Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Long-term neurological, visual, and endocrine outcomes following transnasal resection of craniopharyngioma.

OBJECT The authors report on a cohort of patients with craniopharyngioma treated principally through transnasal (TN) resection and followed up for a minimum of 5 years. More specifically, they evaluate the role of the TN approach in the management of craniopharyngioma. METHODS Between 1984 and 1994, 68 patients underwent TN resection of craniopharyngiomas at the University of Southern California. The tumor was at least partially cystic in 88% of cases. Four tumors were purely intrasellar, 53 had intra- and suprasellar components, and 11 were exclusively suprasellar. During the same period, 18 patients underwent transcranial (TC) resection of purely suprasellar craniopharyngiomas. Long-term neurological, visual, and endocrine outcomes were reviewed for all patients. In 61 (90%) of 68 patients in the TN group, total resection was achieved, according to 3-month postoperative magnetic resonance images, although four patients suffered a recurrence. Three (43%) of the seven tumors that had been partially resected were enlarged on serial imaging. Fifty-four (87%) of 62 patients with preoperative visual loss experienced improvement in one or both eyes, but two patients (3%) with exclusively suprasellar tumors experienced postoperative visual worsening in one or both eyes. New instances of postoperative endocrinopathy (that is, not present preoperatively) occurred as follows: hypogonadism (eight of 22 cases), growth hormone (GH) deficiency (four of 18 cases), hypothyroidism (11 of 49 cases), hypocortisolemia (nine of 52 cases), and diabetes insipidus (DI; four of 61 cases). One case each of hypocortisolemia and hypothyroidism resolved after surgery. Hyperphagia occurred in 27 (40%) of 68 patients. One patient had short-term memory loss. Postoperative complications included one case of cerebrospinal fluid leak. Among the 18 patients in the TC group, 11 had complete resections. In one case (9%) the tumors recurred. Three (43%) of the seven subtotally resected tumors grew during the follow-up interval. Vision improved in 11 (61%) of 18 cases and worsened in three (17%) as a result of surgery. New instances of postoperative endocrinopathy occurred as follows: hypogonadism (one of six cases), GH deficiency (four of seven cases), hypothyroidism (11 of 14 cases), hypocortisolemia (eight of 15 cases), and DI (nine of 16 cases). No instance of preoperative endocrinopathy was corrected through TC surgery. Four patients (22%) exhibited short-term memory loss and 11 (61%) had hyperphagia after surgery. When compared with those in the TC group, patients in the TN group had shorter hospital stays. CONCLUSIONS Use of the TN approach can render good outcomes in properly selected patients with craniopharyngioma, particularly when the tumor is cystic. Even in mostly suprasellar cases, an extended TN approach can afford complete resection. Note that endocrine function often worsens after surgery and that postoperative obesity can be a significant problem.
Phosphorylation of IkappaBalpha in the C-terminal PEST domain by casein kinase II affects intrinsic protein stability

