Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Alternatively spliced insertions in the paired domain restrict the DNA sequence specificity of Pax6 and Pax8

Transcription factors of the Pax family bind to their target genes via the paired domain which is known to be composed of two subdomains each recognizing distinct half‐sites in adjacent major grooves of the DNA helix. We now demonstrate that the mammalian Pax8 gene gives rise, by alternative mRNA splicing, to a protein isoform containing an extra serine residue in the recognition α‐helix 3 of the paired domain. This Pax8(S) protein does not interact with bipartite paired domain‐binding sites, indicating that inactivation of the N‐terminal DNA‐binding motif severely restricts the sequence specificity of the paired domain. However, the Pax8(S) protein binds in vitro and in vivo to the 5aCON sequence which was previously identified as a high‐affinity binding site for the Pax6(5a) splice variant carrying a 14‐amino‐acid insertion in the paired domain. The 5aCON sequence is shown to consist of four interdigitated 5′ half‐sites of the bipartite consensus sequence and is thus bound by four Pax8(S) molecules via the intact C‐terminal DNA‐binding motif of the paired domain. Together these data suggest that inactivation of the N‐terminal region of the paired domain by alternative splicing is used in vivo to selectively target Pax transcription factors to gene regulatory regions containing highly specialized 5aCON‐like sequences.
Limitations of the Knee Society Score in evaluating outcomes following revision total knee arthroplasty.

BACKGROUND Traditionally, the results of revision total knee arthroplasty have been determined with use of surgeon-based measures such as the Knee Society rating system. Recently, outcome and quality-of-life measures have shifted toward a greater emphasis on patient-based evaluation. The aim of our study was to determine the validity and responsiveness of the Knee Society rating system compared with the Short Form-36 health survey (SF-36), Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC), and a four-question 4-point Likert scale satisfaction questionnaire following revision total knee arthroplasty. METHODS A total of 152 patients underwent revision total knee arthroplasty at our institution, between August 2003 and January 2007, and had a two-year follow-up evaluation after revision surgery. The SF-36, WOMAC, Knee Society rating system, and satisfaction scores were completed preoperatively and postoperatively. Spearman correlation coefficients were calculated to determine the degree of correlation for each outcome scale. The SF-36, WOMAC, and patient satisfaction were correlated with the Knee Society rating system. RESULTS Both before and after surgery, the correlation among items of the Knee Society rating system displayed low to negligible levels of association. The Knee Society rating system pain score showed modest levels of convergent construct validity with the WOMAC and SF-36. However, the Knee Society functional score displayed negligible to low correlation with its WOMAC functional counterpart preoperatively. The Knee Society pain and functional scores, respectively, showed marked and moderate association with satisfaction. The change in the Knee Society pain and functional scores had moderate association with the SF-36 and WOMAC counterparts, except low correlation was displayed between the pain scores for the Knee Society rating system and the SF-36. The Knee Society rating system pain score was found to be the most responsive of the measures with a standardized response mean of 1.6, whereas the Knee Society rating system functional score was found to be the least responsive at 0.7. CONCLUSIONS Currently, there is no so-called gold standard that optimally reflects the status of the knee, as well as the patient, prior to and following revision total knee arthroplasty. Ideally, numerous assessment scales should be administered to the patient in order to accurately reflect the patient characteristics for the purpose of academic study, but from a practical standpoint, this may not be feasible. We encourage further research and development of a simple and concise standardized questionnaire for use before and after revision total knee arthroplasty.
Multiple/Single-View Human Action Recognition via Part-Induced Multitask Structural Learning

