Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Chemotherapy dosing in achondroplastic dwarfism: a case report and review of literature

A 74‐year‐old female with achondroplastic dwarfism was diagnosed with ER‐, BR‐ and HER2‐ breast cancer. No guideline currently exists to direct chemotherapy dosing in this population. She received neoadjuvant chemotherapy based on body surface area utilizing actual height and weight with dose‐dense doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide followed by paclitaxel with the use of granulocyte colony‐stimulating factor. Satisfactory clinical response and remission were achieved, and treatment proceeded without any significant toxicity or delays.
An Introduction to Technological Support for Writing

Writing is a, if not the, core competency that transcends our diverse landscape of departments, programs, and curricula. Whether we are lawyers, doctors, artists, educators, scientists, humanists, public health professionals, policy experts, theologians, or just intellectually curious, we are all readers and we are all writers.
Contributions of the Optic Tectum and the Retina as Sources of Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor for Retinal Ganglion Cells in the Chick Embryo

Retinal ganglion cells (RGC) are supported by brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), but it is not known if BDNF acts as a target-derived factor or as an afferent or autocrine trophic factor. Here we demonstrate that BDNF mRNA is expressed in the retinorecipient layer of the chick optic tectum as well as in the inner nuclear layer and ganglion cell layer of the retina. Amacrine cells rather than RGC were the main source of BDNF mRNA in the ganglion cell layer, as determined by in situ hybridization that was combined with retrograde labeling of RGC and destruction of RGC by optic stalk transection, followed by quantitative RT-PCR. Cells in the ganglion cell layer as well as the retinorecipient layers of the optic tectum were BDNF-immunolabeled. After injections into the tectum, radio-iodinated BDNF was transported to the retina where autoradiographic label accumulated in the inner plexiform and ganglion cell layers. After intraocular injection, iodinated BDNF accumulated in these same retinal layers and correlated with the distribution of p75 neurotrophin receptor protein. The majority of cross-linked receptor-bound BDNF in the retina immunoprecipitated with p75 antibodies. No difference in the intensity of BDNF immunolabel was observed in the experimental retina or tectum after optic stalk transection, indicating that most of the BDNF in the RGC was not derived from the optic tectum. These data indicate that a substantial fraction of the BDNF in the ganglion cell layer is derived from local sources, afferents within the retina, rather than from the optic tectum via retrograde transport.
Unbiased learning of controversial topics

When presented with many relevant documents about a controversial topic, humans do not always read and trust them uniformly. Instead, they tend to follow and agree with articles and sources that hold similar viewpoints as theirs, a phenomenon known as confirmation bias. This suggests that when acquiring additional knowledge about a controversial topic, human biases and viewpoints about the topic may affect what information is considered trustworthy. We designed a user study to analyze various factors that may help in learning about a controversial topic without bias. In this paper, we study the impact of presenting contrasting viewpoints on learning about controversial claims. Our analysis shows that exposing subjects to contrasting viewpoints helped them learn more efficiently and reduce strongly-held biases.
GROWTH REGULATION BY ORGANIC COMPOUNDS.

A large and diverse group of organic compounds is reported to "regulate" plant growth. Many of the determinations of growth regulation, however, do not measure the accelerating effects on growth but the inhibition of growth or toxicity effects. Such evidence does not suffice to identify the substances as growth regulators which may either accelerate or inhibit the growth process depending upon their concentration. Many techniques exist for the quantitative determination of the acceleration of plant growth by organic compounds (4, 9, 10, 11, 16, 17,). Of these the straight growth of Avena coleoptile sections has distinct advantages. This test gives quantitative data on growth response, it enables the study of accessory factors involved in the growth process, it is sensitive to the effects of substances which do not cause an Avena curvature response, and it does not depend on the complicated series of reactions of the pea test. This study was made to determine the similarity of the effects of several organic compounds and the plant auxin, indoleacetic acid (20), on the straight growth of Avena coleoptile sections. Most of the compounds have been studied by other investigators but their results cannot be correlated satisfactorily because of the different techniques employed in the measurement of the growth effects.
Multilingual speaker age recognition: Regression analyses on the Lwazi corpus

