Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Vascular Targeting of Ocular Neovascularization with a Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor121/Gelonin Chimeric Protein

Tumors provide an extremely abnormal microenvironment that stimulates neovascularization from surrounding vessels and causes altered gene expression within vascular cells. Up-regulation of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) receptors has allowed selective destruction of tumor vessels by administration of a chimeric protein consisting of VEGF121 coupled to the toxin gelonin (VEGF/rGel). We sought to determine whether there is sufficient up-regulation of VEGF receptors in endothelial cells participating in ocular neovascularization to permit a similar strategy. After intravenous injection of 45 mg/kg VEGF/rGel, but not uncoupled recombinant gelonin (rGel), there was immunofluorescent staining for rGel within choroidal neovascularization in mice and regression of the neovascularization occurred, demonstrating successful vascular targeting via the systemic circulation. Intraocular injection of 5 ng of VEGF/rGel also caused significant regression of choroidal neovascularization and regression of retinal neovascularization in two models, transgenic mice with expression of VEGF in photoreceptors and mice with ischemic retinopathy, whereas injection of 5 ng of rGel had no effect. These data suggest that the strategy of vascular targeting can be applied to nonmalignant neovascular diseases and could serve as the basis of a new treatment to reduce established ocular neovascularization.
Context-aware control for personalized multiparty sessions in mobile multihomed systems

Telecommunication and Internet services are constantly subject to changes, seeking customer's satisfaction. Enriching services with innovative approaches such as context-aware, mobile, adaptable and interactive mechanisms, enables users to experience personalized services seamlessly across different technologies. Aiming at evolving mobile multimedia multicasting to exploit the increasing integration of mobile devices with our everyday physical world, a context-aware multiparty delivery needs to research into two important frameworks: context detection and distribution and context-aware multiparty networking, encompassing adaptations at the session, transport, and network layers. The paper diverges into the second by focusing on the user perceived Quality of Experience and efficient network support of real-time group communications, allowing dynamic adaptation of the multiparty delivery, group communications optimization and maximization of group member's overall satisfaction.
Influence of Height on the Clinical Characteristics and Prognosis of Patients With Ischemic Stroke

BackgroundLarge, long-term population data indicate an inverse association for adult height with stroke incidence and mortality, whereas the risk of atrial fibrillation appears greater in taller individuals. However, it is unclear whether knowledge of an individual's stature is an important clinical factor to consider when assessing hospitalized patients with ischemic stroke. We determined the relation of body height with clinical characteristics and discharge outcomes among persons with ischemic stroke. MethodsWe analyzed prospectively collected data in 881 consecutive patients with ischemic stroke admitted to a university hospital stroke service during a 5-year period starting September 2002. Stroke subtyping was performed per modified Trial of ORG 10172 in Acute Stroke Treatment (TOAST) criteria. Stroke severity was assessed with the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale. All patients were assessed at discharge using the modified Rankin scale. Mean adjusted height was compared using linear regression models with height as outcome, and stroke subtype, modified Rankin scale, and potential confounders as covariates. ResultsMean age was 67.4 years, 48% were women. Mean height was 169 cm (SD±11). In multivariable analysis, height decreased per year of age (P=0.003), those with a previous stroke were shorter than those without a previous stroke (P=0.04), and females were shorter than males (P<0.001). Height was not associated with stroke subtype or discharge outcomes in unadjusted or adjusted analyses. ConclusionsBody height at hospital admission has no relation to ischemic stroke subtype or discharge outcome. However, patients with history of previous stroke were significantly shorter than those without a previous stroke, which may be because of greater stroke occurrence in shorter individuals or taller people with relatively larger atrial fibrillation-related strokes dying earlier.
OBN: peering for finding suppliers in P2P on-demand streaming systems

A critical issue in peer-to-peer (P2P) streaming systems is to find a peer that can provide required streaming data (eligibility determination) with good quality (quality optimization) to a given peer. For P2P on-demand streaming systems that fetch data directly from the streaming buffer of the supplying peer, e.g. buffer chaining, the content of the streaming buffer change constantly, but the requesting peer may jump to any point in the stream. It is very expensive to track buffer contents for eligibility determination. This paper presents a novel eligibility determination strategy, which, instead of using directories, embeds relationship of buffer contents through the interconnection of peers. The resultant peering structure is called the overlapping buffer network (OBN). We discuss why this interconnection-based approach is more desirable than directory-based approaches, such as distributed hash table. Performance of OBN was evaluated with simulation
Sport Psychology. Theories and Applications for Performance, Health and Humanity.

