Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Necrobiosis lipoidica and cutaneous anaesthesia: immunohistochemical study of neural fibres.

BACKGROUND Cutaneous anaesthesia in necrobiosis lipoidica (NL) has been attributed to the destruction of nerve fibres by the inflammatory process. In the 1980s, one study demonstrated a decrease in S100 positive neural fibres as proof of this. Thermalgic information is mainly dependent on small fibres, either myelinated or unmyelinated, and S100 protein is expressed by Schwann cells. OBJECTIVE We designed an immunohistochemical study with anti-neurofilament and peripherin in 5 cases of NL, in order to investigate if there was a decrease of axons in NL. METHODS We reviewed 5 cases of NL and performed an immunohistochemical study on all of them, with neurofilaments and peripherin antibody in sections of 4 microm. Slides were examined under a conventional light microscope, and we searched for the presence of fibres in the necrobiotic areas, as well as in the periphery of the necrobiotic areas. Controls for both markers were also used. RESULTS The median number of nerve fibres in the control biopsies was 5.2 per mm2. The nerve fibres were absent in the central part of the necrotic foci, and only scattered fibres were evidenced in the periphery of the foci. Myelinated nerve trunks seemed to be hypertrophied in the areas located between the necrotic foci. CONCLUSIONS The absence of nerve fibres in the central areas of the necrotic foci of NL might explain the anaesthesia which is present in many patients with that disease.
The cognitive development and the learning process of people with Down syndrome: reviewing concepts and educational perspectives

This paper is a bibliographical review of relevant researches that have been accomplished in England and in the United States, from the 1990’s, about the cognitive development of the people with Syndrome of Down and the impacts that the results of these researches can have on its learning process both concerning at the elaboration of resources and educational methodologies and at the understanding of the singularities of this process. In our comprehension this review is necessary, therefore several conceptions related to the cognitive development of the person with Syndrome of Down are stereotyped arising distorted perspectives of attention to this.
Informing Evidence-Based Assessment of ADHD in Veterans and Service Members

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is diagnosed in approximately 2.5% to 5% of the population, and though epidemiological studies of ADHD in veterans and service members are lacking, available evidence suggests that there may be a higher prevalence of ADHD in service members than in the general population. Assessment of ADHD in military populations is complicated by the higher prevalence rates of many other disorders with symptoms that overlap those of ADHD (e.g., posttraumatic stress disorder), making differential diagnosis an important aspect of the evaluation of ADHD. Although the diagnostic interview remains the gold standard for the evaluation and diagnosis of ADHD with adults, several different types of psychological measures have been developed and validated that can aid the evaluation. Future epidemiological research focused on prevalence and comorbidity rates in military samples is warranted to better understand the scope and complexity of the diagnosis. In addition, continued study of diagnostic assessment techniques, including validity testing and neurocognitive performance of veterans and service members with ADHD, particularly postdeployed veterans pursuing higher education, is warranted. This article reviews relevant findings and identifies initial recommendations for clinicians and researchers.
Design Rules for Efficient Scheduling of Packet Data on Multiple Antenna Downlink

We provide a novel analysis of the optimal number of users that should be allocated power in order to achieve the sumcapacity of the MIMO broadcast channel, as well as the optimal power allocation and the optimal transmitter covariance matrices in the asymptotically high power region. We study cases where receivers are equipped with a single or with multiple antennas, and point out the fundamental differences between these systems. This analysis is then applied to multiple users scheduling algorithms for throughput maximization, with the additional goal of providing low-complexity solutions. We also provide a discussion of the similarities and differences with receive antenna selection algorithms and MIMO channels with cochannel interference.
Scaling the bandwidth wall: challenges in and avenues for CMP scaling

As transistor density continues to grow at an exponential rate in accordance to Moore's law, the goal for many Chip Multi-Processor (CMP) systems is to scale the number of on-chip cores proportionally. Unfortunately, off-chip memory bandwidth capacity is projected to grow slowly compared to the desired growth in the number of cores. This creates a situation in which each core will have a decreasing amount of off-chip bandwidth that it can use to load its data from off-chip memory. The situation in which off-chip bandwidth is becoming a performance and throughput bottleneck is referred to as the bandwidth wall problem. In this study, we seek to answer two questions: (1) to what extent does the bandwidth wall problem restrict future multicore scaling, and (2) to what extent are various bandwidth conservation techniques able to mitigate this problem. To address them, we develop a simple but powerful analytical model to predict the number of on-chip cores that a CMP can support given a limited growth in memory traffic capacity. We find that the bandwidth wall can severely limit core scaling. When starting with a balanced 8-core CMP, in four technology generations the number of cores can only scale to 24, as opposed to 128 cores under proportional scaling, without increasing the memory traffic requirement. We find that various individual bandwidth conservation techniques we evaluate have a wide ranging impact on core scaling, and when combined together, these techniques have the potential to enable super-proportional core scaling for up to 4 technology generations.
On the invariance of Li–Yorke chaos of interval maps

