Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
188Re anti‐CD66 radioimmunotherapy combined with reduced‐intensity conditioning and in‐vivo T cell depletion in elderly patients undergoing allogeneic haematopoietic cell transplantation

The addition of radioimmunotherapy to conventional and reduced‐intensity conditioning has been shown to be feasible and effective. Within an ongoing prospective phase II trial, 22 patients with advanced myeloid malignancies and a median age of 65 years (range 54–76) received anti‐CD66 Rhenium radioimmunotherapy followed by fludarabine (150 mg/m2), busulfan (8 mg/kg) and alemtuzumab (75 mg) before allogeneic haematopoietic stem cell transplantation from matched sibling (n = 7) and unrelated donors (n = 15). The extramedullary toxicity in the first 100 d post‐transplantation was limited and all patients engrafted with complete donor chimaerism. The incidence of non‐relapse mortality at day 100 and after 2 years was 4·5% and 23%, respectively. The probability of overall survival at 2 years was 40%. A comparison with a younger historical cohort (median age 57 years) having received the same dose of fludarabine and busulfan but neither radioimmunotherapy nor alemtuzumab showed no difference in outcome. Although the use of alemtuzumab reduced the incidence of acute graft‐versus‐host‐disease, it was associated with a relapse incidence of 40% despite the incorporation of radioimmmunotherapy. In summary, we confirmed the feasibility of combined radioimmunotherapy and reduced‐intensity conditioning in elderly patients. Further optimisation, probably involving less T cell depletion, is necessary before a randomized comparison with standard conditioning can be planned.
Life Positions and Attachment Styles: A Canonical Correlation Analysis

This article describes research that investigates the relationship between life positions (Berne, 1962) and the attachment prototypes of Bartholomew and Horowitz (1991). These two constructs were perceived by the authors to have a one-to-one correspondence. “I'm OK, You're OK” (I+U+) was hypothesized to be correlated with secure attachment; “I'm Not OK, You're OK” (I-U+) with preoccupied attachment; “I'm OK, You're Not OK” (I+U-) with the dismissing attachment prototype; and “I'm Not OK, You're Not OK” (I-U-) with fearful attachment. The results of a canonical correlation analysis yielded R = . 59, χ2 = 92.92 (df = 16), p < . 01, showing a reliable relationship between the two major constructs under investigation. The squared canonical R was . 348. This indicates that almost 35% of the variation is shared by life positions and attachment. At a specific level, secure attachment positively correlated with I+U+, r = . 44, p < . 05. Dismissing attachment correlated reliably with the parallel life position, I+U-, r = . 20, p < . 05, while the fearful attachment also correlated well with I-U-, r = . 40, p < . 05. Preoccupied attachment did not correlate with its conceptual parallel, I-U+, r = . 05, p > . 05; this is the only hypothesis that was not supported. The conceptual parallelism between the two constructs is argued, although their theoretical differences are also recognized.
Phenotypic Characterization of Resistant Val36 Variants of Hepatitis C Virus NS3-4A Serine Protease

ABSTRACT In patients chronically infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV) strains of genotype 1, rapid and dramatic antiviral activity has been observed with telaprevir (VX-950), a highly selective and potent inhibitor of the HCV NS3-4A serine protease. HCV variants with substitutions in the NS3 protease domain were observed in some patients during telaprevir dosing. In this study, purified protease domain proteins and reconstituted HCV subgenomic replicons were used for phenotypic characterization of many of these substitutions. V36A/M or T54A substitutions conferred less than eightfold resistance to telaprevir. Variants with double substitutions at Val36 plus Thr54 had ∼20-fold resistance to telaprevir, and variants with double substitutions at Val36 plus Arg155 or Ala156 had >40-fold resistance to telaprevir. An X-ray structure of the HCV strain H protease domain containing the V36M substitution in a cocomplex with an NS4A cofactor peptide was solved at a 2.4-Å resolution. Except for the side chain of Met36, the V36M variant structure is identical to that of the wild-type apoenzyme. The in vitro replication capacity of most variants was significantly lower than that of the wild-type replicon in cells, which is consistent with the impaired in vivo fitness estimated from telaprevir-dosed patients. Finally, the sensitivity of these replicon variants to alpha interferon or ribavirin remained unchanged compared to that of the wild-type.
Microtitration plate enzyme immunoassay to detect PCR-amplified DNA from Candida species in blood

