Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A highly efficient method to differentiate smooth muscle cells from human embryonic stem cells.

To the Editor: The molecular mechanisms and the control of smooth muscle cell (SMC) differentiation have been extensively investigated because of its therapeutic potential.1 To date, different cell types have been used to study SMC differentiation, including a variety of mouse embryonic stem cells,2 adult stem cells,3,4 and others.5 Because several fundamental differences exist between mouse and human embryonic development,6 lack of a good model system to study human SMC differentiation has hampered the progress of translating SMC knowledge to novel clinical therapies. Human embryonic stem (hES) cells provide a valuable source of cells for studying human cell differentiation and developing therapeutic potentials in regenerative medicine. Since the initial report describing the derivation of hES cells,7 a variety of studies have established in vitro differentiation strategies to several lineages. Recently, it has been demonstrated that vascular progenitors derived from hES cells could be differentiated into endothelial cells and SMCs by endothelial …
Chemotactic activity of urethral secretions in men with urethritis and the effect of treatment.

The chemotactic activity of urethral exudate and the effect of treatment were assessed in 67 patients with nongonococcal urethritis (NGU) or gonorrhea. All samples demonstrated chemotactic activity related to the number of neutrophils seen on Gram's staining of the urethral smear. Chemotactic activity decreased after treatment in patients with Chlamydia-positive NGU (mean +/- SE, 21.1 +/- 2.7 cells/high-power field [hpf] before treatment; 8.7 +/- 2.2 after treatment; P < .004) and gonorrhea (25.6 +/- 5.2 cells/hpf before treatment; 1.6 +/- 0.7 after treatment; P < .015). Chemotactic activity increased again in Chlamydia-positive NGU patients to 21.0 +/- 3.3 cells/hpf (P < .05) 2-3 weeks after cessation of therapy in the absence of demonstrable infection or further intercourse. There was no significant decrease in chemotactic activity after therapy in the Chlamydia-negative NGU or persistent urethritis groups. These data suggest a previously unrecognized persistent chemotactic stimulus in urethral exudate from patients with urethritis.
Enhancing academic literature review through relevance recommendation: Using bibliometric and text-based features for classification

The growing number of scientific publications and the availability of information in online repositories enable researchers to discover, analyze and maintain an updated state of the art bibliography. Indeed, few works explore this scenario in order to support researchers on the literature review step. Literature reviewing comprises a fundamental part of the scientific writing, in which publications are evaluated and selected by relevance. Different approaches for relevance are possible, whether a more qualitative (semantic) approach with text-based techniques either more quantitative (numerical) approaches that use article's metadata, such as bibliometric measures. Bibliometrics provide direct evidences of relevance and could represent good attributes for automatic classification. Our insight is that if a bibliometric-based cannot outperform text-based approaches, a hybrid model using both could benefit from it enhancing the classification performance (in terms of accuracy, precision and recall). In this paper we presented a novel approach, using Machine Learning (ML), namely the ID3 algorithm for a classification model that learn from specialist annotated data and recommend relevant papers for a specific research. Experiments showed good results on learning performance when using a hybrid approach, increasing testing performance in 12%, achieving 89.05% in accuracy when classifying a paper as relevant.
An information overload study: using design methods for understanding

Information overload is not a clear-cut concept. To understand the concept we studied knowledge workers in their organizational context applying different design methods. These methods are increasingly used to inspire designers in designing technology solutions. However, for understanding ambiguous concepts they are less common. We compared critical incidents collection, cultural probing and storytelling with respect to their contribution to articulate the concept of information overload and to understand why respondents perceive information overload as problematic. At the same time, these insights will steer us towards practical guidelines and technological solutions bridging the gap between understanding human behaviour and (technological) support.
Identifying and visualizing Architectural Debt and its efficiency interest in the automotive domain: A case study

