Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Naturally Occurring Splice Variant of CXCL12/Stromal Cell-Derived Factor 1 Is a Potent Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Inhibitor with Weak Chemotaxis and Cell Survival Activities

ABSTRACT CXCL12/stromal cell-derived factor 1 is a member of the CXC family of chemokines that plays an important role in hematopoiesis and signals through CXCR4 and CXCR7. Two splice variants of human CXCL12 (CXCL12α and CXCL12β) induce chemotaxis of CXCR4+ cells and inhibit X4 infection. Recent studies described four other novel splice variants of human CXCL12; however, their antiviral activities were not investigated. We constructed and expressed all of the CXCL12 splice variants in Escherichia coli. Recombinant proteins were purified through a His affinity column, and their biological properties were analyzed. All six CXCL12 variants induced chemotaxis of CXCR4+ and CXCR7+ cell lines. Enhancement of survival and replating capacity of human hematopoietic progenitor cells were observed with CXCL12α, CXCL12β, and CXCL12ε but not with the other variants. CXCL12γ showed the greatest antiviral activity in X4 inhibition assays and the weakest chemotaxis activity through CXCR4. The order of potency in X4 inhibition assays was as follows: CXCL12γ > CXCL12β > CXCL12α > CXCL12θ > CXCL12ε > CXCL12δ. The order of anti-human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) activity was associated with the number of BBXB motifs present in each variant; the most potent inhibitor was CXCL12γ, with five BBXB domains. The results suggest that the different C termini of CXCL12 variants may contain important molecular determinants for the observed differences in antiviral effects and other biological functions. These studies implicate CXCL12γ as a potent HIV-1 entry inhibitor with significantly reduced chemotaxis activity and small or absent effects on progenitor cell survival or replating capacity, providing important insight into the structure-function relationships of CXCL12.
Ischemia, immunosuppression, and SSEA‐1‐negative cells all contribute to tumors resulting from mouse embryonic stem cell‐derived neural progenitor transplantation

Neural progenitor cells (NPCs) derived from mouse embryonic stem (mES) cells can lead to tumors after transplantation. The cellular source of such tumors remains under debate. We investigated the tumor formation resulting from mES cell‐derived NPCs in a rat stroke model and in nude mice. After 2 hr of ischemia and 48 hr of reperfusion, the NPCs were transplanted into the ischemic core of the xenogeneic rats. Four weeks after transplantation, the grafted cells were found to be viable at the border of the necrosis and had differentiated into neurons. Transplanted rats did not exhibit any behavioral improvement, because tumor formed in 90% of the animals. Immunosuppression facilitated tumor formation. Tumors were observed in 40% of normal rats after NPC transplantation when cyclosporin A was administered. Meanwhile, no tumor formation was observed without cyclosporin A. Ischemic damage also facilitated tumor formation, because NPCs gave rise to tumors in 90% of ischemic rats, a percentage significantly higher than that in intact rats, which was 40%. The SSEA‐1‐positive cells isolated from stage 4 are not exactly undifferentiated ES cells. They exhibited a marker gene transcription profile different from that of ES cells and did not form tumors in transplanted nude mice. The undifferentiated ES cells remaining after differentiation did not contribute to tumors either. First, the tumor formation rate resulting from undifferentiated ES cells in the brains of normal rats is 0%, significantly lower than that of NPCs. Second, transplanted NPCs that led to 100% tumors in nude mice contained approximately 1.5 × 103 Oct‐4‐positive cells; however, even 5 × 105 undifferentiated ES cells formed neoplasm only in 40% nude mice. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Reducing the complexity of LDPC decoding algorithms: An optimization-oriented approach

This paper presents a structured optimization framework for reducing the computational complexity of LDPC decoders. Subject to specified performance constraints and adaptive to environment conditions, the proposed framework leverages the adjustable performance-complexity tradeoffs of the decoder to deliver satisfying performance with minimum computational complexity. More specifically, two constraint scenarios are studied: the “good-enough” performance and “as-good-as-possible performance”. Moreover, we also investigate the effects of different degrees of freedom in performance-complexity tradeoff adjustments. The effectiveness of the proposed method has been verified by simulating a set of LDPC codes used in IEEE 802.11 and IEEE 802.16 standards. Computational complexity reductions of up to 35% have been observed.
Assessing the Use of Terminology in Phrase-Based Statistical Machine Translation for Academic Course Catalogues Translation

