Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Correlation between Tear Osmolarity and Other Ocular Surface Parameters in Primary Sjögren's Syndrome

Purpose To investigate the relationships between tear osmolarity and other ocular surface parameters and to determine the diagnostic value of tear osmolarity in primary Sjögren's syndrome (SS) using tear film break-up time, Schirmer I test, and cornea/conjunctiva staining. Methods We included 310 eyes of 155 patients diagnosed with dry eye disease (39 primary SS and 116 non-Sjögren dry eye disease) at Seoul St. Mary's Hospital from August 2010 to January 2015. All subjects completed the Ocular Surface Disease Index (OSDI) questionnaire and underwent ocular examinations including tear osmolarity (TearLab Osmolarity System), Schirmer I test, slit lamp examination for tear film break-up time, and corneal and conjunctival fluorescein staining. We used the mean value of both eyes for all parameters. Fluorescein staining was assessed using the Sjögren's International Collaborative Clinical Alliance ocular staining score (OSS). Results In primary SS patients (n = 39), the mean subject age was 52.5 ± 11.9 years, and 94.9% of the subjects were women. Mean tear osmolarity in SS was 311.1 ± 16.4 mOsm/L, with 16 (41.0%) subjects having values ≥316 mOsm/L. In SS, there was a positive correlation between mean tear osmolarity and OSDI score (ρ = 0.405, p = 0.011) and OSS (ρ = 0.592, p < 0.001). There was a negative correlation between mean tear osmolarity and the Schirmer I test (ρ = −0.625, p < 0.001). There was no significant correlation between mean tear osmolarity and tear film break-up time in SS (ρ = 0.110, p = 0.505). Conclusions Tear osmolarity measurements using the TearLab Osmolarity System can reflect both symptom severity (OSDI) and objective signs (Schirmer test and OSS) in SS.
Database of omnidirectional and B-format room impulse responses

This paper introduces a new database of room impulse responses. This database differs greatly from previously released databases as it contains over 700 impulse responses. The impulse responses are measured in three different rooms each with a static source position and at least 130 different receiver positions. Each measurement position is recorded with both an omnidirectional microphone and a B-format microphone.
High-Order Concept Associations Mining and Inferential Language Modeling for Online Review Spam Detection

Despite many incidents about fake online consumer reviews have been reported, very few studies have been conducted to date to examine the trustworthiness of online consumer reviews. One of the reasons is the lack of an effective computational method to separate the untruthful reviews (i.e., spam) from the legitimate ones (i.e., ham) given the fact that prominent spam features are often missing in online reviews. The main contribution of our research work is the development of a novel review spam detection method which is underpinned by an unsupervised inferential language modeling framework. Another contribution of this work is the development of a high-order concept association mining method which provides the essential term association knowledge to bootstrap the performance for untruthful review detection. Our experimental results confirm that the proposed inferential language model equipped with high-order concept association knowledge is effective in untruthful review detection when compared with other baseline methods.
Viscous Accretionary Prisms: Viscoelastic Relaxation of the Makran Accretionary Prism Following the 2013 Baluchistan, Pakistan Earthquake

Geodetic observations of postseismic transients following earthquakes commonly help to inform the rheology of the lower crust and mantle, frictional properties of faults, and the kinematics of deformation across the earthquake cycle. Here we use interferometric synthetic aperture radar time series observations of postseismic deformation following the 2013 Mw 7.7 Baluchistan, Pakistan earthquake to investigate the viscoelastic rheology of the Makran accretionary prism. Using observations that began 15 months after the earthquake and a suite of potential fault geometries, we show that the ongoing deformation transient in the vicinity of the earthquake cannot be explained by afterslip alone. Instead, the gross spatial and temporal characteristics of the transient can be explained by viscoelastic relaxation of a shallow (>6 km) weak zone bounded by the Baluchistan earthquake and the underthrusting Arabian oceanic plate. Our first‐order results show that the viscoelastic lower accretionary prism has a thickness of 8–12 km and exhibits power law (n = 3.5) behavior with viscosities of 1017–1018 Pa·s. These estimated viscosities may be higher if afterslip occurred during the initial period of postseismic deformation not constrained by our observations. The power law rheology suggests that creep processes common at lower crustal and mantle temperatures may be active at comparatively lower temperatures in the Makran. We hypothesize that the weak nature of the Makran accretionary prism is driven by high pore fluid pressures introduced by underplated sediments and/or hydrocarbon development, and we show a mechanically weak accretionary prism may lead to overestimates of plate coupling when linear elasticity is assumed.
Synthesizing Feather Textures in Galliformes

