Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
PDD‐Short Screen: A brief cognitive test for screening dementia in Parkinson's disease

The diagnosis of Parkinson's disease with dementia (PDD) is currently based on clinical criteria (DSM‐IV, MDS–Task Force). In daily practice and research studies, these criteria still depend on the subjective impression of the examiner. Brief screening tests (BST) are helpful in identifying patients with PD with dementia, which can be difficult in patients with advanced PD. We aimed to develop a BST for PD, the PDD‐Short Screen (PDD‐SS), to accurately and quickly screen for PDD. In this prospective study, 70 patients with nondemented (age 73.8 ± 4.4) and 32 demented (age 73.8 ± 4.4) PD regularly attending a Movement Disorders Clinic were included. Diagnosis of dementia was based on DSM‐IV criteria, CDR score ≥1, and PD‐CRS total score ≤64. The PDD‐SS, Mattis Dementia Rating Scale (MDRS), and Mini‐Mental State Examination (MMSE) were administered to all participants. Validity, reliability, and discriminative power of the PDD‐SS were examined. The final version of the scale included the items immediate and delayed verbal memory, clock drawing, alternating verbal fluency, and a questionnaire covering cognitive and psychiatric (hallucinations, apathy) symptoms common in PDD. A cutoff score ≤11 on the PDD‐SS yielded high sensitivity (89.8%) and specificity (88.5%) for diagnosing PDD. The MDRS displayed similar accuracy, but the PDD‐SS administration time was significantly shorter (4.8–6.9 vs. 17.5–25.2 minutes). Diagnosis of dementia using the PDD‐SS was not influenced by age, education, or motor function. The PDD‐SS appears as the first BST for diagnosing PDD, displays an excellent diagnostic accuracy, and takes 5 to 7 minutes to be administered. © 2010 Movement Disorder Society
Outcomes of endo‐radiological approach to management of bile leakage after right lobe living donor liver transplantation

Bile leakage is a major complication after right lobe living donor liver transplantation (RLDLT). It can result in significant morbidities and, occasionally, mortalities. Endo‐radiology is a non‐surgical means that has been used to manage this complication. This study reviews the outcomes of the endo‐radiological approach to the management of bile leakage after RLDLT with duct‐to‐duct anastomosis (DDA) at a high‐volume center.
Microfluidic cryofixation for time-correlated live-imaging cryo-fluorescence microscopy and electron microscopy of Caenorhabditis elegans

Light and electron microscopy are complementary methods to study biological systems at the cellular and sub-cellular scale. Light microscopy is compatible with live cells, allowing features of interest to be selectively marked with fluorescent molecules and followed in real time. Electron microscopy, in contrast, requires cells to be fixed. Cryofixation is a preferred method of fixation, since rapid freezing can preserve hydrated samples in a near-native state. However, state-of-the- art cryofixation systems require a transfer step that imposes a time lapse between the images acquired in light microscopy and the images acquired in electron microscopy. This transfer step prevents the correlation of light and electron cryo-microscopy of sub-second phenomena. Microfluidics can eliminate the need of the transfer step. The cryofixation event is imaged without interruption from the top of a microfluidic channel that is heated while placed on top of a cryostage. When the heater is turned off, the small thermal mass of the microfluidic channel allows rapid cooling of the channel content. In this thesis, microfluidic technology for cryofixation was shown for the first time to enable millisecond time-correlation between live imaging, cryofluorescence microscopy with immersion optics, and electron microscopy. An important benefit of fluorescence microscopy at cryogenic temperature resides in the arrest of photobleaching at very low temperature. However, the stability of fluorescent molecules at cryogenic temperature is still a field vastly unexplored. The microfluidic cryofixation system was used here to investigate the stability of the fluorescent calcium indicator GCaMP in live imaged roundworms (Caenorhabditis elegans). In another part of the thesis, the transfer of cryofixed samples was achieved for the first time with the intent to demonstrate the compatibility of the cryofixation system with correlative microscopy workflows. To acquire higher resolution images, the samples were transferred to a new immersion cryo- confocal microscopy setup developed by Faoro et al. [Faoro et al., 2018]. Compared to the imaging on the cryofixation system, a 20-fold contrast gain was achieved. In the second workflow, the preservation quality of cryofixed samples was investigated via electron microscopy. Electron microscopy revealed an overall good preservation of the samples with minor ice damage within the nuclei. The results of this work constitute a foundation to enable new experimental paradigms for studying relationships between structure and function during rapid cellular processes such as cell signaling and membrane trafficking.
Matrix metalloproteinase-9 expression is increased in astrocytic glioma and associated with prognosis of patients.

