Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Fast Target Recognition Algorithm Based on MSA and MSR

This paper presents a new fast target recognition algorithm, the proposed method is based on Multi-scale Auto convolution(MSA) and Multi-scale Retinex(MSR). As shown by the comparison with original MSA, it appears that this new technique solves the problem that MSA algorithm is sensitive to illumination and the computational load is significantly reduced to 1/8th of that of the original MSA algorithm, it is also robust to affine transform, light projective transform, noise, thin fog, occlusion and illumination change. the performed experiments show that it has fast searching speed, and can accurately recognize and locate target in real scenes.
Thymidine phosphorylase expression and benefit from capecitabine in patients with advanced breast cancer.

BACKGROUND AND AIM Capecitabine is an orally bioavailable prodrug that is converted to 5-fluorouracil through several enzymatic steps, the last of which is mediated by thymidine phosphorylase (TP). TP has been reported to be expressed at higher levels in cancer tissue compared with normal counterpart. The present study aimed at evaluating the potential relationship between TP expression and benefit from capecitabine in patients with metastatic breast cancer (BC). METHODS Immunohistochemistry for TP and other biological markers was carried out on paraffin-embedded cancer tissues of 61 patients with BC treated with at least three cycles of capecitabine as single agent for metastatic disease. All patients had received capecitabine 1000 mg/m(2) b.i. d. days 1-14 every 21 days. The following variables were analyzed as potential determinants of benefit from capecitabine: TP expression, estrogen receptor (ER) and progesterone receptor status, human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER-2) status, MIB-1 expression, performance status at the beginning of capecitabine treatment, stage at diagnosis, grade, presence of visceral metastases at the beginning of capecitabine treatment, and previous chemotherapy. RESULTS Overall, median time to progression (TTP) was 6.5 months (range 1.4-33). On multivariate analysis, ER status [hazard ratio (HR) for progression = 0.31; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.15-0.64; P = 0.002], presence of visceral metastases at the beginning of capecitabine treatment (HR = 2.30; 95% CI = 1.21-4.39; P = 0.01), and capecitabine as first- or second-line treatment (HR = 2.28; 95% CI = 1.21-4.32; P = 0.01) independently predicted TTP. TP was highly expressed in 34 of 61 cases (55.7%). In the subgroup of patients with TP-expressing tumor, TTP was significantly longer in patients who received anthracyclines and taxanes before capecitabine (median TTP 7.5 versus 3.3 months, P = 0.01, log-rank test). Similarly, patients with a TP-positive tumor showed a longer TTP if they received taxanes before capecitabine than patients with TP-positive tumor who did not receive this treatment (7.3 versus 3.4 months, P = 0.03). CONCLUSIONS These data provide further evidence that TP expression in BC could represent a biomarker of sensitivity to capecitabine treatment. Prospective studies with translational approach are desirable to confirm the predictive and prognostic role of TP.
Genes required for developmental signalling in Myxococcus xanthus: three asg loci

asg-carrying strains of Myxococcus xanthus arose in a selection for mutants defective in cell-cell signalling during fruiting body development. All 15 asg mutations examined were found to lie in one of three genetic loci, asgA, asgB, or asgC. The loci were defined by linkage to different insertions of transposon Tn5 and molecular cloning of asgA. asg mutants of all three types were deficient in the aggregation of cells into mounds of the sort that normally give rise to fruiting bodies. asg mutants were also deficient in spore formation; sporulation is normally one of the last steps in fruiting body development. Consistent with a requirement for cell-to-cell signalling, at 1 to 2 h asg+-carrying cells release a material called A-factor that can rescue development of asg mutants. asgA, asgB, and asgC mutants released 5% or less of the asg+ level of A-factor, as measured by bioassay. The experimental results are consistent with the hypothesis that a deficiency in A-factor production or release is the primary developmental defect in asg mutants and that aggregation and sporulation depend on A-factor. asg mutations at all three loci also changed the color and morphology of growing colonies, and failure to release A-factor may itself arise from a defect in growing cells.
Developing ontology based applications with O3L

