Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Engineering superlyophobic surfaces on curable materials based on facile and inexpensive microfabrication

This paper proposes a facile, versatile, and low-cost approach for batch production of engineered superlyophobic surfaces (SLSs, simultaneously superhydrophobic and superoleophobic) on various curable materials. Based on the soft replication using poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) as the intermediate mold, T-shaped overhang microstructures on Si and dual-resist masters have been transferred to curable materials including poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA), PDMS and glass resin. The as-fabricated polymer SLS replicas exhibit high structure fidelity, comparable nonwettability and excellent reproducibility for both water and oil during the 10 × 10 replication and possess new features such as tunable transparency. The proposed microfabrication approach for SLSs decouples the material and process dependence, greatly dilutes the fabrication cost and enables high-performance SLSs on a wide range of materials, which may initialize the broad applications of engineered SLSs for various low-contamination, low-adhesion and self-cleaning requirements in academy, industry and daily life.
A source subspace tracking array of microphones for double talk situations

We propose in this paper an array of microphones which achieves good performance in double talk situations. By a subspace tracking procedure, we jointly identify the acoustic paths from the speech and echo sources. With an adaptive beamformer constrained over these paths, we properly recover the original speech, cancel the echo and reduce the background noise. Simulations made with real data confirm the efficiency of this array.
An Asymmetric-Voltage-Biased Current-Mode Sensing Scheme for Fast-Read Embedded Flash Macros

Current-mode sense amplifiers (CSA) are commonly used in eNVM, because of their fast read speed at large bitline (BL) loads and small cell read currents. However, conventional CSAs are unable to achieve fast random read access time (TAC), due to significant summed input offsets (IOS-SUM) at read-path. This work proposes a calibration-based asymmetric-voltage-biased CSA (AVB-CSA) to suppress IOS-SUM and enable high-speed sensing without the need for run-time offset-cancellation operations. This work then fabricated two 90 nm AVB-CSA 1 Mb Flash testchips (with and without BL-length test-modes). The AVB-CSA eFlash macros with 512 rows achieved TAC of 3.9 ns at nominal VDD (1.2 V). The BL-length test-mode experiments confirmed a 1.53× improvement in TAC using AVB-CSA with a BL-length of 2048-rows operating at VDD=0.8 V.
Molecular Population Genetics and Phylogeography of the Chagas Disease Vector Triatoma infestans in South America

ABSTRACT Knowledge of the genetic variability, population structure, and evolutionary history of Triatoma infestans may be useful for developing rational vector control strategies. A 661-bp fragment of the mitochondrial gene cytochrome oxidase I (COI) was sequenced and analyzed in bugs from Argentina, Uruguay, Peru, and Bolivia, including peridomestic, domestic, Andean, and Chaco sylvatic bugs. A total of 48 polymorphic sites among 37 haplotypes were described. Nucleotide variation fluctuated among samples, with the highest nucleotide diversity observed in seven Argentinean provinces. Within this group, some populations showed patterns of variability compatible with population expansions and/or fine-scale population structure, whereas others suggested population bottlenecks and/or population admixture processes. A maximum parsimony analysis of the haplotypes showed the presence of a Bolivian/Peruvian and an Argentinean/Uruguayan clade. Bolivian sequences were further divided in Chaco sylvatic and Andean domestic and sylvatic. Two different nested clades were found within the Argentinean/Uruguayan cluster. Analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) and KST* analysis supported a strong population structure in Argentina, where genetic differentiation was correlated with geographic distance. Departures from neutrality expectations and a nested cladistic analysis suggest a recent population expansion of T. infestans in Argentina, followed by restricted gene flow and patterns of isolation by distance. This expansion could have taken place as a two-wave process, as was shown by the phylogenetic analysis and signatures of population admixture in the southernmost Argentinean populations.
Clinical anxiety promotes excessive response inhibition

