Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mechanisms of Loss of Functions of Human Angiogenin Variants Implicated in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

Background Mutations in the coding region of angiogenin (ANG) gene have been found in patients suffering from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). Neurodegeneration results from the loss of angiogenic ability of ANG (protein coded by ANG). In this work, we performed extensive molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of wild-type ANG and disease associated ANG variants to elucidate the mechanism behind the loss of ribonucleolytic activity and nuclear translocation activity, functions needed for angiogenesis. Methodology/Principal Findings MD simulations were carried out to study the structural and dynamic differences in the catalytic site and nuclear localization signal residues between WT-ANG (Wild-type ANG) and six mutants. Variants K17I, S28N, P112L and V113I have confirmed association with ALS, while T195C and A238G single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) encoding L35P and K60E mutants respectively, have not been associated with ALS. Our results show that loss of ribonucleolytic activity in K17I is caused by conformational switching of the catalytic residue His114 by 99°. The loss of nuclear translocation activity of S28N and P112L is caused by changes in the folding of the residues 31RRR33 that result in the reduction in solvent accessible surface area (SASA). Consequently, we predict that V113I will exhibit loss of angiogenic properties by loss of nuclear translocation activity and L35P by loss of both ribonucleolytic activity and nuclear translocation activity. No functional loss was inferred for K60E. The MD simulation results were supported by hydrogen bond interaction analyses and molecular docking studies. Conclusions/Significance Conformational switching of catalytic residue His114 seems to be the mechanism causing loss of ribonucleolytic activity and reduction in SASA of nuclear localization signal residues 31RRR33 results in loss of nuclear translocation activity in ANG mutants. Therefore, we predict that L35P mutant, would exhibit loss of angiogenic functions, and hence would correlate with ALS while K60E would not show any loss.
An Efficient Algorithm for Updating Association Rules with Incremental Transactions and Minimum Support Changes Simultaneously

This paper proposes a new algorithm FIM_AIUA, which updates association rules with incremental transactions and minimum support changes simultaneously. The algorithm expands FIM algorithm and AIUA algorithm, improves the efficiency and corrects the mistakes of My_IUA algorithm. Moreover, it modifies FIM algorithm with a new argument and presents a new function fim_aiua_gen() that rewrites the function aiua_gen() of AIUA algorithm. Experiments with real transaction data of a supermarket show that our proposed algorithm FIM_AIUA is efficient and outperforms both My_IUA algorithm and Apriori algorithm.
Transcriptional Activation of the SH2D2A Gene Is Dependent on a Cyclic Adenosine 5′-Monophosphate-Responsive Element in the Proximal SH2D2A Promoter1

The SH2D2A gene, encoding the T cell-specific adapter protein (TSAd), is rapidly induced in activated T cells. In this study we investigate the regulation of the SH2D2A gene in Jurkat T cells and in primary T cells. Reporter gene assays demonstrated that the proximal 1-kb SH2D2A promoter was constitutively active in Jurkat TAg T cells and, to a lesser extent, in K562 myeloid cells, Reh B cells, and 293T fibroblast cells. The minimal SH2D2A promoter was located between position −236 and −93 bp from the first coding ATG, and transcriptional activity in primary T cells depended on a cAMP response element (CRE) centered around position −117. Nuclear extracts from Jurkat TAg cells and activated primary T cells contained binding activity to this CRE, as observed in an EMSA. Consistent with this observation, we found that a cAMP analog was a very potent inducer of SH2D2A mRNA expression in primary T cells as measured by real-time RT-PCR. Furthermore, activation of SH2D2A expression by CD3 stimulation required cAMP-dependent protein kinase activity. Thus, transcriptional regulation of the SH2D2A gene in activated T cells is critically dependent on a CRE in the proximal promoter region.
The real mission of the mission statement: A systematic review of the literature

Abstract A mission statement is a widely used strategic tool that emphasises an organisation’s uniqueness and identity. It was in the early 1980s that academics, managers, and consultants recognised the need for explicitly formulating a mission statement in organisations. Since then, mission statements have remained as a popular strategic tool in organisations. This article conducts a systematic literature review to synthesise research on mission statements. The analysis of the 53 articles selected includes a bibliometric and content analysis. According to their perspective, the works selected were grouped into four thematic areas: (1) mission statement development, (2) mission statement components, (3) mission impact on employees, and (4) mission impact on performance. The overreaching conclusion is that mission statements are widely used in practice but poorly researched in theory. Most articles adopt a managerial phenomenon-based strand, lacking a deep theoretical foundation. The article ends with suggestions for further research in terms of theory, practice, and methodology.
Personalizing web search using long term browsing history

