Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Potent Simian Immunodeficiency Virus-Specific Cellular Immune Responses in the Breast Milk of Simian Immunodeficiency Virus-Infected, Lactating Rhesus Monkeys1

Breast milk transmission of HIV is a leading cause of infant HIV/AIDS in the developing world. Remarkably, only a small minority of breastfeeding infants born to HIV-infected mothers contract HIV via breast milk exposure, raising the possibility that immune factors in the breast milk confer protection to the infants who remain uninfected. To model HIV-specific immunity in breast milk, lactation was pharmacologically induced in Mamu-A*01+ female rhesus monkeys. The composition of lymphocyte subsets in hormone-induced lactation breast milk was found to be similar to that in natural lactation breast milk. Hormone-induced lactating monkeys were inoculated i.v. with SIVmac251 and CD8+ T lymphocytes specific for two immunodominant SIV epitopes, Gag p11C and Tat TL8, and SIV viral load were monitored in peripheral blood and breast milk during acute infection. The breast milk viral load was 1–2 logs lower than plasma viral load through peak and set point of viremia. Surprisingly, whereas the kinetics of the SIV-specific cellular immunity in breast milk mirrored that of the blood, the peak magnitude of the SIV-specific CD8+ T lymphocyte response in breast milk was more than twice as high as the cellular immune response in the blood. Furthermore, the appearance of the SIV-specific CD8+ T lymphocyte response in breast milk was associated with a reduction in breast milk viral load, and this response remained higher than that in the blood after viral set point. This robust viral-specific cellular immune response in breast milk may contribute to control of breast milk virus replication.
The triakontatetraneuropeptide TTN increases [Ca2+]i in rat astrocytes through activation of peripheral‐type benzodiazepine receptors

Astrocytes synthesize a series of regulatory peptides called endozepines, which act as endogenous ligands of benzodiazepine receptors. We have recently shown that one of these endozepines, the triakontatetraneuropeptide TTN, stimulates DNA synthesis in astroglial cells. The purpose of the present study was to determine the mechanism of action of TTN on cultured rat astrocytes. Binding of the peripheral‐type benzodiazepine receptor ligand [3H]Ro5‐4864 to intact astrocytes was displaced by TTN, whereas its C‐terminal fragment (TTN[17–34], the octadecaneuropeptide ODN) did not compete for [3H]Ro5‐4864 binding. Microfluorimetric measurement of cytosolic calcium concentrations ([Ca2+]i) with the fluorescent probe indo‐1 showed that TTN (10−10 to 10−6 M) provokes a concentration‐dependent increase in [Ca2+]i in cultured astrocytes. Simultaneous administration of TTN (10−8 M) and Ro5‐4864 (10−5 M) induced an increase in [Ca2+]i similar to that obtained with Ro5‐4864 alone. In contrast, the effects of TTN (10−8 M) and ODN (10−8 M) on [Ca2+]i were strictly additive. Chelation of extracellular Ca2+ by EGTA (6 mM) or blockage of Ca2+ channels with Ni2+ (2 mM) abrogated the stimulatory effect of TTN. The calcium influx evoked by TTN (10−7 M) or by Ro5‐4864 (10−5 M) was not affected by the N‐ and T‐type calcium channel blockers ω‐conotoxin (10−6 M) and mibefradil (10−6 M), but was significantly reduced by the L‐type calcium channel blocker nifedipine (10−7 M). Patch‐clamp studies showed that, at negative potentials, TTN (10−7 M) induced a sustained depolarization. Reduction of the chloride concentration in the extracellular solution shifted the reversal potential from 0 mV to a positive potential. These data show that TTN, acting through peripheral‐type benzodiazepine receptors, provokes chloride efflux, which in turn induces calcium influx via L‐type calcium channels in rat astrocytes. GLIA 35:90–100, 2001. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Human–Computer Interface Issues in Controlling Virtual Reality With Brain–Computer Interface