Background Laboratory tasks to delineate anxiety disorder features are used to refine classification and inform our understanding of etiological mechanisms. The present study examines laboratory measures of response inhibition, specifically the inhibition of a pre-potent motor response, in clinical anxiety. Data on associations between anxiety and response inhibition remain inconsistent, perhaps because of dissociable effects of clinical anxiety and experimentally manipulated state anxiety. Few studies directly assess the independent and interacting effects of these two anxiety types (state v. disorder) on response inhibition. The current study accomplished this goal, by manipulating state anxiety in healthy and clinically anxious individuals while they complete a response inhibition task. Method The study employs the threat-of-shock paradigm, one of the best-established manipulations for robustly increasing state anxiety. Participants included 82 adults (41 healthy; 41 patients with an anxiety disorder). A go/nogo task with highly frequent go trials was administered during alternating periods of safety and shock threat. Signal detection theory was used to quantify response bias and signal-detection sensitivity. Results There were independent effects of anxiety and clinical anxiety on response inhibition. In both groups, heightened anxiety facilitated response inhibition, leading to reduced nogo commission errors. Compared with the healthy group, clinical anxiety was associated with excessive response inhibition and increased go omission errors in both the safe and threat conditions. Conclusions Response inhibition and its impact on go omission errors appear to be a promising behavioral marker of clinical anxiety. These results have implications for a dimensional view of clinical anxiety.
Gene polymorphism of IL-6 and MMP-3 decreases passive range of motion after rotator cuff repair.

OBJECTIVES Post-operative stiffness is common after rotator cuff repair, given the difference in susceptibility and severity, the genetic factors may be involved. Interleukin 6 (IL-6) and Matrix metalloproteinases 3 (MMP-3) were previous found as key cytokines in the pathologies of adhesive capsulitis. The present study aims to investigate whether variants within the IL-6 and MMP-3 gene contributed to post-operative stiffness in a Chinese Han population. METHODS A total of 188 patients diagnosed with rotator cuff tears treated with mini-open surgery were enrolled in this study, among which 87 patients were diagnosed as post-operative stiffness and the remaining 101 patients as controls. All subjects were genotyped for IL-6 and MMP-3 SNPs. RESULTS The rs1800796 of IL-6 and rs679620 of MMP-3 were found significantly associated with increased susceptibility and severity of post-operative stiffness. CONCLUSION The rs1800796 SNP of IL-6 and rs650108 SNP of MMP-3 were associated with increased risk of post-operative stiffness susceptibility and severity. This finding can be used in guiding the rehabilitation procedure after rotator cuff surgery, in another word, those with the genetic susceptibility factors should receive a more radical rehabilitation procedure and those without the susceptibility factors can be more conservative.
Synthesis of max-plus quasi-interpretations

Quasi-interpretations are a tool to bound the size of the values computed by a first-order functional program (or a term rewriting system) and thus a mean to extract bounds on its computational complexity. We study the synthesis of quasi-interpretations selected in the space of polynomials over the max-plus algebra. We prove that the synthesis problem is NP-hard under various conditions and in NP for the particular case of multi-linear quasi-interpretations when programs are specified by rules of bounded size. We provide a polynomial time algorithm to synthesize homogeneous quasi-interpretations of bounded degree and show how to extend the algorithm to synthesize (general) quasi-interpretations. The resulting algorithm generalizes certain syntactic and type theoretic conditions proposed in the literature to control time and space complexity.
Evolution of induced pluripotent stem cell technology

Purpose of reviewInduced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology, which uses defined transcription factors to reprogram somatic cells to become pluripotent cells, offers a significant technical simplicity and enables generation of patient-specific pluripotent stem cells with reduced ethical concerns. This review will focus on recent progresses in understanding of iPSCs and improved methods of generating iPSCs. Recent findingsWhereas iPSCs generated from a variety of cell sources were found to be nearly identical functionally to embryonic stem cells, some differences were also identified and remain to be characterized. Meanwhile, new methods of generating iPSCs with minimal or no exogenous genetic modifications to cells have advanced rapidly. SummaryiPSC technology provides unprecedented opportunities in biomedical research and regenerative medicine. However, there remain a great deal to learn about iPSC safety, the reprogramming mechanisms, and better ways to direct a specific reprogramming process. The iPSC field will flourish on its mechanistic studies, iPSC-based disease modeling, and identification of new small molecules that modulate reprogramming.
Predicting Intelligibility Deficit in Dysphonic Speech with Cepstral Peak Prominence