Architectural Technical Debt has recently received the attention of the scientific community, as a suitable metaphor for describing sub-optimal architectural solutions having short-term benefits but causing a long-term negative impact. We study such phenomenon in the context of Volvo Car Group, where the development of modern cars includes complex systems with mechanical components, electronics and software working together in a complicated network to perform an increasing number of functions and meet the demands of many customers. This puts high requirements on having an architecture and design that can handle these demands. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to manage Architecture Technical Debt, in order to make sure that the advantages of sub-optimal solutions do not lead to the payment of a large interest. We conducted a case study at Volvo Car Group and we discovered that architectural violations in the detailed design had an impact on the efficiency of the communication between components, which is an essential quality in cars and other embedded systems. Such interest is not studied in literature, which usually focuses on the maintainability aspects of Technical Debt. To explore how this Architectural Technical Debt and its interest could be communicated to stakeholders, we developed a visual tool. We found that not only was the Architectural Debt highly interesting for the architects and other stakeholders at VCG, but the proposed visualization was useful in increasing the awareness of the impact that Architectural Technical Debt had on efficiency.
Posttraumatic stress disorder in children exposed to intimate partner violence: the clinical picture of physiological arousal symptoms

ABSTRACT In recent years, researchers have focused on acquiring a better understanding of the development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in children under the age of six following exposure to chronic trauma, such as intimate partner violence (IPV). Despite a number of empirical studies on early childhood PTSD, few have examined how children differ in the clinical presentation of PTSD symptomatology. There may be wide variability in the presentation of symptoms within the four clusters of PTSD symptoms: re-experiencing, alterations in physiological arousal, negative alterations in cognitions and mood, and avoidance. Symptoms of physiological arousal may be particularly difficult for parents and therapists to identify and report on because many of these symptoms are internal sensations (e.g. racing heart beat), and they are most often evaluated out of context (e.g. in reports of past behaviour). Thus, little is known about the presentation of these symptoms in preschoolers. To better identify physiological arousal symptoms as they occur, this study examined therapists’ qualitative reports on the presentation of physiological symptoms of 56 young children exposed to IPV while they participated in an intervention programme. Results indicated that children were most likely to exhibit emotion dysregulation, behavioural outbursts, mood swings and temper tantrums when physiologically aroused. The presence of temper tantrums as a component of arousal and reactivity is consistent with recent Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (fifth edition) changes, which include these elements as new criteria for PTSD in children aged six and younger. Behavioural examples are described and implications discussed for clinical intervention.
Variable Selection for Cox's proportional Hazards Model and Frailty Model

A class of variable selection procedures for parametric models via nonconcave penalized likelihood was proposed in Fan and Li (2001a). It has been shown there that the resulting procedures perform as well as if the subset of significant variables were known in advance. Such a property is called an oracle property. The proposed procedures were illustrated in the context of linear regression, robust linear regression and generalized linear models. In this paper, the nonconcave penalized likelihood approach is extended further to the Cox proportional hazards model and the Cox proportional hazards frailty model, two commonly used semi-parametric models in survival analysis. As a result, new variable selection procedures for these two commonly-used models are proposed. It is demonstrated how the rates of convergence depend on the regularization parameter in the penalty function. Further, with a proper choice of the regularization parameter and the penalty function, the proposed estimators possess an oracle property. Standard error formulae are derived and their accuracies are empirically tested. Simulation studies show that the proposed procedures are more stable in prediction and more effective in computation than the best subset variable selection, and they reduce model complexity as effectively as the best subset variable selection. Compared with the LASSO, which is the penalized likelihood method with the L 1 -penalty, proposed by Tibshirani, the newly proposed approaches have better theoretic properties and finite sample performance.
Activation of the ET-1/ETA pathway contributes to erectile dysfunction associated with mineralocorticoid hypertension.

