Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Integration of Stress Responses: Modulation of Calcineurin Signaling in Saccharomyces cerevisiae by Protein Kinase A

ABSTRACT Calcineurin is a Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent protein phosphatase required for Saccharomyces cerevisiae to adapt to a variety of environmental stresses. Once activated, calcineurin dephosphorylates the Zn-finger transcription factor Crz1p/Tcn1p, causing it to accumulate in the nucleus where it activates gene expression. Here we show that cyclic AMP-dependent protein kinase A (PKA) phosphorylates and negatively regulates Crz1p activity by inhibiting its nuclear import. Activation of PKA in vivo decreases Crz1p-dependent transcription. PKA phosphorylates Crz1p in vitro, and we identify specific residues required for this phosphorylation, all of which reside in or adjacent to the nuclear localization signal. Mutation of these residues to alanine results in increased nuclear import of Crz1p and results in higher levels of both basal and Ca2+-induced Crz1p transcriptional activity. PKA regulates the general stress response in yeast and coordinates this response with nutrient availability. In contrast, calcineurin regulates the cellular response to a restricted set of environmental insults. Thus, these studies identify a specific biochemical mechanism through which the activities of multiple stress-activated signaling pathways are integrated in vivo.
Relationship between ICT Maturity and Global Competitiveness : A Two-Wheel Causality Model

In an era marked by globalization, intense competition and huge advents in information and communication technologies (ICT), many organizations have adopted and deployed ICT applications that would provide them with sustainable global competitive advantages. Most evidence of such ICT impact is at the firm level; the global impact of ICT at the country level has not been studied and incorporated within an integrated theoretical framework. More specifically, questions like: What are the ICT drivers that would help in the attainment of sustainable global competitiveness at the country level, and do different ICT resources lead to different competitiveness levels, or are differences accounted for by other factors – need to be addressed. This paper is an attempt to answer these questions through the development of a model to depict the strategic impact of a country‟s ICT resources on global competitiveness. The two-wheel model is symbolization for a dynamic model where one wheel (a country‟s ICT maturity) pushes the other (Global Competitiveness). The model is based on literature review and study of models provided by previous researchers regarding the impact of ICT on the performance of international firms. The application of the model includes: (a) identification of the strategic ICT factors that would help counties attain better ranks in the global competitiveness spectrum; (b) examining the causality relationship between ICT maturity and global competitiveness; and (c) derivation of global competitiveness rankings for countries based on their ICT maturity levels. This contribution is believed to be useful to practitioners, academicians, and researchers interested in the ICT-Global Competitiveness research stream.
Pharmacokinetics of Gefitinib Predicts Antitumor Activity for Advanced Non-small Cell Lung Cancer

Introduction: We assessed the relationship between the plasma concentration of gefitinib and its efficacy in Japanese patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Methods: Plasma trough levels of gefitinib were measured on days 3 (D3) and 8 (D8) by high-performance liquid chromatography in 44 patients with advanced NSCLC treated with 250 mg gefitinib daily. Eligibility criteria included performance status ≤3, age ≤ 80 years, and stages IIIB–IV cancer. Epidermal growth factor receptor mutations in 23 patients were analyzed retrospectively. Results: The median plasma gefitinib values were 662 ng/ml on D3 and 1064 ng/ml on D8, and the D8/D3 ratio was 1.587. The median progression-free survival (PFS) was 71 days, and the median overall survival was 224 days. Adenocarcinoma, never smoking, and high D8/D3 ratio were associated with better PFS. Multivariate analysis showed that PFS was associated with never smoking and high D8/D3 ratio. Never-smokers with a high D8/D3 ratio showed the best PFS. Overall survival was not associated with the D8/D3 ratio. Epidermal growth factor receptor mutation analysis of 23 patients showed that 15 patients had exon 19 deletion and/or exon 21 point mutation. Median PFS was similar between mutation-positive and mutation-negative individuals in the high D8/D3 group, whereas mutation-negative individuals in the low D8/D3 group showed the worst median PFS. Conclusions: A high D8/D3 ratio was independently associated with better PFS in patients with NSCLC treated with gefitinib. Our findings suggest that the pharmacokinetics of gefitinib may be involved in its antitumor activity.
XRCC1, but not APE1 and hOGG1 gene polymorphisms is a risk factor for pterygium

