Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Phenotypic Modulation of the Mesangium Reflected by Contractile Proteins in Diabetes

The phenotypic change of the mesangial cell is considered to play a pivotal role in the accumulation of extracellular matrix in diabetic nephropathy. This investigation was undertaken to evaluate the expression of the various isoforms of contractile proteins in the streptozocin (STZ)-induced diabetic rat kidney and in renal biopsy specimens from patients with diabetic nephropathy. Specific antibodies to myosin heavy chain isoforms (SM1, SM2, SMemb), caldesmon, and α-smooth muscle actin and cDNAs for SMemb were used. Increased expression of SMemb at the mRNA and protein levels was demonstrated at 1 week after STZ administration in the rat. Both levels were increased at 4 weeks. Mesangial staining of caldesmon was observed at 4 weeks and that of α-smooth muscle actin at 24 weeks. Immunohistochemical mesangial staining of the contractile proteins was pronounced in patients with diabetic nephropathy in contrast to the trace mesangial staining in normal control subjects. These results indicate that the phenotypic change in mesangial cells occurs in the early stages of diabetes and that several stages in phenotypic changes may exist. Expression of the contractile protein isoforms, especially SMemb, should serve as a new marker for the subsequent glomerular hypertrophy and sclerosis.
Process modelling for green IT service management

This paper investigates whether Enterprise Ontology is instrumental in modelling global IT Service Management processes to enable the quantitative minimization of their ecological impact. These processes can become extremely complex, especially in global operational environments. This complexity is due to several factors, such as the numbers of involved organizations, people and different working procedures, but also of deliverables and tasks that are within scope. Additionally, a high pace of change can also add to the challenge of managing IT Service Management processes. As ecology and sustainability are becoming more and more important, Green IT Service Management which aim it is to minimize the ecological impact of IT Service Management, is introduced. For this purpose, it is necessary to apply process models that describe the operational reality accurately, but that also enable quantification and minimization of the related ecological impact. In this context, the question is examined if Enterprise Ontology makes it possible to design the enterprise architecture as well as the related processes that satisfy these criteria.
Output-Constrained Bayesian Neural Networks

Bayesian neural network (BNN) priors are defined in parameter space, making it hard to encode prior knowledge expressed in function space. We formulate a prior that incorporates functional constraints about what the output can or cannot be in regions of the input space. Output-Constrained BNNs (OC-BNN) represent an interpretable approach of enforcing a range of constraints, fully consistent with the Bayesian framework and amenable to black-box inference. We demonstrate how OC-BNNs improve model robustness and prevent the prediction of infeasible outputs in two real-world applications of healthcare and robotics.
Hybrid plasmonic waveguide coupling of photons from a single molecule

We demonstrate the emission of photons from a single molecule into a hybrid gap plasmon waveguide (HGPW). Crystals of anthracene, doped with dibenzoterrylene (DBT), are grown on top of the waveguides. We investigate a single DBT molecule coupled to the plasmonic region of one of the guides, and determine its in-plane orientation, excited state lifetime and saturation intensity. The molecule emits light into the guide, which is remotely out-coupled by a grating. The second-order auto-correlation and cross-correlation functions show that the emitter is a single molecule and that the light emerging from the grating comes from that molecule. The coupling efficiency is found to be $\beta_{WG}=11.6(1.5)\%$. This type of structure is promising for building new functionality into quantum-photonic circuits, where localised regions of strong emitter-guide coupling can be interconnected by low-loss dielectric guides.
Discovery Visualization Using Fast Clustering