INTRODUCTION The cavernosal tissue is highly responsive to endothelin-1 (ET-1), and penile smooth muscle cells not only respond to but also synthesize ET-1. AIM Considering that ET-1 is directly involved in end-organ damage in salt-sensitive forms of hypertension, we hypothesized that activation of the ET-1/ET(A) receptor pathway contributes to erectile dysfunction (ED) associated with mineralocorticoid hypertension. METHODS Wistar rats were uninephrectomized and submitted to deoxycorticosterone acetate (DOCA)-salt treatment for 5 weeks. Control (Uni [uninephrectomized control]) animals were uninephrectomized and given tap water. Uni and DOCA-salt rats were simultaneously treated with vehicle or atrasentan (ET(A) receptor antagonist, 5 mg/Kg/day). Cavernosal reactivity to ET-1, phenylephrine (PE), ET(B) receptor agonist (IRL-1620) and electric field stimulation (EFS) were evaluated in vitro. Expression of ROCKalpha, ROCKbeta, myosin phosphatase target subunit 1 (MYPT-1), and extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2 (ERK 1/2) were evaluated by western blot analysis. ET-1 and ET(A) receptor mRNA expression was evaluated by real-time reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction. Voltage-dependent increase in intracavernosal pressure/mean arterial pressure (ICP/MAP) was used to evaluate erectile function in vivo. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE ET(A) receptor blockade prevents DOCA-salt-associated ED. RESULTS Cavernosal strips from DOCA-salt rats displayed augmented preproET-1 expression, increased contractile responses to ET-1 and decreased relaxation to IRL-1620. Contractile responses induced by EFS and PE were enhanced in cavernosal tissues from DOCA-salt hypertensive rats. These functional changes were associated with increased activation of the RhoA/Rho-kinase and ERK 1/2 pathways. Treatment of rats with atrasentan completely prevented changes in cavernosal reactivity in DOCA-salt rats and restored the decreased ICP/MAP, completely preventing ED in DOCA-salt rats. CONCLUSION Activation of the ET-1/ET(A) pathway contributes to mineralocorticoid hypertension-associated ED. ET(A) receptor blockade may represent an alternative therapeutic approach for ED associated with salt-sensitive hypertension and in pathological conditions where increased levels of ET-1 are present.
Effect of Osmotic Pressure on the Stability of Whole Inactivated Influenza Vaccine for Coating on Microneedles

Enveloped virus vaccines can be damaged by high osmotic strength solutions, such as those used to protect the vaccine antigen during drying, which contain high concentrations of sugars. We therefore studied shrinkage and activity loss of whole inactivated influenza virus in hyperosmotic solutions and used those findings to improve vaccine coating of microneedle patches for influenza vaccination. Using stopped-flow light scattering analysis, we found that the virus underwent an initial shrinkage on the order of 10% by volume within 5 s upon exposure to a hyperosmotic stress difference of 217 milliosmolarity. During this shrinkage, the virus envelope had very low osmotic water permeability (1 – 6×10−4 cm s–1) and high Arrhenius activation energy (E a = 15.0 kcal mol–1), indicating that the water molecules diffused through the viral lipid membranes. After a quasi-stable state of approximately 20 s to 2 min, depending on the species and hypertonic osmotic strength difference of disaccharides, there was a second phase of viral shrinkage. At the highest osmotic strengths, this led to an undulating light scattering profile that appeared to be related to perturbation of the viral envelope resulting in loss of virus activity, as determined by in vitro hemagglutination measurements and in vivo immunogenicity studies in mice. Addition of carboxymethyl cellulose effectively prevented vaccine activity loss in vitro and in vivo, believed to be due to increasing the viscosity of concentrated sugar solution and thereby reducing osmotic stress during coating of microneedles. These results suggest that hyperosmotic solutions can cause biphasic shrinkage of whole inactivated influenza virus which can damage vaccine activity at high osmotic strength and that addition of a viscosity enhancer to the vaccine coating solution can prevent osmotically driven damage and thereby enable preparation of stable microneedle coating formulations for vaccination.
S parameter analysis of split ring resonator for various substrate materials

