Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Abdominal radical trachelectomy: a fertility‐preserving option for women with early cervical cancer

Abdominal radical trachelectomy is a fertility‐preserving alternative to radical hysterectomy or chemoradiation for young women with stage IA2 to IB cervical cancers. Thirty‐three patients were offered this procedure. The mean age was 30.5 years (range 23–37). Three procedures were abandoned because of positive pelvic nodes (two patients) and involvement of the margin between the amputated cervix and uterine fundus (one patient). Of the remaining 30 patients, 10 had stage IA2 tumours, 15 had stage IB1 and 5 had stage IB2. During follow up of a median of 47 months (mean 32 months, range 14–75 months), no recurrences have been detected. A normal menstrual pattern resumed within eight weeks of surgery in all but two patients. Five patients attempted to conceive. Three women have fallen pregnant, resulting in one first trimester miscarriage and two caesarean section deliveries at term. Our experience suggests that abdominal radical trachelectomy provides a method of treating women with stage IA2 to IB cervical cancers with conservation of fertility without apparently compromising recurrence or survival rates. It appears to provide equivalent oncological safety to a standard Wertheim hysterectomy using a technique familiar to all practising gynaecologic oncologists.
A Platform for Combined DNA and Protein Microarrays Based on Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence

We have developed a novel microarray technology based on total internal reflection fluorescence (TIRF) in combination with DNA and protein bioassays immobilized at the TIRF surface. Unlike conventional microarrays that exhibit reduced signal-to-background ratio, require several stages of incubation, rinsing and stringency control, and measure only end-point results, our TIRF microarray technology provides several orders of magnitude better signal-to-background ratio, performs analysis rapidly in one step, and measures the entire course of association and dissociation kinetics between target DNA and protein molecules and the bioassays. In many practical cases detection of only DNA or protein markers alone does not provide the necessary accuracy for diagnosing a disease or detecting a pathogen. Here we describe TIRF microarrays that detect DNA and protein markers simultaneously, which reduces the probabilities of false responses. Supersensitive and multiplexed TIRF DNA and protein microarray technology may provide a platform for accurate diagnosis or enhanced research studies. Our TIRF microarray system can be mounted on upright or inverted microscopes or interfaced directly with CCD cameras equipped with a single objective, facilitating the development of portable devices. As proof-of-concept we applied TIRF microarrays for detecting molecular markers from Bacillus anthracis, the pathogen responsible for anthrax.
Alternative sulfonylurea receptor expression defines metabolic sensitivity of K‐ATP channels in dopaminergic midbrain neurons

ATP‐sensitive potassium (K‐ATP) channels couple the metabolic state to cellular excitability in various tissues. Several isoforms of the K‐ATP channel subunits, the sulfonylurea receptor (SUR) and inwardly rectifying K channel (Kir6.X), have been cloned, but the molecular composition and functional diversity of native neuronal K‐ATP channels remain unresolved. We combined functional analysis of K‐ATP channels with expression profiling of K‐ATP subunits at the level of single substantia nigra (SN) neurons in mouse brain slices using an RT–multiplex PCR protocol. In contrast to GABAergic neurons, single dopaminergic SN neurons displayed alternative co‐expression of either SUR1, SUR2B or both SUR isoforms with Kir6.2. Dopaminergic SN neurons expressed alternative K‐ATP channel species distinguished by significant differences in sulfonylurea affinity and metabolic sensitivity. In single dopaminergic SN neurons, co‐expression of SUR1 + Kir6.2, but not of SUR2B + Kir6.2, correlated with functional K‐ATP channels highly sensitive to metabolic inhibition. In contrast to wild‐type, surviving dopaminergic SN neurons of homozygous weaver mouse exclusively expressed SUR1 + Kir6.2 during the active period of dopaminergic neurodegeneration. Therefore, alternative expression of K‐ATP channel subunits defines the differential response to metabolic stress and constitutes a novel candidate mechanism for the differential vulnerability of dopaminergic neurons in response to respiratory chain dysfunction in Parkinson's disease.
( qlu 1 ) , Shaun Kurien Benjamin ( shaun 2 ) , Group 10 1 Networks and Promotion inside Large Bureaucratic Systems

This project investigates networks and promotion inside a large bureaucracy using multiple approaches from network analysis. We hypothesize that network characteristics, such as sponsorship relations, community homogeneity and workplace affiliations, have significant impact on one’s promotion prospect. Using PageRank and community detection algorithms and a discrete-time Markov chain for modeling job transitions, we have found conclusive evidence that networks matter more than conventional non-network aspects, such as job performance, to bureaucratic career advancement.
A Single-Lobe Photometric Stereo Approach for Heterogeneous Material

