Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mesh-based Monte Carlo method for fibre-optic optogenetic neural stimulation with direct photon flux recording strategy

We propose a Monte Carlo (MC) method based on a direct photon flux recording strategy using inhomogeneous, meshed rodent brain atlas. This MC method was inspired by and dedicated to fibre-optics-based optogenetic neural stimulations, thus providing an accurate and direct solution for light intensity distributions in brain regions with different optical properties. Our model was used to estimate the 3D light intensity attenuation for close proximity between an implanted optical fibre source and neural target area for typical optogenetics applications. Interestingly, there are discrepancies with studies using a diffusion-based light intensity prediction model, perhaps due to use of improper light scattering models developed for far-field problems. Our solution was validated by comparison with the gold-standard MC model, and it enabled accurate calculations of internal intensity distributions in an inhomogeneous near light source domain. Thus our strategy can be applied to studying how illuminated light spreads through an inhomogeneous brain area, or for determining the amount of light required for optogenetic manipulation of a specific neural target area.
Training With Independent Cranks Alters Muscle Coordination Pattern in Cyclists

Fernández-Peña, E, Lucertini, F, and Ditroilo, M. Traning with independent cranks alters muscle coordination pattern in cyclists. J Strength Cond Res 23(6): 1764-1772, 2009-In cycling, a circular pedaling action makes the most useful contribution to forward propulsion. Training with independent cranks (IC) has been proposed to improve the pedaling action. The aims of this study were, first, to assess whether the intermuscular coordination pattern of the pedaling action with normal cranks (NC) is modified after a training period with IC and, second, to determine if the new coordination pattern is maintained after a washing-out period. Eighteen cyclists, divided into a control (CG) and an experimental (EG) group, underwent 2 test sessions (T1 and T2) separated by 2 weeks of training (18 hours). The electromyographic (EMG) activity of 4 lower limbs' muscles was recorded while the athletes pedaled at 80 rpm for 60 seconds at 30 and 50% of the maximal power output determined during a maximal pedaling test. The tasks were performed with IC (EG) and NC (EG and CG). The EG underwent a retention test session (T3) after another 18-hour training with NC. EG showed a significant (45.8 ± 8.8 vs. 36.0 ± 6.1%, p < 0.01 at 30% intensity) and a quasi-significant (62.7 ± 10.3 vs. 54.2 ± 8.7%, p = 0.09 at 50% intensity) decrease in vastus lateralis EMG activity and a quasi-significant (36.4 ± 13.4 vs. 43.5 ± 10.9%, p = 0.09 at 30% intensity) and a significant (54.5 ± 12.1 vs. 65.5 ± 16.1%, p < 0.05 at 50% intensity) increase in biceps femoris EMG activity between T1-NC and T2-NC. By T3, EMG activity returned to initial levels (T1). On the contrary, CG did not reveal any significant variation. The results provide scientific support for muscle coordination pattern alteration from the use of IC, potentially achieving a more effective pedaling action. IC training reduces quadriceps exertion, thus preserving it for important moments during competition.
Treatment with Standard and Low Dose of Conjugated Equine Estrogen Differentially Modulates Estrogen Receptor Expression and Response to Angiotensin II in Mesenteric Venular Bed of Surgically Postmenopausal Hypertensive Rats

