Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Plasmacytoid Dendritic Cells Play a Key Role in Promoting Atherosclerosis in Apolipoprotein E–Deficient Mice

Objective—Clinical studies have identified that reduced numbers of circulating plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDCs) act as a predictor of cardiovascular events in coronary artery disease and that pDCs are detectable in the shoulder region of human atherosclerotic plaques, where rupture is most likely to occur. Results from animal models are controversial, with pDCs seen to inhibit or promote lesion development depending on the experimental settings. Here, we investigated the role of pDCs in atherosclerosis in apolipoprotein E−deficient mice. Methods and Results—We demonstrated that the aorta and spleen of both apolipoprotein E−deficient and C57BL/6 mice displayed similar numbers of pDCs, with similar activation status. In contrast, assessment of antigen uptake/presentation using the E&agr;/Y-Ae system revealed that aortic pDCs in apolipoprotein E−deficient- mice were capable of presenting in vivo systemically administered antigen. Continuous treatment of apolipoprotein E−deficient mice with anti−mouse plasmacytoid dendritic cell antigen 1 (mPDCA-1) antibody caused specific depletion of pDCs in the aorta and spleen and significantly reduced atherosclerosis formation in the aortic sinus (by 46%; P<0.001). Depletion of pDCs also reduced macrophages (by 34%; P<0.05) and increased collagen content (by 41%; P<0.05) in aortic plaques, implying a more stable plaque phenotype. Additionally, pDC depletion reduced splenic T-cell activation and inhibited interleukin-12, chemokine (C-X-C motif) ligand 1, monokine induced by interferon-&ggr;, interferon &ggr;−induced protein 10, and vascular endothelium growth factor serum levels. Conclusion—These results identify a critical role for pDCs in atherosclerosis and suggest a potential role for pDC targeting in the control of the pathology.
Psychological Maltreatment of Children Reported to Youth Protection Services

ABSTRACT Whereas the negative consequences of the psychological maltreatment of children are now acknowledged, the extent of this phenomenon remains largely unknown. This study presents information collected from child welfare practitioners working in the Province of Quebec on all cases retained for investigation during a three-month period (N= 4775). The study describes the number and characteristics of children who are psychologically maltreated, the co-occurrence of this problem with various other types of maltreatment, and the factors that best distinguish these children from those who have not experienced this type of maltreatment. The findings demonstrate the extent of this problem and indicate that children who have been psychologically maltreated are often victims of other types of maltreatment. The family environment of these children gives cause for great concern.
Endothelin-1 Causes Pruritus in Mice

Endothelin (ET)-1 evokes a burning pruritus sensation when injected intradermally in humans and nocifensive behavior when injected into the hind paw of rodents. Because pain and pruritus are clearly distinct nociceptive sensory modalities in humans, the current study evaluates the potential of ET-1 to elicit scratching behavior in mice. Mice received an intradermal injection of 1–30 pmol ET-1; 10 μg of the mast cell degranulator compound, 48/80; 100 nmol histamine; or vehicle into the scruff, and the number of scratching bouts displayed during the first 40 mins was recorded. ET-1 caused dose-dependent scratching bouts, which, like the responses to histamine and compound 48/80, occurred mainly during the first 5 to 10 mins of injection, but fewer episodes were also seen up to 35 mins. The effect of ET-1 was maximal at 10 pmol (total 40 ± 7 bouts), a value similar to that caused by histamine (52 ± 5 bouts) and compound 48/80 (53 ± 6 bouts). The selective ETB receptor agonist, IRL-1620 (10 pmol), was not pruritic per se, and actually inhibited responses to histamine and ET-1. Pruritus induced by ET-1 was inhibited by the ETA receptor antagonists, 10 nmol BQ-123 (co-injected; net inhibition, 87%) and 10 mg/kg atrasentan (intraperitoneal administration; net inhibition, 83%), or the ETB receptor antagonist, 20 mg/kg A-192621 (intraperitoneal administration; net inhibition, 64%), but the response was augmented by co-injection of the ETB receptor antagonist, 3 nmol BQ-788 (net potentiation, 234%). Responses to compound 48/80 or responsiveness of vehicle-treated mice were unaffected by these antagonists. Thus, ET-1 displays potent pruritic actions in the mouse mediated to a substantial extent via local ETA receptors. The findings with IRL-1620 and BQ-788 suggest that local ETB receptors exert an antipruritic role, but, for reasons still unknown, the results obtained using systemic A-192621 injection are at variance with this view.
An Examination of Harm Beliefs in Dog Fearful Children

