Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Quantitative analysis of cotransfection efficiencies in studies of ionotropic glutamate receptor complexes

Transient transfection of cultured mammalian cells is widely employed in the study of ionotropic glutamate receptors. Heteromeric expression is usually achieved by simultaneous transfection of various combinations of glutamate receptor subunit‐encoding cDNAs. This approach is based on an “all‐or‐none” assumption, rarely verified experimentally, that any given cell expresses all subunits present during transfection. A similar assumption implicitly is made when cotransfection of a cDNA encoding a fluorescent marker protein is applied to distinguish transfected from untransfected cells. A further frequent assumption alleges that the ratio between cDNAs used in cotransfection experiments directs the assembly of receptor complexes in heterologous expression systems. To check the validity of these assumptions for ionotropic glutamate receptors as model transmembrane receptors, we generated fluorescently labeled receptor subunits and introduced them into HEK‐293 cells by the calcium phosphate method. Analyzing the expression of multiple fusion proteins by confocal microscopy, we evaluated the coexpression efficiencies for various glutamate receptor cDNA combinations, cDNA amounts, and cDNA ratios. Several factors were found to influence the individual, cumulative, and cotransfection efficiencies, including the cDNA ratio, the nature of the expressed protein, and the specific combination of cotransfected cDNAs. After simultaneous transfection with equal amounts of several cDNAs, we demonstrate the consistent generation of several distinct populations of cells that express different receptor subunit combinations. The evidence we present suggests that cotransfected cells should always be independently tested for the expression of all target subunits before picking cells for the analysis of specific heteromeric receptor assemblies. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Clinical utility of eco-color-power Doppler ultrasonography and contrast enhanced magnetic resonance imaging for interpretation and quantification of joint synovitis: a review

With the introduction of new biologics such as anti-TNF-alpha antibodies and other therapies in the treatment of inflammatory arthritis, capable of halting joint destruction and functional disability, there are new pressures on diagnostic and prognostic imaging. Early demonstration of pre-erosive inflammatory features and monitoring of the long-term effects of treatment are becoming increasingly important. Early detection of synovitis offers advantages in terms of allowing early instigation of therapy and may allow the identification of those patients displaying more aggressive disease who might benefit from early intervention with expensive DMARD therapy. Advanced imaging techniques such as ultrasound (US) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have focussed on the demonstration and quantification of synovitis and allow early diagnosis of inflammatory arthropathies such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and psoriatic arthritis (PsA). Synovitis represents a potential surrogate measure of disease activity that can be monitored using either MRI or US; the techniques have, generally, focused on monitoring synovial volume or quality as assessed by its vascularity. However to achieve these goals, standardisation and validation of US and MRI are required to ensure accurate diagnosis, reproducibility and reliability. Each modality has different strengths and weaknesses and levels of validation. This article aims to increase the awareness of radiologists and rheumatologists about this field and to encourage them to participate and contribute to the ongoing development of these modalities. Without this collaboration, it is unlikely that these modalities will reach their full potential in the field of rheumatological imaging. This review is in two parts. The first part addresses the role of US and colour or power Doppler sonography (PDUS) in the detection and monitoring of synovitis in inflammatory arthropathies. The second part will look at advanced MR imaging and Dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI techniques and in particular how they are applied to the monitoring of the disease process. (www.actabiomedica.it)
Accessibility Limits Recall From Visual Working Memory

In this article, we demonstrate limitations of accessibility of information in visual working memory (VWM). Recently, cued-recall has been used to estimate the fidelity of information in VWM, where the feature of a cued object is reproduced from memory (Bays, Catalao, & Husain, 2009; Wilken & Ma, 2004; Zhang & Luck, 2008). Response error in these tasks has been largely studied with respect to failures of encoding and maintenance; however, the retrieval operations used in these tasks remain poorly understood. By varying the number and type of object features provided as a cue in a visual delayed-estimation paradigm, we directly assess the nature of retrieval errors in delayed estimation from VWM. Our results demonstrate that providing additional object features in a single cue reliably improves recall, largely by reducing swap, or misbinding, responses. In addition, performance simulations using the binding pool model (Swan & Wyble, 2014) were able to mimic this pattern of performance across a large span of parameter combinations, demonstrating that the binding pool provides a possible mechanism underlying this pattern of results that is not merely a symptom of one particular parametrization. We conclude that accessing visual working memory is a noisy process, and can lead to errors over and above those of encoding and maintenance limitations.
Facial Action Units intensity estimation by the fusion of features with multi-kernel Support Vector Machine