Standard hormone therapy for menopausal women [conjugated equine estrogen (CEE) 0.625 mg] has been associated with increased risk of venous thrombosis. Regimens containing a lower CEE dose (0.30 mg) have been used clinically to decrease side effects of supraphysiologic doses of estrogen. In this study, we determined the effects of standard (SD) and low dose (LD) of CEE on venular function in ovariectomized (OVX) spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR). Contractions by angiotensin-II (Ang-II 10 μM) in perfused mesenteric venular bed were markedly increased in OVX (21.5 ± 1.3 mmHg) compared with Sham (14.7 ± 1.1 mm Hg, P < 0.05). CEE-SD did not modify Ang-II responses in OVX, whereas CEE-LD restored Ang-II contraction to Sham levels. Endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) inhibition by L-NAME increased Ang-II contractions in Sham and CEE-LD and was without effect in venules of OVX SHR and CEE-SD. In OVX there was decreased NO generation in association with diminished eNOS phosphorylation and increased O2– generation in the venular wall. CEE-LD reverted the deleterious effects of ovariectomy. Although CEE-SD augmented eNOS phosphorylation in OVX, it was unable to increase NO levels, probably owing to its inability to reduce O2–. Distinct effects by CEE-SD and CEE-LD parallel the differential modulation of Ang-II and estrogen receptors. Compared with Sham, CEE-LD increases Ang II receptor type 2, whereas CEE-SD modified ERβ expression in the venous bed. Interestingly, both CEE doses increased G protein-coupled estrogen receptor in OVX. Our data suggest that estrogen dose is an important factor for venous function. Although CEE-LD reversed deleterious effects of OVX, CEE-SD showed null effects despite its ability to increase eNOS activity.
The Accumulation of Gene Regulation Through Time

Gene expression is governed by an intricate combination of transcription factors (TFs), microRNAs (miRNAs), splicing factors, and other regulators. Genes cannot support infinitely complex regulation due to sequence constraints and the increased likelihood of harmful errors. However, the upper limit of regulatory complexity in the genome is not known. Here, we provide evidence that human genes are currently not operating at their maximum capacity in terms of gene regulation. We analyze genes spanning the full spectrum of eukaryote evolution, from primate-specific genes to genes present in the eukaryote ancestor, and show that older genes tend to be bound by more TFs, have more conserved upstream sequences, generate more alternative isoforms, house more miRNA targets, and are more likely to be affected by nonsense-mediated decay and RNA editing. These results cannot be explained by overrepresentation of certain functional categories among younger or older genes. Furthermore, the increase in complexity is continuous over evolutionary time, without signs of saturation, leading to the conclusion that most genes, at least in the human genome, have the capacity to evolve even more complex gene regulation in the future.
Investigating contactless high frequency ultrasound microbeam stimulation for determination of invasion potential of breast cancer cells

In this article, we investigate the application of contactless high frequency ultrasound microbeam stimulation (HFUMS) for determining the invasion potential of breast cancer cells. In breast cancer patients, the finding of tumor metastasis significantly worsens the clinical prognosis. Thus, early determination of the potential of a tumor for invasion and metastasis would significantly impact decisions about aggressiveness of cancer treatment. Recent work suggests that invasive breast cancer cells (MDA‐MB‐231), but not weakly invasive breast cancer cells (MCF‐7, SKBR3, and BT‐474), display a number of neuronal characteristics, including expression of voltage‐gated sodium channels. Since sodium channels are often co‐expressed with calcium channels, this prompted us to test whether single‐cell stimulation by a highly focused ultrasound microbeam would trigger Ca2+ elevation, especially in highly invasive breast cancer cells. To calibrate the diameter of the microbeam ultrasound produced by a 200‐MHz single element LiNbO3 transducer, we focused the beam on a wire target and performed a pulse‐echo test. The width of the beam was ∼17 µm, appropriate for single cell stimulation. Membrane‐permeant fluorescent Ca2+ indicators were utilized to monitor Ca2+ changes in the cells due to HFUMS. The cell response index (CRI), which is a composite parameter reflecting both Ca2+ elevation and the fraction of responding cells elicited by HFUMS, was much greater in highly invasive breast cancer cells than in the weakly invasive breast cancer cells. The CRI of MDA‐MB‐231 cells depended on peak‐to‐peak amplitude of the voltage driving the transducer. These results suggest that HFUMS may serve as a novel tool to determine the invasion potential of breast cancer cells, and with further refinement may offer a rapid test for invasiveness of tumor biopsies in situ. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 2013;110: 2697–2705. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Semantic Video Annotation and Vague Query

