Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Magnetization transfer from inhomogeneously broadened lines (ihMT): Improved imaging strategy for spinal cord applications

Inhomogeneous magnetization transfer (ihMT) shows great promise for specific imaging of myelinated tissues. Whereas the ihMT technique has been previously applied in brain applications, the current report presents a strategy for cervical spinal cord (SC) imaging free of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) pulsatility artifacts.
Information Technology Outsourcing Alliances: A Strategic Alternative for IT-Capable Companies By

While previous research has focused on choosing between insourcing or outsourcing, no systematic attempt has been made to find a viable alternative for IT-capable companies, which need to realize optimum value from their IT capabilities. This study identifies information technology outsourcing alliances (ITOA) as a strategic alternative to generate additional value from the capabilities of internal IT organizations. By building an ITOA with complementing partners, an IT-capable company can go beyond its internal market for IT services to provide similar and, even new, IT services to third parties. Grounded in transaction cost economics, relational theory, production theory and reciprocal learning alliances view, this study suggests that the IT-capable company can earn the collaboration-, transaction-, and firm-specific quasi rents through ITOA.
Experimental determination of the single point echo of an ultrasonic transducer using a tomographic approach

The impulse response method is often used to study the ultrasonic field radiated by planar or gently curved transducers. This, however, requires one transmitting and one receiving transducer which has to be placed with great accuracy in the ultrasonic field. Here we propose a measuring method with only one transducer which acts both as transmitter and receiver. Echoes from sliding halfplanes are registered and by using tomographic methods, the echo from a single point in the same plane as the halfplanes can then be calculated. Beside the ultrasonic field, these calculations will yield us the transducer's characteristics. These can be used to extract further information from an echo of an arbitrary surface, such as the gradient of the surface.
Contraction (shrinkage) in polymerization. Part I. Fundamentals and measurements

A review with 58 references covering the areas of shrinkage importance and mechanisms of shrinkage formation, shrinkage types (li­ near and volumetric) and interrelations, shrinkage measuring methods, viz., static, dynamic, dilatometric, and linometric, laser linear shrinkage mea­ surements, laser scan micrometry, laser interferometry, linear shrinkage measurements of single strands in stereolithography, and dynamic and thermal mechanical analyzer methods.
Combined source-channel transform for image transmission over wireless channel

The proposed communication system is based on a combined source-channel transform. Given particular scenarios of still image transmission over a wireless LOS channel, the proposed system demonstrates superior performance compared to a JPEG2000 + WirelessMAN OFDM system in restored image quality parameters over a wide range of wireless channel parameters. The proposed system provides progressive lossless image transmission under influence of moderate fading without any kind of channel coding. The proposed system employs a fast analysis/synthesis algorithm, which does not use any multiplications, and it uses three times less real additions than the one of JPEG2000 + WirelessMAN OFDM.
Regret Minimization Under Partial Monitoring

We consider repeated games in which the player, instead of observing the action chosen by the opponent in each game round, receives a feedback generated by the combined choice of the two players. We study Hannan consistent players for these games, that is, randomized playing strategies whose per-round regret vanishes with probability one as the number of game rounds goes to infinity. We prove a general lower bound for the convergence rate of the regret, and exhibit a specific strategy that attains this rate for any game for which a Hannan consistent player exists.
Spontaneous Development of a Pancreatic Exocrine Disease in CD28-Deficient NOD Mice1