We have integrated the Graz brain–computer interface (BCI) system with a highly immersive virtual reality (VR) Cave-like system. This setting allows for a new type of experience, whereby participants can control a virtual world using imagery of movement. However, current BCI systems still have many limitations. In this article we present two experiments exploring the different constraints posed by current BCI systems when used in VR. In the first experiment we let the participants make free choices during the experience and compare their BCI performance with participants using BCI without free choice; this is unlike most previous work in this area, in which participants are requested to obey cues. In the second experiment we allowed participants to control a virtual body with motor imagery. We provide both quantitative and subjective results, regarding both BCI accuracy and the nature of the subjective experience in this new type of setting.
CS 10701 : Final project report . Textual entailment in the domain of physics

Bag-of-words methods to the problems of semantic text classification and textual entailment have seen some successful applications [3], their straightforward applications are known to break when the training data is sparse, the number of classes is large, or classes do not have clear syntactic boundaries (for example when negational, conditional sentence markers significantly affect classification). These are, however, properties of a typical semantic classification problem in the domain of natural language tutoring systems. Recently formal methods have been evaluated for reasoning about entailment using the logical representations of natural language propositions [5]. This work extends those methods to account for uncertainty in generating logical representations of natural language sentences by using Bayesian networks with observable nodes representing the logical propositions in the domain of the tutorial dialogue corpus, latent nodes corresponding to domain rule applications, and semantic class label nodes. The problem of sparseness of training data is dealt with by using logical inference engine to generate the network structure, and using informative priors for parameter estimation. The results demonstrate improved performance over the formal reasoning approaches and other baselines.
Fundamentals and extraction of velocity saturation in sub-100nm (110)-Si and (100)-Ge

A novel RFCV-technique is applied to directly quantify the short channel devices at high Vds, enabling parameter extraction like velocity saturation and critical field. This technique is applied to benchmark Si (110) and Si(100) as well as Ge devices. Similarities and crucial differences between short channel parameters in Si and Ge are discussed.
Career Trajectories of Urban Teachers

This article addresses teacher retention in urban schools, focusing on high-need secondary science classrooms. As a longitudinal study, this research investigated how eight case study teachers conceived of their careers and career moves. The experiences and perspectives of three case study teachers indicated that they were situated along a continuum from those who aimed to integrate fully into the educational system to those who wanted to participate in it for a limited period of time. Teachers negotiated their perspectives with the workplace context to shape participation in school communities, relationships with students and colleagues, and career directions.
The Dynamics of Organizational s Emergence: A Contemporary Group Formation Perspective

This paper outlines contributions from social psychology to the study of entrepreneurship, especially the process of organizational emergence. The major topics covered are role theory, the minimal group paradigm (MGP) reported by Tajfel and others, the new plant works of Lawler and others, and recent advances in conceptualizing task group emergence reported by Gerslck.
Rates of inbreeding and genetic adaptation for populations managed as herds in zoos with a rotational mating system or with optimized contribution of parents.

This study compares two genetic management scenarios for species kept in herds, such as deer. The simulations were designed so that their results can be extended to a wide range of zoo populations. In the first scenario, the simulated populations of size 3 × 20, 6 × 40 or 20 × 60 (herds × animals in herd) were managed with a rotational mating (RM) scheme in which 10%, 20% or 50% of males were selected for breeding and moved between herds in a circular fashion. The second scenario was based on optimal contribution theory (OC). OC requires an accurate pedigree to calculate kinship; males were selected and assigned numbers of offspring to minimize kinship in the next generation. RM was efficient in restriction of inbreeding and produced results comparable with OC. However, RM can result in genetic adaptation of the population to the zoo environment, in particular when 20% or less males are selected for rotation and selection of animals is not random. Lowest rates of inbreeding were obtained by combining OC with rotation of males as in the RM scheme. RM is easy to implement in practice and does not require pedigree data. When full pedigree is available, OC management is preferable.
Comprehensive Analysis of Class I and Class II HLA Antigens and Chronic Hepatitis B Virus Infection