This paper proposes a unified framework for multiple/single-view human action recognition. First, we propose the hierarchical partwise bag-of-words representation which encodes both local and global visual saliency based on the body structure cue. Then, we formulate the multiple/single-view human action recognition as a part-regularized multitask structural learning (MTSL) problem which has two advantages on both model learning and feature selection: 1) preserving the consistence between the body-based action classification and the part-based action classification with the complementary information among different action categories and multiple views and 2) discovering both action-specific and action-shared feature subspaces to strengthen the generalization ability of model learning. Moreover, we contribute two novel human action recognition datasets, TJU (a single-view multimodal dataset) and MV-TJU (a multiview multimodal dataset). The proposed method is validated on three kinds of challenging datasets, including two single-view RGB datasets (KTH and TJU), two well-known depth dataset (MSR action 3-D and MSR daily activity 3-D), and one novel multiview multimodal dataset (MV-TJU). The extensive experimental results show that this method can outperform the popular 2-D/3-D part model-based methods and several other competing methods for multiple/single-view human action recognition in both RGB and depth modalities. To our knowledge, this paper is the first to demonstrate the applicability of MTSL with part-based regularization on multiple/single-view human action recognition in both RGB and depth modalities.
Perceived barriers to breast cancer screening among Saudi women at primary care setting.

Introduction Screening for breast cancer (BC) is of low rate in Saudi Arabia; although it is provided in the country free of charge to the population. This cross-sectional study aimed at investigating the perceived barriers towards BC screening in Al Hassa, Saudi Arabia.Participants and methods. A total of 816 adult Saudi women aged ≥ 30 years attending for routine primary health services or accompanying patients at the selected primary health care centers (PHCs) were randomly selected from 12 PHCs (8 urban and four rural) using multi-stage sampling method. Participants were invited to personal interview using semi-structured data collection instrument including inquiries about socio-demographics, reproductive history, previous histories of diagnosed breast lesions and breast cancer. The perceived individual barriers towards screening, their attitudes, the reasons for not attending previously held screening campaigns in Al Hassa, were also included. Results Low utilization of BC screening being significantly positively associated with woman's age, higher educational status, higher family income, using hormonal contraception and positive history of previous breast as shown by the results of the logistic regression model. Exploratory factor analysis showed that personal fears (especially fear of doctors/examiners, fear of hospitals and health facilities and fear of consequences/results) were the major factors that hinder women from utilizing the free of charge BC screening with high loading eigenvalue of 3.335, explaining 30.4% of the barriers. Conclusions Educational interventions aim at improving breast cancer knowledge and addressing barriers should be incorporated as core component of the screening program in Saudi Arabia.
A novel method for protein structure retrieval using tableau representation and sparse coding

Protein retrieval is a difficult task and has become a hot issue recently due to the complex structure and large data size of proteins. This work helps biologists investigate the link between structure and function of a protein in a deeper level and can be used in lots of biomedical applications. The retrieval system gives scores to all proteins in the database, e.g. SCOP or PDB, by given a query protein to compare with them. In this paper, we propose a novel algorithm based on sparse coding to retrieve proteins in the database using tableau representation. Both unsupervised and supervised methods are studied in the proposed algorithm where the sparse coefficient is regarded as similarity measurement. Experiments are conducted on ASTRAL 1.73 95% database and show that the proposed algorithms can improve the original feature extraction method which only uses cosine similarity.
Biocontrol efficacy of Cestrum diurnum L. (Solanaceae: Solanales) against the larval forms of Anopheles stephensi

Cestrum diurnum L. (Solanaceae: Solanales) is a multistemmed shrub that is also known as ‘Day Jasmine’. The efficacy of the plant as a strong biocontrol agent of the larval anopheline mosquito was evaluated in the laboratory and bioactive ingredients were characterized by thin layer chromatography (TLC) and infrared (IR) analysis. Thin layer chromatographic analysis revealed the presence of steroidal compound as a bioactive ingredient and IR analysis reported the presence of O–H group, C–S bond as a –CH2S group, H bonded −C=O group and carbonyl stress of esters. The LC50 value of the active ingredient was determined as 0.70, 0.89, 0.90 and 1.03 mg/100 mL−1, for 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th instar larva respectively in 24 h study period. The active component was analyzed by GLC and GLC–MS and altogether 14 components were detected.
About Face: Matching Unfamiliar Faces Across Rotations of View and Lighting