Ontologies have been gaining interest and their use has been spreading in different applications fields. However, their use in the realization of applications might be further increased by the availability of more usable and efficient software library for the management of ontologies. In this paper, an object-oriented software library for the management of OWL ontologies is presented. This software library, called O3L (Object-Oriented Ontology Library), provides a complete representation of ontologies compliant with OWL 2 W3C. O3L has not the goal to be use for the creation and manipulation of ontologies, but provides a simplified and efficient API for the realization of applications, that interoperate through the use of shared ontologies, and allows: i) the use of OWL individuals as data of the applications, ii) the exchange of OWL individuals between applications, iii) the reasoning about OWL individuals, and iv) the classification of OWL classes and properties. This software library has been experimented in the realization of some e-business applications showing both high effortlessness in the development of the applications and high performances in their execution.
Internet use and interest among individuals with traumatic brain injury: A consumer survey

Purpose. To examine experiences among individuals in the USA with traumatic brain injury (TBI) regarding their access to and use of the Internet, problems encountered, and desire for improved Internet access and skills. Method. An in-depth survey was administered as a semi-structured interview to 80 individuals at least 3 months post moderate to severe TBI. Results. Two-thirds of respondents reported having a computer at home, but only half had access to the Internet. Fewer than half were Internet users, as compared to 60% users in the USA population at the time of the survey. However, Internet activities engaged in by users in this sample were comparable to those of the overall population. There was a strong interest in using the Internet among non-users. Most respondents expressed a strong desire for coaching or other training to enhance or develop Internet skills. Reported reasons for Internet non-use in this sample were lack of access and knowledge, versus lack of interest as in the general population. Conclusions. The high interest in using and learning more about the Internet supports the development of interventions to improve Internet skills for people with TBI.
The Brief Symptom Inventory: an introductory report

Synopsis This is an introductory report for the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI), a brief psychological self-report symptom scale. The BSI was developed from its longer parent instrument, the SCL-90-R, and psychometric evaluation reveals it to be an acceptable short alternative to the complete scale. Both test-retest and internal consistency reliabilities are shown to be very good for the primary symptom dimensions of the BSI, and its correlations with the comparable dimensions of the SCL-90-R are quite high. In terms of validation, high convergence between BSI scales and like dimensions of the MMPI provide good evidence of convergent validity, and factor analytic studies of the internal structure of the scale contribute evidence of construct validity. Several criterion-oriented validity studies have also been completed with this instrument
Constructing New Families of Nested Recursions with Slow Solutions

A recurring theme in nested recursions research has been the search for recursion families. By a recursion family we mean a collection of recursions with a common or at least highly similar structure, and where, with appropriate (but usually different) initial conditions for each recursion, their respective solutions behave similarly in key respects. Our key result is a general method for generating a family of recursions with slow solutions from any nested recursion of the form either $R(n)=R(n-s_1-R(n-a_1))+R(n-s_2-R(n-a_2))$ (a two-term generalized Conolly recursion) or $R(n)=R(n-s_1-R(n-a_1))+R(-t_1+R(n-b_1))$ (a generalized Conway recursion) so long as the recursion with which we start, together with its initial conditions, has a known slow solution. We apply this method to discover new families of recursions with slow solutions based on the well-known Hofstadter $V$ and Conway recursions, respectively.
Trimerization of Cell Adhesion Molecule L1 Mimics Clustered L1 Expression on the Cell Surface

