Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Aggregation and elongation indices of erythrocytes of patients with chronic renal insufficiency relate to antioxidant capacity FRAP and CAT/SOD Ratio values

The aim of the study was to evaluate multivariate correlation between selected rheological parameters and antioxidant defense biomarkers of red blood cells in patients with renal insufficiency undergoing hemodialysis. Measurement of hemorheological parameters was performed with Laser-Assisted Optical Rotational Cell Analyzer (LORCA). Superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT) activities were analyzed by Fridovich and Aebi methods respectively. Total antioxidant capacity, expressed as FRAP (ferric reducing ability of plasma) value was ascertained by the method of Benzi. 17 hemodialysis patients and 13 healthy control subjects were studied. It was observed that patients with renal insufficiency had significantly increased AI (aggregation index) when compared to healthy volunteers. Furthermore, these patients had significantly reduced index of deformability (elongation index - EI) in shear stress 0.58 Pa. It was found that dialyzed patients had markedly increased FRAP, which was accompanied by slight lowering of CAT/SOD ratio. Multivariate cluster analysis revealed that FRAP values were closely linked with AI whereas CAT/SOD ratio correlated with EI at the lowest shear stress pressures. On the basis of results, it could be supposed that imbalance between activities of CAT and SOD, may play crucial role in the impairment of red blood cells haemorheology in dialyzed patients. (NEFROL. DIAL. POL. 2010, 14, 22-26)
Chondroitin sulfate proteoglycans inhibit the migration and differentiation of oligodendrocyte precursor cells and its counteractive interaction with laminin

Cerebral white matter injury (WMI) is a recognized problem in premature infants, particularly in those with very low birth weights. Although the survival rate of premature infants has notably increased due to the advancement of modern medical treatments, their likelihood of developmental disability is higher than infants with an average birth weight. It has been previously reported that oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPCs) are selectively vulnerable to WMI in premature infants. Following brain injury, glial scars may develop within the white matter. Their main constituent is chondroitin sulphate proteoglycans (CSPGs), revealing a potential association between CSPGs and OPCs. In the present study rat OPCs were cultured in vitro, and the effect of CSPGs on the proliferation, migration and differentiation of OPCs was determined. It was revealed that CSPGs did not affect proliferation, but they did inhibit the migration and differentiation of OPCs. It was also identified that the inhibitory effect of CSPGs was counteracted by laminin. Factor analysis revealed that CSPGs and laminin served interactive roles in OPC differentiation. The effect of CSPGs on OPCs was associated with the downregulation of β1-integrin, indicating that CSPGs potentially competitively inhibit the β1-integrin signaling pathway. Collectively, these results suggest that CSPGs serve a role as inhibitors of OPC differentiation and migration, as well as indicating an interaction between CSPGs and laminin. The present study has revealed a potential novel therapeutic target for WMI in premature infants, and identified β1-integrin signaling as a pathological mechanism for dysfunctional myelination in white matter.
Design and Control of a Modular Multilevel DC/DC Converter for Regenerative Applications

This paper compares different cascaded and multilevel topologies to interface supercapacitors to a dc bus in regenerative braking applications. It is shown that the modular multilevel dc/dc converter (MMC) can benefit from both reduced voltage and increased frequency across the inductor to reduce its weight and volume when using phase shifting modulation. The proposed control method is able to balance supercapacitor voltage while providing precise output current control. The converter topology and control method are validated with simulations and experimental results.
A Taxonomy of Visual Cluster Separation Factors

We provide two contributions, a taxonomy of visual cluster separation factors in scatterplots, and an in‐depth qualitative evaluation of two recently proposed and validated separation measures. We initially intended to use these measures to provide guidance for the use of dimension reduction (DR) techniques and visual encoding (VE) choices, but found that they failed to produce reliable results. To understand why, we conducted a systematic qualitative data study covering a broad collection of 75 real and synthetic high‐dimensional datasets, four DR techniques, and three scatterplot‐based visual encodings. Two authors visually inspected over 800 plots to determine whether or not the measures created plausible results. We found that they failed in over half the cases overall, and in over two‐thirds of the cases involving real datasets. Using open and axial coding of failure reasons and separability characteristics, we generated a taxonomy of visual cluster separability factors. We iteratively refined its explanatory clarity and power by mapping the studied datasets and success and failure ranges of the measures onto the factor axes. Our taxonomy has four categories, ordered by their ability to influence successors: Scale, Point Distance, Shape, and Position. Each category is split into Within‐Cluster factors such as density, curvature, isotropy, and clumpiness, and Between‐Cluster factors that arise from the variance of these properties, culminating in the overarching factor of class separation. The resulting taxonomy can be used to guide the design and the evaluation of cluster separation measures.
Signal interpretation for monitoring and diagnosis, a cooling system testbed

