Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Further complexities of the Rh antigen D disclosed by testing category DII cells with monoclonal anti‐D

Summary: The reaction pattern of monoclonal anti‐D with category DII cells differed from those of other category D cells. DII cells express epDl, epD2, epD3, epD5, epD6/7 and epD8 but lack epD4 and a new epitope epD9. The new epitope, epD9, is proposed to explain the failure of some monoclonal anti‐D (previously considered to be anti‐epD3) to react with DII cells.
Optimization and direct comparison of the dimerizer and reverse tet transcriptional control systems

Exogenously controlled gene expression systems are essential for both the in vivo analysis of gene function and the regulated delivery of therapeutic gene products. However, differences in experimental methods used to characterize the various systems prohibit informative comparisons. The purpose of this study was to identify an optimal system for regulated gene expression studies through a rigorous direct comparison of the dimerizer and the reverse tet transactivator (rtTA) transcriptional switch systems.
The Role of EDD (Exercise Capacity, Dyspnea, and Diffusing Capacity of Lungs for Carbon Monoxide) Index in Pulmonary Fibrosis Secondary to Scleroderma

Introduction: Pulmonary involvement secondary to Systemic Sclerosis (SSc) is the major cause of morbidity and mortality in SSc patients. We designed this study to determine the correlation of important lung function parameters with lung High Resolution CT (HRCT) scan findings. Materials and Methods: Thirty–two consecutive diffuse SSc patients with pulmonary fibrosis were enrolled in this cross-sectional study. Patients with pulmonary fibrosis secondary to other causes, previous restrictive lung disease, and history of smoking were excluded. Complete lung function evaluation was performed. The EDD (Exercise capacity, Dyspnea, and Diffusing capacity of lungs for carbon monoxide) index was determined. The Warrick score was calculated based on lung HRCT findings. Results: The mean age of the patients was 39.18 years ±9.39 (SD). Seventeen (53%) patients were in EDD stage 1 (score: 0≤score≤3), 9 patients (28%) in stage 2 (3<score ≤6), and 6 patients (19%) in stage 3(6<score≤9). The mean Warrick score was 10.84±6.94 (SD). There was statistically significant correlation between EDD index and Warrick score (r=0.72, P=0.001). Also there was statistically significant strong correlation between EDD stages and Warrick scores (r=0.8, P=0.002). Conclusion: The results of this study revealed that EDD may be a valuable representative marker of lung involvement in SSc and in the future, it can be a suitable and safe alternate modality comparing lung HRCT in our clinical practice and close follow-up.
Transcriptional Regulation and Signal-Peptide-Dependent Secretion of Exolevanase (LsdB) in the Endophyte Gluconacetobacter diazotrophicus

ABSTRACT Gluconacetobacter diazotrophicus utilizes plant sucrose with a constitutively expressed levansucrase (LsdA), producing extracellular levan, which may be degraded under energetically unfavored conditions. Reverse transcriptase-PCR analysis revealed that lsdA and the downstream exolevanase gene (lsdB) form an operon. lsdB transcription was induced during growth with low fructose concentrations (0.44 to 33 mM) and repressed by glucose. Transport of LsdB to the periplasm involved N-terminal signal peptide cleavage. Type II secretion mutants failed to transfer LsdB across the outer membrane, impeding levan hydrolysis.
Emotional End-to-End Neural Speech Synthesizer

In this paper, we introduce an emotional speech synthesizer based on the recent end-to-end neural model, named Tacotron. Despite its benefits, we found that the original Tacotron suffers from the exposure bias problem and irregularity of the attention alignment. Later, we address the problem by utilization of context vector and residual connection at recurrent neural networks (RNNs). Our experiments showed that the model could successfully train and generate speech for given emotion labels.
Investigation of the Activity of 8- Methylquinolones Against Mycobacterium Tuberculosis Using Theoretical Molecular Descriptors: A Case Study

A quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) study on a set of 36 structurally-similar 8-methylquinolones was performed using a large pool of theoretical molecular descriptors. The molecular structures of the compounds were pre-optimized using molecular mechanics (MM2). Full optimization was done with the density functional theory (DFT) using Becke’s three-parameter hybrid functional with LYP correlation functional in combination with the standard pople’s basis set 6311G*. HOMO and LUMO energies, dipole moment, total energy and many other properties served as quantum-chemical descriptors. The GA-MLRA technique was used to select the most significant descriptors and to generate a linear model for predicting the biological activity, Minimal Inhibitory Concentration (MIC), treated as negative decade logarithm, (pMIC). The best model was obtained with R2=0.90323 . The model was tested internally using the leave-one-out (LOO) cross validation procedure on the training set and validated against the external validation set (Q2 LOO = 0.83115 and R2 Pred = 0.78708 ). The Y-scrambling/randomization validation also confirmed the statistical significance of the model. Leverage approach was used to define the applicability domain of the model. This validated model could be used to design new potential drug candidates, within the 8-methylquinolone family, with high activity against tuberculosis.
Populating knowledge bases with temporal information

Recent progress in information extraction has enabled the automatic construction of large knowledge bases. Knowledge bases contain millions of entities (e.g. persons, organizations, events, etc.), their semantic classes, and facts about them. Knowledge bases have become a great asset for semantic search, entity linking, deep analytics, and question answering. However, a common limitation of current knowledge bases is the poor coverage of temporal knowledge. First of all, so far, knowledge bases have focused on popular events and ignored long tail events such as political scandals, local festivals, or protests. Secondly, they do not cover the textual phrases denoting events and temporal facts at all. The goal of this dissertation, thus, is to automatically populate knowledge bases with this kind of temporal knowledge. The dissertation makes the following contributions to address the afore mentioned limitations. The first contribution is a method for extracting events from news articles. The method reconciles the extracted events into canonicalized representations and organizes them into fine-grained semantic classes. The second contribution is a method for mining the textual phrases denoting the events and facts. The method infers the temporal scopes of these phrases and maps them to a knowledge base. Our experimental evaluations demonstrate that our methods yield high quality output compared to state-ofthe-art approaches, and can indeed populate knowledge bases with temporal knowledge.
The functional anatomy of motor imagery after sub-acute stroke.

BACKGROUND The neural correlates of motor imagery (MI) are tightly coupled with the cortical motor control network. Therefore MI may have therapeutic potential for patients with motor deficits after an ischemic stroke. OBJECTIVE The aim of our study was to assess the hemispheric balance of the cortical motor network during motor imagery (MI) in patients recovering from stroke in the sub-acute stage. METHODS We studied 17 patients after cerebral ischemic stroke (sub-acute stage) and 12 healthy subjects using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) during motor imagery and performance of isometric grip force movements (5 Newton). Laterality indices (LI) were calculated from regional activation analysis to assess hemispheric distribution of activity in pre-specified motor areas. RESULTS Laterality index (LI) revealed a more balanced cortical activity in MI for both controls (-0.03) and patients (-0.12) in the premotor cortex compared to movement execution (0.48 controls; 0.12 patients) and a trend towards a shift in contra-lesional activity in stroke patients. CONCLUSIONS Our results indicate a preserved interhemispheric balance of patients in the sub-acute stage when activating the cortical motor areas during MI. This could provide a reasonable physiologic baseline for using MI as an additional rehabilitative therapy for improving functional recovery in the sub-acute stage after stroke.
Broadband PIFA with capacitive feed

Capacitive feed PIFA offers satisfactory performance of desired radiation pattern (omnidirectional) as well as better impedance matching at the port over wide bandwidth. The simulation results of the designed antenna agree with measured input return loss. Measurements also indicate that the bandwidths of the proposed PIFA with a capacitive feed are larger than other published papers using same technique.
Value of investment in a microgrid under uncertainty in the fuel price