The Split Ring Resonators are increasingly being proposed for many microwave applications. The design of this resonator is based on resonant frequency for both civilian and military applications. The split ring resonators are being used for the construction of sensors for various applications including dielectric characterization of materials and biosensing. To increase the sensitivity of the resonator, the insertion loss of the resonator should be reduced. To account for the insertion loss, the scattering parameters(S parameters) S11 and S21 are plotted and analyzed. In this paper, a split ring resonator on a dielectric substrate coupled to a microstrip line is analyzed for various substrate materials and it is found that the material RogersTMM13i exhibiting low insertion loss is the ideal substrate material for high sensitivity applications. The split ring resonator is simulated using COMSOL Multiphysics.
Concurrent Data Structures

Sun Microsystems Laboratories 1.1 Designing Concurrent Data Structures . 1-1 Performance • Blocking Techniques • Nonblocking Techniques • Complexity Measures • Correctness • Verification Techniques • Tools of the Trade 1.2 Shared Counters and Fetch-and-φ Structures . 1-12 1.3 Stacks and Queues . 1-14 1.4 Pools . 1-17 1.5 Linked Lists . 1-18 1.6 Hash Tables . 1-19 1.7 Search Trees. 1-20 1.8 Priority Queues . 1-22 1.9 Summary . 1-23
A study case: evolution of co-location and planning strategy

Agile practices can and should be evolved throughout a project. This paper focuses on the evolution of two agile practices, namely co-location and planning strategy, in a software development project at TransCanada. From inception to conclusion, the evolution contributes to the successful delivery of an in-house developed system and leads to change in organizational culture.
Class Prediction in Test Sets with Shifted Distributions

Machine learning has provided powerful algorithms that automatically generate predictive models from experience. One specific technique is supervised learning, where the machine is trained to predict a desired output for each input pattern x. This chapter will focus on classification, that is, supervised learning when the output to predict is a class label. For instance predicting whether a patient in a hospital will develop cancer or not. In this example, the class label c is a variable having two possible values, “cancer” or “no cancer”, and the input pattern x is a vector containing patient data (e.g. age, gender, diet, smoking habits, etc.). In order to construct a proper predictive model, supervised learning methods require a set of examples xi together with their respective labels ci. This dataset is called the “training set”. The constructed model is then used to predict the labels of a set of new cases xj called the “test set”. In the cancer prediction example, this is the phase when the model is used to predict cancer in new patients. One common assumption in supervised learning algorithms is that the statistical structure of the training and test datasets are the same (Hastie, Tibshirani & Friedman, 2001). That is, the test set is assumed to have the same attribute distribution p(x) and same class distribution p(c|x) as the training set. However, this is not usually the case in real applications due to different reasons. For instance, in many problems the training dataset is obtained in a specific manner that differs from the way the test dataset will be generated later. Moreover, the nature of the problem may evolve in time. These phenomena cause pTr(x, c) ≠ pTest(x, c), which can degrade the performance of the model constructed in training. Here we present a new algorithm that allows to re-estimate a model constructed in training using the unlabelled test patterns. We show the convergence properties of the algorithm and illustrate its performance with an artificial problem. Finally we demonstrate its strengths in a heart disease diagnosis problem where the training set is taken from a different hospital than the test set.
Objective assessment and modification of physical activity and health indices in adolescent females

Academic Awards/Funding: 2011 National Postdoctoral Association Research Integrity Ambassador Award 2010 PEPAYS Research Forum Poster Award (June 2010) 2007 Awarded the “Roadbridge Research Studentship” worth €60,000 for the duration of Ph.D. program which covered stipend, project running costs and travel expenses for conference. This was a widely advertised scholarship specifically for researchers in the health and medicine area.
The Articulate Mammal: An Introduction to Psycholinguistics

