Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The effects of subchronic chlorate exposure in Sprague-Dawley rats.

Male and female Sprague-Dawley rats were exposed to drinking water containing 3.0, 12.0 or 48.0 mM sodium chlorate. The mean drinking water consumption varied between exposure groups from 100-200 ml/kg/day. Female exposure groups consistently drank more water (23-42%) than male exposure groups thereby receiving more chlorate/kg/day at every exposure level. There were no compound related deaths; however, both males and females in the high exposure groups had significant weight loss during the 90-day exposure period. Also, in these same groups females had mild but significant decreases in the following relative organ weights; adrenals, thymus and spleen, while the relative brain weight was increased. In males, the heart, kidneys and liver were mildly decreased while the brain and testes were mildly increased. Red blood cell counts and percent hematocrit were decreased in both sexes in the high dose group. Pituitary gland (pars distalis) vacuolization and thyroid gland colloid depletion were prominent in both sexes in mid and/or high dose animals. A NOAEL of 0.36 mM chlorate/kg b.w. /day in males and 0.50 mM chlorate/kg b.w. /day in females were established.
Epigenetic regulation of transcription and splicing of syncytins, fusogenic glycoproteins of retroviral origin

Syncytin-1 and -2, human fusogenic glycoproteins encoded by the env genes of the endogenous retroviral loci ERVWE1 and ERVFRDE1, respectively, contribute to the differentiation of multinucleated syncytiotrophoblast in chorionic villi. In non-trophoblastic cells, however, the expression of syncytins has to be suppressed to avoid potential pathogenic effects. We studied the epigenetic suppression of ERVWE1 and ERVFRDE1 5′-long terminal repeats by DNA methylation and chromatin modifications. Immunoprecipitation of the provirus-associated chromatin revealed the H3K9 trimethylation at transcriptionally inactivated syncytins in HeLa cells. qRT-PCR analysis of non-spliced ERVWE1 and ERVFRDE1 mRNAs and respective env mRNAs detected efficient splicing of endogenously expressed RNAs in trophoblastic but not in non-placental cells. Pointing to the pathogenic potential of aberrantly expressed syncytin-1, we have found deregulation of transcription and splicing of the ERVWE1 in biopsies of testicular seminomas. Finally, ectopic expression experiments suggest the importance of proper chromatin context for the ERVWE1 splicing. Our results thus demonstrate that cell-specific retroviral splicing represents an additional epigenetic level controling the expression of endogenous retroviruses.
Frequency of Cognitive Impairment Without Dementia in Patients With Stroke: A Two-Year Follow-Up Study

Background and Purpose— Studies on cognitive impairment without dementia (CIND) after stroke are scarce and there are no widely accepted diagnostic criteria for this condition. The purpose of this study was to determine the frequency of CIND in a hospital cohort before and after stroke during a 2-year follow up according to two alternative operational criteria. Methods— Three hundred twenty-seven consecutive stroke inpatients were prospectively evaluated with an extensive neuropsychological battery and the Informant Questionnaire of Cognitive Decline in the Elderly (IQCODE) on admission and then at 3, 12, and 24 months after discharge. CIND was established according to two alternative operational criteria: proxy information (a cutoff score of 3.35 in the IQCODE: IQ-c) or to neuropsychologic examination (a score below the sixth percentile in ≥50% of the tests exploring one cognitive domain: NPE-c). Results— A total of 12.6% patients had CIND (IQ-c) before stroke. After 3 months, the CIND frequency was 26.9% (IQ-c) or 19.6% (NPE-c); after 12 months, 39.5% or 26.8%; and after 24 months, 36.6% or 21%. The risk for developing delayed dementia was significantly higher for poststroke patients with CIND diagnosed by IQ-c (OR 8.8), NPE-c (OR 10.3), or both criteria (OR 20.8). Conclusions— Patients with CIND are frequent before and after stroke and prone to delayed dementia. Both criteria are valid for identifying CIND cases and predicting long-term conversion to dementia, but NPE-c may be more adequate for the long-term follow up and IQ-c for detecting changes from prestroke status.
Iterative Hybrid Precoder and Combiner Design for mmWave Multiuser MIMO Systems