Multilinguality represents an area of significant opportunities for automatic speech-processing systems: whereas multilingual societies are commonplace, the majority of speech-processing systems are developed with a single language in mind. As a step towards improved understanding of multilingual speech processing, the current contribution investigates how an important para-linguistic aspect of speech, namely speaker age, depends on the language spoken. In particular, we study how certain speech features affect the performance of an age recognition system for different South African languages in the Lwazi corpus. By optimizing our feature set and performing language-specific tuning, we are working towards true multilingual classifiers. As they are closely related, ASR and dialog systems are likely to benefit from an improved classification of the speaker. In a comprehensive corpus analysis on long-term features, we have identified features that exhibit characteristic behaviors for particular languages. In a follow-up regression experiment, we confirm the suitability of our feature selection for age recognition and present cross-language error rates. The mean absolute error ranges between 7.7 and 12.8 years for same-language predictors and rises to 14.5 years for cross-language predictors.
Evaluation of the stochastic morphosyntactic language model on a one million word hungarian dictation task

In this article we evaluate our stochastic morphosyntactic language model (SMLM) on a Hungarian newspaperdictation task that requires modeling over 1 million different word forms. The proposed method is based on the use of morphemes as the basic recognition units and the combination of a morpheme (cid:0) - gram model and a morphosyntactic language model. The architecture of the recognition system is based on the weighted ﬁnite-state transducer (WFST) paradigm. Thanks to the ﬂexible transducer-based architecture, the morphosyntactic component is integrated seamlessly with the basic modules with no need to modify the decoder itself. We compare the phoneme, mor-pheme, and word error-rates as well as the sizes of the recognition networks in two conﬁgurations. In one conﬁguration we use only the (cid:0) -gram model while in the other we use the combined model. The proposed stochastic morphosyntactic language model decreasesthe morpheme error rate by between 1.7 and 7.2% relatively when compared to the baseline trigram sys-tem. The morpheme error-rate of the best conﬁguration is 18% and the best word error-rate is 22.3%.
Neuronal Communication: Presynaptic Terminals as Transmitter Array

In this paper, a communication engineering model is proposed for capturing the actual behavior of biological neurons by accounting for the specific and unique processing performed by the presynaptic terminals. Specifically, experimental evidences show that: i) the release sites from a single axon can have variable release probabilities, even when the axon contacts the same postsynaptic neuron; ii) this variability in the release probability implies a compartmentalization at the level of the presynaptic terminals of the neuronal processing; iii) the specificity of the presynaptic terminal processing is driven by and reflects the complex biophysical mechanisms activated at the axon terminals by the spikes fired by the neuron in response to a stimulus. Stemming from these experimental evidences, we propose to model the presynaptic terminals as an array of transmitters, where each transmitter models the specific processing made by a presynaptic terminal. We conduct the analysis through a stochastic approach, since the synaptic transmission is inherently stochastic. In particular, we first analytically characterize the stochastic filtering of the spike train performed by each presynaptic terminal. Then, we characterize the propagation of the presynaptic-filtered signal through the synaptic cleft, and we derive the signaling delay as a function of the distance between the pre- and the postsynaptic neurons. Finally, the conducted theoretical analysis is validate through numerical simulation.
Effects of Anaplasma phagocytophila on NADPH Oxidase Components in Human Neutrophils and HL-60 Cells

ABSTRACT The human granulocytic ehrlichiosis agent, Anaplasma phagocytophila, resides and multiplies exclusively in cytoplasmic vacuoles of granulocytes. A. phagocytophila rapidly inhibits the superoxide anion (O2−) generation by human neutrophils in response to various stimuli. To determine the inhibitory mechanism, the influence of A. phagocytophila on protein levels and localization of components of the NADPH oxidase were examined. A. phagocytophila decreased levels of p22phox, but not gp91phox, p47phox, p67phox, or P40phox reactive with each component-specific antibody in human peripheral blood neutrophils and HL-60 cells. Double immunofluorescence labeling revealed that p47phox, p67phox, Rac2, and p22phox did not colocalize with A. phagocytophila inclusions in neutrophils or HL-60 cells, and p22phox levels were also reduced. A. phagocytophila did not prevent either membrane translocation of cytoplasmic p47phox and p67phox or phosphorylation of p47phox upon stimulation by phorbol myristate acetate. The inhibitory signals for O2− generation was independent of several signals required for A. phagocytophila internalization. These results suggest that rapid alteration in p22phox induced by binding of A. phagocytophila to neutrophils is involved in the inhibition of O2− generation. Absence of colocalization of NADPH oxidase components with the inclusion further protects A. phagocytophila from oxidative damage.
Economics models and policies for cloud federations

