Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Lactosylated liposomes for targeted delivery of doxorubicin to hepatocellular carcinoma

Background N-lactosyl-dioleoylphosphatidylethanolamine (Lac-DOPE) was synthesized and evaluated as a liver-specific targeting ligand via asialoglycoprotein receptors for liposomal delivery of doxorubicin. Methods Lactosylated liposomes encapsulating calcein (Lac-L-calcein) or doxorubicin (Lac-L-DOX) composed of egg phosphatidylcholine, cholesterol, monomethoxy polyethylene glycol 2000-distearoyl phosphatidylethanolamine, and Lac-DOPE at 50:35:5:10 (mol/mol) were prepared by polycarbonate membrane extrusion and evaluated in human hepatocellular carcinoma HepG2 cells. Cellular uptake of Lac-L-calcein was monitored by confocal microscopy and by flow cytometry. The cytotoxicity of Lac-L-DOX was evaluated by MTT assay. The pharmacokinetic properties of Lac-L-DOX were studied in normal mice, and its biodistribution and antitumor activity were studied in nude mice with HepG2 xenografts. Results The size of Lac-L-DOX was less than 100 nm and the liposomes demonstrated excellent colloidal stability. In vitro uptake of Lac-L-calcein by HepG2 cells was four times greater than that of non-targeted L-calcein. In the presence of 20 mM lactose, the uptake of Lac-L-calcein was inhibited, suggesting that asialoglycoprotein receptors mediated the observed cellular uptake. Lac-L-DOX exhibited enhanced in vivo cytotoxicity compared with the nontargeted liposomal doxorubicin (L-DOX), and its pharmacokinetic parameters indicate that Lac-L-DOX has a long blood circulation time (t1/2 8.73 hours). Tissue distribution and therapeutic efficacy studies in nude mice bearing HepG2 xenografts show that Lac-L-DOX had significantly stronger tumor inhibitory activity compared with L-DOX and free doxorubicin, along with a higher accumulation of drug within the tumor site and greater cellular uptake by tumor cells. Conclusion These data suggest that lactosylated liposomes are promising drug delivery vehicles for hepatocellular carcinoma.
Factor Structure of the French Version of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale–III

The standardization of the French version of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-III) was conducted after carefully adapting the French version fromthe U.S. version and extensive field testing. The standardization sample was composed of 1,104 participants from 16 to 89 years. To assess the construct validity of the French version, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were performed. Two-factor, three-factor, and four-factor models were compared. The four-factor solution fitted the data much better than did the two-and three-factor solutions. The only problem observed was with the Arithmetic subtest, which did not show clear alignment with the Working Memory factor. Otherwise, the factor structure of the U.S. WAIS-IIIwas replicated with its French adaptation. Despite important changes in five verbal subtests, very similar factor structure was observed between the U.S. and the French standardization samples. This is an important indication of the universality of the factor structure underlying the WAIS-III.
Dismantling Democratic States

Dismantling Democratic States. By Ezra Suleiman. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003. 368p. $39.50. Market-driven administrative reform has been the leitmotif of profound, perhaps even unprecedented, public sector reform across the Western world for the past decade or so. It is indicative that even in Sweden (the place of writing), a country that has been fairly slow in adopting this model of administrative reform, authorities such as the Migration Board and the Prison and Probation Board nowadays define their clients as “customers. ”
Iranian Journal of Basic Medical Sciences the Association between Inflammatory Markers and Obesity- Related Factors in Tehranian Adults: Tehran Lipid and Glucose Study

