Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reactive oxygen species in cancer stem cells.

SIGNIFICANCE Reactive oxygen species (ROS), byproducts of aerobic metabolism, are increased in many types of cancer cells. Increased endogenous ROS lead to adaptive changes and may play pivotal roles in tumorigenesis, metastasis, and resistance to radiation and chemotherapy. In contrast, the ROS generated by xenobiotics disturb the redox balance and may selectively kill cancer cells but spare normal cells. RECENT ADVANCES Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are integral parts of pathophysiological mechanisms of tumor progression, metastasis, and chemo/radio resistance. Currently, intracellular ROS in CSCs is an active field of research. CRITICAL ISSUES Normal stem cells such as hematopoietic stem cells reside in niches characterized by hypoxia and low ROS, both of which are critical for maintaining the potential for self-renewal and stemness. However, the roles of ROS in CSCs remain poorly understood. FUTURE DIRECTIONS Based on the regulation of ROS levels in normal stem cells and CSCs, future research may evaluate the potential therapeutic application of ROS elevation by exogenous xenobiotics to eliminate CSCs.
Using shallow linguistic analysis to improve search on Danish compounds

In this paper we focus on a specific search-related query expansion topic, namely search on Danish compounds and expansion to some of their synonymous phrases. Compounds constitute a specific issue in search, in particular in languages where they are written in one word, as is the case for Danish and the other Scandinavian languages. For such languages, expansion of the query compound into separate lemmas is a way of finding the often frequent alternative synonymous phrases in which the content of a compound can also be expressed. However, it is crucial to note that the number of irrelevant hits is generally very high when using this expansion strategy. The aim of this paper is therefore to examine how we can obtain better search results on split compounds, partly by looking at the internal structure of the original compound, partly by analyzing the context in which the split compound occurs. In this context, we pursue two hypotheses: (1) that some categories of compounds are more likely to have synonymous ‘split’ counterparts than others; and (2) that search results where both the search words (obtained by splitting the compound) occur in the same noun phrase, are more likely to contain a synonymous phrase to the original compound query. The search results from 410 enhanced compound queries are used as a test bed for our experiments. On these search results, we perform a shallow linguistic analysis and introduce a new, linguistically based threshold for retrieved hits. The results obtained by using this strategy demonstrate that compound splitting combined with a shallow linguistic analysis focusing on the argument structure of the compound head as well as on the recognition of NPs, can improve search by substantially bringing down the number of irrelevant hits.
Hotspotizer: end-user authoring of mid-air gestural interactions

Drawing from a user-centered design process and guidelines derived from the literature, we developed a paradigm based on space discretization for declaratively authoring mid-air gestures and implemented it in Hotspotizer, an end-to-end toolkit for mapping custom gestures to keyboard commands. Our implementation empowers diverse user populations -- including end-users without domain expertise -- to develop custom gestural interfaces within minutes, for use with arbitrary applications.
$P^{2}$ -SAS: Privacy-Preserving Centralized Dynamic Spectrum Access System

Centralized spectrum management is one of the key dynamic spectrum access (DSA) mechanisms proposed to govern the spectrum sharing between government incumbent users (IUs) and commercial secondary users (SUs). In the current centralized DSA designs, the operation data of both government IUs and commercial SUs need to be shared with a central server. However, the operation data of government IUs are often classified information and the SU operation data may also be commercial secrets. The current system design dissatisfies the privacy requirement of both IUs and SUs, since the central server is not necessarily trustworthy for holding such sensitive operation data. To address the privacy issue, this paper presents a privacy-preserving centralized DSA system (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$P^{2}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-SAS), which realizes the complex spectrum allocation process of DSA through efficient secure multi-party computation. In <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$P^{2}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-SAS, none of the IU or SU operation data would be exposed to any snooping party, including the central server itself. We formally prove the correctness and privacy-preserving property of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$P^{2}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-SAS and evaluate its scalability and practicality using experiments based on real-world data. Experiment results show that <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$P^{2}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-SAS can respond an SU’s spectrum request in 6.96 s with communication overhead of less than 4 MB.
Speak My Language and I Will Remember Your Face Better: An ERP Study