This study examined the harm beliefs of dog fearful children and the effect of exposure therapy on harm beliefs. The harm beliefs of 27 dog fearful children were examined before and after exposure therapy to a dog. Children were shown a live dog and asked to rate the extent to which they believed the dog would harm them (for example, the dog would bite or attack). The children were asked to complete Behaviour Approach Tests (BATs) to the dog before and after the exposure therapy. The children partially endorsed all harm beliefs regarding the dog prior to exposure. Harm beliefs predicted distress during a BAT before exposure therapy and avoidance after exposure. There was a significant reduction in all harm beliefs after exposure therapy with large effect sizes. Results also indicate the effectiveness of a single session of exposure in reducing a child's harm beliefs.
Low delay network streaming under burst losses

In the classic burst erasure channel, packets are consecutively erased in bursts between gaps of perfect communication. For the Burst Rank Loss Network, instead of a single-link erasure channel, there is a channel matrix that is rank-deficient for a burst of time before returning to full-rank. We establish the streaming capacity of the Burst Rank Loss Network and construct a new family of layered codes referred to as Recovery Of Bursts In Networks (ROBIN) codes that achieve capacity. Our results generalize previous work on both the single-link and multiple-parallel-link streaming setups. Simulations over statistical network models show that ROBIN codes lose fewer packets than baseline codes.
How availability of capital affects the timing of enrollment: the routes to university of traditional and non-traditional students

In the aftermath of the Bologna Process, Germany decided to open universities for individuals who do not possess a scholastic university entrance qualification but completed vocational education. This paper questions how long it takes until these so-called non-traditional students enroll and compares their routes to university to the routes of traditional students. In this context, the effects of social, cultural, and economic capital are pointed out. Event-history analyses for 892 bachelor students of one German university indicate that these effects vary across the groups. On the one hand, social capital accelerates the process of entering university solely for traditional students. On the other hand, cultural capital prolongs the process only for non-traditional students. However, economic capital slows down the process for both groups. Multivariate Cox models indicate that the availability of capital strongly affects the timing of enrollment of traditional and non-traditional students even under control for socio-demographic criteria.
Context sensitive indoor temperature forecast for energy efficient operation of smart buildings

This paper analyzes the potential of knowledge discovery from sensed data, which enables real-time systems monitoring, management, prediction and optimization in smart buildings. State of the art data driven techniques generate predictive short-term indoor temperature models based on real building data collected during daily operation. The most accurate results are achieved by the Bayesian Regularized Neural Network technique. Our results show that we are able to achieve a low relative predictive error for each room temperature in the range of 1.35% - 2.31% with low standard deviation of the residuals.
Active code search: incorporating user feedback to improve code search relevance

Code search techniques return relevant code fragments given a user query. They typically work in a passive mode: given a user query, a static list of code fragments sorted by the relevance scores decided by a code search technique is returned to the user. A user will go through the sorted list of returned code fragments from top to bottom. As the user checks each code fragment one by one, he or she will naturally form an opinion about the true relevance of the code fragment. In an active model, those opinions will be taken as feedbacks to the search engine for refining result lists. In this work, we incorporate users' opinion on the results from a code search engine to refine result lists: as a user forms an opinion about one result, our technique takes this opinion as feedback and leverages it to re-order the results to make truly relevant results appear earlier in the list. The refinement results can also be cached to potentially improve future code search tasks. We have built our active refinement technique on top of a state-of-the-art code search engine---Portfolio. Our technique improves Portfolio in terms of Normalized Discounted Cumulative Gain (NDCG) by more than 11.3%, from 0.738 to 0.821.
Preservation of directly stimulated muscle strength in hemiplegia due to stroke.