Purpose Epidemiological evidence suggests that UV irradiation plays an important role in pterygium pathogenesis. UV irradiation can produce a wide range of DNA damage. The base excision repair (BER) pathway is considered the most important pathway involved in the repair of radiation-induced DNA damage. Based on previous studies, single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 8-oxoguanine glycosylase-1 (OGG1), X-ray repair cross-complementing-1 (XRCC1), and AP-endonuclease-1 (APE1) genes in the BER pathway have been found to affect the individual sensitivity to radiation exposure and induction of DNA damage. Therefore, we hypothesize that the genetic polymorphisms of these repair genes increase the risk of pterygium. Methods XRCC1, APE1, and hOGG1 polymorphisms were studied using fluorescence-labeled Taq Man probes on 83 pterygial specimens and 206 normal controls. Results There was a significant difference between the case and control groups in the XRCC1 genotype (p=0.038) but not in hOGG1 (p=0.383) and APE1 (p=0.898). The odds ratio of the XRCC1 A/G polymorphism was 2.592 (95% CI=1.225–5.484, p=0.013) and the G/G polymorphism was 1.212 (95% CI=0.914–1.607), compared to the A/A wild-type genotype. Moreover, individuals who carried at least one C-allele (A/G and G/G) had a 1.710 fold increased risk of developing pterygium compared to those who carried the A/A wild type genotype (OR=1.710; 95% CI: 1.015–2.882, p=0.044). The hOGG1 and APE1 polymorphisms did not have an increased odds ratio compared with the wild type. Conclusions XRCC1 (Arg399 Glu) is correlated with pterygium and might become a potential marker for the prediction of pterygium susceptibility.
Mesh generation and refinement of polygonal data sets

This paper presents work in progress and continues a project devoted to developing shape modeling system based on implementation of radial based function (RBF) technology. In this paper, we study the opportunities offered by this technology to computer-aided design and computer graphics communities by looking at the problems of surface generation and enhancement. Experimental results are included to demonstrate the functionality of our mesh-modeling tool.
Estimation of fan bearing degradation using acoustic emission analysis and mahalanobis distance

In order to estimate health conditions of fan bearings and predict their remaining life before failure, relevant features associated with their degradation must be identified. There are few published papers that deal with the selection of relevant features from acoustic emission signals for health condition estimation and life prediction of bearings in cooling fans. For this study, acoustic emission signals were measured periodically during stress tests of cooling fans, from which a total of fifteen different acoustic emission features were extracted. Correlation coefficients between the acoustic emission features and stress duration were calculated in order to identify features which were associated with bearing degradation. The distinguishing characteristics of acoustic emission features were also described. By using a health index based on a Mahalanobis distance integrating the acoustic emission features selected from the correlation analysis, the health conditions of fan bearings were estimated over the duration of the stress test. Failure analysis of asreceived and failed fan bearings was conducted to identify physical defects on surfaces of bearing elements and relate the evolution of the physical defects to the generation of acoustic emission. The approach presented in this paper helps to identify acoustic emission features associated with the evolution of the physical condition of fan bearings.
A spectral domain feature extraction algorithm for face recognition

In this paper, a frequency domain face recognition algorithm is proposed, which exploits the variation in local spectral features. Instead of performing the face recognition task by extracting features from the entire face image, an entropy-based band selection criterion is developed, which selects high-informative horizontal bands. Moreover, a local feature selection algorithm is introduced to capture the variation of the spectral features within these high-informative horizontal bands in detail. Magnitudes and frequencies corresponding to the dominant two-dimensional Fourier transform coefficients are proposed to be selected as features and shown to provide high within-class compactness and high between-class separability. Extensive experimentations have been carried out upon two standard image databases and the recognition performance is compared with some of the existing face recognition methods. It is found that the proposed method offers not only computational savings but also a very high degree of recognition accuracy.
A network approach for segmentation in intensity modulated arc therapy