This congress proceedings volume includes all abstracts submitted to the 14th European Congress of Sport Psychology of the European Federation of Sport Psychology FEPSAC that have been accepted by the scientific evaluation committee. Content: six keynote lectures, Panteleimon ("Paddy") Ekkekakis: Escape from Cognitivism: Exercise as Hedonic Experience; Sergio Lara-Bercial and Cliff Mallett: Serial Winning Coaches – Vision, People and Environment; Kari Fasting: Sexual Harassment and Abuse in Sport – Implications for Sport Psychologists; Claudia Voelcker-Rehage: Benefits of Physical Activity and Fitness for Lifelong Motor and Cognitive Development – Brain and Behaviour; Nancy J. Cooke: Interactive Team Cognition: Focusing on Team Dynamics; Chris Harwood: Doing Sport Psychology? Critical Reflections as a Scientist-Practitioner. Abstracts of 11 invited symposia, 65 submitted symposia, 8 special sessions, and 5 poster sessions.
Adaptive Cache Warming for Faster Simulations

The use of hardware-based virtualization allows modern simulators to very quickly fast-forward between sample points and regions of interest. This dramatically reduces the simulation time compared to traditional functional forwarding. However, as the fast-forwarding takes place through virtualized execution on the native hardware, it is unable to warm simulated structures, such as caches. As a result, sampled simulations taking advantage of virtualization for fast-forwarding find their execution time dominated by functional warming. To address the cost of warming, we present Adaptive Cache Warming (ACW), a new fast method that determines how much warming each sample/phase/application needs. ACW takes advantage of the virtualization-based fast-forwarding to search for the minimum warming time required during simulation. To determine when the cache is sufficiently warm, ACW uses heuristics based on the last-level cache's cold-set misses. Our results show that typical practice of conservatively warming last-level caches for around 100M instructions is a vast overkill for nearly all checkpoints. By using ACW, we can adapt the warming per-sample and speedup the simulation by 92--103× on average (512× speedup maximum) depending on cache size (2-32MB).
Improvement of Surface Functionalities, Including Allergenicity Attenuation, of Whole Buckwheat Protein Fraction by Maillard-Type Glycation with Dextran

The purpose of the current study was to determine the effects of the introduction of polysaccharide chains onto the molecular surface of buckwheat proteins on buckwheat protein surface functionality. The whole buckwheat protein fraction (WBP) was prepared using 50 mM phosphate buffer (pH 7.5) containing 0.5 M NaCl and covalently linked with 6 kDa, 17.5 kDa, 40 kDa, 70 kDa, or 200 kDa dextran by Maillard-type glycation through controlled dry-heating at 60°C and 79% relative humidity for two weeks. Conjugation with 40 kDa dextran improved the water solubility and emulsifying properties of WBP without causing a serious loss of available lysine; 84.9% of the free amino groups were conserved. In addition, we found that the introduction of dextran chains onto the molecular surfaces of WBP attenuated the antigenicity of WBP.
Research on closed-loop supply chain buy back contract of anti-disruption when demand and production cost disruptions

Closed-loop supply chain buy back contract of anti-disruption when demand and production cost disruptions is studied in this paper. The results show that: (2) closed-loop supply chain has a certain robustness under the condition of buying-back contract. (2) When emergent event makes the market demand and cost to large disturbances, the buy-back contract cannot coordinate the closed-loop supply chain. But the adjusted buy-back contract TG (q, w, b, w0, p0) has the nature of anti-disruption, and it can coordinate the closed-loop supply chain whether before or after the emergency. (3) In the short term, the recycling used products is not affected by the emergent event. Therefore, after the emergency occurs, the strategy for recycling used products can be temporarily unadjusted. These Conclusions not only can enrich and perfect the theory of closed-loop supply chain disruption management, but also can guide enterprises of closed-loop supply chain to actively prevent and respond to emergencies, and effectively mitigate the adverse impact of emergent events.
Automatic Detection and Tracking of Abandoned Objects

In recent years, visual surveillance has gained importance in security, law enforcement and military applications. Due to the wide use of video surveillance systems, the amount of data that has to be monitored and interpreted has increased enormously. Nowadays, the pure mass of information that has to be handled by the operators of such systems has over-grown their capabilities. It is therefore crucial to support human operators with (semi-)automatic surveillance systems which notify their supervisors in case of an incident potentially relevant to security. In this paper, we present a tracking/surveillance system that supports a human operator by automatically detecting abandoned objects and drawing the operator’s attention to such events. It consists of two major parts: A Bayesian multi-people tracker that explains as much of the scene as possible and a blob-based object detection system that identiﬁes abandoned objects using the unexplained image parts. If a potentially abandoned object is detected, the operator is notiﬁed and the system provides the appropriate key frames for interpreting the incident.
A Mixed-Signal Approach Towards Linear and Efficient  $N$-Way Doherty Amplifiers