Here we investigated how the language in which a person addresses us, native or foreign, influences subsequent face recognition. In an old/new paradigm, we explored the behavioral and electrophysiological activity associated with face recognition memory. Participants were first presented with faces accompanied by voices speaking either in their native (NL) or foreign language (FL). Faces were then presented in isolation and participants decided whether the face was presented before (old) or not (new). The results revealed that participants were more accurate at remembering faces previously paired with their native as opposed to their FL. At the event-related potential (ERP) level, we obtained evidence that faces in the NL were differently encoded from those in the FL condition, potentially due to differences in processing demands. During recognition, the frontal old/new effect was present (with a difference in latency) regardless of the language with which a face was associated, while the parietal old/new effect appeared only for faces associated with the native language. These results suggest that the language of our social interactions has an impact on the memory processes underlying the recognition of individuals.
Diabetes reduces β-cell mitochondria and induces distinct morphological abnormalities, which are reproducible by high glucose in vitro with attendant dysfunction

We investigated the impact of a diabetic state with hyperglycemia on morphometry of β cell mitochondria and modifying influence of a K+-ATP channel opener and we related in vivo findings with glucose effects in vitro. For in vivo experiments islets from syngeneic rats were transplanted under the kidney capsule to neonatally streptozotocin-diabetic or non-diabetic recipients. Diabetic recipients received vehicle, or tifenazoxide (NN414), intragastrically for 9 weeks. Non-diabetic rats received vehicle. Transplants were excised 7 d after cessation of treatment (wash-out) and prepared for electron microscopy. Morphological parameters were measured from approx. 25,000 mitochondria. Rat islets were cultured in vitro for 2–3 weeks at 27 or 11 (control) mmol/l glucose. Transplants to diabetic rats displayed decreased numbers of mitochondria (-31%, p < 0.05), increased mitochondrial volume and increased mitochondrial outer surface area, p < 0.001. Diabetes increased variability in mitochondrial size with frequent appearance of mega-mitochondria. Tifenazoxide partly normalized diabetes-induced effects, and mega-mitochondria disappeared. Long-term culture of islets at 27 mmol/l glucose reproduced the in vivo morphological abnormalities. High-glucose culture was also associated with reduced ATP and ADP contents, reduced oxygen consumption, reduced signaling by MitoTracker Red and reduction of mitochondrial proteins (complexes I–IV), OPA 1 and glucose-induced insulin release. We conclude that (1) a long-term diabetic state leads to a reduced number of mitochondria and to distinct morphological abnormalities which are replicated by high glucose in vitro; (2) the morphological abnormalities are coupled to dysfunction; (3) K+-ATP channel openers may have potential to partly reverse glucose-induced effects.
Relationship between patient panel characteristics and primary care physician clinical performance rankings.