OBJECTIVE Glioma is the most common type of primary central nervous system tumor. This study was aimed at investigating the expression of matrix metalloproteinase-9 in astrocytic glioma samples and its association with clinicopathological characteristics as well as survival of patients. METHODS Astrocytic glioma samples from 272 patients who had not received chemotherapy or radiotherapy were collected, in which matrix metalloproteinase-9 expression was assessed by immunochemistry assays. The association of staining evaluation results with clinicopathological characteristics was analyzed by appropriate statistical analysis. Kaplan-Meier analysis and Cox proportional hazards regression models were used to investigate the association between matrix metalloproteinase-9 expression and survival of patients. RESULTS Results showed that matrix metalloproteinase-9 expression is increased in astrocytic glioma and associated with tumor progression as its expression increased from Grade II to Grade IV glioma (P<0.001). Kaplan-Meier analysis showed that patients with glioma with higher matrix metalloproteinase-9 expression tend to have shorter overall survival time (P<0.001). In multivariate analysis, matrix metalloproteinase-9 expression was proved to be an independent prognostic factor for patients with astrocytic glioma (P<0.001). CONCLUSIONS This study confirmed the overexpression of matrix metalloproteinase-9 and its association with tumor progression in astrocytic glioma. It also provided the first evidence that matrix metalloproteinase-9 expression in glioma was an independent prognostic factor of patients, which might be a potential diagnostic and therapeutic target of astrocytic glioma.
Statistical modeling and synthesis of intrinsic structures in impact sounds

A struck object produces sound that depends on the way the object vibrates. This sound is determined by physical properties of the object, such as its size, geometry, and material, and also by the characteristics of the event, such as the force and location of impact. It is possible to derive physical models of impact sounds given the relationship between the physical and dynamic properties of the object, and the acoustics of the resulting sound. Models of sounds have proven useful in many fields, such as sound recognition, identification of events or properties (e.g. material or length) of the objects involved, sound synthesis, virtual reality and computer graphics. However, physical models are limited because of the a priori knowledge they require and because they do not successfully model all the complexities and variability of real sounds. In this dissertation, we propose data-driven methods for learning the intrinsic features that govern the acoustic structure of impact sounds. The methods are able to characterize the structures that are common to sounds of the same type as well as their variability. They require no a priori knowledge and aim for low dimensional characterizations of the sounds. In addition, they are not restricted to learn an explicit set of properties of the sounds (e.g., basic features such as decay rate and average spectra); instead, they learn the properties that best characterize the statistics of the data. The methods can learn properties of the sounds such as ringing, resonance, sustain, decay and sharp onsets. In this dissertation, we also explore the synthesis of impact sounds using the features learned by these methods. We will show that it is possible to manipulate the learned features in order to modify the original sounds, or even to create new sounds (for example, from the interpolation of the representation of recorded sounds). Finally, we will show that the sounds synthesized by the methods are realistic, as they are perceived more often as real than as synthesized.
Added value of gadoxetic acid-enhanced hepatobiliary phase MR imaging in the diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma.

