Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The pagan holy man in late antique society

A Love and desire, to sequester a Mans Selfe, for a Higher Conversation … is found, to have been falsely and fainedly, in some of the Heathen; As Epimenides the Candian, Numa the Roman, Empedocles the Sicilian, and Apollonius of Tyana; And truly and really, in divers of the Ancient Hermits, and Holy Fathers of the Church. F. Bacon, Of friendship The holy men of Greco-Roman paganism will never inspire either the reverence or the fascinated horror that the ascetics and monks of early Christianity have commanded ever since they first impinged on the common mind in the time of Antony and Athanasios. Writing for a Christian audience, Francis Bacon could dismiss the semi-mythical Epimenides and Numa, and notorious exhibitionists like Empedokles and Apollonios, as self-evident imposters; while in our own less devout times the abundance of the hagiographical literature ensures that the Christian saint will preoccupy scholars for the indefinite future, if only as the unwitting patron of a mass of historical and sociological data that is only just beginning to be analysed. Yet this is poor excuse for neglecting the pagan holy man, who came in the later Roman empire to play a conspicuous part in his own religious tradition, and also affords instructive points of comparison with his Christian competitors. This paper offers a first orientation towards such wider perspectives, by investigating the social and historical consequences entailed by the distinctive pagan concept of personal holiness. It will be suggested that a tendency to associate holiness with philosophical learning (Section I) determined the essentially urban (II) and privileged (III) background of the pagan holy man, and also encouraged his gradual drift to the periphery of society (IV).
A Comparative Study of Artificial Ceroid/Lipofuscin from Different Tissue Materials of Rats

The artificial ceroid/lipofuscin pigments originated from different organ tissues, including liver, brain, heart, and kidney of rats, and biomaterials were studied with improved fluorometric techniques. With all tissue materials exposed under ultraviolet (UV) light, a series of similar fluorescent colors were observed under microfluorometer. Analogous fluorescence spectra were also demonstrated with a three-dimensional (3-D) front-surface fluorometric technique despite of the tissue differences. Measured with 3-D fluorometry, relatively simple lipofuscin-like fluorophores were observed from the reactions of malondialdehyde (MDA) with critical biological macromolecules, such as bovine serum albumin (BSA) and DNA. Our results demonstrated that the biomaterials from different tissues have a similar fate under accelerated oxidative/carbonyl stresses but may be differentiated by a fluorescence intensity ratio.
Vehicular Cloud network: A new challenge for resource management based systems

Vehicular Cloud is defined as a set of vehicles that share their computation resource in a cloud, these resources are scheduled on demand based on cooperation between vehicles and vehicles with the roadside. These clouds can adapt dynamically according to application quality of service requirements. Thus, resource management is very crucial for this kind of cloud. In this work, we address relevant issues about of the concepts related to the resource management in the vehicular cloud; and techniques that require consideration are discussed in the context of resource management for the vehicular cloud. Finally, we discuss challenges and issues for potential future work.
Evidence of Lymphocyte Alveolitis by Bronchoalveolar Lavage in Thalassemic Patients with Pulmonary Dysfunction

Pulmonary dysfunction represents one of the least studied complications in thalassemic patients. Probably, it is due to the absence of pulmonary symptoms. There are few works in the literature, and contradictory results have been published. The aim of this study was to define the spirometric pattern and the possible causes of lung impairment by testing bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) with pathological pulmonary function tests (PFTs). Furthermore, diffusion capacity tests for carbon monoxide corrected for hemoglobin value (Dco*) were performed. We studied 48 thalassemic patients (27 F and 21 M), with an age range from 8 to 23 years, divided into two groups on the basis of PFTs results. Thus, group A was formed by 16 patients with restrictive spirometric patterns of whom 14 had also reduced Dco* values and group B consisted of 32 patients with normal PFTs and Dco* values. Patients of group A underwent chest high-resolution computing tomography (CHRCT) and BAL whose fluid was analyzed by microbiologic and cytological assays. A pathological CHRCT picture was present in 8 patients. Nine out of 16 patients who accepted to undergo BAL had a chronological age greater than 17 years with a mean bone age of 13.9 years. BAL results showed lymphocyte alveolitis in 6 patients and a normal cytogram in 3, while alveolar iron-laden macrophages were present in 4 out of 6 patients with alveolitis and 2 out of 3 patients with normal cytogram. Moreover, all examined BAL fluids showed a normal CD4/CD8 ratio, while only 2 patients showed an altered serum CD4/CD8 ratio. We demonstrated the presence of (1) lung-restrictive syndrome in 16 of the oldest thalassemic patients; (2) lymphocyte alveolitis in 6 patients, and (3) a picture of interstitial fibrosis by CHRCT in 8 of them. All these data are suggestive of a diagnosis of interstitial lung disease secondary to thalassemia. BAL helped to identify the presence of alveolar iron-laden macrophages that represented a local defense mechanism against free iron. This latter finding therefore might be the primary cause of the lung impairment promoting an oxidative damage. Further studies are needed to investigate this hypothesis and therapeutical potentials.
Analytical model for slotless permanent magnet axial flux motors