To attack the problem of handling increasingly vast stores of information, we discuss a new approach to data exploration that requires the close coupling of man and machine. We call this approach discovery visualization to emphasize the importance of visual display and interaction. This approach aims to discover new relations, new features, and new knowledge. A key element in discovery visualization lies in heightening the machine's awareness of users so they have, for example, focus-based manipulation, based on where and how closely they look at the displayed scene, in addition to direct manipulation. This process makes no sense unless the machine can respond immediately. Further, we promote the concept of continuous interaction with constant feedback between man and machine, and constant unfolding of the data. Finally, automated response must combine with user selection to achieve and sustain animated action, even in data sets of great or varying complexity.
Calcaneal bone cyst: Sonographic findings and ultrasound‐guided aspiration biopsy

From the Department of Diagnostic Radiology, The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas. For reprints contact Bruno B. Fornage, MD, Department of Diagnostic Radiology, The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, 1515 Holcombe Boulevard, Houston, Texas 77030. and solid contents. We report one case of the sonographic visualization and ultrasound-guided needle biopsy of a calcaneal bone cyst.
DoubleSqueeze: Parallel Stochastic Gradient Descent with Double-Pass Error-Compensated Compression

A standard approach in large scale machine learning is distributed stochastic gradient training, which requires the computation of aggregated stochastic gradients over multiple nodes on a network. Communication is a major bottleneck in such applications, and in recent years, compressed stochastic gradient methods such as QSGD (quantized SGD) and sparse SGD have been proposed to reduce communication. It was also shown that error compensation can be combined with compression to achieve better convergence in a scheme that each node compresses its local stochastic gradient and broadcast the result to all other nodes over the network in a single pass. However, such a single pass broadcast approach is not realistic in many practical implementations. For example, under the popular parameter server model for distributed learning, the worker nodes need to send the compressed local gradients to the parameter server, which performs the aggregation. The parameter server has to compress the aggregated stochastic gradient again before sending it back to the worker nodes. In this work, we provide a detailed analysis on this two-pass communication model and its asynchronous parallel variant, with error-compensated compression both on the worker nodes and on the parameter server. We show that the error-compensated stochastic gradient algorithm admits three very nice properties: 1) it is compatible with an \emph{arbitrary} compression technique; 2) it admits an improved convergence rate than the non error-compensated stochastic gradient methods such as QSGD and sparse SGD; 3) it admits linear speedup with respect to the number of workers. The empirical study is also conducted to validate our theoretical results.
Evaluation of the 3D fractal dimension as a marker of structural brain complexity in multiple-acquisition MRI

Fractal analysis represents a promising new approach to structural neuroimaging data, yet systematic evaluation of the fractal dimension (FD) as a marker of structural brain complexity is scarce. Here we present in-depth methodological assessment of FD estimation in structural brain MRI. On the computational side, we show that spatial scale optimization can significantly improve FD estimation accuracy, as suggested by simulation studies with known FD values. For empirical evaluation, we analyzed two recent open-access neuroimaging data sets (MASSIVE and Midnight Scan Club), stratified by fundamental image characteristics including registration, sequence weighting, spatial resolution, segmentation procedures, tissue type, and image complexity. Deviation analyses showed high repeated-acquisition stability of the FD estimates across both data sets, with differential deviation susceptibility according to image characteristics. While less frequently studied in the literature, FD estimation in T2-weighted images yielded robust outcomes. Importantly, we observed a significant impact of image registration on absolute FD estimates. Applying different registration schemes, we found that unbalanced registration induced i) repeated-measurement deviation clusters around the registration target, ii) strong bidirectional correlations among image analysis groups, and iii) spurious associations between the FD and an index of structural similarity, and these effects were strongly attenuated by reregistration in both data sets. Indeed, differences in FD between scans did not simply track differences in structure per se, suggesting that structural complexity and structural similarity represent distinct aspects of structural brain MRI. In conclusion, scale optimization can improve FD estimation accuracy, and empirical FD estimates are reliable yet sensitive to image characteristics.
The cold-induced transcription factor bHLH112 promotes artemisinin biosynthesis indirectly via ERF1 in Artemisia annua