ABSTRACT Following an acute hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection, clearance or persistence is determined in part by the vigor and breadth of the host immune response. Since the human leukocyte antigen system (HLA) is an integral component of the immune response, we hypothesized that the highly polymorphic HLA genes are key determinants of viral clearance. HLA class I and II genes were molecularly typed in 194 Caucasian individuals with viral persistence and 342 matched controls who had cleared the virus. A single class I allele, A*0301 (odds ratio [OR], 0.47; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.30 to 0.72; P = 0.0005) was associated with viral clearance. The class II allele DRB1*1302 was also associated with clearance (OR, 0.42; 95% CI, 0.19 to 0.93; P = 0.03), but its significance decreased in a multivariate model that included other alleles associated with disease outcome as covariates. B*08 was associated with viral persistence both independently (OR, 1.59; 95% CI, 1.04 to 2.43; P = 0.03) and as part of the conserved Caucasian haplotype A*01-B*08-DRB1*03. The B*44-Cw*1601 (OR, 2.23; 95% CI, 1.13 to 4.42; P = 0.02) and B*44-Cw*0501 (OR, 1.99; 95% CI, 1.22 to 3.24; P = 0.006) haplotypes were also associated with viral persistence. Interestingly, both the B*08 haplotype and DR7, which forms a haplotype with B*44-Cw*1601, have been associated with nonresponse to the HBV vaccine. The associations with class I alleles are consistent with a previously implicated role for CD8-mediated cytolytic-T-cell response in determining the outcome of an acute HBV infection.
Repressive Epigenetic Changes at the mGlu2 Promoter in Frontal Cortex of 5-HT2A Knockout Mice

Serotonin 5-HT2A and metabotropic glutamate 2 (mGlu2) are G protein–coupled receptors suspected in the pathophysiology of psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia, depression, and suicide. Previous findings demonstrate that mGlu2 mRNA expression is down-regulated in brain cortical regions of 5-HT2A knockout (KO) mice. However, the molecular mechanism responsible for this alteration remains unknown. We show here repressive epigenetic changes at the promoter region of the mGlu2 gene in frontal cortex of 5-HT2A-KO mice. Disruption of 5-HT2A receptor-dependent signaling in mice was associated with decreased acetylation of histone H3 (H3ac) and H4 (H4ac) and increased tri-methylation of histone H3 at lysine 27 (H3K27me3) at the mGlu2 promoter, epigenetic changes that correlate with transcriptional repression. Neither methylation of histone H3 at lysine 4 (H3K4me1/2/3) nor tri-methylation of histone H3 at lysine 9 (H3K9me3) was affected. We found that Egr1, a transcription factor in which promoter activity was positively regulated by the 5-HT2A receptor agonist 4-bromo-3,6-dimethoxybenzocyclobuten-1-yl)methylamine hydrobromide, binds less to the mGlu2 promoter in frontal cortex of 5-HT2A-KO, compared with wild-type mice. Furthermore, expression of mGlu2 was increased by viral-mediated gene transfer of FLAG-tagged Egr1 in mouse frontal cortex. Together, these observations suggest that 5-HT2A receptor–dependent signaling epigenetically affects mGlu2 transcription in mouse frontal cortex.
Early Prediction of Treatment Efficacy in Second-Stage Gambiense Human African Trypanosomiasis

Background Human African trypanosomiasis is fatal without treatment. The long post-treatment follow-up (24 months) required to assess cure complicates patient management and is a major obstacle in the development of new therapies. We analyzed individual patient data from 12 programs conducted by Médecins Sans Frontières in Uganda, Sudan, Angola, Central African Republic, Republic of Congo and Democratic Republic of Congo searching for early efficacy indicators. Methodology/Principal Findings Patients analyzed had confirmed second-stage disease with complete follow-up and confirmed outcome (cure or relapse), and had CSF leucocytes counts (CSFLC) performed at 6 months post-treatment. We excluded patients with uncertain efficacy outcome: incomplete follow-up, death, relapse diagnosed with CSFLC below 50/µL and no trypanosomes. We analyzed the 6-month CSFLC via receiver-operator-characteristic curves. For each cut-off value we calculated sensitivity, specificity and likelihood ratios (LR+ and LR−). We assessed the association of the optimal cut-off with the probability of relapsing via random-intercept logistic regression. We also explored two-step (6 and 12 months) composite algorithms using the CSFLC. The most accurate cut-off to predict outcome was 10 leucocytes/µL (n = 1822, 76.2% sensitivity, 80.4% specificity, 3.89 LR+, 0.29 LR−). Multivariate analysis confirmed its association with outcome (odds ratio = 17.2). The best algorithm established cure at 6 months with < = 5 leucocytes/µL and relapse with > = 50 leucocytes/µL; patients between these values were discriminated at 12 months by a 20 leucocytes/µL cut-off (n = 2190, 87.4% sensitivity, 97.7% specificity, 37.84 LR+, 0.13 LR−). Conclusions/Significance The 6-month CSFLC can predict outcome with some limitations. Two-step algorithms enhance the accuracy but impose 12-month follow-up for some patients. For early estimation of efficacy in clinical trials and for individual patients in the field, several options exist that can be used according to priorities.
Incorporating Ethical and Trust-based Behaviour into Economics: A Transaction Cost Exploration