The NF-kappaB/Rel transcription factors participate in the activation of immune system regulatory genes and viral early genes including the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 long terminal repeat. NF-kappaB/Rel proteins are coupled to inhibitory molecules, collectively termed IkappaB, which are responsible for cytoplasmic retention of NF-kappaB. Cell activation leads to the phosphorylation and degradation of IkappaBalpha, permitting NG-kappaB/Rel translocation to the nucleus and target gene activation. To further characterize the signaling events that contribute to IkappaBalpha phosphorylation, a kinase activity was isolated from Jurkat T cells that specifically interacted with IkappaBalpha in an affinity chromatography step and phosphorylated IkappaBalpha with high specificity in vitro. By using an in-gel kinase assay with recombinant IkappaBalpha as substrate, two forms of the kinase (43 and 38 kDa) were identified. Biochemical criteria and immunological cross-reactivity identified the kinase activity as the alpha catalytic subunit of casein kinase II (CKII). Deletion mutants of IkappaBalpha delta1 to delta4) localized phosphorylation to the C-terminal PEST domain of IkappaBalpha. Point mutation of residues T-291, S-283, and T-299 dramatically reduced phosphorylation of IkappaBalpha by the kinase in vitro. NIH-3T3 cells that stably expressed wild-type IkappaBalpha (wtIkappaB), double-point-mutated IkappaBalpha (T291A, S283A), or triple-point-mutated IkappaBalpha (T291A, S283A, T299A) under the control of the tetracycline-responsive promoter were generated. Constitutive phosphorylation of the triple point mutant was eliminated in vivo, although tumor necrosis factor-inducible IkappaBalpha degradation was unaffected. In cell lines and in transiently transfected cells, mutation of the CKII sites in IkappaBalpha resulted in a protein with increased intrinsic stability. Together with results demonstrating a role for N-terminal sites in inducer-mediated phosphorylation and degradation of IkappaBalpha, these studies indicate that CKII sites in the C-terminal PEST domain are important for constitutive phosphorylation and intrinsic stability of IkappaBalpha.
AMP-activated Protein Kinase (AMPK) Signaling in Endothelial Cells Is Essential for Angiogenesis in Response to Hypoxic Stress*

AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) is a stress-activated protein kinase that is regulated by hypoxia and other cellular stresses that result in diminished cellular ATP levels. Here, we investigated whether AMPK signaling in endothelial cells has a role in regulating angiogenesis. Hypoxia induced the activating phosphorylation of AMPK in human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs), and AMPK activation was required for the maintenance of pro-angiogenic Akt signaling under these conditions. Suppression of AMPK signaling inhibited both HUVEC migration to VEGF and in vitro differentiation into tube-like structures in hypoxic, but not normoxic cultures. Dominant-negative AMPK also inhibited in vivo angiogenesis in Matrigel plugs that were implanted subcutaneously in mice. These data identify AMPK signaling as a new regulator of angiogenesis that is specifically required for endothelial cell migration and differentiation under conditions of hypoxia. As such, endothelial AMPK signaling may be a critical determinant of blood vessel recruitment to tissues that are subjected to ischemic stress.
Structure-enhanced local phase filtering using L0 gradient minimization for efficient semiautomated knee magnetic resonance imaging segmentation

Abstract. The segmentation of bone surfaces from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data has applications in the quantitative measurement of knee osteoarthritis, surgery planning for patient-specific total knee arthroplasty, and its subsequent fabrication of artificial implants. However, due to the problems associated with MRI imaging, such as low contrast between bone and surrounding tissues, noise, bias fields, and the partial volume effect, segmentation of bone surfaces continues to be a challenging operation. A framework is presented for the enhancement of knee MRI scans prior to segmentation in order to obtain high contrast bone images. During the first stage, a contrast enhanced relative total variation regularization method is used in order to remove textural noise from the bone structures and surrounding soft tissue interface. This salient bone edge information is further enhanced using a sparse gradient counting method based on L0 gradient minimization, which globally controls how many nonzero gradients are resulted in order to approximate prominent bone structures in a structure-sparsity-management manner. The last stage of the framework involves incorporation of local phase bone boundary information in order to provide an intensity invariant enhancement of contrast between the bone and surrounding soft tissue. The enhanced images are segmented using a fast random walker algorithm. Validation against expert segmentation was performed on 20 clinical knee MRI volumes and achieved a mean dice similarity coefficient of 0.949.
A Dataset for Research on Depression in Social Media

Language provides a unique window into thoughts, enabling direct assessment of mental-state alterations. Due to their increasing popularity, online social media platforms have become promising means to study different mental disorders. However, the lack of available datasets can hinder the development of innovative diagnostic methods. Tools to assist health practitioners in screening and monitoring individuals under potential risk are essential. In this paper, we present a new a dataset to foster the research on automatic detection of depression. To this end, we present a methodology for automatically collecting large samples of depression and non-depression posts from online social media. Furthermore, we perform a benchmark on the dataset to establish a point of reference for researchers who are interested in using it.
How far we have come: testing decompilation correctness of C decompilers