English. In this contribution we describe an approach to evaluate the use of terminology in a phrase-based machine translation system to translate course unit descriptions from Italian into English. The genre is very prominent among those requiring translation by universities in European countries where English is not a native language. Two MT engines are trained on an in-domain bilingual corpus and a subset of the Europarl corpus, and one of them is enhanced adding a bilingual termbase to its training data. Overall systems’ performance is assessed through the BLEU score, whereas the f-score is used to focus the evaluation on term translation. Furthermore, a manual analysis of the terms is carried out. Results suggest that in some cases despite the simplistic approach implemented to inject terms into the MT system the termbase was able to bias the word choice of the engine. Italiano. Nel presente lavoro viene descritto un metodo per valutare l’uso di terminologia in un sistema PBSMT per tradurre descrizioni di unità formative dall’italiano in inglese. La traduzione di questo genere di testi è fondamentale per le università di Paesi europei dove l’inglese non è una lingua ufficiale. Due sistemi di MT vengono addestrati su un corpus in-domain e un sottoinsieme del corpus Europarl. Ad uno dei due sistemi viene aggiunto un glossario bilingue. La valutazione delle prestazioni globali dei sistemi avviene tramite BLEU score, mentre f-score usato per la valutazione specifica della traduzione dei termini. È stata inoltre condotta un’analisi manuale dei termini. I risultati evidenziano che, nonostante il metodo elementare utilizzato per inserire i termini nel sistema di MT, il termbase in alcuni casi in grado di infuenzare la scelta dei termini nell’output.
THE PHENOTYPE AND GONADAL HISTOLOGY IN XO/XY MOSAIC INDIVIDUALS: REPORT OF TWO PERSONAL CASES

Two individuals with XO/XY mosaic sex complement, a male pseudohermaphrodite with dysgerminoma and a case of gonadal dysgenesis seen recently in our hospital prompted us to review the reported cases of XOjXY mosaicism. Our purpose is to analyze the phenotype in correlation with the gonadal differentiation of these individuals, to assess the incidence of malignant changes in the gonads and to report upon our two patients.
Augmented reality goggles with an integrated tracking system for navigation in neurosurgery

Precise tumor identification is crucial in image-guided neurosurgical procedures. With existing navigation systems, the surgeon must turn away from the patient to view the imaging data on a separate monitor. In this study, an innovative system is introduced that illustrates the tumor boundaries precisely augmented on the spot where the tumor is located with regard to the patient. Additionally, it allows the surgeon to track the distal end of the tools contextually, where direct visualization is not possible. In this approach, the tracking system is compact and worn by the surgeon, eliminating the need for additional devices that are bulky and typically limited by line of sight constraints.
DEVELOPMENT OF IMAGE ANALYSIS SYSTEM FOR THE EVALUATION OF THYROID NODULE MALIGNANCY RISK IN ULTRASOUND THYROID IMAGES

Ultrasound imaging is a vital tool for diagnosis of thyroid nodule, as it provides the internal structure of the body to detect diseases or abnormalities in tissues in non-invasive manner. Unfortunately, the presence of speckle noise in these images affects edges and fine details which limit the contrast resolution and make diagnosis more difficult. So speckle noise reduction has been done as a preprocessing method using Wavelet filter. Furthermore, thyroid nodule malignancy risk assessment is done and classified as normal, benign or malignant using Probabilistic Neural Network (PNN) classifier which helps the radiologists and medical specialists during their medical decision process. If the thyroid nodule is found to be benign or malignant, then segmentation is done using Fuzzy CMeans (FCM) clustering technique. The performance of the classifier is evaluated using statistical parameters such as sensitivity, specificity and accuracy.
Reference ranges for serum β-trace protein in neonates and children younger than 1 year of age