This paper discusses investment strategies in a microgrid system consisting of cogeneration system and renewable power generation under uncertainty in the natural gas price. Although incentives for introducing distributed energy system increase these days, volatile natural gas prices make its investment in gas fuel distributed generation systems risky. Therefore, it is important to evaluate the risk under uncertainty and find flexible strategies which reduce the exposure to fuel price volatility. We take the real options approach to analyze investment decision. By varying the parameter of price volatility, we find that the optimal investment strategy depends on the level of uncertainty. As volatility increases, strategies with installation option of renewable power generation, here, photovoltaic generation, become attractive in terms of risk reduction.
Shortwave and longwave radiative contributions to global warming under increasing CO2

Significance The greenhouse effect is well-established. Increased concentrations of greenhouse gases, such as CO2, reduce the amount of outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) to space; thus, energy accumulates in the climate system, and the planet warms. However, climate models forced with CO2 reveal that global energy accumulation is, instead, primarily caused by an increase in absorbed solar radiation (ASR). This study resolves this apparent paradox. The solution is in the climate feedbacks that increase ASR with warming—the moistening of the atmosphere and the reduction of snow and sea ice cover. Observations and model simulations suggest that even though global warming is set into motion by greenhouse gases that reduce OLR, it is ultimately sustained by the climate feedbacks that enhance ASR. In response to increasing concentrations of atmospheric CO2, high-end general circulation models (GCMs) simulate an accumulation of energy at the top of the atmosphere not through a reduction in outgoing longwave radiation (OLR)—as one might expect from greenhouse gas forcing—but through an enhancement of net absorbed solar radiation (ASR). A simple linear radiative feedback framework is used to explain this counterintuitive behavior. It is found that the timescale over which OLR returns to its initial value after a CO2 perturbation depends sensitively on the magnitude of shortwave (SW) feedbacks. If SW feedbacks are sufficiently positive, OLR recovers within merely several decades, and any subsequent global energy accumulation is because of enhanced ASR only. In the GCM mean, this OLR recovery timescale is only 20 y because of robust SW water vapor and surface albedo feedbacks. However, a large spread in the net SW feedback across models (because of clouds) produces a range of OLR responses; in those few models with a weak SW feedback, OLR takes centuries to recover, and energy accumulation is dominated by reduced OLR. Observational constraints of radiative feedbacks—from satellite radiation and surface temperature data—suggest an OLR recovery timescale of decades or less, consistent with the majority of GCMs. Altogether, these results suggest that, although greenhouse gas forcing predominantly acts to reduce OLR, the resulting global warming is likely caused by enhanced ASR.
The role of RANK and RANKL in hormone-driven breast cancer

Weltweit ist Brustkrebs eine der haufigsten Krebsarten und zahlt unter Frauen zu einer der fuhrenden Todesursachen (Ferlay et al., 2007; Jemal et al., 2009). Viele Faktoren sind bekannt, die zur Entstehung und zur Progression von Brustkrebs beitragen. Auch Geschlechtshormone, wie Ostrogene und Progesteron spielen eine kritische Rolle in manchen Brustkrebsarten. Kurzlichen Berichten zufolge ist die Wahrscheinlichkeit fur Frauen, die sich einer Hormonersatztherapie unterziehen, grosser an Brustkrebs zu erkranken. Im speziellen werden syntethische Progesterone-Derivate (Progestine) wie Medroxyprogesteron Acetat (MPA) welches Millionen Frauen in Form von Hormonersatztherapeutika und hormonelle Kontrazeptiva zu sich nehmen, mit diesem erhohten Brustkrebsrisiko in Verbindung gebracht. Trotzdem sind die genauen molekularen Mechanismen, welche Rolle Progestine in Brustkrebs spielen, noch wenig verstanden. Rezeptor Aktivator von NFkappaB (RANK) und sein Ligand RANKL sind essentielle Regulatoren fur die Differenzierung und Funktion von Osteoklasten. Unfraglich hat die Entdeckung dieser Molekule erheblich dazu beigetragen die molekularen Mechanismen im Knochenstoffwechsel und von Knochenerkrankungen besser zu verstehen. Auserdem sind RANK und RANKL auch wesentliche Faktoren fur die der Entwicklung der Brustdrusen wahrend der Schwangerschaft. Uber hormonelle Regulation und die Aktivierung von Id2 (Kim et al., 2006), NFkappaB und CyclinD1 (Cao et al., 2001) induzieren RANK und RANKL die Proliferation und Differenzierung von terminalen Endknospen zu lobuloalveolaren Strukturen. Interessanterweise berichten wir hier, dass die in vivo Verabreichung von Medroxyprogesteron Acetat zu einer Hochregulierung der RANKL-Expression in weiblichen Mausen fuhrt. Auserdem zeigen wir, dass die gewebsspezifische Inaktivierung von RANK in Brustepithelzellen nach Progesteron/DMBA Adminsitration zu einer signifikant spateren Entstehung von Brusttumoren fuhrt. Auf molekularer Ebene scheint es, als ob die Inaktivierung von RANK in einer Beeintrachtigung von Id2 und NFkappaB und somit in einem Proliferationsblock resultiert. Weiters konnten wir beobachten dass die MPA-induzierte Expression von RANKL Brustepithelialzellen vor dem programmierten Zelltod induziert durch gamma-Bestrahlung schutzt. Dies stellt eine Prarequisite fur die Entstehung von Krebs dar. Zusammenfassend zeigen wir hier zum ersten Mal, dass RANK und RANKL, bekannt als Schlusselmolekule im Knochenmetabolismus auch die Entstehung von hormonabhanigigen primarem Brustkrebs kontrollieren.
Connexin 32 potentiates vinblastine‐induced cytotoxicity in renal cell carcinoma cells

