Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Proliferating dendritic cell progenitors in human blood

CD34+ cells in human cord blood and marrow are known to give rise to dendritic cells (DC), as well as to other myeloid lineages. CD34+ cells are rare in adult blood, however, making it difficult to use CD34+ cells to ascertain if DC progenitors are present in the circulation and if blood can be a starting point to obtain large numbers of these immunostimulatory antigen-presenting cells for clinical studies. A systematic search for DC progenitors was therefore carried out in several contexts. In each case, we looked initially for the distinctive proliferating aggregates that were described previously in mice. In cord blood, it was only necessary to deplete erythroid progenitors, and add granulocyte/macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) together with tumor necrosis factor (TNF), to observe many aggregates and the production of typical DC progeny. In adult blood from patients receiving CSFs after chemotherapy for malignancy, GM-CSF and TNF likewise generated characteristic DCs from HLA-DR negative precursors. However, in adult blood from healthy donors, the above approaches only generated small DC aggregates which then seemed to become monocytes. When interleukin 4 was used to suppress monocyte development (Jansen, J. H., G.-J. H. M. Wientjens, W. E. Fibbe, R. Willemze, and H. C. Kluin- Nelemans. 1989. J. Exp. Med. 170:577.), the addition of GM-CSF led to the formation of large proliferating DC aggregates and within 5-7 d, many nonproliferating progeny, about 3-8 million cells per 40 ml of blood. The progeny had a characteristic morphology and surface composition (e.g., abundant HLA-DR and accessory molecules for cell- mediated immunity) and were potent stimulators of quiescent T cells. Therefore, large numbers of DCs can be mobilized by specific cytokines from progenitors in the blood stream. These relatively large numbers of DC progeny should facilitate future studies of their Fc epsilon RI and CD4 receptors, and their use in stimulating T cell-mediated resistance to viruses and tumors.
3D shape retrieval using viewpoint information‐theoretic measures

In this paper, we present an information‐theoretic framework to compute the shape similarity between 3D polygonal models. Given a 3D model, an information channel between a sphere of viewpoints around the model and its polygonal mesh is defined to compute the specific information associated with each viewpoint. The obtained information sphere can be seen as a shape descriptor of the model. Then, given two models, their similarity is obtained by performing a registration process between the corresponding information spheres. The distance between the information histograms is also defined as a coarse measure of similarity, as well as the scalar value given by the mutual information of the channel. The performance of all these measures is tested using the Princeton Shape Benchmark database. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Taylor Model Flowpipe Construction for Non-linear Hybrid Systems

We propose an approach for verifying non-linear hybrid systems using higher-order Taylor models that are a combination of bounded degree polynomials over the initial conditions and time, bloated by an interval. Taylor models are an effective means for computing rigorous bounds on the complex time trajectories of non-linear differential equations. As a result, Taylor models have been successfully used to verify properties of non-linear continuous systems. However, the handling of discrete (controller) transitions remains a challenging problem. In this paper, we provide techniques for handling the effect of discrete transitions on Taylor model flow pipe construction. We explore various solutions based on two ideas: domain contraction and range over-approximation. Instead of explicitly computing the intersection of a Taylor model with a guard set, domain contraction makes the domain of a Taylor model smaller by cutting away parts for which the intersection is empty. It is complemented by range over-approximation that translates Taylor models into commonly used representations such as template polyhedra or zonotopes, on which intersections with guard sets have been previously studied. We provide an implementation of the techniques described in the paper and evaluate the various design choices over a set of challenging benchmarks.
Prognostic Factors for the Survival of Elderly Patients Who Were Hospitalized in the Medical Ward of Our Hospital in Japan

It has been a long time since there were many elderly people in Japan. The medical care and costs for the elderly are enormous, and research to lower the mortality rate of the elderly is needed. We retrospectively investigated the prognostic factors for the survival of elderly patients who were hospitalized in the medical ward of our hospital. In total, 277 patients who were hospitalized between 1 January 2014 and 31 May 2017, were included in the retrospective study. Univariate and multivariate analyses of items (vital signs, laboratory data, and so on) were performed, and significant differences between the survival group and death group were subjected to receiver operating characteristic curve analysis. Serum urea nitrogen levels and serum albumin levels provided a relatively high area under the curve (AUC). However, there was no item for which AUC exceeded 0.70, and setting the cutoff value in this study was difficult. For treating the elderly, it is important to carefully evaluate each patient’s prognostic factors, including the demented state, renal function, and nutritional state; personalized treatment of each patient is also important.
Efficient Probabilistic Reverse Nearest Neighbor Query Processing on Uncertain Data

