Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Spinal Health during Unloading and Reloading Associated with Spaceflight

Spinal elongation and back pain are recognized effects of exposure to microgravity, however, spinal health has received relatively little attention. This changed with the report of an increased risk of post-flight intervertebral disc (IVD) herniation and subsequent identification of spinal pathophysiology in some astronauts post-flight. Ground-based analogs, particularly bed rest, suggest that a loss of spinal curvature and IVD swelling may be factors contributing to unloading-induced spinal elongation. In flight, trunk muscle atrophy, in particular multifidus, may precipitate lumbar curvature loss and reduced spinal stability, but in-flight (ultrasound) and pre- and post-flight (MRI) imaging have yet to detect significant IVD changes. Current International Space Station missions involve short periods of moderate-to-high spinal (axial) loading during running and resistance exercise, superimposed upon a background of prolonged unloading (microgravity). Axial loading acting on a dysfunctional spine, weakened by anatomical changes and local muscle atrophy, might increase the risk of damage/injury. Alternatively, regular loading may be beneficial. Spinal pathology has been identified in-flight, but there are few contemporary reports of in-flight back injury and no recent studies of post-flight back injury incidence. Accurate routine in-flight stature measurements, in- and post-flight imaging, and tracking of pain and injury (herniation) for at least 2 years post-flight is thus warranted. These should be complemented by ground-based studies, in particular hyper buoyancy floatation (HBF) a novel analog of spinal unloading, in order to elucidate the mechanisms and risk of spinal injury, and to evaluate countermeasures for exploration where injury could be mission critical.
Regularity flow inspired target tracking in FLIR imagery

In this paper, a novel approach for target tracking in FLIR (Forward Looking Infra-red) imagery is presented. Generally IR (infra-red) signatures of targets are more prominent than background and clutter, and this contrast is commonly used as a clue for detection of targets and initialization of tracking algorithms. But in the case of small targets with poor SNR, detection based on this feature alone becomes challenging. The present approach also relies on this contrast based clue, but in place of detecting small targets, limited to a couple of pixels in X - Y plane the trajectory followed by the targets is explored in a sequence of X - T frames. A small group of frames of the video sequence is taken to form a 3D data cuboid with X, Y, T axes. This cuboid is re-represented as a stack of contiguous X - T slices over Y. As only a few of these X - T slices contain information related to the trajectory of horizontally moving objects, we can use Hough transform to detect lines of arbitrary inclination which would represent the trajectory in these selected X - T slices. Subsequently, the detected trajectory in X - T can be reprojected to the X - Y frames to label different moving objects. This method is commonly called “track before detect”. A dataset of infra-red sequences having targets like tanks, AFVs and other targets of military importance in presence of substantial amount of clutter and variable atmospheric and thermodynamic conditions is used to validate our method. The results obtained demonstrate effectiveness and robustness of our approach. Multiple object tracking capability, occlusion handling capability and tracking without initialization are inherent advantages of our approach.
Trends in Data Processing for Decision Support

The quality of decision-making process is affected by the quality of information used in the process. Trends in data processing for decision support show that business users need analytical applications which incorporate a variety of data analysis techniques incorporating task-specific knowledge, i.e. that are business task-oriented. Such business analytics applications must be vertically connected across the organization, their information is desired to be in a visually acceptable form, even through wireless devices. The analysis functions have to be integrated into the information system, and integrated into the action and result measurements.
Properties of lipid microdomains in a muscle cell membrane visualized by single molecule microscopy

The lateral motion of single fluorescence labeled lipid molecules was imaged in native cell membranes on a millisecond time scale and with positional accuracy of ∼50 nm, using ‘single dye tracing’. This first application of single molecule microscopy to living cells rendered possible the direct observation of lipid‐specific membrane domains. These domains were sensed by a lipid probe with saturated acyl chains as small areas in a liquid‐ordered phase: the probe showed confined but fast diffusion, with high partitioning (∼100‐fold) and long residence time (∼13 s). The analogous probe with mono‐unsaturated chains diffused predominantly unconfined within the membrane. With ∼15 saturated probes per domain, the locations, sizes, shapes and motions of individual domains became clearly visible. Domains had a size of 0.7 μm (0.2–2 μm), covering ∼13% of total membrane area. Both the liquid‐ordered phase characteristics and the sizes of domains match properties of membrane fractions described as detergent‐resistant membranes (DRMs), strongly suggesting that the domains seen are the in vivo correlate of DRMs and thus may be identified as lipid rafts.
Successful Organizational Strategies to Sustain Use of A-CHESS: A Mobile Intervention for Individuals With Alcohol Use Disorders

