Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A new model of diabetic nephropathy with progressive renal impairment in the transgenic (mRen-2)27 rat (TGR).

BACKGROUND The tissue renin-angiotensin system (RAS) may modulate the structural and functional changes that occur in the diabetic kidney. METHODS Hypertensive transgenic (mREN-2)27 rat (TGR) that exhibit increased tissue renin expression were administered streptozotocin (STZ, diabetic) or citrate buffer (non-diabetic) at six weeks of age, and sacrificed 4 and 12 weeks later. Further groups were treated for 12 weeks post-STZ or vehicle with the angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitor, perindopril. Comparisons were made with 18-week-old non-diabetic and diabetic spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR). RESULTS In diabetic TGR, the most florid lesion was seen after 12 weeks of STZ, with kidneys exhibiting vacuolated tubules, hylanized arterioles, medullary fibrosis and necrosis and severe glomerulosclerosis. In contrast, only mild glomerulosclerosis was seen in non-diabetic TGR and diabetic SHR. Glomerular filtration rate was increased after four weeks of diabetes in TGR and 12 weeks of diabetes in SHR, but declined by greater than 50% after 12 weeks of diabetes in TGR. In both TGR and SHR, diabetes increased albuminuria but did not modify systolic blood pressure. Renal renin content increased progressively in diabetic TGR, and this was associated with increased renin immunolabeling in the juxtaglomerular apparatus (JGA) and the appearance of renin in proximal convoluted tubules. In contrast, renal renin content and JGA renin immunolabeling were unchanged in diabetic SHR. Perindopril attenuated renal pathology, improved renal function and abolished proximal tubular renin immunolabeling in diabetic TGR. CONCLUSIONS This is the first report of a diabetic rodent model developing rapid onset renal impairment. Furthermore, this study suggests a role for an activated renal RAS in the acceleration of diabetic renal disease and confirms the benefit of drugs that inhibit this system.
Generating Realistic In Silico Gene Networks for Performance Assessment of Reverse Engineering Methods

Reverse engineering methods are typically first tested on simulated data from in silico networks, for systematic and efficient performance assessment, before an application to real biological networks. In this paper, we present a method for generating biologically plausible in silico networks, which allow realistic performance assessment of network inference algorithms. Instead of using random graph models, which are known to only partly capture the structural properties of biological networks, we generate network structures by extracting modules from known biological interaction networks. Using the yeast transcriptional regulatory network as a test case, we show that extracted modules have a biologically plausible connectivity because they preserve functional and structural properties of the original network. Our method was selected to generate the "gold standard" networks for the gene network reverse engineering challenge of the third DREAM conference (Dialogue on Reverse Engineering Assessment and Methods 2008, Cambridge, MA).
Politeness improves interactivity in dense crowds

Traversing dense crowds can be challenging, but it is especially difficult in a virtual environment where the user is limited to simple input devices. Predicting near‐future user movements with a hidden Markov model allows nearby autonomous agents to react politely, that is, to specifically avoid impeding the movement of the user. This predictive model and simple avoidance scheme are tested by six subjects in 360 short interactive games and by a 10‐participant two‐alternative forced choice questionnaire. Polite agents are found to significantly improve the player's ability to navigate quickly and without collision, and the resulting character movements showed increased naturalness for two of the three game scenarios. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Retinal Disorders and Sleep Disorders: Are They Genetically Related?

Introduction Sleep is important for optimal physical health and vitality. Recent studies have shown that individuals with visual impairments may be at risk for sleep problems. This research examines the prevalence of sleep problems among those with retinal disorders and the possibility of a genetic link. Methods Subjects with retinitis pigmentosa (n = 33), Stargardt's disease (n = 31) and age-related macular degeneration (n = 43) were recruited from the ophthalmology department of Montreal Children's Hospital. Sleep quality was evaluated using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS). Genetic testing was conducted by the Radboud University Medical Center in Nijmegen, Netherlands. Retinal genes were identified as having retina only or pineal and retinal expression. Results The expression patterns of genes causing retinal disorders did not predict sleep quality. The PSQI indicated poor sleep quality in 56% of participants with retinitis pigmentosa, 48% of those with Stargardt's disease, and 53% of those with age-related macular degeneration. The ESS showed that daytime sleepiness was experienced by 20% of individuals with retinitis pigmentosa or Stargardt's disease, and by only one individual with age-related macular degeneration. Discussion Approximately 50% of people with retinal disease have sleep problems. This number compares with up to one-third of the general population. Gene expression did not correlate with sleep quality, and the explanation for such a large percentage of sleep disorders needs further investigation. Implications for practitioners Eye care and rehabilitation specialists need to be aware of the high prevalence of poor sleep quality in individuals with retinal disorders, since this situation may have an important impact on memory and learning, both of which are vital in successful rehabilitation.
A Low-Cost Solution for Automatic Lane-Level Map Generation Using Conventional In-Car Sensors