This letter investigates analog/digital hybrid precoder and combiner design for millimeter wave (mmWave) multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) systems. We propose a novel iterative algorithm for the joint hybrid precoder and combiner design by exploiting the duality of the uplink and downlink MU-MIMO channels. For the initialization stage, the proposed algorithm selects the analog precoder-combiner pair based on the orthogonal matching pursuit (OMP) algorithm to enhance the channel gain, while mitigating the multiple access interference, and obtains the digital combiner via minimum mean square error criterion. Then, the proposed algorithm enhances the performance gradually at each iteration via joint design of the uplink and downlink precoders/combiners. Simulation results demonstrate the significant performance advantages of the proposed precoder and combiner design compared with existing hybrid beamforming algorithms.
Here, There Be Dragons: Charting Autophagy-Related Alterations in Human Tumors

Macroautophagy (or autophagy) is a catabolic cellular process that is both homeostatic and stress adaptive. Normal cells rely on basal levels of autophagy to maintain cellular integrity (via turnover of long-lived proteins and damaged organelles) and increased levels of autophagy to buoy cell survival during various metabolic stresses (via nutrient and energy provision through lysosomal degradation of cytoplasmic components). Autophagy can function in both tumor suppression and tumor progression, and is under investigation in clinical trials as a novel target for anticancer therapy. However, its role in cancer pathogenesis has yet to be fully explored. In particular, it remains unknown whether in vitro observations will be applicable to human cancer patients. Another outstanding question is whether there exists tumor-specific selection for alterations in autophagy function. In this review, we survey reported mutations in autophagy genes and key autophagy regulators identified in human tumor samples and summarize the literature regarding expression levels of autophagy genes and proteins in various cancer tissues. Although it is too early to draw inferences from this collection of in vivo studies of autophagy-related alterations in human cancers, their results highlight the challenges that must be overcome before we can accurately assess the scope of autophagy's predicted role in tumorigenesis. Clin Cancer Res; 18(5); 1214–26. ©2012 AACR.
PI and PIF based mobilizer

This paper introduces a novel method, called the mobilizer, of executing synchronous communication protocols in a cellular mobile environment. First, we present a distributed protocol, called mobile propagation of information (MPI), for broadcasting over a mobile environment. Then, we present the mobile propagation of information with feedback (MPIF) protocol, which can be used to implement this mobilizer, that is, enable synchronous protocols to run over distributed networks with mobile users. The additional message complexity overhead, induced due to the mobilizer, is linear with the number of users' movements.
Complications of Hydroxyapatite Pegging: Comparison between Polycarbonate and Titanium Peg System

Purpose. Polycarbonate peg has been customarily used for pegging of hydroxyapatite for years. For better movement, tissue tolerance, and to decrease the complications of pegging, titanium peg system has been used. This study compares the two systems. Methods. Complications associated with pegging (polycarbonate: Bio-Eye® or titanium: Dr-Perry new P-K®) were retrospectively reviewed from the charts of 153 patients admitted to the Labbafinejad Medical Center, Tehran, Iran, for over 5 years from 1997 to 2003. Results. A total of 153 cases were studied. Ninety-six (62.3%) were male and 57 (37.7%) were female, and the mean age was 27.7 years (6–59 years). In 88 cases pegs were polycarbonate and sleeve system and in 65 cases pegs were titanium. Forty-one (46%) of cases with polycarbonate and 18 (27%) of cases with titanium had at least one or more complications (p=0.018). The most common complications were granulation tissue, discharge, overgrowth of conjunctiva, and peg falling out in 25%, 23%, 13%, and 8% in polycarbonate peg and 15%, 5%, 1.5%, and 0% in titanium peg group. The prevalence of the last three complications was statistically lower in titanium peg compared with polycarbonate. Twenty-five cases (35%) with polycarbonate peg and 5 cases (7.5%) with titanium peg had two or more complications (p=0.03). Peg removal was done in 11 cases of polycarbonate but only two cases of titanium peg in order to treat the complication. Conclusions. Both pegging systems had some complications, although these were less severe and prevalent in titanium peg. More studies on complications due to titanium pegs are recommended.
Age at First Marriage for Husband and Wife between Muslim and Santal Communities in Rural Bangladesh: A Cross-Cultural Perspective

