Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Antagonists of GPR35 Display High Species Ortholog Selectivity and Varying Modes of Action

Variation in pharmacology and function of ligands at species orthologs can be a confounding feature in understanding the biology and role of poorly characterized receptors. Substantial selectivity in potency of a number of GPR35 agonists has previously been demonstrated between human and rat orthologs of this G protein-coupled receptor. Via a bioluminescence resonance energy transfer-based assay of induced interactions between GPR35 and β-arrestin-2, addition of the mouse ortholog to such studies indicated that, as for the rat ortholog, murine GPR35 displayed very low potency for pamoate, whereas potency for the reference GPR35 agonist zaprinast was intermediate between the rat and human orthologs. This pattern was replicated in receptor internalization and G protein activation assays. The effectiveness and mode of action of two recently reported GPR35 antagonists, methyl-5-[(tert-butylcarbamothioylhydrazinylidene)methyl]-1-(2,4-difluorophenyl)pyrazole-4-carboxylate (CID-2745687) and 2-hydroxy-4-[4-(5Z)-5-[(E)-2-methyl-3-phenylprop-2-enylidene]-4-oxo-2-sulfanylidene-1,3-thiazolidin-3-yl]butanoylamino)benzoic acid (ML-145), were investigated. Both CID-2745687 and ML-145 competitively inhibited the effects at human GPR35 of cromolyn disodium and zaprinast, two agonists that share an overlapping binding site. By contrast, although ML-145 also competitively antagonized the effects of pamoate, CID-2745687 acted in a noncompetitive fashion. Neither ML-145 nor CID-2745687 was able to effectively antagonize the agonist effects of either zaprinast or cromolyn disodium at either rodent ortholog of GPR35. These studies demonstrate that marked species selectivity of ligands at GPR35 is not restricted to agonists and considerable care is required to select appropriate ligands to explore the function of GPR35 in nonhuman cells and tissues.
Molecular Methods for Diagnosis of Viral Encephalitis

SUMMARY Hundreds of viruses cause central nervous system (CNS) disease, including meningoencephalitis and postinfectious encephalomyelitis, in humans. The cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is abnormal in >90% of cases; however, routine CSF studies only rarely lead to identification of a specific etiologic agent. Diagnosis of viral infections of the CNS has been revolutionized by the advent of new molecular diagnostic technologies to amplify viral nucleic acid from CSF, including PCR, nucleic acid sequence-based amplification, and branched-DNA assay. PCR is ideally suited for identifying fastidious organisms that may be difficult or impossible to culture and has been widely applied for detection of both DNA and RNA viruses in CSF. The technique can be performed rapidly and inexpensively and has become an integral component of diagnostic medical practice in the United States and other developed countries. In addition to its use for identification of etiologic agents of CNS disease in the clinical setting, PCR has also been used to quantitate viral load and monitor duration and adequacy of antiviral drug therapy. PCR has also been applied in the research setting to help discriminate active versus postinfectious immune-mediate disease, identify determinants of drug resistance, and investigate the etiology of neurologic disease of uncertain cause. This review discusses general principles of PCR and reverse transcription-PCR, including qualitative, quantitative, and multiplex techniques, with comment on issues of sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values. The application of molecular diagnostic methods for diagnosis of specific infectious entities is reviewed in detail, including viruses for which PCR is of proven efficacy and is widely available, viruses for which PCR is less widely available or for which PCR has unproven sensitivity and specificity, and nonviral entities which can mimic viral CNS disease.
Management of Acute and Chronic GoutThe Nephrology Perspective

Background: Gout and its treatment pose a greater burden on patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). We review the incidence of hyperuricemia in patients with CKD, mechanism of urate handling by the kidney and management of acute and chronic gout in patients with CKD and on renal replacement therapy. Renal Handling of Urate: Reabsorption of urate is enhanced by the presence of monocarboxylate anions. URAT 1 is the predominant urate-anion exchanger followed by the GLUT 9 transporter. Various drugs inhibit these transporters. NPT1 and NPT4 are transporters which secrete urate and NPT 4 �s action is inhibited by diuretics. Alcohol, volume depletion, salt restriction and high PTH levels cause hyperuricemia. Management of Gout in CKD: For acute gout attack, NSAIDs are relatively contraindicated. Lower doses of colchicine are recommended in CKD and even lower doses for ESRD patients. Glucocorticoids are the preferred agents in renal patients. In chronic gout, the goal is to maintain uric acid levels < 6 mg/dl. Prophylactic colchicine is recommended for 3 months in patients without tophi and 6 months for patients with tophi. Allopurinol, at doses ranging from 100 to 300 mg/day, lowers serum uric acid levels, but it has not been shown to slow CKD progression. Safety data for Febuxostat is lacking in advance CKD, while Probenecid is in effective in patient with GFR < 30ml/min. Dose reduction for Pegloticase is not necessary.
The effects of World Heritage Sites on domestic tourism: a spatial interaction model for Italy