The Digital Video Album (DVA) system described here integrates various cooperating subsystems to index and query video documents according to their semantic content and other metadata. A simple structured model is proposed to represent the video content. This model is compatible with XML Schemas and supports typed attributes and composition relationships. The architecture of DVA is described, and the workflows related to the semi-automatic indexing of videos are presented. The querying processing on video metadata is based on an extension of Boolean search, in a way to avoid empty answers and to rank query results. The query interface is also described.
Applicability Evaluation of Steel Plate Reinforced Concrete Structure to Primary Containment Vessel of BWRs (1) Mechanical and thermal properties of concrete under high temperature conditions

In order to enhance the safety of BWRs and to shorten the period of construction, R&D project for applying steel plate reinforced concrete (SC) structure to primary containment vessel was started in fiscal 2008. As a first step in the development of steel plate reinforced concrete containment vessel (SCCV), the applicability of SCCV was examined from the point of view of structural aspects. In this basic study, mechanical properties (compressive strength, static modulus of elasticity, splitting tensile strength) and thermal properties (thermal strain coefficient, specific heat) of concrete under high temperature up to 300 °C were obtained as the basic data necessary to evaluate the applicability of SCCV under high temperature. The mechanical properties of concrete up to 300 °C are slightly higher than the values of Eurocode, but the decline tendency of mechanical properties against temperature is approximately same. The influence of long term heating on the mechanical properties is not significant. A little difference is observed between the experimental results on thermal properties and the model of Eurocode.
Bioreactor Systems for Human Bone Tissue Engineering

Critical size skeletal defects resulting from trauma and pathological disorders still remain a major clinical problem worldwide. Bone engineering aims at generating unlimited amounts of viable tissue substitutes by interfacing osteocompetent cells of different origin and developmental stage with compliant biomaterial scaffolds, and culture the cell/scaffold constructs under proper culture conditions in bioreactor systems. Bioreactors help supporting efficient nutrition of cultured cells and allow the controlled provision of biochemical and biophysical stimuli required for functional regeneration and production of clinically relevant bone grafts. In this review, the authors report the advances in the development of bone tissue substitutes using human cells and bioreactor systems. Principal types of bioreactors are reviewed, including rotating wall vessels, spinner flasks, direct and indirect flow perfusion bioreactors, as well as compression systems. Specifically, the review deals with: (i) key elements of bioreactor design; (ii) range of values of stress imparted to cells and physiological relevance; (iii) maximal volume of engineered bone substitutes cultured in different bioreactors; and (iv) experimental outcomes and perspectives for future clinical translation.
A Reduction of Online Execution Time with Sparql

−With the upcoming deluge amount of data the number of services are emerging on internet. The retrieval of user input from web is difficult . To overcome this challenges a new approach is proposed, which is the collaborative filtering (Club-CF) and description logic based matching technique is used to solve the matching problem. Its role aim at recruiting the similar services in the same clusters of recommended services collaboratively. This approach is achieved using two stages like all the available services divided into an small-scale cluster and then the collaborative filtering algorithm is imposed on clusters. Now the number of services in clusters which is comparatively much less than the services available on web. As a result thus approach helps to reduce the online execution time of collaborative filtering. So the user recommended services were easily extracted from the database.
Locked-in syndrome during stellate ganglion block

Intra-arterial injection of a local anaesthetic during stellate ganglion blockade may cause life-threatening complications. The usual complications are apnoea, unconsciousness and seizures. However, occasionally an unusual complication, ‘locked-in’ syndrome, has also been reported. In this syndrome the patients remain conscious despite their inability to move, breathe or speak. Here we describe a patient who developed features akin to the locked-in syndrome along with severe hypotension and bradycardia, after an injection of only 2 ml of lignocaine during a stellate ganglion block.
Effect of air-cooled slag and granulated blast furnace slag addition as substitutor on fly ash based geopolymer