Age at first marriage is a basic temporal term that is culturally constructed for marriage relationship between an adult male and an adult female intended to have sex, to reproduce and to adapt to environment from one generation to another around the world. Cross-cultural evidences suggest that age at first marriage for both male and female not only varies across the cultures, but also varies among the subcultures of the same society. The purpose of the study was to compare age at first marriage for husband and wife including age differences between them between Muslim and Santal communities in rural Bangladesh. For this we hypothesized that (1) there were significant differences in age at first marriage and age interval between husband and wife between Muslim and Santal communities in rural Bangladesh. In so doing, 288 couples (145 pairs of couples for Muslim and 143 pairs of couples for Santal) were selected by cluster random sampling from the Kalna village situated in the Tanore Upazila of Rajshahi district, Bangladesh, whose current mean age range was 36.59 years for husband and 28.85 years for wife for the Muslim and 31.74 years for husband and 25.21 years for wife for the Santal respectively. The results of Independent Sample t test showed that mean age at first marriage for the Muslim samples was 23.05 years for husbands and 15.11 years for wives, while mean age at first marriage for the Santal samples was 20.71 years for husbands and 14.34 years for wives respectively that were significantly different at p<0.05 level. Although husbands compared to wives in both the communities were relatively older, there were significant similarities in mean age differences (7.71 for Muslim couples and 7.51 for Santal, p>0.05) among the selected husbands and wives between the two communities. This study recommends that further cross-cultural researches should be done on the causeeffect relationships between socio-cultural factors and age at marriage between the two communities in Bangladesh. Keywords—Age at First Marriage, Age Difference at Marriage, Bangladesh, Cross-Cultural Comparison, Muslim, Santal.
Similarity-based Multilingual Multi-Document Summarization

We present a new approach for summarizing clusters of documents on the same event, some of which are machine translations of foreign-language documents and some of which are English. Our approach to multilingual multi-document summarization uses text similarity to choose sentences from English documents based on the content of the machine translated documents. A manual evaluation shows that 68% of the sentence replacements improve the summary, and the overall summarization approach outperforms first-sentence extraction baselines in automatic ROUGEbased evaluations.
The evaluation of a novel haptic machining VR-based process planning system using an original process planning usability method

This thesis provides an original piece of work and contribution to knowledge by creating a new process planning system; Haptic Aided Process Planning (HAPP). This system is based on the combination of haptics and virtual reality (VR). HAPP creates a simulative machining environment where Process plans are automatically generated from the real time logging of a user’s interaction. Further, through the application of a novel usability test methodology, a deeper study of how this approach compares to conventional process planning was undertaken. An abductive research approach was selected and an iterative and incremental development methodology chosen. Three development cycles were undertaken with evaluation studies carried out at the end of each. Each study, the pre-pilot, pilot and industrial, identified progressive refinements to both the usability of HAPP and the usability evaluation method itself. HAPP provided process planners with an environment similar to which they are already familiar. Visual images were used to represent tools and material whilst a haptic interface enabled their movement and positioning by an operator in a manner comparable to their native setting. In this way an intuitive interface was developed that allowed users to plan the machining of parts consisting of features that can be machined on a pillar drill, 2/2D axis milling machine or centre lathe. The planning activities included single or multiple set ups, fixturing and sequencing of cutting operations. The logged information was parsed and output to a process plan including route sheets, operation sheets, tool lists and costing information, in a human readable format. The system evaluation revealed that HAPP, from an expert planners perspective is perceived to be 70% more satisfying to use, 66% more efficient in completing process plans, primarily due to the reduced cognitive load, is more effective producing a higher quality output of information and is 20% more learnable than a traditional process planning approach.
Learning shape models for monocular human pose estimation from the Microsoft Xbox Kinect