In their celebrated “Period three implies chaos” paper, Li and Yorke proved that if a continuous interval map f has a period 3 point then there is an uncountable scrambled set S on which f has very complicated dynamics. One question arises naturally: Can this set S be chosen invariant under f? The answer is positive for turbulent maps and negative otherwise. In this note, we shall use symbolic dynamics to achieve our goal. In particular, we obtain that the tent map on [0, 1] has a dense uncountable invariant 1-scrambled set which consists of transitive points.
A Numerical Study of Tropical Sea-Air Interactions Using a Cloud Resolving Model Coupled with an Ocean Mixed-Layer Model

Coupling a cloud resolving model (CRM) with an ocean mixed layer (OML) model can provide a powerful tool for better understanding impacts of atmospheric precipitation on sea surface temperature (SST) and salinity (Li et al. 2000)• The objective of this study is twofold. First, by using the 3-D CRM-simulated (the Goddard Cumulus Ensemble model, GCE) diabatic source terms, radiation (Iongwave and shortwave), surface fluxes (sensible and latent heat, and wind stress), and precipitation as input for the OML model, the respective impact of individual component on upper ocean heat and salt budgets are investigated. Secondly, a two-way air-sea interaction between tropical atmospheric climates (involving atmospheric radiative-convective processes, Tao et al. 1999) and upper ocean boundary layer is also examined using a coupled 2-D GCE and OML model. Results presented here, however, only involve the first aspect. Complete results will be presented at the conference.
Incremental software development method based on abstract interpretation

Stepwise Refinement is a well-known effective method for developing a large and complex software product. In traditional methods, a program is refined with respect to its function and the method is only applied in its design phase. In consequence, data defined at each step is too abstract to allow its execution and it is hard to find design errors by executing design artifacts. In this paper, we propose a method: Incremental Software development method based on Data Reification (ISDR), in which a program is refined from its data reification point of view and can be executed using Abstract Interpretation. One of the advantages of ISDR is that we can interpret intermediate programs, which are not finished completely, so that errors can be detected at an earlier stage of software development than in traditional methods.
Retargetting Example Sounds to Interactive Physics-driven Animations

This paper proposes a new method to generate audio in the context of interactive animations driven by a physics engine. Our approach aims at bridging the gap between direct playback of audio recordings and physically-based synthesis by retargetting audio grains extracted from the recordings according to the output of a physics engine. In an off-line analysis task, we automatically segment audio recordings into atomic grains. The segmentation depends on the type of contact event and we distinguished between impulsive events, e.g. impacts or breaking sounds, and continuous events, e.g. rolling or sliding sounds. We segment recordings of continuous events into sinusoidal and transient components, which we encode separately. A technique similar to matching pursuit is used to represent each original recording as a compact series of audio grains. During interactive animations, the grains are triggered individually or in sequence according to parameters reported from the physics engine and/or user-defined procedures. A first application is simply to reduce the size of the original audio assets. Above all, our technique allows to synthesize non-repetitive sounding events and provides extended authoring capabilities.
Adiponectin Provides Additional Information to Conventional Cardiovascular Risk Factors for Assessing the Risk of Atherosclerosis in Both Genders

Background This study evaluated the relation between adiponectin and atherosclerosis in both genders, and investigated whether adiponectin provides useful additional information for assessing the risk of atherosclerosis. Methods We measured serum adiponectin levels and other cardiovascular risk factors in 1033 subjects (454 men, 579 women) from the Korean Genomic Rural Cohort study. Carotid intima–media-thickness (CIMT) was used as measure of atherosclerosis. Odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) were calculated using multiple logistic regression, and receiver operating characteristic curves (ROC), the category-free net reclassification improvement (NRI) and integrated discrimination improvement (IDI) were calculated. Results After adjustment for conventional cardiovascular risk factors, such as age, waist circumference, smoking history, low-density and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, triglycerides, systolic blood pressure and insulin resistance, the ORs (95%CI) of the third tertile adiponectin group were 0.42 (0.25–0.72) in men and 0.47 (0.29–0.75) in women. The area under the curve (AUC) on the ROC analysis increased significantly by 0.025 in men and 0.022 in women when adiponectin was added to the logistic model of conventional cardiovascular risk factors (AUC in men: 0.655 to 0.680, p = 0.038; AUC in women: 0.654 to 0.676, p = 0.041). The NRI was 0.32 (95%CI: 0.13–0.50, p<0.001), and the IDI was 0.03 (95%CI: 0.01–0.04, p<0.001) for men. For women, the category-free NRI was 0.18 (95%CI: 0.02–0.34, p = 0.031) and the IDI was 0.003 (95%CI: −0.002–0.008, p = 0.189). Conclusion Adiponectin and atherosclerosis were significantly related in both genders, and these relationships were independent of conventional cardiovascular risk factors. Furthermore, adiponectin provided additional information to conventional cardiovascular risk factors regarding the risk of atherosclerosis.
Using Fuzzy Semantic Log for Rough Set Web Page Recommendation