Cloud federation has emerged as an effective solution offering worldwide coverage, dynamic infrastructure scaling and improved QoS for the demanding cloud services. In this paper, we present a model for Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) federation and we investigate the economic benefits of CSPs under different federation modes. Each CSP is modeled as an M/M/1 queue with arrivals corresponding to computation tasks and service rate that captures the computational capabilities of the CSP. Each CSP earns revenue by charging its customers according to a QoS-dependent pricing function, and it undergoes a cost due to energy consumption of its infrastructure. We propose a model for the formation of cloud federations, according to which each CSP may forward part of the workload stemming from its customers to other CSPs. We define three federation modes with varying degrees of CSPs' interaction, namely the strong, weak and elastic federations. In strong federations, the CSPs jointly decide on their forwarding policies to maximize the total profit of the federation; then, they share these profits according to certain profit sharing policies. In weak federations, a game arises, in which each CSP follows a forwarding policy that aims to maximize its individual payoff, which however incorporates some fairness. In elastic federations, each CSP again aims to maximize its individual payoff, but it has the freedom to tune the degree of its selfishness through a pricing function. The numerical results validate and quantify the conjecture that federation can incur substantial monetary benefits and achieve a near to optimal QoS.
Gerechtigkeitseinschätzungen in Organisationen Die Validität einer deutschsprachigen Fassung des Fragebogens von Colquitt (2001)

Zusammenfassung. Das Konstrukt der organisationalen Gerechtigkeit wurde bislang in einer Vielzahl von Studien untersucht, wobei allerdings haufig mit unterschiedlichen Instrumenten unterschiedliche Faktoren erhoben wurden. Um die Ergebnisse zwischen Studien besser vergleichbar zu machen, entwickelte Colquitt (2001) ein vier-faktorielles Messinstrument zur Erhebung der Wahrnehmung organisationaler Gerechtigkeit. In der vorliegenden Studie sollte die Validitat einer deutschsprachigen Version dieses Verfahrens uberpruft werden. Der Fragebogen wurde in einer Stichprobe von 512 Berufstatigen eingesetzt. Die Ergebnisse der konfirmatorischen Faktorenanalysen bestatigten die angenommene vier-faktorielle Struktur. Die Zusammenhange der vier Faktoren mit proximalen und distalen Kriterien belegten die Validitat dieser Version. Vorschlage fur die weitere Validierung dieses Fragebogens werden diskutiert. Schlusselworter: Organisationale Gerechtigkeit, prozedurale Gerechtigkeit, distributive Gerechtigkeit, interpersonale Gerechtigkeit, informationale Gerechtigkeit, konfirmatorische Faktorenanalyse, leader-member exchange, organisationale Verbundenheit. Assessment of justice in organizations: The validity of a German version of the questionnaire by Colquitt (2001)
The Saccharomyces cerevisiae Ptc1 protein phosphatase attenuates G2‐M cell cycle blockage caused by activation of the cell wall integrity pathway