We propose a method for learning shape models enabling accurate articulated human pose estimation from a single image. Where previous work has typically employed simple geometric models of human limbs e.g. cylinders which lead to rectangular projections, we propose to learn a generative model of limb shape which can capture the wide variation in shape due to varying anatomy and pose. The model is learnt from silhouette, depth and 3D pose data provided by a Microsoft Xbox Kinect, such that no manual annotation is required. We employ the learnt model in a pictorial structure model framework and demonstrate improved pose estimation from single silhouettes compared to using conventional rectangular limb models.
Identification of a Person by Palm Geometry Using Invariant Features

Feature extraction is one of the main topics in Computer Vision. This paper presents the extraction of features of interest from two or more images of the same and different objects and the matching of these features in adjacent images. Each of these feature vectors is supposed to be distinctive and invariant to any scaling, rotation or translation of the image. It uses the SIFT (Scale Invariant Feature Transform) technique for feature extraction from the image. The paper describes our own implementation of the SIFT algorithm and highlights potential direction for future research.
Aortic valve segmentation from ultrasound images based on shape constraint CV model

Image Guided Intervention for valvular heart disease is increasingly making progress in minimally invasive manner, where effective and accurate segmentation of aortic valve (AV) from echocardiography is fundamental to improve the intra operative location accuracy. This paper proposes a shape constraint Chan-Vese (CV) model for segmenting the AV from ultrasound (US) images. Considering the poor quality and speckle noise in AV US images, the problem of the overflow at the weak edge is solved by adding the shape constraint to the CV model. The predefined shape constructed from AV region is applied as an energy constraint to the energy function through a signed distance map, and the AV is detected from the US image by minimizing the energy function. A hundred AV segmentation results are analyzed in the experiment, where the evaluation parameters are 95.38±2.7%, 1.4±0.5 mm, 2.07±1.3 mm in transthoracic AV and 97.21±1.6%, 0.7±0.15 mm, 1.04±0.6 mm in transesophageal AV, which reveal that the shape constraint CV model can segment AV accurately, efficiently and robustly.
Learning arm's posture control using reinforcement learning and feedback-error-learning

We propose a learning model using the Actor-Critic method and the feedback-error-learning scheme. The Actor-Critic method, which is one of the major frameworks in reinforcement learning, has attracted attention as a computational learning model in the basal ganglia. Meanwhile, the feedback-error-learning is learning architecture proposed as a computationally coherent model of cerebellar motor learning. This learning architecture's purpose is to acquire a feed-forward controller by using a feedback controller's output as an error signal. In past researches, a predetermined constant gain feedback controller was used for the feedback-error-learning. We use the Actor-Critic method for obtaining a feedback controller in the feedback-error-earning. By applying the proposed learning model to an arm's posture control, we show that high-performance feedback and feed-forward controller can be acquired from only by using a scalar value of reward.
NON-INVASIVE MEASUREMENT OF WATER CONTENT IN LUNG PHANTOM BY NEUTRONS: LATEST IMPROVEMENTS TO THE TECHNIQUE

The novel technique for measuring the water content in lungs based on the slowing down of fast neutrons has been improved making possible its clinical use on patients. This goal has been reached by performing computer simulations that closely mimic the experimental setup and by acquiring a new set of measurements obtained with a plutonium-beryllium (Pu-Be) neutron source provided of an activity suitable to clinical requirements. Finally, accurate radiation dose measurements have been carried out to ensure the acceptability of the technique.
Coevolving Probabilistic Game Playing Agents using Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm

Coevolutionary techniques in combination with particle swarm optimization algorithms and neural networks have shown to be very successful in finding strong game playing agents for a number of deterministic games. This paper investigates the applicability of a PSO coevolutionary approach to probabilistic games. For the purposes of this paper, a probabilistic variation of the tic-tac-toe game is used. Initially, the technique is applied to a simple deterministic game (tictac-toe), proving its effectiveness with such games. The technique is then applied to a probabilistic 4x4x4 tic-tactoe game, illustrating scalability to more complex, probabilistic games. The performance of the probabilistic game agent is compared against agents that move randomly. To determine how these game agents compete against strong non-random game playing agents, coevolved solutions are also compared against agents that utilize a strong hand-crafted static evaluation function. Particle swarm optimization parameters/topologies and neural network architectures are experimentally optimized for the probabilistic tic-tac-toe game.
Two electrophysiologically distinct types of cultured pacemaker cells from rabbit sinoatrial node.