This paper explores ethical activity within a transaction cost (TC) framework. It discusses the theoretical and practical links between TC economisation and ethical and trust-based behaviour. By engendering a climate of trust at the micro/firm level, ethical behaviour can reduce TCs associated with monitoring and protection against broken contracts. At the macro/societal level, considerations such as stakeholders’ increasing ethical expectations, may also have TC implications. To distinguish these latter TCs from those at the more micro level, the paper terms them social transaction costs (STCs). While it might be possible to internalise TCs to achieve economisation, STCs cannot be reduced through internalisation.
A 5-level discrete-time power encoder with measured coding efficiency of 70% for 20-MHz LTE digital transmitter

This paper reports the recent development on power coding method of generating a 5-level intermediate frequency PWM-based high speed digital-RF bit train, which is used as the input switching signal for class-S digital RF power amplifiers in the digital transmitter. By introducing the discrete-time power coding process at an IF of around 60 MHz, digital transmitter at cellular bands then becomes feasible to implement with current FPGA technologies. It can lower the required sampling rate more than 10 times compared with RF carrier PWM. In addition, a linearizer is designed using a look-up-table to minimize the nonlinear coding effects of the power encoder. The demonstrator shows the state-of-the-art measured power coding efficiency of 70.47% and SNR>30dB for a 20 MHz LTE signals with PAPR of 10.25 dB at 1.9 GHz with our proposed approach.
Rewriting the orthography of SMS messages

Abstract Electronic written texts used in computer-mediated interactions (emails, blogs, chats, and the like) contain significant deviations from the norm of the language. This paper presents the detail of a system aiming at normalizing the orthography of French SMS messages: after discussing the linguistic peculiarities of these messages and possible approaches to their automatic normalization, we present, compare, and evaluate various instanciations of a normalization device based on weighted finite-state transducers. These experiments show that using an intermediate phonemic representation and training, our system outperforms an alternative normalization system based on phrase-based statistical machine translation techniques.
Contested Communities in a Debate Over Dual-Language Education: The Import of “Public” Values on Public Policies

This study examines how public debate can shape school district policy. Using qualitative methods and an interdisciplinary framework that weaves an interpretive approach to policy implementation with the language policy and planning literature, the analysis demonstrates that immigrant voices were mostly absent in a debate over a new dual-language program. Instead, English-dominant participants alluded to various “community” values and persuaded policy makers to implement dual-language classes throughout the district rather than in sites favored by policy advocates, including immigrant families. The article concludes that language policy implementation is a value-laden process in which public deliberation reflects dominant cultural “discourses,” which can shape what a policy ultimately becomes.
Tagging Unknown Words with Raw Text Features

Processing unknown words is disproportionately important because of their high information content. It is crucial in domains with specialist vocabularies where relevant training material is scarce, for example: biological text. Unknown word processing often begins with Part of Speech (POS) tagging, where accuracy is typically 10% worse than on known words. We demonstrate that features extracted from large raw text corpora can significantly increase accuracy on unknown words. These features supply a large part of what we are missing with unknown words: context information about how the word is used. We describe a Maximum Entropy modelling approach which uses real-valued features to represent unannotated contextual information. Our initial experiments with real-valued features have resulted in an increased accuracy from 87.39% to 88.85% on unknown words.
Non-lamellar lipid assembly at interfaces: controlling layer structure by responsive nanogel particles