Abstract Basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) proteins are the second largest family of transcription factors (TFs) involved in developmental and physiological processes in plants. In this study, 205 putative bHLH TF genes were identified in the genome of Artemisia annua and expression of 122 of these was determined from transcriptomes used to construct the genetic map of A. annua. Analysis of gene expression association allowed division of the 122 bHLH TFs into five groups. Group V, containing 15 members, was tightly associated with artemisinin biosynthesis genes. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that two bHLH TFs, AabHLH106 and AabHLH112, were clustered with Arabidopsis ICE proteins. AabHLH112 was induced by low temperature, while AabHLH106 was not. We therefore chose AabHLH112 for further examination. AabHLH112 was highly expressed in glandular secretory trichomes, flower buds, and leaves. Dual-luciferase assays demonstrated that AabHLH112 enhanced the promoter activity of artemisinin biosynthesis genes and AaERF1, an AP2/ERF TF that directly and positively regulates artemisinin biosynthesis genes. Yeast one-hybrid assays indicated that AabHLH112 could bind to the AaERF1 promoter, but not to the promoters of artemisinin biosynthesis genes. Overexpression of AabHLH112 significantly up-regulated the expression levels of AaERF1 and artemisinin biosynthesis genes and consequently promoted artemisinin production.
Aligning Visual Regions and Textual Concepts: Learning Fine-Grained Image Representations for Image Captioning

In image-grounded text generation, finegrained representations of the image are considered to be of paramount importance. Most of the current systems incorporate visual features and textual concepts as a sketch of an image. However, plainly inferred representations are usually undesirable in that they are composed of separate components, the relations of which are elusive. In this work, we aim at representing an image with a set of integrated visual regions and corresponding textual concepts. To this end, we build the Mutual Iterative Attention (MIA) module, which integrates correlated visual features and textual concepts, respectively, by aligning the two modalities. We evaluate the proposed approach on the COCO dataset for image captioning. Extensive experiments show that the refined image representations boost the baseline models by up to 12% in terms of CIDEr, demonstrating that our method is effective and generalizes well to a wide range of models.
Significance and Prognostic Value of Red Blood Cell Distribution as a Severity Index for Patients Diagnosed as Having Acute Pancreatitis.

To the Editor: A cute pancreatitis (AP) is the most common gastrointestinal cause of hospital admission in the United States. For years, researchers have sought out methods to better determine the prognosis of patients with AP. Red blood cell distribution width (RDW) is a routine laboratory test that is obtained as a part of the complete blood count. As such, it is inexpensive and already being obtained in most patients who are admitted to the hospital. In common practice, RDW is assessed to differentiate between causes of anemia, but recently, RDW has been shown to also have potential as an inflammatory biomarker. Several studies have already tested the hypothesis that elevated RDW correlates with severity of AP. In the present study, we sought to confirm the prognostic utility of RDW for patients admitted to the hospital with AP. The total sample size was 489. The sample composition was 53.2% female, and the mean (standard deviation) age was 48.1 (17.4) years. For race/ethnicity, the sample was approximately 46.0% African American, 49.3% white, and 4.7% other. The mortality rate was 9.4%. We conducted several analyses to test the association between RDWand severity. Results showed that RDW was higher among thosewho had an intensive care unit (ICU) visit (mean, 15.4) than among those who did not have an ICU visit (mean, 14.7; t484 = 2.9, P = 0.004). Next, results showed that RDW was associated with higher odds of an ICU admission (odds ratio, 1.15; P = 0.005). We also tested the association between RDWand ICU length of stay (LOS) among those who had an ICU stay. Results from linear regression analysis indicated that the unstandardized regression coefficient was b = 0.70 (P = 0.04), indicating that every 1-point increase in RDW was associated with an increase of approximately 0.7 days in the ICU LOS. The relationships between RDW and other severity indicators were also assessed.
A new hybrid Dawson-type molybdenum arsenate derivative: (H2bpy)3[As2Mo18O62] (bpy = 4,4′-bipyridine)