This paper discusses our method for monitoring and diagnosis of dynamic systems. A key aspect in our approach is the interaction between a qualitative diagnosis engine that requires symbolic input data and a monitoring component that performs a signal to symbol transformation on the observed signals. We have applied the methodology to the cooling system of an automobile engine on which we have installed thermocouples and pressure sensors. Faults can be introduced into the cooling system in a controlled manner. We show that a combination of linear approximation techniques and statistical signal processing can provide robust symbolic signal values for the diagnosis algorithm.
Object Class Recognition Using Multiple Instance Learning with Image as a Bag of Subimages

Object class recognition in a given image is a difficult problem. To classify a test image as hit or match for a particular object class requires the abstraction of an object, developed using real world images. This is where the difficulty lies since the images of an object class can have large-scale variations in terms of illumination, angle of view, scale, rotation, color, location, type etc (intra-class variations). For example, the different photographs of the object class ‘car’ from PASCAL VOC 2007 [1] dataset shown below differ from each other in aspects mentioned previously.
Kinesin spindle protein SiRNA slows tumor progression

The kinesin spindle protein (KSP), a member of the kinesin superfamily of microtubule‐based motors, plays a critical role in mitosis as it mediates centrosome separation and bipolar spindle assembly and maintenance. Inhibition of KSP function leads to cell cycle arrest at mitosis with the formation of monoastral microtubule arrays, and ultimately, to cell death. Several KSP inhibitors are currently being studied in clinical trials and provide new opportunities for the development of novel anticancer therapeutics. RNA interference (RNAi) may represent a powerful strategy to interfere with key molecular pathways involved in cancer. In this study, we have established an efficient method for intratumoral delivery of siRNA. We evaluated short interfering RNA (siRNA) duplexes targeting luciferase as surrogate marker or KSP sequence. To examine the potential feasibility of RNAi therapy, the siRNA was transfected into pre‐established lesions by means of intratumor electro‐transfer of RNA therapeutics (IERT). This technology allowed cell permeation of the nucleic acids and to efficiently knock down gene expression, albeit transiently. The KSP‐specific siRNA drastically reduced outgrowth of subcutaneous melanoma and ovarian cancer lesions. Our results show that intratumoral electro‐transfer of siRNA is feasible and KSP‐specific siRNA may provide a novel strategy for therapeutic intervention. J. Cell. Physiol. 228: 58–64, 2013. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
The executable experimental template pattern for the systematic comparison of metaheuristics: Extended Abstract

Geoffrey Neumann Computing Science and Mathematics University of Stirling FK9 4LA Scotland UK gkn@cs.stir. ac.uk Jerry Swan Computing Science and Mathematics University of Stirling FK9 4LA Scotland UK jsw@cs.stir. ac.uk Mark Harman Department of Computer Science University College London, London, WC1E 6BT, UK. mark.harman@ucl.ac.uk John A. Clark Department of Computer Science and YYCSA University of York York, YO10 5GH, UK. john.clark@cs.york. ac.uk
Statistical Image Upsampling Method Based on CUDA

In many application fields, an appropriate high-quality fast image upsampling method is required. Although many interpolation-based upsampling methods have been proposed, the quality of result images is not satisfactory. Some of them are very fast, but produce poor quality images, the others can produce high quality images, but the methods in them are slow. In our paper, we proposed a fast statistical image upsampling method based on CUDA, it can obtain high quality images based on reducing the input resolution-grids dependency artifacts. Thus, we can rebuild low resolution images' sharp edges fast and get high-quality upsampled images in real time. We have applied this method in the multi-resolution texture generation of large scale terrain rendering. Experiments prove that our method can receive ideal effects in real time.
Verifying Curve25519 Software

This paper presents results on formal verification of high-speed cryptographic software. We consider speed-record-setting hand-optimized assembly software for Curve25519 elliptic-curve key exchange presented by Bernstein et al. at CHES 2011. Two versions for different microarchitectures are available. We successfully verify the core part of the computation, and reproduce detection of a bug in a previously published edition. An SMT solver supporting array and bit-vector theories is used to establish almost all properties. Remaining properties are verified in a proof assistant with simple rewrite tactics. We also exploit the compositionality of Hoare logic to address the scalability issue. Essential differences between both versions of the software are discussed from a formal-verification perspective.
Critical Comparison of Virtual Screening Methods against the MUV Data Set

