous amount of data which need to be stored, visualized and analyzed for administration purposes. Various techniques to cope with scalability have been proposed as for example sampling or aggregation. In this paper, we introduce an aggregation technique which is able to handle multiple kinds of dimension, i.e. features, like traffic capture or host locations, without giving any preference a priori to a particular feature for ordering the aggregation process among dimensions. Furthermore, feature space granularity is determined on the fly depending on the desired events to monitor. We propose optimizations to keep the computational overhead low. In particular, the technique is applied to network related data involving multiple dimensions: source and destination IP addresses, services, geographical location of hosts, DNS names, etc. Thus, our approach is validated through multiple scenarios using different dimensions, measuring the impact of the aggregation process and the optimizations as well as by highlighting the ability to figure out important facts or changes in the network.
Grapheme-to-lexeme feedback in the spelling system: Evidence from a dysgraphic patient

This article presents an argument for grapheme-to-lexeme feedback in the cognitive spelling system, based on the impaired spelling performance of dysgraphic patient CM. The argument relates two features of CM's spelling. First, letters from prior spelling responses intrude into subsequent responses at rates far greater than expected by chance. This letter persistence effect arises at a level of abstract grapheme representations, and apparently results from abnormal persistence of activation. Second, CM makes many formal lexical errors (e.g., carpet → compute). Analyses revealed that a large proportion of these errors are “true” lexical errors originating in lexical selection, rather than “chance” lexical errors that happen by chance to take the form of words. Additional analyses demonstrated that CM's true lexical errors exhibit the letter persistence effect. We argue that this finding can be understood only within a functional architecture in which activation from the grapheme level feeds back to the lexeme level, thereby influencing lexical selection.
Modeling 3D video user experience forwireless networks

Recently the entertainment industry, the multimedia content providers and the research community have been experiencing the decisive introduction and evolution of three-dimensional (3D) imaging. This far more complex and sophisticated than the traditional 2D technology raises the major problem of how users perceive quality of 3D video. This paper studies user experience for 3D video streaming that takes into account the spatial and temporal information of the video, the resolution, the quantization step size, as well as, wireless network related parameters from the physical, the data link and the network layers. The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of each of these key performance indicators in order to efficiently model 3D video user experience in wireless networks. Such a model can be exploited by network selection algorithms so as to accurately predict user experience based on these indicators.
Long-term catheterization: current approaches in the diagnosis and treatment of port-related infections

Since the first description in 1982, totally implanted venous access ports have progressively improved patients’ quality of life and medical assistance when a medical condition requires the use of long-term venous access. Currently, they are part of the standard medical care for oncohematologic patients. However, apart from mechanical and thrombotic complications, there are also complications associated with biofilm development inside the catheters. These biofilms increase the cost of medical assistance and extend hospitalization. The most frequently involved micro-organisms in these infections are gram-positive cocci. Many efforts have been made to understand biofilm formation within the lumen catheters, and to resolve catheter-related infection once it has been established. Apart from systemic antibiotic treatment, the use of local catheter treatment (ie, antibiotic lock technique) is widely employed. Many different antimicrobial options have been tested, with different outcomes, in clinical and in in vitro assays. The stability of antibiotic concentration in the lock solution once instilled inside the catheter lumen remains unresolved. To prevent infection, it is mandatory to perform hand hygiene before catheter insertion and manipulation, and to disinfect catheter hubs, connectors, and injection ports before accessing the catheter. At present, there are still unresolved questions regarding the best antimicrobial agent for catheter-related bloodstream infection treatment and the duration of concentration stability of the antibiotic solution within the lumen of the port.
Wearables in the wet lab: a laboratory system for capturing and guiding experiments

Wet Laboratories are highly dynamic, shared environments full of tubes, racks, compounds, and dedicated machinery. The recording of experiments, despite the fact that several ubiquitous computing systems have been suggested in the past decades, still relies predominantly on hand-written notes. Similarly, the information retrieval capabilities inside a laboratory are limited to traditional computing interfaces, which due to safety regulations are sometimes not usable at all. In this paper, Google Glass is combined with a wrist-worn gesture sensor to support Wetlab experimenters. Taking "in-situ" documentation while an experiment is performed, as well as contextualizing the protocol at hand can be implemented on top of the proposed system. After an analysis of current practices and needs through a series of explorative deployments in wet labs, we motivate the need for a wearable hands-free system, and introduce our specific design to guide experimenters. Finally, using a study with 22 participants evaluating the system on a benchmark DNA extraction experiment, we explore the use of gesture recognition for enabling the system to track where the user might be in the experiment.
Plasmid Copy Number and Disease Severity in Naturally Occurring Ocular Chlamydia trachomatis Infection