PURPOSE To determine the added value of hepatobiliary phase images in gadoxetic acid-enhanced magnetic resonance (MR) imaging in the evaluation of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). MATERIALS AND METHODS Institutional review board approved this retrospective study and waived the informed consent. Fifty-nine patients with 84 HCCs underwent gadoxetic acid-enhanced MR examinations that included 20-minute delayed hepatobiliary phase imaging. MR imaging was performed with a 1.5-T system in 19 patients and a 3.0-T system in 40 patients. A total of 113 hepatic nodules were documented for analysis. Three radiologists independently reviewed two sets of MR images: set 1, unenhanced (T1- and T2-weighted) and gadoxetic acid-enhanced dynamic images; set 2, hepatobiliary phase images and unenhanced and gadoxetic acid-enhanced dynamic images. For each observer, the diagnostic accuracy was compared by using the area under the alternative free-response receiver operating characteristic curve (A(z)). Sensitivity and specificity were also calculated and compared between the two sets. RESULTS For all observers, A(z) values were higher with the addition of the hepatobiliary phase. The observer who had the least experience in abdominal imaging (2 years) demonstrated significant improvement in A(z), from 0.895 in set 1 to 0.951 in set 2 (P = .049). Sensitivity increased with the addition of hepatobiliary phase images but did not reach statistical significance. Nine HCCs (10.7%) in six patients (10.1%) were seen only on hepatobiliary phase images. CONCLUSION Hepatobiliary phase images obtained after gadoxetic acid-enhanced dynamic MR imaging may improve diagnosis of HCC and assist in surgical planning.
Improving CtxMatch by means of grammatical and ontological knowledge { in order to handle attributes

ing from our example, the general rules for combining atoms are the following. Let n be the node we want to build up the associated formula, and let A be the set of atoms lying in the path from root to n. Furthermore, let f(A) be the formula associated to the atom A by the previous step. Then: 1. R = the first atom in A 2. formula φ = f(R) 3. for each remaining atom A ∈ A, accessing top down: (a) a = main node in A (b) for each ancestor B of A • b = main node in B • R = find-relation(a,b) • Ri = find-relation(b,a) • choose R or Ri (c) if R = IsA or R = PartOf , then φ = φ[b/(f(A))] (d) if Ri = IsA or Ri = PartOf , then φ = φ[a/(f(B))] (e) if R 6= Null, then φ = φ[f(B)/f(A) u ∀R. (f(B))] (f) if Ri 6= Null, then φ = φ[f(B)/f(B) u ∀Ri. (f(A))] The idea expressed by this algorithm is simple. If we find some relation between an atom A and some ancestor B, A becomes a modifier for B, while if we find a relation between B and A, B becomes a modifier for A. The result of applying this final step to the atoms depicted in Figure 4.6 is the following formula: hotel u ∀hasPrice.high u ∀isLocated . (mountain u ∀hasHigh.low) which is exactly that one we want. Note that we use two special rules for IsA and PartOf relations: imagine a situation as depicted in Figure 4.8. a, where we are in presence of a IsA relation.
Recommending Hashtags to Forthcoming Tweets in Microblogging

Over the last few years, microblogging is increasingly becoming an important platform for users to acquire information and publish some reviews or personal status. In microblogging, hash tags mean some topic words between two '#', such as some social events or some hot topics. Hash tags can highlight the topic of tweets, and make tweets be easily searched and understood by others. Therefore, many users like adding hash tags for their tweets. Existing hash tag recommendation methods always consider semantic similarity between hash tags and tweets as the only key factor. However, the hash tags' user acceptance degree and development tendency are two important factors for evaluate the recommendation probability of them. In this paper, we propose a model for recommending some related hash tags for users to choose one or more of them as content added into forthcoming tweets. The above three factors have been considered to complete this task, which are the semantic similarity between a hash tag and a tweet, the user acceptance degree of the hash tag, and the development tendency of the hash tag. Experimental results on a dataset from Sina Weibo, one of the largest Chinese microblogging websites, show usefulness of the proposed model for recommending hash tags to forthcoming tweets.
Different Proctolin Neurons Elicit Distinct Motor Patterns from a Multifunctional Neuronal Network