A C decompiler converts an executable (the output from a C compiler) into source code. The recovered C source code, once recompiled, will produce an executable with the same functionality as the original executable. With over twenty years of development, C decompilers have been widely used in production to support reverse engineering applications, including legacy software migration, security retrofitting, software comprehension, and to act as the first step in launching adversarial software exploitations. As the paramount component and the trust base in numerous cybersecurity tasks, C decompilers have enabled the analysis of malware, ransomware, and promoted cybersecurity professionals’ understanding of vulnerabilities in real-world systems. In contrast to this flourishing market, our observation is that in academia, outputs of C decompilers (i.e., recovered C source code) are still not extensively used. Instead, the intermediate representations are often more desired for usage when developing applications such as binary security retrofitting. We acknowledge that such conservative approaches in academia are a result of widespread and pessimistic views on the decompilation correctness. However, in conventional software engineering and security research, how much of a problem is, for instance, reusing a piece of simple legacy code by taking the output of modern C decompilers? In this work, we test decompilation correctness to present an up-to-date understanding regarding modern C decompilers. We detected a total of 1,423 inputs that can trigger decompilation errors from four popular decompilers, and with extensive manual effort, we identified 13 bugs in two open-source decompilers. Our findings show that the overly pessimistic view of decompilation correctness leads researchers to underestimate the potential of modern decompilers; the state-of-the-art decompilers certainly care about the functional correctness, and they are making promising progress. However, some tasks that have been studied for years in academia, such as type inference and optimization, still impede C decompilers from generating quality outputs more than is reflected in the literature. These issues rarely receive enough attention and can lead to great confusion that misleads users.
Network intrusion detection system using various data mining techniques

There are many risk of network attacks in the Internet environment. Nowdays, Security on the internet is a vital issue and therefore, the intrusion detection is one of the major research problem for business and personal networks which resist external attacks. A Network Intrusion Detection System (NIDS) is a software application that monitors the network or system activities for malicious activities and unauthorized access to devices. The goal of designing NIDS is to protect the data's confidentiality and integrity. Our project focuses on these issues with the help of Data Mining. This research paper includes the implementation of different data mining algorithms including Linear regression and K-Means Clustering to automatically generate the rules for classify network activities. A comparative analysis of these techniques to detect intrusions has also been made. To learn the patterns of the attacks, NSL-KDD dataset has been used.
Inhibition of Human Cytomegalovirus Replication by Benzimidazole Nucleosides Involves Three Distinct Mechanisms

ABSTRACT The benzimidazole nucleosides 2-bromo-5,6-dichloro-1-(β-d-ribofuranosyl)benzimidazole (BDCRB) and 2-isopropylamino-5,6-dichloro-1-(β-l-ribofuranosyl)benzimidazole (1263W94, or maribavir) are potent and selective inhibitors of human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) replication. These inhibitors act by two different mechanisms: BDCRB blocks the processing and maturation of viral DNA, whereas maribavir prevents viral DNA synthesis and capsid nuclear egress. In order to determine by which of these two mechanisms other benzimidazole nucleosides acted, we performed time-of-addition studies and other experiments with selected new analogs. We found that the erythrofuranosyl analog and the α-lyxofuranosyl analog acted late in the viral replication cycle, similar to BDCRB. In marked contrast, the α-5′-deoxylyxofuranosyl analog of 2,5,6-trichloro-1-(β-d-ribofuranosyl)benzimidazole (compound UMJD1311) acted early in the replication cycle, too early to be consistent with either mechanism. Similar to other reports on early acting inhibitors of herpesviruses, compound 1311 was multiplicity of infection dependent, an observation that could not be reproduced with UV-inactivated virus. HCMV isolates resistant to BDCRB and maribavir were sensitive to compound 1311, as were viruses resistant to ganciclovir, cidofovir, and foscarnet. The preincubation of host cells with compound 1311 and removal prior to the addition of HCMV did not produce an antiviral cellular response. We conclude that this newly discovered early mode of action occurs at a stage of viral replication after entry to cells but prior to viral DNA synthesis, thereby strongly suggesting that the trisubstituted benzimidazole nucleoside series possesses three distinct biochemical modes of action for inhibition of HCMV replication.
Self-Initiated Actions Under Different Choice Architectures Affect Framing and Target Evaluation Even Without Verbal Manipulation

