Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
STABILITY CROSSING BOUNDARIES OF DELAY SYSTEMS MODELING IMMUNE DYNAMICS IN LEUKEMIA

This paper focuses on the characterization of delay effects on the asymptotic stability of some continuous-time delay systems encountered in modeling the post-transplantation dynamics of the immune response to chronic myelogenous leukemia. Such models include multiple delays in some large range, from one minute to several days. The main objective of the paper is to study the stability of the crossing boundaries of the corresponding linearized models in the delay-parameter space by taking into account the interactions between small and large delays. Weak, and strong cell interactions are discussed, and analytic characterizations are proposed. An illustrative example together with related discussions completes the presentation.
Real-time path planning for navigation in unknown environment

Real-time path planning is a challenging task that has many applications in the fields of AI, moving robots, virtual reality, agent behavior simulation, and action games. The various approaches for path planning have different criteria that have to be met, resulting in a number of algorithms for solutions to specific problems. In this paper, we introduce our approach and recent development regarding path planning in game environments. We propose a real-time motion-optimization algorithm called Adaptive Dynamic Points of Visibility (ADPV) for navigation of vehicles or moving agents in dynamical unconfigured environments, which computes a collision-free, time-optimal motion track for the moving objects. Our approach is able to deal with the obstacle-space that is unknown or partially unknown to the moving agent. It therefore solves the drawbacks of traditional obstacle-space configuration methods.
Norwegian male military veterans show low levels of mental health problems four years after deployment in Afghanistan

Abstract Background: Deployment of soldiers is associated with considerable rates of mental disorders after redeployment. Aims: The aim of this study was to identity prevalence of probable mental disorders and associated factors among male Norwegian soldiers at a mean of 4 years following deployment to Afghanistan in 2001–2011. Methods: The retrospective questionnaire-based study invited all Norwegian veterans deployed to Afghanistan from 2001–2011 to participate. The response rate was 59%, but only the 3403 men (47.5%) who completed all items of the four different screening instruments were used to define cases with mental health problems were included. Independent variables covered deployment and post-deployment issues. Results: The prevalence of subjects with mental health problems was 5.1% (95% CI = 4.4–5.9%) of the sample. Among deployment-related factors, physical and mental problems during deployment were most strongly associated with mental health problems after deployment. Among post-deployment factors high neuroticism and limitations in work, social, and family functions showed the strongest associations. In multivariable analysis, younger age at first deployment (OR = 0.95), neuroticism (OR = 6.40), increased current alcohol intake (OR = 3.08), impaired family function (OR = 1.91), more sleep problems (OR =1.13), and increased negative civilian life events (OR = 1.39) remained significantly associated with probable mental disorders. Conclusions: Among male Norwegian veterans from Afghanistan, the prevalence of mental health problems was low, and mainly associated with post-deployment factors. Veterans complaining of mental symptoms should be diagnosed, treated, and examined for other problems of life.
Maternal Predictors of Behavioral Problems Among Mexican Migrant Farmworker Children

This study investigated the impact of maternal parenting factors on the emotional and behavioral health of Mexican Migrant Head Start children. Although the majority of children sampled in this study did not exhibit problematic behaviors, the findings concluded that children who demonstrated emotional and behavioral problems experienced a more rejecting maternal parenting style, greater parenting stress, and mothers reporting feelings of depression. Gender differences were found between the behavioral and emotional problems of sons and daughters. Surprisingly, years in the United States, maternal birthplace, income, education, and language spoken in the home were not associated with child behavioral problems.
Asymmetric growth and division in Mycobacterium spp.: compensatory mechanisms for non‐medial septa

Mycobacterium spp. , rod‐shaped cells belonging to the phylum Actinomycetes, lack the Min‐ and Noc/Slm systems responsible for preventing the placement of division sites at the poles or over the nucleoids to ensure septal assembly at mid‐cell. We show that the position for establishment of the FtsZ‐ring in exponentially growing Mycobacterium marinum and Mycobacterium smegmatis cells is nearly random, and that the cells often divide non‐medially, producing two unequal but viable daughters. Septal sites and cellular growth disclosed by staining with the membrane‐specific dye FM4‐64 and fluorescent antibiotic vancomycin (FL‐Vanco), respectively, showed that many division sites were off‐centre, often over the nucleoids, and that apical cell growth was frequently unequal at the two poles. DNA transfer through the division septum was detected, and translocation activity was supported by the presence of a putative mycobacterial DNA translocase (MSMEG2690) at the majority of the division sites. Time‐lapse imaging of single live cells through several generations confirmed both acentric division site placement and unequal polar growth in mycobacteria. Our evidence suggests that post‐septal DNA transport and unequal polar growth may compensate for the non‐medial division site placement in Mycobacterium spp.
Detection and relevance of naftifine hydrochloride in the stratum corneum up to four weeks following the last application of naftifine cream and gel, 2%.

