Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Real‐time imaging of the pancreas during development of diabetes

Summary: Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is the most common autoimmune disease affecting almost 20 million people worldwide. T1D is thought to be caused by autoaggressive T cells infiltrating pancreatic islets and destroying insulin‐producing β cells. Because insulin therapy, the current treatment for T1D, does not protect against all late complications and because life expectancy is affected, researchers are searching for preventive or curative approaches that block or prevent immune‐mediated islet destruction. However, the precise in vivo events that take place in islets during T1D development remain unknown. During the past decade, 2‐photon microscopy (2PM) has emerged as a new technique to assess cell–cell interactions in real‐time and at high resolution in vivo. This technique has been demonstrated recently to be a promising tool to study the progressive development of T1D pathogenesis at the cellular level. In this review, we propose a new surgical and immunological approach so that 2PM can be utilized to monitor the duration that effector cells reside within an islet, determine the number of effector cells needed for elimination of β cells, and follow the fate of β cells when regulatory cells are present. Understanding the cellular dynamics during T1D development is critical for the rational design of immunotherapies.
The Determinants of Long Run Economic Growth in Nigeria

The paper investigated the determinants of the long-run economic growth in Nigeria. The data was obtained from the World Development Indicator (WDI) database based on annual time series for the period (1981 to 2014) on real gross domestic product, government consumption expenditure, inflation and population growth rate. Consequently, Autoregressive Distributed Lags (ARDL) Model was employed for the analysis. The study found cointegrated relationship among the variables. The Error Correction Model (ECM) revealed that the speed of adjustment to restore equilibrium is 0.85 which suggests that there is a stable long run relationship. The policy implication of this finding is that the Nigerian government should give more emphasis on improving its level of technology, investing in research and development, increasing the stock of human capital, and build up its capital stock in order to boost economic growth.
Specifying and analysing distributed object-oriented systems

The ability to check whether the modeled system satisfies certain properties is a very important aspect in the software development process. Many object-oriented methods do not pay enough attention to behavioral descriptions. Indeed, they mostly do not provide formally founded descriptions that can be checked an atomatically. This paper presents an integrated approach, consisting of formally founded description techniques, an expressive temporal logic for specifying properties, and a model checking mechanism for automatically checking whether some executions of the specified system satisfy the required properties.
Finitely Additive Uniform Distributions on the Natural Numbers : Shift-Invariance

We compare the following three notions of uniformity for a finitely additive probability measure on the set of natural numbers: that it extend limiting relative frequency, that it be shift-invariant, and that it map every residue class mod m to 1/m. We find that these three types of uniformity can be naturally ordered. In particular, we prove that the set L of extensions of limiting relative frequency is a proper subset of the set S of shift-invariant measures and that S is a proper subset of the set R of measures which map residue classes uniformly. Moreover, we show that there are subsets G of N for which the range of possible values μ(G) for μ∈L is properly contained in the set of values obtained when μ ranges over S, and that there are subsets G which distinguish S and R analogously. Mathematics subject classification (2000). 60A05
Bayesian Learning for Joint Sparse OFDM Channel Estimation and Data Detection

The impulse response of a typical wireless multipath channel can be modeled as a tapped delay line filter whose non-zero components are sparse relative to the channel delay spread. In this paper, a novel method of estimating such sparse multipath fading channels for OFDM systems is explored. In particular, Sparse Bayesian Learning (SBL) techniques are applied to jointly estimate the sparse channel and its second order statistics, and a new Bayesian Cramer-Rao bound is derived for the SBL algorithm. Further, in the context of OFDM channel estimation, an enhancement to the SBL algorithm is proposed, which uses an Expectation Maximization (EM) framework to jointly estimate the sparse channel, unknown data symbols and the second order statistics of the channel. The EM-SBL algorithm is able to recover the support as well as the channel taps more efficiently, and/or using fewer pilot symbols, than the SBL algorithm. To further improve the performance of the EM-SBL, a threshold-based pruning of the estimated second order statistics that are input to the algorithm is proposed, and its mean square error and symbol error rate performance is illustrated through Monte-Carlo simulations. Thus, the algorithms proposed in this paper are capable of obtaining efficient sparse channel estimates even in the presence of a small number of pilots.
El gen PTGDR en la alergia: Estudio de genotipado y análisis de expresión génica

PTGDR es el receptor de la prostaglandina D2, ha sido relacionado con la patologia alergia, mas concretamente con el asma. Analizamos una serie de polimorfismos de la region promotora de PTGDR y un analisis de expresion. Lo cual permitio comprobar que el gen se encuentra relacionado con la alergia y que existen diferencias entre poblacion alergica y poblacion no alergica.
No Correlation between Activated Protein C Resistance and Free Flap Failures in 100 Consecutive Patients