We consider the approximation of a given m×n non-negative real matrix A by a weighted non-negative sum of binary matrices. Such approximation problems arise in intensity modulated arc therapy (IMAT), an advanced form of radiotherapy for cancer. In that context, the binary matrices S i represent the ‘open’ positions for the radiation beamlets in a so-called aperture, and the corresponding weights denote the radiation intensity associated with the aperture. The weighted sum of apertures thus represents an approximation (typically based on a small number of apertures) to the ideal radiation distribution at a given angle given by the matrix A. The determination of an optimal approximation of this type for a limited number of S i ’s is termed a segmentation problem. The approximation problem considered here (IMAT) is a set of coupled segmentation problems with delivery constraints. The delivery constraints are mechanical and limit both the types of apertures that may be employed as well as the changes that may be made to apertures between successive angles as the radiation delivery equipment moves in sweeps along an arc around the patient. We present an effective heuristic algorithm using network optimization models to solve this IMAT optimization problem.
Probabilistic Resource Allocation for Opportunistic Spectrum Access

Opportunistic spectrum access (OSA) in cognitive radio (CR) networks significantly improves spectrum efficiency by allowing secondary usage of licensed spectrum. In this paper, we propose a probabilistic resource allocation approach to further exploit the flexibility of OSA. Based on the probabilities of channel availability obtained from spectrum sensing, the proposed approach optimizes channel and power allocation in a multi-channel environment. The given algorithm maximizes the overall utility of a CR network and ensures sufficient protection of licensed users from unacceptable interference, which also supports diverse quality-of-service requirements and enables a distributed implementation in multi-user networks. Both analytical and simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach as well as its advantage over conventional approaches that rely upon the hard decisions on channel availability.
An Evolutionary Algorithm for Interval Solid Transportation Problems

The Solid Transportation Problem arises when bounds are given on three item properties. Usually, these properties are source, destination and mode of transport (conveyance), and may be given in an interval way. This paper deals with solid transportation problems in which the data in the constraint set are expressed in an interval form, i.e. when sources, destinations and conveyances have interval values instead of point values. An arbitrary linear or nonlinear objective function is also considered. To solve the problem, an Evolutionary Algorithm which extends and generalizes other approaches considering only point values, is proposed.
Evolving Team Compositions by Agent Swapping

Optimizing collective behavior in multiagent systems requires algorithms to find not only appropriate individual behaviors but also a suitable composition of agents within a team. Over the last two decades, evolutionary methods have emerged as a promising approach for the design of agents and their compositions into teams. The choice of a crossover operator that facilitates the evolution of optimal team composition is recognized to be crucial, but so far, it has never been thoroughly quantified. Here, we highlight the limitations of two different crossover operators that exchange entire agents between teams: restricted agent swapping (RAS) that exchanges only corresponding agents between teams and free agent swapping (FAS) that allows an arbitrary exchange of agents. Our results show that RAS suffers from premature convergence, whereas FAS entails insufficient convergence. Consequently, in both cases, the exploration and exploitation aspects of the evolutionary algorithm are not well balanced resulting in the evolution of suboptimal team compositions. To overcome this problem, we propose combining the two methods. Our approach first applies FAS to explore the search space and then RAS to exploit it. This mixed approach is a much more efficient strategy for the evolution of team compositions compared to either strategy on its own. Our results suggest that such a mixed agent-swapping algorithm should always be preferred whenever the optimal composition of individuals in a multiagent system is unknown.
THE WATERSHED TRANSFORMATION APPLIED TO IMAGE SEGMENTATION