BACKGROUND Hemiplegia, or hemiparesis, severe impairment of purposeful activation of striated musculature, is the most conspicuous and often most disabling symptom of acute cerebrovascular lesions. Spontaneous improvement of voluntary strength may extend over many months. OBJECTIVE In this archetypical upper motor neuron syndrome we wish to ascertain the degree of functional impairment due to direct contractile impairment of the affected striated musculature. DESIGN Maximal tetanic muscle contraction was elicited by electrical stimulation applied directly to the tibialis anterior of the paretic and nonparetic limbs. Maximal forces of the normal limbs were compared with the afflicted limbs both early and late after vascular lesions of the pyramidal tract. Maximal voluntary force of foot dorsiflexion in the same limbs was also determined. Similar measurements were made in healthy control participants. SETTING Acute hospital, rehabilitation, and outpatient units of a clinical research center. PATIENTS Patients with unilateral stroke were studied a few or many weeks after the ictus. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Comparison was made between contraction strengths induced by maximal tetanic electrical stimulation of the dysfunctional and contralateral unaffected muscles. Maximal voluntary strength of the foot dorsiflexion forces was also measured. RESULTS Compared with the range of electrically evoked contractile force of tibialis anterior between the limbs of healthy participants, the directly elicited force in stroke-impaired tibialis anterior was not significantly impaired. CONCLUSIONS Modes of exercise therapy focused primarily on direct strengthening of striated musculature, as in resistive exercise training, are strategically questionable. Whether other approaches may be more effective remains to be proved. The central disability of the upper motor neuron syndrome is failure of rapid coordinated adjustment of graded high-frequency motoneuron firing in purposeful complex synergies.
Repair and regeneration of tracheal surface epithelium and submucosal glands in a mouse model of hypoxic‐ischemic injury

Background and objective: The heterotopic syngeneic tracheal transplant mouse model is an acute hypoxic‐ischemic injury model that undergoes complete repair and regeneration. We hypothesized that the repair and regeneration process of the surface epithelium and submucosal glands would occur in a reproducible pattern that could be followed by the expression of specific markers of epithelial cell types.
Experimental enterotoxin-induced Escherichia coli diarrhea and protection induced by previous infection with bacteria of the same adhesin or enterotoxin type

The diarrheal response to an initial and a second infection with Escherichia coli expressing various enterotoxins (the heat-stable toxin [ST] alone or in combination with the heat-labile toxin [LT]) and colonization factor antigens (CFA/I, CFA/II, or E8775-type) was studied in the reversible tie adult rabbit diarrhea model. An initial infection with high doses (1 X 10(10) to 5 X 10(11) bacteria) of the various strains regularly induced diarrhea which was usually self-limiting (only 7 of 85 animals died). The diarrheal response to equally effective doses of different strains producing both ST and LT (ST/LT) did not differ significantly with serotype or colonization factor antigen. ST/LT-producing strains appeared to induce severe disease more regularly than ST-producing strains carrying the same adhesin. Previous infection with CFA/I-carrying, ST/LT-producing E. coli protected all animals reinfected with an otherwise highly diarrheogenic dose of the same strain as well as against challenge with a CFA/I-carrying, ST/LT-producing strain with different O-, K-, and H-antigens. Fecal excretion of bacteria was also significantly reduced in the protected animals, although not completely eliminated. When only one of the two antigens, CFA/I and LT, was shared by the immunizing and rechallenge strains, partial protection was evident consistent with independent antibacterial (anti-CFA) and antitoxic (anti-LT) immune mechanisms. Oral immunization with purified CFA/I significantly reduced fluid secretion in intestinal loops infected with CFA/I-carrying enterotoxigenic bacteria.
Power particles