Culture is gaining increasing importance in the modern tourism industry and represents a significant force of attraction for tourists (both domestic and international). Cultural tourism allows destinations and regions to expand their customer base, diversify their offer, extend the stay of the tourist, and reduce seasonality. Great efforts are made, by national governments and regions, in order to obtain official designation regarding the relevance of their historical/cultural attractions, for example through UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites (WHS) list. Such an aspect seems particularly relevant for a country like Italy, which has a high number of entries in the WHS list and where regions take an active role in promoting tourism. Using an 12-year panel of domestic tourism flows, we investigate the importance of the regional endowment in terms of WHS from two perspectives: (a) by separately estimating the effects, on tourism flows, of WHS located in the residence region of tourists and in the destination region; and (b) by taking into account potential spatial substitution/complementarity effects between regions due to their WHS endowment. Finally, a sensitivity analysis is offered to evaluate the spatial extent of the latter.
Stabilization of an Over-constrainedWheeled Mobile Robot

In this paper we describe the development of a nonlinear control law to drive a multi-degree-of-freedom (MDOF) mobile robot to a final configuration, following an asymptotically stable path. By reconfiguring their steering centered wheels, the MDOF mobile robots can negotiate tight turns and travel sideways. Nevertheless, these robots are overconstrained systems, very difficult to control. By this reason, these robots are limited to simple tasks, like follow a guide-wire. In order to obtain an autonomous behavior, we propose the use of a non linear control law, based on a new set of error parameters, leading the robot to the final position and orientation. Numerical results illustrating the effectiveness of the control law are also included.
Exploiting the Power of Stereochemistry in Drugs: An Overview of Racemic and Enantiopure Drugs

Abstract: Stereochemistry is one of the essential dimensions in pharmacology as it dictates how enantiomers interact with biological systems. Chirality is very important in drug design. Enantiomers of the same chiral drug can have different pharmacodynamic and/or pharmacokinetic properties. In this context, replacing some existing racemates with single isomers has resulted in improved safety and/or efficacy profile of various racemates. Single enantiomer drug use can potentially lead to simpler and more selective pharmacologic profiles, improved therapeutic indices, simpler pharmacokinetics due to different rates of metabolism of the different enantiomers, decreased drug interactions, and drug companies are increasingly using chiral switching as a marketing strategy. Additionally, due to different pharmacological activity, enantiomers of chiral drugs can differ in toxicity. However, unpredicted toxicity has been reported in some chiral switching cases which has resulted the withdrawal of the enantiomer from the market or a halt in its development. In view of above, before switching to single enantiomer drugs, prescribers should look for evidence from well-conducted clinical trials to prove that the chiral switch is cost-effective and improves the outcomes for patients rather than patents. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have allowed single enantiomers of generic drugs to be patented and marketed under different name. FDA regulations require that all chiral bioactive drug molecules must be isolated and tested for the efficacy and safety, and have to be as pure as possible containing a single pure enantiomer.
Mirror reflection invariant HOG descriptors for object detection

Histogram of Oriented Gradients (HOG) [1] descriptors have been widely used for object detection. An important limitation is that these descriptors tend to vary considerably when objects are horizontally flipped, as is often the case. We propose novel MI-HOG descriptors that are obtained by transforming HOG descriptors to be invariant to mirror reflection. In their extraction process, we consider not only the transform of independent elements but also the combination of those in different location and in orientation, which yields better performance. We showed a greater than 10 % increase in average precision compared to HOG descriptors.
M2C: Energy efficient mobile cloud system for deep learning

With the number increasing of applications and services that are available on mobile devices, mobile cloud computing has drawn a substantial amount of attention by academia and industry in the past several years. When facing the most exciting machine learning applications such as deep learning, the computing requirement is intensive. For the purpose of improving energy efficiency of mobile device and enhancing the performance of applications through reducing execution time, M2C offloads computation of its machine learning application to the cloud side. We propose the prototype of M2C with the mobile side on Android, iPad and with the cloud side on the open source cloud: Spark, a part of the Berkeley Data Analytics Stack with NVIDA GPU. M2C's distinct set of varying computational tools and mobile nodes allows for thorough implementing distributed machine learning algorithm and innovative wireless protocols with energy efficiency, verifying the theoretical research and bringing the user extremely fast experience.
Soft sensor application in vehicle yaw rate measurement based on Kalman filter and vehicle dynamics

