Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Oxidative stress in the chronic phase after stroke

Abstract The spontaneous and the stimulated extracellular generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) by peripheral phagocytes, the blood antioxidant capacity and the degree of oxidative damage were evaluated in patients with severe ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke in the chronic phase of disease. It was found in patients compared to the control group that: (i) the spontaneous phagocyte oxidative activity was enhanced independently of the type of stroke and the time elapsed after stroke onset; (ii) there was no difference in the extracellular ROS generation stimulated by opsonin-dependent and independent receptor mechanisms; (iii) there was no change in the indices of blood antioxidant capacity; (iv) the concentration of plasma lipid peroxides was enhanced regardless of the type of stroke, but it significantly increased over time; and (v) the concentration of blood thiobarbituric acid-reactive material was also enhanced. It was independent of the type of stroke and remained elevated during the whole period studied. We have demonstrated an enhanced spontaneous phagocyte oxidative activity and oxidative damage to lipids in patients in the chronic phase after stroke. The elimination of generated ROS and products of lipid peroxidation from the circulation could prevent the aggravation of chronic vascular injury in patients and could reduce the possibility of a subsequent stroke. This suggests the need for complex therapy, including antioxidant treatment directed to exclude the effects of free radicals, after the oxidative stress of stroke.
Slow potentials of the sensorimotor cortex during rhythmic movements of the ankle

SLOW POTENTIALS OF THE SENSORIMOTOR CORTEX DURING RHYTHMIC MOVEMENTS OF THE ANKLE Ryan J. McKindles, B.S. Marquette University, 2013 The objective of this dissertation was to more fully understand the role of the human brain in the production of lower extremity rhythmic movements. Throughout the last century, evidence from animal models has demonstrated that spinal reflexes and networks alone are sufficient to propagate ambulation. However, observations after neural trauma, such as a spinal cord injury, demonstrate that humans require supraspinal drive to facilitate locomotion. To investigate the unique nature of lower extremity rhythmic movements, electroencephalography was used to record neural signals from the sensorimotor cortex during three cyclic ankle movement experiments. First, we characterized the differences in slow movement-related cortical potentials during rhythmic and discrete movements. During the experiment, motion analysis and electromyography were used characterize lower leg kinematics and muscle activation patterns. Second, a custom robotic device was built to assist in passive and active ankle movements. These movement conditions were used to examine the sensory and motor cortical contributions to rhythmic ankle movement. Lastly, we explored the differences in sensory and motor contributions to bilateral, rhythmic ankle movements. Experimental results from all three studies suggest that the brain is continuously involved in rhythmic movements of the lower extremities. We observed temporal characteristics of the cortical slow potentials that were time-locked to the movement. The amplitude of these potentials, localized over the sensorimotor cortex, revealed a reduction in neural activity during rhythmic movements when compared to discrete movements. Moreover, unilateral ankle movements produced unique sensory potentials that tracked the position of the movement and motor potentials that were only present during active dorsiflexion. In addition, the spatiotemporal patterns of slow potentials during bilateral ankle movements suggest similar cortical mechanisms for both unilateral and bilateral movement. Lastly, beta frequency modulations were correlated to the movement-related slow potentials within medial sensorimotor cortex, which may indicate they are of similar cortical origin. From these results, we concluded that the brain is continuously involved in the production of lower extremity rhythmic movements, and that the sensory and motor cortices provide unique contributions to both unilateral and bilateral movement.
GasP control for domino circuits

We present two novel asynchronous control circuits for domino pipelines. The control circuits are based on GasP circuits, have a minimum cycle time of six gate delays, and compare favorably with previously published control circuits. We present some results from a chip implementation of several 64-bit domino adders in a TSMC CMOS 180 nm process technology.
Expression of Constitutively Active Raf-1 in the Mitochondria Restores Antiapoptotic and Leukemogenic Potential of a Transformation-deficient BCR/ABL Mutant