We developed a microtitration plate enzyme immunoassay to detect PCR-amplified DNA from Candida species. Nucleotide sequences derived from the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of fungal rDNA were used to develop species-specific oligonucleotide probes for Candida albicans, C. tropicalis, C. parapsilosis, and C. krusei. No cross-hybridization was detected with any other fungal, bacterial, or human DNAs tested. In contrast, a C. (Torulopsis) glabrata probe cross-reacted with Saccharomyces cerevisiae DNA but with no other DNAs tested. Genomic DNA purified from C. albicans blastoconidia suspended in blood was amplified by PCR with fungus-specific universal primers ITS3 and ITS4. With the C. albicans-specific probe labeled with digoxigenin, a biotinylated capture probe, and streptavidin-coated microtitration plates, amplified DNA from a few as two C. albicans cells per 0.2 ml of blood could be detected by enzyme immunoassay.
High Pulsed Power Compact Antenna for High-Power Microwaves Applications

Thales Communications and Security has developed, under Commissariat à l’Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives contract, a new concept of compact antenna able to radiate very high pulsed power levels in C-band and X-band. These antennas could be powered by relativistic sources, such as magnetrons or backward wave oscillators (BWO). This antenna principle is based on an array of helixes, whose dimensions are linked to the desired gain and central frequency. Pulsed power—typically a few hundreds of megawatts—feeds the antenna via a circular waveguide in TM01 mode. These works were successfully verified with a first example of such an antenna, developed in X-Band and tested with a BWO delivering 10-ns long and 500-MW peak pulses, repeated at 100 Hz.
On relativistic spin network vertices

Barrett and Crane have proposed a model of simplicial Euclidean quantum gravity in which a central role is played by a class of Spin(4) spin networks called “relativistic spin networks” which satisfy a series of physically motivated constraints. Here a proof is presented that demonstrates that the intertwiner of a vertex of such a spin network is uniquely determined, up to normalization, by the representations on the incident edges and the constraints. Moreover, the constraints, which were formulated for four valent spin networks only, are extended to networks of arbitrary valence, and the generalized relativistic spin networks proposed by Yetter are shown to form the entire solution set (mod normalization) of the extended constraints. Finally, using the extended constraints, the Barrett–Crane model is generalized to arbitrary polyhedral complexes (instead of just simplicial complexes) representing space-time. It is explained how this model, like the Barret–Crane model can be derived from BF theory, a sim.
Abnormal event detection using local sparse representation

We propose to detect abnormal events via a sparse subspace clustering algorithm. Unlike most existing approaches, which search for optimized normal bases and detect abnormality based on least square error or reconstruction error from the learned normal patterns, we propose an abnormality measurement based on the difference between the normal space and local space. Specifically, we provide a reasonable normal bases through repeated K spectral clustering. Then for each testing feature we first use temporal neighbors to form a local space. An abnormal event is found if any abnormal feature is found that satisfies: the distance between its local space and the normal space is large. We evaluate our method on two public benchmark datasets: UCSD and Subway Entrance datasets. The comparison to the state-of-the-art methods validate our method's effectiveness.
Improving Resilience of Cloud ApplicationUsing Ranking Technique

Cloud computing is a general term for anything that involves delivering hosted services over the Internet. A Fault tolerance is a setup or configuration that prevents a computer or network device from failing in the event of an unexpected problem or error. In this project work, we propose a model to analyze an optimal fault tolerant strategy to improve the resilience of cloud applications. The cloud applications are usually large scale and include a lot of distributed cloud components. Building highly efficient cloud applications is a challenging and critical research problem. To attack this challenge a component ranking frame work, named FTCloud is used for building fault tolerant cloud applications. First extract the components from the cloud application. Then, rank the critical components using the significance value. After the component ranking phase, an algorithm is projected to automatically conclude an optimal fault-tolerance strategy for the significant cloud components. Thereby, resilience of cloud application can be improved.
On the Development of Primary School Students' Reading Motivations and Impacting Factors

