Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Use of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in Oncology Settings: A Narrative Review

Various psychotherapeutic approaches have been developed to address the psychosocial stressors and distress associated with cancer diagnosis and treatment. One such approach, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), may be particularly well suited to people with cancer as it offers a model of healthy adaptation to difficult circumstances. This paper provides a description and theoretical rationale for using ACT in psychosocial oncology care that emphasizes emotional distress and cancer-related pain and provides a narrative review of the current state of evidence for this setting. Six studies met eligibility criteria for inclusion in the review. The research designs included one case study, three pre-post cohort studies, and two randomized controlled trials. Cancer diagnoses of patients included breast cancer, ovarian cancer, colorectal cancer, and mixed cancer populations at various stages of disease progression or recovery. ACT interventions demonstrated significant improvements in symptoms including quality of life and psychological flexibility as well as reductions in symptoms including distress, emotional disturbances, physical pain, and traumatic responses. Overall, although there is limited published research currently available, there is some evidence to support ACT as an effective psychotherapeutic approach for cancer patients. Further research is needed for different cancer populations across the illness trajectory. Barriers to implementation are discussed.
Edinburgh Research Explorer Experiences of using a wearable camera to record activity, participation and health-related behaviours: Qualitative reflections of using the Sensecam

Objective: Upcoming technology is changing the way that we are able to collect data looking into activity, social participation and health behaviours. Wearable cameras are one form of technology that allows us to automatically record a collection of passive images, building a visual diary of the user’s day. Whilst acknowledging the usefulness of wearable cameras in research, it is also important to understand individuals’ experiences whilst using them. The aim of this study was to explore the acceptance, experience and usability of a wearable camera (Microsoft (cid:2) Sensecam) to record the day-to-day activity and social participation of older people. Methods: A total of 18 older adults, who had worn the wearable camera for seven days, took part in semi-structured interviews. Results: Four themes emerged from the findings: ‘Intrusiveness’; ‘Importance of others’; ‘Remembering the wearable camera’; and ‘Ease of use’. Conclusions: Individuals’ expectations and experiences of using the wearable camera differed considerably. Participants believed that the wearable camera would be intrusive, difficult to use and would evoke public reaction; however, these worries were not borne out in experience. Individuals typically forgot about the presence of the wearable camera during use, remembering it only sporadically. One drawback to its use is that some participants were cautious of using the camera when around others, which impacted the amount of time the camera was worn, and, therefore, the nature of the data recorded. Design issues of the Sensecam were also a problem for the older adults in the study and affected their interaction with the technology.
Compliance of Adolescent Girls to Repeated Deployments of Wrist-Worn Accelerometers

Purpose This study aimed to determine the cross-sectional and cumulative compliance of adolescent girls to accelerometer wear at three deployment points and to identify variables associated with compliance. Methods Girls from 20 secondary schools were recruited: 10 schools were participating in the “Girls Active” intervention and 10 were control schools. Physical activity was measured using the GENEActiv accelerometer worn on the nondominant wrist 24 h·d−1 for up to 7 d at baseline, 7 months, and 14 months. Demographic and anthropometric characteristics were recorded. Results Seven valid days (≥16 h) of accelerometer wear was obtained from 83%, 77%, and 68% of girls at baseline (n = 1734), 7 months (n = 1381), and 14 months (n = 1326), respectively. Sixty-eight percent provided 7 valid days for both baseline and 7 months, 59% for baseline and 14 months, and 52% for all three deployment points. Estimates of physical activity level from 3 d of measurement could be considered equivalent to a 7-d measure (i.e., they fell within a ±5% equivalence zone). Cross sectionally, 3 valid days was obtained from at least 91% of girls; cumulatively, this was obtained from ≥88% of girls across any two deployment points and 84% of girls across all three deployment points. When controlling for clustering at school level and other potential predictors, physical activity level, being South Asian, being in the intervention group, and prior compliance were positively associated with monitor wear. Conclusions Compliance reduced across deployment points, with the reduction increasing as the deployment points got further apart. High prior compliance and high physical activity level were associated with the most additional wear time.
A Novel Real-Time Path Servo Control of a Hardware-in-the-Loop for a Large-Stroke Asymmetric Rod-Less Pneumatic System under Variable Loads