Logically equivalent but different descriptions (i.e., manipulation of verbal expressions) affect decision-making in a phenomenon known as the framing effect. A choice architecture changes decision-makers’ actions, which in turn create different frames, but little is known about whether the frame created by their action can change their judgments. We examined whether self-initiated action induced by a choice architecture changed evaluations. In two experimental studies (N = 271), we found that self-initiated actions whose final goal was completely the same and for which no verbal expressions were manipulated led to different evaluations. In particular, we found that a difference in the placement of rewards, which required participants to behave differently, changed their ratings of satisfaction with the rewards. This study provides evidence that the framing effect can occur without verbal manipulation. This finding advances our understanding of how participants’ actions lead to different evaluations.
Complementary Role of Positron Emission Tomography in Merkel Cell Carcinoma

Merkel cell carcinoma is a rare type of neuroendocrine tumor of the skin with approximately 470 documented new cases annually in the United States. These tumors have high metastatic and recurrence rates, making them aggressive and difficult to treat. Diagnostic workup usually includes computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, and scintigraphy methods such as octreotide scans. More recently, positron emission tomographic scanning has been used to evaluate Merkel cell carcinomas. A case of Merkel cell carcinoma, in which positron emission tomography imaging with fluorodeoxyglucose played an important role in staging, re-staging, and identifying previously unknown distant metastatic disease, is presented in this article.
Ground-Based Lidar Measurements of Aerosols During ACE-2 Instrument Description, Results, and Comparisons with Other Ground-Based and Airborne Measurements

A micro-pulse lidar system (MPL) was used to measure the vertical and horizontal distribution of aerosols during the Aerosol Characterization Experiment 2 (ACE-2) in June and July of 1997. The MPL measurements were made at the Izana observatory (IZO), a weather station located on a mountain ridge (28°18′ N, 16°30′ W, 2367 m asl) near the center of the island of Tenerife, Canary Islands. The MPL was used to acquire aerosol backscatter, extinction, and optical depth profiles for normal background periods and periods influenced by Saharan dust from North Africa. System tests and calibration procedures are discussed, and an analysis of aerosol optical profiles acquired during ACE-2 is presented. MPL data taken during normal IZO conditions (no dust) showed that upslope aerosols appeared during the day and dissipated at night and that the layers were mostly confined to altitudes a few hundred meters above IZO. MPL data taken during a Saharan dust episode on 17 July showed that peak aerosol extinction values were an order of magnitude greater than molecular scattering over IZO, and that the dust layers extended to 5 km asl. The value of the dust backscatter–extinction ratio was determined to be 0.027±0.007 sr −1 . Comparisons of the MPL data with data from other co-located instruments showed good agreement during the dust episode. DOI: 10.1034/j.1600-0889.2000. 00025.x
Perception of Methods of Contraception: A Semantic Differential Study

Summary A psychological measurement technique, the semantic differential, is used as a measure of the perceptions of contraceptive methods among 172 sexually experienced undergraduates. This technique enables the calculation of an acceptability score based on subjectively defined attributes. Factor analysis of the ratings identifies seven major dimensions, which have to do with effectiveness, discretion, pleasure, legality, permanence, harmfulness, and cost. A sex difference is found in that comfort and mood factors are more salient to females than to males.
Matching of Structural Shape Descriptions with Hopfield Net