The oncogenic BCR/ABL protein protects hematopoietic cells from apoptosis induced by growth factor deprivation, but the mechanisms are only partially understood. A BCR/ABL mutant lacking amino acids 176–426 in the BCR domain (p185ΔBCR) failed to protect interleukin 3–deprived 32Dcl3 myeloid precursor cells from apoptosis, although it possessed tyrosine kinase activity and was capable of activating the Ras-Raf-MAP kinase pathway. Compared to p185 wild-type transfectants, p185ΔBCR-transfected cells showed markedly reduced levels of Bcl-2 and expressed the hypophosphorylated, proapoptotic form of BAD. Bcl-2 expression in the mitochondrial fraction of p185ΔBCR cells was also markedly diminished and mitochondrial RAF was undetectable. In p185ΔBCR cells transfected with a mitochondria-targeted, constitutively active RAF (M-Raf) BAD was expressed in the hyperphosphorylated form and released from the mitochondria into the cytosol. p185ΔBCR/M-Raf–transfected cells were completely resistant to apoptosis induced by growth factor deprivation in vitro. Moreover, constitutive expression of dominant-negative M-Raf (K375W) enhanced the susceptibility of 32Dcl3 cells expressing wild-type BCR/ABL to apoptosis. In severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) mice, p185ΔBCR/M-Raf double transfectants were leukemogenic, whereas cells expressing only p185ΔBCR showed no leukemogenic potential. Together, these data support the existence of a BCR/ABL-dependent pathway that leads to expression of an active RAF in the mitochondria and promotes antiapoptotic and leukemia-inducing effects of BCR/ABL.
Blind Separation of Post-nonlinear Mixtures using Linearizing Transformations and Temporal Decorrelation

We propose two methods that reduce the post-nonlinear blind source separation problem (PNL-BSS) to a linear BSS problem. The first method is based on the concept of maximal correlation: we apply the alternating conditional expectation (ACE) algorithm---a powerful technique from non-parametric statistics---to approximately invert the componentwise non-linear functions.The second method is a Gaussianizing transformation, which is motivated by the fact that linearly mixed signals before nonlinear transformation are approximately Gaussian distributed. This heuristic, but simple and efficient procedure works as good as the ACE method.Using the framework provided by ACE, convergence can be proven. The optimal transformations obtained by ACE coincide with the sought-after inverse functions of the nonlinearities. After equalizing the nonlinearities, temporal decorrelation separation (TDSEP) allows us to recover the source signals. Numerical simulations testing "ACE-TD" and "Gauss-TD" on realistic examples are performed with excellent results.
The SWI/SNF chromatin remodeling protein Brg1 is required for vertebrate neurogenesis and mediates transactivation of Ngn and NeuroD

Chromatin remodeling complexes play crucial roles in transcription and are implicated in processes including cell proliferation, differentiation and embryonic patterning. Brg1 is the catalytic subunit of the SWI/SNF chromatin remodeling complex and shows neural-enriched expression. Although early lethality of Brg1-null mice reflects its importance in embryogenesis, this phenotype precluded further study of specific Brg1-dependent developmental processes. Here, we have identified a requirement of Brg1 for both Xenopus primary neurogenesis and neuronal differentiation of mammalian P19 embryonic carcinoma cells. In Xenopus, loss of Brg1 function did not affect neural induction or neural cell fate determination. However, the Sox2-positive, proliferating neural progenitor cell population was expanded, and expression of a terminally differentiated neuronal marker, N-tubulin, was diminished upon loss of Brg1 activity, suggesting that Brg1 is required for neuronal differentiation. The ability of the bHLH transcription factors Ngnr1 and NeuroD to drive neuronal differentiation was also abolished by loss of Brg1 function, indicating that Brg1 is essential for the proneural activities of Ngnr1 and NeuroD. Consistent with this, dominant-negative interference with Brg1 function in P19 cells suppressed neuronal differentiation promoted by NeuroD2, showing the requirement of Brg1 for neuronal differentiation is conserved in mammalian cells. Finally, we discovered that Brg1 physically associates with both Ngnr1 and NeuroD and that interference with Brg1 function blocks Neurogenin3- and NeuroD2-mediated reporter gene transactivation. Together, our results demonstrate that Brg1 (and by inference the SWI/SNF complex) is required for neuronal differentiation by mediating the transcriptional activities of proneural bHLH proteins.
Analysis methods for extracting knowledge from large-scale WiFi monitoring to inform building facility planning

The optimization of logistics in large building complexes with many resources, such as hospitals, require realistic facility management and planning. Current planning practices rely foremost on manual observations or coarse unverified assumptions and therefore do not properly scale or provide realistic data to inform facility planning. In this paper, we propose analysis methods to extract knowledge from large sets of network collected WiFi traces to better inform facility management and planning in large building complexes. The analysis methods, which build on a rich set of temporal and spatial features, include methods for noise removal, e.g., labeling of beyond building-perimeter devices, and methods for quantification of area densities and flows, e.g., building enter and exit events, and for classifying the behavior of people, e.g., into user roles such as visitor, hospitalized or employee. Spatio-temporal visualization tools built on top of these methods enable planners to inspect and explore extracted information to inform facility-planning activities. To evaluate the methods, we present results for a large hospital complex covering more than 10 hectares. The evaluation is based on WiFi traces collected in the hospital's WiFi infrastructure over two weeks observing around 18000 different devices recording more than a billion individual WiFi measurements. For the presented analysis methods we present quantitative performance results, e.g., demonstrating over 95% accuracy for correct noise removal of beyond building perimeter devices. We furthermore present detailed statistics from our analysis regarding people's presence, movement and roles, and example types of visualizations that both highlight their potential as inspection tools for planners and provide interesting insights into the test-bed hospital.
Perceived Environmental Stressors and Pain Perception During Labor Among Primiparous and Multiparous Women