Objectives: The aim of this study was to examine the potential of cepstral peak prominence (CPP) for predicting the intelligibility deficit in dysphonic speech. Methods: Sentences from Hearing-in-Noise Test were recorded from 18 speakers with dysphonia and 18 speakers with normal voice. These samples were presented to 60 adults with normal hearing in quiet and noise at signal to noise ratio of +0 dB. Intelligibility was measured by orthographic transcription. Cepstral peak prominence was measured for all samples. Correlation between CPP and intelligibility score was examined. Results: Intelligibility was significantly lower in dysphonic speech than normal speech in the presence of background noise. The correlation between CPP and intelligibility score was moderate when the intelligibility scores were averaged per speaker. Conclusions: Cepstral peak prominence only moderately predicts intelligibility deficit in dysphonic speech. Accordingly, CPP alone is not sufficient for describing the deficit.
Avaliação do desempenho do escore Pediatric Índex of Mortality II na predição de mortalidade em unidade de terapia intensiva pediátrica

Escores de predicao de mortalidade sao instrumentos utilizados para a identificacao de grupos de risco, visando orientar a adocao de medidas eficazes no tratamento precoce. O escore mais recente usado para essa finalidade e o Pediatric Index of Mortality (PIM) II. Este estudo avalia o desempenho do escore PIM II em unidade de terapia intensiva pediatrica (UTIP). Trata-se de um estudo prospectivo, observacional. Foram estudadas uma serie de criancas internadas consecutivamente em uma UTIP brasileira, entre maio de 2005 a dezembro de 2009. Os calculos do PIM II foram realizados conforme estabelecido pelo artigo original. Foi analisado o Standardized Mortality Ratio (SMR), que e a relacao entre o numero de obitos encontrados pelo numero esperado. A probabilidade de obito foi dividida em cinco grupos de risco: menor de 1% (grupo I), entre 1 e 4% (grupo II), entre 5 e 14% (grupo III), entre 15 e 29% (grupo IV) e maior ou igual a 30% (grupo V). Na admissao e na evolucao da internacao foram registrados: idade, diagnostico, tempo de internacao, intubacao orotraqueal e desfecho. Foram analisadas 769 admissoes, com uma mediana de tempo de internacao de 3,8 dias. A media de idade dos pacientes foi de 3,2 anos. Os grupos diagnosticos definidos pelo estudo original do PIM II mostraram um predominio de doencas respiratorias (391 casos, 50,8%). Foram submetidos a ventilacao pulmonar mecânica 453 pacientes (58,9%). Ocorreram 72 obitos (9,4%), sendo que o numero de obitos esperado pelo PIM2 era de 51,58. O SMR foi 1,402, ou seja, valor 40,2% maior que o esperado. Entre os diversos grupos este valor foi 3,38 (grupo I), 1,85 (grupo II), 1,92 (grupo III), 0,83 (grupo IV) e 1,07 (grupo V). Na coorte de pacientes deste estudo, o numero de obitos nos grupos de menor risco (I, II e III) foi maior que o predito pelo escore PIM II Abstract
Requirement of Gamma-Carboxyglutamic Acid Modification and Phosphatidylserine Binding for the Activation of Tyro3, Axl, and Mertk Receptors by Growth Arrest-Specific 6