A mixed-signal approach for the design and testing of high-performance N-way Doherty amplifiers is introduced. In support of this, an analysis of N-way power-combining networks is presented-in particular, their optimum design-by examining the relationship between the drive conditions of the active devices and input power. This analysis makes no prior assumption on the network topology and facilitates free-to-choose levels for the high-efficiency power back-off points. By comparing the results of this analysis with prior work, it is shown that very specific drive conditions apply to traditional three-way Doherty amplifier implementations to obtain simultaneously high-efficiency and high-linearity operation. To support these conclusions, a 15-W three-way Doherty amplifier was constructed using Philips GEN4 LDMOS devices featuring three separate inputs to independently drive the main and peaking devices. By testing this three-way amplifier with a custom-built measurement setup, capable of providing multiple digitally controlled coherent RF input signals with high spectral purity, a unique flexible amplifier concept is created resulting in a record-high efficiency for LDMOS-based Doherty amplifiers over a 12-dB back-off power range
Race, Interracial Families, and Political Advertising in the Obama Era: Experimental Evidence

Across two studies of race and interracial families in political advertising, this article finds that significant benefits accrue to Black candidates who present themselves as part of interracial families. These findings suggest Black candidates are more likely to succeed when they engage in displays of “racial novelty,” or counter-stereotypical behavior, provided that behavior signals closer affinity to White voters. For Study 1, we tested four original advertisements for a fictitious political candidate, in which we varied only the candidate’s race and the race of his son. The Black candidate with the White son prevailed over all other combinations, with respondents finding him the most trustworthy, most qualified for office, most likely to share their values, and most likely to care about people like them. For Study 2, we tested four new original advertisements for a fictitious Black candidate, varying only the candidate’s profession and the race of his son. We find, again, that Black candidates who display non-Black children do significantly better than Black candidates who display racially homogeneous families. However, we observe much more modest benefits for a Black candidate who practices a racially novel profession. We view these results as demonstrating that Black candidates are more likely to reap the rewards of racial novelty only when they are willing to provide a personal, rather than professional, signal of their affinity for Whites. As Study 2 shows, White voters in particular are responsive to personal (rather than professional) demonstrations of racial novelty. This affirms the logic of “New Racism,” whereby Blacks are looked favorably upon if they exhibit behavior associated with Whites, but penalized otherwise.
The cohesin complex prevents the end-joining of distant DNA double-strand ends in S phase: Consequences on genome stability maintenance

ABSTRACT DNA double-strand break (DSB) repair is essential for genome stability maintenance, but the joining of distant DNA double strand ends (DSEs) inevitably leads to genome rearrangements. Therefore, DSB repair should be tightly controlled to secure genome stability while allowing genetic variability. Tethering of the proximal ends of a 2-ended DSB limits their mobility, protecting thus against their joining with a distant DSE. However, replication stress generates DSBs with only one DSE, on which tethering is impossible. Consistently, we demonstrated that the joining of 2 DSBs only 3.2 kb apart is repressed in the S, but not the G1, phase, revealing an additional mechanism limiting DNA ends mobility in S phase. The cohesin complex, by maintaining the 2 sister chromatids linked, limits DSEs mobility and thus represses the joining of distant DSEs, while allowing that of adjacent DSEs. At the genome scale, the cohesin complex protects against deletions, inversions, translocations and chromosome fusion.
Acquisition and use of pronouns in a dialogic perspective

First uses of personal pronouns are characterized by their variability and in- stability. Since the processes involved in reference to discourse entities and to speech roles do not overlap, the use of pronouns cannot merely be explained by grammatical factors. This chapter considers dialogue as both the context and the mediator of the formal and functional mastery of pronouns. Several facets of dialogue are analyzed as the context in which linguistic units make sense for children who experience their situated use. The progressive construction of the pronominal system is examined through the lenses of factors that contribute to the pairing of forms and functions in ‘pre-constructed’ discursive sequences: adult’s uses, positioning, reflection of the other’s voice, and dialogic dynamics. Children’s mastery of pronouns is thus considered as grounded in their first di- alogic experiences.
Identification of Grapevine Cultivar Biomarkers Using Surface-Enhanced Laser Desorption and Ionization (SELDI-TOF-MS)

Protein-based tools for identifying plant varieties have developed rapidly, parallel to the evolution of gene-based technologies. In this study, we used ProteinChip technology to analyze the protein profiles of four different varieties of grapevines. This technique incorporates surface-enhanced laser desorption/ionization with mass spectrometry for rapid profiling and a comparison of protein profiles. Results revealed that several protein signals were differentially expressed in the varieties used, suggesting that this technology could potentially be used to identify cultivar-specific biomarkers in grapevines.
The Determinants of Reaction Times: Influence of Stimulus Intensity