Permanent magnet axial flux motors are very well adapted to applications requiring a very short active length and a big diameter. They also have been used for micro-motors. Because of their size, these motors require the use of a permanent magnet and their winding is usually located in the air gap between stator and rotor. The size of the magnet is very small and the number of poles can be relatively high to generate a higher value for the Back-EMF at low speed. Therefore the effect of the magnetization process of the permanent magnet cannot be neglected. The paper presents an analytical method for accurately calculating the flux density in the air gap, the backEMF and torque of such a motor. This method can account for the permeability of the permanent magnet, the finite permeability of iron and the transition zone between two consecutive poles. It provides a quick way of determining and optimizing the performances of a slotless axial flux motor. The results of the model have been compared with measurements done on several prototypes of a micro-motor and there is good correlation.
Iron Metabolism and the IRE/IRP Regulatory System: An Update

Abstract: Cellular iron homeostasis is accomplished by the coordinated regulated expression of the transferrin receptor and ferritin, which mediate iron uptake and storage, respectively. The mechanism is posttranscriptional and involves two cytoplasmic iron regulatory proteins, IRP1 and IRP2. Under conditions of iron starvation, IRPs stabilize the transferrin receptor and inhibit the translation of ferritin mRNAs by binding to “iron responsive elements” (IREs) within their untranslated regions. The IRE/IRP system also controls the expression of additional IRE‐containing mRNAs, encoding proteins of iron and energy metabolism. The activities of IRP1 and IRP2 are regulated by distinct posttranslational mechanisms in response to cellular iron levels. Thus, in iron‐replete cells, IRP1 assembles a cubane iron‐sulfur cluster, which prevents IRE binding, while IRP2 undergoes proteasomal degradation. IRP1 and IRP2 also respond, albeit differentially, to iron‐independent signals, such as hydrogen peroxide, hypoxia, or nitric oxide. Basic principles of the IRE/IRP system and recent advances in understanding the regulation and the function of IRP1 and IRP2 are discussed.
Oedema‐based model for diffuse low‐grade gliomas: application to clinical cases under radiotherapy

Diffuse low‐grade gliomas are characterized by slow growth. Despite appropriate treatment, they change inexorably into more aggressive forms, jeopardizing the patient's life. Optimizing treatments, for example with the use of mathematical modelling, could help to prevent tumour regrowth and anaplastic transformation. Here, we present a model of the effect of radiotherapy on such tumours. Our objective is to explain observed delay of tumour regrowth following radiotherapy and to predict its duration.
The S-layer protein of Lactobacillus acidophilus ATCC 4356: identification and characterisation of domains responsible for S-protein assembly and cell wall binding.