Abstract Background: β-Trace protein (BTP) has been proposed as an alternative endogenous marker of glomerular filtration rate. Data on BTP reference ranges in young children are scarce. We therefore aim to establish reference ranges and examine the developmental course of serum BTP in basically healthy children younger than 1 year of age. Methods: Single blood samples were taken from healthy children (born at gestational age ≥37 weeks) <12 months of age. Serum BTP was measured using the N latex B-trace protein assay (Siemens Diagnostics, Deerfield, IL, USA) on an Immage® 800 Rate Nephelometer (Beckman Coulter Inc. Brea, CA, USA). Serum creatinine and cystatin C were additionally determined and compared to reference values to confirm a normal renal function. Results: From June 2010 to January 2014, 95 blood samples were collected from 95 children {67.4% male; median age 120 days [inter quartile range 57–166]}. BTP was normally distributed (mean concentration 0.84±standard deviation 0.35 mg/L). Considering all children, the 50th centile BTP reference concentration was 0.82 mg/L (5th–95th centiles; 0.27–1.38). BTP concentrations were the highest in neonates and steadily declined with increasing age (Spearman’s rank correlation was –0.415, p=0.002). No gender differences were found. Conclusions: Our data provide a BTP reference range for the first year of life. Seeing the biological pattern of BTP, with only a limited postnatal decline, this marker might offer a promising alternative to serum creatinine-based methods for estimating glomerular filtration rate in newborns.
Two-Dimensional Heteroscedastic Feature Extraction Technique for Face Recognition

One limitation of vector-based LDA and its matrix-based extension is that they cannot deal with heteroscedastic data. In this paper, we present a novel two-dimensional feature extraction technique for face recognition which is capable of handling the heteroscedastic data in the dataset. The technique is a general form of two-dimensional linear discriminant analysis. It generalizes the interclass scatter matrix of two-dimensional LDA by applying the Chernoff distance as a measure of separation of every pair of clusters with the same index in different classes. By employing the new distance, our method can capture the discriminatory information presented in the difference of covariance matrices of different clusters in the datasets while preserving the computational simplicity of eigenvalue-based techniques. So our approach is a proper technique for high-dimensional applications such as face recognition. Experimental results on CMU-PIE, AR and AT & T face databases demonstrate the effectiveness of our method in term of classification accuracy.
La contribution des cooccurrences de deuxième ordre à l’analyse sémantique

Cet article montre ce que la cooccurrence peut nous apprendre sur la monosemie et comment on peut exploiter l’analyse des cooccurrences de deuxieme ordre pour quantifier l’analyse semantique. Les analyses sont conduites sur un corpus technique (1,7 million d’occurrences) relevant du domaine specialise des machines-outils pour l’usinage des metaux. Dans cet article, nous expliquons la methodologie adoptee pour determiner le degre de monosemie d’un mot technique a partir de l’analyse du recoupement de ses cooccurrences de deuxieme ordre. Dans le but d’affiner les resultats de la mesure de recoupement, nous procedons egalement a quelques experimentations qui vont au-dela du simple reperage statistique des cooccurrences et qui font varier differents parametres, tels que la fenetre d’observation, le seuil de significativite et la forme graphique ou le lemme des cooccurrences de premier et deuxieme ordre. Finalement, nous abordons l’importance de l’integration des etiquettes morphosyntaxiques dans l’analyse des cooccurrences.
Diving reflex. Another method of treating paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia.

Bradycardia during submersion has long been known to occur in diving animals.1,2This diving reflex is initiated through a complex cardiovascular reflex partly through cold water stimulation of afferent nerve endings on the body and partly by apnea.3,4Apnea alone causes similar but much less extreme cardiovascular response. The efferent limb of the reflex is mediated through increased sympathetic stimulation of peripheral vasculature (except in heart and brain), which causes vasoconstriction and intense vagal stimulation of the heart. This reflex mechanism prominently seen in aquatic animals allows them to slow their heart rate, decrease oxygen demand, increase oxygen extraction, redistribute blood flow, and maintain arterial pressure when submerged.5Though in a less intense form, man has retained this reflex. Bradycardia is commonly observed in human divers when they are submerged in water.6This reflex is attenuated by a reduction in water temperature7,8and can be
RAMSIS - EIN SYSTEM ZUR ERHEBUNG UND VERMESSUNG DREIDIMENSIONALER KOERPERHALTUNGEN VON MENSCHEN ZUR ERGONOMISCHEN AUSLEGUNG VON BEDIEN- UND SITZPLAETZEN IM AUTO. BAND 1. DAS MENSCHMODELL RAMSIS - ANALYSE, SYNTHESE UND SIMULATION DREIDIMENSIONALER KOERPERHALTUNGEN DES MENSCHEN