The accurate measurement of vehicle yaw rate is vital for vehicle dynamics control, such as yaw control and traction control. Generally, vehicle yaw rate is measured by gyro that costs too much to be used commercially as an on-vehicle sensor. Based on soft sensor technique in inferential control theory, a novel method for the estimation of vehicle yaw rate is proposed. The estimation is based on Kalman filter and 2 degree-of-freedom vehicle dynamic models to realize the estimation of way rate of linear minimize mean square error. Results of simulation and experiment show an accurate and low-cost estimation of yaw rate is achieved and soft sensor estimation method is feasible in measurement of vehicle state.
Rhythmic SAF-A Binding Underlies Circadian Transcription of the Bmal1 Gene

ABSTRACT Although Bmal1 is a key component of the mammalian clock system, little is understood about the actual mechanism of circadian Bmal1 gene transcription, particularly at the chromatin level. Here we discovered a unique chromatin structure within the Bmal1 promoter. The RORE region, which is a critical cis element for the circadian regulation of the Bmal1 gene, is comprised of GC-rich open chromatin. The 3′-flanking region of the promoter inhibited rhythmic transcription in the reporter gene assay in vitro even in the presence of RORα and REV-ERBα. We also found that the nuclear matrix protein SAF-A binds to the 3′-flanking region with circadian timing, which was correlated with Bmal1 expression by footprinting in vivo. These results suggest that the unique chromatin structure containing SAF-A is required for the circadian transcriptional regulation of the Bmal1 gene in cells.
Pseudo-Zernike Moment Invariants for Recognition of Faces Using Different Classifiers in FERET Database

Face recognition, the main biometric used by human beings, has plenty of applications in identity validation and recognition and has become one of the hottest topics in the area of image processing and pattern recognition. Pseudo-Zernike moment invariant was chosen as the feature extractor due to its good results among other moment invariants. In this paper pseudo-Zernike moment invariant has been applied on the FERET database of faces which includes a variety of images with different illuminations and facial expression. Performance of kNN, SVM, and HMM classifiers for this application is studied.
Using state modules for adaptive query processing

We present a query architecture in which join operators are decomposed into their constituent data structures (State Modules, or SteMs), and dataflow among these SteMs is managed adaptively by an eddy routing operator [R. Avnur et al., (2000)]. Breaking the encapsulation of joins serves two purposes. First, it allows the eddy to observe multiple physical operations embedded in a join algorithm, allowing for better calibration and control of these operations. Second, the SteM on a relation serves as a shared materialization point, enabling multiple competing access methods to share results, which can be leveraged by multiple competing join algorithms. Our architecture extends prior work significantly, allowing continuously adaptive decisions for most major aspects of traditional query optimization: choice of access methods and join algorithms, ordering of operators, and choice of a query spanning tree. SteMs introduce significant routing flexibility to the eddy, enabling more opportunities for adaptation, but also introducing the possibility of incorrect query results. We present constraints on eddy routing through SteMs that ensure correctness while preserving a great deal of flexibility. We also demonstrate the benefits of our architecture via experiments in the Telegraph dataflow system. We show that even a simple routing policy allows significant flexibility in adaptation, including novel effects like automatic "hybridization " of multiple algorithms for a single join.
Sanctuary : A Virtual-Reality, Immersive-Environment Mobile Application to Promote Mindfulness, Meditation, and Relaxation

The World Health Organization calls stress the health epidemic of the twenty-first century [40]. Finding ways to manage stress – not just for our own health, but also for the health of our communities and children – is one of our most significant challenges for wellness. Virtual-reality (VR) therapy is the use of stimulated, interactive, and immersive environments as a tool for physical and psychological healthcare applications [31]. VR therapy and mindfulness practices have both been shown to alleviate stress and anxiety. The mobile application detailed here attempts to aid in stress reduction using virtual-reality therapy by immersing the user in a calming VR environment to encourage mindfulness in nature. It is my hope that the use of this mobile application will provide users with a sacred space from which they can escape from day-to-day stressors.
Coordination Dynamics of Large-scale Neural Circuitry Underlying Rhythmic Sensorimotor Behavior

In coordination dynamics, rate is a nonspecific control parameter that alters the stability of behavioral patterns and leads to spontaneous pattern switching. We used fMRI in conjunction with measures of effective connectivity to investigate the neural basis of behavioral dynamics by examining two coordination patterns known to be differentially stable (synchronization and syncopation) across a range of rates (0.75 to 1.75 Hz). Activity in primary auditory and motor cortices increased linearly with rate, independent of coordination pattern. On the contrary, activity in a premotor–cerebellar circuit varied directly with the stability of the collective variable (relative phase) that specifies coordinated behavioral patterns. Connectivity between premotor and motor cortices was also modulated by the stability of the behavioral pattern indicative of greater reliance on sensorimotor integration as action becomes more variable. By establishing a critical connection between behavioral and large scale brain dynamics, these findings reveal a basic principle for the neural organization underlying coordinated action.
Fast detection of data retention faults and other SRAM cell open defects