This study aims to explore the development of primary school students' reading motivations and impacting factors,by using the Questionnaire on Primary School Students' Reading Motivations to survey 736 primary school students.The findings show the following: The primary school students' reading motivations, which include involvement and immersion,self-development,external rewords,negative self-efficacy,and positive self-efficacy,show a significant difference in their grade and gender,their family income,their parents' educational grounds,and their family book collections.Therefore,the study suggests creating a good reading environment,stimulating their intrinsic reading motivations,and improving their positive self-efficacy by means of positive feedback and guidance.
Community Based Early Intervention for the Prevention of Type 2 Diabetes: A Case Report of the Kahnawake Schools Diabetes Prevention Project

Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is a chronic metabolic disorder that is predominately associated with lifestyle changes including reduced physical activity, poor nutrition and obesity. Despite major medical advances in the treatment of T2D, its prevalence is still increasing at an alarming rate. Accordingly, better management and prevention strategies are urgently needed to prevent the development and progression of this disease. In the last decade there have been considerable efforts to improve public health through alternative research paradigms. Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) is one such process by which researchers form an equal and transparent partnership with the community with the final goal of creating empowerment and societal change to facilitate action and provide solutions to promote health and well-being. One CBPR program, the Kahnawake Schools Diabetes Prevention Project (KSDPP), was initiated to promote increased physical activity and healthier eating habits among school children based on the Mohawk’s “Living in Balance” philosophy. Utilizing CBPR principles, KSDPP engaged researchers and the community in all stages of the research processes. This project was community driven from the beginning and was independent of any external institutional change agent to facilitate community action and the implementation of strategies to find solutions. Although the project has been instrumental in community empowerment and societal change, several challenges remain. Accordingly, understanding the unique social, environmental and historical context that shapes lifestyle and risk factors for T2D in Native populations will help to understand the unique nature of this disease in these groups.
Document image understanding: geometric and logical layout

Document image understanding encompasses the technology required to make paper documents equivalent to other computer exchange media like floppies, tapes, and CDROMs. The physical reader of the paper document is the scanner just like the physical reader of the floppy is the floppy drive and the physical reader of the tape cartridge is the tape cartridge drive, and the physical reader of the CDROM is the CDROM drive. In the survey presented, we restrict ourselves to documents such as business letters, forms, and scientific and technical articles such as those found in archival journals and technical conferences. Understanding such documents involves estimating the rotation skew of each document page, determining the geometric page layout, labeling blocks as text or non-text, determining the read order for text blocks, recognizing the text of text blocks through an OCR system, determining the logical page layout, and formatting the data and information of the document in a suitable way for use by a word processing system or by an information retrieval system. <<ETX>>
Multitemporal analysis of the spectral response of scars of burnt areas using the Landsat/ETM sensor

This study reports the investigation of spectral response changes in burnt events in a multitemporal data series. We have used 8 Landsat/ETM+ scenes for the year 2002. Based on pre-processing techniques of image geographic and radiometric normalization, classification methodology was carried out to detect burn scar areas. Samples of polygons were used to calculate mean and standard deviation values for the assessment of changes in the spectral domain of bands 1 to 5 and 7 to investigating how bands behavior in time. Then we applied an index to the images, utilizing bands 3 and 4 to detect burn scars. This index was tested and showed a consistent performance, enhancing the burned areas. Statistical test were carried out to evaluate differences among the values in each date. Results showed that there are statistical differences among dates, indicating that a burn took place in that date .
Antitumor Activity of a Novel Sphingosine-1-Phosphate 2 Antagonist, AB1, in Neuroblastoma