BACKGROUND Two-week treatment using naftifine cream or gel, 2% has been shown to be efficacious in subjects with Tinea pedis and/or Tinea cruris, and in most cases, continued improvement has been observed following cessation of treatment for up to four weeks. One possible explanation for continuous post-treatment improvement is drug-levels remaining in the stratum corneum (SC) as a function of time. OBJECTIVE The objective is to use tape stripping methodology to assess the amount of drug available in the SC over a 28 day period following the last dose. METHODS This was an open-label, single-exposure study on subjects comparing the amount of drug that was absorbed into the SC following topical application for 2-weeks. Twelve subjects were dosed daily (6 with naftifine cream, 2% and 6 with naftifine gel, 2%). Subjects had twelve 8 cm2 test application sites demarcated on the upper back. Twenty-five individual sequential strips were obtained from each test site. Of these, 11 sites were dosed once daily with the drug (5.0μL/cm2) for days 1 to 14 and the final site served as the control. On days 15, 29, and 43, a site was stripped to collect the SC in order to process the amount of drug present. RESULTS Naftifine was present on all tape strip samples collected over the 28 day period following two weeks of application. Furthermore, the most relevant, deeper tape strip sets reflecting the SC, showed potentially clinically relevant presence of naftifine in the skin for 28-days post-treatment. CONCLUSIONS Naftifine was present in the tape strips on all sample collection days up to and including four weeks following the last drug application. These findings help explain the progressive improvement in clinical and mycological response rates during the treatment period and for up to four weeks post-treatment in the clinical trials using naftifine.
Investigation of carvedilol-evoked Ca2+ movement and death in human oral cancer cells

The effect of carvedilol on cytosolic free Ca2+ concentrations ([Ca2+]i) in OC2 human oral cancer cells is unknown. This study examined if carvedilol altered basal [Ca2+]i levels in suspended OC2 cells by using fura-2 as a Ca2+-sensitive fluorescent probe. Carvedilol at concentrations between 10 and 40 µM increased [Ca2+]i in a concentration-dependent fashion. The Ca2+ signal was decreased by 50% by removing extracellular Ca2+. Carvedilol-induced Ca2+ entry was not affected by the store-operated Ca2+ channel blockers nifedipine, econazole, and SK&F96365, but was enhanced by activation or inhibition of protein kinase C. In Ca2+-free medium, incubation with the endoplasmic reticulum Ca2+ pump inhibitor thapsigargin did not change carvedilol-induced [Ca2+]i rise; conversely, incubation with carvedilol did not reduce thapsigargin-induced Ca2+ release. Pretreatment with the mitochondrial uncoupler carbonylcyanide m-chlorophenylhydrazone (CCCP) inhibited carvedilol-induced [Ca2+]i release. Inhibition of phospholipase C with U73122 did not alter carvedilol-induced [Ca2+]i rise. Carvedilol at 5–50 µM induced cell death in a concentration-dependent manner. The death was not reversed when cytosolic Ca2+ was chelated with 1,2-bis(2-aminophenoxy)ethane-N,N,N′,N′-tetraacetic acid acetoxymethyl ester (BAPTA/AM). Annexin V/propidium iodide staining assay suggests that apoptosis played a role in the death. Collectively, in OC2 cells, carvedilol induced [Ca2+]i rise by causing phospholipase C-independent Ca2+ release from mitochondria and non-endoplasmic reticulum stores, and Ca2+ influx via protein kinase C-regulated channels. Carvedilol (up to 50 μM) induced cell death in a Ca2+-independent manner that involved apoptosis.
TRANSMIT OPTIMIZATION FOR MULTICARRIER AND MULTIPLE-INPUT MULTIPLE-OUTPUT WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS

To meet growing demand for wireless access to voice, data and multimedia services, current wireless communication technologies need further improvement in spectral efficiency. Many enabling technologies have been proposed, inc ludi g multicarrier modulation, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) and link adap tation. This thesis investigates link adaptation, particularly transmit optimization in mu lticarrier and MIMO wireless communications. In the first part of this thesis, we propose a new bandwidth effi ci nt Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) scheme with adaptive z ro-padding (AZP-OFDM) for wireless transmission. A new system design criterion ba sed on the channel matrix condition is studied and applied to the design of an AZP-OFDM sys tem. It has been shown that AZP-OFDM offers a more flexible tradeoff between performanc e, bandwidth efficiency and complexity. The second part of this thesis investigates power allocatio n for OFDM. We propose new minimum bit error rate (MBER) and approximate MBER (AMBER) subcar rier power allocation algorithms for cyclic prefix (CP)-OFDM. It is shown bot h analytically and by simulation that the proposed CP-OFDM with MBER and AMBER power allo cation schemes are superior to CP-OFDM without power allocation as well as ze ro-forcing (ZF)-equalized
Emergency Department Visits and Hospitalizations in Children With Chronic Pancreatitis in the United States

