Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sex differences in brain mitochondrial metabolism: influence of endogenous steroids and stroke

Steroids are neuroprotective and a growing body of evidence indicates that mitochondria are a potential target of their effects. The mitochondria are the site of cellular energy synthesis, regulate oxidative stress and play a key role in cell death after brain injury and neurodegenerative diseases. After providing a summary of the literature on the general functions of mitochondria and the effects of sex steroid administrations on mitochondrial metabolism, we summarise and discuss our recent findings concerning sex differences in brain mitochondrial function under physiological and pathological conditions. To analyse the influence of endogenous sex steroids, the oxidative phosphorylation system, mitochondrial oxidative stress and brain steroid levels were compared between male and female mice, either intact or gonadectomised. The results obtained show that females have higher a mitochondrial respiration and lower oxidative stress compared to males and also that these differences were suppressed by ovariectomy but not orchidectomy. We have also shown that the decrease in brain mitochondrial respiration induced by ischaemia/reperfusion is different according to sex. In both sexes, treatment with progesterone reduced the ischaemia/reperfusion‐induced mitochondrial alterations. Our findings indicate sex differences in brain mitochondrial function under physiological conditions, as well as after stroke, and identify mitochondria as a target of the neuroprotective properties of progesterone. Thus, it is necessary to investigate sex specificity in brain physiopathological mechanisms, especially when mitochondria impairment is involved.
An incremental grid clustering algorithm based on density-dimension-tree

This paper proposes an approach to improve the existing grid-based clustering algorithms with a further grid partition strategy and an incremental clustering function. This new algorithm IGDDT is based on density-dimension tree, which has the ability to reuse the previous clustering results, and obtain the better clusters by further dividing the grid cell in the clustering process. The experimental results on both artificial and real datasets demonstrate that IGDDT is able to discover arbitrary shape of clusters, better performance than the previous clustering algorithms on both clustering accuracy and clustering efficiency.
Multiple-Phase-Shift Control for a Dual Active Bridge to Secure Zero-Voltage Switching and Enhance Light-Load Performance

An ac/dc + dual active bridge (DAB) circuit was found as one solution for the high-efficiency and high-power-density electric vehicle charger. One control option is to let the ac/dc part only convert the grid voltage to a double-line-frequency folded sine wave and let the DAB stage handle both the power factor (PF) and power delivery. While conventional single-phase-shift tends to lose zero-voltage switching (ZVS) at light load and the variable-switching-frequency dual-phase-shift (DPS) sacrifices the light-load performance, this letter proposes a multiple-phase-shift control, which allows for a fixed-switching-frequency triple-phase-shift (TPS) control at the light load to enhance the grid power quality. At medium- and heavy-load conditions, a phase-shift jump from TPS to DPS is performed to reduce the circulating current and improve efficiency. The proposed control strategy secures ZVS, realizes unity PF accurately and minimizes the control complexity. Experimental results on a SiC-based 7.2-kW charger validated its effectiveness and the smooth transition between the heavy load and light load.
Exploring Sources of Emotional Distress among People Living with Scleroderma: A Focus Group Study

Background Systemic sclerosis, or scleroderma, is a chronic and rare connective tissue disease with negative physical and psychological implications. Sources of emotional distress and the impact they have on the lives of people with scleroderma are not well understood. Objectives To gain an in-depth understanding of the emotional experiences and sources of emotional distress for women and men living with scleroderma through focus group discussions. Methods Three semi-structured focus group discussions were conducted (two in English, one in French) with a total of 22 people with scleroderma recruited through the Scleroderma Society of Ontario in Hamilton, Ontario and a scleroderma clinic in Montreal, Canada. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and then coded for emerging themes using thematic inductive analysis. Results Core themes representing sources of emotional distress were identified, including: (a) facing a new reality; (b) the daily struggle of living with scleroderma; (c) handling work, employment and general financial burden; (d) changing family roles; (e) social interactions; and (f) navigating the health care system. Collectively, these themes refer to the stressful journey of living with scleroderma including the obstacles faced and the emotional experiences beginning prior to receiving a diagnosis and continuing throughout the participants’ lives. Conclusion Scleroderma was portrayed as being an unpredictable and overwhelming disease, resulting in many individuals experiencing multiple sources of emotional distress. Interventions and supportive resources need to be developed to help individuals with scleroderma and people close to them manage and cope with the emotional aspects of the disease.
Assessment of chloroquine treatment for modulating autophagy flux in brain of WT and HD mice.