Lane-level digital maps are crucial to advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous driving, since they can simplify driving tasks and enhance system performance by providing strong priors about the driving environment. However, the high cost of current map generation systems prevents their benefits to normal commercial cars as they usually depend on specialized sensors and need great manual postprocessing. In this paper, a low-cost solution is proposed for automatic generation of a precise lane-level map by using conventional sensors that have been already installed in contemporary cars. It mainly consists of two modules, i.e., road orthographic image generation and lane graph construction. First, the global map is divided into fixed local segments based on the road network topology. With the reference of the local map segments, the bird's eye view images of the road surface are accumulated by fusing GPS, INS, and visual odometry and subsequently integrated into synthetic orthographic images. Next, the driving lane information is extracted from the road orthographic images and a large amount of vehicle trajectories. Such information is then used to construct a lane graph of the map based on the sophisticated lane models we proposed without manual processing. Experiments show promising results of the automatic map generation of the real-world roads, which substantiated the effectiveness of the proposed approach. Such a system can offer increased value and promote the automation level for today's commercial cars without being supplemented additional sensors.
GASRP-FP: A hybrid metaheuristic to solve fuzzy portfolio selection with non-financial goals

The emergence of more powerful computational techniques has stimulated the development and study of more sophisticated models for portfolio selection problem including further constraints and further financial and non-financial decision criteria. In this paper, we propose a hybrid approach composed of two genetic algorithms to solve a fuzzy portfolio selection model with cardinality constraints, semicontinuous variable and non-financial goals. An analytical description of the efficient frontier and socially responsible solutions are obtained.
What Shapes the Luminosity Function of Galaxies?

We investigate the physical mechanisms that shape the luminosity function of galaxies in hierarchical clustering models. Beginning with the mass function of dark matter halos in the ΛCDM (Λ cold dark matter) cosmology, we show, in incremental steps, how gas cooling, photoionization at high redshift, feedback processes, galaxy merging, and thermal conduction affect the shape of the luminosity function. We consider three processes whereby supernovae and stellar wind energy can affect the forming galaxy: (1) the reheating of cold disk gas to the halo temperature; (2) expansion of the hot, diffuse halo gas; and (3) complete expulsion of cold disk gas from the halo. We demonstrate that while feedback of form 1 is able to flatten the faint end of the galaxy luminosity function, this process alone does not produce the sharp cutoff observed at large luminosities. Feedback of form 2 is also unable to solve the problem at the bright end of the luminosity function. The relative paucity of very bright galaxies can only be explained if cooling in massive halos is strongly suppressed. This might happen if thermal conduction near the centers of halos is very efficient, or if a substantial amount of gas is expelled from halos by process 3 above. Conduction is a promising mechanism, but an uncomfortably high efficiency is required to suppress cooling to the desired level. If, instead, superwinds are responsible for the lack of bright galaxies, then the total energy budget required to obtain a good match to the galaxy luminosity function greatly exceeds the energy available from supernova explosions. The mechanism is only viable if the formation of central supermassive black holes and the associated energy generation play a crucial role in limiting the amount of stars that form in the host galaxy. The models that best reproduce the galaxy luminosity function also give reasonable approximations to the Tully-Fisher relation and the galaxy autocorrelation function.
A crosstalk aware routing algorithm for Benes ONoC

: Optical network-on-chip (ONoC) has been proposed to provide higher bandwidth and lower power consumption for future multicore systems. However, due to the intrinsic characteristic of optical devices, crosstalk noise is a potential issue for ONoC. The traditional routing algorithms for Benes ONoC have not considered the aspect of crosstalk. In this paper, we build the crosstalk model of the optical switch and analyze the crosstalk noise, signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) and bit-error-rate (BER) for Benes ONoC. Moreover, we propose a routing algorithm to relieve the crosstalk problem. Simulation results verify the eﬀectiveness of the algorithm compared to the conventional alternatives.
Relevancy Ranking of User Recommendations of Services Based on Browsing Patterns

There are a number of inbound web services, which recommend content to users. However, there is no way for such services to prioritize their recommendations as per the users' interests. Here we are not interested in generating new recommendations, but rather organizing and prioritizing existing recommendations in order to increase the click rate. Since users have different patterns of browsing that also change frequently, it is good to have a system that prioritizes recommendations based on the current browsing patterns of individual users. In this paper we present such a system. We first generate the clusters of article topics using URLs from the users' browsing history, which is then used to generate the relevancy scores of the recommendation services based on entropy. The relevancy scores are then fed to the service providers, which use them to prioritize their recommendations by ranking them based on the relevancy scores. We test the model using the browsing history for 10 users, and validate the model by calculating the correlation of the generated relevancy scores with the users' manually provided topic preferences. We further use collaborative filtering to benchmark the usefulness of our ranking systems.
3D reconstruction of patient-specific femurs using Coherent Point Drift

