Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Biotinylated hyaluronan: A versatile and highly sensitive probe capable of detecting nanogram levels of hyaluronan binding proteins (hyaladherins) on electroblots by a novel affinity detection procedure

Hyaluronan influences cellular proliferation and migration in developing, regenerating and remodelling tissues and in tissues undergoing malignant tumour‐cell invasion. The widespread occurrence of hyaluronan‐binding proteins indicates that the recognition of hyaluronan is important to tissue organisation and the control of cellular behaviour. A number of extracellular matrix and cellular proteins, which have been termed the hyaladherins, have specific affinities for hyaluronan. These include cartilage link‐protein, hyaluronectin, neurocan, versican and aggrecan, which all bind to HA within the extracellular matrix. Cellular receptors for hyaluronan such as CD44 and RHAMM (receptor for hyaluronate‐mediated motility) have also been identified. In the present study biotinylated hyaluronan (bHA) was prepared by reacting adipic dihydrazide with a 170 kDa hyaluronan sample using the bifunctional reagent 1‐ethyl‐3‐[3‐(dimethylamino) propyl] carbodiimide. The resultant free amine moeity of the hydrazido‐hyaluronan was then reacted with biotin succinimidyl ester (sulfo‐NHS‐biotin) to prepare the bHA. After 4–20% gradient sodium dodecyl sulfate‐polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS‐PAGE) and electroblotting to nitrocellulose membranes, bHA and avidin alkaline phosphatase conjugate could be used in conjunction with nitroblue tetrazolium/5‐bromo‐4‐chloro‐3‐indolyl phosphate substrates to specifically visualise with high sensitivity (≥2 ng), bovine nasal cartilage link‐protein, aggrecan hyaluronan binding region, and human fibroblast hyaluronan receptors such as CD‐44. Conventional Western blotting using specific monoclonal antibodies to these proteins was also used to confirm the identities of these proteins.
Impedance cardiographyThe impact of new technology

The 1990s have witnessed major advances in impedance cardiography technology. Problems existed with the methods used to calculate cardiac output. Excessive lung fluid, as often found in critically ill patients, may also invalidate measurements. The signal processing and measurement techniques used in older systems were deficient. The newer systems, of which there are at least six, incorporate novel and improved signal processing techniques. They also offer analog visual displays, personal computer interfacing, sophisticated analytical software and haemodynamic patient management systems. Evaluation of these systems is difficult because no true ‘gold standard’ method of cardiac output measurement exists. When compared with thermodilution techniques, limits of agreement of ± 20–30% seem acceptable. These limits can be achieved in normal subjects but not in critically ill patients. Validation data are available for only half of the new systems. Until recently, the main application for impedance cardiography has been research but improved accuracy should lead to increased clinical usage.
NaCTeM CTD Web Services

Participating in the BioCreative IV CTD Curation shared task, we developed RESTful, BioCcompliant web services which recognise CTD chemicals, genes, diseases and actions terms in PubMed abstracts. The tools are based on machine learning approaches, specifically, conditional random fields (CRFs) for recognising names of chemicals, genes and diseases, and support vector machines (SVMs) for recognising action terms.
Macroblock quantizer selection for H.263 video coding

We consider two MSE-based strategies for selecting the best quantization parameter (Q) for each coded macroblock in H.263 video coding. In the first study, Q was adjusted to match a target mean-squared error (MSE) for each block. The goal was to avoid having large errors in a few macroblocks that detract from the overall perceived image quality. Effectively, we minimized the peak MSE over all macroblocks. In the second study, we sought to minimize the average MSE, modifying a gradient-search technique that has been applied to H.261. The choice of quantizers was limited by the H.263 syntactical constraints on changes in Q between successively-coded macroblocks. The results were compared with fixed Q encoding. The resulting sequences displayed only small perceptual differences. For the cases studied, the primary advantage of varying Q was to control the delay.
Improving relation descriptor extraction with word embeddings and cluster features