Biological membranes do not only occur as planar bilayer structures, but depending on the lipid composition, can also curve into intriguing three-dimensional structures. In order to fully understand the biological implications as well as to reveal the full potential for applications, e.g. for drug delivery and other biomedical devices, of such structures, well-defined model systems are required. Here, we discuss the formation of lipid non-lamellar liquid crystalline (LC) surface layers spin-coated from the constituting lipids followed by hydration of the lipid layer. We demonstrate that hybrid lipid polymer films can be formed with different properties compared with the neat lipid LC layers. The nanostructure and morphologies of the lipid films formed reflect those in the bulk. Most notably, mixed lipid layers, which are composed of glycerol monooleate and diglycerol monooleate with poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) nanogels, can form films of reverse cubic phases that are capable of responding to temperature stimulus. Owing to the presence of the nanogel particles, changing the temperature not only regulates the hydration of the cubic phase lipid films, but also the lateral organization of the lipid domains within the lipid self-assembled film. This opens up the possibility for new nanostructured materials based on lipid–polymer responsive layers.
Alemtuzumab as Antirejection Therapy

Background Alemtuzumab induction therapy in kidney transplant patients results in T cell depletion followed by slow immune reconstitution of memory T cells with reduced immune functions. The kinetics and functional characteristics of T cell reconstitution when alemtuzumab is given during immune activation, ie, as antirejection therapy, are unknown. Methods Patients (n = 12) with glucocorticoid-resistant or severe vascular kidney transplant rejection were treated with alemtuzumab. Flow cytometric analysis was performed on whole blood to measure cell division by the marker Ki-67, and cytokine responsiveness by IL-2–mediated and IL-7–mediated phosphorylation of signal transducer and activator of transcription 5 of T cells before and during the first year after rejection therapy. Results At 1 year after alemtuzumab antirejection therapy, the total T cell population recovered to baseline level. Repopulation of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells was associated with increased percentages of Ki-67+ proliferating T cells (P < 0.05). In addition, both populations showed a phenotypic shift toward relatively more memory T cells (P < 0.01). At the functional level, IL-7 reactivity of CD4+ memory T cells was diminished, reflected by a decreased capacity to phosphorylate signal transducer and activator of transcription 5 during the first 6 months after alemtuzumab treatment (P < 0.05), whereas reactivity to IL-2 was preserved. CD8+ T cells were affected in terms of both IL-2 and IL-7 responses (both P < 0.05). After reconstitution, relatively more regulatory T cells were present, and a relatively high proportion of Ki-67+ T cells was observed. Conclusions Preliminary data from this small series suggest that alemtuzumab antirejection therapy induces homeostatic proliferation of memory and regulatory T cells with diminished responsiveness to the homeostatic cytokine IL-7. IL-2 responsiveness was affected in repopulated CD8+ T cells.
The Case for Automatic Synthesis of Miniature Benchmarks

There are two parts of the design process that can benefit from reduced, miniature benchmarks that behave like longer-running applications during simulation: 1) the early design phase before an implementation exists, and 2) the later design phases when cycle-accurate functional models exist. In the early design phase, many hundreds or thousands of potential design tradeoffs must be evaluated rapidly at a high-level. In the later design phases, design changes are costly to undo, so potential changes need to be accurately evaluated using a performance model that has been validated against a functional model. Applications typically run too long to be executed completely for either early design tradeoffs or late performance model validation. In this paper, we explore the potential for automatically synthesizing reduced miniature benchmarks from the execution characteristics of actual applications. We discuss the advantages and challenges of automatic synthesis and present evidence that miniature benchmarks can reproduce the machine behavior of much longer running applications. We present one approach to benchmark synthesis and show that IPC and many average characteristics of the executing synthetic benchmarks are similar to those of the applications that the synthetic benchmarks are derived from. We also show that an early design task like identifying performance trends due to design changes can be carried out while still reducing runtimes significantly. The synthetic benchmarks converge to results rapidly, enabling performance model validation.