Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Treatment effects on insular and anterior cingulate cortex activation during classic and emotional Stroop interference in child abuse-related complex post-traumatic stress disorder

Background Functional neuroimaging studies have shown increased Stroop interference coupled with altered anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and insula activation in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). These brain areas are associated with error detection and emotional arousal. There is some evidence that treatment can normalize these activation patterns. Method At baseline, we compared classic and emotional Stroop performance and blood oxygenation level-dependent responses (functional magnetic resonance imaging) of 29 child abuse-related complex PTSD patients with 22 non-trauma-exposed healthy controls. In 16 of these patients, we studied treatment effects of psycho-educational and cognitive behavioural stabilizing group treatment (experimental treatment; EXP) added to treatment as usual (TAU) versus TAU only, and correlations with clinical improvement. Results At baseline, complex PTSD patients showed a trend for increased left anterior insula and dorsal ACC activation in the classic Stroop task. Only EXP patients showed decreased dorsal ACC and left anterior insula activation after treatment. In the emotional Stroop contrasts, clinical improvement was associated with decreased dorsal ACC activation and decreased left anterior insula activation. Conclusions We found further evidence that successful treatment in child abuse-related complex PTSD is associated with functional changes in the ACC and insula, which may be due to improved selective attention and lower emotional arousal, indicating greater cognitive control over PTSD symptoms.
Cross-Serotype Immunity Induced by Immunization with a Conserved Rhinovirus Capsid Protein

Human rhinovirus (RV) infections are the principle cause of common colds and precipitate asthma and COPD exacerbations. There is currently no RV vaccine, largely due to the existence of ∼150 strains. We aimed to define highly conserved areas of the RV proteome and test their usefulness as candidate antigens for a broadly cross-reactive vaccine, using a mouse infection model. Regions of the VP0 (VP4+VP2) capsid protein were identified as having high homology across RVs. Immunization with a recombinant VP0 combined with a Th1 promoting adjuvant induced systemic, antigen specific, cross-serotype, cellular and humoral immune responses. Similar cross-reactive responses were observed in the lungs of immunized mice after infection with heterologous RV strains. Immunization enhanced the generation of heterosubtypic neutralizing antibodies and lung memory T cells, and caused more rapid virus clearance. Conserved domains of the RV capsid therefore induce cross-reactive immune responses and represent candidates for a subunit RV vaccine.
Energy Management of a Fuel Cell/Supercapacitor/Battery Power Source for Electric Vehicular Applications

This paper presents an energy management method in an electrical hybrid power source (EHPS) for electric vehicular applications. The method is based on the flatness control technique (FCT) and fuzzy logic control (FLC). This EHPS is composed of a fuel cell system as the main source and two energy storage sources (ESSs)-a bank of supercapacitors (SCs) and a bank of batteries (BATs)-as the auxiliary source. With this hybridization, the volume and mass of the EHPS can be reduced, because the high energy density of BAT and high power density of SC are utilized. In the proposed novel control strategy, the FCT is used to manage the energy between the main and the auxiliary sources, and the FLC is employed to share the power flow in the ESS between the SC and the BAT. The power sharing depends on the load power and the state of charge of the SC and the BAT. EHPS is controlled by the regulation of the stored electrostatic energy in the dc buses. The main property of this strategy is that the energy management in the power source is carried out with a single general control algorithm in different operating modes, consequently avoiding any algorithm commutation. An EHPS test bench has been assembled and equipped with a real-time system controller based on a dSPACE. The experimental results validate the efficiency of the proposed control strategy.
Improving small‐sample inference in group randomized trials with binary outcomes

Group Randomized Trials (GRTs) randomize groups of people to treatment or control arms instead of individually randomizing subjects. When each subject has a binary outcome, over‐dispersed binomial data may result, quantified as an intra‐cluster correlation (ICC). Typically, GRTs have a small number, bin, of independent clusters, each of which can be quite large. Treating the ICC as a nuisance parameter, inference for a treatment effect can be done using quasi‐likelihood with a logistic link. A Wald statistic, which, under standard regularity conditions, has an asymptotic standard normal distribution, can be used to test for a marginal treatment effect. However, we have found in our setting that the Wald statistic may have a variance less than 1, resulting in a test size smaller than its nominal value. This problem is most apparent when marginal probabilities are close to 0 or 1, particularly when n is small and the ICC is not negligible. When the ICC is known, we develop a method for adjusting the estimated standard error appropriately such that the Wald statistic will approximately have a standard normal distribution. We also propose ways to handle non‐nominal test sizes when the ICC is estimated. We demonstrate the utility of our methods through simulation results covering a variety of realistic settings for GRTs. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
NEMO-Binding Domain Peptide Inhibits Constitutive NF-κB Activity and Reduces Tumor Burden in a Canine Model of Relapsed, Refractory Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma

Purpose: Activated B-cell diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (ABC-DLBCL) is an aggressive, poorly chemoresponsive lymphoid malignancy characterized by constitutive canonical NF-κB activity that promotes lymphomagenesis and chemotherapy resistance via overexpression of antiapoptotic NF-κB target genes. Inhibition of the canonical NF-κB pathway may therefore have therapeutic relevance in ABC-DLBCL. Here, we set out to determine whether dogs with spontaneous DLBCL have comparative aberrant constitutive NF-κB activity and to determine the therapeutic relevance of NF-κB inhibition in dogs with relapsed, resistant DLBCL. Experimental Design: Canonical NF-κB activity was evaluated by electrophoretic mobility shift assays and immunoblot analyses, and NF-κB target gene expression was measured by quantitative real time PCR. Primary malignant canine B lymphocytes were treated with the selective IKK complex inhibitor NF-κB essential modulator-binding domain (NBD) peptide and evaluated for NF-κB activity and apoptosis. NBD peptide was administered intranodally to dogs with relapsed B-cell lymphoma and NF-κB target gene expression and tumor burden were evaluated pre- and post-treatment. Results: Constitutive canonical NF-κB activity and increased NF-κB target gene expression were detected in primary DLBCL tissue. NBD peptide inhibited this activity and induced apoptosis of primary malignant B cells in vitro. Intratumoral injections of NBD peptide to dogs with relapsed DLBCL inhibited NF-κB target gene expression and reduced tumor burden. Conclusions: This work shows that dogs with spontaneous DLBCL represent a clinically relevant, spontaneous, large animal model for human ABC-DLBCL and shows the therapeutic relevance of NF-κB inhibition in the treatment of ABC-DLBCL. These results have important translational relevance for ABC-DLBCL treatment in human patients. Clin Cancer Res; 17(14); 4661–71. ©2011 AACR.
On reliability functions for single-message unequal error protection

Single-message unequal error protection (UEP) is a channel coding scheme that protects one special message differently from other (regular) messages. This induces three different types of errors in the system: 1) miss (where we decode the special codeword as a regular codeword), 2) false alarm (where we decode a regular codeword as the special codeword), and 3) decoding error (where we decode a regular codeword to another regular codeword). In this paper, we investigate the fundamental limits of single-message UEP, in the context of discrete memoryless channels (DMCs) without feedback. Similar to Borade et al., we use error exponents as the performance metric, and discuss maximizing the miss error exponent and the false alarm error exponent, respectively. We provide a new converse proof for the miss reliability function, i.e., the optimal miss error exponent as a function of communication rate, and extend the inner and outer bound results for the false alarm reliability function in Borade et al. from rates close to capacity to all rates up to capacity.
Epiphysis and Metaphysis Extraction and Classification by Adaptive Thresholding and DoG Filtering for Automated Skeletal Bone Age Analysis

The aim of this work is to develop an automated system for skeletal bone age evaluation. Skeletal bone age assessment is a common and time-consuming task in pediatric radiology. We describe a system that implements the EMROI (epiphyseal/metaphyseal region of interest) extraction method by image processing techniques. Each EMROI is localized on the image, by using an analysis of its gray levels. Then the bones in the EMROI are extracted by using the DoG (difference of Gaussians) filter and enhanced using a novel adaptive thresholding obtained by histogram processing. Finally, the main features of these bones are extracted for the stage TW2 (tanner whitehouse) evaluation. Results obtained on a sample of 20 X-rays are discussed. With respect to the other existing automated approaches to compute the bone age, the proposed method requires less user feedback on system's settings and is very versatile since it doesn't depend strongly on features of the X-ray acquisition.
Goodput Control for Heterogeneous Data Streams

Congestion control tries to answer the question: “At what rate should a sender transmit data under current network conditions? ” While answering this question is sufficient to maximize the goodput of traditional bulk data streams, emerging multimedia applications generate heterogeneous data streams where different frames have different quality of service requirements in terms of priority, deadlines, and inter-frame dependence. Consequently, the goodput of a multimedia stream depends not only on answering the above question, but also the question “Which packets should the sender transmit given its current transmission rate? ” In this paper, we make the case that the “goodput control” mechanisms that answer this question should be considered as a critical component of future multimedia transport protocols. We present an objective definition of goodput at the transport layer, and show that optimizing this goodput function has exponential complexity in the general case. We then present a set of simple online packet dropping algorithms that can be used at the sender side in order to approximate the optimum within a bounded ratio, and show that our goodput control mechanisms improve the application level reception quality for the flow.
Accuracy of [18F]FDG PET/MRI for the Detection of Liver Metastases