Background Mobile health (mHealth) services are growing in importance in health care research with the advancement of wireless networks, tablets, and mobile phone technologies. These technologies offer a wide range of applications that cover the spectrum of health care delivery. Although preliminary experiments in mHealth demonstrate promising results, more robust real-world evidence is needed for widespread adoption and sustainment of these technologies. Objective Our aim was to identify the problems/challenges associated with sustained use of an mHealth addiction recovery support app and to determine strategies used by agencies that successfully sustained client use of A-CHESS. Methods Qualitative inquiry assessed staff perceptions about organizational attributes and strategies associated with sustained use of the mobile app, A-CHESS. A total of 73 interviews of clinicians and administrators were conducted. The initial interviews (n=36) occurred at the implementation of A-CHESS. Follow-up interviews (n=37) occurred approximately 12 and 24 months later. A coding scheme was developed and Multiuser NVivo was used to manage and analyze the blinded interview data. Results Successful strategies used by treatment providers to sustain A-CHESS included (1) strong leadership support, (2) use of client feedback reports to follow up on non-engaged clients, (3) identify passionate staff and incorporate A-CHESS discussions in weekly meetings, (4) develop A-CHESS guidelines related to client use, (5) establish internal work groups to engage clients, and (6) establish a financial strategy to sustain A-CHESS use. The study also identified attributes of A-CHESS that enhanced as well as inhibited its sustainability. Conclusions Mobile apps can play an important role in health care delivery. However, providers will need to develop strategies for engaging both staff and patients in ongoing use of the apps. They will also need to rework business processes to accommodate the changes in communication frequency and style, learn to use app data for decision making, and identify financing mechanisms for supporting these changes.
Pediatric Chest CT: Wide-Volume and Helical Scan Modes in 320-MDCT.

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to compare wide-volume and helical pediatric 320-MDCT of the chest with respect to radiation dose and image quality. MATERIALS AND METHODS From November 2012 to September 2013, 59 wide-volume and 47 helical pediatric chest 320-MDCT images were obtained. The same tube potential and effective tube current-time product were applied in the two groups according to patient weight (group A, < 10 kg, n = 18; group B, 10-19.9 kg, n = 60; group C, 20-39.9 kg, n = 28). To compensate for overranging, adjusted CT dose index (CTDI) was calculated by dividing dose-length product (DLP) by the scan ranges imaged. Adjusted CTDI, DLP, overall image quality, motion artifact, noise, and scan ranges were compared by Mann-Whitney U test or t test. RESULTS The adjusted CTDI was significantly lower in the group who underwent wide-volume CT than in the group who underwent helical CT (weight group A, p < 0.001; group B, p < 0.001; group C, p = 0.003). The DLP was lower in the wide-volume group than in the helical CT group in weight groups A (p < 0.001) and B (p < 0.001) but not in group C (p = 0.162). All CT scans were of diagnostic quality, and there was no significant difference between the wide-volume and helical CT groups (p = 0.318). The motion artifact score was significantly higher in the wide-volume group than in the helical CT group in groups B (p < 0.001) and C (p = 0.010) but not in group A (p = 0.931). The noise was significantly lower in the wide-volume group than in the helical CT group (p < 0.001). CONCLUSION In pediatric chest CT, use of wide-volume CT can decrease radiation exposure while preserving image quality. It is associated with less noise than helical CT but may be subject to more motion artifact.
Symbolic transformations of heart rate variability preserve information about cardiac autonomic control