The Tyro3, Axl, and Mertk (TAM) receptors are homologous type I receptor tyrosine kinases that have critical functions in the clearance of apoptotic cells in multicellular organisms. TAMs are activated by their endogenous ligands, growth arrest-specific 6 (Gas6), and protein S (Pros1), that function as bridging molecules between externalized phosphatidylserine (PS) on apoptotic cells and the TAM ectodomains. However, the molecular mechanisms by which Gas6/Pros1 promote TAM activation remains elusive. Using TAM/IFNγR1 reporter cell lines to monitor functional TAM activity, we found that Gas6 activity was exquisitely dependent on vitamin K-mediated γ-carboxylation, whereby replacing vitamin K with anticoagulant warfarin, or by substituting glutamic acid residues involved in PS binding, completely abrogated Gas6 activity as a TAM ligand. Furthermore, using domain and point mutagenesis, Gas6 activity also required both an intact Gla domain and intact EGF-like domains, suggesting these domains function cooperatively in order to achieve TAM activation. Despite the requirement of γ-carboxylation and the functional Gla domain, non-γ-carboxylated Gas6 and Gla deletion/EGF-like domain deletion mutants still retained their ability to bind TAMs and acted as blocking decoy ligands. Finally, we found that distinct sources of PS-positive cells/vesicles (including apoptotic cells, calcium-induced stressed cells, and exosomes) bound Gas6 and acted as cell-derived or exosome-derived ligands to activate TAMs. Taken together, our findings indicate that PS is indispensable for TAM activation by Gas6, and by inference, provides new perspectives on how PS, regulates TAM receptors and efferocytosis.
Invited review: Microneurography and applications to issues of motor control: Fifth annual stuart reiner memorial lecture

Among the hypotheses regarding fusimotor functions based on earlier animal experiments some are inconsistent, others are in conformity with microneurographic observations in man. The human data provide evidence against the following two theories: (1) the length follow‐up servo theory; and (2) the theory that fusimotor neurons can be selectively activated to produce spindle sensitization and stretch reflex reinforcements. The human data support the theory of alpha–gamma coactivation. In particular, in the early phase of isometric voluntary contractions fusimotor‐driven afferent spindle activity assists in autogenetic activation of alpha motoneurons and in reciprocal relaxation of antagonists. As muscle fatigue develops, the autogenetic reflex drive via the fusimotor route declines. The fusimotor bias during contraction provides for maintenance of spindle sensitivity to minute perturbations and for load‐compensating reflex adjustments to such perturbations. Reflex overcorrections may lead to uncontrollable oscillations of the type seen in enhanced physiological tremor.
Text Steganography based on Font Type in MS-Word Documents

With the rapid development of Internet, safe covert communications in the network environment become an essential research direction. Steganography is a significant means that secret information is embedded into cover data imperceptibly for transmission, so that information cannot be easily aware by others. Text Steganography is low in redundancy and related to natural language rules these lead to limit manipulation of text, so they are both great challenges to conceal message in text properly and to detect such concealment. This study proposes a novel text steganography method which takes into account the Font Types. This new method depends on the Similarity of English Font Types; we called it (SEFT) technique. It works by replace font by more similar fonts. The secret message was encoded and embedded as similar fonts in capital Letters of cover document. Proposed text steganography method can works in different cover documents of different font types. The size of cover and stego document was increased about 0.766% from original size. The capacity of this method is very high and the secret message was inconspicuous to an adversary.
Protective effect of curcumin on oxidative stress and DNA fragmentation against lambda cyhalothrin-induced liver damage in rats

Article history: Received on: 29/11/2012 Revised on: 15/12/2012 Accepted on: 24/12/2012 Available online: 30/12/2012 LCT is a synthetic pyrethroid, developed as an insecticide for agricultural and public health applications. The purpose of this study was to investigate the adverse effects of LCT on rat liver and to elucidate hepatoprotective ability of CMN against LCT. Liver injury in male rats was induced by oral administration of LCT at a dose of 0.6 mg/kg/day for 4 weeks. CMN (200 mg/kg/day by oral administration) was used as a protective agent for the same period as LCT. Serum and liver samples were collected from all groups at the end of the experimental period. LCT-intoxication elicited significant elevations in hepatic markers enzymes (ALT and AST) and MDA concomitant with significant declines in the antioxidant enzymes (GPx, GST and GR), GSH and TP levels. In addition, it was noted that LCT-intoxicated group exhibited a degree of liver DNA fragmentation. Oral intake of CMN to LCT-intoxicated rats exhibited significant decrease in liver enzymes activities and lipid peroxidation, significant increase in antioxidant enzymes activities and partial inhibition in DNA fragmentation. Therefore, it was concluded that CMN has the ability to scavenge free radicals, protect against oxidative stress and prevent DNA fragmentation induced by LCT intoxication.
Prediction of dose-response relations based on patient characteristics.