The bioactive lipid sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) and its receptors (S1P1–5) play critical roles in many pathologic processes, including cancer. The S1P axis has become a bona fide therapeutic target in cancer. JTE-013 [N-(2,6-dichloro-4-pyridinyl)-2-[1,3-dimethyl-4-(1-methylethyl)-1H-pyrazolo[3,4-b]pyridin-6-yl]-hydrazinecarboxamide], a known S1P2 antagonist, suffers from instability in vivo. Structurally modified, more potent, and stable S1P2 inhibitors would be desirable pharmacological tools. One of the JTE-013 derivatives, AB1 [N-(1H-4-isopropyl-1-allyl-3-methylpyrazolo[3,4-b]pyridine-6-yl)-amino-N′-(2,6-dichloropyridine-4-yl) urea], exhibited improved S1P2 antagonism compared with JTE-013. Intravenous pharmacokinetics indicated enhanced stability or slower clearance of AB1 in vivo. Migration assays in glioblastoma showed that AB1 was slightly more effective than JTE-013 in blocking S1P2-mediated inhibition of cell migration. Functional studies in the neuroblastoma (NB) cell line SK-N-AS showed that AB1 displayed potency at least equivalent to JTE-013 in affecting signaling molecules downstream of S1P2. Similarly, AB1 inhibition of the growth of SK-N-AS tumor xenografts was improved compared with JTE-013. Cell viability assays excluded that this enhanced AB1 effect is caused by inhibition of cancer cell survival. Both JTE-013 and AB1 trended to inhibit (C-C motif) ligand 2 expression and were able to significantly inhibit subsequent tumor-associated macrophage infiltration in NB xenografts. Interestingly, AB1 was more effective than JTE-013 in inhibiting the expression of the profibrotic mediator connective tissue growth factor. The terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase–mediated digoxigenin-deoxyuridine nick-end labeling assay and cleaved caspase-3 detection further demonstrated that apoptosis was increased in AB1-treated NB xenografts compared with JTE-013. Overall, the modification of JTE-013 to produce the AB1 compound improved potency, intravenous pharmacokinetics, cellular activity, and antitumor activity in NB and may have enhanced clinical and experimental applicability.
Heuristics based automatic text summarization of unstructured text

Automatic Text Summarization is a specialized text mining task of generating a summary or abstract from single or multiple input text documents. Various heuristic and semi-supervised learning methods have been explored by researchers in this field to generate generic as well as user-oriented summaries. This paper examines the effectiveness of well-known summarization heuristics when applied to the task of generating single-document summary extracts of variable length. For evaluating the quality of the summaries, the original text documents and their summaries were scored by different human judges based on soft metrics like topic-coverage, relative coherence, novelty and information content; and their scores were statistically compared. It was experimentally verified that in 65% of the documents there was less than 10% variance between the scores assigned to the original texts and their summaries.
Approximate Dynamic Programming based on Projection onto the (min, +) subsemimodule

We develop a new Approximate Dynamic Programming (ADP) method for infinite horizon discounted reward Markov Decision Processes (MDP) based on projection onto a subsemimodule. We approximate the value function in terms of a (min,+) linear combination of a set of basis functions whose (min,+) linear span constitutes a subsemimodule. The projection operator is closely related to the Fenchel transform. Our approximate solution obeys the (min,+) Projected Bellman Equation (MPPBE) which is different from the conventional Projected Bellman Equation (PBE). We show that the approximation error is bounded in its L1-norm. We develop a Min-Plus Approximate Dynamic Programming (MPADP) algorithm to compute the solution to the MPPBE. We also present the proof of convergence of the MPADP algorithm and apply it to two problems, a grid-world problem in the discrete domain and mountain car in the continuous domain.
Trustworthy Virtual Advisors and Enjoyable Interactions: Designing for Expressiveness and Transparency