Automatic facial expression recognition has emerged over two decades. The recognition of the posed facial expressions and the detection of Action Units (AUs) of facial expression have already made great progress. More recently, the automatic estimation of the variation of facial expression, either in terms of the intensities of AUs or in terms of the values of dimensional emotions, has emerged in the field of the facial expression analysis. However, discriminating different intensities of AUs is a far more challenging task than AUs detection due to several intractable problems. Aiming to continuing standardized evaluation procedures and surpass the limits of the current research, the second Facial Expression Recognition and Analysis challenge (FERA2015) is presented. In this context, we propose a method using the fusion of the different appearance and geometry features based on a multi-kernel Support Vector Machine (SVM) for the automatic estimation of the intensities of the AUs. The result of our approach benefiting from taking advantages of the different features adapting to a multi-kernel SVM is shown to outperform the conventional methods based on the mono-type feature with single kernel SVM.
Three-dimensional flow structures and evolution of the leading-edge vortices on a flapping wing

SUMMARY Following the identification and confirmation of the substructures of the leading-edge vortex (LEV) system on flapping wings, it is apparent that the actual LEV structures could be more complex than had been estimated in previous investigations. In this experimental study, we reveal for the first time the detailed three-dimensional (3-D) flow structures and evolution of the LEVs on a flapping wing in the hovering condition at high Reynolds number (Re=1624). This was accomplished by utilizing an electromechanical model dragonfly wing flapping in a water tank (mid-stroke angle of attack=60°) and applying phase-lock based multi-slice digital stereoscopic particle image velocimetry (DSPIV) to measure the target flow fields at three typical stroke phases: at 0.125T (T=stroke period), when the wing was accelerating; at 0.25T, when the wing had maximum speed; and at 0.375T, when the wing was decelerating. The result shows that the LEV system is a collection of four vortical elements: one primary vortex and three minor vortices, instead of a single conical or tube-like vortex as reported or hypothesized in previous studies. These vortical elements are highly time-dependent in structure and show distinct `stay properties' at different spanwise sections. The spanwise flows are also time-dependent, not only in the velocity magnitude but also in direction.
Productivity Growth and the Exchange Rate Regime: The Role of Financial Development

This paper offers empirical evidence that a country's choice of exchange rate regime can have a significant impact on its medium-term rate of productivity growth. Moreover, the impact depends critically on the country's level of financial development, its degree of market regulation, and its distance from the global technology frontier. We illustrate how each of these channels may operate in a simple stylized growth model in which real exchange rate uncertainty exacerbates the negative investment effects of domestic credit market constraints. The empirical analysis is based on an 83 country data set spanning the years 1960-2000. Our approach delivers results that are in striking contrast to the vast existing empirical exchange rate literature, which largely finds the effects of exchange rate volatility on real activity to be relatively small and insignificant.
ICSV 14 Cairns • Australia 9-12 July , 2007 INVESTIGATION OF QUANTUM AND CLASSICAL MODELS FOR MOLECULAR RELAXATION USING THE DIRECT SIMULATION MONTE CARLO METHOD

It is widely known that losses due to viscous, thermal and molecular relaxation play an important role in sound propagation. Traditionally, acoustics is concerned with the treatment of the fluid as a (linear) continuum using macroscopic quantities such as velocity and pressure as dependent variables. However, the continuum model has its limitations and the model breaks down for Knudsen numbers (Kn) greater than roughly 0.05, where Kn is defined as the ratio of mean free path to wavelength. Particle or Boltzmann equation methods are necessary for, but not limited to, problems with Kn > 0.05. In our studies we have used a particle method, Bird’s direct simulation Monte Carlo method, to study acoustics which allows us to simulate real gas effects for all values of Kn with a molecular model that continuum methods cannot offer. Direct simulation Monte Carlo allows us to explore acoustics at varying temperatures, molecular composition, Knudsen numbers, and amplitude. Our current simulations of gas mixtures have employed different methods to model the internal degrees of freedom in molecules and the exchange of translational, rotational and vibrational energies in collisions. One of these methods is the fully classical rigid-rotor/harmonic-oscillator model for rotation and vibration developed by Borgnakke and Larsen. A second takes into account the discrete quantum energy levels for vibration with rotation treated classically. This method gives a more realistic representation of the internal structure of diatomic and polyatomic molecules. In our studies, we have investigated the application of these methods with the direct simulation at the molecular level of the propagation of sound and its attenuation along with their dependence on temperature for diatomic nitrogen systems.
Obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome increases source‐confusion errors: A pilot study