Lack of the yeast Ptc1 Ser/Thr protein phosphatase results in numerous phenotypic defects. A parallel search for high‐copy number suppressors of three of these phenotypes (sensitivity to Calcofluor White, rapamycin and alkaline pH), allowed the isolation of 25 suppressor genes, which could be assigned to three main functional categories: maintenance of cell wall integrity (CWI), vacuolar function and protein sorting, and cell cycle regulation. The characterization of these genetic interactions strengthens the relevant role of Ptc1 in downregulating the Slt2‐mediated CWI pathway. We show that under stress conditions activating the CWI pathway the ptc1 mutant displays hyperphosphorylated Cdc28 kinase and that these cells accumulate with duplicated DNA content, indicative of a G2‐M arrest. Clb2‐associated Cdc28 activity was also reduced in ptc1 cells. These alterations are attenuated by mutation of the MKK1 gene, encoding a MAP kinase kinase upstream Slt2. Therefore, our data show that Ptc1 is required for proper G2‐M cell cycle transition after activation of the CWI pathway.
Myocardial overexpression of GRK3 in transgenic mice: evidence for in vivo selectivity of GRKs.

Transgenic mice were generated with cardiac-specific overexpression of the G protein-coupled receptor kinase 3 (GRK3) to explore the in vivo role of this GRK in cardiac function. GRK3 is expressed in the heart along with the beta-adrenergic receptor kinase (beta-ARK1) and GRK5. We have previously demonstrated that myocardial-targeted overexpression in transgenic mice of beta-ARK1 (Koch, W.J., H. A. Rockman, P. Samama, R. A. Hamilton, R. A. Bond, C. A. Milano, and R. J. Lefkowitz. Science 268: 1350-1353, 1995) or GRK5 (Rockman, H.A., D.-J. Choi, N. U. Rahman, S. A. Akhter, R. J. Lefkowitz, and W. J. Koch. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 93: 9954-9959, 1996) results in significant attenuation of beta-adrenergic signaling and in vivo cardiac function and selective desensitization of angiotensin (ANG) II-mediated cardiac responses. Surprisingly, myocardial overexpression of GRK3 resulted in normal biochemical signaling through beta-adrenergic receptors (beta-ARs), and in vivo hemodynamic function in response to a beta-AR agonist was indistinguishable from that in nontransgenic controls. Furthermore, in vivo signaling and functional responses to ANG II were unaltered. However, myocardial thrombin signaling, as assessed by p42/p44 mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase activation, was significantly attenuated in GRK3 transgenic mouse hearts, indicating a distinct in vivo substrate specificity for GRK3.
The development and evaluation of exception handling mechanisms for order fulfillment process based on BPEL4WS

The advance of Internet technology fosters the order fulfillment process in a supply chain across heterogeneous information systems. In order to monitor states between partners in the process, this study develops exception handling mechanisms based on Web service stack. After detecting exceptions, the first step is to make use of the fault and compensation handlers provided by the BPEL4WS (Business Process Execution Language for Web Services) specification to roll back planned or even executed business processes belonging to the same scope to the original state. The second step is to utilize the resource searching mechanisms, including BE4WS (Business Explore for Web Services) and BCME (Business Criteria Matchmaking Engine), to find suitable substitutes to make a replacement or find fitting partners to cooperate with the original one. The third step is to take advantage of the extensibility, flexibility and scalability of BPEL4WS business process to adjust and re-form a new one to handle unexpected situations. This study uses the LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) supply chain as an example to evaluate the proposed exception handling mechanisms. The results show that the proposed methods obtain encouraging performance. The major contribution of this research is the initiative efforts on developing exception handling mechanisms based on Web service technologies to improve the exception handling performance.
Generalized Mean Detector for Collaborative Spectrum Sensing

In this paper, a unified generalized eigenvalue based spectrum sensing framework referred to as Generalized mean detector (GMD) has been introduced. The generalization of the detectors namely (i) the eigenvalue ratio detector (ERD) involving the ratio of the largest and the smallest eigenvalues; (ii) the Geometric mean detector (GEMD) involving the ratio of the largest eigenvalue and the geometric mean of the eigenvalues and (iii) the Arithmetic mean detector (ARMD) involving the ratio of the largest and the arithmetic mean of the eigenvalues is explored. The foundation of the proposed unified framework is based on the calculation of exact analytical moments of the random variables of test statistics of the respective detectors. In this context, we approximate the probability density function (PDF) of the test statistics of the respective detectors by Gaussian/Gamma PDF using the moment matching method. Finally, we derive closed-form expressions to calculate the decision threshold of the eigenvalue based detectors by exchanging the derived exact moments of the random variables of test statistics with the moments of the Gaussian/Gamma distribution function. The performance of the eigenvalue based detectors is compared with the traditional detectors such as energy detector (ED) and cyclostationary detector (CSD) and validate the importance of the eigenvalue based detectors particularly over realistic wireless cognitive environments. Analytical and simulation results show that the GEMD and the ARMD yields considerable performance advantage in realistic spectrum sensing scenarios. Moreover, our results based on proposed simple and tractable approximation approaches are in perfect agreement with the empirical results.
Arabidopsis UVR8 Regulates Ultraviolet-B Signal Transduction and Tolerance and Contains Sequence Similarity to Human Regulator of Chromatin Condensation 1