We have reported that connexin (Cx) 32 gene, a member of gap junction protein family, acts as a tumor suppressor gene in human renal cell carcinoma (RCC). Of solid tumors, RCC is one of the most chemoresistant cancers, and there is no effective cancer chemotherapy against RCC at present. In this study, we examined if the combination of Cx32‐dependent tumor‐suppressive effect and vinblastine (VBL), a chemotherapeutic agent which has been utilized for clinical RCC treatment, could be effective in enhancing the sensitivity of RCC to VBL treatment. Cx32 expression in a human metastatic RCC cell (Caki‐1 cell) significantly enhanced in vitro and in vivo VBL‐induced cytotoxicity on the cell. Cx32 expression in the RCC cells potentiated VBL‐induced apoptosis compared to the Cx32‐negative RCC cells in vitro as well as in vivo. The enhancing apoptosis in the RCC cells by Cx32 mainly depended on the decrease of P‐glycoprotein (P‐gp), a multidrug resistance gene‐1 (MDR‐1) product responsible for reduction of VBL accumulation into the cells. We also observed that silencing of Cx32 by short interfering RNA (siRNA) treatment elevated the level of P‐gp in Caki‐1 cells and that inhibition of P‐gp function enhanced VBL‐induced apoptosis in the RCC cells. These results suggest that Cx32 is effective to enhance VBL‐induced cytotoxicity in Caki‐1 cells via the reduction of P‐gp. Overall, it seems that the combination of Cx32‐dependent tumor‐suppressive effect and VBL is promising as a new cancer therapy against RCC. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Spatiotemporal expression analysis of the growth factor receptor SorCS3

SorCS3 is a member of the Vps10p‐D receptor family. These type I transmembrane proteins are regarded as sorting receptors, and some family members modulate signal transduction pathways by acting as co‐receptors. SorCS3 binds the nerve growth factor (NGF) and platelet‐derived growth factor (PDGF‐BB), but the functional implications of these interactions are poorly understood. Here we demonstrate that SorCS3 is almost exclusively expressed in the nervous system and is localized to vesicular structures. By using in situ hybridization, we analyze SorCS3 dynamic expression during embryonic and postnatal development and compare the expression pattern with those of the homologous genes SorCS1 and SorCS2. SorCS3 transcripts are widely distributed in the nervous system but are absent from the embryonic cerebral cortex. SorCS3 expression marks thalamic nuclei at embryonic and early postnatal stages. However, during postnatal development and in the adult, a switch in the localization of SorCS3 transcripts was observed. At these stages forebrain structures, such as the hippocampus and the cerebral cortex, show most prominent expression. The developmental expression pattern of SorCS3 is in accordance with the proposed function as a receptor for growth factors or morphogenic signals. On the cellular level, we demonstrate that the SorCS3 cytoplasmic domain targets receptors to the Golgi apparatus, vesicular structures, and the cell surface. In neurons, receptors are localized to vesicles in the soma and dendrites. Moreover, we show that the SorCS3 cytoplasmic domain conveys internalization through canonical endocytic motifs in an adaptor protein 2 (AP‐2)‐dependent way. This is in agreement with a proposed function as a neuronal sorting receptor. J. Comp. Neurol. 522:3386–3402, 2014. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Separating inference from feature learning in deep unsupervised visual saliency estimation