Background The aim of this study was to compare the diagnostic accuracy of [18F]FDG-PET/MRI with PET/CT for the detection of liver metastases. Methods 32 patients with solid malignancies underwent [18F]FDG-PET/CT and subsequent PET/MRI of the liver. Two readers assessed both datasets regarding lesion characterization (benign, indeterminate, malignant), conspicuity and diagnostic confidence. An imaging follow-up (mean interval: 185±92 days) and/-or histopathological specimen served as standards of reference. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) were calculated for both modalities. Accuracy was determined by calculating the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Values of conspicuity and diagnostic confidence were compared using Wilcoxon-signed-rank test. Results The standard of reference revealed 113 liver lesions in 26 patients (malignant: n = 45; benign: n = 68). For PET/MRI a higher accuracy (PET/CT: 82.4%; PET/MRI: 96.1%; p<0.001) as well as sensitivity (67.8% vs. 92.2%, p<0.01) and NPV (82.0% vs. 95.1%, p<0.05) were observed. PET/MRI offered higher lesion conspicuity (PET/CT: 2.0±1.1 [median: 2; range 0–3]; PET/MRI: 2.8±0.5 [median: 3; range 0–3]; p<0.001) and diagnostic confidence (PET/CT: 2.0±0.8 [median: 2; range: 1–3]; PET/MRI 2.6±0.6 [median: 3; range: 1–3]; p<0.001). Furthermore, PET/MRI enabled the detection of additional PET-negative metastases (reader 1: 10; reader 2: 12). Conclusions PET/MRI offers higher diagnostic accuracy compared to PET/CT for the detection of liver metastases.
Structural abnormalities develop in the brain after ablation of the gene encoding nonmuscle myosin II‐B heavy chain

Ablation of nonmuscle myosin heavy chain II‐B (NMHC‐B) in mice results in severe hydrocephalus with enlargement of the lateral and third ventricles. All B‐/B‐ mice died either during embryonic development or on the day of birth (PO). Neurons cultured from superior cervical ganglia of B‐/B‐ mice between embryonic day (E) 18 and P0 showed decreased rates of neurite outgrowth, and their growth cones had a distinctive narrow morphology compared with those from normal mice. Serial sections of E12.5, E13.5, and E15 mouse brains identified developmental defects in the ventricular neuroepithelium. On E12.5, disruption of the coherent ventricular surface and disordered cell migration of neuroepithelial and differentiated cells were seen at various points in the ventricular walls. These abnormalities resulted in the formation of rosettes in various regions of the brain and spinal cord. On E13.5 and E15, disruption of the ventricular surface and aberrant protrusions of neural cells into the ventricles became more prominent. By E18.5 and P0, the defects in cells lining the ventricular wall resulted in an obstructive hydrocephalus due to stenosis or occlusion of the third ventricle and cerebral aqueduct. These defects may be caused by abnormalities in the cell adhesive properties of neuroepithelial cells and suggest that NMHC‐B is essential for both early and late developmental processes in the mammalian brain. J. Comp. Neurol. 433:62–74, 2001. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
The role of coherence for the integration of different sources

In several economic applications (e.g. marketing research, microsimulation models) there is the need to consider dierent data sources and to integrate the information coming from them. In this paper we show how integration problems can be managed by means of coherence for partial conditional probabilistic assessments. Coherence allows us to combine the knowledge coming from the dierent sources, included those (possibly) given from field experts, without necessarily assuming further hypothesis (as conditional independence). Moreover, inferences and decisions can be drawn taking in consideration also logical constraints among the variables. An example showing advantages and drawbacks of the proposed method is given.
Free medialis pedis flap as a coverage and flow-through flap in hand and digit reconstruction.

BACKGROUND Skin and soft-tissue defects of the hand and digit present a challenge for the hand surgeon especially in meeting the reconstructive needs of thickness, texture, color matching, and sensation. It becomes an even bigger challenge to reconstruct the defect in a devascularized finger with segmental loss of the neurovascular bundle. We use the relatively new flap, the medialis pedis flap, to solve the above conditions and compare it with traditional flaps. METHODS From May of 1994 to March of 1997, the free medialis pedis flap was used to reconstruct 19 digit and hand defects; the flap sizes ranging from 1.5 x 3.0 cm to 3.0 x 9.0 cm. Sixteen flaps were used for simple coverage of digit defects, including 12 for single-digit and 4 for multiple-digit reconstruction. The remaining three flaps were used as coverage and a flow-through flap for devascularized fingers. RESULTS All 19 flaps survived and achieved a good protective sensation. The appearance was very satisfactory, and the donor-site scars were without sensory problems. CONCLUSION Compared with traditional flaps, the free medialis pedis has the following advantages: it provides good thickness, texture, and color matching for hand and digit resurfacing; it can be used as a flow-through flap and as coverage for a devascularized finger in a one-stage procedure; the size of the feeding vessels of the flap matches those of the digital vessels well; and it consists of glabrous skin rich in nerve endings, so it has good potential for sensory recovery. Because of all of these characteristics, the free medialis flap may become a better consideration for hand surgeons.
Recombinant Holotoxoid Vaccine against Botulism