Ziel der Arbeit war die Entwicklung eines mathematischen Modells zur Vorhersage realistischer Koerperhaltungen in Fahrzeuginnenraeumen, wobei ein neues, dreidimensionales Messsystem fuer die Analyse von Haltungen und Bewegungen entwickelt wurde, dessen grundlegende Idee darin besteht, das Menschmodell selbst als Messwerkzeug zu benutzen. Auf zwei Fahrerstaenden absolvierten 99 Versuchspersonen vier fahrzeugtypische Aufgaben, bei denen insgesamt 615 Koerperhaltungen mit dem Messsystem analysiert wurden. Um aus den gemessenen Haltungsdaten auch Voraussagen ueber nicht untersuchte Fahrzeugkonfigurationen treffen zu koennen, wurde aus gemessenen Freiheitsgradwinkeldaten ein mathematisches Prognosemodell fuer Koerperhaltung entwickelt, wobei die Verteilungsfunktionen der Wahrscheinlichkeitsdichten jedes Gelenkfreiheitsgrades als Basis dienten. Siehe auch Baende 2 und 3, IDS-Nummern 334959 und 334960.
Analyzing the normal mode dynamics of macromolecules by the component synthesis method: Residue clustering and multiple‐component approach

A study of the component synthesis method (CSM) for analyzing the normal mode dynamics of macromolecules is reported. The procedure involves a reduction of the dimensions of the normal mode problems for large molecular systems and the accurate extraction of the low‐frequency modes. A macromolecule is divided into small components based on a hierarchical clustering of the residues in the structure. Interactions between coupled components are treated by the method of static correlation. The normal modes of the components are obtained first, and a fraction of the low‐frequency normal modes of the components under mutual correlations are then used as a reduced basis for solving for the normal modes of the whole molecule. Multiple components are introduced for large macromolecules so that the dimensions of the eigenvalue problems at the component level are small. The method is applied to the protein crambin. In test calculations in which the dimensions of the eigenvalue equations are reduced to 1/6 of their natural size, the errors in the normal mode frequencies calculated by the CSM procedure are only about 1–2% when compared with the exact values. The rms fluctuations of all atoms in crambin calculated by the CSM procedure are basically identical to the exact results. The CSM procedure is shown to be accurate for calculating the normal modes of large macromolecules with a significant reduction of the size of the problem. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Eco-innovation and Economic Growth in the European Union

Abstract Eco-innovation, as a new concept, and green technologies are central to the Europe’s future and at the core of the European Union policies to boost competitiveness, create jobs, and generate sustainable growth for years to come. In this context, eco-innovation is a significant tool that combines decreased environmental impact with a positive socioeconomic impact. This paper highlights the prominent role of eco-innovation and investigates still scarcely explored impact assessment of GDP growth, quality of institutions, and recycling rates on the eco-innovation index in the 28 European Union member states. Specifically, the set of regression analyses that use panel estimation models was undertaken and the system GMM estimator with robust standard errors was used. Econometric analysis indicates that GDP growth rate, quality of institutions, and recycling rate of municipal waste had a statistically significant and positive effect on eco-innovation in the period 2010-2016.
Diagnostic accuracy of cardiothoracic ratio on admission chest radiography to detect left or right ventricular systolic dysfunction: a retrospective study