Abstract : Several studies indicate that cell adhesion molecules have to be clustered on the cell surface to engage in adhesive functions. We investigated adhesive functions of clustered versus monomeric L1 extracellular parts in vitro to distinguish how clustering affects ligand binding and promotion of neurite outgrowth. Trimeric L1 was recombinantly expressed and covalently assembled by the cartilage matrix protein's coiled‐coil domain. Trimeric L1 has an apparent molecular mass of ~380 kDa in the nonreduced form and ~130 kDa in the reduced form. Rotary shadowing electron micrographs of trimeric L1 revealed a rod‐like shape terminating in three globular domains. Monomeric L1 assumes a horseshoe shape of domains Ig I‐IV followed by a rod‐like structure consisting of Ig V and VI and fibronectin type III 1‐5. Circular dichroism measurements showed that the secondary structure consists of β‐sheets. Trimeric L1 binds to itself, to monomeric L1, to laminin‐1, and to α5β1 integrin in a concentration‐dependent manner. In contrast, binding of monomeric L1 could only be saturated with itself but not with laminin‐1 and with α5β1 integrin. Promotion of neurite outgrowth from PC12 cells cultured on adsorbed trimeric L1 was increased by 100%, whereas on monomeric L1 the increase was only 50% over the control value. Promotion of neurite outgrowth from PC12 cells was specifically inhibited in a concentration‐dependent manner by a polyclonal antibody against L1. These findings show that clustering of only three extracellular domains increases considerably L1's binding affinity to different ligands and enhances neurite outgrowth, suggesting that adhesive functions of L1 on the cell surface depend on cluster formation.
Real-Time Image Processing with a MIMD Computer

Image processing applications require both computing and communication power. The aim of the GFLOPS project was to study all aspects concerning the design of such computers. The projects' aim was to develop a parallel architectures well as its software environment to implement those applications efficiently. The proposed architecture supports up to 512 processor nodes, connected over a scalable and cost-effective network at a constant cost per node. The first prototype implementation, running since the beginning of 1995, has shown that a parallel system can be both scalable and programmable through the use of a virtually shared memory paradigm, physically implemented with atomic message passing. GFLOPS-2 is a single-user machine which is designed to be used as a low-cost parallel co-processor board in a desk-top work station. In this paper we discuss the design of the GFLOPS-2 machine and evaluate the effectiveness of the mechanisms incorporated. The analysis of the architecture behaviour has been conducted with image processing and general purpose algorithms, written in C and assembler languages, through execution driven simulations. A development environment, especially a C data-parallel language, has been built for this purpose.
Highly restricted expression of Cre recombinase in cerebellar Purkinje cells

The Purkinje neuron, one of the most fascinating components of the cerebellar cortex, is involved in motor learning, motor coordination, and cognitive function. Purkinje cell protein 2 (Pcp2/L7) expression is highly restricted to Purkinje and retinal bipolar cells, where it has been exploited to enable highly specific, Cre recombinase‐mediated, site‐specific recombination. Previous studies showed that mice carrying a Cre transgene produced by insertion of Cre cDNA into a small 2.88‐kb Pcp2 DNA fragment expressed Cre in Purkinje cells; however, some Cre activity was also observed outside the target tissues. Here, we used Red‐mediated recombineering to insert Cre cDNA into a 173‐kb BAC carrying the entire intact Pcp2 gene, and characterize the resultant BAC/Cre transgenic mice for Cre expression. We show that BAC/Cre transgenic mice have exclusive Cre expression in Purkinje and bipolar cells and nowhere else. These mice will facilitate Purkinje cell and retinal bipolar cell‐specific genetic manipulation. genesis 40:45–51, 2004. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Evolving hierarchical visually guided neural network agents to investigate complex interactions

