Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Caspase Deficiency : Involvement in Breast Carcinogenesis and Resistance

MCF-7, a breast cancer derived cell line, is deficient of caspase 3 and relatively insensitive to many chemotherapeutic agents. To study the association of caspase 3 deficiency and chemotherapeutic resistance, we reconstituted caspase 3 in MCF-7 cells and characterized their apoptotic response to doxorubicin. Western blots demonstrated that caspase 3 was constitutively expressed in the reconstituted MCF-7 cells. Both morphological observation and survival assays showed that caspase 3 reconstitution significantly sensitized MCF-7 cells to doxorubicin. Remarkably increased activation of caspases 3, 6 and 7, and cleavage of cellular death substrates were detected in the reconstituted MCF-7 cells post-doxorubicin. Our results demonstrated a specific role for caspase 3 in caspases 6 and 7 activation, and suggested a correlation between caspase 3 activity and dose-intensive effects of doxorubicin.
Stable Decentralized Control of a Platoon of Vehicles With Heterogeneous Information Feedback

The problem of controlling a string of vehicles moving in one dimension is considered so that they all follow a lead vehicle with constant spacing between successive vehicles. Due to practical design and implementation, the negative effect of the tracking lag parameter is taken into account. A hierarchical platoon controller design framework is established comprising a feedback linearization controller at the first layer and a decentralized bidirectional control controller at the second layer. The stability criterion is examined by using a partial differential equation approximation in the limit of the number of vehicles subjected to unequal asymmetry in position and velocity feedback. For disturbance attenuation, string stability analysis is also examined. At the end of the paper, simulations are given to show the efficiency of the proposed results.
SCOUTER: Content-based multiple-instance object retrieval system

The article presents the main functionalities and outcomes of the SCOUTER project, which is developed by UTI GRUP in partnership with the “Politehnica” University of Bucharest and co-funded by the Romanian R&D National Framework. SCOUTER is built as an offline processing application module for coping with multiple instance objects retrieval task from video surveillance footage (e.g., searching of a general class, a particular object, retrieval of distinctive regions of interest or patterns). Such functionalities are user-driven as the challenges are derived from the practice of police forensics teams on dealing with analysis of large video datasets. Findings and outputs of the presented project are contributed to the understanding of the constraints and issues that are particular to real-world video surveillance datasets and processing systems and further to alleviate analysis efforts of police investigations.
Software Framework for Controlling Unsupervised Scientific Instruments

Science outreach and communication are gaining more and more importance for conveying the meaning of today’s research to the general public. Public exhibitions of scientific instruments can provide hands-on experience with technical advances and their applications in the life sciences. The software of such devices, however, is oftentimes not appropriate for this purpose. In this study, we describe a software framework and the necessary computer configuration that is well suited for exposing a complex self-built and software-controlled instrument such as a microscope to laymen under limited supervision, e.g. in museums or schools. We identify several aspects that must be met by such software, and we describe a design that can simultaneously be used to control either (i) a fully functional instrument in a robust and fail-safe manner, (ii) an instrument that has low-cost or only partially working hardware attached for illustration purposes or (iii) a completely virtual instrument without hardware attached. We describe how to assess the educational success of such a device, how to monitor its operation and how to facilitate its maintenance. The introduced concepts are illustrated using our software to control eduSPIM, a fluorescent light sheet microscope that we are currently exhibiting in a technical museum.
A Cloud Computing Architecture with Wireless Sensor Networks for Agricultural Applications

The emergence of precision agriculture has been promoted by the many developments in the field of wireless sensor actor networks (WSAN). These WSANs provide valuable information for harvesting, work management, growth of crops, and prevention of crop diseases. This paper focuses on introducing cloud computing as a new approach to be used in addition to WSANs to further enhance their application and benefits to the field of agriculture.
Dynamics of conserved waters in human Hsp90: implications for drug design

The flexibility of a promising protein target, human heat shock protein 90 (Hsp90), is investigated by molecular dynamics simulations. These simulations focus on: (i) the interactions between the protein and conserved water molecules; and (ii) the interactions of the ligand PU3, the conserved water molecules and the protein. This is followed by a virtual screening docking study of the PU3 family of compounds and Hsp90 incorporating several conserved water molecules.
Intersected slot waveguide for dual polarized mode low-index confinement and its polarization conversion