The texture of feather is one of the most fascinating, complicated, and beautiful texture patterns in nature. In this paper, we propose a new and effective texture generation approach that uses the traits of iteration behavior to synthesize the textures of Galliformes feathers realistically. We also propose an interactive feather modeling approach which provides a close connection between the user's intuition and the resulting branching pattern. In texturing the feather structure, we use an object‐space mapping technique. Experimental results are presented to show the effectiveness of our method.
Sparse Multiscale Local Binary Patterns

In a Local Binary Pattern (LBP) representation, circular point features are taken in their entirety as predicates and restricted to unif orm patterns with limited scales of small numbers of features in order to avoid large bin complexity. Such a design cannot fully exploit the discriminat ive capacity of the features available. To address the problem, this paper proposes (1) a pairwise-coupled reformulation of LBP-type classificatio n which involves selecting single-point features for each pair of classes ac ross multiple scales to form compact, contextually-relevant multiscale predicates known as Multiscale Selected Local Binary Features (MSLBF), and (2) a novel binary feature selection procedure, known as Binary Histogram Intersection Minimisation (BHIM) designed to choose features with minimal redundancy. Experiments show the advantages of MSLBF over traditional LBP representation and of BHIM over feature selection schemes such as AdaBoost.
Investigating the Antecedents of Healthcare Workers' Perceptions of Organizational Resilience in Hospitals

Resilience has been studied extensively in humans but less attention has been paid to organizational resilience in hospital organizations. This research aims to offer solutions for effective management of extreme events in hospitals by investigating the antecedents of healthcare workers' perceptions of organizational resilience. The theory of organizational resilience was used to examine the role of information privacy, information security, information access, leadership during emergencies, employee empowerment, and emergency training. A total of 402 survey responses were analyzed using Partial Least Squares regression. This is a research in progress.
MAL decreases the internalization of the aquaporin-2 water channel

Body water homeostasis depends critically on the hormonally regulated trafficking of aquaporin-2 (AQP2) water channels in renal collecting duct epithelial cells. Several types of posttranslational modifications are clearly involved in controlling the distribution of AQP2 between intracellular vesicles and the apical plasma membrane. Little is known, however, about the protein interactions that govern the trafficking of AQP2 between these organelles. MAL is a detergent-resistant membrane-associated protein implicated in apical sorting events. We wondered, therefore, whether MAL plays a role in the regulated trafficking of AQP2 between intracellular vesicles and the apical surface. We find that AQP2 and MAL are coexpressed in epithelial cells of the kidney collecting duct. These two proteins interact, both in the native kidney and when expressed by transfection in cultured cells. The S256-phosphorylated form of AQP2 appears to interact more extensively with MAL than does the water channel protein not phosphorylated at this serine. We find that MAL is not involved in detergent-resistant membrane association or apical delivery of AQP2 in LLC-PK1 renal epithelial cells. Instead, MAL increases the S256 phosphorylation and apical surface expression of AQP2. Furthermore, internalization experiments show that MAL induces surface expression of AQP2 by attenuating its internalization. Thus, the involvement of MAL in the cell surface retention of apical membrane proteins could play an important role in regulated absorption and secretion in transporting epithelia.
Characterizing the in vivo pathogenicity of Vps35-D620N in Drosophila