Personalizing web search results has long been recognized as an avenue to greatly improve the search experience. We present a personalization approach that builds a user interest profile using users' complete browsing behavior, then uses this model to rerank web results. We show that using a combination of content and previously visited websites provides effective personalization. We extend previous work by proposing a number of techniques for filtering previously viewed content that greatly improve the user model used for personalization. Our approaches are compared to previous work in offline experiments and are evaluated against unpersonalized web search in large scale online tests. Large improvements are found in both cases.
Serveur Académique Lausannois SERVAL serval.unil.ch

The visual cortex in each hemisphere is linked to the opposite hemisphere by axonal projections that pass through the splenium of the corpus callosum. Visual callosal connections in humans and macaques are found along the V1/V2 border where the vertical meridian is represented. Here we identify the topography of V1 vertical midline projections through the splenium within six human subjects with normal vision using diffusion-weighted MR imaging and probabilistic diffusion tractography. Tractography seed points within the splenium were classified according to their estimated connectivity profiles to topographic subregions of V1, as defined by functional retinotopic mapping. First, we report a ventral-dorsal mapping within the splenium with fibers from ventral V1 (representing the upper visual field) projecting to the inferior-anterior corner of the splenium and fibers from dorsal V1 (representing the lower visual field) projecting to the superior-posterior end. Second, we also report an eccentricity gradient of projections from foveal-to-peripheral V1 subregions running in the anterior-superior to posterior-inferior direction, orthogonal to the dorsal-ventral mapping. These results confirm and add to a previous diffusion MRI study (Dougherty et al. 2005) which identified a dorsal/ventral mapping of human splenial fibers. These findings yield a more detailed view of the structural organization of the splenium than previously reported and offer new opportunities to study structural plasticity in the visual system.
Automatic detection of Optic Disk and Exudate from retinal images using Clustering algorithm

Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) is a major cause of blindness. Variation in retinal blood vessel thickness, secretion of Exudates which is a protein leakage in the retina, Hemorrhages are some of the symptoms of Diabetic Retinopathy. It is a kind of disorder which occurs due to high blood sugar level. Since Optic Disk appears as a bright spot in the retinal image, which resembles exudates, it has to be removed from the image. Hence detection of Optic Disk is an essential parameter in retinal analysis. In this paper, an automatic and efficient method to detect Optic Disk and exudates are proposed. The real time retinal images are obtained from various eye hospitals. The retinal images are pre-processed using the technique of LAB color space image. The preprocessed color retinal images are segmented using Line operator and Fuzzy C Means Clustering technique in order to detect Optic Disk. The outputs are compared and the best method is determined. The exudates are extracted using K-means clustering and finally the classification is done using SVM.
Interventional MR elastography for MRI‐guided percutaneous procedures

MRI‐guided thermal ablations require reliable monitoring methods to ensure complete destruction of the diseased tissue while avoiding damage to the surrounding healthy tissue. Based on the fact that thermal ablations result in substantial changes in biomechanical properties, interventional MR elastography (MRE) dedicated to the monitoring of MR‐guided thermal therapies is proposed here.
Multi-task control of multi-contact manipulators during accidental interactions with robot body

In this paper, the problem of controlling multiple different tasks in various points on the robot body is considered. The proposed approach guarantees the execution of multiple various tasks (force, position and orientation control) in the presence of intentional or accidental interaction with robot body. The control law distinguish between desired and accidental external forces. Magnitude and/or orientation of the forces in the contact points can be controlled while various tasks may be defined and controlled in other contact points in the robot body. Controller-observer algorithm is proposed based on the generalized momentum of the robot. Asymptotically stability of task space errors are proved while a proper estimation of the external torque on robot is available. Performance of the proposed algorithm is confirmed by simulations.
ADAPTIVE NONLINEAR MODEL PREDICTIVE CONTROLLER FOR VISUAL SERVOING OF MOBILE MANIPULATION

This paper presents an autonomous mobile manipulation system which has the ability to identify an object of interest, approach the object, and grasp it using visual servoing. A kinematic model of the robot system and a camera model are utilized to represent the physical system where velocities of the joint of the robot are the inputs and the position of the feature point in the image is the output. An Adaptive Nonlinear Model Predictive Controller (ANMPC) is developed for visual servoing which incorporates a multiinput multi-output (MIMO) control system and accepts constraints, including environmental constraints (e.g., obstacles, boundaries, visibility) as well as physical constraints of the robots (e.g., limits on joint movement, velocity, torque, and so on). Moreover, it linearizes the nonlinear and time-invariant model with respect to the current positions of the feature points and robot joints, on line, using an adaptive approach. The developed control architecture predicts the system outputs and generates optimized controller outputs according a cost function. The performance of the developed system is evaluated using computer simulations.
Unveiling dark haloes in lensing galaxies