BACKGROUND Increasing mutant huntingtin (mHTT) clearance through the autophagy pathway may be a way to treat Huntington's disease (HD). Tools to manipulate and measure autophagy flux in brain in vivo are not well established. OBJECTIVE To examine the in vivo pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of the lysosomal inhibitor chloroquine (CQ) and the levels of selected autophagy markers to determine usefulness of CQ as a tool to study autophagy flux in brain. METHODS Intraperitoneal injections of CQ were administered to WT and HD(Q175/Q175) mice. CQ levels were measured by LC-MS/MS in WT brain, muscle and blood at 4 to 24 hours after the last dose. Two methods of tissue preparation were used to detect by Western blot levels of the macroautophagy markers LC3 II and p62, the chaperone mediated autophagy receptor LAMP-2A and the late endosome/lysosomal marker RAB7. RESULTS Following peripheral administration, CQ levels were highest in muscle and declined rapidly between 4 and 24 hours. In the brain, CQ levels were greater in the cortex than striatum, and levels persisted up to 24 hours post-injection. CQ treatment induced changes in LC3 II and p62 that were variable across regions and tissue preparations. HD(Q175/Q175) mice exposed to CQ had variable but diminished levels of LC3 II, p62 and LAMP-2A, and increased levels of RAB7. Higher levels of mHTT were found in the membrane compartment of CQ treated HD mice. CONCLUSION Our findings suggest that the response of brain to CQ treatment, a blocker of autophagy flux, is variable and not as robust as it has been demonstrated in vitro, suggesting that CQ treatment has limitations for modulating autophagy flux in vivo. Alternative methods, compounds, and technologies need to be developed to further investigate autophagy flux in vivo, especially in the brain.
Improvement of grain structure and mechanical properties of a land based gas turbine blade directionally solidified with liquid metal cooling process

Abstract The manufacturing process of a directionally solidified (DS) IN738LC turbine blade, produced with the liquid metal cooling (LMC) process was improved based on process modelling. The improvement involved varying the system dimensions in the baffle area and optimising the mould thickness, design and the withdrawal parameters. The grain structure of the DS blades produced exhibits a well defined <001>. texture with a few stray grains near the blade top compared to the previous design. Some blades were given to a two stage heat treatment followed by tension tests at 25 and 650°C as well as creep tests at 152 MPa/982°C and 340 MPa/850°C. The yield and tensile strength of improved DS blades were comparable to conventionally cast (CC) IN738LC blades, while the creep properties and the tensile elongation of the DS blades were significantly improved using the optimised LMC process. The LMC system is under more modifications to produce defect free single crystal turbine blades.
Occupational exposures contribute to educational inequalities in lung cancer incidence among men: Evidence from the EPIC prospective cohort study

The aim of this study is to investigate to what extent occupational exposures may explain socioeconomic inequalities in lung cancer incidence after adjusting for smoking and dietary factors. Analyses were based on a subsample of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC study), a prospective cohort. The analyses included 703 incident lung cancer cases among men in Denmark, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Spain and Greece. The socioeconomic position was measured using the highest level of education. The estimates of relative indices of inequality (RII) were computed with Cox regression models. We first adjusted for smoking (with detailed information on duration and quantity) and dietary factors (fruits and vegetables consumption) and then for occupational exposures. The exposure to three carcinogens [asbestos, heavy metals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH)] was analyzed. The occupational exposures explained 14% of the socioeconomic inequalities remaining after adjustment for smoking and fruits and vegetables consumption. The inequalities remained nevertheless statistically significant. The RII decreased from 1.87 (95% CI: 1.36–2.56) to 1.75 (1.27–2.41). The decrease was more pronounced when adjusting for asbestos than for heavy metals or PAH. Analyses by birth cohort suggested an effect of occupational exposures among older men, while due to small number of endpoints, no conclusion could be drawn about the role of occupational exposures in educational inequalities among younger men. Our study revealed that the impact of occupational exposures on socioeconomic inequalities in cancer incidence, rarely studied until now, exists while of modest magnitude.
Using Association Rules for Fraud Detection in Web Advertising Networks

Discovering associations between elements occurring in a stream is applicable in numerous applications, including predictive caching and fraud detection. These applications require a new model of association between pairs of elements in streams. We develop an algorithm, Streaming-Rules, to report association rules with tight guarantees on errors, using limited processing per element, and minimal space. The modular design of Streaming-Rules allows for integration with current stream management systems, since it employs existing techniques for finding frequent elements. The presentation emphasizes the applicability of the algorithm to fraud detection in advertising networks. Such fraud instances have not been successfully detected by current techniques. Our experiments on synthetic data demonstrate scalability and efficiency. On real data, potential fraud was discovered.
Multi-Scale histogram tone mapping algorithm enables better object detection in wide dynamic range images