Matching the identities of unfamiliar faces is heavily influenced by variations in their images. Changes to viewpoint and lighting direction during face perception are commonplace across yaw and pitch axes and can result in dramatic image differences. We report two experiments that, for the first time, factorially investigate the combined effects of lighting and view angle on matching performance for unfamiliar faces. The use of three-dimensional head models allowed control of both lighting and viewpoint. We found viewpoint effects in the yaw axis with little to no effect of lighting. However, for rotations about the pitch axis, there were both viewpoint and lighting effects and these interacted where lighting effects were found only for front views and views from below. The pattern of effects was similar regardless of whether view variation occurred as a result of head (Experiment 1) or camera (Experiment 2) suggesting that face matching is not purely image based. Along with face inversion effects in Experiment 1, the results of this study suggest that face perception is based on shape and surface information and draws on implicit knowledge of upright faces and ecological (top) lighting conditions.
Prediction of dental and skeletal relationships from facial profiles in preschool children.

This paper reviews the rationale for assessing the facial profile of the patient with a developing dentofacial complex. The purpose of the study was to assess one method of profile analysis utilizing 4-year-old children. Sixteen orthodontists and 16 pedodontists were asked to classify the existing skeletal or dental relationships solely from a soft tissue profile tracing or from a lateral facial photograph. The analysis of the data indicated that for this age group neither the orthodontists nor the pedodontists could predict accurately the existing skeletal or dental pattern solely from the soft tissue profile tracing or the lateral facial photograph. No significant differences were found between the predictions of the orthodontists and the pedodontists. This investigation notes that even with highly similar dental relationships, much variability in skeletal and soft tissue relationships may occur in preschool children.
Adaptive K-space Updating Methods for Dynamic MRI Sequence Estimation

In dynamic magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), due to the limitation of imaging speed, it is commonly required to reconstruct the images from a reduced Fourier encoded K-space sequence. This paper presents two temporal model based methods to estimate the un-acquired K-space data, called adaptive K-space updating (AKU) methods. The AKU reconstruction algorithms are directly applicable to the truncated K-space sequence generated by the well known Fourier keyhole (FK) encoding scheme. The experimental study on the real MRI data shows that the proposed AKU methods can produce images with much lower reconstruction error than conventional FK method
Pulsed Angiolytic Laser Treatment of Ectasias and Varices in Singers

Objectives: Varices and ectasias in singers are typically the result of phonotraumatic shearing stresses and/or collision forces on the microcirculation within the superficial lamina propria. These lesions can be debilitating in performing vocalists because of the effect of recurrent hemorrhage and/or as a contributing factor to the morbidity of other mass lesions such as polyps, nodules, and cysts. Phonomicrosurgical treatment of performers is understandably approached with great trepidation, as the vocal liability of surgically disturbing the superficial lamina propria and epithelium must be balanced with the inherent detrimental vocal effect(s) of the lesion(s). Pulsed angiolytic lasers that emit radiation at high absorbance peaks of oxyhemoglobin were examined to determine whether they were an efficacious treatment approach for ectasias and varices based on these lasers' mechanisms of action and prior experience in phonomicrosurgery. Methods: A prospective trial was done in 39 patients (40 procedures in 54 vocal folds) without complication to evaluate the effectiveness of a 585-nm pulsed dye laser (PDL; 25 cases) and a 532-nm pulsed KTP laser (15 cases) in a noncontact mode to treat 65 varices and 43 ectasias. Twenty-nine of 39 patients had varices and ectasias associated with other phonotraumatic mass lesions that required resection. Results: All patients have resumed full vocal activities, and no patient has had a subsequent hemorrhage or vocal deterioration. Conclusions: Both the 585-nm PDL and the 532-nm pulsed KTP laser were found to be efficacious and relatively safe treatment modalities for vascular abnormalities of the vocal folds in singers. Noncontact selective photoangiolysis of the aberrant vessels prevented future bleeding without substantial photothermal trauma to the overlying epithelium and surrounding delicate superficial lamina propria, thereby allowing for optimal postoperative mucosal pliability and glottal sound production. However, the pulsed KTP laser was substantially easier to use because of its enhanced hemostasis due to its longer pulse width. Vessel wall rupture was commonplace during use of the 585-nm PDL, but rarely occurred during photoangiolysis with the 532-nm pulsed KTP laser.
Does Co-Opetition Change the Game? A Bayesian Analysis of Firm Participation Strategy in an Industry Standard-Setting Organization