Structural description of objects comprised descriptions of the parts and spatial relations between the parts. This paper presents a Hopfield net based scheme for matching structural shape descriptions. The current formulation of the matching scheme is general enough to take care of partial mismatch between the individual parts and spatial constraints between these parts. In addition, a transformation of the shape descriptions has been suggested with which shape descriptions containing asymmetrical spatial constraints between the parts can be matched using symmetric interconnection weights for the Hopfield net. The Hopfield net based formulation has been extended to consider the problem of finding the best match of the test shape descriptions with one of the stored prototypes. The matching scheme has been experimentally applied for recognition of hand-tools and symbols. In both cases, the network produced encouraging recognition results.
Genomic Insights of Cryobacterium Isolated From Ice Core Reveal Genome Dynamics for Adaptation in Glacier

Glacier is the dominant cold habitat in terrestrial environments, providing a model ecosystem to explore extremophilic strategies and study early lives on Earth. The dominant form of life in glaciers is bacteria. However, little is known about past evolutionary processes that bacteria underwent during adaptation to the cryosphere and the connection of their genomic traits to environmental stressors. Aiming to test the hypothesis that bacterial genomic content and dynamics are driven by glacial environmental stressors, we compared genomes of 21 psychrophilic Cryobacterium strains, including 14 that we isolated from three Tibetan ice cores, to their mesophilic counterparts from the same family Microbacteriaceae of Actinobacteria. The results show that psychrophilic Cryobacterium underwent more dynamic changes in genome content, and their genomes have a significantly higher number of genes involved in stress response, motility, and chemotaxis than their mesophilic counterparts (P < 0.05). The phylogenetic birth-and-death model imposed on the phylogenomic tree indicates a vast surge in recent common ancestor of psychrophilic Cryobacterium (gained the greatest number of genes by 1,168) after the division of the mesophilic strain Cryobacterium mesophilum. The expansion in genome content brought in key genes primarily of the categories “cofactors, vitamins, prosthetic groups, pigments,” “monosaccharides metabolism,” and “membrane transport. ” The amino acid substitution rates of psychrophilic Cryobacterium strains are two orders of magnitude lower than those in mesophilic strains. However, no significantly higher number of cold shock genes was found in psychrophilic Cryobacterium strains, indicating that multi-copy is not a key factor for cold adaptation in the family Microbacteriaceae, although cold shock genes are indispensable for psychrophiles. Extensive gene acquisition and low amino acid substitution rate might be the strategies of psychrophilic Cryobacterium to resist low temperature, oligotrophy, and high UV radiation on glaciers. The exploration of genome evolution and survival strategies of psychrophilic Cryobacterium deepens our understanding of bacterial cold adaptation.
If you can survive, then you will stay: Resilience and Turnover Intention on Employees

This research aimed to understand the effect of resilience on turnover intention on employees. There were 78 respondents in this study, consisting of 44 men and 34 women who were actively working in an institution, civil servant, education, and entrepreneurs with an age range of 23 to 53 years old. Random Sampling Technique was used to get the sampling data. The research instrument which is used in this study was the Likert Scale of Aloba, Olabisi, and Aloba (2016) and the Turnover Intention Scale is adapted from Dreher's Scale (1982). This scale was distributed via online media then the results were analyzed using SPSS with a Simple Regression Test. The result of this research illustrate that there was significant value of 0.017 (sig <0.05), which means that resilience has significant effect on Turnover Intention on Employees,and the percentage role of resilience in influencing turnover intention was 73% while the rest of 27% was influenced by other factors.
Development of a Leadership Program for Hospital Employees

Healthcare leader’s ability to respond to the dynamic environment of healthcare is essential for positive health care outcomes. Leaders set the strategic direction for healthcare organizations, and this requires that leaders assess themselves and their employees to develop effective education programs needed to meet any knowledge gaps limiting the workforce ready to respond to the new demands. The purpose of this project is to implement and assess a revised curriculum of a leadership development program by measuring gained self-identified development of leadership practices.