In this paper, we present a novel tone mapping algorithm based on multi-scale histograms and fusion (MS-Hist), for displaying wide dynamic range (WDR) images and better detection of objects such as human faces. The proposed algorithm tone maps pixels based on multiple scale local histograms, where small scales are used to preserve local contrast and large scales allow to maintain the global brightness consistency. A database of WDR images of humans depicted in high-contrast light conditions was created to validate and compare the performance of various algorithms for face detection in tasks such as biometric based identification. Our experimental results show that the proposed MS-Hist algorithm preserves image detail, brightness and high local contrast, and can benefit tasks such as face detection in WDR images.
Rethinking Permission Enforcement Mechanism on Mobile Systems

To protect sensitive resources from unauthorized use, modern mobile systems, such as Android and iOS, design a permission-based access control model. However, current model could not enforce fine-grained control over the dynamic permission use contexts, causing two severe security problems. First, any code package in an application could use the granted permissions, inducing attackers to embed malicious payloads into benign apps. Second, the permissions granted to a benign application may be utilized by an attacker through vulnerable application interactions. Although ad hoc solutions have been proposed, none could systematically solve these two issues within a unified framework. This paper presents the first such framework to provide context-sensitive permission enforcement that regulates permission use policies according to system-wide application contexts, which cover both intra-application context and inter-application context. We build a prototype system on Android, named FineDroid, to track such context during the application execution. To flexibly regulate the context-sensitive permission rules, FineDroid features a policy framework that could express generic application contexts. We demonstrate the benefits of FineDroid by instantiating several security extensions based on the policy framework, for three potential users: end users, administrators, and developers. Furthermore, FineDroid is showed to introduce a minor overhead.
Visual Background Recommendation for Dance Performances Using Deep Matrix Factorization

The stage background is one of the most important features for a dance performance, as it helps to create the scene and atmosphere. In conventional dance performances, the background images are usually selected or designed by professional stage designers according to the theme and the style of the dance. In new media dance performances, the stage effects are usually generated by media editing software. Selecting or producing a dance background is quite challenging and is generally carried out by skilled technicians. The goal of the research reported in this article is to ease this process. Instead of searching for background images from the sea of available resources, dancers are recommended images that they are more likely to use. This work proposes the idea of a novel system to recommend images based on content-based social computing. The core part of the system is a probabilistic prediction model to predict a dancer’s interests in candidate images through social platforms. Different from traditional collaborative filtering or content-based models, the model proposed here effectively combines a dancer’s social behaviors (rating action, click action, etc.) with the visual content of images shared by the dancer using deep matrix factorization (DMF). With the help of such a system, dancers can select from the recommended images and set them as the backgrounds of their dance performances through a media editor. According to the experiment results, the proposed DMF model outperforms the previous methods, and when the dataset is very sparse, the proposed DMF model shows more significant results.
The Effectiveness of Regional Anaesthesia before and after the Introduction of a Dedicated Regional Anaesthesia Service Incorporating a Block Room

Dedicated regional anaesthesia services incorporating block rooms and/or block teams may facilitate theatre efficiency and improve training in regional anaesthesia. Currently, it is unknown if a dedicated regional anaesthesia service improves the effectiveness of regional anaesthesia. In November 2013, the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital established a dedicated regional anaesthesia service comprising a block team and a block room. Pre-intervention (conventional model of care) registry data was retrospectively compared with post-intervention (dedicated regional anaesthesia service) audit data, with regard to pain and opioid requirement in the post-anaesthesia care unit (PACU). The primary outcome was inadequate analgesia, defined as a numerical rating scale (NRS; 0, no pain; 10, worst pain imaginable) for pain >5 in the PACU. Pre- and post-intervention, 43.7% and 27.7% of patients respectively reported a NRS >5 (P <0.001). A difference in the type of blocks and surgery performed may have accounted for the improved outcome seen post-intervention. After adjustment for American Society of Anesthesiologists physical status, block type and surgery type, the odds ratio of having inadequate analgesia (NRS >5) was 0.54 (95% confidence interval 0.39 to 0.76) for post-intervention compared to pre-intervention. Secondary outcomes examined pre- and post-intervention were the absence of pain (39.3% and 55.1% of patients, respectively, P <0.001), systemic opioid analgesia requirement (48.6% and 30.5% of patients respectively, P <0.001) and median maximum NRS (4 [interquartile range (IQR) 0 to 8] and 0 [IQR 0 to 6] respectively, P <0.001). A dedicated regional anaesthesia service was associated with improved effectiveness of regional anaesthesia.
Socioeconomic disparities in work performance following mild stroke