Previous investigations employing multicellular nodal preparations (i.e., mixtures of dominant and subsidiary pacemaker cells) have suggested that the fast transient inward sodium current (iNa) either is not present in dominant pacemaker cells or is present but inactivated at the depolarized take-off potentials that these cells exhibit. In the present study, this question was resolved by voltage clamp analysis of single pacemaker cells isolated from the sinoatrial node and maintained in vitro for 1-3 days. Two types of cells, each with a different morphology, exhibited two modes of electrophysiological behavior. Type I cells (presumably dominant pacemakers) displayed only a tetrodotoxin (TTX)-resistant (but cadmium-sensitive) slow inward current, whereas type II cells (presumably subsidiary pacemakers) exhibited two components of inward current, a TTX-sensitive, fast transient inward current and a TTX-resistant (but cadmium-sensitive) slow inward current. Three other voltage-gated currents, 1) a slowly developing inward current activated by hyperpolarization (if, ih, delta ip), 2) a transient outward current activated by strong depolarization (ito, iA), and 3) a delayed outward current, were recorded in both types of pacemaker cells.
DiffFlow: Differentiating Short and Long Flows for Load Balancing in Data Center Networks

In current Data Center Networks (DCNs), Equal- Cost MultiPath (ECMP) is used as the de-facto routing protocol. However, ECMP does not differentiate between short and long flows, the two main categories of flows depending on their duration (lifetime). This issue causes hot-spots in the network, affecting negatively the Flow Completion Time (FCT) and the throughput, the two key performance metrics in data center networks. Previous work on load balancing proposed solutions such as splitting long flows into short flows, using per-packet forwarding approaches, and isolating the paths of short and long flows. We propose DiffFlow, a new load balancing solution which detects long flows and forwards packets using Random Packet Spraying (RPS) with help of SDN, whereas the flows with small duration are forwarded with ECMP by default. The use of ECMP for short flows is reasonable, as it does not create the out-of-order problem; at the same time, RPS for long flows can efficiently help to load balancing the entire network, given that long flows represent most of the traffic in DCNs. The results show that our DiffFlow solution outperforms both the individual usage of either RPS or ECMP, while the overall throughput achieved is maintained at the level comparable to RPS.
The Interplay between PolyQ and Protein Context Delays Aggregation by Forming a Reservoir of Protofibrils

Polyglutamine (polyQ) diseases are inherited neurodegenerative disorders caused by the expansion of CAG codon repeats, which code for polyQ in the corresponding gene products. These diseases are associated with the presence of amyloid-like protein aggregates, induced by polyQ expansion. It has been suggested that the soluble aggregates rather than the mature fibrillar aggregates are the toxic species, and that the aggregation properties of polyQ can be strongly modulated by the surrounding protein context. To assess the importance of the protein carrier in polyQ aggregation, we have studied the misfolding pathway and the kinetics of aggregation of polyQ of lengths above (Q41) and below (Q22) the pathological threshold fused to the well-characterized protein carrier glutathione S-transferase (GST). This protein, chosen as a model system, is per se able to misfold and aggregate irreversibly, thus mimicking the behaviour of domains of naturally occurring polyQ proteins. We prove that, while it is generally accepted that the aggregation kinetics of polyQ depend on its length and are faster for longer polyQ tracts, the presence of GST alters the polyQ aggregation pathway and reverses this trend. Aggregation occurs through formation of a reservoir of soluble intermediates whose populations and kinetic stabilities increase with polyQ length. Our results provide a new model that explains the toxicity of expanded polyQ proteins, in which the interplay between polyQ regions and other aggregation-prone domains plays a key role in determining the aggregation pathway.