Lactobacillus acidophilus, like many other bacteria, harbors a surface layer consisting of a protein (S(A)-protein) of 43 kDa. S(A)-protein could be readily extracted and crystallized in vitro into large crystalline patches on lipid monolayers with a net negative charge but not on lipids with a net neutral charge. Reconstruction of the S-layer from crystals grown on dioleoylphosphatidylserine indicated an oblique lattice with unit cell dimensions (a=118 A; b=53 A, and gamma=102 degrees ) resembling those determined for the S-layer of Lactobacillus helveticus ATCC 12046. Sequence comparison of S(A)-protein with S-proteins from L. helveticus, Lactobacillus crispatus and the S-proteins encoded by the silent S-protein genes from L. acidophilus and L. crispatus suggested the presence of two domains, one comprising the N-terminal two-thirds (SAN), and another made up of the C-terminal one-third (SAC) of S(A)-protein. The sequence of the N-terminal domains is variable, while that of the C-terminal domain is highly conserved in the S-proteins of these organisms and contains a tandem repeat. Proteolytic digestion of S(A)-protein showed that SAN was protease-resistant, suggesting a compact structure. SAC was rapidly degraded by proteases and therefore probably has a more accessible structure. DNA sequences encoding SAN or Green Fluorescent Protein fused to SAC (GFP-SAC) were efficiently expressed in Escherichia coli. Purified SAN could crystallize into mono and multi-layered crystals with the same lattice parameters as those found for authentic S(A)-protein. A calculated S(A)-protein minus SAN density-difference map revealed the probable location, in projection, of the SAC domain, which is missing from the truncated SAN peptide. The GFP-SAC fusion product was shown to bind to the surface of L. acidophilus, L. helveticus and L. crispatus cells from which the S-layer had been removed, but not to non-stripped cells or to Lactobacillus casei.
On the performance of full-duplex relaying schemes for point-to-point MIMO with large antenna arrays

The performance of full-duplex (FD) decode-and-forward (DF) relaying systems for point-to-point multi-antenna transmission is considered. Three different relaying schemes are investigated: co-located, distributed cooperative and distributed non-cooperative. To mitigate the effects of loop interference (LI) caused by FD operation at the relay, a digital cancellation scheme based on pilot-aided channel estimation is used. Asymptotic analysis shows that all considered systems are inter-pair and LI free when the number of antennas at the source and destination grows without bound while the relay has a finite number of antennas. More careful analysis of the achievable rate reveals, however, that the LI has a significant impact on the performance of finite sized systems. The numerical results illustrate that non-cooperative distributed relaying suffers severely from FD operation under realistic scenarios, while cooperation allows for efficient LI cancellation and improved spectral efficiency over half-duplex (HD) systems. The results also demonstrate that the optimal number of antennas used by a FD relay is only 10%–30% of the size of the array used at the source and destination, while HD relaying benefits from fractions of up to 50%.
Endogenous group formation and efficiency: an experimental study

We test a mechanism whereby groups are formed endogenously, through the use of voting. These groups play a public-goods game, where efficiency increases with group size (up to a limit, in one treatment). Information is provided about the contributions of others and it is feasible to exclude group members, exit one's group, or to form larger groups through mergers involving the consent of both merging groups. We find a great degree of success for this mechanism, as the average contribution rate is very high. The driving force appears to be the economies of scale combined with the awareness that bad behavior will result in (potentially-reversible) exclusion.
Log-Structured Non-Volatile Main Memory

Emerging non-volatile main memory (NVMM) unlocks the performance potential of applications by storing persistent data in the main memory. Such applications require a lightweight persistent transactional memory (PTM) system, instead of a heavyweight filesystem or database, to have fast access to data. In a PTM system, the memory usage, both capacity and bandwidth, plays a key role in dictating performance and efficiency. Existing memory management mechanisms for PTMs generate high memory fragmentation, high write traffic and a large number of persist barriers, since data is first written to a log and then to the main data store. In this paper, we present a log-structured NVMM system that not only maintains NVMM in a compact manner but also reduces the write traffic and the number of persist barriers needed for executing transactions. All data allocations and modifications are appended to the log which becomes the location of the data. Further, we address a unique challenge of log-structured memory management by designing a tree-based address translation mechanism where access granularities are flexible and different from allocation granularities. Our results show that the new system enjoys up to 89.9% higher transaction throughput and up to 82.8% lower write traffic than a traditional PTM system.
Vitamin D serostatus and dengue fever progression to dengue hemorrhagic fever/dengue shock syndrome