CONTEXT Physicians have increasingly become the focus of clinical performance measurement. OBJECTIVE To investigate the relationship between patient panel characteristics and relative physician clinical performance rankings within a large academic primary care network. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Cohort study using data from 125,303 adult patients who had visited any of the 9 hospital-affiliated practices or 4 community health centers between January 1, 2003, and December 31, 2005, (162 primary care physicians in 1 physician organization linked by a common electronic medical record system in Eastern Massachusetts) to determine changes in physician quality ranking based on an aggregate of Health Plan Employer and Data Information Set (HEDIS) measures after adjusting for practice site, visit frequency, and patient panel characteristics. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Composite physician clinical performance score based on 9 HEDIS quality measures (reported by percentile, with lower scores indicating higher quality). RESULTS Patients of primary care physicians in the top quality performance tertile compared with patients of primary care physicians in the bottom quality tertile were older (51.1 years [95% confidence interval {CI}, 49.6-52.6 years] vs 46.6 years [95% CI, 43.8-49.5 years], respectively; P < .001), had a higher number of comorbidities (0.91 [95% CI, 0.83-0.98] vs 0.80 [95% CI, 0.66-0.95]; P = .008), and made more frequent primary care practice visits (71.0% [95% CI, 68.5%-73.5%] vs 61.8% [95% CI, 57.3%-66.3%] with >3 visits/year; P = .003). Top tertile primary care physicians compared with the bottom tertile physicians had fewer minority patients (13.7% [95% CI, 10.6%-16.7%] vs 25.6% [95% CI, 20.2%-31.1%], respectively; P < .001), non-English-speaking patients (3.2% [95% CI, 0.7%-5.6%] vs 10.2% [95% CI, 5.5%-14.9%]; P <.001), and patients with Medicaid coverage or without insurance (9.6% [95% CI, 7.5%-11.7%] vs 17.2% [95% CI, 13.5%-21.0%]; P <.001). After accounting for practice site and visit frequency differences, adjusting for patient panel factors resulted in a relative mean change in physician rankings of 7.6 percentiles (95% CI, 6.6-8.7 percentiles) per primary care physician, with more than one-third (36%) of primary care physicians (59/162) reclassified into different quality tertiles. CONCLUSION Among primary care physicians practicing within the same large academic primary care system, patient panels with greater proportions of underinsured, minority, and non-English-speaking patients were associated with lower quality rankings for primary care physicians.
Stimulation of complement component C3 synthesis in macrophagelike cell lines by group B streptococci

Complement levels and complement activation are key determinants in streptococcus-induced inflammatory responses. Activation of macrophage functions, such as complement synthesis, by group B streptococci (GBS) was examined as a possible component of GBS-induced chronic inflammation. Using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, secreted C3 from mouse macrophagelike cell lines (PU5-1.8 and J774A.1) was monitored after cultivation with GBS. Whole, heat-killed GBS (1 to 10 CFU per macrophage) of both type Ia and III strains induced 25 to 300% increases in secreted C3 in both cell lines after a 24-h cultivation. GBS-treated cell lines exhibited increases in secreted lysozyme (10%) and in cellular protein (25 to 50%). Inhibition of macrophage phagocytosis by cytochalasin B inhibited GBS stimulation of C3. Purified cell walls of GBS type III strain 603-79 (1 to 10 micrograms/ml) also enhanced C3 synthesis. Local enhancement of macrophage C3 production by ingested streptococci or by persistent cell wall antigens may serve to promote chronic inflammatory responses.
Frequency Domain Decomposition of 3-D Eddy Current Problems in Steel Laminations of Induction Machines

A novel method to reduce the computational burden of 3-D eddy current problems in steel laminations of induction machines is presented. Instead of a nonlinear time-stepping analysis, a set of linear time-harmonic simulations for known frequencies is used. The linear model considers the machines' saturation by a reluctivity obtained from a nonlinear 2-D field solution. Solving the time-harmonic problems in parallel results in a fast method. Comparisons with a time-stepping approach confirm the validity of the proposed method. Different eddy current formulations are investigated to accelerate the solution of the time-harmonic problems.
Is green fluorescent protein toxic to the living cells?