Given a query object q, a reverse nearest neighbor (RNN) query in a common certain database returns the objects having q as their nearest neighbor. A new challenge for databases is dealing with uncertain objects. In this paper we consider probabilistic reverse nearest neighbor (PRNN) queries, which return the uncertain objects having the query object as nearest neighbor with a sufficiently high probability. We propose an algorithm for efficiently answering PRNN queries using new pruning mechanisms taking distance dependencies into account. We compare our algorithm to state-of-the-art approaches recently proposed. Our experimental evaluation shows that our approach is able to significantly outperform previous approaches. In addition, we show how our approach can easily be extended to PRkNN (where k > 1) query processing for which there is currently no efficient solution.
Erythrocyte G Protein as a Novel Target for Malarial Chemotherapy

Background Malaria remains a serious health problem because resistance develops to all currently used drugs when their parasite targets mutate. Novel antimalarial drug targets are urgently needed to reduce global morbidity and mortality. Our prior results suggested that inhibiting erythrocyte Gs signaling blocked invasion by the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum. Methods and Findings We investigated the erythrocyte guanine nucleotide regulatory protein Gs as a novel antimalarial target. Erythrocyte “ghosts” loaded with a Gs peptide designed to block Gs interaction with its receptors, were blocked in β-adrenergic agonist-induced signaling. This finding directly demonstrates that erythrocyte Gs is functional and that propranolol, an antagonist of G protein–coupled β-adrenergic receptors, dampens Gs activity in erythrocytes. We subsequently used the ghost system to directly link inhibition of host Gs to parasite entry. In addition, we discovered that ghosts loaded with the peptide were inhibited in intracellular parasite maturation. Propranolol also inhibited blood-stage parasite growth, as did other β2-antagonists. β-blocker growth inhibition appeared to be due to delay in the terminal schizont stage. When used in combination with existing antimalarials in cell culture, propranolol reduced the 50% and 90% inhibitory concentrations for existing drugs against P. falciparum by 5- to 10-fold and was also effective in reducing drug dose in animal models of infection. Conclusions Together these data establish that, in addition to invasion, erythrocyte G protein signaling is needed for intracellular parasite proliferation and thus may present a novel antimalarial target. The results provide proof of the concept that erythrocyte Gs antagonism offers a novel strategy to fight infection and that it has potential to be used to develop combination therapies with existing antimalarials.
APL Spacecraft Autonomy: Then, Now, and Tomorrow

Spacecraft autonomy has a long and interesting history at APL. From humble beginnings, APL has developed and gradually increased the capability of a flexible and expressive autonomy system over three generations covering 10 years and seven spacecraft programs. Now APL is embarking on the development of a new set of autonomy systems that will meet the critical challenges of our National Security Space customers today and in the future. Development of this new set of autonomy systems will draw on lessons learned from the past, new technologies being developed today, and a four-pronged vision of what future APL autonomy systems need to achieve for National Security Space customers.
Nonlinear Effects in Stiffness Modeling of Robotic Manipulators

The paper focuses on the enhanced stiffness modeling of robotic manipulators by taking into account influence of the external force/torque acting upon the end point. It implements the virtual joint technique that describes the compliance of manipulator elements by a set of localized six-dimensional springs separated by rigid links and perfect joints. In contrast to the conventional formulation, which is valid for the unloaded mode and small displacements, the proposed approach implicitly assumes that the loading leads to the non-negligible changes of the manipulator posture and corresponding amendment of the Jacobian. The developed numerical technique allows computing the static equilibrium and relevant force/torque reaction of the manipulator for any given displacement of the end-effector. This enables designer detecting essentially nonlinear effects in elastic behavior of manipulator, similar to the buckling of beam elements. It is also proposed the linearization procedure that is based on the inversion of the dedicated matrix composed of the stiffness parameters of the virtual springs and the Jacobians/Hessians of the active and passive joints. The developed technique is illustrated by an application example that deals with the stiffness analysis of a parallel manipulator of the Orthoglide family.
Parents by adoption: Differing perspectives of couples in the formation and launching stages of the adoptive family life cycle