Improving accuracy of web page recommendation through data mining technology is an important research topic. This paper presents a new rough set web page recommendation algorithm based on fuzzy semantic logs, which firstly changes the access logs in the web into fuzzy semantic logs, secondly matches the current session with the rules founded, finally gives a recommendation set of web pages to the users. To evaluate the effectiveness of the algorithm the backward path ratio method is used, and the result shows that the algorithm can effectively improve the accuracy of web page recommendation.
Cone Contributions to Colour Constancy

Colour constancy refers to the stable perception of object colour under changing illumination conditions. This problem has been reformulated as relational colour constancy, or the ability of the observer to discriminate between material changes and changes in illumination. It has been suggested that local cone excitation ratios play a prominent role in achieving such constancy. Here we show that perceptual colour constancy measured by achromatic adjustments is to a large part complete after 25 ms. This speaks against a prominent role for receptor adaptation, which takes significantly longer. We also found no difference in colour constancy between colour changes that were compatible with a change of illuminant, and between colour changes where local cone ratios were uncorrelated between the two illuminants. Our results show that constant cone ratios are not necessary for colour constancy.
A Small Molecule, Which Competes with MAdCAM-1, Activates Integrin α4β7 and Fails to Prevent Mucosal Transmission of SHIV-SF162P3

Mucosal HIV-1 transmission is inefficient. However, certain viral and host characteristics may play a role in facilitating HIV acquisition and systemic expansion. Cells expressing high levels of integrin α4β7 have been implicated in favoring the transmission process and the infusion of an anti-α4β7 mAb (RM-Act-1) prior to, and during a repeated low-dose vaginal challenge (RLDC) regimen with SIVmac251 reduced SIV acquisition and protected the gut-associated lymphoid tissues (GALT) in the macaques that acquired SIV. α4β7 expression is required for lymphocyte trafficking to the gut lamina propria and gut inductive sites. Several therapeutic strategies that target α4β7 have been shown to be effective in treating inflammatory conditions of the intestine, such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). To determine if blocking α4β7 with ELN, an orally available anti-α4 small molecule, would inhibit SHIV-SF162P3 acquisition, we tested its ability to block MAdCAM-1 (α4β7 natural ligand) and HIV-gp120 binding in vitro. We studied the pharmacokinetic profile of ELN after oral and vaginal delivery in macaques. Twenty-six macaques were divided into 3 groups: 9 animals were treated with ELN orally, 9 orally and vaginally and 8 were used as controls. All animals were challenged intra-vaginally with SHIV-SF162P3 using the RLDC regimen. We found that ELN did not protect macaques from SHIV acquisition although it reduced the SHIV-induced inflammatory status during the acute phase of infection. Notably, integrins can exist in different activation states and, comparing the effect of ELN and the anti-α4β7 mAb RM-Act-1 that reduced susceptibility to SIV infection, we determined that ELN induces the active conformation of α4β7, while RM-Act-1 inhibits its activation through an allosteric mechanism. These results suggest that inhibition of α4β7 activation may be necessary to reduce susceptibility to SIV/SHIV infection and highlight the complexity of anti-integrins therapeutic approach in HIV as well as in IBD and other autoimmune diseases.
Evaluation of the Surface Water Distribution in North-Central Namibia Based on MODIS and AMSR Series

Semi-arid North-central Namibia has high potential for rice cultivation because large seasonal wetlands (oshana) form during the rainy season. Evaluating the distribution of surface water would reveal the area potentially suitable for rice cultivation. In this study, we detected the distribution of surface water with high spatial and temporal resolution by using two types of complementary satellite data: MODIS (MODerate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) and AMSR-E (Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer–Earth Observing System), using AMSR2 after AMSR-E became unavailable. We combined the modified normalized-difference water index (MNDWI) from the MODIS data with the normalized-difference polarization index (NDPI) from the AMSR-E and AMSR2 data to determine the area of surface water. We developed a simple gap-filling method (“database unmixing”) with the two indices, thereby providing daily 500-m-resolution MNDWI maps of north-central Namibia regardless of whether the sky was clear. Moreover, through receiver-operator characteristics (ROC) analysis, we determined the threshold MNDWI (−0.316) for wetlands. Using ROC analysis, MNDWI had moderate performance (the area under the ROC curve was 0.747), and the recognition error for seasonal wetlands and dry land was 21.2%. The threshold MNDWI let us calculate probability of water presence (PWP) maps for the rainy season and the whole year. The PWP maps revealed the total area potentially suitable for rice cultivation: 1255 km2 (1.6% of the study area).
Applications of On-chip Trace on Debugging Embedded Processor