A complex system is a system with a large number of interacting components without any mechanism for central control that displays self organisation. Understanding how these interactions affect the overall behaviour of a system is of great interest to science. Indeed, researchers use a wide variety of models to investigate complex systems. The problem with most models is that they disregard the hierarchical nature of complex systems: they ignore the fact that components of real world systems tend to be complex systems as well. This prevents researchers from investigating the interactions taking place between the lower and the higher levels of the model which may be crucial in order to gain a full understanding of the examined phenomena and of complex systems in general. Therefore, this thesis introduces Mosaic World, a multi-agent model for the purpose of investigating interactions (focusing on 'complex' multilevel interactions) within a hierarchical complex system, in addition to other computational and biological hypotheses. Mosaic World comprises a population of evolving neural network agents that inhabit a changing visual environment. By analysing the interactions that occur within Mosaic World, this thesis demonstrates the importance of incorporating hierarchical complexity into a model, and contributes to our understanding of hierarchical complex systems by showing how selective pressures cause differentiation across levels. Additionally, the study of multilevel interactions is used to probe several hypotheses and provides the following contributions among others: Analysis of agent evolvability as affected by the usage of different types of structural mutations in the evolutionary process. Demonstration that agents controlled by modular neural networks are fitter than agents that are controlled by non-modular neural networks the improvement in fitness occurs through specialisation of modules. Empirical support for a biological theory suggesting that colour vision evolved as a method of dealing with ambiguous stimuli.
Dose Range Study of Pharmacokinetics, Safety, and Preliminary Antiviral Activity of Emtricitabine in Adults with Hepatitis B Virus Infection

ABSTRACT A multicenter, open-label study was performed to evaluate the safety, anti-hepatitis B virus (anti-HBV) activity, and pharmacokinetics of emtricitabine therapy administered once daily for 8 weeks to patients infected with HBV. Clinical and virologic evaluations were completed at the baseline; at 7, 14, 28, 42, and 56 days during treatment; and at 24, 48, and 28 days posttreatment. Forty-nine patients were enrolled in five dose cohorts (doses of 25, 50, 100, 200, and 300 mg, all of which were administered once daily [q.d.]). Peak plasma emtricitabine concentrations occurred within 1.5 h following dosing. Plasma emtricitabine concentrations (maximum concentrations of drug in plasma and areas under the concentration-time curves) increased nearly dose proportionally over the 25- to 300-mg dose range, with relatively small intersubject variabilities. The plasma half-life of emtricitabine ranged from 6 to 9 h. HBV DNA levels were measured by the Digene HBV Hybrid Capture II assay. Viral suppression (reduction in log10 serum HBV DNA levels) occurred in all dose cohorts. All doses demonstrated potent and rapid antiviral activities, with a trend toward a greater suppression with daily doses of 100 mg or greater. At 2 months, the median change in the serum HBV DNA level from the baseline level ranged from −1.7 log10 for the 25-mg dose administered q.d. to −3.3 log10 for the 300 mg dose administered q.d. Emtricitabine was well tolerated over the 2-month dosing period. These results support further clinical development of emtricitabine for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B infection.
Neoadjuvant Treatment With Cyclooxygenase-2 Inhibitor and Prednisolone Allows Conservative Surgery for Inflammatory Myofibroblastic Tumor of the Bladder

Inflammatory myofibroblastic tumor (IMT), which expresses cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), can be effectively treated with COX-2 inhibitor. Here, we report a case of urinary bladder IMT in a 13-year-old boy. Although total cystectomy was initially planned for complete resection of the tumor, neoadjuvant treatment with COX-2 inhibitor and prednisolone reduced the size of the tumor and enabled complete resection of the tumor by partial cystectomy. Neoadjuvant treatment with COX-2 inhibitor and prednisolone for IMT of the bladder allowed a more conservative surgical procedure that preserved bladder function.
Compact SPICE model for single electron tunnel junction

This paper presents a SPICE model for single electron tunneling (SET) junction based on the orthodox theory of single electronics. This model is more efficient than comparable models. The effect of tunneling resistance, junction capacitance and temperature are included in this model. SET junction is modeled by a resistor, capacitor, voltage controlled current source, two hard limiters, time control circuit, and delay element. The tunneling event of an electron is modeled by an impulse current passing through the junction for a very small period of time. Simulation results show that the tunneling resistance has a great effect on the tunneling rate and the temperature has a slightly effect. The proposed model results are verified by published data which was simulated by Monte Carlo simulator SIMON and show a good agreement.
Quantitative standard for exposure chamber integrity.