PARENTS BY ADOPTION: DIFFERING PERSPECTIVES OF COUPLES IN THE FORMATION AND LAUNCHING STAGES OF THE ADOPTIVE FAMILY LIFE CYCLE SEPTEMBER 1996 SUZANNE J. MCGOWAN, A. B. , CHATHAM COLLEGE M. A. , UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Ed. D. , UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Janine Roberts Sealed adoption records support the notion that adoptive families are the same as biological families and that adoptive parenting should mirror biological parenting. Whether adoptive parents subscribe to these beliefs is not really known, since they have had few opportunities to tell about this way of being a family. The research involved a narrative analysis of the stories told conjointly by six couples in the formation stage and six couples in the launching stage of the adoptive family life cycle; this reflexive research demonstrates the collaborative nature of social constructionism. The research subject (the storyteller) and the research interviewer (the listener) create meaning together through the questions and responses, the interviewer's interpretation of the narrative and then the checkback which allows the storyteller to indicate disagreement or enlarged understanding. Adoptive couples with young children were found to believe that their family is not very different from biological families while the couples with children leaving home were assessing their parenting and the strength of their family ties. Overall, the couples seem to be constrained by their cultural understanding of parenthood.
Heparanase-neutralizing antibodies attenuate lymphoma tumor growth and metastasis

Significance Heparanase is the predominant enzyme that cleaves heparan sulfate (HS) in mammals, a linear polysaccharide that is normally attached to a core protein, forming HS proteoglycans (HSPGs) that are abundant in the cell surface and extracellular matrix (ECM). Cleavage of HS by heparanase results in structural alterations of the ECM and release of ECM-bound factors that together stimulate cancer metastasis and angiogenesis. Here we provide evidence that heparanase is expressed by B-lymphomas, and heparanase inhibitors restrain tumor growth. Furthermore, we describe, for the first time to our knowledge, the development and characterization of heparanase-neutralizing monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) that inhibit cell invasion and tumor metastasis. Moreover, we show that these mAbs attenuate lymphoma growth by targeting heparanase in the tumor microenvironment. Heparanase is an endoglycosidase that cleaves heparan sulfate side chains of proteoglycans, resulting in disassembly of the extracellular matrix underlying endothelial and epithelial cells and associating with enhanced cell invasion and metastasis. Heparanase expression is induced in carcinomas and sarcomas, often associating with enhanced tumor metastasis and poor prognosis. In contrast, the function of heparanase in hematological malignancies (except myeloma) was not investigated in depth. Here, we provide evidence that heparanase is expressed by human follicular and diffused non-Hodgkin's B-lymphomas, and that heparanase inhibitors restrain the growth of tumor xenografts produced by lymphoma cell lines. Furthermore, we describe, for the first time to our knowledge, the development and characterization of heparanase-neutralizing monoclonal antibodies that inhibit cell invasion and tumor metastasis, the hallmark of heparanase activity. Using luciferase-labeled Raji lymphoma cells, we show that the heparanase-neutralizing monoclonal antibodies profoundly inhibit tumor load in the mouse bones, associating with reduced cell proliferation and angiogenesis. Notably, we found that Raji cells lack intrinsic heparanase activity, but tumor xenografts produced by this cell line exhibit typical heparanase activity, likely contributed by host cells composing the tumor microenvironment. Thus, the neutralizing monoclonal antibodies attenuate lymphoma growth by targeting heparanase in the tumor microenvironment.
Supporting Knowledge and Expertise Finding within Australia's Defence Science and Technology Organisation

This paper reports on work aimed at supporting knowledge and expertise finding within a large research and development (R&D) organisation. The paper first discusses the nature of knowledge important to R&D organisations and presents a prototype information system developed to support knowledge and expertise finding. The paper then discusses a trial of the system within an R&D organisation, the implications and limitations of the trial, and discusses future research questions
Hermes Service: Distributed Hypermedia Educational Services on Demand

In this paper we present a distributed HypERMEdia SERVICE (HERMES SERVICE) which supports integrated capabilities for distance education and learning purposes. Hermes service consists of hermes servers and hermes browsers. The users are connected with the service using hermes browsers and retrieve hypermedia lessons organised in thematical units. The lessons are stored in various distributed Hermes servers which retrieve the requested lesson and transmit it to the corresponding browser on on-demand basis. The requested lesson is presented to the user according to a well defined presentation scenario. The media objects are rendered in a synchronized manner according to the spatio-temporal relationships existing among them. Finally, special monitoring mechanism controls the state of the network and adjusts the presentation process so as to improve presentation quality.
INFLUENCE OF ROAD CHARACTERISTICS ON DENSITY OF ACCIDENTS ON SECONDARY RURAL ROADS IN DENMARK