This project aims to develop a novel large stroke asymmetric pneumatic servo system of a hardware-in-the-loop for path tracking control under variable loads based on the MATLAB Simulink real-time system. High pressure compressed air provided by the air compressor is utilized for the pneumatic proportional servo valve to drive the large stroke asymmetric rod-less pneumatic actuator. Due to the pressure differences between two chambers, the pneumatic actuator will operate. The highly nonlinear mathematical models of the large stroke asymmetric pneumatic system were analyzed and developed. The functional approximation technique based on the sliding mode controller (FASC) is developed as a controller to solve the uncertain time-varying nonlinear system. The MATLAB Simulink real-time system was a main control unit of a hardware-in-the-loop system proposed to establish driver blocks for analog and digital I/O, a linear encoder, a CPU and a large stroke asymmetric pneumatic rod-less system. By the position sensor, the position signals of the cylinder will be measured immediately. The measured signals will be viewed as the feedback signals of the pneumatic servo system for the study of real-time positioning control and path tracking control. Finally, real-time control of a large stroke asymmetric pneumatic servo system with measuring system, a large stroke asymmetric pneumatic servo system, data acquisition system and the control strategy software will be implemented. Thus, upgrading the high position precision and the trajectory tracking performance of the large stroke asymmetric pneumatic servo system will be realized to promote the high position precision and path tracking capability. Experimental results show that fifth order paths in various strokes and the sine wave path are successfully implemented in the test rig. Also, results of variable loads under the different angle were implemented experimentally.
Gradient Estimators for Implicit Models

Implicit models, which allow for the generation of samples but not for point-wise evaluation of probabilities, are omnipresent in real-world problems tackled by machine learning and a hot topic of current research. Some examples include data simulators that are widely used in engineering and scientific research, generative adversarial networks (GANs) for image synthesis, and hot-off-the-press approximate inference techniques relying on implicit distributions. The majority of existing approaches to learning implicit models rely on approximating the intractable distribution or optimisation objective for gradient-based optimisation, which is liable to produce inaccurate updates and thus poor models. This paper alleviates the need for such approximations by proposing the Stein gradient estimator, which directly estimates the score function of the implicitly defined distribution. The efficacy of the proposed estimator is empirically demonstrated by examples that include meta-learning for approximate inference, and entropy regularised GANs that provide improved sample diversity.
The Dual Codebook : Combining Bags of Visual Words in Image Classification

In this paper, we evaluate the performance of two conventional bag of words approaches, using two basic local feature descriptors, to perform image classification. These approaches are compared to a novel design which combines two bags of visual words, using two different feature descriptors. The system extends earlier work wherein a bag of visual words approach with an L2 support vector machine classifier outperforms several alternatives. The descriptors we test are raw pixel intensities and the Histogram of Oriented Gradients. Using a novel Primal Support Vector Machine as a classifier, we perform image classification on the CIFAR-10 and MNIST datasets. Results show that the dual codebook implementation successfully utilizes the potential contributive information encapsulated by an alternative feature descriptor and increases performance, improving classification by 5-18% on CIFAR-10, and 0.22-1.03% for MNIST compared to the simple bag of words approaches.
HIV Transmission: Myths about Casual Contact and Fear about Medical Procedures Persist Among Older Adults

HIV infection among older adults is increasing. Previous research suggests that many older adults do not see themselves as at risk for HIV and that many subscribe to myths related to HIV transmission. In this focus group study (N = 48) we solicited the beliefs that older adults held about HIV. The older adults in this study were knowledgeable about how HIV is typically transmitted. However, we also identified that they subscribed to misconceptions regarding casual contact transmission and were fearful of transmission from the medical system. Educational efforts aimed at older adults must be tailored to address these persistent misconceptions.
A Density-Based Space Filling Curve for Location Privacy-Preserving