Original article Objective(s): Obesity considered being a low-grade inflammatory disease. The objective of this study was to examine the association between inflammatory markers (IM) including C-reactive protein (hs-CRP), Interleukin-6 (IL-6), and homocystein (Hcy) and obesity-related factors (e.g. BMI, waist, hip) in adult participants of Tehran lipid and glucose study (TLGS). Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 352 individuals (132 men and 220 women), age ≥19 years, were randomly recruited from participants of TLGS population. The serum levels of hs-CRP, IL-6, Hcy were determined using the enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) method. Variables were compared by sample t-test. Bivariate linear correlation was estimated using Pearson's correlation coefficient. Linear regression analysis was applied to investigate the association between IMs and anthropometric and biochemical variables. Results: The mean age of participants was 46.1±16.1 years. abdominal obesity was present in 199(56.5%) individuals. levels of hs-CRP and IL-6 increased in the abdominally obese group and in the same group, the best predictors for hs-CRP, IL-6 and Hcy were waist (WC), waist to height ratio (WHtR) and wrist respectively; hip and WHtR were the best predictors for Hcy and hs-CRP in the normal group. A linear augmentation in hs-CRP and IL-6 levels was observed in association with obesity categorizes. Conclusion: This study provides evidence that abdominally obese individuals had higher levels of IMs. Wrist, waist and WHtR were the best predictors for Hcy, hs-CRP and IL-6 respectively in this group. Hcy hs-CRP IL-6 Inflammatory markers Obesity TLGS ►Please cite this paper as: The association between inflammatory markers and obesity-related factors in Tehranian adults: Tehran lipid and glucose study.
It Could Have Been Better or It Might Have Been Worse: Implications for Blame Assignment in Rape Cases

Victim and assailant blame, as well as the perceived injustice and severity of a rape event, were examined as a function of the type of counterfactual alternative to which the identically described event was compared. It was hypothesized that when perceivers imagine an alternative outcome that is even worse than the original rape event, the perceived injustice and severity of the rape will be reduced, rendering the assailant less blameworthy. That is, when an alternative outcome is generated by focusing on the assailant, the hypothetically worse outcome that he could have inflicted on the victim makes the rape appear less tragic by comparison. Conversely, when perceivers imagine an alternative outcome that is better than the original rape event, perceptions of injustice should increase. In two experiments, participants considered how an identical rape event could have been worse for the victim or worse for the assailant by imagining how either the victim or the assailant could have behaved differently. Su.
Cloud-as-a-Gift: Effectively Exploiting Personal Cloud Free Accounts via REST APIs

Personal Clouds, such as DropBox and Box, provide open REST APIs for developers to create clever applications that make their service even more attractive. These APIs are a powerful abstraction that makes it possible for applications to transparently manage data from user accounts, blurring the lines between a Personal Cloud service and storage IaaS. Jointly, Personal Clouds also offer free accounts to lure new users, that normally include reduced storage space and unlimited transfers. However, the unintended consequence of combining open APIs and free accounts is that these companies are exposing automated access to a free storage infrastructure, which may lead to abuse by malicious parties. By exploiting the freemium API service, users may fraudulently consume resources or they can use free accounts as a Cloud storage layer to support abusive applications. We call this vulnerability the storage leeching problem. In this paper, we show how easy it is to implement a file-sharing application able to distribute digital content by abusing Personal Clouds. Making use of open APIs, this application transparently aggregates the limited-space free accounts from multiple providers into a single larger storage layer, while achieving better transfer speed than that received from one provider alone. This demonstrates that free accounts can be easily exploited to obtain a practical Cloud storage service, and therefore, the potential impact of storage leeching.
The genetic architecture necessary for transgressive segregation is common in both natural and domesticated populations.

Segregating hybrids often exhibit phenotypes that are extreme or novel relative to the parental lines. This phenomenon is referred to as transgressive segregation, and it provides a mechanism by which hybridization might contribute to adaptive evolution. Genetic studies indicate that transgressive segregation typically results from recombination between parental taxa that possess quantitative trait loci (QTLs) with antagonistic effects (i.e. QTLs with effects that are in the opposite direction to parental differences for those traits). To assess whether this genetic architecture is common, we tabulated the direction of allelic effects for 3252 QTLs from 749 traits and 96 studies. Most traits (63.6%) had at least one antagonistic QTL, indicating that the genetic substrate for transgressive segregation is common. Plants had significantly more antagonistic QTLs than animals, which agrees with previous reports that transgressive segregation is more common in plants than in animals. Likewise, antagonistic QTLs were more frequent in intra- than in interspecific crosses and in morphological than in physiological traits. These results indicate that transgressive segregation provides a general mechanism for the production of extreme phenotypes at both above and below the species level and testify to the possible creative part of hybridization in adaptive evolution and speciation.
FPGA-based pedestrian detection under strong distortions