This paper introduces a new particle-based approach to incompressible fluid simulation. We depart from previous Lagrangian methods by considering fluid particles no longer purely as material points, but also as volumetric parcels that partition the fluid domain. The fluid motion is described as a time series of well-shaped power diagrams (hence the name power particles), offering evenly spaced particles and accurate pressure computations. As a result, we circumvent the typical excess damping arising from kernel-based evaluations of internal forces or density without having recourse to auxiliary Eulerian grids. The versatility of our solver is demonstrated by the simulation of multiphase flows and free surfaces.
Work-related outcomes among female veterans and service members after treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder.

OBJECTIVE This study examined the effect of treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on work-related quality-of-life outcomes and the relationship between clinically significant change during treatment and work-related outcomes. Additional analyses explored whether current depression and employment status moderated the effects of treatment and clinically significant change. METHODS Participants were 218 female veterans and soldiers with current PTSD who participated in a randomized clinical trial of treatment for PTSD. They received ten weekly sessions of prolonged exposure or present-centered therapy and were assessed before and after treatment and at three- and six-month follow-ups. Outcomes were clinician-rated and self-rated occupational impairment and self-rated satisfaction with work. RESULTS Both treatment groups had improvements in occupational impairment, and the degree of improvement by the two groups was similar. There was no pre- to posttreatment change in work satisfaction. At the end of treatment, participants who no longer met diagnostic criteria for PTSD had greater improvements in all domains of work-related quality of life than participants who still had PTSD. CONCLUSIONS Although prolonged exposure resulted in better PTSD symptom outcomes than present-centered therapy in the randomized clinical trial, it did not result in better work-related quality-of-life outcomes. The improvement in occupational impairment associated with loss of diagnosis suggests the importance of continuing treatment until clinically meaningful change has been attained.
Multinomial PCA for extracting major latent topics from document streams

We propose a new unsupervised learning method called multinomial PCA (MuPCA) for efficiently extracting the major latent topics from a document stream based on the "bag-of-words" (BOW) representation of a document. Unlike PCA, MuPCA follows a suitable probabilistic generative model for the document stream represented as time-series of word-frequency vectors. Using real data of document streams on the Web, we experimentally demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
A Two-Channel Time Modulated Linear Array With Adaptive Beamforming

A Time modulated linear array (TMLA) can be configured to perform many of the functions of phased array antennas but at much lower cost as they do not require phase shifters. However, conventional time modulated linear arrays which are configured for beam steering based on a single output channel topology. Such a topology is inefficient in terms of time utilization of the array elements. In this contribution we have proposed a multiple output channels time modulated linear array which exploits the time redundancy of conventional systems. The concept is introduced by considering conventional harmonic beam steering and then extending the problem to two-channel adaptive beamforming.
Animating ultra-complex voxel scenes through shell deformation

Voxel representations have many advantages, such as ordered traversal during rendering and trivial very decent LOD through MIPmap. Special effect companies such Digital Domain or Rhythm&Hues now ex- tensively use voxels engines, for semi-transparent objects such as clouds, avalanches, tornado or explosions, but also for complex solid objects. Several gaming companies are also looking into voxel engines to deal with ever more complex scenes but the main problem when dealing with voxel representations is the amount of data that has to be manipulated. This amount usually prevents animating in real time. To solve these is- sues, ARTIS team developed the Gigavoxels framework: a very powerful voxel engine based on GPU ray-casting, with advanced memory man- agement, so that very complex scenes can be rendered in real-time. The purpose of the TER was to develop a solution for animating voxel objects in real-time, implement it and eventually integrate it to the Gigavoxels framework.
Defining "Ill-Defined Domains"; A literature survey.