Danish road authorities have since the 1970s been handling hazardous road locations i.e. black spots – with great success. However, recent developments have undermined this approach as present-day accidents are far more widely scattered over the road network than in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. This situation is due to generally significant improvements in traffic safety, which have reduced the number of accidents since the 1970s, and due to the fact that the reporting rate of accidents has fallen. 10 years ago almost 20% of the persons injured in road accidents were recorded by the police and included in the official accident recording system in Denmark, whereas today only about 10 % of the injuries are recorded by the police. Consequently, many municipalities are faced by the paradox that they are unable to identify any black spots on the basis of accident recordings in rural areas even though more than 2/3 of the persons killed in road accidents are killed on rural roads. In order for the road authorities to continue to spend traffic safety budget money most effectively there is a requirement for workable non-accident based approaches. A PhD project at Aalborg University in Denmark is addressing this problem in seeking to develop a workable method based on road characteristics to identify hazardous road locations in the secondary rural road network in Denmark. This approach will leave road administrations independent of accident recordings in their site specific road safety work. As part of this PhD project the influence of road characteristics on accident density on secondary rural roads in Denmark is analyzed. The analysis is performed on 180 km rural two-lane roads in the municipality of Aalborg. The relationship between road characteristics and accident density is modeled using Poisson regression. As road characteristics AADT, carriageway width, shoulder width, presence of hard shoulder, intersection density, road access density, presence of bicycle path and the use of centerlines and lines along the shoulders are used. As accident data records from the official accident database in the years 2003-2011 are used. Poisson regression is used to analyze data rather than the negative binomial regression, since the Poisson model fits data better and data is not significantly over dispersed. The results show that AADT, intersection density and road access density have significant influence on accident density on secondary rural two-way roads. Furthermore, the results indicate that carriageway width and the extent of road markings – no road markings, only centerline, or both centerline and lines along the shoulders – also affect the accident density.
Hidden Translation and Translating Coset in Quantum Computing

We give efficient quantum algorithms for the problems of Hidden Translation and Hidden Subgroup in a large class of nonabelian solvable groups, including solvable groups of constant exponent and of constant length derived series. Our algorithms are recursive. For the base case, we solve efficiently Hidden Translation in $\mathbb{Z}_p^n$, whenever $p$ is a fixed prime. For the induction step, we introduce the problem Translating Coset generalizing both Hidden Translation and Hidden Subgroup and prove a powerful self-reducibility result: Translating Coset in a finite solvable group $G$ is reducible to instances of Translating Coset in $G/N$ and $N$, for appropriate normal subgroups $N$ of $G$. Our self-reducibility framework, combined with Kuperberg's subexponential quantum algorithm for solving Hidden Translation in any abelian group, leads to subexponential quantum algorithms for Hidden Translation and Hidden Subgroup in any solvable group.
Efficacy of simple viability models in ecological risk assessment: Does density dependence matter?

One commonly used PVA (population viability analysis) approach applies a diffusion approximation (DA) of population growth to time series of abundance data to estimate population parameters and various metrics of extinction risk. The simplest versions of this PVA assume density-independent population growth, an assumption that is commonly called into question for populations experiencing self-limitation. Using time series data generated from simulations of populations limited by three commonly used forms of density dependence (ceiling, Beverton-Holt, and Ricker) we asked the question: “When do simple density-independent PVA models provide useful guidelines for prioritizing extinction risk despite density-dependence inherent in the underlying real populations? ” Simple DA methods severely underestimated maximum growth rates (μmax) used to generate time series data for all three forms of density dependence. These methods also underestimated the intrinsic environmental variability in growth rates, or process .
Molecular dynamics calculations of the electrostatic properties of tubulin and their consequences for microtubules

We present the results of molecular dynamics computations based on the atomic resolution structures of tubulin published as 1TUB and 1 JFF in the Protein Data Bank. Values of net charge, spatial charge distribution and Cartesian dipole moment components are obtained for the tubulin alpha-beta heterodimer. Physical consequences of these results and subsequent computations are discussed for microtubules in terms of the effects on test charges, test dipoles, and neighboring microtubules. Our calculations indicate typical distances over which electrostatic effects can be felt by biomolecules, ions, and other microtubules. We also demonstrate the importance of electrostatics in the formation of the microtubule lattice and the tubulin-kinesin binding strength.
A proposal for using visualisation to support collaborative learning

The paper addresses the problem of how to share knowledge between a small group of people engaged in learning activities. In existing systems that support collaborative learning there is some evidence that difficulties occur when we try to: (1) support the sharing of knowledge between users; (2) support the learning process across distributed groups within a given educational setting; and (3) provide distributed access to knowledge from different types of machines. The proposed work is based on the examination of how a common structure for knowledge sharing can be used in distributed environments for collaborative learning in a higher education context by providing a 3D interactive visualisation. This work proposes the development of a visualisation design to convey information of the common structure for knowledge sharing to be created and enhanced in an educational context. We defend that the use of both the visualisation design and the structure for knowledge sharing can support collaborative learning.