I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. This is a true copy of the thesis, including any required final revisions, as accepted by my examiners. I understand that my thesis may be made electronically available to the public. ABSTRACT The central nervous system has the ability to generate very rapid 'temporally urgent' sensory motor reactions in response to stimuli under certain conditions. For example, temporally urgent reactions have been shown to occur during control of protective responses, such as regaining balance after a perturbation or reacting rapidly to a startling auditory stimulus. Two different mechanisms have been proposed to the observation of rapid reaction times; 1) different (shorter) pathway for those reactions with very rapid reactions and/or 2) increased synaptic excitability to reduce the time required at each site of synaptic convergence leading to a reduction in total reaction time. The overarching hypothesis of this work is that the occurrence of rapid reactions is mediated by the facilitation of pathways through stimulus driven and/or central facilitation leading to significant reduction in reaction time. The current work is delimited to a focus on the determinants of reaction time in response to auditory stimuli. Two studies were conducted to determine the relationship between stimulus intensity and behavioural and neurological responses. Study one focused on influence of stimulus intensity on simple and choice reaction time performance. Choice reaction time is distinguished by need for higher level cortical processing for decision making. Stimulus induced changes in choice reaction time would be most likely accounted for by pathway facilitation. Results from study one showed an overall decrease in choice reaction time to an increase in stimulus intensity with no difference in errors suggesting an increase in stimulus intensity results in increase synaptic facilitation. Study two focused on electrophysiological events associated with auditory stimuli. It was proposed that evidence of more rapid electrophysiological events and increased amplitude would support a model of synaptic facilitation with increases in auditory stimulus intensity. Results from study iv two showed decreased peak latencies with high stimulus amplitudes as well as increased cortical activity prior to motor responses further suggesting reductions in reaction time to increases in stimulus intensity are a result of increased synaptic facilitation. Overall this thesis is focussed on developing a further understanding of stimulus intensity as a determinant of reaction time so that in the future one may better understand the factors …
Segmentation of the Optic Disc, Macula and Vascular Arch in Fundus Photographs

An automatic system is presented to find the location of the major anatomical structures in color fundus photographs; the optic disc, the macula, and the vascular arch. These structures are found by fitting a single point-distribution-model to the image, that contains points on each structure. The method can handle optic disc and macula centered images of both the left and the right eye. The system uses a cost function, which is based on a combination of both global and local cues, to find the correct position of the model points. The global terms in the cost function are based on the orientation and width of the vascular pattern in the image. The local term is derived from the image structure around the points of the model. To optimize the fit of the point-distribution-model to an image, a sophisticated combination of optimization processes is proposed which combines optimization in the parameter space of the model and in the image space, where points are moved directly. Experimental results are presented demonstrating that our specific choices for the cost function components and optimization scheme are needed to obtain good results. The system was developed and trained on a set of 500 screening images, and tested on a completely independent set of 500 screening images. In addition to this the system was also tested on a separate set of 100 pathological images. In the screening set it was able to find the vascular arch in 93.2%, the macula in 94.4%, the optic disc location in 98.4% and whether it is dealing with a left or right eye in 100% of all tested cases. For the pathological images test set, this was 77.0%, 92.0%, 94.0%, and 100% respectively
A calculus and a system architecture for extensional higher-order resolution

The first part of this paper introduces an extension for a variant of Huet's higher-order resolution calculus [Hue72, Hue73] based upon classical type theory (Church's typed A-calculus [Chu40]) in order to obtain a calculus which is complete with respect to Henkin models [Hen50]. The new rules connect higher-order pre-unification with the general refutation process in an appropriate way to establish full extensionality for the whole system. The general idea of the calculus is discussed on different examples. The second part introduces the LEO system which implements the discussed extensional higher-order resolution calculus. This part mainly focus on the embedding of the new extensionality rules into the refutation process and the treatment of higher-order unification.
Trauma and social support: The association between informal social support, formal social support, and psychological well-being among terror attack survivors

This study aimed to examine the role that informal and formal social support play with psychological well-being as reflected in positive and negative emotions of injured terror survivors in Israel. A total of 150 survivors who were eligible for social support and assistance by government agencies completed questionnaires that examined positive and negative emotions, informal social support, and formal social support from public government agencies provided by professional trained social workers. A hierarchal regression demonstrated that informal social support is associated with improved psychological state. However, formal social support, although provided by professional agencies, failed to demonstrate such an association. Theoretical, clinical, and policy implications of the findings are discussed.