&NA; This study evaluates whether thrombophilic disorders contribute to failures in microvascular surgery. A recently discovered condition is focused on, i.e., activated protein C resistance, which is a highly prevalent functional defect of a crucial endogenous anticoagulant system—the protein C anticoagulant pathway (up to 15 percent of Caucasians affected). One hundred consecutive patients were operated on with 103 free tissue transfers during a 2.5‐year period, all of which received perioperative intravenous anticoagulation, principally based on dextran (1 liter) and a heparin bolus at vascular reperfusion (80 to 100 IU/kg). The patients underwent extensive laboratory analysis with respect to conditions predisposing for thrombosis. Eleven patients were found to be activated protein C resistant, and one patient had congenital protein S deficiency. There were six total and five partial flap losses, which, however, in only one case coincided with the presence of a thrombophilic disorder (activated protein C resistance). By contrast, a substantial portion of flap necroses could be related to nonconstitutional factors (for example, pedicle kinking). It is concluded that routine screening for hypercoagulable states such as activated protein C resistance is not necessary in microvascular surgery. (Plast. Reconstr. Surg. 101: 1850, 1998.)
Stochastic Geometry Analysis of the Energy Efficiency of Downlink MIMO Cellular Networks

In this paper, an approximation to the mathematical evaluation of the spectral and energy efficiency of multi-antenna downlink cellular networks is introduced. The locations of the Base Stations (BSs) are modeled as points of a Poisson Point Process (PPP) and stochastic geometry is used for system-level performance assessment. The approximation is applicable to spatial multiplexing Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) systems having an arbitrary number of antennas at the transmitter (Nt) and at the receiver (Nr). A Rayleigh fading channel model is assumed. The accuracy of the proposed approximation is substantiated with the aid of Monte Carlo simulations.
An interlaboratory comparison of methods used to assess antioxidant potentials 1

Many analytical methods are used to measure the antioxidative activity of substances yet little is known about the comparability of the test results between laboratories. After an initial evaluation of a broad range of methods conducted by one laboratory, the 2,2‐diphenyl‐1‐picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) assay, the trolox equivalent antioxidant capacity (TEAC) assay, the lipid assay (or 2,2′‐azobis(2‐aminepropane) (ABAP) assay) and the thiobarbituric acid (TBA) assay were selected to be evaluated in the interlaboratory study. The antioxidative potentials of trolox, tocopherol, lipochroman‐6, ascorbic acid, 4‐methyl‐brenzcatechin, and/or 3,5‐di‐tert‐butyl‐4‐hydroxytoluene (BHT) were assessed using each of the methods. These methods were then evaluated in respect of their reproducibility and classification properties. Based on the results of this study, the DPPH assay followed by the TEAC assay yielded the best results based on reproducibility and sensitivity both within one laboratory and between laboratories. The results of the interlaboratory study were then compared with the single center results obtained from the commercially available photochemolumiescence (PCL) kit. To assess the transferability of chemical data to biological systems, they were also compared with the single center results obtained using the cell‐based Dichlorodihydrofluoresceine (DCFH) assay.
Alexa, Siri, Cortana, and More: An Introduction to Voice Assistants

ABSTRACT Voice assistants are software agents that can interpret human speech and respond via synthesized voices. Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, Microsoft’s Cortana, and Google’s Assistant are the most popular voice assistants and are embedded in smartphones or dedicated home speakers. Users can ask their assistants questions, control home automation devices and media playback via voice, and manage other basic tasks such as email, to-do lists, and calendars with verbal commands. This column will explore the basic workings and common features of today’s voice assistants. It will also discuss some of the privacy and security issues inherent to voice assistants and some potential future uses for these devices. As voice assistants become more widely used, librarians will want to be familiar with their operation and perhaps consider them as a means to deliver library services and materials.
Dynamic language change in MIMUS

One of the most widely pursued goals in dialogue system development is the improvement of usability, which is mainly achieved by providing users with both friendly and manageable interfaces. The MIMUS dialogue system supports multimodal interactions, allowing the user to interact not only verbally but also graphically. In addition to this, MIMUS (MultIModal, University of Seville) is a multilingual system that enables the user to communicate (dynamically) in Spanish and English. The present paper describes the MIMUS architecture, the components that entail direct relationship with multilinguality, and the way in which languages can be dynamically switched within a single dialogue. Index Terms : dialogue systems, multimodal, multilingual, dynamic language change
Effects of prostaglandin E1 administration during hepatectomy for cirrhotic hepatocellular carcinoma.

