Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Platelet- and megakaryocyte-derived microparticles transfer CXCR4 receptor to CXCR4-null cells and make them susceptible to infection by X4-HIV

Objective: Under some circumstances the HIV virus may infect cells that do not express receptors essential to HIV-entry. We hypothesized that platelet- and megakaryocyte-derived microparticles (MP) could play a role in such infections. MP are circular membrane fragments shed from the surface of eukaryotic cells. After adhesion to target cells, MP may transfer membrane-associated proteins to these cells. We found that peripheral blood platelet- (PMP) and megakaryocyte-derived MP (MegaMP) that highly express CXCR4 may transfer this receptor from the surface of platelets or megakaryocytes to the surface of CXCR4-null cells. Design: Since this mechanism could potentially allow CD4+/CXCR4-null cells to become infected by T-tropic HIV, we incubated several human CD4+/CXCR4-null cells such as normal erythroblasts, glioblastomas U87, MAGI and hematopoietic cell lines UT-7, HEL and TF-1 with PMP or MegaMP. We found that these cells became CXCR4+. We next exposed these cells to X4-HIV (IIIB) and evaluated their susceptibility to infection by PCR, ELISA, and morphological analysis. Results: We observed in all instances that after CD4+/CXCR4-null cell lines ‘acquired’ CXCR4 from PMP or MegaMP, they could became infected by X4 HIV. Conclusions: We postulate that both PMP and MegaMP may play a novel and important role in spreading HIV-1 infection by transferring the CXCR4 co-receptor to CD4+/CXCR4-null cells.
Hypersensitivity Pneumonitis in Workers Exposed to Metalworking Fluids

Background This study used data from a large UK outbreak investigation, to develop and validate a new case definition for hypersensitivity pneumonitis due to metalworking fluid exposure (MWF-HP). Methods The clinical data from all workers with suspected MWF-HP were reviewed by an experienced panel of clinicians. A new MWF-HP Score was then developed to match the “gold standard” clinical opinion as closely as possible, using standard diagnostic criteria that were relatively weighted by their positive predictive value. Results The new case definition was reproducible, and agreed with expert panel opinion in 30/37 cases. This level of agreement was greater than with any of the three previously utilized case definitions (agreement in 16–24 cases). Where it was possible to calculate, the MWF-HP Score also performed well when applied to 50 unrelated MWF-HP cases. Conclusions The MWF-HP Score offers a new case definition for use in future outbreaks. Am. J. Ind. Med. 57:872–880, 2014. © 2014 The Authors. American Journal of Industrial Medicine Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
On the Effectiveness of Delay-Based Congestion Avoidance

The debate between Loss-based Congestion Avoidance (LCA) and Delay-based Congestion Avoidance (DCA) is almost as old as TCP congestion control itself. Jacobson’s original TCP congestion control [1] is the canonical example of LCA: packet losses indicate network congestion, and so a TCP transfer should decrease its window after a packet loss to reduce the load in the network. The obvious problem with LCA is that a TCP sender keeps increasing its window until it causes buffer overflows. These “self-induced” packet drops cause increased loss rate, decreased throughput, and significant delay variations (at least with Drop-Tail queues). To deal with the previous issue, DCA schemes attempt to control the send-window of a TCP transfer based on Round-Trip Time (RTT) measurements. The basic idea is that if the sendwindow large enough to saturate the available bandwidth, the transfer will cause increasing queueing at the tight link of the network path,1 and thus increasing RTTs. So, the sender should decrease the transfer’s window when the RTTs start increasing. There are several variations of DCA schemes. Starting with Jain’s initial proposal in 1989 [3] and Mitra’s fundamental work [4], the networking research community considered several ways to modify TCP, including TCP Tri-S [5], TCP Vegas [6], TCP BFA [7], and most recently TCP FAST [8]. Interest in DCA algorithms has been re-emerged in the last couple of years, as it becomes increasingly clear that Jacobson’s LCA-based TCP cannot efficiently use high-bandwidth and long-distance network paths. Recently, however, measurement studies have shown that there is little correlation between increased delays (or RTTs) and congestive losses [9], [10], [11]. This experimental observation raises major doubts on whether DCA algorithms would be effective in practice, as their main assumption is that RTT measurements can be used to predict and avoid network congestion [12]. Our objective in this short note is to suggest possible reasons for the weak correlations between delays and losses, and to identify conditions under which DCA schemes can fail to provide robust congestion control.
Prohibitin-1 maintains the angiogenic capacity of endothelial cells by regulating mitochondrial function and senescence