The Retromer trafficking complex sorts endosomal cargo, driving recycling from the lysosomal degradation pathway. The D620N mutation in the core Retromer subunit, Vps35, is a cause of the late-onset, autosomal dominant form of Parkinson’s Disease. Using Drosophila to study the in vivo effects of the mutant protein, Vps35-D620N, we can better understand the role of Vps35 in neuronal growth and morphology and its role in Parkinson’s Disease. However, previously described Vps35-D620N phenotypes in Drosophila may be an artifact of the GAL4-UAS overexpression system that was used to introduce the mutant protein into the neurons of the animal. We generated flies with an endogenous knock-in of Vps35-D620N. Here, we perform lifespan, larval locomotion, and bouton counting assays to study the in vivo pathogenicity of the endogenous mutant. The endogenous Vps35-D620N flies show a slight lifespan phenotype and no dramatic reduction in larval locomotion, but the endogenous mutant protein leads to synaptic overgrowth at the NMJ akin to phenotypes observed in nwk null mutants and vps35 loss of function mutants. We conclude that future experiments should be directed towards determining if the synaptic overgrowth correlates with increased pMad levels and defective F-actin polymerization.
The immunoglobulin heavy chain variable region (Igh‐V) locus in the mouse. I. One hundred Igh‐V genes comprise seven families of homologous genes

Seven families of Igh‐V genes have been defined by Southern blot analysis of genomic DNA from eighteen inbred strains of mice. Each of twenty‐four cloned Vh genes hybridized to one of seven nonoverlapping sets of Eco RI restriction fragments. These families contain from 2 to ∼40 hybridizing fragments. From these data we estimate that the mouse Igh‐V locus consists of one hundred Vh genes. Genes within a Vh family share >80% sequence homology while the sequence homology between families is generally <70%. There is extensive restriction fragment length polymorphism among the strains analyzed allowing the assignment of complete (Igh‐V + Igh‐C) Igh haplotypes for eighteen inbred mouse strains.
FIELD VALIDATION OF BIOMASS RETRIEVED FROM LANDSAT FOR RANGELAND ASSESSMENT AND MONITORING

Spatial measures of terrestrial biomass that are accurate and repeatable are important to monitoring landscape condition and modeling productivity in the world’s grassland and savanna (i.e., rangeland) ecosystems. Remote sensing offers potential to characterize seasonal changes in biomass in a consistent and non-destructive manner. A high degree of structural and spatial heterogeneity [1] and inter-annual variability in production [2] render field datasets for validating remotely sensed estimates of biomass logistically inaccessible in many rangelands.
A stochastic approach to open quantum systems

Stochastic methods are ubiquitous to a variety of fields, ranging from physics to economics and mathematics. In many cases, in the investigation of natural processes, stochasticity arises every time one considers the dynamics of a system in contact with a somewhat bigger system, an environment with which it is considered in thermal equilibrium. Any small fluctuation of the environment has some random effect on the system. In physics, stochastic methods have been applied to the investigation of phase transitions, thermal and electrical noise, thermal relaxation, quantum information, Brownian motion and so on. In this review, we will focus on the so-called stochastic Schrödinger equation. This is useful as a starting point to investigate the dynamics of open quantum systems capable of exchanging energy and momentum with an external environment. We discuss in some detail the general derivation of a stochastic Schrödinger equation and some of its recent applications to spin thermal transport, thermal relaxation, and Bose–Einstein condensation. We thoroughly discuss the advantages of this formalism with respect to the more common approach in terms of the reduced density matrix. The applications discussed here constitute only a few examples of a much wider range of applicability.
TARGETED DELIVERY OF siRNA TO CELL DEATH PROTEINS IN SEPSIS