We explored external source monitoring (i.e., discrimination between memories of two externally derived sources) in patients with obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome (OSAS). Our specific aim was to ascertain whether, relative to controls, patients exhibit more source-confusion errors when there are similarities between two external memory sources. We recruited 22 patients with OSAS and 22 controls matched for sex, age, and education. The experimental procedure we used came in three phases. First, participants viewed a target film. Second, they were shown a mixed set of photographs, some taken from the film (target photographs), others not (photographs taken from other films not viewed by participants; lures). Lures differed either conceptually or perceptually from the target film. Third, the following day, participants were shown a set of photographs and urged to determine whether the photographs were taken from the target film or whether they were images they had seen for the first time in Phase 2. Patients correctly attributed the same number of target photographs to the target film as controls. By contrast, they incorrectly attributed more lures to the target film than controls did, especially when the lures were semantically similar to the film (perceptual lures). Both perceptual and conceptual source-confusion errors were significantly correlated with oxygen desaturation during sleep. Results suggest that the higher number of source-confusion errors observed in patients with OSAS was linked to an impaired ability to recollect specific perceptual details of the study items and that hypoxia is the main contributing factor to this deficit.
Active interaction control applied to a lower limb rehabilitation robot by using EMG recognition and impedance model

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a seamless active interaction control method integrating electromyography (EMG)-triggered assistance and the adaptive impedance control scheme for parallel robot-assisted lower limb rehabilitation and training. Design/methodology/approach – An active interaction control strategy based on EMG motion recognition and adaptive impedance model is implemented on a six-degrees of freedom parallel robot for lower limb rehabilitation. The autoregressive coefficients of EMG signals integrating with a support vector machine classifier are utilized to predict the movement intention and trigger the robot assistance. An adaptive impedance controller is adopted to influence the robot velocity during the exercise, and in the meantime, the user’s muscle activity level is evaluated online and the robot impedance is adapted in accordance with the recovery conditions. Findings – Experiments on healthy subjects demonstrated that the proposed method was able to drive the robot .
Mediastinoscopy vs endosonography for mediastinal nodal staging of lung cancer: a randomized trial.

CONTEXT Mediastinal nodal staging is recommended for patients with resectable non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Surgical staging has limitations, which results in the performance of unnecessary thoracotomies. Current guidelines acknowledge minimally invasive endosonography followed by surgical staging (if no nodal metastases are found by endosonography) as an alternative to immediate surgical staging. OBJECTIVE To compare the 2 recommended lung cancer staging strategies. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PATIENTS Randomized controlled multicenter trial (Ghent, Leiden, Leuven, Papworth) conducted between February 2007 and April 2009 in 241 patients with resectable (suspected) NSCLC in whom mediastinal staging was indicated based on computed or positron emission tomography. INTERVENTION Either surgical staging or endosonography (combined transesophageal and endobronchial ultrasound [EUS-FNA and EBUS-TBNA]) followed by surgical staging in case no nodal metastases were found at endosonography. Thoracotomy with lymph node dissection was performed when there was no evidence of mediastinal tumor spread. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES The primary outcome was sensitivity for mediastinal nodal (N2/N3) metastases. The reference standard was surgical pathological staging. Secondary outcomes were rates of unnecessary thoracotomy and complications. RESULTS Two hundred forty-one patients were randomized, 118 to surgical staging and 123 to endosonography, of whom 65 also underwent surgical staging. Nodal metastases were found in 41 patients (35%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 27%-44%) by surgical staging vs 56 patients (46%; 95% CI, 37%-54%) by endosonography (P = .11) and in 62 patients (50%; 95% CI, 42%-59%) by endosonography followed by surgical staging (P = .02). This corresponded to sensitivities of 79% (41/52; 95% CI, 66%-88%) vs 85% (56/66; 95% CI, 74%-92%) (P = .47) and 94% (62/66; 95% CI, 85%-98%) (P = .02). Thoracotomy was unnecessary in 21 patients (18%; 95% CI, 12%-26%) in the mediastinoscopy group vs 9 (7%; 95% CI, 4%-13%) in the endosonography group (P = .02). The complication rate was similar in both groups. CONCLUSIONS Among patients with (suspected) NSCLC, a staging strategy combining endosonography and surgical staging compared with surgical staging alone resulted in greater sensitivity for mediastinal nodal metastases and fewer unnecessary thoracotomies. TRIAL REGISTRATION clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT00432640.
Sketching in three dimensions: A beautification scheme