ABSTRACT We analyzed 2 national databases to assess the use of health care resources by children with chronic pancreatitis (CP). In 2012, the hospital discharge rate for pediatric CP was 2.73/100,000 children. Patients with CP were sicker with a greater burden of illness than age- and sex-matched counterparts. Acute pancreatitis occurred frequently in hospitalized children with CP. Abdominal pain and nausea, and vomiting were the most common gastrointestinal symptoms associated with emergency department visits in children with CP. A significant proportion of these visits resulted in a hospitalization. These findings add to our understanding of the epidemiology of CP in the United States.
Repairing the Sickle Cell Mutation

A DNA third strand with a 3′-psoralen substituent was designed to form a triplex with the sequence downstream of the T·A mutant base pair of the human sickle cell β-globin gene. Triplex-mediated psoralen modification of the mutant T residue was sought as an approach to gene repair. The 24-nucleotide purine-rich target sequence switches from one strand to the other and has four pyrimidine interruptions. Therefore, a third strand sequence favorable to two triplex motifs was used, one parallel and the other antiparallel to it. To cope with the pyrimidine interruptions, which weaken third strand binding, 5-methylcytosine and 5-propynyluracil were used in the third strand. Further, a six residue “hook” complementary to an overhang of a linear duplex target was added to the 5′-end of the third strand via a T4 linker. In binding to the overhang by Watson-Crick pairing, the hook facilitates triplex formation. This third strand also binds specifically to the target within a supercoiled plasmid. The psoralen moiety at the 3′-end of the third strand forms photoadducts to the targeted T with high efficiency. Such monoadducts are known to preferentially trigger reversion of the mutation by DNA repair enzymes.
HUMAN EMOTION RECOGNITION USING THERMAL IMAGE PROCESSING

As peoples use body language or non-verbal language such as gesture and facial expression in communication; computers will also be able to communicate humans . In the digital era, there are various computational models are already exist for recognition of different facial expressions (Happy, Sad, Disgust, Angry and neutral) but we are trying to propose a computational model of facial expression recognition of thermal face images using Principal component analysis (eigenfaces for feature extraction ) and distance classifier. In this paper, novel framework for thermal image processing presented of facial expression recognition can improve the performance of facial expression recognition.
PCR-generated cDNA libraries from reduced numbers of mouse oocytes

Summary We describe a rapid and reproducible method for cloning cDNA amplified from 10 mouse oocytes. The procedure consists in priming cDNA synthesis from a crude cellular extract using an oligo d(T) containing primer and submitting the size-limited cDNA first strand to poly(dG) tailing. The whole cDNA population is then polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplified using two primers complementary to oligo d(A) and oligo d(G) ends of the cDNA. In this procedure no purification steps are required. We obtained about 5 ×106 clones from 10 oocytes. Screening of the library showed that the relative abundance of the transcripts was preserved during amplification and cloning and that the procedure allows cloning of low-abundance sequences at least as rare as 0.008% of the mRNA. The repeatable generation of representative cDNA libraries from reduced numbers of oocytes or embryos should open new opportunities for obtaining genetic information from mammalian preimplantation embryos.
Are there more than cross-sectional relationships of social support and support networks with functional limitations and psychological distress in early rheumatoid arthritis? the European Research on Incapacitating Diseases and Social Support Longitudinal

Objective. To investigate whether greater social support and support network are cross-sectionally associated with less functional limitations and psychological distress in patients with early rheumatoid arthritis (RA); whether this association is constant over time; and whether increases in social support or support network are associated with less functional limitations and psychological distress. Methods. Subjects were from the European Research on Incapacitating Diseases and Social Support cohort and had early RA. Social support, support network, functional limitations (Health Assessment Questionnaire), and psychological distress (General Health Questionnaire) were assessed annually. Variance and covariance analyses with repeated measures were performed. Results. A total of 542 subjects were assessed for 3 years. On average, patients with a greater amount of speciﬁc social support or a stronger speciﬁc support network experienced less functional limitation and less psychological distress. Changes in a given subject’s functional limitations and psychological distress did not depend on his or her baseline social support or support network. Neither social support nor support network change over time. Conclusion. There may be a cross-sectional link between speciﬁc social support or support network and functional limitations and psychological distress, but no longitudinal association could be evidenced.
ISAR 2-D imaging under low SNR based on improved compressive sensing