Prohibitin 1 (PHB1) is a highly conserved protein that is mainly localized to the inner mitochondrial membrane and has been implicated in regulating mitochondrial function in yeast. Because mitochondria are emerging as an important regulator of vascular homeostasis, we examined PHB1 function in endothelial cells. PHB1 is highly expressed in the vascular system and knockdown of PHB1 in endothelial cells increases mitochondrial production of reactive oxygen species via inhibition of complex I, which results in cellular senescence. As a direct consequence, both Akt and Rac1 are hyperactivated, leading to cytoskeletal rearrangements and decreased endothelial cell motility, e.g., migration and tube formation. This is also reflected in an in vivo angiogenesis assay, where silencing of PHB1 blocks the formation of functional blood vessels. Collectively, our results provide evidence that PHB1 is important for mitochondrial function and prevents reactive oxygen species–induced senescence and thereby maintains the angiogenic capacity of endothelial cells.
Groups Re-identification with Temporal Context

Re-identification methods often require well aligned, unoccluded detections of an entire subject. Such assumptions are impractical in real world scenarios, where people tend to form groups. To circumvent poor detection performance caused by occlusions, we use fixed regions of interest and employ codebook-based visual representations. We account for illumination variations between cameras using a coupled clustering method that learns per-camera codebooks with entries that correspond across cameras. Because predictable movement patterns exist in many scenarios, we also incorporate temporal context to improve re-identification performance. This includes learning expected travel times directly from data and using mutual exclusion constraints to encourage solutions that maintain temporal ordering. Our experiments illustrate the merits of the proposed approach in challenging re-identification scenarios including crowded public spaces.
Extending Data Reliability Measure to a Filter Approach for Soft Subspace Clustering

The measure of data reliability has recently proven useful for a number of data analysis tasks. This paper extends the underlying metric to a new problem of soft subspace clustering. The concept of subspace clustering has been increasingly recognized as an effective alternative to conventional algorithms (which search for clusters without differentiating the significance of different data attributes). While a large number of crisp subspace approaches have been proposed, only a handful of soft counterparts are developed with the common goal of acquiring the optimal cluster-specific dimension weights. Most soft subspace clustering methods work based on the exploitation of k-means and greatly rely on the iteratively disclosed cluster centers for the determination of local weights. Unlike such wrapper techniques, this paper presents a filter approach which is efficient and generally applicable to different types of clustering. Systematical experimental evaluations have been carried out over a collection of published gene expression data sets. The results demonstrate that the reliability-based methods generally enhance their corresponding baseline models and outperform several well-known subspace clustering algorithms.
The Relationship of Mucus Concentration (Hydration) to Mucus Osmotic Pressure and Transport in Chronic Bronchitis.

RATIONALE Chronic bronchitis (CB) is characterized by persistent cough and sputum production. Studies were performed to test whether mucus hyperconcentration and increased partial osmotic pressure, in part caused by abnormal purine nucleotide regulation of ion transport, contribute to the pathogenesis of CB. OBJECTIVES We tested the hypothesis that CB is characterized by mucus hyperconcentration, increased mucus partial osmotic pressures, and reduced mucus clearance. METHODS We measured in subjects with CB as compared with normal and asymptomatic smoking control subjects indices of mucus concentration (hydration; i.e., percentage solids) and sputum adenine nucleotide/nucleoside concentrations. In addition, sputum partial osmotic pressures and mucus transport rates were measured in subjects with CB. MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS CB secretions were hyperconcentrated as indexed by an increase in percentage solids and total mucins, in part reflecting decreased extracellular nucleotide/nucleoside concentrations. CB mucus generated concentration-dependent increases in partial osmotic pressures into ranges predicted to reduce mucus transport. Mucociliary clearance (MCC) in subjects with CB was negatively correlated with mucus concentration (percentage solids). As a test of relationships between mucus concentration and disease, mucus concentrations and MCC were compared with FEV1, and both were significantly correlated. CONCLUSIONS Abnormal regulation of airway surface hydration may slow MCC in CB and contribute to disease pathogenesis.
Guiding Gifted Students through Independent Study

• In our combined thirteen years of working in resource room programs for gifted and talented students, we have learned that self-directed independent or small group study habits do not develop in students without careful assistance on the part of their teachers. Our expertise in helping to d.evelop independent study skills results from the years we have spent as resource teachers and coordinators of gifted programs based on Renzulli's Enrichment Triad Model (1977a). The TAG (Talented and Gifted) Program in Torrington, a small city in Northwestern Connecticut, began six years ago and provides service to students in grades K through 8 in eight elementary schools and a junior high school. The TAG Program in Harwinton, a neighboring rural community, began five years ago and serves students in grades 4 through 8. Both TAG programs are based on Renzulli's Enrichment Triad Model, which includes three distinct types of enrichment experiences.
Effects of Culture on the Credibility of Robot Speech: A Comparison between English and Arabic