Robotic agents, when not equipped with traditional means to capture information about their surroundings, must autonomously learn to extract this information from a very complex environment. In the context of developmental robotics, we use unsupervised representation learning, and more specifically deep autoencoders, in order to capture visual representations. These generic visual representations can in turn be used by different modules of a cognitive architecture. In this paper, we propose a model using these representations to learn an intrinsic measure of bottom-up visual saliency which could later be implemented into a mobile robot.
Design a Novel Memory Network for Processor-in-Memory Architectures

The growing requirement of data-intensive computing makes the problem of insufficient memory bandwidth more critical. The advantages of multicore architectures and advanced parallel computers are limited. The new kind of architecture, Processor-in-Memory (PIM), is developed to solve the above challenge by integrating the computing logics and tiny processors into the DRAM chip. The data processing capability of the memory subsystem can be improved. However, the bandwidth of the conventional interconnection networks can not satisfy the bandwidth consumption of multiple PIM modules. Therefore, a new memory network, MemGrid, is proposed for connecting multiple PIM memory modules and CPUs. The proposed MemGrid network has the capabilities of high scalability and low diameter. The connection topologies of MemGrid network with the corresponding network switch architecture are discussed. The experimental results show that the MemGrid network can achieve better performance than other interconnection networks in variant accessing patterns and configurations.
Adaptive Bootstrapping for Crowdsourced Indoor Maps

Indoor mapping is an important and necessary enabler for many applications. However, indoor places and their services are very diverse. Furthermore, many technical approaches for indoor mapping exist. While there is fruitful research on combining some of these techniques, we show the need for flexible, customized bootstrapping for indoor maps. This includes mapping techniques but also intermediate services which enable data collection for improving maps and offering enhanced services. We illustrate examples of customizations of the process in a visual way and argue that the bootstrapping process needs to be adapted to specific buildings and end-user needs. This process-based view to indoor mapping leads to several research questions regarding the composition and intermediate steps in such process.
Automatic detection of measurement points for non-contact vibrometer-based diagnosis of cardiac arrhythmias

Monitoring of the heart rhythm is the cornerstone of the diagnosis of cardiac arrhythmias. It is done by means of electrocardiography which relies on electrodes attached to the skin of the patient. We present a new system approach based on the so-called vibrocardiogram that allows an automatic non-contact registration of the heart rhythm. Because of the contactless principle, the technique offers potential application advantages in medical fields like emergency medicine (burn patient) or premature baby care where adhesive electrodes are not easily applicable. A laser-based, mobile, contactless vibrometer for on-site diagnostics that works with the principle of laser Doppler vibrometry allows the acquisition of vital functions in form of a vibrocardiogram. Preliminary clinical studies at the Klinikum Karlsruhe have shown that the region around the carotid artery and the chest region are appropriate therefore. However, the challenge is to find a suitable measurement point in these parts of the body that differs from person to person due to e. g. physiological properties of the skin. Therefore, we propose a new Microsoft Kinect-based approach. When a suitable measurement area on the appropriate parts of the body are detected by processing the Kinect data, the vibrometer is automatically aligned on an initial location within this area. Then, vibrocardiograms on different locations within this area are successively acquired until a sufficient measuring quality is achieved. This optimal location is found by exploiting the autocorrelation function.