Distinct motor patterns are selected from a multifunctional neuronal network by activation of different modulatory projection neurons. Subsets of these projection neurons can contain the same neuromodulator(s), yet little is known about the relative influence of such neurons on network activity. We have addressed this issue in the stomatogastric nervous system of the crab Cancer borealis. Within this system, there is a neuronal network in the stomatogastric ganglion (STG) that produces many versions of the pyloric and gastric mill rhythms. These different rhythms result from activation of different projection neurons that innervate the STG from neighboring ganglia and modulate STG network activity. Three pairs of these projection neurons contain the neuropeptide proctolin. These include the previously identified modulatory proctolin neuron and modulatory commissural neuron 1 (MCN1) and the newly identified modulatory commissural neuron 7 (MCN7). We document here that each of these neurons contains a unique complement of cotransmitters and that each of these neurons elicits a distinct version of the pyloric motor pattern. Moreover, only one of them (MCN1) also elicits a gastric mill rhythm. The MCN7-elicited pyloric rhythm includes a pivotal switch by one STG network neuron from playing a minor to a major role in motor pattern generation. Therefore, modulatory neurons that share a peptide transmitter can elicit distinct motor patterns from a common target network.
The genetic landscape and clinical implications of vertebral anomalies in VACTERL association

VACTERL association is a condition comprising multisystem congenital malformations, causing severe physical disability in affected individuals. It is typically defined by the concurrence of at least three of the following component features: vertebral anomalies (V), anal atresia (A), cardiac malformations (C), tracheo-oesophageal fistula (TE), renal dysplasia (R) and limb abnormalities (L). Vertebral anomaly is one of the most important and common defects that has been reported in approximately 60–95% of all VACTERL patients. Recent breakthroughs have suggested that genetic factors play an important role in VACTERL association, especially in those with vertebral phenotypes. In this review, we summarised the genetic studies of the VACTERL association, especially focusing on the genetic aetiology of patients with vertebral anomalies. Furthermore, genetic reports of other syndromes with vertebral phenotypes overlapping with VACTERL association are also included. We aim to provide a further understanding of the genetic aetiology and a better evidence for genetic diagnosis of the association and vertebral anomalies.
Clonal Distribution of Invasive Neisseria meningitidis Isolates from the Norwegian County of Telemark, 1987 to 1995

ABSTRACT Forty-two Neisseria meningitidis isolates were obtained from patients with meningococcal disease in the Norwegian county of Telemark (January 1987 to March 1995), and all were compared by PCR amplicon restriction endonuclease analysis (PCR-AREA) of thedhps gene, chromosomal DNA fingerprinting, and serological analysis. PCR-AREA divided the isolates into 11 classes, of which 4, comprising 15, 8, 6, and 2 isolates, were clonal while the remaining 8 classes were genetically heterogeneous or contained only 1 isolate. Three of the four clonal classes could be tentatively equated with recognized epidemic clones (ET5, ET37, and cluster A4) on the basis of their phenotypic characteristics, while the remaining clone appears to be new. There were significant differences in the geographical distribution of clones, with class 1 (ET5-like) isolates significantly overrepresented in rural parts of Telemark. Class 1 (ET5-like) isolates occurred throughout the study period and were dominant in 1987. Class 2 (ET37-like) isolates occurred from 1988 to 1992, and class 3 isolates (with no recognizable ET affinities) were found only in 1991 and 1992.
Properties and expression of human tartrate‐resistant acid phosphatase isoform 5a by monocyte‐derived cells

Human serum tartrate‐resistant acid phosphatase exists as two enzyme isoforms (TRACP 5a and 5b), derived by differential, post‐translational processing of a common gene product. Serum TRACP 5b is from bone‐resorbing osteoclasts (OC) and becomes elevated in diseases of increased bone resorption. TRACP 5a is secreted by macrophages (MΦ) and dendritic cells (DC) and is increased in many patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Our purpose was to fully characterize the properties of human TRACP isoforms and to produce an antibody specific to TRACP 5a for use as a biomarker in chronic inflammatory diseases. Partially purified, natural serum TRACP isoforms and recombinant TRACP 5a (rTRACP 5a) were compared with respect to specific activity and subunit structure and presence of sialic acid. Mice were immunized with rTRACP 5a, and resulting hybridomas were screened for monoclonal antibody to serum TRACP 5a. One antibody, 220, was tested for its epitope specificity and use in various immunological techniques. rTRACP 5a had properties identical to serum TRACP 5a. Antibody 220 was specific for the trypsin‐sensitive epitope in the loop peptide, present only in TRACP 5a. Antibody 220 was effective for specific immunoprecipitation, immunoassay, and immunoblot of TRACP 5a. Intact TRACP was present in MΦ, DC, and OC. TRACP 5a was the predominant isoform secreted by MΦ and DC, whereas TRACP 5b was the predominant isoform secreted by OC. TRACP isoforms 5a and 5b may have different functions inside and outside of monocyte‐derived cells. Antibody 220 is an important resource for studies of the biosynthetic relationship among TRACP isoforms and of the significance of serum TRACP 5a as a marker in diseases of bone metabolism and inflammation.
In vitro studies on the T-lymphocyte population of human milk