Detection of open defects in static random access memory (SRAM) cells, including those causing data retention faults (DRFs), is known to be difficult and time consuming. This paper proposes a novel design-for-test (DFT) technique that allows SRAMs to be tested at full speed for these defects. As a result, it achieves not only significant test time reduction but also full coverage of open defects, including those undetectable to previous solutions. The proposed technique is referred to as predischarge write test mode (PDWTM). Implementation of the proposed technique requires little design effort and imposes negligible hardware and performance penalties. Furthermore, the proposed technique can be easily merged with any March algorithm, thus resulting in full DRF and other SRAM cell open defect coverage. The proposed technique has been validated by SPICE simulation using both low-power and high-speed SRAM cells.
An Empirical Study of Consumer Adoption on Mobile Data Services (MDS) in China

Focused on the mobile data service market, influence factors of customer behavior intention are discussed in this paper. Through reviewing on the previous research papers, a conceptual model of customer adoption is developed and seven important factors are proposed, namely perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived security, perceived price, perceived enjoyment, need of uniqueness, social influence. Then we conduct a big sample of questionnaire investigation in Chinese mobile data services market. Our empirical findings are as follow: (1) social influence and price are the most important factors in MDS market, (2) perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived enjoyment, need of uniqueness, age and income also significantly impact on behavior intention, and (3) the influence from gender and perceived security to adoption intention are not significant.
RN / 13 / 16 Customer-centric Optimal Software Release Problem in Cloud September 13 , 2013

As the number of cloud providers increases, the competition forces providers to reduce the prices to stay competitive. A recent testimony to this claim is the “price wars” between the cloud storage service providers [1]. In such competitive business environments, it is safe to assume that the providers will want to know more about the needs of their customers in order to shape their services based on customer demand. At the same time, try to find ways reducing the cost of their services in order to maintain the profitability. This problem is an instance of optimal software release problem which is NP-Hard [2]. In this paper, we propose an approach aimed at helping service providers to optimise their service configurations based on user demand. Unlike the existing work, our approach does not just provide n number of optimal configurations but rather allows the decision maker to discover trade-offs between service cost and customer satisfaction by comparing a set of Pareto optimal solutions. Our approach can help providers to discover the configurations that maximises profit while providing a high level of customer satisfaction. UCL DEPARTMENT OF
A Comparison of Different Nonnormal Distributions in Growth Mixture Models

The purpose of the present study is to compare nonnormal distributions (i.e., t, skew-normal, skew-t with equal skew and skew-t with unequal skew) in growth mixture models (GMMs) based on diverse conditions of a number of time points, sample sizes, and skewness for intercepts. To carry out this research, two simulation studies were conducted with two different models: an unconditional GMM and a GMM with a continuous distal outcome variable. For the simulation, data were generated under the conditions of a different number of time points (4, 8), sample size (300, 800, 1,500), and skewness for intercept (1.2, 2, 4). Results demonstrate that it is not appropriate to fit nonnormal data to normal, t, or skew-normal distributions other than the skew-t distribution. It was also found that if there is skewness over time, it is necessary to model skewness in the slope as well.
Unsupervised pattern discovery in electronic health care data using probabilistic clustering models

Bedside clinicians routinely identify temporal patterns in physiologic data in the process of choosing and administering treatments intended to alter the course of critical illness for individual patients. Our primary interest is the study of unsupervised learning techniques for automatically uncovering such patterns from the physiologic time series data contained in electronic health care records. This data is sparse, high-dimensional and often both uncertain and incomplete. In this paper, we develop and study a probabilistic clustering model designed to mitigate the effects of temporal sparsity inherent in electronic health care records data. We evaluate the model qualitatively by visualizing the learned cluster parameters and quantitatively in terms of its ability to predict mortality outcomes associated with patient episodes. Our results indicate that the model can discover distinct, recognizable physiologic patterns with prognostic significance.
Interference neutralization for separated multiuser uplink-downlink with distributed relays

We consider the role of independent single antenna relays in allowing for interference cancellation and for multiplexing of uplink and downlink communications, in the presence of multiple interfering users. For a specific practical scenario of interest, we construct interference neutralization schemes that are simple, distributed and which encode over both space and time, to achieve performance improvements over basic TDMA schemes. These improvements are quantified in terms of the achievable degrees of freedom (DOF), where asymptotic analysis reveals that in specific cases, these simple techniques achieve optimal DOF performance.
Hammamet -tunisia " Evaluation and Optimization of Innovative Production Systems of Goods and Services " save Time: a Smart Vehicle Traffic Information System

This article introduces SAVE TIME, a SmArt VEhicle Traffic InforMation systEm designed to overcome current vehicles guidance limitations due to traffic information and routes planning shortcomings. This informative system contributes to safer driving conditions in collecting, elaborating and disseminating real-time local traffic information. Different architectural designs based on specialized Location-Based Services and Spatial Registries are proposed and discussed.