Relation descriptor is the text string which best describes the pre-defined relation between two entities. Relation descriptor can help people to know the specific semantics between two entities, which is very meaningful for knowledge base construction. Traditional relation descriptor extraction method use nominal features, whose expressibility is limited. Word embeddings via deep learning technology can reflect more syntactic and semantic information of words. In this paper we introduce the word embeddings to relation descriptor extraction problem. In order to obtain word semantic classes, we cluster words based on word embeddings and adopt the word cluster feature. Experimental results have shown that word embeddings feature and word cluster feature can improve the performance of relation descriptor extraction obviously. Furthermore the word cluster feature is more robust than word embeddings feature on the relation descriptor extraction. The best method can save 44% and 33% training data to achieve the same performance as the basic method on two datasets.
Water suppression with B0 field gradient homospoil pulses in high‐resolution NMR spectroscopy

The combination of a frequency nonselective excitation suppression method (1331 sequence) with selective excitation followed by gradient‐induced dephasing of water transverse magnetization yielded suppression ratios of greater than 10,000:1. The need for gradient preemphasis and correction of Bo field shifts is discussed. The suppression efficiency of this method compared favorably to results obtained using the CPMG spin‐ echo technique to observe metabolite resonances in a urine sample. © 1989 Academic Press, Inc.
Demonstration of a high dynamic range chipless RFID sensor in paper substrate based on the harmonic radar concept

This paper presents the design and implementation in paper substrate of a harmonic RFID chipless sensing tag. The proposed sensor is based on a Wheatstone bridge, where two of the four impedances change dynamically according to a physical parameter that has to be monitored. The passive tag is interrogated by a signal at f0 = 1.04 GHz and the signal transmitted back to the reader at 2f0 = 2.08 GHz is proportional to the magnitude of the parameter variation. A harmonic RFID experiment proves that this kind of architecture is capable of providing a dynamic range of more than 40 dB.
Geo-additive Models in Small Area Estimation of Poverty

Spatial data contains of observation and region information, it can describe spatial patterns such as disease distribution, reproductive outcome and poverty. The main flaw in direct estimation especially in poverty research is the sample adequacy fulfilment otherwise it will produce large estimate parameter variant. The Small Area Estimation (SAE) developed to handle that flaw. Since, the small area estimation techniques require “borrow strength” across the neighbor areas thus SAE was developed by integrating spatial information into the model, named as Spatial SAE. SAE and spatial SAE model require the fulfilment of covariate linearity assumption as well as the normality of the response distribution that is sometimes violated, and the geo-additive model offers to handle that violation using the smoothing function. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to compare the SAE, Spatial SAE and Geo-additive model in order to estimate at sub-district level mean of per capita income of each area using the poverty survey data in Bangka Belitung province at 2017 by Polytechnic of Statistics STIS. The findings of the paper are the Geo-additive is the best fit model based on AIC, and spatial information don't influence the estimation in SAE and spatial SAE model since they have the similar estimation performance.
Ultrastructural and Phylogenetic Description of Kudoa orbicularis n. sp. (Myxosporea: Multivalvulida): A Parasite Infecting the Muscle of the Fish Chaetobranchopsis orbicularis (Teleostei: Cichlidae) in the Amazon Region