Green fluorescent protein (GFP) has become more popular to be used as a living marker for positively transfected clones in many studies. To establish stable cell lines constitutively expressing GFP, three GFPs expressed from plasmid pBIEGFP, pSG5GFP, and pRSGFP were introduced into NIH/3T3, BHK-21, Huh-7, and HepG2 cells. All the GFPs we used are the mutant forms of a common wild phenotype. The pBIEGFP expressed enhanced GFP (EGFP). The pRSGFP and pSG5GFP expressed red shift GFP (RSGFP). The RSGFP gene in pSG5GFP was driven by a strong SV40 promoter and showed at least 20-fold higher RSGFP expression by western blot analysis. Despite of the variation in the levels of GFP expression, many GFP expressing cells contracted, rounded-up, and died, which was confirmed by decreasing luciferase activity. CPP32 activity and flow cytometric analyses further demonstrate that cells expressing GFP underwent apoptosis. Our observation is contradictory to other reports that GFP is nontoxic to the cells. Most importantly, this paper shows for the first time the link between expression of GFP and induction of apoptosis. This finding should promote studies of GFP cytotoxicity and attempts to isolate new non-toxic mutants of GFP.
Measuring Taxonomic Similarity between Words Using Restrictive Context Matrices

Measuring taxonomic similarity between words plays an important role in many semantic-based applications but still remains a challenging task today. We propose a new method which utilizes restrictive context matrices for this problem. We learn a set of special lexico-syntactic patterns automatically and use them to extract taxonomic related contexts of words from raw text. These restrictive contexts are then transformed into real matrices and similarities between them are calculated to reflect the taxonomic similarities between words. The main contribution of our work is that taxonomic related context of words can be mined, evaluated, and used to measure taxonomic similarities between words. Experimental results on Miller-Charles benchmark dataset achieve a correlation coefficient of 0.856.
Identifying Insomnia in Early Pregnancy: Validation of the Insomnia Symptoms Questionnaire (ISQ) in Pregnant Women.

STUDY OBJECTIVES Although a substantial number of pregnant women report symptoms of insomnia, few studies have used a validated instrument to determine the prevalence in early gestation. Identification of insomnia in pregnancy is vital given the strong connection between insomnia and the incidence of depression, cardiovascular disease, or immune dysregulation. The goal of this paper is to provide additional psychometric evaluation and validation of the Insomnia Symptom Questionnaire (ISQ) and to establish prevalence rates of insomnia among a cohort of pregnant women during early gestation. METHODS The ISQ was evaluated in 143 pregnant women at 12 weeks gestation. The internal consistency and criterion validity of the dichotomized ISQ were compared to traditional measures of sleep from sleep diaries, actigraphy, and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index using indices of sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive value (PPV, NPV), and likelihood ratio (LR) tests. RESULTS The ISQ identified 12.6% of the sample as meeting a case definition of insomnia, consistent with established diagnostic criteria. Good reliability was established with Cronbach α = 0.86. The ISQ had high specificity (most > 85%), but sensitivity, PPV, NPV, and LRs varied according to which sleep measure was used as the validating criterion. CONCLUSIONS Insomnia is a health problem for many pregnant women at all stages in pregnancy. These data support the validity and reliability of the ISQ to identify insomnia in pregnant women. The ISQ is a short and cost-effective tool that can be quickly employed in large observational studies or in clinical practice where perinatal women are seen. COMMENTARY A commentary on this article appears in this issue on page 593.
L'interaction sociale au musée, facteur d'attraction des visiteurs occasionnels

Este articulo, haciendo referencia a los numerosos estudios efectuados por el autor en los Estados Unidos, examina en que los estilos de vida explican la manera en la que los individuos se invierten en los lugares y las actividades de ocio. Uno de los principales resultados es que el visitante asiduo se distingue del visitante ocasional por una serie de factores como su clase social, el hecho de participar en la vida asociativa local y de comprometerse en numerosas actividades culturales. Esto parece normal, pero sin embargo tiene una incidencia en las caracteristicas « psicograficas » del visitante, relativas a su actitud, su interes, su pertenencia a un grupo y su comportamiento en tanto que consumidor. Este estudio describe estas diferencias y conduce a una dis- cusion de las eventuales consecuencias de estas ultimas en los programas y los servicios propuestos por el museo.
Near-optimal Adaptive Scheduling of Scalable Videos over Wireless Channels