Traditional measures of heart rate variability (HRV) in the time or frequency domain (e.g. standard deviation of normal-to-normal intervals, SDNN, or the high frequency component of spectral analysis, HF) may be used to track vagal and sympathetic modulation directed to the sinus node. In this study, we assess the ability of symbolic analysis to monitor cardiac autonomic regulation during two autonomic challenges (phenylephrine and nitroprusside; low and high dose of atropine). To assess the effect of the coarse graining procedure, symbolic series obtained from four different transformations over the original series and the series of successive differences of the original values. The analysis focused on patterns of length 3 and exploited a redundancy reduction strategy to group patterns into a small number of families. It turns out that each symbolic series created by the four transformations still contained sufficient dynamical features to quantify differences of cardiovascular changes during the pharmacological challenges. The symbolic series created by transformations of the beat-to-beat interview, i.e RR interval series, showed that patterns without variations (0V) appear more often during a high dose of atropine compared to rest or to a low dose of atropine. Furthermore, patterns with two unlike variations (2UV) appear more often during a low dose of atropine and less often during a high dose of atropine. Differences of nitroprusside and phenylephrine could also be assessed by patterns with these variations. In conclusion, the changes of cardiovascular regulation during pharmacological challenges can be assessed by the analysis of symbolic dynamics derived from the RR interval series independently of the specific symbolic transformation.
Rat C3 Conversion by Rat Anti‐2,4, Dinitrophenyl (DNP) Hapten IgA Immune Precipitates

Moncmeric (m‐) and polymeric (p‐) anti‐DNP monoclonal (MC) rat IgA antibodies (Ab) were tested for precipitation with DNP‐bovine serum albumin (DNP‐BSA) and C3 conversion in rat serum, with rat MC anti‐DNP igG2b used as reference. At equivalence, p‐IgA rapidly precipitated DNP‐BSA, with little antigen (Ag) left in the supernatant. In contrast, m‐IgA at five‐fold higher concentration precipitated Ag very slowly, with <50% of Ag precipitated at equivalence. The Ag/Ab weight ratio at equivalence was 0.13 for both m‐ and p‐IgA, but the molar ratio was 0.3 for m‐IgA and close to 1.0 for p‐IgA, suggesting a higher avidity of p‐IgA. Rat C3 conversion by rat IgA immune precipitates (IP) was about 20% with m‐IgA and 40% with p‐IgA. EGTA did not significantly affect these figures. Therefore, rat MC IgA IP activated the rat alternative C pathway. Neither rat nor mouse IgA anti‐DNP IP activated C3 in normal human serum.
Transmit Delay Structure Design for Blind Channel Estimation over Multipath Channels

Wireless communications often exploit guard intervals between data blocks to reduce interblock interference in frequency-selective fading channels. Here we propose a dual-branch transmission scheme that utilizes guard intervals for blind channel estimation and equalization. Unlike existing transmit diversity schemes, in which different antennas transmit delayed, zero-padded, or time-reversed versions of the same signal, in the proposed transmission scheme, each antenna transmits an independent data stream. It is shown that for systems with two transmit antennas and one receive antenna, as in the case of one transmit antenna and two receive antennas, blind channel estimation and equalization can be carried out based only on the second-order statistics of symbol-rate sampled channel output. The proposed approach involves no preequalization and has no limitations on channel-zero locations. Moreover, extension of the proposed scheme to systems with multiple receive antennas and/or more than two transmit antennas is discussed. It is also shown that in combination with the threaded layered space-time (TST) architecture and turbo coding, significant improvement can be achieved in the overall system performance.
Familial aggregation in frontotemporal dementia