ABSTRACT The Chlamydia trachomatis plasmid is a virulence factor. Plasmid copy number, C. trachomatis load and disease severity were assessed in a treatment-naive population where trachoma is hyperendemic. By using droplet digital PCR, plasmid copy number was found to be stable (median, 5.34 [range, 1 to 18]) and there were no associations with C. trachomatis load or disease severity.
A New 3-D Transmission Line Matrix Scheme for the Combined SchrÖdinger–Maxwell Problem in the Electronic/Electromagnetic Characterization of Nanodevices

This paper introduces a novel technique in which Maxwell equations, discretized by the transmission line matrix method in a 3-D domain, are coupled to the Schrodinger equation and simultaneously solved. The aim is to develop a method that accounts for deterministic electromagnetic field dynamics together with the quantum phenomena, which are typical of nanodevices.
Murine recipients of fully mismatched donor marrow are protected from lethal graft-versus-host disease by the in vivo administration of rapamycin but develop an autoimmune-like syndrome.

We investigated the ability of the macrolide antifungal agent rapamycin (RAPA) to inhibit murine graft-vs-host disease induced across the MHC barrier. An optimum dose (1.5 mg/kg) given for 14 days beginning on the day of transplant (and then three times weekly until 1 mo) effectively and significantly (p < 0.001) protected 80% of irradiated B10.BR recipients of C57Bl/6 bone marrow/spleen grafts for over 90 days, whereas 80% of control mice died by day 37. Using a congenic model in which a mixture of Ly5.1+ bone marrow (T cell-depleted) and Ly5.2+ spleen cells allowed us to distinguish mature and immature cells, we found that RAPA inhibits the splenic expansion of mature donor-derived T cells in B10.BR recipients after bone marrow transplantation. In addition, phenotyping studies revealed that RAPA causes a massive reduction of immature CD4+CD8+ T cells in the thymus, indicating that RAPA probably interferes with maturation of immature CD3-CD4-CD8- T cells to CD4+CD8+ T cells. There was also a predilection toward development or intrathymic retention of the more mature CD3+CD4-CD8+ or CD3+CD4+CD8- cells in the thymus of long term survivors. These same observations were made in different experiments with mice given syngeneic bone marrow transplantation and RAPA. However, RAPA administration was associated with the occurrence of an autoimmune-like syndrome, consisting of ulcerative dermatitis, hepatic bile duct proliferation, and nondestructive lymphoid peribronchiolar infiltration of the lung. RAPA interfered with the deletion of potentially self-reactive T cells that occurs in thymic development. The failure of clonal deletion was observed in allogeneic and syngeneic transplants given RAPA, although only the allografted mice experienced an autoimmune-like syndrome. Some, but not all, of the nondeleted V beta populations were functionally active. These new findings bear certain dissimilarities to the syndrome and lesions observed with cyclosporin A treatment, particularly in the observation of bile duct proliferation and ulcerative skin lesions. Nonetheless, because of the potent effect of RAPA in preventing lethal graft-vs-host induced across the MHC, further investigation of the immune consequences of this highly effective compound is warranted.
Amplifier noise-parameter measurement checks and verification

We propose two verification methods for measurements of noise parameters of amplifiers, particularly low-noise amplifiers (LNAs). One method is a direct measurement of the parameter Trev, the noise temperature from the amplifier input, and the comparison of that to the value derived from the noise-parameter measurement. The other check involves the measurement of the noise parameters for the amplifier with an isolator connected to the input and comparison to the noise parameters of the amplifier alone. Relationships between the noise parameters with and without the isolator are given. We demonstrate both verification methods with measurements on a sample LNA in the 8 – 12 GHz range. Uncertainties in the noise parameters are evaluated using a previously developed Monte Carlo method, and both checks are found to be satisfied within the uncertainties. Index Terms — amplifier; noise; noise measurement; noise parameters
Small Conductance Calcium-Activated Potassium Current Is Important in Transmural Repolarization of Failing Human Ventricles