Intersected slot waveguide is proposed to strongly confine TE and TM modes simultaneously. Confinement factors as wells as single-mode condition are given for fully symmetrical a-Si/SiO2/SOI intersected slot waveguide and the SiNx-covered case @ 1.55 mum. A pertinent polarization- independent device can be realized by size tuning, or by employing the analyzed polarization converter to alternatively treat the polarized modes. The conversion efficiency is also investigated in size dependence by mode matching method.
Correlation based active regions identification from fMRI data

The studies of neuroimaging have been shown that odorant-induced responses to the prolonged stimulation in primary olfactory cortex (POC) are characterized by a rapidly habituating time course. This paper is concerned the identification of the active regions in the brain after that stimulation. The correlation technique is used to obtain the quantity that could be a parameter to exhibit the regions of interest. This paper also illustrates the ways to remedy problems that occurred during data acquisition process. The real functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data obtained from the experiment is used to evaluate the performance of the method.
Accurate individualized therapeutic plans ontology based on evidence based medicine

Overflow of medical information, lack of knowledge about medications and clinical experience could cause health care professionals to disregard vital information which affects patient safety. Health care professionals should base their decisions on the best-updated evidence for diagnosis, prognosis, and therapeutics, and on patient values and preferences as well as on the results of the clinical experience of both the professional and patient. Such practice is called evidence-based medicine.
Natural-language processing and automatic indexing

The task of producing satisfactory indexes by automatic means has been tackled on two fronts: by statistical analysis of text and by attempting content analysis of the text in much the same way as a human indexcr does. Though statistical techniques have a lot to offer for free-text database systems, neither method has had much success with back-of-the-bopk indexing. This review examines some problems associated with the application of natural-language processing techniques to book texts.
An Evaluation of Secondary School Principals Leadership Roles and Student Participation in Sporting Activities in Nyandarua County, Kenya.

The purpose of this study was to assess the influence of secondary school principalsâ€™ leadership roles in development of studentsâ€™ non-academic talents in Nyandarua County Kenya. Specifically, this study sought to establish the influence of secondary school principalsâ€™ leadership roles on studentsâ€™ participation in sporting activities in Nyandarua County; whether there a relationship between secondary school principalsâ€™ leadership role of preparing school calendar of events and development of learnersâ€™ non-academic talents in Nyandarua County; and whether there is a relationship between secondary school principalsâ€™ leadership role of guiding and counseling and development of learnersâ€™ non-academic talents in Nyandarua County. Survey research design was used while quantitative research strategy was used in this study. The target population comprised of 185 principals from 185 secondary schools in Nyandarua County. Questionnaires were used to collect data from a sample of principals. Stratified random sampling technique was used toarrive at the sample for this study. Data was analysed using paired t-tests with the help of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) while results were presented in Tables. The study revealed that development of learnersâ€™ non-academic talents was being affected by inadequate training for the principals and lack of recognition of students who excel in non-academic talents. The study recommended that secondary school education policy makers, MOE officials, principals and teachers give development of learnersâ€™ non-academic talents as much emphasis as the academic talents development.
Distributed connectivity restoration using cognitive relay nodes positioning in damaged wireless sensor network

Natural disasters such as earthquakes, storms and fire scenes can led to the failure of many nodes simultaneously in wireless sensor network, leaving behind multiple isolated network segments. Establishing connectivity among different segments is possible by deploying relay nodes. There are couples of challenges in the deployments mechanism, i.e., how many relay nodes will be sufficient and where these relay nodes should be placed. For a scenario, with known information about segmented network such as number of segments, number of nodes in each segment and the location of each node, these problems can be solved in a centralized fashion. However, for a damaged network with unknown information, a distributed connectivity establishment mechanism is required. In this paper, a distributed connection restoration algorithm (DCRA) is proposed. In this algorithm, cognitive radio based relays move in the subjected area and try to establish the connection among various segments of the damaged network. The main aim of the DCRA is to establish the connection quickly with less number of possible relay nodes. The results demonstrate the significance of the proposed algorithm.
Optimal Location of TCSC with Minimum Installation Cost using PSO

The FACTS devices can effectively improve the power transmission capability, compensate reactive power, improve power quality, and improve stability of the power system network. This paper presents the optimal location of series FACTS devices to achieve maximum system loadability with minimum cost of installation of these devices. In order to enhance the power capability of the line, reactance model of the Thyristor Controlled Series Capacitor(TCSC) is considered. Optimal location of TCSC can be obtained by using sensitivity analysis, Particle swarm optimization technique (PSO) will be used for optimal parameter setting of TCSC. The effectiveness of this method has been tested for IEEE-14 and IEEE-30 bus system using MATLAB programming.
Biasing Perception by Spatial Long-Term Memory