Objective and background Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is a common, non-Alzheimer's dementia. Its familial occurrence has been reported, but the frequency of positive family history is unknown. Methods We carried out a nationwide genetic-epidemiologic study of FTD in the Dutch population of 15 million people. The family history of dementia was analyzed in 74 FTD patients and 561 age- and gender-matched control subjects. Results We found one or more first-degree relatives with dementia before age 80 in 38% (28 of 74) of FTD patients, but only in 15% (84 of 561) of control subjects. Ten percent of FTD patients had two or more first-degree relatives with dementia compared with 0.9% of the control subjects. Seven percent of FTD patients showed the ApoE4E4 genotype versus 2.3% of the control subjects. The first-degree relatives of FTD had a risk of 22% for dementia before age 80 compared with 11% in relatives of control subjects. The age of onset of dementia in affected first-degree relatives of FTD patients (60.9 ± 10.6 years) was significantly lower than among affected relatives of control subjects (72.3 ± 8.5 years). The first-degree relatives of FTD patients were 3.5 times (95% CI, 2.4 to 5.2) more at risk for developing dementia before age 80 than relatives of control subjects. The hazard ratio in the subgroup with unknown linkage to chromosome 17 was 2.4 (95% CI, 1.5 to 3.7). Conclusion This study documents the importance of genetic factors in a proportion of FTD patients with the age at onset of dementia in first-degree relatives being 11 years earlier than in the general population.
Analysis of photoplethysmographic signals of cardiovascular patients

We present the results of the spectral analysis of photoplethysmography (PPG) signals for normals and patients with various cardiovascular disorders. Photoplethysmography is a non-invasive technique that measures relative blood volume changes in the blood vessels close to the skin. The PPG signal of 10 subjects was recorded from the earlobes. Five of the subjects were critically ill patients (2-atrial flutter, 3-post myocardial infarction) and the remaining five were normals. The spectral analysis indicates that the contents of the PPG signal are different for normals and cardiovascular patients. We also investigated heart rate variability (HRV) using the PPG signal. These results show that PPG can be used to analyze cardiovascular disorders and supplement existing methods of analyzing HRV.
Functional characterization of UDP‐rhamnose‐dependent rhamnosyltransferase involved in anthocyanin modification, a key enzyme determining blue coloration in Lobelia erinus

Summary Because structural modifications of flavonoids are closely related to their properties, such as stability, solubility, flavor and coloration, characterizing the enzymes that catalyze the modification reactions can be useful for engineering agriculturally beneficial traits of flavonoids. In this work, we examined the enzymes involved in the modification pathway of highly glycosylated and acylated anthocyanins that accumulate in Lobelia erinus. Cultivar Aqua Blue (AB) of L. erinus is blue‐flowered and accumulates delphinidin 3‐O‐p‐coumaroylrutinoside‐5‐O‐malonylglucoside‐3′5′‐O‐dihydroxycinnamoylglucoside (lobelinins) in its petals. Cultivar Aqua Lavender (AL) is mauve‐flowered, and LC‐MS analyses showed that AL accumulated delphinidin 3‐O‐glucoside (Dp3G), which was not further modified toward lobelinins. A crude protein assay showed that modification processes of lobelinin were carried out in a specific order, and there was no difference between AB and AL in modification reactions after rhamnosylation of Dp3G, indicating that the lack of highly modified anthocyanins in AL resulted from a single mutation of rhamnosyltransferase catalyzing the rhamnosylation of Dp3G. We cloned rhamnosyltransferase genes (RTs) from AB and confirmed their UDP‐rhamnose‐dependent rhamnosyltransferase activities on Dp3G using recombinant proteins. In contrast, the RT gene in AL had a 5‐bp nucleotide deletion, resulting in a truncated polypeptide without the plant secondary product glycosyltransferase box. In a complementation test, AL that was transformed with the RT gene from AB produced blue flowers. These results suggest that rhamnosylation is an essential process for lobelinin synthesis, and thus the expression of RT has a great impact on the flower color and is necessary for the blue color of Lobelia flowers. Significance Statement Structural modifications of flavonoids are closely related with their characteristics, but the responsible catalytic enzymes have not been fully investigated in plants. Here we examined enzymatic modifications of a highly glycosylated and acylated anthocyanin, lobelinin, in blue‐flowered Lobelia erinus. We found that multiple modifications of lobelinin were determined by strict substrate specificities of the biosynthetic enzymes and specifically that a rhamnosyltransferase determined a change from blue to mauve.
Development of a door opening system on rescue robot for search “UMRS-2007”

In rescue operation with a group of rescue robots, the robot has an ability to move around freely even if there are doors parting rooms. Since Great Hanshin Awaji earthquake, the rescue robot series named UMRS have been developed. This time the robot with a door opening system has been developed. This robot has the manipulator to locate the end effecter precisely to door knob position and the hand to grip and rotate this knob. The outline of this robot and the sequence of this door opening are reported in this paper.
Traumatic elbow effusions in pediatric patients: are occult fractures the rule?