Pedestrian detection is one of the most popular computer vision challenges in the automotive, security and domotics industries, with several new approaches and benchmarks proposed every year. All of them typically consider the pedestrians in a standing pose, but this assumption is not always applicable. It is the case of embedded camera systems used for crowd monitoring or in driving assistance systems for big vehicles maneuvering. Such systems are commonly installed as higher as possible and make use of fish-eye lenses to provide a top and wide field of view. Actually, such configurations introduce both perspective and optical distortions in the image that, even when corrected, still provide stretched silhouettes that can hardly be detected by cutting-edge pedestrian detection algorithms. In this paper we focus on this scenario, showing (a) that one of the most effective models for pedestrian detection, that is the Deformable Part Model (DPM), can be efficiently implemented in FPGA to dramatically speed up the computation, and (b) how it can be modified for dealing with highly distorted pictures of humans. The resulting framework, dubbed Deformable Part Model for Local Spatial Deformations (DPM-LSD), gives convincing figure of merits in terms of accuracy and throughput, on a new top-view fish-eye based pedestrian dataset (dubbed Fish-Eyed Pedestrians), also comparing with widely-used competitors (standard DPM and Dalal-Triggs).
Attitudes, Personality and Behavior

Attitudes and personality traits - how they are defined and measured behaviourial consistency - theory and research in personality and social psychology the principle of aggregation - creating stability and consistency moderating variables - effects of individual differences, characteristics of the disposition, situational factors, and type of behaviour theory of planned behaviour - prediction of specific actions with varying degrees of volitional control.
microRNA Target Predictions across Seven Drosophila Species and Comparison to Mammalian Targets

microRNAs are small noncoding genes that regulate the protein production of genes by binding to partially complementary sites in the mRNAs of targeted genes. Here, using our algorithm PicTar, we exploit cross-species comparisons to predict, on average, 54 targeted genes per microRNA above noise in Drosophila melanogaster. Analysis of the functional annotation of target genes furthermore suggests specific biological functions for many microRNAs. We also predict combinatorial targets for clustered microRNAs and find that some clustered microRNAs are likely to coordinately regulate target genes. Furthermore, we compare microRNA regulation between insects and vertebrates. We find that the widespread extent of gene regulation by microRNAs is comparable between flies and mammals but that certain microRNAs may function in clade-specific modes of gene regulation. One of these microRNAs (miR-210) is predicted to contribute to the regulation of fly oogenesis. We also list specific regulatory relationships that appear to be conserved between flies and mammals. Our findings provide the most extensive microRNA target predictions in Drosophila to date, suggest specific functional roles for most microRNAs, indicate the existence of coordinate gene regulation executed by clustered microRNAs, and shed light on the evolution of microRNA function across large evolutionary distances. All predictions are freely accessible at our searchable Web site http://pictar.bio. nyu.edu.
Hardware-in-the-Loop (HiL) Simulation of Single-phase Grid-tied Hybrid PV – Battery Inverter with Three-state Overvoltage Controller