Location-aware devices and cloud computing services have triggered the widespread development of location-based applications. However, such applications require users to disclose their actual locations, which raises serious privacy concerns. As a kind of spatial transformation method, the standard Hilbert curve (SHC) is widely used in privacy preserving for spatial data. But there are still many limitations for SHC, such as high CPU cost, using the unified partition granularity and inability to support partial region authorization, etc. In this paper, we present a density-based space filling curve (DSC) for spatial data transformation, which partition the space based on the density of points of interest (POI) and supports partial authorization of the space, and need relatively low CPU cost. Our experiments show that the security risk of DSC is lower than that of SHC, and DSC provides better index building and range query processing performance than SHC.
Low-Complexity Soft-Decoding Algorithms for Reed–Solomon Codes—Part II: Soft-Input Soft-Output Iterative Decoding

In this paper, we present a practical approach to the iterative decoding of Reed-Solomon (RS) codes. The presented methodology utilizes an architecture in which the output produced by steps of belief-propagation (BP) is successively applied to a legacy decoding algorithm. Due to the suboptimal performance of BP conducted on the inherently dense RS parity-check matrix, a method is first provided for the construction of reduced-density, binary, parity-check equations. Iterative decoding is then conducted utilizing a subset of a redundant set of parity-check equations to minimize the number of connections into the least-reliable bits. Simulation results show that performance comparable to (and exceeding) the best known practical RS decoding techniques is achievable with the presented methodology. The complexity of the proposed algorithm is significantly lower than these existing procedures and permits a practical implementation in hardware.
Accurate classification of juvenile weakfish Cynoscion regalis to estuarine nursery areas based on chemical signatures in otoliths

We investigated the ability of trace element and isotopic signatures in otoliths to record the nursery areas of juvenile (young-of-the-year) weakfish Cynoscion regalis from the east coast of the USA. Juvenile C. regalis were captured with otter trawls at multiple sites in Doboy Sound (Georgia), Panllico Sound (North Carolina), Chesapeake Bay (Virginia), Delaware Bay (Delaware) and Peconic Bay (New York), from July to September 1996. One sagittal otolith from each specimen was assayed for Mg/Ca, Mn/Ca, Sr/Ca and Ba/Ca ratios uslng inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICPMS), while 6I3C and 6180 values from the other sagittal otohth in the pair were determined using lsotope ratio mass spectrometry (IR-MS). A multivanate analysis of variance determined that there were significant differences in trace element signatures among locations. Bootstrapped 95% confidence ellipses on canonical variates indicated that all 5 locations were significantly isolated in discriminant space. On the basis of these differences, linear &scrirninant function analysis (LDFA) and artificial neural network (ANN) models were used to classify inbvidual fish to their natal estuary with an overall error rate of 37 % for LDFA and 29.6% for ANN. Addtion of 6I3C and 6180 values to the LDFA and ANN models derived from the trace element data resulted in overall error around 10%. We d, therefore, be able to use chemical signatures from the juvenile portion of adult C, reyalis otoliths to accurately classify these fish to their natal estuary.
Prediction of early hepatocellular carcinoma recurrence using germinal center kinase-like kinase

Germinal center kinase-like kinase (GLK) is a key controller of autoimmunity. In this study, we assessed the clinical relevance and tumorigenic effects of GLK in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Using immunohistochemistry, we showed that the GLK proportion score increased in both cancerous and adjacent non-cancerous liver tissue from patients with HCC recurrence. A Kaplan-Meier analysis revealed that patients with a wide distribution of GLK in non-cancerous liver tissue had a higher rate of HCC recurrence than those with very low or no GLK expression. Multivariate Cox regression analyses indicated that a high GLK proportion score in non-cancerous liver tissue was an independent predictor of early HCC recurrence after resection. Lentiviral vector-mediated overexpression of GLK activated the nuclear factor kappa B (NFκB) signaling cascade and accelerated cell cycle progression in primary human hepatocytes, thereby promoting proliferation. An increase in GLK expression coincided with NFκB activation and enhanced expression of proliferating cell nuclear antigen in HCC tissue. Our findings demonstrate a potential hepatocarcinogenic effect of GLK and the feasibility of using GLK to predict early HCC recurrence.
A novel 3D mesenchymal stem cell model of the multiple myeloma bone marrow niche: biologic and clinical applications