Background—The transmural distribution of apamin-sensitive small conductance Ca2+-activated K+ (SK) current (IKAS) in failing human ventricles remains unclear. Methods and Results—We optically mapped left ventricular wedge preparations from 12 failing native hearts and 2 rejected cardiac allografts explanted during transplant surgery. We determined transmural action potential duration (APD) before and after 100 nmol/L apamin administration in all wedges and after sequential administration of apamin, chromanol, and E4031 in 4 wedges. Apamin prolonged APD from 363 ms (95% confidence interval [CI], 341–385) to 409 (95% CI, 385–434; P<0.001) in all hearts, and reduced the transmural conduction velocity from 36 cm/s (95% CI, 30–42) to 32 cm/s (95% CI, 27–37; P=0.001) in 12 native failing hearts at 1000 ms pacing cycle length (PCL). The percent APD prolongation is negatively correlated with baseline APD and positively correlated with PCL. Only 1 wedge had M-cell islands. The percentages of APD prolongation in the last 4 hearts at 2000 ms PCL after apamin, chromanol, and E4031 were 9.1% (95% CI, 3.9–14.2), 17.3% (95% CI, 3.1–31.5), and 35.9% (95% CI, 15.7–56.1), respectively. Immunohistochemical staining of subtype 2 of SK protein showed increased expression in intercalated discs of myocytes. Conclusions—SK current is important in the transmural repolarization in failing human ventricles. The magnitude of IKAS is positively correlated with the PCL, but negatively correlated with APD when PCL is fixed. There is abundant subtype 2 of SK protein in the intercalated discs of myocytes.
Parallel resolution of alternating-line processes by means of pipelining techniques

The aim of this paper is to present an easy and efficient method to implement alternating-line processes on current parallel computers. First we show how data locality has an important impact on global efficiency, which leads us to the conclusion that one-dimensional compositions are the most convenient ones for 2D problems. Once this is asserted, a parallel algorithm is presented for the solution of the distributed tridiagonal systems along the partitioned direction. The key idea is to pipeline the simultaneous resolution of many systems of equations, not parallelising each resolution separately. This approach presents good numerical and architectural properties, in terms of memory usage and data locality, and high parallel efficiencies are obtained. For the case of alternating-line processes, the election of the optimal decomposition is studied. The experimental results have been obtained on a Cray T3E.
Self-sensing composites: cure monitoring

The ability to monitor the cure kinetics at the fibre-matrix interface and the effects induced by the presence of silane coupling agents was the main focus of this study. E-glass reinforcing fibres were used as chemical sensors to eliminate the potential problems associated with implanting a foreign body into a composite structure in the form of an optical fibre. This study demonstrated conclusively that E-glass reinforcing fibres can be used to monitor the cure of an epoxy/amine resin system in-situ; the data generated via evanescent wave spectroscopy (EWS) using the reinforcing E-glass fibres showed excellent correlation with conventional transmission Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy over a range of temperatures. EWS via E-glass fibres was used to study the effects of the following coupling agents on the cure behaviour: (i) 3-glycidyloxypropyltrimethoxysilane (GPS); and (ii) 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APS). The epoxy and amine functional groups in the resin system were affected by the presence of the silane coupling agents during cure. Increased GPS concentration induced faster rates of epoxy conversion, but reduced the final degree of epoxy conversion. The amine functional groups of the curing resin were converted at faster rates with APS treatment, but the final degree of amine conversion was reduced.
Theranostic Nucleic Acid Binding Nanoprobe Exerts Anti-inflammatory and Cytoprotective Effects in Ischemic Injury

Extracellular nucleic acids are proinflammatory molecules that have been implicated in a diverse range of diseases. We report here the development of a multivalent nucleic acid scavenging nanoprobe, where the fluorochrome thiazole orange (TO) is conjugated to a polymeric 40 kDa dextran carrier. Dextran-TO (Dex-TO) has nanomolar affinity for mammalian and bacterial nucleic acids and attenuates the production of inflammatory cytokines from activated macrophages exposed to DNA and RNA. Mice with myocardial ischemia reperfusion that were treated with Dex-TO showed a decrease in myocardial macrophage infiltration at 24 hours (p<0.05) and a decrease in infarct size (18% ± 9%, p<0.01) on day 7. Dex-TO allows sites of injury to be identified with fluorescence imaging, while simultaneously exerting an anti-inflammatory and cytoprotective effect. Dex-TO could be of significant diagnostic and therapeutic (theranostic) utility in a broad range of conditions including ischemia, trauma, burns, sepsis and autoimmune disease.
Augmenting Requirements Gathering for People with Special Needs Using IoT: A Position Paper

Requirements gathering are an important aspect of application development, especially when users are people with special needs. Traditionally, this process is being conducted using conventional methods, such as interviews, workshops and questionnaires. These approaches, however, are unable to grasp the full context when collecting data from the communities of people with special needs, mainly because of the difficult access to participants and incomprehensiveness of the data gathered. To mitigate such issues, in this position paper, we argue that existing traditional methods could be complemented by means of Internet of Things. The immense amount of data gathered from various devices interconnected could help generate meaningful data that will complement the usually insufficient amount collected using traditional methods. This new approach is, however, associated with challenges that are discussed along with a possible scenario on how data complementing from traditional and the indirect method could be done.