Under the target's sparse prior condition, the sparse signal recovery algorithm based on compressive sensing (CS) theory can improve the imaging resolution of the inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) with limited observation samples. However, traditional sparse signal recovery algorithm has poor robustness under low SNR. In view of this problem, under the two-dimensional (2-D) ISAR signal model, a novel ISAR 2-D imaging algorithm under low SNR based on improved compressive sensing is proposed in this paper. The low rank property of ISAR echo is utilized to reduce the adverse effects of noise to the conventional sparse-based algorithm and enhance the robustness of ISAR sparse imaging algorithm. The performance of proposed method is demonstrated by simulation and real experimental data.
Detecting radiological changes in rheumatoid arthritis that are considered important by clinical experts: influence of reading with or without known sequence.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate whether knowledge of the chronological sequence influences the sensitivity and specificity of the Sharp/van der Heijde (SvH) and Larsen/Scott (LS) scoring method to detect clinically important progression of joint damage caused by rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in the individual patient and assess whether scoring in chronological order leads to better sensitivity at the cost of lower specificity. METHODS For both scoring methods, progression scores obtained with (chronological) and without knowledge of the sequence of the films (paired) were compared with the judgment of an international expert panel. This panel assessed whether progression of joint damage seen on films with 1 year intervals was clinically relevant (defined as progression of joint damage that would make clinicians change therapy). The applied thresholds for clinical relevance were (1) the progression scores with the highest accuracy by receiver operating characteristics analyses for the expert opinion, and (2) the smallest progression score that can be detected apart from interobserver measurement error by the scoring method, i.e., the smallest detectable difference (SDD). RESULTS Progression scores that detected clinically relevant progression most accurately (chronological: 3.0 SvH units and 2.0 LS units; paired: 2.5 SvH units and 1.5 LS units) were smaller than the SDD (chronological 5.0 SvH units and 5.8 LS units; paired 13.8 SvH units and 9.7 LS units). With the SDD as threshold, the sensitivity to detect clinically relevant progression increased significantly from 20 to 60% for the SvH method and from 23 to 33% for the LS method if the sequence of the films was known. The specificity remained good when scoring chronologically: 88% for the SvH and 100% for the LS. CONCLUSION Our results suggest that knowing the chronological sequence leads to an increase in detecting clinically relevant changes in the patient without serious overestimation of nonrelevant differences. Analyzing a clinical trial should be done preferably by reading films in chronological order.
Analysis of proteins expressed at the time of murine organogenesis

Two‐dimensional electrophoretograms were prepared from wild‐type C57BL/6J embryos from day 7.5 through day 9.0 of development. This time period encompasses a critical window of development as the embryo traverses from an egg cylinder through major organogenesis. Consequently, we term this resource MOPED (for mouse organogenesis protein electrophoresis database). By resolving and analyzing the behavior of approximately 1,000 polypeptides per time point, we were able to track many of these polypeptides through this time period in development. Of special note was a burst of induced protein synthesis that was observed on day 8.5 of development. Polypeptides observed in mouse embryos that match those identified previously in mouse fibroblasts were noted. Two of them (the intermediate filament‐associated protein and tropomyosin‐4) were significantly altered in 8.5 day embryos. As more polypeptides are designated, it will be possible to expand the known proteins in the database. MOPED establishes the patterns of synthesis of a large number of polypeptides during a crucial period of development. Thus MOPED is designed to analyze proteins relevant to mouse embryogenesis in the future.
Dishevelled phosphorylation, subcellular localization and multimerization regulate its role in early embryogenesis

Dishevelled (Dsh) induces a secondary axis and can translocate to the membrane when activated by Frizzleds; however, dominant‐negative approaches have not supported a role for Dsh in primary axis formation. We demonstrate that the Dsh protein is post‐translationally modified at the dorsal side of the embryo: timing and position of this regulation suggests a role of Dsh in dorsal–ventral patterning in Xenopus. To create functional links between these properties of Dsh we analyzed the influence of endogenous Frizzleds and the Dsh domain dependency for these characteristics. Xenopus Frizzleds phosphorylate and translocate Xdsh to the membrane irrespective of their differential ectopic axes inducing abilities, showing that translocation is insufficient for axis induction. Dsh deletion analysis revealed that axis inducing abilities did not segregate with Xdsh membrane association. The DIX region and a short stretch at the N‐terminus of the DEP domain are necessary for axis induction while the DEP region is required for Dsh membrane association and its phosphorylation. In addition, Dsh forms homomeric complexes in embryos suggesting that multimerization is important for its proper function.