We present a spatially resolved comparison of the stellar mass and total mass surface distributions of nine early-type galaxies. The galaxies are a subset of the Sloan Lens ACS Survey. The total mass distributions are obtained by exploring pixelated mass models that reproduce the lensed images. The stellar mass distributions are derived from population-synthesis models fit to the photometry of the lensing galaxies. Uncertainties – mainly model degeneracies – are also computed. Stars can account for all the mass in the inner regions. A Salpeter initial mass function actually gives too much stellar mass in the inner regions and hence appears ruled out. Dark matter becomes significant by the half-light radius and becomes increasingly dominant at larger radii. The stellar and dark components are closely aligned, but the actual ellipticities are not correlated. Finally, we attempt to intuitively summarize the results by rendering the density, stellar versus dark ratio, and uncertainties as false-colour maps.
Multi-Vehicle Tracking Under Day and Night Illumination

— Traffic surveillance plays a vital role in computer vision and Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). Image analysis provides several effective techniques to detect moving objects in images. Thus, it has been extensively used for traffic monitoring systems. Recently, the problem of detecting and tracking vehicles is an important emerging research area for intelligent transportation systems. Many algorithms have been developed to detect and track moving vehicles either in daytime or in nighttime. In fact, vehicle tracking in daytime and in nighttime cannot be approached with the same techniques, due to the extreme different illumination conditions. Building an integrated system to deal with daytime and nighttime is still a challenging problem especially when considering shadows at daytime, dim lighting at night, and real-time processing constraint. In this paper, a vehicle tracking system is developed to deal with daytime and nighttime vehicles tracking. First, a daytime/nighttime detector is applied to the scene to determine the suitable technique. For daytime videos, shadows are removed from vehicles by applying a gamma decoding followed by a thresholding operation and employing an estimated background model of the video sequence. For nighttime videos, headlights and taillights are located and paired to initialize vehicles for tracking process. The experimental results have shown that the proposed method can effectively track vehicles in both daytime and nighttime.
Fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR) and candidate signaling molecule distribution within rat and human retina.

PURPOSE To map the expression and distribution of FGFR and potential FGFR-related signaling molecules within rat and human retina. METHODS Sections of postnatal 5 day old and adult rat, and aged human retina, and cell cultures prepared from selected cell populations of young rat retina, were immunolabeled with specific antisera to FGFR (FGFR-1, -2, -3, and -4) or candidate signaling molecules [phospholipase Cg1 (PLCg1), son of sevenless 1 and 2 (SOS1, SOS2), extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1 and 2 (ERK1/2), protein tyrosine phosphatase (SH-PTP2) and SH2-containing protein (Shc)], and with multiple retinal cell-type specific antibodies. Controls were conducted using primary antisera pre-adsorbed with the corresponding immunizing peptide. RESULTS All FGFR antisera showed strong labeling of inner retina [inner nuclear layer, inner plexiform layer and ganglion cell layer (INL, IPL and GCL respectively)] in rat and human retina, although there were distinct differences in individual patterns. FGFR-3 was particularly intense in ganglion cell bodies and dendrites, and was absent from photoreceptors and bipolar cells in vitro. FGFR-1 and FGFR-4 also labeled the outer nuclear layer (ONL), more intensely in adult than in young tissue, and FGFR-4 was especially prominent within inner segments. FGFR-2 and -3 were only weakly expressed in the ONL, but FGFR-2 showed specific labeling of cone outer segments in human retina. Candidate FGFR-signaling molecules also showed generally higher expression in the inner than outer retina in the different samples. Shc immunolabeling was apparent in the GCL and nascent photoreceptor outer segments in young and adult retina. SOS1 expression was much more intense than SOS2 in the ONL, although the latter showed selective intense staining of a sub-population in the INL and GCL. These ex vivo data were confirmed in cultures prepared from young rat retina. Pure photoreceptor cultures exhibited strong expression of FGFR-1 and -4, and faint expression of FGFR-2 and -3. In mixed inner retinal cultures, anti-FGFR-1 labeled neurons and Müller glia with equal intensity, while the other FGFR antisera showed preferential staining of neurons. FGFR-3 was strongly expressed by ganglion and amacrine cells but not by other types. Signaling molecules showed widespread expression, but of variable intensity, in all cells. All control experiments using corresponding peptide pre-adsorption led to complete removal of immunostaining. CONCLUSIONS Rat and human retinal cells showed a largely similar, widespread expression of multiple FGFR and candidate FGFR-related signaling molecules. Distinct differences in development, species, cell- and sub-cell type distribution were apparent, suggesting that specific FGFR/FGF ligands and transduction pathways may operate in different cells.
Inventory Investment and the Cost of Capital