A new myxosporean species is described from the muscle of the Amazonian freshwater fish Chaetobranchopsis orbicularis (Teleostei, Cichlidae), with basis on morphometric, ultrastructural and molecular data. Numerous myxospores were observed within pseudocysts located on the hosts' dorsal and ventral muscles, near the neural spines and neural canal (spinal cord). Mature myxospores quadrangular with rounded ends in apical view, measuring 4.3 (3.6–5.0) μm in length and 5.1 (4.2–5.8) μm in width. The myxospores wall is formed by four symmetric valves. Within, four pyriform polar capsules, 2.1 (1.7–2.6) μm long and 1.3 (0.9–1.7) μm wide, located two by two in opposite sides of the myxospores longitudinal axis, each containing a polar filament forming 2–3 coils. Molecular analysis of the SSU rRNA gene by maximum likelihood, neighbor‐joining and maximum parsimony confirms the parasite as a new member of the genus Kudoa, herein named Kudoa orbicularis n. sp. , the second species of its genus reported from the South American freshwater fauna, and the fourth species worldwide known to occur in the freshwater environment. Furthermore, its sequence of the SSU rRNA gene constitutes the first entry of a freshwater Kudoa species in GenBank.
A continuous planning framework with durative actions

This paper describes a continuous planning framework to be used by a planning agent situated within an environment, which reasons about goals with priorities and deadlines, and actions with duration. The framework assumes that goals may be generated continuously, which requires the interleaving of planning and execution. Constraints upon time may mean it is not possible for all goals to be achieved-as a consequence the planning agent must be able to prioritise its goals. A crucial component of this framework is a temporal manager which enables the planner to reason about whether or not there is sufficient time available to achieve all goals, and to calculate deadlines for actions and outstanding subgoals. The main contribution of this paper is an examination of the way in which the partial order planning paradigm could be extended to reason with PDDL2.1 level 3 durative actions.
Resistance of Actinobacillus actinomycetemcomitans and differential susceptibility of oral Haemophilus species to the bactericidal effects of hydrogen peroxide

We compared the sensitivities of oral and nonoral isolates of Actinobacillus actinomycetemcomitans, Haemophilus segnis, H. aphrophilus, and H. paraphrophilus to the bactericidal action of reagent hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). Susceptibility to a range of H2O2 concentrations (10(-6) to 10(-3) M) was assessed by incubating bacterial suspensions for 1 h at 37 degrees C in the presence of H2O2 and plating on chocolate agar to determine the concentration of H2O2 that would produce a 50% reduction in CFU (50% lethal dose). As a group, A. actinomycetemcomitans was more resistant to H2O2 than the oral haemophili, and H. aphrophilus was much more sensitive than all other organisms tested. The range of 50% lethal dose values for A. actinomycetemcomitans was between 8.5 X 10(-5) and 10(-3) M H2O2 or above. In contrast, H. aphrophilus exhibited 50% lethal dose values from below 1 X 10(-6) to 3.4 X 10(-4) M H2O2. The resistance of A. actinomycetemcomitans to H2O2 may be sufficient to protect these organisms from direct H2O2-mediated killing by host phagocytes.
Estimating Demand of Turkish Energy Market: A Multivariate Regression Model

Energy is a fundamental factor for economic development. Although in recent years there is a development in studies on an energy economics they are focused on specific energy sources. In this study natural gas, electricity and oil consumption which are the energy sources that the greatest market share of world and Turkey are investigating. In this investigation multivariate linear regression model is used. MVR model is a system of linear regression equations having the same set of independent variables. In this model within-equation, linear restrictions are testable on an equation-by-equation basis using a standard F test. The aim of the study is estimating demand of these three energy sources which are mentioned above. For this purpose, the regression model estimated which has a natural gas, electricity and oil consumption as dependent variables and price of these sources, income and population as independent variables by using 2001:01-2010:06 monthly data. Except for oil prices, coefficients of the model are statistically significant in all models. Coefficients are interpreted economically and determined that supply and demand move peculiar to Turkish energy markets despite the general expectations.
Feasibility of societal model for securing Internet of Things