Image segmentation by mathematical morphology is a methodology based upon the notions of watershed and homotopy modification. This paper aims at introducing this methodology through various examples of segmentation in materials sciences, electron microscopy and scene analysis. First, we define our basic tool, the watershed transform. We show that this transformation can be built by implementing a flooding process on a grey-tone image. This flooding process can be performed by using elementary morphological operations such as geodesic skeleton and reconstruction. Other algorithms are also briefly presented (arrows representation). Then, the use of this transformation for image segmentation purposes is discussed. The application of the watershed transform to gradient images and the problems raised by over-segmentation are emphasized. This leads, in the third part, to the introduction of a general methodology for segmentation, based on the definition of markers and on a transformation called homotopy modification. This complex tool is defined in detail and various types of implementation are given. Many examples of segmentation are presented. These examples are taken from various fields : transmission electron microscopy, SEM, 3D holographic pictures, radiography, non destructive control and so on. The final part of this paper is devoted to the use of the watershed transformation for hierarchical segmentation. This tool is particularly efficient for defining different levels of segmentation starting from a graph representation of the images based on the mosaic image transform. This approach will be explained by means of examples in industrial vision and scene analysis.
Classification of emotions based on ERP feature extraction

Emotions are the feelings that represent the personality of any individual. Thus predicting emotions become necessary to understand the behavior of humans. Emotions can be predicted from gestures, sound processing but emotion recognition using EEG signals is very powerful method to know the internal state of mind accurately. This paper describes the acquisition of EEG signals on frontal electrodes such as F3, F4 and FZ from five subjects for classification of emotions into two classes. The emotions were induced by showing images from International Affective Picture System (IAPS) dataset to the subjects. The event related potential (ERP) features were determined from the processed EEG signals for every class of emotions. The classification was performed using LIBSVM classifier with 3 fold cross validation and RBF kernel to classify emotions into two classes along the arousal axis. It was found that accuracy remained consistently high on F4 electrode. An accuracy of 79.16% was obtained on F4 electrode, 76.19% on F3 electrode and 73.07% on FZ electrode when classifying emotions subject wise.
Dynamic susceptibility contrast MR imaging of plaque development in multiple sclerosis: Application of an extended blood‐brain barrier leakage correction

Since the pathogenesis of multiple sclerosis (MS) lesions is not yet fully understood, we investigated the potential of dynamic susceptibility contrast (DSC) magnetic resonance (MR) perfusion imaging for a better characterization of lesion pathology. Twenty‐five MS patients were examined on a 1.5 T scanner. A single dose of gadolinium (Gd)‐DOTA contrast agent was injected, and echoplanar images were acquired every 0.5 seconds for 1 minute. From the signal intensity‐versus‐time curves, the relative cerebral blood volume (rCBV) was evaluated for regions in plaques and in gray and white matter. The rCBV calculated for acute, Gd‐enhancing plaques was corrected for the effects of blood‐brain barrier leakage, using a new correction algorithm. Acute plaques had significantly higher blood volumes than normal‐appearing white matter (P < = 0.01). Chronic plaques that appeared hypointense on T1‐weighted images had lower rCBV than T1‐isointense plaques (P < = 0.03). Our results indicate that the acute phase in MS is accompanied by vasodilation. In later stages of gliosis, the perfusion decreases with increasing axonal injury. Although the DSC technique is less sensitive than conventional MR imaging, the information provided is essentially different from that obtained with any other MR method. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2000;11:495–505. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Care providers' perceptions of the importance of oral care and its performance within everyday caregiving for nursing home residents with dementia.