BACKGROUND/AIMS Prostaglandin E1 has been used in hepatectomy based on a few limited clinical studies suggesting that PGE1 improves liver function. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of PGE1 administration during hepatectomy for cirrhotic hepatocellular carcinoma. METHODOLOGY Forty-three patients undergoing hepatectomy for cirrhotic hepatocellular carcinoma were divided into 2 groups: hepatectomy with Prostaglandin E1 treatment (PG group; n = 19) and without Prostaglandin E1 treatment (control group; n = 24). Prostaglandin E1 (0.02-0.07 microgram/kg/min) was administered intravenously from beginning to end of surgery in the PG group. RESULTS There were no significant differences between groups with respect to age, gender, preoperative liver and renal function, or intraoperative variables such as blood loss, weight of resected liver and total clamping time by the Pringle maneuver. No patient had severe postoperative complications. Initial postoperative maximum concentrations of serum total bilirubin, creatinine, and blood urea nitrogen in the PG group were significantly lower than those in the control group. CONCLUSIONS Prostaglandin E1 administration during hepatectomy for cirrhotic heptocellular carcinoma resulted in improved renal and hepatic function.
The Nested Assembly of Plant Facilitation Networks Prevents Species Extinctions

Facilitation is a positive interaction assembling ecological communities and preserving global biodiversity. Although communities acquire emerging properties when many species interact, most of our knowledge about facilitation is based on studies between pairs of species. To understand how plant facilitation preserves biodiversity in complex ecological communities, we propose to move from the study of pairwise interactions to the network approach. We show that facilitation networks behave as mutualistic networks do, characterized by a nonrandom, nested structure of plant‐plant interactions in which a few generalist nurses facilitate a large number of species while the rest of the nurses facilitate only a subset of them. Consequently, generalist nurses shape a dense and highly connected network. Interestingly, such generalist nurses are the most abundant species in the community, making facilitation‐shaped communities strongly resistant to extinction, as revealed by coextinction simulations. The nested structure of facilitative networks explains why facilitation, by preventing extinction, preserves biodiversity.
Oligomerized backbone pilin helps piliated Lactococcus lactis to withstand shear flow

Abstract The present work focuses on the role of pili present at the cell surface of Lactococcus lactis in bacterial adhesion to abiotic (hydrophobic polystyrene) and biotic (mucin-coated polystyrene) surfaces. Native pili-displaying strains and isogenic derivatives in which pilins or sortase C structural genes had been modified were used. Surface physico-chemistry, morphology and shear-flow-induced detachment of lactococcal cells were evaluated. The involvement of pili in L. lactis adhesion was clearly demonstrated, irrespective of the surface characteristics (hydrophobic/hydrophilic, presence or not of specific binding sites). The accessory pilin, PilC, and the backbone pilin, PilB, were revealed to play a major role in adhesion, provided that the PilB was present in its polymerized form. Within the population fraction that remained attached to the surface under increasing shear flow, different association behaviors were observed, showing that pili could serve as anchoring sites thus hampering the effect of shear flow on cell orientation and detachment.
The Development and Organization of Attachment: Implications for Psychoanalysis

As a result of John Bowlby's breach with the British Psychoanalytic Society nearly forty years ago, his work, specifically the development of attachment theory, was until recently largely expunged from the psychoanalytic record. However, thanks to developments in both psychoanalytic and attachment theories, a rapprochement has been forged, and a number of scholars are now seeking to integrate these two complementary perspectives. In this paper, the fundamental premises of attachment theory are discussed in light of their relation to psychoanalytic theory. In addition, their application to the clinical situation in both adult and child treatment is discussed.
Effects of sub-lethal gamma irradiation on antibiotic susceptibility profile and population dynamics of Enterococcus faecalis and Escherichia coli in water

Disinfection of water is important in the control of waterborne diseases. It is used to kill or inactivate microorganisms in a gradual process that involves a number of physical–chemical and biochemical processes. The effects of sub-lethal gamma irradiation on survival and resistant pattern of two indicator organisms used in assessing water quality: Enterococcus faecalis and Escherichia coli were investigated in this study. Plate count agar and disc diffusion methods were used to determine the load and antibiotics susceptibility pattern of the test organisms respectively before and after exposure to different doses of gamma irradiation in sachet water samples. Survival pattern of the two indicator organisms to gamma- ray showed a decline in the populations of the organisms with time compared to the controls (non-radiated). The effect of the irradiation on the E. coli was dose dependent, it initially responded to the effects of the irradiation in the first 4 days of exposure compared to the control. On exposure to 4 and 5 gy gamma rays a minimum population was reached on the 7th day. At p
Scene Classification from Synthetic Aperture Radar Images Using Generalized Compact Channel-Boosted High-Order Orderless Pooling Network