Online virtual advisors have enjoyed an increased research attention and widespread use in the last several years. In investigating the determinants of their adoption, the majority of extant research has focused on a set of utilitarian variables that address some outcomes from their use. In contrast, this study focuses on users’ perceptions of these virtual advisors as interaction partners, and on beliefs users form during these interactions. Specifically, we propose and test for the effects of perceived advisor expressiveness and transparency on perceptions of their trustworthiness and interaction enjoyment. The latter two constructs are further proposed to act as antecedents to users’ reuse intentions. The results of an experimental study lend support to the proposed model, and highlight the importance of designing social and trustworthy advisors and enjoyable interactions.
Does a project champion matter? An in-depth understanding of champion impact in a large-scale information system implementation

Organisations have been facing challenges in successful implementation of advanced Information Systems (IS). Despite the important role of project champions in IS implementation success, extant research has yet reached conclusive results as to the champion impact. Through an in-depth case study on a large-scale IS implementation, the study offers insights into salient factors that might have constrained champion influence on implementation outcomes.
Handwritten Character Recognition Using Nonsymmetrical Perceptual Zoning

In this paper we present an alternative strategy to define zoning for handwriting recognition, which is based on nonsymmetrical perceptual zoning. The idea is to extract some knowledge from the confusion matrices in order to make the zoning process less empirical. The feature set considered in this work is based on concavities/convexities deficiencies, which are obtained by labeling the background pixels of the input image. To better assess the nonsymmetrical zoning we carried out experiments using four different zonings strategies. Experiments show that the nonsymmetrical zoning could be considered as a tool to build more reliable handwriting recognition systems.
Implementation of a combined high-speed interpolation and decimation wave digital filter

In this paper we discuss the design and implementation of a novel class of high-speed wave digital filter structures for interpolation and decimation. Four different structures were compared with respect to chip area, power consumption and speed. The best of these structures was combined into an interpolation and decimation filter and has been implemented using redundant arithmetic and standard cells.
A Strip Adjustment Approach for Precise Georeferencing of ALOS Optical Imagery

Precise georeferencing is one of the prerequisites for orthoimage generation from high-resolution satellite imagery. This requires the availability of a small number of GCPs that have to be visible in each scene. In this paper, it is shown how the number of GCPs required for the precise georeferencing of Advanced Land Observation Satellite (ALOS) imagery can be reduced by up to 90% using a generic pushbroom sensor model and strip adjustment while still achieving an accuracy of better than 1 pixel. A fully automatic work flow requiring an existing digital orthophoto and a digital elevation model (DEM) is also presented. Using an orthophoto mosaic generated from Landsat-7 panchromatic imagery for automatic GCP measurement, pixel-level accuracy can be achieved for images from the Advanced Visible and Near Infrared Radiometer type 2 (AVNIR-2) instrument. For images from the Panchromatic Remote-sensing Instrument for Stereo Mapping (PRISM), the accuracy of the automated procedure is only about 2 pixels due to the poor resolution of the orthoimage, compared with PRISM.
Reduced error monitoring in children with autism spectrum disorder: an ERP study

This study investigated self‐monitoring in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) with event‐related potentials looking at both the error‐related negativity (ERN) and error‐related positivity (Pe). The ERN is related to early error/conflict detection, and the Pe has been associated with conscious error evaluation or attention allocation. In addition, post‐error slowing in reaction times (RTs) was measured. Children with ASD and age‐ and IQ‐ matched controls were administered an easy and a hard version of an auditory decision task. Results showed that the ERN was smaller in children with ASD but localized in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) in both groups. In addition we found a negativity on correct trials (CRN) that did not differ between the groups. Furthermore, a reduced Pe and a lack of post‐error slowing in RTs were found in children with ASD. The reduced ERN in children with ASD, in the presence of an intact CRN, might suggest a specific insensitivity to detect situations in which the chance of making errors is enhanced. This might in turn lead to reduced error awareness/attention allocation to the erroneous event (reduced Pe) and eventually in a failure in change of strategy to deal with a situation, as becomes evident from the lack of post‐error slowing in the ASD group. This relates well to the perseverative behaviour that is seen in children with ASD. We discuss these results in terms of a general deficit in self‐monitoring, underlying social disturbance in ASD and the involvement of the ACC.