Autoimmune pancreatitis (AIP) is a heterogeneous autoimmune disease in humans characterized by a progressive lymphocytic and plasmacytic infiltrate in the exocrine pancreas. In this study, we report that regulatory T cell-deficient NOD.CD28KO mice spontaneously develop AIP that closely resembles the human disease. NOD mouse AIP was associated with severe periductal and parenchymal inflammation of the exocrine pancreas by CD4+ T cells, CD8+ T cells, and B cells. Spleen CD4+ T cells were found to be both necessary and sufficient for the development of AIP. Autoantibodies and autoreactive T cells from affected mice recognized a ∼50-kDa protein identified as pancreatic amylase. Importantly, administration of tolerogenic amylase-coupled fixed spleen cells significantly ameliorated disease severity, suggesting that this protein functions as a key autoantigen. The establishment and characterization of this spontaneous pancreatic amylase-specific AIP in regulatory T cell-deficient NOD.CD28KO mice provides an excellent model for the study of disease pathogenesis and development of new therapies for human autoimmune pancreatitis.
Insulin-Like Growth Factor and Potassium Depolarization Maintain Neuronal Survival by Distinct Pathways: Possible Involvement of PI 3-Kinase in IGF-1 Signaling

Cultured cerebellar granule neurons die by apoptosis when switched from a medium containing an elevated level of potassium (K+) to one with lower K+ (5 mm). Death resulting from the lowering of K+ can be prevented by insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1). To understand how IGF-1 inhibits apoptosis and maintains neuronal survival, we examined the role of phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI 3-kinase). Activation of PI 3-kinase has been shown previously to be required for NGF-mediated survival in the PC12 pheochromocytoma cell line. We find that in primary neurons, IGF-1 treatment leads to a robust activation of PI 3-kinase, as judged by lipid kinase assays and Western blot analysis. Activation of PI 3-kinase is likely to occur via tyrosine phosphorylation of the insulin receptor substrate protein. Treatment with two chemically distinct inhibitors of PI 3-kinase, wortmannin and LY294002, reduces PI 3-kinase activation by IGF-1 and inhibits its survival-promoting activity, suggesting that PI 3-kinase is necessary for IGF-1-mediated survival. Death resulting from PI 3-kinase blockade is accompanied by DNA fragmentation, a hallmark of apoptosis. Furthermore, neurons subjected to PI 3-kinase blockade can be rescued by transcriptional and translation inhibitors, suggesting that IGF-1-mediated activation of PI 3-kinase leads to a suppression of “killer gene” expression. In sharp contrast to IGF-1, elevated K+ does not activate PI 3-kinase and can maintain neuronal survival in the presence of PI 3-kinase inhibitors. Therefore, survival of granule neurons can be maintained by PI 3-kinase dependent (IGF-1-activated) and independent (elevated K+-activated) pathways.
RNN-based Encoder-decoder Approach with Word Frequency Estimation

This paper tackles the reduction of redundant repeating generation that is often observed in RNN-based encoder-decoder models. Our basic idea is to jointly estimate the upper-bound frequency of each target vocabulary in the encoder and control the output words based on the estimation in the decoder. Our method shows signiﬁcant improvement over a strong RNN-based encoder-decoder baseline and achieved its best results on an abstractive summarization benchmark
3D Orthodontics - from Verne to Shaw

As children receiving new toys, we are approaching a great new world of fantasy. Three-dimensional image devices arrived at the port of Orthodontics with increasingly strong anchors firmly holding to the ground. In this case, immobility is symbolical and inversely proportional to the ongoing possibilities we are not even capable to imagine. Perhaps, the French novelist Julio Verner could. Whereas technological development proves hasty, rendering 3D technology popular in Brazil walks at a low pace. High costs are the obstacle; however, as in any new technology, they will decrease when strong competition causes market spreading. With lower costs, orthodontists are able to use technology to a larger extent. Those who doze off will be left out of the market and miss the pleasure of envisioning and applying the splendor of human creativity. The costs of CT scanners have decreased, although in a slow manner. Cost reduction has been mainly offered as a result of market competition, since no measures have been taken by the government in this regard. The taxes on imports hinder access to such tools which are indispensable for effective diagnosis and treatment. Conversely, accuracy of CT scans has significantly increased, thereby enabling microscopic diagnosis of pathologies such as ankylosis and root fracture. In addition to computed tomography, other 3D tools also offer undeniable possibilities that allow clinicians to acquire 3D scans. In no time, photographs and dental casts as used nowadays will be replaced by 3D scanning of the human face and dentition. There is equipment available to this end; however, access is hampered by high costs. The aforementioned tools allow us to examine soft and hard tissues in an infinite variety of ways with resolution near microscopy. Tissue color is also reliably captured. Orthodontics has been investigating the reliability of measurements obtained by means of several 3D tools. At first blush, the reliability of CT scans was successfully proved.1,2 Subsequently, images acquired by means of dental cast scanning proved perfectly feasible for clinical and scientific use.3,4 Scientific results also confirm the reliability of 3D face scans acquired with scanners or by means of stereophotogrammetry.5,6 Intraoral scanners have been recently tested, making us foresee the end of impressions and casts. A number of researches point to the excellent reproducibility of this method in comparison to conventional methods used to acquire dental casts.7,8 Nevertheless, when the time required to acquire and rendering scans is taken into account, the conventional method has proved more advantageous.8 Another disadvantage reported
Thermal Properties of Contemporary and Conventional Gutta Percha Materials Used in Root Canal Treatment