This paper presents the overvoltage controller for a single-phase grid-tied hybrid inverter used in low-voltage distribution networks with photovoltaic (PV) and battery connections. The grid-tied hybrid PV – battery system can help with overvoltage control by drawing reactive power (Q) from the main grid and reducing active power (P) supplied to the main grid. The purposed overvoltage controller permits the grid-tied hybrid PV-battery inverter to operate in three states: 1) only Q absorption 2) absorbing Q with P curtailment through battery charging and 3) absorbing Q with P curtailment by limiting PV output. Additionally, the single-phase grid-tied hybrid inverter is controlled using an unbalanced synchronous reference frame technique with an extra voltage control loop based on P(V) and Q(V) droop controls. A hardware-in-the-loop (HiL) simulation is used for experimental validation. The power stage of grid-tied hybrid inverter is modelled in an OPAL-RT OP4510 HiL real-time simulator while the control stage is implemented on a TMS320F28379D Texas Instruments 32-bit DSP controller. The simulation results show that the single-phase grid-tied hybrid PV-battery inverter with the proposed overvoltage controller effectively mitigates overvoltage with a fast control response, while the grid-tied hybrid inverter’s power factor can remain within the limit.
TOWARDS AN AGENT FRAMEWORK FOR GRID COMPUTING

This paper presents an agent oriented approach for grid computing. As opposed to existing approaches, agent technology promises a more flexible approach, easier installation and management of the grid framework, and better ability to autonomously recover from failures. The semantically rich, ontological description of the grid applications, services and resources opens the possibility for better monitoring and resource management, and better user interfaces - both for customers and service providers.
The Influence of Individualism, Collectivism, and Locus of Control on Environmental Beliefs and Behavior

This study investigates the influence of value orientations measured at the individual level (individualism, collectivism, and locus of control) and of economic status on environmental beliefs and behavior. Structural equation modeling reveals that the preferred model is one in which the value orientations and economic status influence beliefs about recycling, which in turn influence recycling behavior, but the influence of the value orientations and economic status differs as a function of the type of environmental belief. Individualism and economic status are related to beliefs about the inconvenience of recycling; collectivism and locus of control are related to beliefs about the importance of recycling. Moreover, specific beliefs about the importance of recycling have both a direct influence on recycling behavior and an effect that is mediated by beliefs about the inconvenience of recycling. The authors present the implications of the study for public policy and marketing communication efforts.
The Spiritual and the Profane: the Pilgrimage To Santiago De Compostela

T he general objective of this paper rests in its discussion of the diversity of JL overlapping perceptions and meanings characteristic of past and present pilgrimage to the shrine of St ,James the Greater, located in the furthest northwestern corner of Europe at the Galician city of Santiago de Compostela. Ostensibly, pilgrimage is a religious phenomenon in which an individual or group sets forth on a journey to a particular cult location to seek the intercession of God and the saints of that place in an array of concerns. ’ But, as is characteristic of all manifestations of knowledge, pilgrimage is a social construction and, inevitably, a cultural product. The sacred too is ’imagined, defined and articulated within cultural practice’. ’ Equally, this particular form of cultural production will be linked to the specific social, political and historical contexts in which it originally occurred. As Turner has argued, the ’epoch of genesis’ is a critical factor in determining the specific development of a particular pilgrimage.3 Equally crucial, however, is the continuous transformation of the cultural representations of any pilgrimage as the contexts in which it is framed themselves alter.
Small Wonders—The Use of Nanoparticles for Delivering Antigen

Despite the discovery of many potential antigens for subunit vaccines, universal protection is often lacking due to the limitations of conventional delivery methods. Subunit vaccines primarily induce antibody-mediated humoral responses, whereas potent antigen-specific cellular responses are required for prevention against some pathogenic infections. Nanoparticles have been utilised in nanomedicine and are promising candidates for vaccine or drug delivery. Nanoparticle vehicles have been demonstrated to be efficiently taken up by dendritic cells and induce humoral and cellular responses. This review provides an overview of nanoparticle vaccine development; in particular, the preparation of nanoparticles using a templating technique is highlighted, which would alleviate some of the disadvantages of existing nanoparticles. We will also explore the cellular fate of nanoparticle vaccines. Nanoparticle-based antigen delivery systems have the potential to develop new generation vaccines against currently unpreventable infectious diseases.
Capacity Theorems for Cooperative Relay Broadcast Channels