We propose two scheduling algorithms that seek to optimize the perceptual quality of scalably coded videos transmitted over slow fading wireless channels. The first scheduling algorithm is derived from a Markov Decision Process (MDP) formulation developed here. We model the dynamics of the channel as a Markov chain and reduce the problem of dynamic video scheduling to a tractable Markov decision problem over a finite state space. Based on the MDP formulation, a near-optimal scheduling policy is computed that maximizes an objective proxy of video quality, the time-average {\em Multi-Scale Structural SIMilarity} (MS-SSIM) index. Using sights token from the development of the optimal MDP-based scheduling policy, the second proposed scheduling algorithm is an online scheduling method that only requires only easily measurable knowledge of the channel dynamics, and is thus viable in practice. Simulation results show that the performance of both scheduling algorithms is close to a performance upper bound also derived in this paper.
A start-up boosting circuit with 133× speed gain for 2-transistor voltage reference

This work presents a start-up boosting circuit designed for fast stabilization of a 2-transistor voltage reference. A clock injection method is used to induce a large bias on the 2-transistor voltage reference resulting in a fast output voltage settling which is critical to reducing initialization time for analog components, reducing energy consumption. The fast stabilization technique is implemented in 180nm CMOS process and uses 0.404mm2 of area. Measurement from test chips shows 50. 4μW power consumption during start-up phase with 133× speed gain.
Childhood asthma: can computers aid detection in general practice?

BACKGROUND Childhood asthma remains underdiagnosed in general practice. Computers with a patient interface have the potential to screen children for asthma in a time-efficient manner. AIM To develop a concise, validated self-report measure that calculates an 'asthma score' that predicts likelihood of asthma and its severity in childhood. DESIGN OF STUDY Computerised questionnaire survey in general practitioners' (GPs') waiting rooms, followed by a written questionnaire and either bronchial challenge or skin allergy testing at the regional teaching hospital. SETTING Children between 18 months and 18 years old accompanied by a parent or guardian in five group practices in Newcastle in New South Wales, Australia. METHOD The responses from both the computerised questionnaire and the written questionnaire were compared with physician assessment of asthma, based on an existing validated questionnaire and clinical tests. RESULTS Six items were identified to be independently and significantly associated (at P < 0.05) with the presence of asthma and its severity: parent or self-reported asthma, previous diagnosis, wheeze in the past year, physical activity affected by symptoms, night cough in the past year, and visits to a GP in the past year. From the regression model a linear score was derived that indicates whether a child is likely to have asthma and its likely severity. CONCLUSIONS The asthma score is a valid indicator of asthma and its severity in children in general practice.
ANALYZING CONTACT LENS INDUCED CHANGES OF THE CORNEAL CURVATURE*

ABSTRACT Contact lens wear generally induces changes of corneal curvature as measured with the keratometer. Previous studies have considered only one dimension of the curvature change or the fit of the lens. This paper introduces a graphical system in which a co‐ordinate system is used to express two dimensions of the lens to cornea fitting relationship. A vector from the initial mode of fit point gives a two dimensional expression of curvature change. There are suggestions on statistical analyses of data plotted on this graphical system.
Computer-aided diagnosis system of systems for neonatal and infantile brain using MR images

Computer aided diagnosis (CAD) system is an effective system of systems engineering (SoSE) in the medical field. The CAD system using medical images is constructed by integrating medical image acquisition system, medical image processing system, and clinical data analysis system, and it presents both of quantitative and qualitative data for physicians. This article proposes a CAD system for diagnosing neonatal and infantile brain disorders. The CAD system acquires intracranial images using MR scanner system, and segments the cerebral volume and surface using medical image processing systems, and produces cerebral volume and area, and 3-D rendering of cerebral surface. Especially, this article proposes medical image processing systems based on expert knowledge systems for neonatal/infantile brain MR images. To validate the proposed CAD system, it has been applied to three neonatal and five infantile MR images.