Abstract : Purpose: The major goal in root canal treatment is to fill the prepared, internal root canal system with a material that will prevent leakage and re-infection. The sealing ability of this root canal filling material is an important factor in reaching this goal.1 Naturally-occurring gutta percha (trans-1, 4-polyisoprene) has been traditionally used during endodontic (e.g., root canal) treatment as a material to obturate and seal prepared root canal spaces. Gutta percha can exist in two distinct crystalline configurations which are traditionally defined by temperature. The energy afforded at higher temperatures allows the gutta percha to exist in an extended conformation (alpha phase) that is hallmarked by an almost fully amorphous, liquid-like state. Upon cooling, the alpha phase is transformed back into a more stable, crystalline material (beta phase) that possesses the physical properties desired for the final root canal seal Discussion: During the past five years, a plethora of new dental gutta percha materials have been marketed for various endodontic treatment techniques. Noted confusion now exists for the proper use within the dental community concerning these newer materials. Of utmost concern is that many of these newer materials are marketed the same as traditional gutta percha: this perplexity has resulted in some newer materials to be used in the wrong technique. Endodontic treatment needs are one of the chief reasons for active duty not being world-wide qualified. Furthermore, root canal retreatment is manpower demanding and incurs additional treatment risk. Furthermore, the data produced from this research will serve as a standard guide of gutta percha materials for clinicians within the Department of Defense for the most optimal treatment of our military beneficiaries.
Bipartite Communities

For a given graph, G, let A be the adjacency matrix, D is the diagonal matrix of degrees, L′ = D−A is the combinatorial Laplacian, and L = D−1/2L′D−1/2 is the normalized Laplacian. Recently, the eigenvectors corresponding to the smallest eigenvalues of L and L′ have been of great interest because of their application to community detection, which is a nebulously defined problem that essentially seeks to find a vertex set S such that there are few edges incident with exactly one vertex of S. The connection between community detection and the second smallest eigenvalue (and the corresponding eigenvector) is well-known. The k smallest eigenvalues have been used heuristically to find multiple communities in the same graph, and a justification with theoretical rigor for the use of k ≥ 3 eigenpairs has only been found very recently. The largest eigenpair of L has been used more classically to solve the MAX-CUT problem, which seeks to find a vertex set S that maximizes the number of edges incident with exactly one vertex of S. Very recently Trevisan presented a connection between the largest eigenvalue of L and a recursive approach to the MAX-CUT problem that seeks to find a “bipartite community” at each stage. This is related to Kleinberg’s HITS algorithm that finds the largest eigenvalue of ATA. We will provide a justification with theoretical rigor for looking at the ∗Institute for Defense Analyses / Center for Computing Sciences (IDA / CCS), mpyance@super.org 1 ar X iv :1 41 2. 56 66 v3 [ m at h. C O ] 1 3 A pr 2 01 5 k largest eigenvalues of L to find multiple bipartite communities in the same graph, and then provide a heuristic algorithm to find strong bipartite communities that is based on the intuition developed by the theoretical methods. Finally, we will present the results of applying our algorithm to various data-mining problems.
Single-Gene Deletion Mutants of Escherichia coli with Altered Sensitivity to Bicyclomycin, an Inhibitor of Transcription Termination Factor Rho