Specific niches within the tumor bone marrow (BM) microenvironment afford a sanctuary for multiple myeloma (MM) clones due to stromal cell-tumor cell interactions, which confer survival advantage and drug resistance. Defining the sequelae of tumor cell interactions within the MM niches on an individualized basis may provide the rationale for personalized therapies. To mimic the MM niche, we here describe a new 3D co-culture ex-vivo model in which primary MM patient BM cells are co-cultured with mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) in a hydrogel 3D system. In the 3D model, MSC with conserved phenotype (CD73+CD90+CD105+) formed compact clusters with active fibrous connections, and retained lineage differentiation capacity. Extracellular matrix molecules, integrins, and niche related molecules including N-cadherin and CXCL12 are expressed in 3D MSC model. Furthermore, activation of osteogenesis (MMP13, SPP1, ADAMTS4, and MGP genes) and osteoblastogenic differentiation was confirmed in 3D MSC model. Co-culture of patient-derived BM mononuclear cells with either autologous or allogeneic MSC in 3D model increased proliferation of MM cells, CXCR4 expression, and SP cells. We carried out immune profiling to show that distribution of immune cell subsets was similar in 3D and 2D MSC model systems. Importantly, resistance to novel agents (IMiDs, bortezomib, carfilzomib) and conventional agents (doxorubicin, dexamethasone, melphalan) was observed in 3D MSC system, reflective of clinical resistance. This 3D MSC model may therefore allow for studies of MM pathogenesis and drug resistance within the BM niche. Importantly, ongoing prospective trials are evaluating its utility to inform personalized targeted and immune therapy in MM.
In-depth proteomic profiling of the uveal melanoma secretome

Uveal melanoma (UM), the most common primary intraocular tumour in adults, is characterised by a high frequency of metastases to the liver, typically with a fatal outcome. Proteins secreted from cancer cells (‘secretome’) are biologically important molecules thought to contribute to tumour progression. We examined the UM secretome by applying a label-free nanoLCMS/MS proteomic approach to profile proteins secreted into culture media by primary UM tumours with a high− (HR; n = 11) or low− (LR; n = 4) metastatic risk, compared to normal choroidal melanocytes (NCM) from unaffected post-mortem eyes. Across the three groups, 1843 proteins were identified at a 1% false discovery rate; 758 of these by at least 3 unique peptides, and quantified. The majority (539/758, 71%) of proteins were classified as secreted either by classical (144, 19%), non-classical (43, 6%) or exosomal (352, 46%) mechanisms. Bioinformatic analyzes showed that the secretome composition reflects biological differences and similarities of the samples. Ingenuity® pathway analysis of the secreted protein dataset identified abundant proteins involved in cell proliferation-, growth- and movement. Hepatic fibrosis/hepatic stellate cell activation and the mTORC1-S6K signalling axis were among the most differentially regulated biological processes in UM as compared with NCM. Further analysis of proteins upregulated ≥ 2 in HR-UM only, identified exosomal proteins involved in extracellular matrix remodelling and cancer cell migration/invasion; as well as classically secreted proteins, possibly representing novel biomarkers of metastatic disease. In conclusion, UM secretome analysis identifies novel proteins and pathways that may contribute to metastatic development at distant sites, particularly in the liver.
A new basic unit for symmetric and asymmetric cascaded multilevel inverter with reduced number of components

This study suggest a new basic structure for symmetric and asymmetric cascaded topologies with reduced number of power electronic components. This topology generates 10 voltage steps by three unequal dc voltage sources and seven switches. The suggested topology creates just positive and zero voltage steps and it needs to one H-bridge to generate negative voltage levels. Based on the located H-bridge, two different cascaded multilevel topologies are proposed. Also, various methods to specify the magnitudes of dc voltage sources are suggested. The proposed cascaded multilevel inverters in comparison with the conventional cascaded topologies and other new topologies which presented in literature decrease the number of components such as, IGBTs, switches, driver circuits and DC links. PSCAD/EMTDC simulations results of 19-level inverter are presented to reconfirm the correct performance of the suggested topologies.
Coordinate control of cytoskeletal remodeling and calcium mobilization during T‐cell activation