We examine the relation between inventory investment and the cost of capital in the time series and the cross section. We find consistent evidence that risk premiums, rather than real interest rates, are strongly negatively related to future inventory growth at the aggregate, industry, and firm levels. The effect is stronger for firms in industries that produce durables rather than nondurables, exhibit greater cyclicality in sales, require longer lead times, and are subject to more technological innovation. We then construct a production-based asset pricing model with two types of capital, fixed capital and inventories, to explain these empirical findings. Convex adjustment costs and a countercyclical price of risk lead to negative time series and cross-sectional relations between expected returns and inventory growth.
On Total-Variance Reduction Via Thresholding-Based Spectral Analysis

Consider a vector of independent normal random variables with unknown means but known variances. Our problem is to reduce the total variance of these random variables by exploiting the prior information that a significant proportion of them have "small" means. We show that thresholding is an effective means of solving this problem, and propose two schemes for threshold selection: one based on a uniformly most powerful unbiased test, the other on a Bayesian information criterion selection rule. As an example application we consider cepstral analysis and we show via numerical simulation that the simple thresholding scheme proposed herein can achieve significant reductions of total variance
Practical calibation for upper extremety patients in haptic rehabilitation

As haptic devices become more affordable and economical, research in Haptic-based virtual rehabilitation systems is gaining more interest. A prototype haptic virtual rehabilitation system was developed in our lab using the CyberGrasp system with the goal of assisting patients who suffered from stroke leading to temporary upper extremity disability. However, calibration of the system for each user is currently tedious and time-consuming. In this paper, we propose a practical method to calibrate the CyberGlove using a Neural Network. The neural network is trained with the hand segment size and the manually collected calibrated data of 12 subjects. The hand segment sizes are extracted from a 2-D hand image. The preliminary results are very encouraging and show its effectiveness for the sensors on the index, the middle, the ring, the pinky fingers.
Stable Poly(methacrylic acid) Brush Decorated Silica Nano-Particles by ARGET ATRP for Bioconjugation

The synthesis of polymer brush decorated silica nano-particles is demonstrated by activator regeneration by electron transfer atom transfer radical polymerization (ARGET ATRP) grafting of poly(tert-butyl methacrylate). ATRP initiator decorated silica nano-particles were obtained using a novel trimethylsiloxane derivatised ATRP initiator obtained by click chemistry. Comparison of de-grafted polymers with polymer obtained from a sacrificial initiator demonstrated good agreement up to 55% monomer conversion. Subsequent mild deprotection of the tert-butyl ester groups using phosphoric acid yielded highly colloidal and pH stable hydrophilic nano-particles comprising approximately 50% methacrylic acid groups. The successful bio-conjugation was achieved by immobilization of Horseradish Peroxidase to the polymer brush decorated nano-particles and the enzyme activity demonstrated in a conversion of o-phenylene diamine dihydrochloride assay.
Using Ranking and Selection to "Clean Up" after Simulation Optimization

In this paper we address the problem of finding the simulated system with the best (maximum or minimum) expected performance when the number of systems is large and initial samples from each system have already been taken. This problem may be encountered when a heuristic search procedure--perhaps one originally designed for use in a deterministic environment--has been applied in a simulation-optimization context. Because of stochastic variation, the system with the best sample mean at the end of the search procedure may not coincide with the true best system encountered during the search. This paper develops statistical procedures that return the best system encountered by the search (or one near the best) with a prespecified probability. We approach this problem using combinations of statistical subset selection and indifference-zone ranking procedures. The subset-selection procedures, which use only the data already collected, screen out the obviously inferior systems, while the indifference-zone procedures, which require additional simulation effort, distinguish the best from the less obviously inferior systems.
Gestural spatialization in natural discourse segmentation

Human multimodal communicative behaviorsform a tightly integrated whole. By matching up gestural features with a carefully time-tagged transcription of the speech, we can observe how gesture features and discourse unit transitions cohere. Space usage SU is a key gestural component. We summarize the theory of SU. In our experimentswhere subjects make action plans around a terrain map, such SU become key organizational loci around which the discourse may be built. Our vision-based approach extracts ‘SU histograms’ from stereo video describing the locus of motion of a speaker’s dominant hand. An ‘fuzzy correlation’ of these histograms yields a correlation space in which similar SU is clustered. By locating the cluster transitions we can locate topical shiftsinthediscourse. Weshowresultsbycomparingthetransitions extracted from a sentential codingwith a psycholinguisticsemantic coding. We do the same with a uniform distributed time units and demonstratethe ability to recoverdiscoursetransitions.