Immune suppression is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in the patients with sepsis. Apoptotic loss of immune effector cells such as CD4 T and B cells is a key component in the loss of immune competence in sepsis. Inhibition of lymphocyte apoptosis has led to improved survival in animal models of sepsis. Using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction of isolated splenic CD4 T and B cells, we determined that Bim and PUMA, two key cell death proteins, are markedly upregulated during sepsis. Lymphocytes have been notoriously difficult to transfect with small interfering RNA (siRNA). Consequently a novel, cyclodextrin polymer-based, transferrin receptor-targeted, delivery vehicle was used to coadminister siRNA to Bim and PUMA to mice immediately after cecal ligation and puncture. Antiapoptotic siRNA-based therapy markedly decreased lymphocyte apoptosis and prevented the loss of splenic CD4 T and B cells. Flow cytometry confirmed in vivo delivery of siRNA to CD4 T and B cells and also demonstrated decreases in intracellular Bim and PUMA protein. In conclusion, Bim and PUMA are two critical mediators of immune cell death in sepsis. Use of a novel cyclodextrin polymer-based, transferrin receptor-targeted siRNA delivery vehicle enables effective administration of antiapoptotic siRNAs to lymphocytes and reverses the immune cell depletion that is a hallmark of this highly lethal disorder.
Investigating the randomness and duration of PM10 pollution using functional data analysis

Information on situation of air pollution is critically needed as input in four disciplines of research including risk management, risk evaluation, environmental epidemiology, as well as for status and trend analysis. Two normal practices were identified to evaluate daily air pollution situation; first, pollution magnitude has been treated as the common indicator, and second, the analysis was often conducted based on hourly average data. However, the information on the magnitude level alone to represent the pollution condition based on a rigid point data such as the average was seen as insufficient. Thus, to fill the gap, this study was conducted based on continuously measured data in the form of curves, which is also known as functional data, whereby pollution duration is emphasised. A statistical method based on curve ranking was used in the investigation. The application of the method at Klang, Petaling Jaya and Shah Alam air quality monitoring stations located in the Klang Valley, Malaysia, has shown that pollution duration decreases as the magnitude increases. Shah Alam has the longest pollution duration at low and medium magnitude levels. Meanwhile, all the three stations experienced quite a similar length of average pollution duration for the high magnitude level, that is, about 2.5 days. It was also shown that the occurrence of PM10 pollution at the area is significantly not random.
Monitoring the impact of P2P users on a broadband operator's network

Since their emergence peer-to-peer (P2P) applications have been generating a considerable fraction of the overall transferred bandwidth in broadband networks. Residential broadband service has been moving from one geared towards technology enthusiasts and early adopters to a commodity for a large fraction of households. Thus, the question whether P2P is still the dominant application in terms of bandwidth usage becomes highly relevant for broadband operators. In this work we present a method for classifying broadband users into a P2P and a non-P2P group based on the amount of communication partners (“peers”) they have in a dedicated timeframe. Based on this classification, we derive their impact on network characteristics like the number of active users and their aggregate bandwidth. Privacy is assured by anonymization of the data and by not taking into account the packet payloads. We apply our method to real operational data collected from a major German DSL provider's access link which transported all traffic each user generates and receives. We find that P2P users are still large contributors to the total amount of traffic seen. However, in comparison to data collected four years earlier, the impact from P2P on the bandwidth peaks in the busy hours has clearly decreased while other applications have a growing impact. Further analysis also reveals that the P2P users' traffic does not exhibit strong locality. We furthermore compare our findings to those available in the literature and propose areas for future work on network monitoring, P2P applications, and network design.
Visual decision-making: using treemaps for the analytic hierarchy process

ABSTRACT The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), a decision-making method based upon division of problem spaces into hierarchies, is visualized through the use of treemaps, which pack large amounts of hierarchical information into small screen spaces. Two direct manipulation tools, presented metaphorically as a “pump” and a “hook,” were developed and applied to the treemap to support AHP sensitivity analysis. The problem of construction site selection is considered in this video. Apart from its traditional use for problem/information space visualization, the treemap also serves as a potent visual tool for “what if’ type analysis.
An Acetone Microsensor with a Ring Oscillator Circuit Fabricated Using the Commercial 0.18 μm CMOS Process