Air Cooled Slag and Granulated Blast Furnace Slag is a waste material from steelmaking process that not utilized, even though it rich in silica and CaO that can increase mechanical properties of building materials. Therefore, this material is potential as substitutor for geopolymer. Geopolymer is an alkali activated material consists of aluminosilicate precursor activated by NaOH and waterglass as activator. One of the common aluminosilicate binder used is fly ash. Geopolymer was made by mixing fly ash and air cooled slag or granulated blast furnace slag in certain ratio with alkali activator solution. The aim for this study is to obtain the best ratio of slag to fly ash binder that produces the highest compressive strength. The best compressive strength was 29.80 MPa achieved in fly ash:air cooled slag 40:60 ratio and 31.33 MPa achieved in fly ash:granulated blast furnace slag 40:60 ratio. X-Ray Diffraction test showed the appearance of anorthite (Ca, Na (Al, Si)4 O8). FTIR characterization showed the ap.
Feasibility of reirradiation in the treatment of locally recurrent rectal cancer

Many patients with locally recurrent rectal cancer receive radiotherapy for the treatment of the primary tumour. It is unclear whether reirradiation is safe and effective when a local recurrence develops. The aim of this study was to evaluate the toxicity and oncological outcome of reirradiation in patients with locally recurrent rectal carcinoma.
New dynamic clustering approaches within belief function framework

Recently, dynamic clustering has attracted significant attention and has been considered as a challenging task in unsupervised classification. However, most existing approaches assume that all classification parameters are certain. Unfortunately, the reality is connected to uncertainty by nature. To solve these problems, we propose in this paper new dynamic clustering approaches, based on the well known K-modes method, under uncertainty for handling both increasing and decreasing of the clusters' number where uncertain categorical attribute values are represented and managed through the Transferable Belief Model TBM concepts. By using the cluster cohesion and separation concepts, our main objective is to update the clusters' partition without performing the reclustering from scratch. The experiments on known benchmark data sets, show that our dynamic methods outperform the static version.
Multi-semantic Video Annotation with Semantic Network

For bridging the semantic gap between the low-level features of videos and high-level semantic concepts in videos, we propose a multi-semantic video annotation method with semantic network. First, we use the semantic network to represent the highlevel semantic knowledge and model the relationships between the concepts. Then we divide the videos to key frames and use Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) to extract low-level visual features and detect the concepts in the videos. Finally, we combine the low-level features with the high-level knowledge to perform a two-level reasoning to optimize the result. Experiment results show that the proposed method significantly outperforms existing video annotation techniques in terms of precision value.
Sudden Cardiac Death in Young Adults: Environmental Risk Factors and Genetic Aspects of Premature Atherosclerosis *,†

Abstract: Familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) is a genetic disorder that may lead to premature coronary heart disease (CHD) and sudden cardiac death (SCD). Mutations in the LDLR or APOB genes cause FH. We have screened the LDLR and the ligand‐binding region of APOB genes in 52 cases of SCD. Deceased patients were younger than 40 years of age and were suspected of having FH. The LDLR and APOB genes were examined via PCR, high‐resolution melting, and DNA sequencing. Therein, it was observed that 7.7% of the screened patients exhibited a rare sequence variant in the LDLR gene, with 5.7% suspected of being pathogenic mutations. Lipid profiles and genetic testing for FH could be considered when autopsy reveals significant atherosclerosis of the coronary arteries in young adults. First‐degree family members are advised to seek medical advice and testing to determine their own risks of atherosclerosis to prevent premature CHD and SCD.
Serious Security Weakness in RSA Cryptosystem

Nowadays, RSA is the well-known cryptosystem which supports most of electronic commercial communications. RSA is working on the base of multiplication of two prime numbers. Currently different kinds of attacks have indentified against RSA by cryptanalysis. This paper has shown that regardless to the size of secret key and public key, it is possible to decrypt one cipher text by different secret keys RSA algorithm and in excellent condition, there are two similar key at least available in domain of two prime numbers multiplication.
AUTOMATED GEOREFERENCING OF VIDEO USING REGISTRATION WITH CONTROLLED IMAGERY AND VIDEO-PHOTOGRAMMETRY