Foreword to the Routledge Classics Edition Preface to the first edition. Preface to the fifth edition. Introduction 1.The great automatic grammatizator 2.Animals that try to talk 3.Grandmama's teeth 4.Predestinate grooves 5.A blueprint in the brain? 6.Chattering children 7.Puzzling it out 8.Celestial unintelligibility 9.The white elephant problem 10.The case of the missing fingerprint 11.The Cheshire Cat's grin 12.Banker's clerk or hippopotamus? Suggestions for further reading References Index
Speech enhancement based on the subspace method

A method of speech enhancement using microphone-array signal processing based on the subspace method is proposed and evaluated. The method consists of the following two stages corresponding to the different types of noise. In the first stage, less-directional ambient noise is reduced by eliminating the noise-dominant subspace. It is realized by weighting the eigenvalues of the spatial correlation matrix. This is based on the fact that the energy of less-directional noise spreads over all eigenvalues while that of directional components is concentrated on a few dominant eigenvalues. In the second stage, the spectrum of the target source is extracted from the mixture of spectra of the multiple directional components remaining in the modified spatial correlation matrix by using a minimum variance beamformer. Finally, the proposed method is evaluated in both a simulated model environment and a real environment.
Gender Targeting in Political Advertisements

Campaigns invoke identity appeals to specific groups of voters, including women. To understand whether these campaign appeals matter in affecting voters’ choices, we must better understand how women respond to these appeals, the causal mechanism driving responses, and whether male and female candidates can use these ads with equal effectiveness. Using a nationally representative sample of American voters and an experimental design, we test an identity-based appeal aimed at women. We find that, although candidates of either gender can use these ads to affect women’s votes, only female candidates are able to prime female voters’ gender identity. The use of these appeals by male candidates persuades female voters of their positive traits. Male voters are generally unaffected by the appeals. Given the integration of women and men in the general population, our results demonstrate the utility of targeted appeals in encouraging support from a specific group and avoiding backlash from others.
Lipid effects of switching from prescription EPA+DHA (omega-3-acid ethyl esters) to prescription EPA only (icosapent ethyl) in dyslipidemic patients

ABSTRACT Objectives: Residual cardiovascular risk and persistently elevated triglycerides (TGs) may remain despite statin therapy in patients with dyslipidemia. Prescription omega-3 fatty acid formulations containing docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and/or eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) have been shown to reduce TGs and may potentially lower residual cardiovascular risk. However, DHA may raise low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) and compromise treatment goals. Icosapent ethyl (Vascepa®), a high-purity prescription EPA formulation, has been shown to lower TGs and other lipid parameters without raising LDL-C. There are no prospective, randomized, controlled trials of the effects of switching patients from omega-3-acid ethyl esters (Lovaza®), a prescription formulation containing EPA+DHA, to icosapent ethyl. Methods: This retrospective chart review included records of high-risk patients aged ≥18 years receiving stable statin therapy for dyslipidemia who had been switched from prescription omega-3-acid ethyl esters 4 g/day to prescription icosapent ethyl 4 g/day and had available laboratory lipid profiles after receiving each for ≥2 months. Lipid assessments were conducted by local laboratories. Patient records were excluded if there were changes in medication or health condition that could affect lipid parameters. Results: The records of 8 patients (6 women and 2 men; 54–83 years) met eligibility criteria. Following the switch to icosapent ethyl, LDL-C changes ranged from +3.2% to −69.1% (reduced in 7 patients), total cholesterol was reduced in all patients (−3.5% to −44.3%), and TG changes ranged from +32.4% to −59.0% (reduced in 6 patients). Decreases or no changes in non-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol were observed; changes in high-density lipoprotein cholesterol varied. No adverse events related to either product were reported. Conclusion: In this real-world retrospective analysis, switching high-risk statin-treated patients from omega-3-acid ethyl esters to icosapent ethyl resulted in favorable lipid changes. The analysis was limited by the small patient numbers, but lipid results were consistent with randomized controlled trials and previous case series.