Human milk lymphocytes (ML) can be partially purified and propagated in vitro as a means of assessing their immunological function. When exposed to a variety of stimuli known to activate T lymphocytes, ML respond in a unique manner that indicates a selected population of immunocompetent cells. ML are hyporesponsive to to nonspecific mitogens and respond in a reduced manner to histocompatibility antigens on allogeneic cells. In most cases, they are completely unresponsive to C. albicans although blood lymphocytes from the same patients respond to the antigen. The Kl capsular antigen of E. coli induces significant proliferation in lymphocytes obtained from milk, but fails to stimulate blood lymphocytes. This dichotomy of reactivity does not appear to result from suppressive factors or cells in milk or insufficient adherent cell function. Rather it appears to reflect the accumulation of particular lymphocyte clones in the breast and the local nature of mammary tissue immunity at the T-lymphocyte level.
Analysis of AIMD protocols over paths with variable delay

The throughput of AIMD protocols in general and of TCP in particular, has been computed in many existing works by modeling the round-trip time as a constant and thus replacing the round-trip time by its expectation. There are however many scenarios in which the delays of packets vary, causing a variation of the round-trip time. Many typical scenarios occur in wireless and mobile networks. We propose in this paper an analytical model that accounts for the variability of delay, while computing the throughput of an AIMD protocol. We derive a closed-form expression for the throughput that illustrates the impact of the variability of delay. We show by analysis and simulation, that an increase in the variability of delay improves the performance of an AIMD protocol. Thus, an analytical model that only considers the average delay could underestimate the performance of an AIMD protocol in scenarios where delay is variable.
Antigen-specific vaccines for cancer treatment

Vaccines targeting pathogens are generally effective and protective because based on foreign non-self antigens which are extremely potent in eliciting an immune response. On the contrary, efficacy of therapeutic cancer vaccines is still disappointing. One of the major reasons for such poor outcome, among others, is the difficulty of identifying tumor-specific target antigens which should be unique to the tumors or, at least, overexpressed on the tumors as compared to normal cells. Indeed, this is the only option to overcome the peripheral immune tolerance and elicit a non toxic immune response. New and more potent strategies are now available to identify specific tumor-associated antigens for development of cancer vaccine approaches aiming at eliciting targeted anti-tumor cellular responses. In the last years this aspect has been addressed and many therapeutic vaccination strategies based on either whole tumor cells or specific antigens have been and are being currently evaluated in clinical trials. This review summarizes the current state of cancer vaccines, mainly focusing on antigen-specific approaches.
Perspectives on Ontology Learning

Perspectives on Ontology Learning brings together researchers and practitioners from different communities − natural language processing, machine learning, and the semantic web − in order to give an interdisciplinary overview of recent advances in ontology learning. Starting with a comprehensive introduction to the theoretical foundations of ontology learning methods, the edited volume presents the state-of-the-tart in automated knowledge acquisition and maintenance. It outlines future challenges in this area with a special focus on technologies suitable for pushing the boundaries beyond the creation of simple taxonomical structures, as well as on problems specifically related to knowledge modeling and representation using the Web Ontology Language. Perspectives on Ontology Learning is designed for researchers in the field of semantic technologies and developers of knowledge-based applications. It covers various aspects of ontology learning including ontology quality, user interaction, scalability, knowledge acquisition from heterogeneous sources, as well as the integration with ontology engineering methodologies.