In the current work, we measure the performance of seven ligand-based virtual screening tools--five similarity search methods and two pharmacophore elucidators--against the MUV data set. For the similarity search tools, single active molecules as well as active compound sets clustered in terms of their chemical diversity were used as templates. Their score was calculated against all inactive and active compounds in their target class. Subsequently, the scores were used to calculate different performance metrics including enrichment factors and AUC values. We also studied the effect of data fusion on the results. To measure the performance of the pharmacophore tools, a set of active molecules was picked either random- or chemical diversity-based from each target class to build a pharmacophore model which was then used to screen the remaining compounds in the set. Our results indicate that template sets selected by their chemical diversity are the best choice for similarity search tools, whereas the optimal training sets for pharmacophore elucidators are based on random selection underscoring that pharmacophore modeling cannot be easily automated. We also suggest a number of improvements for future benchmark sets and discuss activity cliffs as a potential problem in ligand-based virtual screening.
An analysis of covert timing channels

Covert channels have traditionally been categorized as either storage channels or timing channels. The author questions this categorization, and discusses channels that cannot be clearly identified as either storage or timing channels, but have aspects of both. A new model of timing channels is presented, which allows for channels that have characteristics of both storage channels and timing channels, and a method is given for constructing all channels in a computer system that have timing channel characteristics. Since R.A. Kemmerer's (1982) shared resource matrix methodology has the potential to detect all channels that have storage characteristics, the two methods jointly have the capability to construct all channels in a computer system. The approach to timing channels provides a justification of specific mechanisms for reducing their bandwidth which were employed in the VAX Virtual Machine Monitor. <<ETX>>
Detecting Malicious URLs: A Semi-Supervised Machine Learning System Approach

As malware industry grows, so does the means of infecting a computer or device evolve. One of the most common infection vector is to use the Internet as an entry point. Not only that this method is easy to use, but due to the fact that URLs come in different forms and shapes, it is really difficult to distinguish a malicious URL from a benign one. Furthermore, every system that tries to classify or detect URLs must work on a real time stream and needs to provide a fast response for every URL that is submitted for analysis (in our context a fast response means less than 300-400 milliseconds/URL). From a malware creator point of view, it is really easy to change such URLs multiple times in one day. As a general observation, malicious URLs tend to have a short life (they appear, serve malicious content for several hours and then they are shut down usually by the ISP where they reside in). This paper aims to present a system that analyzes URLs in network traffic that is also capable of adjusting its detection models to adapt to new malicious content. Every correctly classified URL is reused as part of a new dataset that acts as the backbone for new detection models. The system also uses different clustering techniques in order to identify the lack of features on malicious URLs, thus creating a way to improve detection for this kind of threats.
Volumatic usage: some generic salbutamol metered dose inhalers can be used.

BACKGROUND--The 30 minute and 24 hour post-inhalation urinary excretion of salbutamol represents the relative amount of drug deposited in the lungs and total systemic absorption, respectively. Using this method two metered dose inhalers used with a Volumatic (Allen and Hanburys Ltd, UK) large volume spacer have been compared. METHOD--Eleven healthy volunteers inhaled 4 x 100 micrograms salbutamol from either a generic salbutamol (Baker Norton, UK) or Ventolin (Allen and Hanburys Ltd, UK) metered dose inhaler with a Volumatic. The order of administration was randomised with a seven day washout period. Urine samples were collected for 0-30 minutes and then pooled up to 24 hours after inhalation. RESULTS--The mean (SD) urinary salbutamol excretion 30 minutes after inhalation with the metered dose inhalers used with the Volumatic was 22.22 (4.63) and 21.30 (5.91) micrograms for the Baker Norton and Ventolin respectively, with a mean difference (95% confidence interval (CI)) of 0.92 (-0.65 to 2.49) micrograms. Similar amounts were excreted up to 24 hours after the dose with a mean (SD) urinary excretion of 116.1 (24.3) micrograms and 114.8 (22.3) micrograms, respectively, and a mean difference (95% CI) of 1.22 (-20.39 to 22.84) micrograms. CONCLUSION--Inhalations from generic salbutamol (Baker Norton) and Ventolin metered dose inhalers with a Volumatic inhalation aid deliver similar amounts of drug to the lungs and the total systemic absorption from the two products is the same.
Automatic Resolution of Ambiguous Abbreviations in Biomedical Texts using Support Vector Machines and One Sense Per Discourse Hypothesis

We present an algorithm to disambiguate abbreviations in Medline abstracts using Support Vector Machines (SVM) and one sense per discourse hypothesis. In contrast to other work using SVM for natural language disambiguation which always depend on handcrafted training and testing data, the algorithm provided here automatically extracts the training and testing data through searching long form of abbreviation in the texts and using one sense per discourse hypothesis. In the phase of testing, we also use this hypothesis to unify the outputs of the classifier via majority voting. The results obtained in our experiments demonstrate that SVM is a promising technique for abbreviation disambiguation and using majority voting in the phase of testing can improve the accuracy from 82.35% to 84.31%.
(2E)-2-{[3-Methyl-5-(2-naphthyloxy)-1-phenyl-1H-pyrazol-4-yl]methylidene}hydrazinecarbothioamide monohydrate