The recent discussion of evidence-based, adaptive treatment planning highlights the need for models for the prediction of courses of treatment response. We combine a dose-response model with growth curve modeling to determine dose-response relations for well-being, symptoms, and functioning. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to model each patient's expected course of improvement. The resulting predictions were cross-validated on two samples of psychotherapy outpatients. The results give further empirical support for the dose-response model and the phase model of psychotherapy as well as for the usefulness of patient treatment response profiling for individual treatment management.
Improved Survival for Patients With Recurrent Wilms Tumor: The Experience at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

Background Reported estimates of survival for patients with recurrent Wilms tumor are 24% to 43%. Because published survival data are more than a decade old and do not reflect advances in therapy, the authors reviewed their experience in treating recurrent Wilms tumor to determine whether the probability of survival has increased. Patients and Methods The authors reviewed the cases of 54 patients with recurrent Wilms tumor who were treated on one of six consecutive clinical trials at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital between 1969 and 2000. Results Five-year overall survival estimates after relapse were 63.6 ± 15.7% for patients treated during or after 1984 (n = 20) and 20.6 ± 6.5% for patients treated before 1984 (n = 34) (P = 0.002). When the analysis was restricted to patients with high-risk clinical features, 5-year overall survival estimates were 47.6 ± 15.7% for those treated in the modern era (n = 16) and 11.1 ± 5.2% for those treated in the earlier era (n = 25) (P = 0.005). Only three patients received high-dose chemotherapy with autologous stem cell rescue; one survived. No patients with recurrent anaplastic histology disease survived. Conclusions Significant progress has been achieved in the treatment of recurrent favorable-histology Wilms tumor using multimodality salvage regimens with conventional doses of chemotherapy. Novel therapeutic strategies will be necessary to cure patients with recurrent anaplastic Wilms tumor.
A 60GHz-band 2×2 phased-array transmitter in 65nm CMOS

A 2×2 phased-array fully-differential transmitter IC with independent tuning of both vertical and horizontal polarizations realized in 65nm bulk CMOS is described in this paper. Phased-array transmitters increase the isotropic radiated power of a stand-alone transmitter over a single radiating element by 20*log10N dB, where N is the number of elements in the array [1,2]. They are well-suited to mm-Wave applications where spatial selectivity of the phased-array antenna compensates for beam directionality, and greater antenna gain helps offset path loss (88dB at 10m) that constrains 60GHz-band Tx/Rx link spans. Implementation in bulk CMOS technology favors co-integration of RF and baseband circuitry and the potential low production cost in volume for applications such as short-range Gb/s communication at (56 to 64GHz), collision avoidance radar (77/79GHz), and radio imaging (94GHz band).
BE: A search engine for NLP research

Many modern natural language-processing applications utilize search engines to locate large numbers of Web documents or to compute statistics over the Web corpus. Yet Web search engines are designed and optimized for simple human queries---they are not well suited to support such applications. As a result, these applications are forced to issue millions of successive queries resulting in unnecessary search engine load and in slow applications with limited scalability.
An XML-based format for guideline interchange and execution

In building a general purpose guideline system based on GLIF--the GuideLine Interchange Format, we encountered limitations in the GLIF specification. These limitations, while not so apparent in the static version of guideline content, became readily so in the context of real world implementation, and pertain not only to GLIF-based systems, but generally as well. These limitations can be described as being in one of five categories. In this paper, we describe each of these categories in detail, and show how an execution environment based on XML data structures addresses these concerns.