An inhalation exposure chamber separates the internal exposure atmosphere from the surrounding laboratory atmosphere. The integrity of this separation is reduced if the chamber leaks. A simple method for determining the physical integrity of inhalation exposure chambers is proposed and explained. Results obtained with this method are presented and integrity standards for both new and in-use chambers are suggested.
Melatonin protects mouse testes from palmitic acid‐induced lipotoxicity by attenuating oxidative stress and DNA damage in a SIRT1‐dependent manner

Palmitic acid (PA), the main component of dietary saturated fat, has been known to increase in patients with obesity, and PA‐induced lipotoxicity may contribute to obesity‐related male infertility. Melatonin has beneficial effects on reproductive processes; however, the effect and the underlying molecular mechanism of melatonin's involvement in PA‐induced cytotoxicity in the testes are poorly understood. Our findings showed that lipotoxicity was observed in mouse testes after long‐term PA treatment and that melatonin therapy restored spermatogenesis and fertility in these males. Moreover, melatonin therapy suppressed PA‐induced apoptosis by modulating apoptosis‐associated proteins such as Bcl2, Bax, C‐Caspase3, C‐Caspase12, and CHOP in type B spermatogonial stem cells. Changes in the expression of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress markers (p‐IRE1, p‐PERK, ATF4) and intracellular Ca2+ levels showed that melatonin relieved PA‐induced ER stress. Mechanistically, melatonin stimulated the expression and nuclear translocation of SIRT1 through its receptors and prevented PA‐induced ROS production and mitochondrial dysfunction via SIRT1 signaling pathway. Furthermore, melatonin promoted SIRT1‐mediated p53 deacetylation, thereby relieving G2/M arrest in response to PA‐stimulated DNA damage. Collectively, these findings indicate that melatonin protects the testes from PA‐induced lipotoxicity through the activation of SIRT1, which alleviates oxidative stress, ER stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, and DNA damage.
Two iterative algorithms for maximum likelihood esitimation of Gaussian mixture parameter

Gaussian mixture is a typical and widely-used non-Gaussian probability density distribution model. Its parameter's efficient estimation is the maximum likelihood estimation. The expectation-maximization algorithm is an usual iterative realization for this maximum likelihood estimation. However, its performance depends highly on the initial values. The greedy expectation-maximization algorithm can solve this problem efficiently by incrementally adding Gaussian components to the mixture. However, with appropriate initialization, the former can converge at the correct value quickly than the later. The concrete realization method of these two iterative algorithms is given. A numerical simulation illustrates their performance.
The War on Terror and the Ethics of Exceptionalism

Abstract The war on terror is commonly characterized as a fundamentally different kind of war from more traditional armed conflict. Furthermore, it has been argued that, in this new kind of war, different rules, both moral and legal, must apply. In the first part of this paper, three practices endemic to the war on terror – torture, assassination, and enemy combatancy status – are identified as exceptions to traditional norms. The second part of the paper uses these examples to motivate a generalized account of exceptionalism; a taxonomy of different exceptionalisms is derived, including temporal, spatial, and group-based exceptionalisms. The third part of the paper considers the ethical status of exceptionalism, paying particular attention to the group-based exceptionalisms that are argued to be prevalent in the war on terror. It is concluded that there is nothing inherently wrong with group-based exceptionalism and, furthermore, that the proper locus of ethical evaluation lies not with the norms that are being excepted, but rather with the groups that are being excepted from them.
Review of Apoptosis

Submit Manuscript | http://medcraveonline.com Apoptosis was first defined in 1972 [3], as physiological death pattern unlike necrosis. In Ancient Greek, apoptosis means falling of leaves from trees and petals from flowers. Apoptosis is an active procedure that is activated by various traumatic extra cellular lesions (hormonally active various agents, ionized radiation and traumatic agents including chemotherapy) or by genetic factors and that controls cellular death via a mechanism programmed by the cell itself [4]. As a physiological process, apoptosis is the most common morphology occuring in conditions in which cellular death is considered as physiological [5]. Apoptotic cells are continuously formed in some cells and tissues of organism and this process continues throughout all life. Thus death (apoptosis) and reformation (mitosis) proceeds in a dynamic balance by producing hemostasis in these tissues [6].