This paper dealt with the problem that the overlapping digital radiographs couldn`t reflect the 3D space information of the patient-specific femur in the orthopaedic surgery diagnosis. A 2D-3D non-rigid registration method based on Coherent Point Drift was proposed to realize the 3D reconstruction of the patient-specific femur before the surgery, which used biplanar digital radiographs of the patient-specific femur and the CT volume data of a generic femur. With the advantages of low cost, fast imaging speed and little radiation to the patients and doctors, this method provided more effective 3D imaging information for the femur diagnosis and preoperative plans. The registration experiments showed that the proposed method recovered the 3D model and the pose of the patient-specific femur effectively with a fast, accurate and robust registration result, which had satisfied the needs of clinical application. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.11591/telkomnika.v11i2. 2158
Privacy-preserving distributed clustering using generative models

We present a framework for clustering distributed data in unsupervised and semisupervised scenarios, taking into account privacy requirements and communication costs. Rather than sharing parts of the original or perturbed data, we instead transmit the parameters of suitable generative models built at each local data site to a central location. We mathematically show that the best representative of all the data is a certain "mean" model, and empirically show that this model can be approximated quite well by generating artificial samples from the underlying distributions using Markov Chain Monte Carlo techniques, and then fitting a combined global model with a chosen parametric form to these samples. We also propose a new measure that quantifies privacy based on information theoretic concepts, and show that decreasing privacy leads to a higher quality of the combined model and vice versa. We provide empirical results on different data types to highlight the generality of our framework. The results show that high quality distributed clustering can be achieved with little privacy loss and low communication cost.
ATTACHMENT ANXIETY AND CONDOM USE: THE MODERATING INFLUENCE OF REJECTION-SALIENCE by

The purpose of my dissertation was to examine how attachment anxiety and rejectionsalience interacted to influence condom use intentions and beliefs. I manipulated rejection-salience specific to a sexual encounter (Study 1) and rejection-salience in general (Studies 2 and 3). I hypothesized that among women who were high in anxiety, those in the rejection-salient condition would report riskier sexual tendencies related to condom use compared to those in the control condition. I did not expect rejectionsalience to influence the sexual tendencies of women who were low in anxiety. In Study 1, I manipulated potential partner rejection and found that attachment anxiety, attachment avoidance, and rejection-salience interacted to influence intentions to engage in unprotected sex. As expected, among women who were high in anxiety and low in avoidance, those in the rejection condition reported stronger intentions to have unprotected sex than those in the control condition. Unexpectedly, the same was true for women who were low in anxiety and high in avoidance. In Study 2, I manipulated general rejection-salience and asked women to indicate how many weeks into a relationship would be appropriate before switching from having protected to unprotected sex. Consistent with the results of Study 1, among women who were high in anxiety, those in the rejection-salience condition reported less time before switching compared to those in the control condition, demonstrating more risky sexual tendencies. In Study 3, I manipulated general rejection-salience and asked women to report how many weeks into a relationship unprotected intercourse should occur. Inconsistent with my predictions, as well as from the results of Studies 1 and 2, among women who were high in anxiety and low in avoidance, those in the rejection-salience condition reported that unprotected sex
Effects Of Chat-Based On-Line Cognitive Behavior Therapy On Study Related Behavior And Anxiety

The aim of this study was to examine effects of chat-based on-line CBT on a university student's study related behavior and anxiety. The study used a single participant multiple baseline design across three self-recorded behaviors consisting of hours of study, number of pages read, and note-taking quality, accompanied by recordings of daily anxiety levels. After baseline, the participant received 6 × 45 min weekly chat-based on-line sessions of CBT. Results show that the three study behaviors increased, and anxiety decreased. These results appear comparable with those of conventional face-to-face CBT for similar problems, suggesting that chat-based on-line CBT may be an alternative for clients with accessibility or anonymity concerns.
The RE-SEARCH ALPS (Research Laboratories in the Alpine Area) Project

The paper describes the RE-SEARCH ALPS project, which aims to gather, consolidate, harmonize and make available to different targets (public and private bodies working at local, regional and national level) data about laboratories, research and innovation centers which are active in particular in the regions of seven countries which constitute the Alpine Area (France, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Liechtenstein and Slovenia). The project is complemented with a search engine which allows the users to directly query the dataset and to obtain geo referenced data as result. The data will be properly visualized thanks a visualizer developed in the project. From a research perspective, the project has to address hot and challenging Big Data issues, such as big data integration (to join data sources), entity recognition and linkage in large amount of data (to discover the same Institution represented in different sources), data cleaning and reconciliation (to address issues related to different representation of the same real object). The project has been applied in a call for the cration of Open Datasets promoted by the European Innovation and Networks Executive Agency through the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) funding instrument. The project has been recently approved (AGREEMENT No INEA/CEF/ICT/A2016/1296967): it lasts two years and will start on July 2017.
Aeolian Dispersal of Bacteria Associated With Desert Dust and Anthropogenic Particles Over Continental and Oceanic Surfaces