As social robots begin to enter our lives as providers of information, assistance, companionship, and motivation, it becomes increasingly important that these robots are capableof interacting effectively with human users across different cultural settings worldwide. A key capability in establishing acceptance and usability is the way in which robots structure their speech to build credibility and express information in a meaningful and persuasive way. Previous work has established that robots can use speech to improve credibility in two ways: expressing practical knowledge and using rhetorical linguistic cues. In this paper, we present twostudies that build on prior work to explore the effects of language and cultural context on the credibility of robot speech. In the first study $( n =96)$, we compared the relative effectiveness of knowledge and rhetoric on the credibility of robot speech between Arabic-speaking robots in Lebanon and Englishspeaking robots in the United States, finding the rhetorical linguistic cues to be more important in Arabic than in English. In the second study $( n =32)$, we compared the effectiveness of credible robot speech between robots speaking either Modern Standard Arabic or the local Arabic dialect, finding the expression of both practical knowledge andrhetorical ability to be most important when using the local dialect. These results reveal nuanced cultural differences in perceptions of robots as credible agents and have important implications for the design of human-robot interactions across Arabic and Western cultures. Categories and Subject Descriptors H.1. 2 [Models and Principles]: User/Machine Systems---human factors, software psychology; H.5. 2 [Information Interfaces and Presentation]: UserInterfaces---evaluation/methodology, usercentered designFigure 1:The first study was conducted in both the United States (top) and Lebanon (bottom). Participants interacted with two robots acting as competing tour guides, each speaking with a different degree of practical knowledge and/or rhetorical ability.
Decentralized Learning in Markov Games

Learning automata (LA) were recently shown to be valuable tools for designing multiagent reinforcement learning algorithms. One of the principal contributions of the LA theory is that a set of decentralized independent LA is able to control a finite Markov chain with unknown transition probabilities and rewards. In this paper, we propose to extend this algorithm to Markov games-a straightforward extension of single-agent Markov decision problems to distributed multiagent decision problems. We show that under the same ergodic assumptions of the original theorem, the extended algorithm will converge to a pure equilibrium point between agent policies.
Time-abstracted Bisimulation: Implicit Specifications and Decidability

Abstract In the last few years a number of real-time process calculi have emerged with the purpose of capturing important quantitative aspects of real-time systems. In addition, a number of process equivalences sensitive to time-quantities have been proposed, among these the notion of timed (bisimulation) equivalence. In this paper, we introduce a time-abstracting (bisimulation) equivalence and investigate its properties with respect to the real-time process calculus of Wang (Real-time behaviour of asynchronous agents, in “Proceedings of CONCUR90,” Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 458, Springer-Verlag, Berlin/New York, 1990). Seemingly, such an equivalence would yield very little information (if any) about the timing properties of a process. However, time-abstracted reasoning about a composite process may yield important information about the relative timing-properties of the components of the system. In fact, we show as a main theorem that such implicit reasoning will reveal all timing aspects of a process. More precisely, we prove that two processes are interchangeable in any context up to time-abstracted equivalence precisely if the two processes are themselves timed equivalent. As our second main theorem, we prove that time-abstracted equivalence is decidable for the calculus of Wang, using classical methods based on a finite-state symbolic, structured operational semantics.
Spatial and frequency-based super-resolution of ultrasound images

Modern ultrasound systems can output video images containing more spatial and temporal information than still images. Super-resolution techniques can exploit additional information but face two challenges: image registration and complex motion. In addition, information from multiple available frequencies is unexploited. Herein, we utilised these information sources to create better ultrasound images and videos, extending existing technologies for image capture. Spatial and frequency-based super-resolution processing using multiple motion estimation and frequency combination was applied to ultrasound videos of deforming models. Processed images are larger, have greater clarity and detail, and less variability in intensity between frames. Significantly, strain measurements are more accurate and precise than those from raw videos, and have a higher contrast ratio between 'tumour' and 'surrounding tissue' in a phantom model. We attribute improvements to reduced noise and increased resolution in processed images. Our methods can significantly improve quantitative and qualitative assessments of ultrasound images when compared assessments of standard images.
Corresponding IVUS and angiogram image data

The growing appreciation of the pathophysiological and prognostic importance of arterial morphology have led to the realization that angiograms are inherently limited in defining the distribution and extension of coronary wall disease. By IntraVascular UltraSound (IVUS) physicians have a picture of the composition of vessel in detail. However, observing an IVUS pullback it is difficult to figure out the catheter position with regard to the vessel parts and ramifications, and misclassfication of lesions is possible. The objective of this work is to develop a computer vision technique to fuse the information from IVUS and angiograms defining the correspondence of every IVUS image with a corresponding point of the vessel in the angiograms.
Quicksort with Equal Keys