Ca2+ mobilization and cytoskeletal reorganization are key hallmarks of T‐cell activation, and their interdependence has long been recognized. Recent advances in the field have elucidated the molecular pathways that underlie these events and have revealed several points of intersection. Ca2+ signaling can be divided into two phases: initial events leading to release of Ca2+ from endoplasmic reticulum stores, and a second phase involving STIM 1 (stromal interaction molecule 1) clustering and CRAC (calcium release activated calcium) channel activation. Cytoskeletal dynamics promote both phases. During the first phase, the actin cytoskeleton promotes mechanotransduction and serves as a dynamic scaffold for microcluster assembly. Proteins that drive actin polymerization such as WASp (Wiskott–Aldrich syndrome protein) and HS1 (hematopoietic lineage cell‐specific protein 1) promote signaling through PLCγ1 (phospholipase Cγ1) and release of Ca2+ from endoplasmic reticulum stores. During the second phase, the WAVE (WASP‐family verprolin homologous protein) complex and the microtubule cytoskeleton promote STIM 1 clustering at sites of plasma membrane apposition, opening Orai channels. In addition, gross cell shape changes and organelle movements buffer local Ca2+ levels, leading to sustained Ca2+ mobilization. Conversely, elevated intracellular Ca2+ activates cytoskeletal remodeling. This can occur indirectly, via calpain activity, and directly, via Ca2+‐dependent cytoskeletal regulatory proteins such as myosin II and L‐plastin. While it is true that the cytoskeleton regulates Ca2+ responses and vice versa, interdependence between Ca2+ and the cytoskeleton also encompasses signaling events that occur in parallel, downstream of shared intermediates. Inositol cleavage by PLCγ1 simultaneously triggers both endoplasmic reticulum store release and diacylglycerol‐dependent microtubule organizing center reorientation, while depleting the pool of phosphatidylinositol‐4,5‐bisphosphate, an activator of multiple actin‐regulatory proteins. The close interdependence of Ca2+ signaling and cytoskeletal dynamics in T cells provides positive feedback mechanisms for T‐cell activation and allows for finely tuned responses to extracellular cues.
Residues in the RecQ C-terminal Domain of the Human Werner Syndrome Helicase Are Involved in Unwinding G-quadruplex DNA*

The structural and biophysical properties typically associated with G-quadruplex (G4) structures render them a significant block for DNA replication, which must be overcome for cell division to occur. The Werner syndrome protein (WRN) is a RecQ family helicase that has been implicated in the efficient processing of G4 DNA structures. The aim of this study was to identify the residues of WRN involved in the binding and ATPase-driven unwinding of G4 DNA. Using a c-Myc G4 DNA model sequence and recombinant WRN, we have determined that the RecQ-C-terminal (RQC) domain of WRN imparts a 2-fold preference for binding to G4 DNA relative to non-G4 DNA substrates. NMR studies identified residues involved specifically in interactions with G4 DNA. Three of the amino acids in the WRN RQC domain that exhibited the largest G4-specific changes in NMR signal were then mutated alone or in combination. Mutating individual residues implicated in G4 binding had a modest effect on WRN binding to DNA, decreasing the preference for G4 substrates by ∼25%. Mutating two G4-interacting residues (T1024G and T1086G) abrogated preferential binding of WRN to G4 DNA. Very modest decreases in G4 DNA-stimulated ATPase activity were observed for the mutant enzymes. Most strikingly, G4 unwinding by WRN was inhibited ∼50% for all three point mutants and >90% for the WRN double mutant (T1024G/T1086G) relative to normal B-form dsDNA substrates. Our work has helped to identify residues in the WRN RQC domain that are involved specifically in the interaction with G4 DNA.