In the Internet of Things (IoT) concept, devices communicate autonomously with applications in the Internet. A significant aspect of IoT that makes it stand apart from present day networked devices and applications is a) the very large number of devices, produced by diverse makers and used by an even more diverse group of users; b) the applications residing and functioning in what were very private sanctums of life e.g. the car, home, and the people themselves. Since these diverse devices require high-level security, an operational model for an IoT system is required, which has built-in security. We have proposed the societal model as a simple operational model. The basic concept of the model is borrowed from human society - there will be infants, the weak and the handicapped who will need to be protected by guardians. This natural security mechanism works very well for IoT networks which seem to have inherently weak security mechanisms. In this paper, we discuss the requirements of the societal model and examine its feasibility by doing a proof-of-concept implementation.
On the design of comb spectrum code for multiple access scheme

A new methodology that applies frequency orthogonality to the spreading code design has been presented. The main purpose is to reduce the receiver complexity of the cyclic prefix code division multiple access (CP-CDMA) over the downlink channel and to enable parallel transmission over the uplink channel. The receiver complexity has been found for requiring full-band FFT and IFFT calculations in the channel equalizer. To handle this problem, we developed the comb spectrum codes organized in frequency orthogonal groups, in each of which the codes have time correlation orthogonality. For the downlink channel, the reduction of complexity in signal processing of a CSCDMA receiver is due to that the separation of groups is simple and each separated group is in the form of a narrower bandwidth CP-CDMA. Thus, the full-band FFT and IFFT can be replaced by the partial FFT and partial IFFT as shown in this proposed approach. For the uplink channel, we assign the code groups to different users to form a group division multiple access (GDMA) for enabling an independent channel equalization of each user at base station. The theoretical analysis and the simulation results agree well with each other and both confirm the effectiveness of this approach.
MR spectroscopic evidence for thalamic and hippocampal, but not cortical, damage in multiple sclerosis

Gray matter (GM) damage is an important pathophysiological feature in Multiple Sclerosis (MS), and may be related to clinical, including cognitive, deficits. Quantitative single‐voxel 1H‐Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (TR/TE 6000/20 ms) was performed in 33 MS patients (11 per disease subtype; mean age 48 years, 16 females) and 10 healthy controls (mean age 43 years, 7 females). No overall spectroscopic changes were found in MS cortex. In MS thalamus, a 9% decrease of N‐acetyl aspartate (NAA; P = 0.005) and a 31% increase of myo‐inositol (Ins; P = 0.002) were found. A 21% Ins increase was observed (P = 0.02) in MS hippocampus. Reduced NAA and increased Ins concentrations are thought to reflect neuro‐axonal damage or loss and gliosis, respectively. Significant correlations between Ins concentrations and total‐brain T2 lesion load were found for MS thalamus (r = 0.65, P < 0.001) and hippocampus (r = 0.57, P = 0.001). MS thalamic and hippocampal Ins concentrations also correlated with each other (r = 0.68; P < 0.001). Cortical Gln correlated with thalamic NAA (r = −0.38; P = 0.03) in MS. Thalamic and hippocampal Ins increases were most prominent in secondary‐progressive (SP) patients (37% and 34%, respectively), whereas the largest thalamic NAA decrease (14%) was found in primary‐progressive (PP) patients. In conclusion, thalamic and hippocampal GM pathology are important features of (progressive) MS. Magn Reson Med, 2006. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Application of smartphone cameras for detecting clinically active trachoma

The WHO is committed to eliminating trachoma as a public health concern by 2020.1 Since decisions for mass treatment are determined by the prevalence of clinical trachoma in a community, efficient and accurate methods for monitoring clinical activity remain a priority.2 However, reliability of clinical examination is poor and disagreement between graders is common.3 Photography of the conjunctiva could reduce variability and improve accuracy of trachoma surveillance. Currently, research studies use single-lens reflex (SLR) cameras to validate field grading.4 Yet, SLR cameras are expensive and require substantial field training to operate, and thus few trachoma programmes have adopted this technology. A simpler, more affordable camera may increase uptake of this diagnostic technique. In view of growing applications of mobile technology,5 we examined the use of smartphone imaging in trachoma. During a recent programme, Partnership for the Rapid Elimination of Trachoma (PRET study) visit in Niger, we performed …
Image-based depth-of-field rendering with non-local means filtering