Human perception is highly flexible and adaptive. Selective processing is tuned dynamically according to current task goals and expectations to optimize behavior. Arguably, the major source of our expectations about events yet to unfold is our past experience; however, the ability of long-term memories to bias early perceptual analysis has remained untested. We used a noninvasive method with high temporal resolution to record neural activity while human participants detected visual targets that appeared at remembered versus novel locations within naturalistic visual scenes. Upon viewing a familiar scene, spatial memories changed oscillatory brain activity in anticipation of the target location. Memory also enhanced neural activity during early stages of visual analysis of the target and improved behavioral performance. Both measures correlated with subsequent target-detection performance. We therefore demonstrated that memory can directly enhance perceptual functions in the human brain.
Laboratório VISGRAF Instituto de Matemática Pura e Aplicada Algorithms for Assisted Diagnosis of Solitary Lung Nodules in Computerized Tomography Images

The present work seeks to develop a computational tool to suggest the malignancy or benignity of Solitary Lung Nodules by means of analyzing texture and geometry measures obtained from computarized tomography images. Three groups of methods are proposed with the purpose of suggesting the diagnosis for such nodules. The methods are divided according to their common characteristics. Group I uses four geostatistical functions denominated semivariogram, semimadogram, covariogram and correlogram to analyze nodules’ texture. Group II describes measures based only on the nodules’ geometry, such as convexity, sphericity, and measures based on the curvature. Finally, Group III analyzes the Gini coefficient and nodules’ skeleton, which take into account both the nodules’ geometry and texture. A sample with 36 nodules, 29 benign and 7 malignant, was analyzed and the preliminary results of these methods are very promising in characterizing lung nodules. All groups of proposed methods have the area under the ROC curve value above 0.800, using Fisher’s Linear Discriminant Analysis and Multilayer Perceptron Neural Networks. This means that the proposed methods have great potential in the discrimination and classification of Solitary Lung Nodules.
Stability Analysis of Interval Type-2 Fuzzy-Model-Based Control Systems

This paper presents the stability analysis of interval type-2 fuzzy-model-based (FMB) control systems. To investigate the system stability, an interval type-2 Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy model, which can be regarded as a collection of a number of type-1 T-S fuzzy models, is proposed to represent the nonlinear plant subject to parameter uncertainties. With the lower and upper membership functions, the parameter uncertainties can be effectively captured. Based on the interval type-2 T-S fuzzy model, an interval type-2 fuzzy controller is proposed to close the feedback loop. To facilitate the stability analysis, the information of the footprint of uncertainty is used to develop some membership function conditions, which allow the introduction of slack matrices to handle the parameter uncertainties in the stability analysis. Stability conditions in terms of linear matrix inequalities are derived using a Lyapunov-based approach. Simulation examples are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed interval type-2 FMB control approach.
1H MRSI of normal appearing white matter in multiple sclerosis

The primary goal of this study was to determine if differences in proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy signals exist between normal appearing white matter (NAWM) of multiple sclerosis (MS) patients and white matter of control subjects. Water suppressed proton magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging was used to determine the signal intensities of N-acetylated moieties (NA, predominantly N-acetylaspartate (NAA) the putative neuronal marker), creatine and phosphocreatine (Cr), and cholines (Ch) in 19 MS patients (15 relapsing-remitting and four secondary progressive) and 19 age matched control subjects. NA/Cr was significantly reduced (P < 0.00 1) in MS NAWM (1.8 ± 0.2; x ± s.d.) distant from MRI detected lesion areas compared to white matter of control subjects (2.1 ± 0.2). This reduction was due to an increase in Cr from 0.39 ± 0.04 (arbitrary units) in controls to 0.45 ± 0.05 in MS patients. There was no significant change in NA or Ch in MS NAWM compared to controls. NA/ Cr, distant from MRI lesion, was negatively correlated with total brain lesion volume as measured from T2-weighted MRI. We interpret the reduced NA/Cr in MS NAWM to indicate diffuse microscopic disease.
Extension of Coupled Mode Analysis to Infinite Photonic Superlattices

Coupled-mode theory (CMT) is extended to the case of infinite 2-D photonic arrays, made of periodically repeated identical groups of different waveguides (supercells). Born-Karman boundary conditions, applied to the CMT equations for this system, are used to compute the photonic band structure. This method was found to be more efficient and much less resource-consuming than the existing approaches, for the analysis of finite large-sized arrays.
The supportive network: rural disadvantaged older people and ICT