This study investigates the fabrication and characterization of an acetone microsensor with a ring oscillator circuit using the commercial 0.18 μm complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) process. The acetone microsensor contains a sensitive material, interdigitated electrodes and a polysilicon heater. The sensitive material is α-Fe2O3 synthesized by the hydrothermal method. The sensor requires a post-process to remove the sacrificial oxide layer between the interdigitated electrodes and to coat the α-Fe2O3 on the electrodes. When the sensitive material adsorbs acetone vapor, the sensor produces a change in capacitance. The ring oscillator circuit converts the capacitance of the sensor into the oscillation frequency output. The experimental results show that the output frequency of the acetone sensor changes from 128 to 100 MHz as the acetone concentration increases 1 to 70 ppm.
Classical and recent advances in the treatment of inflammatory bowel diseases

Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) are intestinal disorders that comprise the inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). These disorders have a significant effect on the quality of life of affected patients and the increasing number of IBD cases worldwide is a growing concern. Because of the overall burden of IBD and its multifactorial etiology, efforts have been made to improve the medical management of these inflammatory conditions. The classical therapeutic strategies aim to control the exacerbated host immune response with aminosalicylates, antibiotics, corticosteroids, thiopurines, methotrexate and anti-tumor necrosis factor (TNF) biological agents. Although successful in the treatment of several CD or UC conditions, these drugs have limited effectiveness, and variable responses may culminate in unpredictable outcomes. The ideal therapy should reduce inflammation without inducing immunosuppression, and remains a challenge to health care personnel. Recently, a number of additional approaches to IBD therapy, such as new target molecules for biological agents and cellular therapy, have shown promising results. A deeper understanding of IBD pathogenesis and the availability of novel therapies are needed to improve therapeutic success. This review describes the overall key features of therapies currently employed in clinical practice as well as novel and future alternative IBD treatment methods.
CARD-8 Protein, a New CARD Family Member That Regulates Caspase-1 Activation and Apoptosis*

Caspase-associated recruitment domains (CARD) are protein-protein interaction modules found extensively in proteins that play important roles in apoptosis, NFκB activation, and cytokine regulation. In this study we identified a novel human protein, CARD-8, which contains a C-terminal CARD domain with high similarity to the CARD domain of caspase-1/ICE. We demonstrate that CARD-8 interacts physically with caspase-1 and negatively regulates caspase-1-dependent IL-1β generation in the THP-1 monocytic cell line. CARD-8 binds also to ICEBERG and pseudo-ICE, two other recently identified proteins, which bind to the CARD domain of caspase-1 and negatively regulate its activity. Reverse transcriptase-PCR analysis revealed that CARD-8 is expressed mainly in monocytes, placenta, lymph nodes, and spleen. This pattern of expression is consistent with caspase-1 expression in the same cells and tissues. CARD-8 was also found to negatively regulate NF-κB activation by TNF-α stimulation and by ectopically expressed RICK, suggesting that this protein may control cell survival. Consistent with these results, stable expression of CARD-8 in U937 or THP-1 cells sensitizes the cells to differentiation-induced apoptosis. Overexpression of CARD-8 can also induce apoptosis in transfected cells. The results suggest that CARD-8 represents a new signaling molecule involved in the regulation of caspase-1 and NF-κB activation.
A perspective on inductive databases

Inductive databases tightly integrate databases with data mining. The key ideas are that data and patterns (or models) are handled in the same way and that an inductive query language allows the user to query and manipulate the patterns (or models) of interest.This paper proposes a simple and abstract model for inductive databases. We describe the basic formalism, a simple but fairly powerful inductive query language, some basics of reasoning for query optimization, and discuss some memory organization and implementation issues.