The partially cooperative relay broadcast channel (RBC) is studied, where a source transmits to two users and one user also acts as a relay node to assist broadcast communication. The source has common information intended for both users and private information for each user. Inner and outer bounds on the capacity region are derived for discrete memoryless partially cooperative RRCs with degraded message sets, semideterministic partially cooperative RRCs and orthogonal partially cooperative RRCs. The inner and outer bound are shown to match for the later two channels, and hence the capacity regions are established. Furthermore, when the relay function is disabled, the inner and outer bounds reduce to potentially new bounds on the capacity region of broadcast channels.
Pharmacovigilance using Clinical Text

The current state of the art in post-marketing drug surveillance utilizes voluntarily submitted reports of suspected adverse drug reactions. We present data mining methods that transform unstructured patient notes taken by doctors, nurses and other clinicians into a de-identified, temporally ordered, patient-feature matrix using standardized medical terminologies. We demonstrate how to use the resulting high-throughput data to monitor for adverse drug events based on the clinical notes in the EHR.
Developmental Validation of Feline, Bovine, Equine, and Cervid Quantitative PCR Assays *

Abstract: Accurate DNA quantification is essential for optimizing DNA testing and minimizing sample consumption. Real‐time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) assays have been published for human and canine nuclear DNA, and the need for quantifying other forensically important species was evident. Following the strategy employed for the canine qPCR assay, we developed individual assays to accurately quantify feline, bovine, equine, and cervid nuclear DNA. Each TaqMan‐based assay incorporates a genus‐specific probe targeting the Melanocortin‐1 Receptor gene and includes a piece of synthetic DNA that acts as an internal PCR control for detecting inhibition. Developmental validations were carried out following the revised guidelines of the Scientific Working Group on DNA Analysis Methods with modifications necessary for validation of nonhuman qPCR assays. All assays demonstrated the specificity, sensitivity, stability, reproducibility, accuracy, and precision required for forensic casework. The application of these assays to animal forensic DNA analysis has both conserved laboratory resources and improved genotyping results.
Delite

Developing high-performance software is a difficult task that requires the use of low-level, architecture-specific programming models (e.g., OpenMP for CMPs, CUDA for GPUs, MPI for clusters). It is typically not possible to write a single application that can run efficiently in different environments, leading to multiple versions and increased complexity. Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs) are a promising avenue to enable programmers to use high-level abstractions and still achieve good performance on a variety of hardware. This is possible because DSLs have higher-level semantics and restrictions than general-purpose languages, so DSL compilers can perform higher-level optimization and translation. However, the cost of developing performance-oriented DSLs is a substantial roadblock to their development and adoption. In this article, we present an overview of the Delite compiler framework and the DSLs that have been developed with it. Delite simplifies the process of DSL development by providing common components, like parallel patterns, optimizations, and code generators, that can be reused in DSL implementations. Delite DSLs are embedded in Scala, a general-purpose programming language, but use metaprogramming to construct an Intermediate Representation (IR) of user programs and compile to multiple languages (including C++, CUDA, and OpenCL). DSL programs are automatically parallelized and different parts of the application can run simultaneously on CPUs and GPUs. We present Delite DSLs for machine learning, data querying, graph analysis, and scientific computing and show that they all achieve performance competitive to or exceeding C++ code.
Gloss Overlap Extensions for a Semantic Network Algorithm: Building a Better Semantic Distance Measure

Semantic similarity or inversely, semantic distance measures are useful in a variety of circumstances, from spell checking applications to a lightweight replacement for parsing within a natural language engine. Within this work, we examine the (Jiang & Conrath 1997) algorithm; evaluated by (Budanitsky & Hirst 2000) as being the best performing, and subject the algorithm to a series of tests. We also propose a novel technique which corrects a crucial weakness of the original algorithm, and show that its application improves semantic distance measures for cases where the underlying linguistic network causes deficiencies.