In order to make progress on Intelligent Tutoring in ill-defined domains it is helpful to start with a definition. In this paper we consider the existing definitions and select one for the basis of our discussion. We then summarize some of the more salient characteristics of ill-defined domains from a tutoring standpoint and some human and ITS strategies that have been employed to cope with them. We conclude with some challenges to the ITS community to spur further research.
Methodology for high level estimation of FPGA power consumption

Power consumption in FPGA designs calls for power-aware design and power budgeting early in the design cycle. In this work, we leverage the FPGA architecture to present an efficient and accurate methodology for pre-silicon dynamic power estimation of FPGA-based designs. Our methodology uses device-level simulations to characterize a coarse-grained architectural model and incorporates architectural parameters to estimate the dominant wire capacitance. Such an approach not only reduces the need for tedious and time consuming silicon characterizations but ensures accurate pre-silicon power predictions. We apply the methodology to estimate the power consumption of a state-of-the-art Spartan-3/spl trade/ FPGA family, evaluate the estimation results against silicon measurements, and present a detailed power breakdown of the FPGA. Our results find that the routing resources and the clock to consume the maximum power.
Nonparametric Bayes inference for concave distribution functions

Bayesian inference for concave distribution functions is investigated. This is made by transforming a mixture of Dirichlet processes on the space of distribution functions to the space of concave distribution functions. We give a method for sampling from the posterior distribution using a Pólya urn scheme in combination with a Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm. The methods are extended to estimation of concave distribution functions for incompletely observed data.
A penalized regression model for the joint estimation of eQTL associations and gene network structure

Background: A critical task in the study of biological systems is understanding how gene expression is regulated within the cell. This problem is typically divided into multiple separate tasks, including performing eQTL mapping to identify SNP-gene relationships and estimating gene network structure to identify gene-gene relationships. Aim: In this work, we pursue a holistic approach to discovering the patterns of gene regulation in the cell. We present a new method for jointly performing eQTL mapping and gene network estimation while encouraging a transfer of information between the two tasks. Data: We evaluate our approach on both synthetic data and on a real yeast eQTL dataset that contains 1, 157 SNP genotypes and 1, 409 gene expression measurements for 114 yeast samples. Methods: To construct a unified model for jointly performing eQTL mapping and gene network inference, we formulate the problem as a multiple-output regression task in which we aim to learn the regression coefficients while simultaneously estimating the conditional independence relationships among the set of response variables. The approach we develop uses structured sparsity penalties to encourage the sharing of information between the regression coefficients and the output network in a mutually beneficial way. Our model, inverse-covariance-fused lasso, is formulated as a biconvex optimization problem that we solve via alternating minimization. We derive new, efficient optimization routines to solve each convex sub-problem that are based on existing state-of-the-art methods. Results: We demonstrate the value of our approach by applying our method to both simulated data and a real yeast eQTL dataset data. Experimental results demonstrate that our approach outperforms a large number of existing methods on the recovery of the true sparse structure of both the eQTL associations and the gene network. Conclusions: We show that inverse-covariance-fused lasso can be used to perform joint eQTL mapping and gene network estimation on a yeast dataset, yielding more biologically coherent results than previous work. Furthermore, the same problem setting appears in many different applications, and therefore our model can be deployed in a wide range of domains.
Scoping studies: towards a methodological framework

This paper focuses on scoping studies, an approach to reviewing the literature which to date has received little attention in the research methods literature. We distinguish between different types of scoping studies and indicate where these stand in relation to full systematic reviews. We outline a framework for conducting a scoping study based on our recent experiences of reviewing the literature on services for carers for people with mental health problems. Where appropriate, our approach to scoping the field is contrasted with the procedures followed in systematic reviews. We emphasize how including a consultation exercise in this sort of study may enhance the results, making them more useful to policy makers, practitioners and service users. Finally, we consider the advantages and limitations of the approach and suggest that a wider debate is called for about the role of the scoping study in relation to other types of literature reviews.