Shape from shading with multiple light sources is an active research area, and a diverse range of approaches have been proposed in recent decades. However, devising a robust reconstruction technique still remains a challenging goal, as the image acquisition process is highly nonlinear. Recent Photometric Stereo variants rely on simplifying assumptions in order to make the problem solvable: light propagation is still commonly assumed to be uniform, and the Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function is assumed to be diffuse, with limited interest for specular materials. In this work, we introduce a well-posed formulation based on partial differential equations (PDEs) for a unified reflectance function that can model both diffuse and specular reflections. We base our derivation on ratio of images, which makes the model independent from photometric invariants and yields a well-posed differential problem based on a system of quasi-linear PDEs with discontinuous coefficients. In addition, we directly solve.
A Sexual Ornament in Chickens Is Affected by Pleiotropic Alleles at HAO1 and BMP2, Selected during Domestication

Domestication is one of the strongest forms of short-term, directional selection. Although selection is typically only exerted on one or a few target traits, domestication can lead to numerous changes in many seemingly unrelated phenotypes. It is unknown whether such correlated responses are due to pleiotropy or linkage between separate genetic architectures. Using three separate intercrosses between wild and domestic chickens, a locus affecting comb mass (a sexual ornament in the chicken) and several fitness traits (primarily medullary bone allocation and fecundity) was identified. This locus contains two tightly-linked genes, BMP2 and HAO1, which together produce the range of pleiotropic effects seen. This study demonstrates the importance of pleiotropy (or extremely close linkage) in domestication. The nature of this pleiotropy also provides insights into how this sexual ornament could be maintained in wild populations.
Acute alcohol intoxication reduces mortality, inflammatory responses and hepatic injury after haemorrhage and resuscitation in vivo

Haemorrhagic shock and resuscitation (H/R) induces hepatic injury, strong inflammatory changes and death. Alcohol intoxication is assumed to worsen pathophysiological derangements after H/R. Here, we studied the effects of acute alcohol intoxication on survival, liver injury and inflammation after H/R, in rats.
Applying Deep Machine Learning for psycho-demographic profiling of Internet users using O.C.E.A.N. model of personality

In the modern era, each Internet user leaves enormous amounts of auxiliary digital residuals (footprints) by using a variety of on-line services. All this data is already collected and stored for many years. In recent works, it was demonstrated that it's possible to apply simple machine learning methods to analyze collected digital footprints and to create psycho-demographic profiles of individuals. However, while these works clearly demonstrated the applicability of machine learning methods for such an analysis, created simple prediction models still lacks accuracy necessary to be successfully applied for practical needs. We have assumed that using advanced deep machine learning methods may considerably increase the accuracy of predictions. We started with simple machine learning methods to estimate basic prediction performance and moved further by applying advanced methods based on shallow and deep neural networks. Then we compared prediction power of studied models and made conclusions about its performance. Finally, we made hypotheses how prediction accuracy can be further improved. As result of this work, we provide full source code used in the experiments for all interested researchers and practitioners in corresponding GitHub repository. We believe that applying deep machine learning for psycho-demographic profiling may have an enormous impact on the society (for good or worse) and provides means for Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems to better understand humans by creating their psychological profiles. Thus AI agents may achieve the human-like ability to participate in conversation (communication) flow by anticipating human opponents' reactions, expectations, and behavior. By providing full source code of our research we hope to intensify further research in the area by the wider circle of scholars.
Visual Reference Resolution using Attention Memory for Visual Dialog

Visual dialog is a task of answering a series of inter-dependent questions given an input image, and often requires to resolve visual references among the questions. This problem is different from visual question answering (VQA), which relies on spatial attention (a.k.a. visual grounding) estimated from an image and question pair. We propose a novel attention mechanism that exploits visual attentions in the past to resolve the current reference in the visual dialog scenario. The proposed model is equipped with an associative attention memory storing a sequence of previous (attention, key) pairs. From this memory, the model retrieves the previous attention, taking into account recency, which is most relevant for the current question, in order to resolve potentially ambiguous references. The model then merges the retrieved attention with a tentative one to obtain the final attention for the current question; specifically, we use dynamic parameter prediction to combine the two attentions conditioned on the question. Through extensive experiments on a new synthetic visual dialog dataset, we show that our model significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art (by ~16 % points) in situations, where visual reference resolution plays an important role. Moreover, the proposed model achieves superior performance (~ 2 % points improvement) in the Visual Dialog dataset, despite having significantly fewer parameters than the baselines.
Nucleic Acids Research Transcriptional enhancer within the human placental lactogen and growth hormone multigene cluster