Objectives To determine the diagnostic accuracy of the cardiothoracic ratio on postero-anterior or antero-posterior chest radiographs in predicting left ventricular or right ventricular dysfunction on echocardiography in an inpatient population. Design Retrospective study. Setting Two secondary care hospitals in the United Kingdom. Participants Four hundred consecutive inpatient echocardiograms were screened for inclusion along with chest radiographs (both postero-anterior and antero-posterior). The cardiothoracic ratio was calculated from chest radiographs along with quantitative and qualitative measures of left ventricular or right ventricular dysfunction on echocardiography. Main outcome measures Sensitivity and specificity of cardiothoracic ratio across a range of values to detect moderate/severe left ventricular and/or right ventricular dysfunction on echocardiography. Results Overall, 272 records met inclusion criteria. The prevalence of left ventricular/right ventricular dysfunction on echocardiography was 26% in an inpatient population with high clinical suspicion of cardiac disease referred for echocardiography. Over a range of cardiothoracic ratio values on postero-anterior films, a value of >0.55 yielded the best sensitivity (62.5%) and specificity (76.5%) for diagnosing left ventricular/right ventricular impairment (positive likelihood ratio 2.56), with a positive predictive value of 29.5%. Cardiothoracic ratio on antero-posterior film was not predictive of left ventricular/right ventricular impairment on echocardiography. Conclusions In conclusion, in the context of an acute admission, cardiothoracic ratio measured on postero-anterior or antero-posterior films has limited value in detecting moderate left ventricular and/or right ventricular systolic dysfunction. Previously established absolute values may be unreliable by modern standards.
Hairstyles modeling for police identikits

Hairstyle is an important part of a human head as the hair can completely change the appearance of a person. Therefore hairstyle is important in the creation of identikits - human models for identification practices, namely for the police use. In this paper we propose a new method of hair modeling which allows modeling of common hairstyles in a reasonable time as needed by the police.
Preliminary Initiatives in a Bridge Building Project between Conventional and Alternative Practitioners in Denmark

A growing number of the approximately 7,400 persons with multiple sclerosis (MS) in Denmark use alternative treatments. The Danish Multiple Sclerosis Society has been experiencing an increasing demand for research on the effects of combined conventional and alternative treatments. For this reason, the Society has initiated a bridge building project to be implemented from 2004-2011 at a specialized MS hospital. In that project, a team of five conventional and five alternative practitioners works together and offers integrative treatments to a total of 400 MS patients. Objective: The overall purpose of the project is to examine if integrative treatments may optimize treatment results for people suffering from MS, and to develop a model for a bridge building cooperation of conventional and alternative practitioners in the future. Material and Methods: In this article we give an overview of the steps taken before establishing the hospital- based team of practitioners: (1) a public hearing attended by conventional and alternative practitioners experienced in treating MS patients; (2) qualitative interviews among conventional practitioners at a specialized MS hospital; (3) a literature study on the use and effects of alternative treatments and integrative treatments related to MS. Results: The knowledge gained in the preliminary steps of the project showed that we had to add a preparatory phase to the project focusing on the development of the team before it would start treating MS patients.
Entropy on effect algebras with the Riesz decomposition property I: Basic properties

We define the entropy, lower and upper entropy, and the conditional entropy of a dynamical system consisting of an effect algebra with the Riesz decomposition property, a state, and a transformation. Such effect algebras allow many refinements of two partitions. We present the basic properties of these entropies and these notions are illustrated by many examples. Entropy on MV-algebras is postponed to Part II.
Depth Partitioning and Coding Mode Selection Statistical Analysis for SHVC

The Scalable High Efficiency Video Coding (SHVC) has been proposed to improve the coding efficiency. However, this additional extension generally results an important coding complexity. Several studies were performed to overcome the complexity through algorithmic optimizations that led to an encoding time reduction. In fact, mode decision analysis is imperatively important in order to have an idea about the partitioning modes based on two parameters, such as prediction unit size and frame type. This paper presents statistical observations at two levels: coding units (CUs) and prediction units (PUs) selected by the encoder. Analysis was performed for several test sequences with different motion and texture characteristics. The experimental results show that the percentage of choosing coding or prediction unit size and type depends on sequence parameters, frame type, and temporal level.