This paper considers the problem of implementing and analyzing a Quicksort program when equal keys are likely to be present in the file to be sorted. Upper and lower bounds are derived on the average number of comparisons needed by any Quicksort program when equal keys are present. It is shown that, of the three strategies which have been suggested for dealing with equal keys, the method of always stopping the scanning pointers on keys equal to the partitioning element performs best.
Fusion of classifier predictions for audio-visual emotion recognition

In this paper is presented a novel multimodal emotion recognition system which is based on the analysis of audio and visual cues. MFCC-based features are extracted from the audio channel and facial landmark geometric relations are computed from visual data. Both sets of features are learnt separately using state-of-the-art classifiers. In addition, we summarise each emotion video into a reduced set of key-frames, which are learnt in order to visually discriminate emotions by means of a Convolutional Neural Network. Finally, confidence outputs of all classifiers from all modalities are used to define a new feature space to be learnt for final emotion prediction, in a late fusion/stacking fashion. The conducted experiments on eNTERFACE'05 database show significant performance improvements of our proposed system in comparison to state-of-the-art approaches.
Spreading of human endothelial cells on fibronectin or vitronectin triggers elevation of intracellular free calcium

Intracellular calcium ([Ca2+]i) was measured in FURA 2-loaded endothelial cells plated on fibronectin or vitronectin. Average values for [Ca2+]i increased to approximately twofold above basal levels by approximately 1 h after plating, and then declined. The increase in [Ca2+]i required extracellular calcium. Substituting potassium for sodium in the medium reduced the elevation of [Ca2+]i, a result that rules out the involvement of Na-Ca exchangers or voltage-dependent calcium channels, but that is consistent with the involvement of voltage-independent calcium channels. Plating cells on an anti-integrin beta 1 subunit antibody gave a similar [Ca2+]i response, but clustering beta 1 integrins with the same antibody, or occupying integrins with RGD (arg-gly-asp) peptides had no effect. Time course measurements on single cells revealed that in each cell [Ca2+]i rose abruptly at some point during spreading, from the basal level to a higher steady-state level that was maintained for some time. The elevated [Ca2+]i was unrelated to previously observed changes in intracellular pH, because chelating the Ca2+ in the medium failed to inhibit the elevation of pHi that occurred during cell spreading. In conclusion, these results show that integrin-mediated cell spreading can regulate [Ca2+]i, and the pathways involved are distinct from those that regulate intracellular pH.
Determination of sunitinib and its active metabolite, N-desethyl sunitinib in mouse plasma and tissues by UPLC-MS/MS: assay development and application to pharmacokinetic and tissue distribution studies.

A simple, sensitive and specific method using ultraperformance liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) was developed to determine sunitinib and N-desethyl sunitinib in mouse plasma and tissues. The analytes were separated by an isocratic mobile phase consisting of acetonitrile and buffer solution (water with 0.1% formic acid and 5 m m ammonium acetate; 40: 60, v/v) running at a flow rate of 0.35 mL/min for 2 min. Quantification was performed using a mass spectrometer by multiple reaction monitoring in positive electrospray ionization mode. The transition was monitored at m/z 399 → 283, m/z 371 → 283 and m/z 327 → 270 for sunitinib, N-desethyl sunitinib and internal standard, respectively. Calibration curves were linear over concentration ranges of 2-500, 0.5-50 and 1-250 ng/mL for plasma, heart and other biosamples. The method was successfully applied to animal experiments. The pharmacokinetic study indicated that sunitinib was eliminated quickly in mice with a half-life of 1.2 h; tissue distribution data showed more sunitinib and its metabolite in liver, spleen and lung, which provided reference for further study.
Affluenza: An extendible approach to universal churn generation

Churn is an inherent property of peer-to-peer (P2P) networks which is difficult to characterize due to the fact that few systems are actually in use, and the space of possible applications is still under scrutiny. Despite its relevance, and even though there is a plethora of representative models, it is an open question how faithfully those models represent the “reality” they are intended to portray. Our goal is to produce the first generation framework that integrates state-of-the-art churn models in a single modeling tool and simplifies the design of new models. No less importantly, we want to produce a tool that allow researchers to compare their contributions and yet-to-be-invented applications under the same conditions. We call such a tool Af-fluenza and we hope it helps to increase the confidence in the results obtained by simulation.
Energy Efficient Network Deployment With Cell DTX

Cell discontinuous transmission (DTX) is a new feature that enables sleep mode operations at base station (BS) side during the transmission time intervals when there is no traffic. In this letter, we analyze the maximum achievable energy saving of the cell DTX. We incorporate the cell DTX with a clean-slate network deployment and obtain optimal BS density for lowest energy consumption satisfying a certain quality of service requirement considering daily traffic variation. The numerical result indicates that the fast traffic adaptation capability of cell DTX favors dense network deployment with lightly loaded cells, which brings about considerable improvement in energy saving.