Abstract Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships among the factors that influence return to work for young individuals with mild stroke from different socioeconomic backgrounds. Methods: Prospective cohort study of working adults with mild stroke (N = 21). Participants completed an assessment battery of cognitive, work environment and work performance measures at approximately 3 weeks and 7 months post mild stroke. Individuals were placed in “skilled” and “unskilled” worker categories based on the Hollingshead Index. Results: Unskilled workers had significantly poorer scores on the majority of the cognitive assessments. Unskilled workers also perceived less social support (p = 0.017) and autonomy (p = 0.049) in work responsibilities than individuals in the skilled worker group and also reported significantly poorer work productivity due to stroke than those in the skilled group (p = 0.015). Conclusions: Individuals from low socioeconomic backgrounds have more difficulty returning to work following mild stroke than individuals from higher socioeconomic backgrounds. Future work is needed to identify factors that can increase long-term work success and quality of work performance following a mild stroke that specifically targets the needs of individuals who have a lower socioeconomic status. Implications for Rehabilitation Many persons, especially those of low socioeconomic status (SES), have decreased work productivity following mild stroke despite having no physical impairments and receiving little to no post-acute rehabilitation services. Acute care rehabilitation measures are not detecting mild cognitive deficits and work environment factors that could impact successful reintegration into work and the community. Follow-up services for individuals with mild stroke could improve readiness for work, work productivity and work sustainability, especially among individuals of low SES.
Early Conversion to Belatacept in Kidney Transplant Recipients With Low Glomerular Filtration Rate

Background Our aim was to determine the impact of converting from tacrolimus to belatacept in patients with stable low estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) early after kidney transplant. Methods This is a single-center retrospective case control study. During this study period, we had a clinical protocol to convert patients to belatacept if they had a stable but low GFR and they were at least 1-month posttransplant. Eligible patients had stable but low eGFR usually < 40 mL/min per 1.73 m2. We used direct matching to select 1 control case for each patient converted to belatacept. The primary outcome was the change in eGFR from the point of belatacept conversion to 4 months postconversion (delta eGFR). Results There were 30 patients in the conversion group and 30 in a direct matched control group. The median preconversion eGFR for the entire cohort was 23.0 mL/min per 1.73 m2 with an interquartile range of 15.7 to 31.4. The delta eGFR was 11.0 (12.9) mL/min per 1.73 m2 in belatacept group and 4.8 (10.5) mL/min per 1.73 m2 in the control group (P = 0.045). Acute rejection postconversion occurred in 5 (16.7%) in the conversion group and none of the control group (P = 0.052). Although the delta improvement in eGFR was about 6 mL/min better in the Belatacept group, there was no difference in the slope of inverse creatinine during the 12-month period after conversion between the groups. Conclusions We conclude that early belatacept conversion in kidney transplant recipients with stable low eGFR may only result in a modest increase in GFR.
Toward a Run-to-Run Adaptive Artificial Pancreas: In Silico Results

<italic>Objective</italic>: Contemporary and future outpatient long-term artificial pancreas (AP) studies need to cope with the well-known large intra- and interday glucose variability occurring in type 1 diabetic (T1D) subjects. Here, we propose an adaptive model predictive control (MPC) strategy to account for it and test it in silico. <italic> Methods</italic>: A run-to-run (R2R) approach adapts the subcutaneous basal insulin delivery during the night and the carbohydrate-to-insulin ratio (CR) during the day, based on some performance indices calculated from subcutaneous continuous glucose sensor data. In particular, R2R aims, first, to reduce the percentage of time in hypoglycemia and, secondarily, to improve the percentage of time in euglycemia and average glucose. In silico simulations are performed by using the University of Virginia/Padova T1D simulator enriched by incorporating three novel features: intra- and interday variability of insulin sensitivity, different distributions of CR at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and dawn phenomenon. <italic>Results</italic>: After about two months, using the R2R approach with a scenario characterized by a random <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\pm$</tex-math></inline-formula>30% variation of the nominal insulin sensitivity the time in range and the time in tight range are increased by 11.39% and 44.87%, respectively, and the time spent above 180 mg/dl is reduced by 48.74%. <italic>Conclusions </italic>: An adaptive MPC algorithm based on R2R shows in silico great potential to capture intra- and interday glucose variability by improving both overnight and postprandial glucose control without increasing hypoglycemia. <italic>Significance</italic>: Making an AP adaptive is key for long-term real-life outpatient studies. These good in silico results are very encouraging and worth testing <italic>in vivo</italic>.
Meshless deformations based on shape matching

We present a new approach for simulating deformable objects. The underlying model is geometrically motivated. It handles pointbased objects and does not need connectivity information. The approach does not require any pre-processing, is simple to compute, and provides unconditionally stable dynamic simulations.The main idea of our deformable model is to replace energies by geometric constraints and forces by distances of current positions to goal positions. These goal positions are determined via a generalized shape matching of an undeformed rest state with the current deformed state of the point cloud. Since points are always drawn towards well-defined locations, the overshooting problem of explicit integration schemes is eliminated. The versatility of the approach in terms of object representations that can be handled, the efficiency in terms of memory and computational complexity, and the unconditional stability of the dynamic simulation make the approach particularly interesting for games.