BACKGROUND The oral caregiving in nursing homes for persons with dementia often becomes complicated due to the patients' lack of compliance, which in turn can result in giving oral care a low priority in daily care. Furthermore, directives for responsibilities are unclear. OBJECTIVE The aim of this article was to describe care providers' perception of and reasoning for the oral care for nursing home residents with dementia and to describe registered nurses' reasoning in relation to their responsibility for monitoring oral care interventions within the regular caregiving routines for nursing home residents with dementia. METHODS Two sub-studies were carried out; focus group discussions with nine care providers and interviews with four nurses. All participants were staff in nursing home units specialized in dementia. RESULTS The focus group discussion revealed three themes: Art of caregiving, Barriers and Treatment strategies. Themes related to the nurses' statements about oral hygiene within caregiving were Care, Responsibility for care and Information. CONCLUSION Three main findings from the study are discussed: Unclear responsibilities of different staff members related to daily oral care for the nursing home patients; a lack of guidelines and routines for oral hygiene and a lack of guidelines for sharing information between the different professional groups.
Preemptive Measures against Malicious Party in Privacy-Preserving Data Mining

Currently, many privacy-preserving data mining (PPDM) algorithms assume the semi-honest model and/or malicious model of multi-party interaction. However, both models are far from able to fully capture the complexity of events and data interactions among parties in the process of secure data mining. In the paper, we study the problem of security violations when a malicious party provides false data. We identify four privacy vulnerabilities of secure scalar product protocols that underlie many current PPDM algorithms. We propose a general more model of two-party interaction and demonstrate its applicability to securely compute (x1 + y1)(x2 + y2) and (x + y) log2(x + y) where xi and yi are private values held by each party respectively. We show how the proposed model can be used to securely compute four commonly used kernel functions and other common functions. We also propose two necessary conditions and two basic measures that should be adopted in the current
Antioxidant Status Modifications by Topical Administration of Dorzolamide in Primary Open-Angle Glaucoma

Purpose This study deals with the role of the topical administration of dorzolamide eyedrops on the oxidative/antioxidant status of aqueous humor in patients with primary openangle glaucoma (POAG). Methods A case-control study including 130 patients distributed into three groups was carried out: 1) patients with POAG without dorzolamide instillation administration (GG; n=34); 2) patients with POAG with dorzolamide (DG; n=36); and 3) subjects with cataracts (comparative group, CG; n=60). Oxidative activity was measured in the aqueous humor by malondialdehyde determination by the thiobarbituric acid reactive substances assay. Antioxidant status was assessed in the aqueous humor samples by measuring the superoxide dismutase activity and the total antioxidant status. Results Oxidative activity was significantly higher in both glaucoma groups than in the cataracts group (GG vs CG, p=3.68 E-34; DG vs CG, p=5.11 E-45), and was significantly higher in GG than in DG (p=0.0034). SOD activity was significantly higher in both glaucoma groups than in the cataracts group (GG vs CG, p=1.08 E-14; DG vs CG, p=3.70 E-22), and was significantly higher in GG than in DG (p=0.018). Finally, total antioxidant status was significantly decreased in both glaucoma groups compared with the cataracts group (GG vs CG, p=2.51 E-12; DG vs CG, p=5.06 E-05), and was more significantly decreased in GG than in DG (p=9.23 E-07). Conclusions Topical administration of dorzolamide colirium diminishes oxidative stress in patients with glaucoma.
The Dosepix detector—an energy-resolving photon-counting pixel detector for spectrometric measurements

The Dosepix detector is a hybrid photon-counting pixel detector based on ideas of the Medipix and Timepix detector family. 1 mm thick cadmium telluride and 300 μm thick silicon were used as sensor material. The pixel matrix of the Dosepix consists of 16 x 16 square pixels with 12 rows of (200 μm)2 and 4 rows of (55 μm)2 sensitive area for the silicon sensor layer and 16 rows of pixels with 220 μm pixel pitch for CdTe. Besides digital energy integration and photon-counting mode, a novel concept of energy binning is included in the pixel electronics, allowing energy-resolved measurements in 16 energy bins within one acquisition. The possibilities of this detector concept range from applications in personal dosimetry and energy-resolved imaging to quality assurance of medical X-ray sources by analysis of the emitted photon spectrum. In this contribution the Dosepix detector, its response to X-rays as well as spectrum measurements with Si and CdTe sensor layer are presented. Furthermore, a first evaluation was carried out to use the Dosepix detector as a kVp-meter, that means to determine the applied acceleration voltage from measured X-ray tubes spectra.