ABSTRACT We have screened the entire KEIO collection of 3,985 single-gene knockouts in Escherichia coli for increased susceptibility or resistance to the antibiotic bicyclomycin (BCM), a potent inhibitor of the transcription termination factor Rho. We also compared the results to those of a recent study we conducted with a large set of antibiotics (A. Liu et al., Antimicrob. Agents Chemother. 54:1393-1403, 2010). We find that deletions of many different types of genes increase sensitivity to BCM. Some of these are involved in multidrug sensitivity/resistance, whereas others are specific for BCM. Mutations in a number of DNA recombination and repair genes increase BCM sensitivity, indicating that DNA damage leading to single- and double-strand breaks is a downstream effect of Rho inhibition. MDS42, which is deleted for all cryptic prophages and insertion elements (G. Posfai et al., Science 312:1044-1046, 2006), or W3102 deleted for the rac prophage-encoded kil gene, are partially resistant to BCM (C. J. Cardinale et al., Science 230:935-938, 2008). Deletion of cryptic prophages also overcomes the increased BCM sensitivity in some but not all mutants examined here. Deletion of the hns gene renders the cell more sensitive to BCM even in the Δkil or MDS42 background. This suggests that BCM activates additional modes of cell death independent of Kil and that these could provide a target to potentiate BCM killing.
Neurobehaviour of school age children born to diabetic mothers

AIM To study the neurobehavioural effects that diabetes during pregnancy might have on children by school age. METHODS The neurobehavioural function of 57 school age children born to 48, well controlled diabetic mothers was compared with 57 control children matched for age, birth order, and parental socioeconomic status, using several cognitive, behavioural, sensory and motor neurological tests. RESULTS The IQ scores of the index group children were similar to those of control children (117.7±13.4 vs118.5±10.1). There were no differences between the groups in various sensory motor functions. However, the index group children performed less well than the controls on indices of fine and gross motor functions, as observed on the Bruininks–Oseretzky test of motor proficiency. The scores of children born to diabetic mothers were higher than controls on the Touwen and Prechtl neurological examination. They also performed worse in the Pollack tapper test which is designed to detect minor neurological deficits, inattention, and hyperactivity. The index children had higher scores on the Conners abbreviated parent–teacher questionnaire which measures hyperactivity and inattention. There was a negative correlation between the performance of the index group children on various neurodevelopmental and behavioural tests and the severity of hyperglycaemia, as assessed by blood glycosylated haemoglobin and acetonuria. CONCLUSIONS Diabetes during pregnancy adversely affects some fine neurological functions in children at school age, but not their cognitive scores. These effects are not correlated with the degree of glycaemic control.
Validation Study of Tripartite Model of Anxiety and Depression in Children and Adolescents: Clinical Sample in Korea

Although the currently available literature has provided some empirical support for a tripartite model of child and adolescent anxiety and depression, one of the limitations of these studies was that they have been conducted in America, primarily with Caucasians. In order to make this model more applicable to diverse ethnic and cultural groups, this study used a tripartite model for child and adolescent anxiety and depression in Korea, using confirmatory factor analysis with logically selected items from the Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale (RCMAS), as well as the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI). The results indicated that the model fit of a three-factor model was superior to one- and two-factor models. In addition, the findings of discriminant analysis demonstrated that the correct classification rate with three factors of the tripartite model was superior to the classification rate achievable using CDI and RCMAS. In a departure from Clark and Watson's hypothesis, however, the correlations of three factors were significantly higher than had been expected. The results are discussed on the basis of cultural background.
A GMM Approach for Dealing with Missing Data on Regressors