OBJECTIVE Elbow joint effusion with no fracture seen on radiographs of pediatric patients after acute trauma has become synonymous with occult fracture. This study evaluates the incidence of occult fractures in such cases as determined by findings on follow-up radiographs. MATERIALS AND METHODS Initial and follow-up radiographs were reviewed for 54 children (mean age, 7 years) with a history of trauma who had joint effusion but no identifiable fracture on initial radiographs. The presence of periosteal reaction or bony sclerosis on follow-up radiographs was considered to be evidence of occult fracture. Mean time between initial and follow-up radiographs was 18 days (range, 14-50 days). RESULTS Only nine (17%) of the 54 patients showed evidence of a healing occult fracture on follow-up radiographs. However, we found a statistically significant relationship (p = .001) between persistent joint effusion on follow-up radiographs and occult fracture. Seventy-eight percent of cases with occult fracture, versus 16% of cases without occult fracture, had persistent effusions. CONCLUSION Joint effusion without visualized fracture on initial radiographs after trauma does not correlate with the presence of occult fracture in most cases (83%). Therefore, joint effusion as revealed by radiography should not be considered synonymous with occult fracture.
High-Content Phenotypic Screening and Triaging Strategy to Identify Small Molecules Driving Oligodendrocyte Progenitor Cell Differentiation

Multiple Sclerosis is a demyelinating disease of the CNS and the primary cause of neurological disability in young adults. Loss of myelinating oligodendrocytes leads to neuronal dysfunction and death and is an important contributing factor to this disease. Endogenous oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPCs), which on differentiation are responsible for replacing myelin, are present in the adult CNS. As such, therapeutic agents that can stimulate OPCs to differentiate and remyelinate demyelinated axons under pathologic conditions may improve neuronal function and clinical outcome. We describe the details of an automated, cell-based, morphometric-based, high-content screen that is used to identify small molecules eliciting the differentiation of OPCs after 3 days. Primary screening was performed using rat CG-4 cells maintained in culture conditions that normally support a progenitor cell–like state. From a library of 73,000 diverse small molecules within the Sanofi collection, 342 compounds were identified that increased OPC morphological complexity as an indicator of oligodendrocyte maturation. Subsequent to the primary high-content screen, a suite of cellular assays was established that identified 22 nontoxic compounds that selectively stimulated primary rat OPCs but not C2C12 muscle cell differentiation. This rigorous triaging yielded several chemical series for further expansion and bio- or cheminformatics studies, and their compelling biological activity merits further investigation.
JE-ADVAX Vaccine Protection against Japanese Encephalitis Virus Mediated by Memory B Cells in the Absence of CD8+ T Cells and Pre-Exposure Neutralizing Antibody

ABSTRACT JE-ADVAX is a new, delta inulin-adjuvanted, Japanese encephalitis (JE) candidate vaccine with a strong safety profile and potent immunogenicity that confers efficient immune protection not only against JE virus but also against related neurotropic flaviviruses such as West Nile virus. In this study, we investigated the immunological mechanism of protection by JE-ADVAX vaccine using knockout mice deficient in B cells or CD8+ T cells and poor persistence of neutralizing antibody or by adoptive transfer of immune splenocyte subpopulations. We show that memory B cells induced by JE-ADVAX provide long-lived protection against JE even in the absence of detectable pre-exposure serum neutralizing antibodies and without the requirement of CD8+ T cells. Upon virus encounter, these vaccine-induced memory B cells were rapidly triggered to produce neutralizing antibodies that then protected immunized mice from morbidity and mortality. The findings suggest that the extent of the B-cell memory compartment might be a better immunological correlate for clinical efficacy of JE vaccines than the currently recommended measure of serum neutralizing antibody. This may explain the paradox where JE protection is observed in some subjects even in the absence of detectable serum neutralizing antibody. Our investigation also established the suitability of a novel flavivirus challenge model (β2-microglobulin-knockout mice) for studies of the role of B-cell memory responses in vaccine protection.