In the title compound, C22H19N5OS·H2O, the naphthalene ring system and the benzene ring [dihedral angle = 85.19 (8)°] make dihedral angles of 87.02 (9) and 14.41 (10)°, respectively, with the pyrazole ring. The mean plane through the 2-methylenehydrazinecarbothioamide group [C—N—N—C(=S)—N; maximum deviation = 0.022 (1) Å] is slightly twisted from the pyrazole ring [dihedral angle = 5.60 (11)°]. In the crystal, molecules are linked by N—H⋯S, N—H⋯O, O—H⋯S, O—H⋯N and C—H⋯S hydrogen bonds into sheets parallel to the ab plane. π–π interactions are also observed [centroid-to-centroid distances = 3.7778 (12) and 3.7010 (12) Å].
Direct observation of reaction intermediates for a well defined heterogeneous alkene metathesis catalyst

Grafting of [W(≡NAr)(=CHtBu)(2,5-Me2NC4H2)2] on a silica partially dehydroxylated at 700°C (SiO2- (700)) generates the corresponding monosiloxy complex [(≡SiO)W(≡NAr)(=CHtBu)(2,5-Me2NC4H2)] as the major species (≈90%) along with [(≡SiO)W(≡NAr)(CH2tBu)(2,5-Me2NC4H2)2], according to mass balance analysis, IR, and NMR studies. This heterogeneous catalyst displays good activity and stability in the metathesis of propene. Very importantly, solid state NMR spectroscopy allows observation of the propagating alkylidene as well as stable metallacyclobutane intermediates. These species have the same reactivity as the initial surface complex [(≡SiO)W(≡NAr)(=CHtBu)(2,5-Me2NC4H2)], which shows that they are the key intermediates of alkene metathesis.
Differential Immune Responses of Red Deer (Cervus elaphus) following Experimental Challenge with Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis

ABSTRACT Immune responses of red deer (Cervus elaphus) that presented with different levels of paucibacillary pathology were profiled to detail immune changes during the progression of Johne's disease. Immune responses were monitored using an immunoglobulin G1 (IgG1) antibody enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), a gamma interferon (IFN-γ) ELISA, and flow cytometry. Animals in the study were divided into outcome groups postmortem according to disease severity. All animals mounted IgG1 antibody and IFN-γ responses to both the vaccination and experimental challenges. The Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis-specific IgG1 antibody responses in the challenged group showed marked differences between infected and severely diseased animals. Slightly higher IFN-γ responses were seen in infected animals compared with severely diseased animals. No significant changes were seen in the phenotype of lymphocyte populations investigated. Vaccination with killed M. avium subsp. paratuberculosis in mineral oil adjuvant reduced the level of severe disease; however, it obscured immunological differences between the infected and severely diseased groups. This suggests protection is not exclusively mediated via the presence of a type 1 response and, furthermore, the presence of a type 2 response is compatible with protection. These profiles provide information on the different immune processes in Johne's disease progression.
Multi-source human identification

In this thesis, a multi-source system for human identification is developed. The system uses three sources: face classifier, height classifier, and color classifier. In the process of developing this system, classifier combination and the integration of classifer outputs over sequences of data points were studied in detail. The method of classifier combination used relies on weighing classifiers based on the Maximum Likelihood estimation of class probabilities. The integration of classifer outputs, which is termed “temporal integration” in this thesis, has been developed to take advantage of the information implicitly contained in data correlated through time. In all experiments performed, temporal integration has improved classification, up to 40% in some cases. Meanwhile, the method of temporally integrating the outputs of multiple classifiers fused using our classifier weighting method outperforms all individual classifiers in the system. Thesis Supervisor: Tomaso Poggio Title: Eugene McDermott Professor Brain Sciences Department McGovern Institute and Artificial Intelligence Lab
Antibodies specific for amino acid 12 of the ras oncogene product inhibit GTP binding.

An antibody (anti-p21ser) was raised against a ras p21-related synthetic peptide and was able to recognize specifically the substitution of serine for glycine at amino acid 12 of p21. This substitution causes oncogenic activation of p21. Anti-p21ser was found to immunoprecipitate v-Ki-ras p21 and to strongly inhibit its ability to autophosphorylate and to bind GTP in an immunoabsorption assay. Furthermore, binding of the antibody to p21 was specifically inhibited by GTP or GDP, suggesting that amino acids around position 12 are part of the GTP/GDP binding site. These results, taken together with the observation that the microinjection of anti-p21ser into cells transformed by v-Ki-ras p21 causes a transient reversion of the cells to a normal phenotype [Feramisco, J. R. , Clark, R. , Wong, G. , Arnheim, N. , Milley, R. & McCormick, F. (1985) Nature (London) 314, 639-642], support the idea that interaction of p21 with guanine nucleotides is crucial to the transforming function of this protein.