Across different industries, we observe the emergence of industry standard-setting organizations (SSO) that focus on the creation of industry-specific process standards. Firms adopt a strategy of coopetition, the combination of cooperation and competition, during standards development. We propose that a firm's co-opetition strategy is revealed to some extent by when it elects to participate in an industry SSO. Bayesian information updating offers an effective empirical modeling perspective for studying firms' participation strategies when managers' beliefs and uncertainties are factored into their decision-making. We analyze a panel data set of 73 U.S. public firms over a 20-year period. These firms are members of the TeleManagement Forum, an information, communications and entertainment industries SSO. We study organizational characteristics of member firms to understand how they relate to a firm's SSO participation strategy, thus capturing the coopetitition dynamics of firms in the presence of process standardization. SSO participation strategies of firms do change as an industry SSO matures and as more information is gradually revealed. Additionally, there is a positive relationship between a firm's likelihood to participate and announcements of key process-related events. The participation dynamics show more change in the beginning, but eventually stabilize over time.
Environmentally robust audio-visual speaker identification

To improve the accuracy of audio-visual speaker identification, we propose a new approach, which achieves an optimal combination of the different modalities on the score level. We use the i-vector method for the acoustics and the local binary pattern (LBP) for the visual speaker recognition. Regarding the input data of both modalities, multiple confidence measures are utilized to calculate an optimal weight for the fusion. Thus, oracle weights are chosen in such a way as to maximize the difference between the score of the genuine speaker and the person with the best competing score. Based on these oracle weights a mapping function for weight estimation is learned. To test the approach, various combinations of noise levels for the acoustic and visual data are considered. We show that the weighted multimodal identification is far less influenced by the presence of noise or distortions in acoustic or visual observations in comparison to an unweighted combination.
Noninvasive Multimodal Neuroimaging for Rasmussen Encephalopathy Surgery: Simultaneous EEG-fMRI Recording

Rasmussen syndrome is characterized by continuous partial seizures with progressive neurological/cognitive impairment. Currently the only effective treatment is surgery (hemispherectomy). The objective of our study is to detect the exact epileptogenic focus through the analysis of multimodal noninvasive and innocuous functional neuroimaging. The subject is a 5-year-old female patient with Rasmussen encephalopathy. Continuous and simultaneous electroencephalography-functional magnetic resonance imaging (EEG-fMRI) was record ed. The sources of background and paroxysmal activity of EEG were computed by low resolution electromagnetic tomography (LORETA). Image analysis (SPM: statistic parametric mapping) was obtained for the areas where statistically significant differences in the fMRI BOLD response were computed, and the results from both techniques were compared. The main source of paroxysmal activity by EEG analysis was found in the anterolateral left hemisphere, with a significant increase in absolute and relative energies of slow frequency bands (theta-delta): Z ≥ 3. The fMRI BOLD signal (basal vs. paroxysmal activity) was significantly different in the same region (t-test ≥ 2.39). The generators of propagated paroxysmal activity were found in similar areas for both techniques. In conclusion, simultaneous EEG-fMRI recording allows the analysis of two harmless functional neuroimaging techniques separately and together in the same time period. In our case, it allowed the accurate delineation of epileptogenic foci and areas of spread with high spatiotemporal resolution, which is crucial for epilepsy surgery.
Fiscal policy rules, budget deficits, and forecasting biases