Human placental lactogen (hPL) and human growth hormone (hGH) are members of a multigene family that share amino acid sequence homology and similarity in gene structure and nucleotide sequence, but differ in both function and expression. To determine the sequence requirements for tissue specific expression recombinant plasmids containing the members of the hPL-hGH multigene family and flanking regions were analyzed by both transient and stable transfection assays. We have identified a transcriptional enhancer in a 1.0 kb region located 2.0 kb downstream of the hPL3 structural gene. This enhancer sequence is not strictly cell-type specific since it functions in cell lines of both placental (JEG-3) and pituitary (18-54,SF) origin. However, its efficiency is several fold higher in placental cells than In pituitary cells.
A semi-automatic traffic sign detection, classification, and positioning system

The availability of large-scale databases containing street-level panoramic images offers the possibility to perform semi-automatic surveying of real-world objects such as traffic signs. These inventories can be performed significantly more efficiently than using conventional methods. Governmental agencies are interested in these inventories for maintenance and safety reasons. This paper introduces a complete semi-automatic traffic sign inventory system. The system consists of several components. First, a detection algorithm locates the 2D position of the traffic signs in the panoramic images. Second, a classification algorithm is used to identify the traffic sign. Third, the 3D position of the traffic sign is calculated using the GPS position of the photographs. Finally, the results are listed in a table for quick inspection and are also visualized in a web browser.
Cost‐effectiveness of specific immunotherapy with Grazax in allergic rhinitis co‐existing with asthma

Background: In the United Kingdom, approximately 10.8 million people suffer from asthma, placing an economic burden on the society of more than £2 billion per year. For allergic asthma, treatment options consist of allergen avoidance, symptomatic treatment and allergen‐specific immunotherapy (SIT). Only SIT addresses the underlying cause of the disease, reducing symptoms and offering the potential for long‐term improvement. Grazax – the first tablet‐based SIT – is indicated for the treatment of patients with grass pollen‐induced rhinoconjunctivitis, including those with co‐existing asthma.
Ischemia-induced changes of AMPA-type glutamate receptor subunit expression pattern in the rat retina: a real-time quantitative PCR study.

PURPOSE To investigate whether the previously observed decrease in immunoreactivity of the alpha-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid (AMPA)-type glutamate receptor subunits GluR1, -2, -3, and -4 after ischemia-reperfusion in the rat retina is associated with changes at the mRNA expression level. Furthermore, to study possible changes in the ratios of alternative splice variants of GluR2 and -4 and possible changes in the subunit composition of the receptor complex after ischemia-reperfusion. The ischemia-induced changes were related to expression levels of immediate early genes, c-fos and c-jun, and to expression levels of different cell-type-specific transcripts. METHODS A 60-minute ischemic event was induced unilaterally in the rat eye by cannulating the anterior chamber and raising the intraocular pressure. Reperfusion was allowed to occur for 2 hours up to 28 days. Total RNA was isolated from the retinas and transcript levels were assessed by real-time quantitative PCR (qPCR). RESULTS A differential decrease was observed in the expression levels of all AMPA-type GluR subunits 2 hours after ischemia-reperfusion, with a significant downregulation of GluR2 and -3 transcript levels. At the long-term (72 hours-4 weeks), expression levels for all four subunits were decreased by approximately 64%. No changes were observed, either in the expression ratio of GluR2 and -4 splice variants, or in the relative expression of the different subunits. Immediate early genes c-fos and c-jun were transiently upregulated. Expression levels of the ganglion-cell-specific transcripts Thy-1 and neurofilament and of the AII-amacrine-specific transcript parvalbumin decreased after ischemia-reperfusion, whereas the ON bipolar cell transcripts mGluR6 and PKCalpha did not show ischemia-induced changes. CONCLUSIONS Shortly after ischemia-reperfusion immunolabeling of GluR1, -2/3, and -4 is strongly decreased, whereas the corresponding mRNA levels are not affected, indicating degradation at the protein level. In contrast, the GluR2 mRNA level is reduced, whereas immunostaining is not yet affected, suggesting that the GluR2 protein is relatively stable under postischemia conditions. The long-term decrease in mRNA levels of all AMPA-type GluR subunits suggests that ischemia affects a main component of the excitatory retinal neurotransmission. It remains to be investigated whether these changes contribute to the subsequent neurodegeneration.
Learning Thematic Role Relations for Wordnets

In this paper, I present a method for learning thematic role relations (selectional preferences) for wordnets by means of statistical corpus analysis. An evaluation on a gold standard, which I extracted from EuroWordNet, shows that this method achieves a learning accuracy of up to 77%. I also propose a preprocessing step for a partial lexical disambiguation of the input data. This disambiguation step reduces noise in the output of the learning algorithm, accompanied by a comparably moderate loss in performance.
Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 and H3K27me3 Cooperate with H3K9 Methylation To Maintain Heterochromatin Protein 1α at Chromatin