Abstract Primary among all the activities involved in conceptual design is freehand sketching. There have been significant efforts in recent years to enable digital design methods that leverage humans’ sketching skills. Conventional sketch-based digital interfaces are built on two-dimensional touch-based devices like sketchers and drawing pads. The transition from two-dimensional to three-dimensional (3-D) digital sketch interfaces represents the latest trend in developing new interfaces that embody intuitiveness and human–human interaction characteristics. In this paper, we outline a novel screenless 3-D sketching system. The system uses a noncontact depth-sensing RGB-D camera for user input. Only depth information (no RGB information) is used in the framework. The system tracks the user's palm during the sketching process and converts the data into a 3-D sketch. As the generated data is noisy, making sense of what is sketched is facilitated through a beautification process that is suited to 3-D sketches. To evaluate the performance of the system and the beautification scheme, user studies were performed on multiple participants for both single-stroke and multistroke sketching scenarios.
Gender Differences in Suicidal Behaviors: Mediation Role of Psychological Distress Between Alcohol Abuse/Dependence and Suicidal Behaviors

Suicide is the second leading cause of death among emerging adults ages 18 to 25. Aims: To examine gender differences on the mediation effect of psychological distress between alcohol abuse or dependence (AAD) and suicidal behaviors (ideation, plan, and attempt). Method: The current study used the 2014 NSDUH public use data. Young adults aged 18 to 25 years (M = 21.02) old were selected as study participants. The three outcome variables were suicide ideation, plan, and attempt. AAD was an independent variable. As a mediation variable, psychological distress was used to test the research questions. The mediation effect was tested by using bootstrapping methods with the SPSS version of the macro (PROCESS version 2.16) developed by Preacher and Hayes. Results: Six separate mediation analyses (three for a male and three for a female group) were conducted for different types of suicidal behaviors including ideation, plan, and attempt. Overall, psychological distress mediated the association between AAD and suicidal behaviors, except the relationship between AAD and suicide attempts among the male young adults group. Conclusions: The findings of the current study provide specific directions for practitioners to reduce suicide rates among young adults who are at risk for suicidal behavior.
Cost impact of oral capecitabine compared to intravenous taxane-based chemotherapy in first-line metastatic breast cancer

Abstract Objective: Few studies have examined the costs associated with differing first-line chemotherapy regimens in patients with metastatic breast cancer (MBC). This study compares the relative cost impact of women starting first-line chemotherapy with capecitabine versus taxanes. Methods: Women receiving first-line chemotherapy for MBC from 1998 to 2002 were identified from a hybrid North Carolina Medicaid-claims-tumour registry linked database and Medicare records, and were followed through to 2005 with claims data. Statistical t- and chi-square tests were used to compare baseline characteristics between patients who received first-line chemotherapy with capecitabine versus taxanes. Projected mean costs for 12 months continuous eligibility were estimated using an ordinary least squares linear regression. Overall cost impact of capecitabine after start of therapy was then examined using a multivariate log-linear regression model. Results: While patients starting taxanes had significantly lower total costs in the pre-index year than patients starting capecitabine (mean: $20,042 vs. $35,538, p<0.001), in the post-index year, the patients on taxanes experienced significantly higher healthcare utilisation and associated costs compared to patients on capecitabine (mean: $43,353 vs. $35,842, p=0.0089). The differences were primarily attributable to lower expenses in chemotherapy related claims and fewer visit days to outpatient settings for patients on capecitabine. After adjustment with propensity scores and other confounders, the capecitabine group was associated with 32% lower healthcare costs compared to the taxane group (p=0.0001). Conclusions: In this population-based study, women who received capecitabine as first-line treatment for MBC had significantly lower costs compared to women starting taxane therapy.
Motion‐insensitive rapid configuration relaxometry

Triple echo steady state (TESS) uses the lowest steady state configuration modes for rapid relaxometry. Due to its unbalanced gradient scheme, however, TESS is inherently motion‐sensitive. The purpose of this work is to merge TESS with a balanced acquisition scheme for motion‐insensitive rapid configuration relaxometry, termed MIRACLE.
Monitoring Chewing and Eating in Free-Living Using Smart Eyeglasses

We propose to 3-D-print personal fitted regular-look smart eyeglasses frames equipped with bilateral electromyography recording to monitor temporalis muscles’ activity for automatic dietary monitoring. Personal fitting supported electrode–skin contacts are at temple ear bend and temple end positions. We evaluated the smart monitoring eyeglasses during in-lab and free-living studies of food chewing and eating event detection with ten participants. The in-lab study was designed to explore three natural food hardness levels and determine parameters of an energy-based chewing cycle detection. Our free-living study investigated whether chewing monitoring and eating event detection using smart eyeglasses is feasible in free-living. An eating event detection algorithm was developed to determine intake activities based on the estimated chewing rate. Results showed an average food hardness classification accuracy of 94% and chewing cycle detection precision and recall above 90% for the in-lab study and above 77% for the free-living study covering 122 hours of recordings. Eating detection revealed the 44 eating events with an average accuracy above 95%. We conclude that smart eyeglasses are suitable for monitoring chewing and eating events in free-living and even could provide further insights into the wearer's natural chewing patterns.