SUMMARY Vitamin D could modulate pathways leading to dengue hemorrhagic fever/dengue shock syndrome (DHF/DSS). We examined the associations of serum total 25-hydroxy vitamin D [25(OH)D] and vitamin D binding protein (VDBP) concentrations in patients with uncomplicated dengue fever (DF) with risk of progression to DHF/DSS. In a case–control study nested in a cohort of DF patients who were followed during the acute episode in Bucaramanga, Colombia, we compared 25(OH)D and VDBP at onset of fever between 110 cases who progressed to DHF/DSS and 235 DF controls who did not progress. 25(OH)D concentrations were also compared between the acute sample and a sample collected >1 year post-convalescence in a subgroup. Compared with 25(OH)D ⩾75 nmol/l, adjusted odds ratios (95% CI) for progression were 0·44 (0·22–0·88) and 0·13 (0·02–1·05) for 50 to 75 nmol/l (vitamin D insufficiency) and <50 nmol/l (vitamin D deficiency), respectively (P, trend = 0·003). Mean 25(OH)D concentrations were much lower post-convalescence compared with the acute episode, regardless of case status. Compared with controls, mean VDBP was non-significantly lower in cases. We conclude that low serum 25(OH)D concentrations in DF patients predict decreased odds of progression to DHF/DSS.
Development of inhibitory antibodies to therapeutic factor VIII in severe hemophilia A is associated with microsatellite polymorphisms in the HMOX1 promoter

Induction of heme oxygenase-1, a stress-inducible enzyme with anti-inflammatory activity, reduces the immunogenicity of therapeutic factor VIII in experimental hemophilia A. In humans, heme oxygenase-1 expression is modulated by polymorphisms in the promoter of the heme oxygenase-1-encoding gene (HMOX1). We investigated the relationship between polymorphisms in the HMOX1 promoter and factor VIII inhibitor development in severe hemophilia A. We performed a case-control study on 99 inhibitor-positive patients and 263 patients who did not develop inhibitors within the first 150 cumulative days of exposure to therapeutic factor VIII. Direct sequencing and DNA fragment analysis were used to study (GT)n polymorphism and single nucleotide polymorphisms located at −1135 and −413 in the promoter of HMOX1. We assessed associations between the individual allele frequencies or genotypes, and inhibitor development. Our results demonstrate that inhibitor-positive patients had a higher frequency of alleles with large (GT)n repeats (L: n≥30), which are associated with lesser heme oxygenase-1 expression (odds ratio 2.31; 95% confidence interval 1.46–3.66; P<0.001]. Six genotypes (L/L, L/M, L/S, M/M, M/S and S/S) of (GT)n repeats were identified (S: n<21; M: 21≤n<30). The genotype group including L alleles (L/L, L/M and L/S) was statistically more frequent among inhibitor-positive than inhibitor-negative patients, as compared to the other genotypes (33.3% versus 17.1%) (odds ratio 2.21, 95% confidence interval 1.30–3.76; P<0.01). To our knowledge, this is the first association identified between HMOX1 promoter polymorphism and development of anti-drug antibodies. Our study paves the way towards modulation of the endogenous anti-inflammatory machinery of hemophilia patients to reduce the risk of inhibitor development
The Many Misattributions of Catherine of Siena: Beyond The Orchard In England

Texts concerning Catherine of Siena are many and varied. In addition to her legend, there are many prayers and sermons about her, as well as letters to and from the saint. Very few of these were translated into English, however. The two main English texts that survive, and which are indeed substantial, are Catherine’s Dialogue—known as The Orchard of Syon—surviving in manuscript and printed form, and a translation of her Legend, surviving as a printed text. There also survives one Middle English copy of Stephen Maconi’s letter in support of her canonization and an additional manuscript with identified excerpts from her vita. Other than these, all other Middle English excerpts concerning Catherine that have survived have in most cases been traced back to the Dialogue. However, nearly all of these excerpts have been misidentified. The purpose of this article is to trace the misidentified texts to their authentic sources and suggest the implications of these corrections.
Operational matrices for the analysis of periodic dynamic systems

This letter presents a methodology for the study of periodical dynamic systems. The method is based on the use of orthogonal series expansions and their operational properties. As opposed to the conventional use of the series expansions, in this work it is considered that the expansion coefficients may slowly vary with time. This salient feature allows for traditional steady-state methods such the harmonic domain to be used in dynamical systems. An important use of the method is the analysis of switched networks. The use of the method is illustrated with simple but of practical value systems.
Neuroprotection from retinal ischemia/reperfusion injury by NOX2 NADPH oxidase deletion.