A software solution is presented that allows users to automatically or semi-automatically register their aerial video imagery to controlled reference imagery and generate geographically accurate, orthorectified video mosaics. Video provides a cost-efficient data source for many remote-sensing applications where standard aerial photography is cost prohibitive. Video provides an inexpensive, easily obtained, compact sensor that can be carried aloft easily, controlled by novice users and even carried on small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Exploitation of video imagery has been hampered by the small Field of View (FOV) of video cameras and the generally manual processes required for using video as if it were standard aerial imagery. The Rigorous Aerial Video Exploitation eNvironment (RAVEN) is a software tool for accurately geolocating and geo-rectifying aerial video. RAVEN was developed to allow a user to photogrammetrically tie an aerial video sequence to a reference image using automated processing. RAVEN was developed by Observera, Inc., a leader in the application of advanced imagery exploitation techniques, in conjunction with ImageLinks, Inc., the premier provider of quick response geometrically corrected imagery products. RAVEN provides the ability to very accurately register a sequence of video frames to a controlled reference image in a semiautomatic or fully automatic mode. Once registered, RAVEN also provides the ability to exploit the more accurate collection information (i.e., metadata) generated through registration. Additionally RAVEN produces orthorectified and geographically controlled video mosaics. RAVEN can be used to process sequences of overlapping still-frame imagery. End-products include updated, more accurate metadata, orthorectified mosaics of the video, with or without background imagery, and accuracy estimates for the geolocation information. The process can easily register frames that start off hundreds of meters away from their actual location. Accuracy varies with processing time, image scale, image quality, and imaging angle. Experiments have demonstrated submeter accuracies under controlled conditions for video with resolutions ranging from 1 to 0.02 m. Examples and results will be presented.
Content Selection From Semantic Web Data

So far, there has been little success in Natural Language Generation in coming up with general models of the content selection process. Nonetheless, there has been some work on content selection that employ Machine learning or heuristic search. On the other side, there is a clear tendency in NLG towards the use of resources encoded in standard Semantic Web representation formats. For these reasons, we believe that time has come to propose an initial challenge on content selection from Semantic Web data. In this paper, we briefly outline the idea and plan for the execution of this task.
Developing an efficient and reproducible conjugation-based gene transfer system for bifidobacteria.

Bifidobacteria are widely used as probiotics and have attracted increasing research interest worldwide. However, molecular techniques are still very scarce mainly due to the low efficiencies and strain-specific electroporation protocols that have been developed. Bacterial conjugation enables the transfer of genetic material among a relatively wide range of organisms and with virtually no size limitation. A conjugation protocol was developed based on the RP4 conjugative machinery in the Escherichia coli strain WM3064(pBB109). Using this machinery, the newly constructed transmissible E. coli-Bifidobacterium shuttle vector, pDOJHR-WD2, was successfully and consistently transferred into several strains representing four Bifidobacterium species at efficiencies which correlated with the E. coli to bifidobacteria ratios. Higher ratios were found to significantly improve transfer frequency per recipient, with almost 100 % transfer frequency occurring when the ratio was 10(5) : 1. The incompatible resident plasmid, pDOJH10S, in Bifidobacterium longum DJO10A was able to coexist, albeit at lower copy numbers, with the incoming vector pDOJHR-WD2 even though they possess the same ori. In some cases the copy number of this resident plasmid was too low to observe via gel electrophoresis, but it could be detected by Southern hybridization. Plasmid curing resulted in a strain, DJO10A-W3, that had lost both plasmids and this showed a one-log increase in conjugation efficiency due to the lack of plasmid incompatibility. In conclusion, this novel conjugative gene transfer protocol can be used for the introduction of genetic material (without size restriction) into Bifdobacterium species and is particularly useful for strains that are recalcitrant to electroporation.