ABSTRACT Methylation of histone H3 on lysine 9 or 27 is crucial for heterochromatin formation. Previously considered hallmarks of, respectively, constitutive and facultative heterochromatin, recent evidence has accumulated in favor of coexistence of these two marks and their cooperation in gene silencing maintenance. H3K9me2/3 ensures anchorage at chromatin of heterochromatin protein 1α (HP1α), a main component of heterochromatin. HP1α chromoshadow domain, involved in dimerization and interaction with partners, has additional but still unclear roles in HP1α recruitment to chromatin. Because of previously suggested links between polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2), which catalyzes H3K27 methylation, and HP1α, we tested whether PRC2 may regulate HP1α abundance at chromatin. We found that the EZH2 and SUZ12 subunits of PRC2 are required for HP1α stability, as knockdown of either protein led to HP1α degradation. Similar results were obtained upon overexpression of H3K27me2/3 demethylases. We further showed that binding of HP1α/β/γ to H3K9me3 peptides is greatly increased in the presence of H3K27me3, and this is dependent on PRC2. These data fit with recent proteomic studies identifying PRC2 as an indirect H3K9me3 binder in mouse tissues and suggest the existence of a cooperative mechanism of HP1α anchorage at chromatin involving H3 methylation on both K9 and K27 residues.
International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents Fourteen Years in Resistance

Resistance trends have changed greatly over the 14 years (1997–2011) whilst I was Director of the UK Antibiotic Resistance Monitoring and Reference Laboratory (ARMRL). Meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) first rose, then fell with improved infection control, although with the decline of one major clone beginning before these improvements. Resistant pneumococci too have declined following conjugate vaccine deployment. If the situation against Gram-positive pathogens has improved, that against Gram-negatives has worsened, with the spread of (i) quinolone-and cephalosporin-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, (ii) Acinetobacter with OXA carbapenemases, (iii) Enterobacteriaceae with biochemically diverse carbapenemases and (iv) gonococci resistant to fluoroquinolones and, latterly, cefixime. Laboratory, clinical and commercial aspects have also changed. Susceptibility testing is more standard-ised, with pharmacodynamic breakpoints. Treatments regimens are more driven by guidelines. The industry has fewer big profitable companies and more small companies without sales income. There is good and bad here. The quality of routine susceptibility testing has improved, but its speed has not. Phar-macodynamics adds science, but over-optimism has led to poor dose selection in several trials. Guidelines discourage poor therapy but concentrate selection onto a diminishing range of antibiotics, threatening their utility. Small companies are more nimble, but less resilient. Last, more than anything, the world has changed, with the rise of India and China, which account for 33% of the world's population and increasingly provide sophisticated health care, but also have huge resistance problems. These shifts present huge challenges for the future of chemotherapy and for the edifice of modern medicine that depends upon it.
Earning and learning: role congruence, state/trait factors and adjustment to university life.

BACKGROUND Undertaking term-time employment is increasingly commonplace for university students. Much research suggests that combining 'earning and learning' may be detrimental to university life, generating role conflicts, increasing stress and reducing academic success, participation and overall adjustment to university. Potential positive effects of term-time employment on well-being are often neglected. AIMS This study adopted a balanced perspective, investigating the relationship between role congruence in academic, social and career domains and adjustment, with state and trait psychological factors as mediators/moderators. METHODS A questionnaire measuring perceived role congruence, adjustment to university life and psychological state and trait characteristics was mailed to all undergraduates at a Scottish university during term-time. SAMPLE Results for a subsample of 625 university students currently in term-time employment were included in this paper. RESULTS Findings suggested that students generally perceived employment and university roles to be in balance, and there was no difference in adjustment for students whether currently in term-time employment or not. However, psychological factors, particularly positive affectivity and stress were important mediators of the relationship between role congruence and adjustment. CONCLUSIONS Since promoting role congruence may enhance students' adjustment and well-being, the study has implications for universities, student welfare organizations and employers offering term-time employment.
A model for evaluating materialized view maintenance algorithms

Many algorithms have been proposed in the area of materialized view maintenance. They provide different capabilities and features, and have different complexity in their implementation. Each of these algorithms is suited for some types of applications. The authors propose a model for evaluating the merit of these algorithms. This model would allow a user to choose an appropriate maintenance algorithm according to his application needs. It can also be used as a benchmark where new maintenance algorithms can be evaluated.
A CMOS Cell Library for Bit-Serial Signal Processing

We describe the dynamic circuit design technique behind a library of CMOS operators for the rapid and reliable realisation of VLSI bitserial signal processors. The cell library is implemented in 2.5 micron bulk CMOS technology with two layers of metal interconnect, and maintains a consistent performance of 20MHz. As an example of the capability of the library, we discuss a full-precison multiplier.