Introduction Pain experienced during labor is probably the most painful event in the lives of women. Environment itself influences a mother's experience of pain. Tension and stress resulting from pregnancy crisis and labor increase when the mother is hospitalized, which is concomitant with stressful situations and factors that affect pain perception during labor. The purpose of this study was to explore selected aspects of labor stress and specifically study the relationship between environmental factors and pain perception among parturient women. Materials and Methods This descriptive-comparative study was carried out in Tabriz Alzahra Hospital during 2005-2006. In this study, 300 primiparous and 300 multiparous women who were candidates for vaginal delivery, were randomly selected and interviewed. The data were collected by a questionnaire and the intensity of pain was determined by Visual Analogue Scale (VAS). Results Significant positive correlations were found between pain and tension from environmental factors in primiparous (r=0.16, p<0.01) and in multiparous (r=0.22, p<0.05) women. Furthermore, primiparous women believed that a crowded delivery room (70%) and restriction of movement and mobility (67%) contributed to their environmental stresses. Multiparas women believed that noise in the delivery ward (84%) and restrict of fluid intake (78%) increased their stresses. Conclusion Performance of routine diagnostic tests in hospitalized pregnant woman, provision of invasive medical care during labor process and a noisy and crowded environment all influence the mother's experience and perception of pain. Therefore, the medical staffs seem to play a great role in alleviating labor pain by reducing stressors, especially the objective ones that are more stressful.
Production , Manufacturing and Logistics Lost-sales inventory systems with a service level criterion

Competitive retail environments are characterized by service levels and lost sales in case of excess demand. We contribute to research on lost-sales models with a service level criterion in multiple ways. First, we study the optimal replenishment policy for this type of inventory system as well as base-stock policies and (R,s,S) policies. Furthermore, we derive lower and upper bounds on the order-up-to level, and we propose efficient approximation procedures to determine the order-up-to level. The procedures find values of the inventory control variables that are close to the best (R,s,S) policy and comply to the service level restriction for most of the instances, with an average cost increase of 2.3% and 1.2% for the case without and with fixed order costs, respectively. 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
What Causes Childhood Brain Tumors? Limited Knowledge, Many Clues

Little is known about the causes of brain tumors in children. Children with one of several genetic disorders including tuberous sclerosis and Li-Fraumeni syndrome are at increased risk, as are children who have received therapeutic irradiation to their head. The multifactorial causation of brain tumors, the inaccuracies of recall of past exposures, and the study of all pediatric brain tumors as a single etiologic entity may be contributing to the difficulty in identifying additional risk factors. The evidence that frequent cured meat consumption by the mother during pregnancy increases the risk is suggestive but not conclusive. For other potential risk factors, the evidence is limited and/or conflicting. These exposures and characteristics include pesticides, carcinogen metabolizing genes, and polyomaviruses.
QSEM: Quantitative Scalability Evaluation Method

While scalability is important to today's software applications, few organizations understand how to quantitatively evaluate their software's scalability. This paper describes the Quantitative Scalability Evaluation Method, QSEM. QSEM uses straightforward measurements to quantify the scalability of a software application. The results provide an understanding of the application's scalability that makes it possible to extrapolate behavior to larger configurations with confidence. The seven steps of the QSEM method are described and illustrated with a case study.
ON PATIENT FLOW IN HOSPITALS: A DATA-BASED QUEUEING-SCIENCE PERSPECTIVE

Hospitals are complex systems with essential societal benefits and huge mounting costs. These costs are exacerbated by inefficiencies in hospital processes, which are often manifested by congestion and long delays in patient care. Thus, a queueing-network view of patient flow in hospitals is natural for studying and improving its performance. The goal of our research is to explore patient flow data through the lens of a queueing scientist. The means is exploratory data analysis (EDA) in a large Israeli hospital, which reveals important features that are not readily explainable by existing models. Questions raised by our EDA include: Can a simple (parsimonious) queueing model usefully capture the complex operational reality of the Emergency Department (ED)? What time scales and operational regimes are relevant for modeling patient length of stay in the Internal Wards (IWs)? How do protocols of patient transfer between the ED and the IWs influence patient delay, workload division and fairness? EDA also unde.
Mobile Service for Reputation Extraction from Weblogs - Public Experiment and Evaluation