The title compound, tris(4,4′-bipyridinium) diarsenooctadecamolybdate(VI), (C10H10N2)3[As2Mo18O62], featuring protonated bipyridine molecules and a classical Dawson-type polyoxo-anion, has been synthesized under hydrothermal conditions. The polyoxoanions are linked together via the bipyridyl cations, acting as hydrogen-bond donors, generating a two-dimensional supramolecular network. The asymmetric unit contains 1.5 4,4′-bipyridinium (H2bpy) units, with an inversion centre in the central bond of the second H2bpy unit. The site symmetry of the anion is .
Interfaces of polydisperse fluids: surface tension and adsorption properties.

We consider a system of spherical colloidal particles with a size polydispersity and use a simple van der Waals description in order to study the combined effect of both the polydispersity and the spatial nonuniformity induced by a planar interface between a low-density fluid phase (enriched in small particles) and a high-density fluid phase (enriched in large particles). We find a strong adsorption of small particles at the interface, the latter being broadened with respect to the monodisperse case. We also find that the surface tension of the polydisperse system results from a competition between the tendency of the polydispersity to lower the surface tension and its tendency to raise the critical-point temperature (i.e., its tendency to favor phase separation) with the former tendency winning at low temperatures and the latter at the higher temperatures.
Model a discourse and transform it to your user interface

Every interactive system needs a user interface, today possibly even several ones adapted for different devices (PCs, PDAs, mobile phones). Developing a user interface is difficult and takes a lot of effort, since it normally requires design and implementation. This is also expensive, and even more so for several user interfaces for different devices. This tutorial shows how human-computer interaction can be based on discourse modeling, even without employing speech or natural language. Our discourse models are derived from results of Human Communication theories, Cognitive Science and Sociology. Such discourse models can specify an interaction design. This tutorial also demonstrates how such an interaction design can be used for model-driven generation of user interfaces and linking them to the application logic and the domain of discourse.
The Role of Melatonin in Oxidative Stress, DNA Damage, Apoptosis and Angiogenesis in Fetal Eye under Preeclampsia and Melatonin Deficiency Stress

ABSTRACT Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate the possible mechanisms of ocular damage induced by pinealectomy (PNX) and preeclampsia (PE), and to determine the cellular and molecular effects of melatonin treatment on oxidative stress, DNA damage, molecular chaperone responses, induction of apoptosis and angiogenesis in the fetal eye of both PNX and PNX+PE animals. Material and Methods: We analysed therapeutic potential of melatonin on fetal eye damage in PNX and PNX+PE animals using Malondialdehyde (MDA), Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD), qRT-PCR and Western blot assays. Results: Our study presents three preliminary findings: (a) in fetal eye tissues, PNX and PNX+PE significantly induce oxidative damage to both DNA and protein contents, leading to a dramatic increase in caspase-dependent apoptotic signalling in both mitochondrial and death receptor pathways; (b) the same conditions trigger hypoxia biomarkers in addition to significant overexpression of HIF1-α, HIF1-β, MMP9 and VEGF genes in the fetal eye; (c) finally, melatonin regulates not only the expression of genes encoding antioxidant enzymes and increase in DNA damage as well as lipid peroxidation but also limits programmed cell death processes in the fetal eye of PNX and PNX+PE animals . Furthermore, melatonin can relatively modulate genes in the HIF1 family, TNF-α and VEGF, thus acting as a direct anti-angiogenic molecule. In conclusion, both PNX and PNX+PE induce ocular damage at both cellular and molecular levels in fetal eye tissue of rats. Conclusion: Our results clearly indicate the potential of melatonin as a preventative therapeutic intervention for fetal ocular damage triggered by both PNX and PNX+PE.
Comparison of three methods for differential cell count in induced sputum.