The convolutional neural network (CNN) has achieved great success in the field of scene classification. Nevertheless, strong spatial information in CNN and irregular repetitive patterns in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images make the feature descriptors less discriminative for scene classification. Aiming at providing more discriminative feature representations for SAR scene classification, a generalized compact channel-boosted high-order orderless pooling network (GCCH) is proposed. The GCCH network includes four parts, namely the standard convolution layer, second-order generalized layer, squeeze and excitation block, and the compact high-order generalized orderless pooling layer. Here, all of the layers are trained by back-propagation, and the parameters enable end-to-end optimization. First of all, the second-order orderless feature representation is acquired by the parameterized locality constrained affine subspace coding (LASC) in the second-order generalized layer, which cascades the first and second-order orderless feature descriptors of the output of the standard convolution layer. Subsequently, the squeeze and excitation block is employed to learn the channel information of parameterized LASC statistic representation by explicitly modelling interdependencies between channels. Lastly, the compact high-order orderless feature descriptors can be learned by the kernelled outer product automatically, which enables low-dimensional but highly discriminative feature descriptors. For validation and comparison, we conducted extensive experiments into the SAR scene classification dataset from TerraSAR-X images. Experimental results illustrate that the GCCH network achieves more competitive performance than the state-of-art network in the SAR image scene classification task.
El emprendimiento y la educación no siempre van en la misma dirección

La educacion es una herramienta que les permite a los individuos, mas alla de adquirir conocimientos, desarrollar competencias tecnico - genericas, para suministrarse un sustento mediante un empleo, oficio u ocupacion. Esto implica que quienes son beneficiarios de la educacion puedan, al concluir su formacion, insertarse en el mercado laboral. Obviamente, para esto se requiere una educacion de calidad, a lo largo de toda la formacion. Sin embargo, se debe reconocer que la calidad educativa, se encuentra en tela de duda y los oferentes de los servicios educativos estan en deuda con sus clientes o demandantes. De ahi que muchos de los emprendedores ecuatorianos lo son por necesidad y falta de empleo, y eso genera una cadena de empresas muy pequenas, poco innovadores, muy centradas en el comercio y con poca generacion de valor agregado. El desafio del emprendimiento esta aun vigente.
The use of art therapy to detect depression and post‐traumatic stress disorder in pediatric and young adult renal transplant recipients

Abstract: Pediatric and young adult renal transplant recipients may experience feelings of depression and emotional trauma. A study was conducted to (1) determine the prevalence of depression and emotional trauma and (2) assess the utility of the Formal Elements of Art Therapy Scale (FEATS). Sixty‐four renal transplant recipients, 6–21 yr of age, were evaluated using self‐report measures (CDI and Davidson) and art‐based assessments. Subject art was analyzed by art therapists using seven of the 14 elements of the (FEATS), to assess depression. Unlike CDI and Davidson self‐report testing, all patients were able to complete the art‐based directives. When self‐report measures and art‐based assessments were combined, 36% of the study population had testing results consistent with depression and/or post‐traumatic stress. The FEATS assessments identified a subset of patients who were not identified using the self‐report measures. There was a correlation between CDI and Davidson scores (p < 0.0001), Davidson scores correlated with hospital days (p = 0.05), and FEATS correlated with height Z score (p = 0.04) and donor type (p = 0.01). Patients who required psychological interventions including antidepressant therapy, psychological counseling and psychiatric hospitalization during the year after the study were identified as depressed. Sensitivity for FEATS and CDI were 22 and 50% respectively. The results suggest that while art therapy may be of utility in the identification of pediatric and young adult transplant recipients who are suffering from depression, FEATS analysis appears to lack sufficient sensitivity to warrant its use in this population. Study of other quantitative art‐based assessment techniques may be warranted.
Clinical significance of P46L and R92Q substitutions in the tumour necrosis factor superfamily 1A gene

Objective: Tumour necrosis factor receptor-associated periodic syndrome (TRAPS) has been associated with several mutations in the TNF receptor super family 1A (TNFRSF1A), including most cysteine substitutions. However, the nature of two substitutions, P46L and R92Q, remains a topic of discussion. The aim of this study was to assess the actual role of these two sequence variations in a series of patients with TRAPS. Methods: The main clinical data of 89 patients with TRAPS have been prospectively registered on a standard form. 84 patients or members of families with recurrent episodes of inflammatory symptoms spanning a period of more than 6 months and harbouring a TNFRSF1A mutation were studied. Clinical data have been analysed according to the nature of the mutation—P46L, R92Q or others. Results: P46L is often seen in patients from Maghreb and is associated with a mild phenotype. P46L appears as a polymorphism with a non-specific role in inflammation. R92Q is associated with a variable phenotype and presents as a low-penetrance mutation. Interpreting these results will require a comparison with clinical signs and genetic background.