We present a new approach to simulate depth-of-field effect with non-local means filtering in an unsupervised fashion which requires no user input at all. Unlike traditional rendering methods which handle the depth-of-field effect in 3D scenes, our novel approach handles the depth-of-field effect in 2D scenes. Our proposed approach mainly consists of two steps: first we extract the depth of field (DoF) region from the background in the form of alpha matte, which based on saliency detection technique and spectral matting. Then we blur the background with non-local means depth filtering, which is heavily used in image de-noising. We demonstrate our approach can precisely and efficiently simulate depth-of-field effect of images without prior knowledge of their content.
Physiological effects of constant versus variable power during endurance cycling.

PURPOSE Previous theoretical research found that varying power slightly to counter external conditions may result in improved performance during cycling time trialing, but it is not known whether such power variations result in added physiological stress. Thus, the purpose of this study was to determine whether variable power (VP) cycling produced greater physiological stress than constant power (CP) cycling of the same mean intensity. METHODS Eight trained male cyclists (age 28 +/- 2 yr, mass 74.4 +/- 2.3 kg, VO2max 4.24 +/- 0.13 L x min(-1), weekly training 277 +/- 44 km) performed three 1-h ergometer trials. The first trial was performed at a self-paced maximal effort. The mean power from that trial was used to determine the power for the CP trial (constant effort at mean power) and the VP trial (alternating +/- 5% of mean power every 5 min). RESULTS No differences were found between the CP and VP trials in mean VO2 (CP 3.33 +/- 0.11 L x min(-1), VP 3.26 +/- 0.12 L x min(-1)), mean heart rate (CP 158 +/- 3 min(-1), VP 159 +/- 3 min(-1)), mean blood lactate concentration (CP 4.2 +/- 0.7 mM, VP 4.3 +/- 0.7 mM), or mean RPE (CP 13.9 +/- 0.4, VP 14.1 +/- 0.4). CONCLUSION Therefore, during a strenuous 1-h effort (78% of VO2max), subjects experienced no additional physiological stress by varying power +/- 5% compared with that during a constant power effort.
Quiescent Innate Response to Infective Filariae by Human Langerhans Cells Suggests a Strategy of Immune Evasion

ABSTRACT Filarial infection is initiated by mosquito-derived third-stage larvae (L3) deposited on the skin that transit through the epidermis, which contains Langerhans cells (LC) and keratinocytes (KC), among other cells. This earliest interaction between L3 and the LC likely conditions the priming of the immune system to the parasite. To determine the nature of this interaction, human LC (langerin+ E-cadherin+ CD1a+) were generated in vitro and exposed to live L3. LC exposed to live L3 for 48 h showed no alterations in the cell surface markers CD14, CD86, CD83, CD207, E-cadherin, CD80, CD40, and HLA-DR or in mRNA expression of inflammation-associated genes, such as those for interleukin 18 (IL-18), IL-18BP, and caspase 1. In contrast to L3, live tachyzoites of Toxoplasma gondii, an intracellular parasite, induced production of CXCL9, IP-10, and IL-6 in LC. Furthermore, preexposure of LC to L3 did not alter Toll-like receptor 3 (TLR3)- or TLR4-mediated expression of the proinflammatory cytokines IL-1β, gamma interferon (IFN-γ), IL-6, or IL-10. Interestingly, cocultures of KC and LC produced significantly more IL-18, IL-1α, and IL-8 than did cultures of LC alone, although exposure of the cocultures to live L3 did not result in altered cytokine production. Microarray examination of ex vivo LC from skin blisters that were exposed to live L3 also showed few significant changes in gene expression compared with unexposed blisters, further underscoring the relatively muted response of LC to L3. Our data suggest that failure by LC to initiate an inflammatory response to the invasive stage of filarial parasites may be a strategy for immune evasion by the filarial parasite.