To further our understanding of how plants defend against the harmful effects of ultraviolet (UV) light, we characterized an Arabidopsis mutant hypersensitive to UV-B. This mutant, UV resistance locus 8-1 (uvr8-1), contains a single recessive mutation at the bottom of chromosome 5. Fine-scale mapping localized uvr8-1 to a 21-kb locus containing five predicted open reading frames. Sequencing of this entire region revealed that the uvr8-1 allele contains a 15-nucleotide deletion in a gene similar to the human guanine nucleotide exchange factor regulator of chromatin condensation 1. This mutation reduces the UV-B-mediated induction of flavonoids and blocks chalcone synthase mRNA and protein induction. In contrast, uvr8-1 has enhanced induction of PR1 and PR5 proteins in response to UV-B, an indication of increased UV-B injury. These results suggest that UVR8acts in a UV-B signal transduction pathway leading to induction of flavonoid biosynthesis.
Midterm clinical outcomes of concomitant thoracoscopic epicardial and transcatheter endocardial ablation for persistent and long-standing persistent atrial fibrillation: a single-centre experience

Aims The purpose of this study was to analyse the efficacy and complication rates of the simultaneous hybrid procedure in a series of patients with persistent and long-standing persistent atrial fibrillation (AF) in a midterm follow-up. Methods and results Sixty-four consecutive patients (56 males, 59.7 ± 8.7 years) having undergone isolation of pulmonary veins (PVs) and posterior wall of left atrium (LA) by means of hybrid thoracoscopic ablation for symptomatic persistent (n = 21, 33%) and long-standing persistent AF (n = 43, 67%) were analysed. At a mean follow-up of 23.1 ± 14.1 months (median 21; range 6–57), the success rate without antiarrhythmic therapy was achieved in 67.2% of patients. Procedure-related complications were observed in 13 patients (20.3%) including 2 LA perforations (3.1%) requiring, respectively, conversion to sternotomy and small left-sided thoracotomy. The success rate did not significantly differ between persistent and long-standing persistent AF (respectively, 71.4 and 65.1%; P = 0.4). Patients with AF relapse during the blanking period were 4.60 times more likely to have AF recurrence after 3 months from the ablation procedure. Conclusion The hybrid procedure yields promising results in the setting of both persistent and long-standing persistent AF after midterm follow-up, at the expense of a non-negligible rate of adverse events. Our findings need to be confirmed by further larger and prospective studies.
Reanalysis of Validation of Tool to Assess Readiness for Online Learning

Abstract : Data originally collected to validate a questionnaire measuring Soldiers' readiness to attend the eArmyU were reanalyzed. eArmyU is a portal to online college-level courses offered by a consortium of universities. The current study applies analytical procedures that provide methodological improvements to the original analysis. Specifically, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were sequentially used to select items and establish construct validities of the resulting scales. Next, a linear-based approach was applied to examine the scales' criterion-related validity. Scales measuring five theoretically relevant constructs (i.e., Motivation/Self-Determination, Intolerance of Ambiguity, Performance Goal Orientation, Need for Social Interaction, and Study Skills/Conscientiousness) were constructed from 53 of the 90 original items. The scales have good psychometric properties and can reasonably predict the criterion of interest (multiple R adjusted for shrinkage is .23). Recommendations for future research that would further support the use of the questionnaire are presented.