In this paper, we analyze the impact fiscal policy rules have on budget deficits and forecasting biases in official budget outlooks. Persistent budget deficits and over-optimistic budget forecasts have been observed in many countries in the past, especially in the euro area. To prevent such developments from happening in the future, fiscal rules have been revised or implemented with the aim to strengthen both preventive (ex-ante) and corrective (ex-post) elements of fiscal rules frameworks. Do such ex-ante and ex-post rules differ in their effects? In an attempt to answer this question, we build a two-period model and distinguish between ex-ante rules that apply to budget forecasts and ex-post rules that apply to realized budget deficits. Our model indicates that effectively enforced ex-post rules are more effective than ex-ante rules at reducing budget deficits. Interestingly, ex-ante rules differ from ex-post rules in their effects on forecasting biases. Only ex-post sanctions reduce forecasting biases, while ex-ante rules have no impact on such biases. In addition, we show that political stability and the size of government increase the effectiveness of fiscal rules. If, however, financial markets have a disciplining effect on governments, the effectiveness of fiscal rules is reduced. Our results imply that if fiscal policy rules cannot be effectively enforced, reforming other areas such as electoral rules or financial market regulations might be a more promising approach to ensuring sound public finances than fiscal policy rules.
Thyristor based modular multilevel converter with active full-bridge chain-link for forced commutation

Voltage source converter (VSC) such as modular multilevel converter (MMC) has been intensively studied for high voltage direct current (HVDC) applications due to its flexible terminal voltage adjustment, compatibility with weak ac grid and independent active/reactive power control over conventional line-commutated-converter (LCC). However, LCC using thyristors still offers advantages such as high current capability and low semiconductor losses, making it dominant in the construction of large scale converter station. This paper investigates the potential of using thyristor to build the MMC sub-module circuitry, where an auxiliary full-bridge chain-link (FB-CL) is adopted for the controlled transition and forced commutation of main thyristor-bridge, forming the proposed active forced commutated (AFC) thyristor cell. The AFC-MMC combines the advantages of LCC and MMC by the hybrid use of thyristor and self-commutated device, including the high power capacity, optimized efficiency, flexible control and enhanced fault-tolerant ability.
Fetuin-A and incident diabetes mellitus in older persons.

CONTEXT Fetuin-A is a hepatic secretory protein that binds the insulin receptor and inhibits insulin action in vitro. In prior cross-sectional studies in humans, higher fetuin-A levels were associated with insulin resistance. However, the longitudinal association of fetuin-A with incident type 2 diabetes mellitus is unknown. OBJECTIVE To determine whether fetuin-A levels are associated with incident diabetes in older persons. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Observational study among 3075 well-functioning persons aged 70 to 79 years. In this case-cohort study, we retrospectively measured fetuin-A levels in baseline serum among 406 randomly selected participants without prevalent diabetes, and all participants who developed incident diabetes mellitus during a 6-year follow-up (to August 31, 2005). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE Incident diabetes mellitus. RESULTS Incident diabetes developed in 135 participants (10.1 cases/1000 person-years). Participants with fetuin-A levels within the highest tertile (> 0.97 g/L) had an increased risk of incident diabetes (13.3 cases/1000 person-years) compared with participants in the lowest tertile (< or = 0.76 g/L) (6.5 cases/1000 person-years) in models adjusted for age, sex, race, waist circumference, body weight, physical activity, blood pressure level, fasting glucose level, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol concentration, triglyceride concentration, and C-reactive protein level (adjusted hazard ratio, 2.41; 95% confidence interval, 1.28-4.53; P = .007). The association was not affected by adipocytokine levels but was moderately attenuated by adjustment for visceral adiposity (adjusted hazard ratio of highest vs lowest tertile 1.72; 95% confidence interval, 0.98-3.05; P = .06). CONCLUSION Among well-functioning older persons, serum fetuin-A is associated with incident diabetes, independent of other markers of insulin resistance.