On-chip trace system records run-time information of the embedded processor with special hardware to overcome the obstacle of non-intrusive debug and optimization of traditional techniques. This paper explores the mechanism, characteristics and applications of on-chip trace technique with TraceDo, an on-chip trace system of a multi-core SoC. The functions and structures of TraceDo are introduced, the working process of path trace is explained and the trace applications with two cases of debug and optimization are also discussed.
THE INTERBEHAVIORAL ALTERNATIVE TO FREE WILL AND DETERMINISM CONSTRUCTS

A review of various approaches to the old debate of determinism vs. free will shows little progress toward resolving the puzzle by any of the approaches. It is argued here that this is due to the failure to recognize that both free will and determinism are not things or events but imposed constructs, abstractions. Consequently, they cannot have causal or explanatory power. When we turn to observable events it brings us to a multiplex of things and conditions with which the individual interacts in the choosing event. This is an interbehavioral approach in which the interaction consists of this multiplex of events and constitutes the choosing. The interbehavioral resolution of this old conundrum has application in psychotherapy and criminal justice.
Estrogen influences on the developing rat hippocampus through interactions with the brain derived neurotrophic factor and p160 coactivator proteins

During development, estrogen has a variety of effects on morphological, biochemical and electrophysiological properties of hippocampal neurons. Correspondingly, estrogen receptor (ER) binding and mRNA increase transiently in the developing hippocampus. In this study, we used immunocytochemistry to determine the localization of the ER subtype in the developing rat hippocampus. Nuclear staining was present in pyramidal cells and some interneurons of the CA1 and CA3 regions of the developing rat hippocampus. Little or no immunoreactivity was observed in postnatal day (P)0 animals (day of birth = P0), however, beginning on P4, ERimmunoreactivity (ER-ir) was visible and reached maximal levels by P10. These levels subsequently declined to low levels so that by P15, levels approximated those of adult females. Western blot analysis confirmed that this antibody recognized a 67kd protein, characteristic of the full length ER protein, in the hippocampus and pituitary. Furthermore, most of the ER immunopositive cells in the hippocampus were located in the pyramidal cell layer, and did not co-localize appreciably with -amino butyric acid 62 (GABA) at any age examined. We conclude, based on the immunocytochemical localization of ER, that the effects of estrogen on biochemistry and morphology of the developing hippocampus may be direct through the ER subtype in hippocampal
From an Obscured Gaze to a Seeing Eye? Iris as Victim, Villain, and Avenger in the Role of Writer-as-Assassin in Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin

In the postmodern period, first-person-limited, unreliable, female narrators may have a greater difficulty in “seeing” and, thus, depicting their landscapes than previous eras’ storytellers. Iris (Chase) Griffen, narrator-protagonist of Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin, spins a complicated, self-reflective text exploring her attempts at composing a world vision that consumes the novel’s larger part. Iris’s search for answers about her identity as well as that of other characters may leave readers in the lurch, waiting for their “story,” in Ross Chambers’s terms, as an agreed-upon product. Nonetheless, having amassed assorted textual materials, Iris stockpiles the ammunition she needs to do her “job” as a storyteller-assassin who creates and destroys, as characters suffer a fall. Assuming guises dependent on location, Iris enacts the conflicting roles of a victim, social product, villain, and blind assassin to assault her culture’s masculinist architectures that bar women’s points of views in opposition to what Henry James presents as the unending panoramas offered by his metaphorical “House of Fiction. ” Iris’s struggle to construct her life story mirrors the difficulty many women face more broadly, in which they face competing, irreconcilable values. In the novel, Iris’s ability to play differing parts with equal aplomb compels readers to view her as a complex narrator, constructing and assassinating fellow characters to render her female descendants’ fates as open ended.
TRANSVERSAL AND LONGITUDINAL VOXELWISE WHOLE BRAIN EVALUATION IN THE EARLIEST STAGES OF MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS

Introduction In patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) diffuse MRI abnormalities have been described in both white (WM) and grey matter (GM). However, the relationship between WM and GM damage evolution is not fully understood [1]. In a transversal study on clinically isolated syndrome (CIS) patients, voxel-based morphometry (VBM) analysis did not show volume loss in grey matter structures whereas tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) analysis revealed widespread FA decrease in most WM fiber tracts [2]. In this study we aimed at longitudinally evaluating the WM and GM damage in the same coohort, after one year follow-up. For this purpose, VBM and TBSS have been used in combination.