PURPOSE The aim of this study was to determine whether NOX2, one of the homologs of NADPH oxidase, plays a role in neuronal cell death during retinal ischemia. METHODS Ischemia reperfusion (I/R) injury was generated in C57/BL6 and NOX2(-/-) mice by increasing the intraocular pressure (IOP) to 110 mm Hg for 40 minutes followed by reperfusion. Quantitative PCR and Western blot analysis were performed to measure NOX2 expression. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) formation was assessed by dihydroethidium imaging of superoxide formation and Western blot analysis for tyrosine nitration. TUNEL assay was performed to determine cell death at 3 days after I/R. Survival of neurons within the ganglion cell layer (GCL) was assessed at 7 days after I/R by confocal morphometric imaging of retinal wholemounts immunostained with NeuN antibody. Activation of mitogen-activated protein kinases and nuclear factor κB (NF-κΒ) was measured by Western blot analysis. RESULTS NOX2 mRNA and protein and ROS were significantly increased in wild-type I/R retinas. This effect was associated with a 60% decrease in the number of GCL neurons and a 10-fold increase in TUNEL-positive cells compared with the fellow sham control eyes. Phosphorylation of ERK and NF-κB was significantly increased in wild-type I/R retinas. Each of these effects was markedly attenuated in the NOX2(-/-) retina (P < 0.01). CONCLUSIONS These data demonstrate that the deletion of NOX2 can reduce I/R-induced cell death and preserve retinal GCL neurons after I/R injury. The neuronal cell injury caused by I/R is associated with the activation of ERK and NF-κB signaling mechanisms.
Improving Speed and Image Quality of Image-Based Rendering. (Amélioration de la Vitesse et de la Qualité d'image du Rendu Basé Image)

Traditional photo-realistic rendering requires intensive manual and computational effort to create scenes and render realistic images. Thus, the creation of content for high-quality digital imagery has been limited to experts and highly realistic rendering still requires significant computational time. Image-Based Rendering (IBR) is an alternative which has the potential of making high-quality content creation and rendering applications accessible to casual users since they can generate high-quality photo-realistic imagery without the limitations mentioned above. We identified three important shortcomings of current IBR methods: First, each algorithm has different strengths and weaknesses, depending on 3D reconstruction quality and scene content and often no single algorithm offers the best image quality everywhere in the image. Second, such algorithms present strong artifacts when rendering partially reconstructed objects or missing objects. Third, most methods still result in significant visual artifacts in image regions where reconstruction is poor. To tackle the first problem, we propose a Bayesian IBR algorithm, which chooses between different rendering algorithms in each image region, by making the best quality/speed trade-off. This selection is performed in a pre-process, by evaluating rendering quality according to distance in geometry and color via a leave-one-out strategy on the input images. Our method results in significant speedup in rendering time, permitting the use of this approach on mobile devices. For the second problem, we focus on the case of reflective objects which are hard to reconstruct, such as cars. The key insight is to replace these poorly reconstructed object with models from existing rich 3D CAD databases, and subsequently, align them to the input images. We use deep-learning-based algorithms to a multi-view context to obtain the 3D model present in the databases which are closest to the object seen in the images. We formulate two optimizations using all available information to finely position and orient the model and adapt it to image contours. Our method provides much higher quality rendering results of such objects compared to previous solutions. Finally, we present initial ideas on two ways to measure and correct the error introduced by poorly reconstructed regions in IBR in wide-baseline multi-view scenes, either with hand-crafted descriptors or a deep learning approach. Initial results show promise for improving the quality of depth and thus IBR. Overall, this thesis addresses significant shortcomings of IBR for both speed and image quality, offering novel and effective solutions based on selective rendering, learning-based model substitution and depth error prediction and correction.