ABSTRACT The rapid development of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) is profoundly transforming the social order, into what Spanish sociologist Manuel Castells calls the network society. Mobile technologies, such as smartphones and tablet computers, are perhaps the definitive tools of the network society; however, cultural and economic barriers exist that restrict access to these transformative tools and to the information networks in which they operate. One group that is particularly at risk is rural older people from disadvantaged backgrounds. This paper reports on one aspect of a larger action research project that involved working with a small group of rural, socially isolated older people with histories of homelessness and complex needs (N = 7) and their social workers. This paper focuses on the older participants who, having been provided tablet computers, were then supported to use the device in their homes over the course of eight months. Despite most participants having never used a computing device of any kind prior to the research project, findings suggested that participants gained confidence, independence and social engagement as a result of their ICT use. Results also highlighted that they experienced challenges in utilising ICT, specifically technical, economic and social barriers. Findings highlight the individual and structural issues that must be addressed to enable all citizens to participate fully in the network society.
Meiotic gene expression initiates during larval development in the sea urchin

Background: Meiosis is a unique mechanism in gamete production and a fundamental process shared by all sexually reproducing eukaryotes. Meiosis requires several specialized and highly conserved genes whose expression can also identify the germ cells undergoing gametogenic differentiation. Sea urchins are echinoderms, which form a phylogenetic sister group of chordates. Sea urchin embryos undergo a feeding, planktonic larval phase in which they construct an adult rudiment prior to metamorphosis. Although a series of conserved meiosis genes (e.g., dmc1, msh5, rad21, rad51, and sycp1) is expressed in sea urchin oocytes, we sought to determine when in development meiosis would first be initiated. Results: We surveyed the expression of several meiotic genes and their corresponding proteins in the sea urchin Strongylocentrotus purpuratus. Surprisingly, meiotic genes are highly expressed not only in ovaries but beginning in larvae. Both RNA and protein localizations strongly suggest that meiotic gene expression initiates in tissues that will eventually give rise to the adult rudiment of the late larva. Conclusions: These results demonstrate that broad expression of the molecules associated with meiotic differentiation initiates prior to metamorphosis and may have additional functions in these cells, or mechanisms repressing their function, until later in development when gametogenesis begins. Developmental Dynamics, 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals,Inc.
mbeddr: an extensible C-based programming language and IDE for embedded systems

While the C programming language provides good support for writing efficient, low-level code, it is not adequate for defining higher-level abstractions relevant to embedded software. In this paper we present the mbeddr technology stack that supports extension of C with constructs adequate for embedded systems. In mbeddr, efficient low-level programs can be written using the well-known concepts from C. Higher-level domain-specific abstractions can be seamlessly integrated into C by means of modular language extension regarding syntax, type system, semantics and IDE. In the paper we show how language extension can address the challenges of embedded software development and report on our experience in building these extensions. We show that language workbenches deliver on the promise of significantly reducing the effort of language engineering and the construction of corresponding IDEs. mbeddr is built on top of the JetBrains MPS language workbench. Both MPS and mbeddr are open source software.
Tool support for collaborative software development based on dependency analysis

This paper presents RaisAware, a collaborative software development tool aimed at supporting the relationship between software architecture and coordination of software development activities. Our design is based on both dependency analysis of software development artifacts and software developers' activities. We describe the motivations behind this work, detail the design and implementation of RaisAware, and present an evaluation of the tool using open-source project data.
Increased Plasma miRNA-30a as a Biomarker for Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

Background MicroRNA (miRNA) is a small, non-coding RNA molecule which plays a role in the carcinogenesis and progression of cancers. Abnormal expression of miRNA in plasma has been found in some patients with malignant tumors. Material/Methods This study was conducted to investigate the expression of miRNA-30a in plasma of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The plasma miRNA-30a in 87 patients with NSCLC, 20 patients with benign lung diseases, and 76 healthy subjects were measured by real-time PCR. The diagnostic value of miRNA-30a in NSCLC was evaluated via the ROC curve method. Results Plasma miRNA-30a level was significantly higher in the NSCLC group compared with benign control and healthy control groups (P<0.01). No statistically significant difference was found in the expression level of miRNA-30a among various clinical pathologic features in NSCLC. ROC curve analysis showed that the specificity and sensitivity cut-off points were at 61.0% and 84.3% for NSCLC. The specificity and sensitivity values were 54.9% and 94.4%, respectively, in the analysis based on in-patients only. Conclusions All these results suggest that plasma miRNA-30a measurement may be a novel and noninvasive method for NSCLC preliminary screening and differential diagnosis.