BACKGROUND Induced sputum (IS) using the cytospin technique has been extensively employed to characterize inflammatory airway diseases; however, procedures of cell enrichment based on cytospin increase the analytical costs and require slide processing within a short period of time after sampling. STUDY OBJECTIVES To compare three different techniques for cytologic analysis of IS, and to determine the time required by each method and the costs involved. DESIGN Cross-sectional study. SETTING Tertiary-care university hospital. PATIENTS AND MEASUREMENTS Eighty-nine patients with asthma and 11 subjects without asthma were submitted to increasing hypertonic saline solution concentrations of 2, 3, 4, and 5% for 7 min for sputum induction. Samples were smeared without treatment with 0.1% dithiothreitol (DTT) [technique A], after treatment with DTT (technique B), and after treatment with DTT and cytospin (technique C). All slides were air-dried and stained with Leishman stain. Two independent observers counted at least 200 inflammatory cells on each slide. RESULTS Eighty percent of the slides processed by techniques A and B and 65% of the slides processed by technique C represented sputum samples of acceptable quality. The eosinophil percentages in sputum obtained by techniques A and C were closely correlated, as also were those obtained by techniques B and C (r = 0.64 and r = 0.63, respectively; p < 0.01). There was a positive correlation for eosinophils when we compared techniques A and B (r = 0.57, p < 0.01). The neutrophil correlation was significant when the three techniques were compared (technique A vs technique B, r = 0.66; technique A vs technique C, r = 0.51; and technique B vs technique C, r = 0.57; p < 0.01). Bland-Altman analysis showed a good agreement for eosinophil and neutrophil counts when techniques A and B were compared to technique C. CONCLUSIONS The three techniques are good indicators of lung inflammation. Techniques A and B are less time consuming and are of lower cost.
Spectrum Allocation and Power Control for Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access in HetNets

In this paper, a novel resource allocation design is investigated for non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) enhanced heterogeneous networks (HetNets), where small cell base stations (SBSs) are capable of communicating with multiple small cell users (SCUs) via the NOMA protocol. With the aim of maximizing the sum rate of SCUs while taking the fairness issue into consideration, a joint problem of spectrum allocation and power control is formulated. In particular, the spectrum allocation problem is modeled as a many-to-one matching game with peer effects. We propose a novel algorithm where the SBSs and resource blocks interact to decide their desired allocation. The proposed algorithm is proved to converge to a two-sided exchange-stable matching. Furthermore, we introduce the concept of ‘exploration’ into the matching game for further improving the SCUs’ sum rate. The power control of each SBS is formulated as a non-convex problem, where the sequential convex programming is adopted to iteratively update the power allocation result by solving the approximate convex problem. The obtained solution is proved to satisfy the Karush-Kuhn–Tucker conditions. We unveil that: 1) the proposed algorithm closely approaches the optimal solution within a limited number of iterations; 2) the ‘exploration’ action is capable of further enhancing the performance of the matching algorithm; and 3) the developed NOMA-enhanced HetNets achieve a higher SCUs’ sum rate compared with the conventional OMA-based HetNets.
Early Postoperative Oral Exercise Improves Swallowing Function Among Patients With Oral Cavity Cancer: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Dysphagia remains an unsolved problem for patients with oral cavity cancer who have undergone surgery. This randomized controlled trial was conducted to determine the effect of oral exercise in addition to standard general care and diet counseling on the physiology of swallowing. Fifty patients (25 in each group) with oral and oropharyngeal cancer who underwent tumor resection, neck dissection, and reconstruction were enrolled in this study. The Rosenbek penetration-aspiration scale and modified barium swallow study were administered at 1 and 4 month(s) postoperatively. We observed significant improvements in the intervention group regarding the penetration-aspiration scale (P = .037), and oral and pharyngeal residue with thickened boluses (Nectar P < .001, Honey P < .001, and Pudding P < .001). In conclusion, oral exercise significantly improves the postoperative swallowing function of patients with oral cavity cancers.