In this paper, we introduce a mobile service that extracts reputations of a product from weblogs by cellular phones during shopping. If the user takes a photo of a product barcode on the package with a cellular phone camera, Ubiquitous Metadata Scouter first gets the product metadata (name, manufacturer, etc.) from the internet and collects blogs that review the product. Also, it analyzes the blog contents with NLP techniques and ontologies. Then, it indicates the overall reputation (positive or negative), and other related products that are the subject of much discussion in the blogs. This paper illustrates each function of this service and a public experiment and evaluation at a real consumer electronics store and book-store in Tokyo in March 2006.
NGMF: a generic framework for constructing graph-based systems

Many branches of engineering and science rely on graphs for representing a wide variety of objects from electrical circuits to economic systems. It is therefore reasonable to have a framework for constructing this kind of applications that can manage a graph structure. Nebras Graph Management Framework (NGMF) is a layered client-server framework for rapid development of these applications. This framework allows developers to construct different applications that deal with a network of nodes and edges. For example a CASE tool that handles UML class diagrams, a subject manager (an application for business entity classification) or a system for managing hierarchal lists of all product components (Bill Of Materials or BOM) are some cases that can be designed through applying our proposed framework.
Role of an FtsK-Like Protein in Genetic Stability in Streptomyces coelicolor A3(2)

ABSTRACT Streptomyces coelicolor A3(2) does not have a canonical cell division cycle during most of its complex life cycle, yet it contains a gene (ftsKSC ) encoding a protein similar to FtsK, which couples the completion of cell division and chromosome segregation in unicellular bacteria such as Escherichia coli. Here, we show that various constructed ftsKSC mutants all grew apparently normally and sporulated but upon restreaking gave rise to many aberrant colonies and to high frequencies of chloramphenicol-sensitive mutants, a phenotype previously associated with large terminal deletions from the linear chromosome. Indeed, most of the aberrant colonies had lost large fragments near one or both chromosomal termini, as if chromosome ends had failed to reach their prespore destination before the closure of sporulation septa. A constructed FtsKSC-enhanced green fluorescent protein fusion protein was particularly abundant in aerial hyphae, forming distinctive complexes before localizing to each sporulation septum, suggesting a role for FtsKSC in chromosome segregation during sporulation. Use of a fluorescent reporter showed that when ftsKSC was deleted, several spore compartments in most spore chains failed to express the late-sporulation-specific sigma factor gene sigF, even though they contained chromosomal DNA. This suggested that sigF expression is autonomously activated in each spore compartment in response to completion of chromosome transfer, which would be a previously unknown checkpoint for late-sporulation-specific gene expression. These results provide new insight into the genetic instability prevalent among streptomycetes, including those used in the industrial production of antibiotics.
Towards a typology of modifiers for the speech act of requesting: a socio-pragmatic approach

The purpose of this paper is to propose a functional typology of peripheral modification devices (i.e. optional elements that serve to soften or intensify the impositive nature of requests) from a socio-pragmatic approach. To that end, we will first provide a definition of these particular devices by explaining the difference between internal and external modifiers, as well as highlighting which is the purpose in using these devices. Second, we will review in detail previous research conducted on these elements by examining studies from both the cross-cultural and interlanguage pragmatics perspectives. Third, we will present the typology we have elaborated on the basis of these studies, as well as the analysis of EFL learners’ oral production data. Finally, several pedagogical implications will be suggested concerning the integration of our proposed typology in the foreign language classroom with the aim to foster learners’ pragmatic competence as far as requestive behaviour is concerned.
Expectation Truncation and the Benefits of Preselection In Training Generative Models

We show how a preselection of hidden variables can be used to efficiently train generative models with binary hidden variables. The approach is based on Expectation Maximization (EM) and uses an efficiently computable approximation to the sufficient statistics of a given model. The computational cost to compute the sufficient statistics is strongly reduced by selecting, for each data point, the relevant hidden causes. The approximation is applicable to a wide range of generative models and provides an interpretation of the benefits of preselection in terms of a variational EM approximation. To empirically show that the method maximizes the data likelihood, it is applied to different types of generative models including: a version of non-negative matrix factorization (NMF), a model for non-linear component extraction (MCA), and a linear generative model similar to sparse coding. The derived algorithms are applied to both artificial and realistic data, and are compared to other models in the literature. We find that the training scheme can reduce computational costs by orders of magnitude and allows for a reliable extraction of hidden causes.