Aeolian dust is emerging as a significant vehicle for long‐range transport of microorganisms. Nonetheless, many factors relating to this highly influential dispersal mechanisms remain unresolved, including the variation in dispersal bacterial communities during stochastic desert dust events, and the effect of aeolian transit over continental and oceanic surfaces to these communities. Here we report a temporal study that encompassed multiple dust events to elucidate 16S rRNA gene‐defined changes in airborne bacterial communities at a continental‐peninsula site (Yongin, central South Korea) and a downwind offshore island site (Yonago, Honshu Island, Japan) both lying along the trajectory for dust event transport. Aerosol collected on nondust days at both sites generally reflected local origin from freshwater, marine, plant, and animal sources. At both sites, the relative abundance of spore‐forming bacteria (Bacillaceae) and organic‐aggregating bacteria (Cytophagaceae) was positively correlated with the mineral particle. Actinobacteria increased in relative abundance at the continental‐peninsula site during dust events, while marine bacterial signatures (mainly Alphaproteobacteria) were more prevalent in island site after dust events dissipated upon Japanese Sea. Overall, dust events increased the richness of airborne bacteria communities originating from inland desert and other area during early spring and are associated with more variations in airborne bacteria in the island site than the continental‐peninsula site. Airborne desert dust is likely a significant transport vehicle for bacteria. The transit of air masses over continental and marine surfaces is selective for some taxa which can be transported to distant sinks with potential impacts toward ecosystems and public health.
Lung Transplantation in the United States, 1998–2007

This article highlights trends and changes in lung and heart‐lung transplantation in the United States from 1998 to 2007. The most significant change over the last decade was implementation of the Lung Allocation Score (LAS) allocation system in May 2005. Subsequently, the number of active wait‐listed lung candidates declined 54% from pre‐LAS (2004) levels to the end of 2007; there was also a reduction in median waiting time, from 792 days in 2004 to 141 days in 2007. The number of lung transplants performed yearly increased through the decade to a peak of 1 465 in 2007; the greatest single year increase occurred in 2005. Despite candidates with increasingly higher LAS scores being transplanted in the LAS era, recipient death rates have remained relatively stable since 2003 and better than in previous years. Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis became the most common diagnosis group to receive a lung transplant in 2007 while emphysema was the most common diagnosis in previous years. The number of retransplants and transplants in those aged ≥65 performed yearly have increased significantly since 1998, up 295% and 643%, respectively. A decreasing percentage of lung transplant recipients are children (3.5% in 2007, n = 51). With LAS refinement ongoing, monitoring of future impact is warranted.
Long-term follow-up of MCL patients treated with single-agent ibrutinib: updated safety and efficacy results.

Ibrutinib, an oral inhibitor of Bruton tyrosine kinase, is approved for patients with mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) who have received one prior therapy. We report the updated safety and efficacy results from the multicenter, open-label phase 2 registration trial of ibrutinib (median 26.7-month follow-up). Patients (N = 111) received oral ibrutinib 560 mg once daily, and those with stable disease or better could enter a long-term extension study. The primary end point was overall response rate (ORR). The median patient age was 68 years (range, 40-84), with a median of 3 prior therapies (range, 1-5). The median treatment duration was 8.3 months; 46% of patients were treated for >12 months, and 22% were treated for ≥2 years. The ORR was 67% (23% complete response), with a median duration of response of 17.5 months. The 24-month progression-free survival and overall survival rates were 31% (95% confidence interval [CI], 22.3-40.4) and 47% (95% CI, 37.1-56.9), respectively. The most common adverse events (AEs) in >30% of patients included diarrhea (54%), fatigue (50%), nausea (33%), and dyspnea (32%). The most frequent grade ≥3 infections included pneumonia (8%), urinary tract infection (4%), and cellulitis (3%). Grade ≥3 bleeding events in ≥2% of patients were hematuria (2%) and subdural hematoma (2%). Common all-grade hematologic AEs were thrombocytopenia (22%), neutropenia (19%), and anemia (18%). The prevalence of infection, diarrhea, and bleeding was highest for the first 6 months of therapy and less thereafter. With longer follow-up, ibrutinib continues to demonstrate durable responses and favorable safety in relapsed/refractory MCL. The trial is registered to www.ClinicalTrials. gov as #NCT01236391.