Abstract Missing data are a common challenge facing empirical researchers. This paper presents a general GMM framework and estimator for dealing with missing values of an explanatory variable in linear regression analysis. The GMM estimator is efficient under assumptions needed for consistency of linear-imputation methods. The estimator, which also allows for a specification test of the missingness assumptions, is compared to existing linear imputation, complete data, and dummy variable methods commonly used in empirical research. The dummy variable method is generally inconsistent even when data are missing completely at random, and the dummy variable method, when consistent, can be less efficient than the complete data method.
Dietary intake patterns are reflected in metabolomic profiles: potential role in dietary assessment studies.

BACKGROUND It has been suggested that metabolomics could play a role in dietary assessment and identification of novel biomarkers of dietary intake. OBJECTIVE This study examined the link between habitual dietary patterns and metabolomic profiles. DESIGN A total of 160 volunteers participated in a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled dietary intervention. We collected biofluids and recorded 3-d food diaries. Food data were reduced to 33 food groups, and a k-means cluster analysis was performed to identify dietary patterns. (1)H Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectra were acquired for plasma and urine samples, and gas chromatography was used for plasma fatty acid profiling. RESULTS Cluster analysis identified 3 distinct dietary patterns on the basis of the energy contribution of different food groups. Dietary clusters were reflected in plasma fatty acid profiles and in metabolomic data. (1)H NMR spectra of urine allowed the identification of metabolites associated with different dietary patterns. Several of the metabolites identified were linked to the intake of specific food groups; in particular, there was a positive association between O-acetylcarnitine and phenylacetylglutamine and red-meat and vegetable intakes, respectively. CONCLUSIONS Habitual dietary patterns are shown in metabolomic data. This approach successfully identified potential biomarkers of red-meat and vegetable intakes.
A charging and rewarding scheme for packet forwarding in multi-hop cellular networks

In multi-hop cellular networks, data packets have to be relayed hop by hop from a given mobile station to a base station and vice-versa. This means that the mobile stations must accept to forward information for the benefit of other stations. In this paper, we propose an incentive mechanism that is based on a charging/rewarding scheme and that makes collaboration rational for selfish nodes. We base our solution on symmetric cryptography to cope with the limited resources of the mobile stations. We provide a set of protocols and study their robustness with respect to various attacks. By leveraging on the relative stability of the routes, our solution leads to a very moderate overhead.
HOXA9 Methylation by PRMT5 Is Essential for Endothelial Cell Expression of Leukocyte Adhesion Molecules

ABSTRACT The induction of proinflammatory proteins in stimulated endothelial cells (EC) requires activation of multiple transcription programs. The homeobox transcription factor HOXA9 has an important regulatory role in cytokine induction of the EC-leukocyte adhesion molecules (ELAM) E-selectin and vascular cell adhesion molecule 1 (VCAM-1). However, the mechanism underlying stimulus-dependent activation of HOXA9 is completely unknown. Here, we elucidate the molecular mechanism of HOXA9 activation by tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) and show an unexpected requirement for arginine methylation by protein arginine methyltransferase 5 (PRMT5). PRMT5 was identified as a TNF-α-dependent binding partner of HOXA9 by mass spectrometry. Small interfering RNA (siRNA)-mediated depletion of PRMT5 abrogated stimulus-dependent HOXA9 methylation with concomitant loss in E-selectin or VCAM-1 induction. Chromatin immunoprecipitation analysis revealed that PRMT5 is recruited to the E-selectin promoter following transient HOXA9 binding to its cognate recognition sequence. PRMT5 induces symmetric dimethylation of Arg140 on HOXA9, an event essential for E-selectin induction. In summary, PRMT5 is a critical coactivator component in a newly defined, HOXA9-containing transcription complex. Moreover, stimulus-dependent methylation of HOXA9 is essential for ELAM expression during the EC inflammatory response.