ABSTRACT The botulinum neurotoxins (BoNT) are the most toxic proteins for humans and designated “Category A Select Agents. ” The current vaccine against botulism is in limited supply, and there is a need to develop new vaccine strategies. A recombinant BoNT/A toxoid was produced in Clostridium botulinum that contained a double amino acid substitution, R363A Y365F (termed BoNT/ARYM). BoNT/ARYM was noncatalytic for SNAP25 and nontoxic for mice. Immunization with BoNT/ARYM protected mice from challenge at levels that were similar to chemically inactivated BoNT/A toxoid. BoNT/ARYM elicited an immune response against the light-chain and heavy-chain components of the toxin. Neutralizing anti-BoNT/ARYM sera blocked BoNT toxicity in primary cortical neurons and blocked ganglioside binding by the heavy chain. BoNT/ARYM represents a viable vaccine candidate for a holotoxoid against botulism.
Applied dynamic policy selection

Cloud key services are prominent targets for attacks. In fact, every service guarding sensitive data uses a policy system to do so. As of today, such policies are mostly static. However, as system environments change and attacks grow more sophisticated, such static policies cannot always sufficiently cope with attacks and may even unnecessarily hinder the legitimate user. We believe that more fine-grained and reactive protection systems are needed to meet modern security requirements. We propose a concept to separate the concerns of policy enforcement and the policies themselves as a basis for more flexible and dynamic policy enforcement. With policies no longer interfering with a system's business logic, we can introduce strategies and actions which preselect rules based on system information for the policy enforcement to use. In order to understand the characteristics and capabilities of the proposed concept, we implemented two case studies based on CrySIL and XACML. We show that our concept can can be gradually integrated with existing systems while at the same time easing maintenance of policy sets. Furthermore, it enables policy sharing and joint definition and refinement of strategies, actions, and security rules, resulting in powerful security policies at minimal cost. All in all, our solution fosters deployment of reactive security systems.
Memory T‐Cell Predominance Following T‐Cell Depletional Therapy Derives from Homeostatic Expansion of Naive T Cells

T‐cell depletion reportedly leads to alterations in the T‐cell compartment with predominant survival of memory phenotype CD4 T cells. Here, we asked whether the prevalence of memory T cells postdepletion results from their inherent resistance to depletion and/or to the homeostatic expansion of naive T cells and their phenotypic conversion to memory, which is known to occur in lymphopenic conditions. Using a ‘mosaic memory’ mouse model with trackable populations of alloreactive memory T cells, we found that treatment with murine antithymocyte globulin (mATG) or antilymphocyte serum (ALS) effectively depleted alloreactive memory CD4 T cells, followed by rapid homeostatic proliferation of endogenous CD4 T cells peaking at 4 days postdepletion, with no homeostatic advantage to the antigen‐specific memory population. Interestingly, naive (CD44lo) CD4 T cells exhibited the greatest increase in homeostatic proliferation following mATG treatment, divided more extensively compared to memory (CD44hi) CD4 T cells and converted to a memory phenotype. Our results provide novel evidence that memory CD4 T cells are susceptible to lymphodepletion and that the postdepletional T‐cell compartment is repopulated to a significant extent by homeostatically expanded naive T cells in a mouse model, with important important implications for immune alterations triggered by induction therapy.
Antioxidant activities of extracts and subfractions from Inonotus Obliquus

The ethanolic crude extracts and three subfractions (ethyl acetate fraction, n-butanol fraction, and aqueous fraction) from Inonotus Obliquus were obtained by sequential partitioning and their antioxidant activities were investigated in the present study. The methods of the total antioxidant capacity measured by the ferric-reducing antioxidant power assay, reducing power assay, scavenging activities towards DPPH, superoxide anion and hydroxyl radical employed in this study were established in in vitro systems. The amounts of total phenolics and total flavonoids were also determined by spectrophotometer. The results showed that the crude extracts and subfractions exhibited antioxidant activities in different evaluating system. The decreasing order of antioxidant activities is ethyl acetate fraction >n-butanol fraction >crude extract>aqueous fraction. A similar order of the amounts of phenolics and flavonoids in extract and subfractions was found. The results showed that the extent of antioxidant activities is in accordance with the amounts of phenolics and flavonoids existing in extracts and subfractions.
Evaluating Superpixels in Video: Metrics Beyond Figure-Ground Segmentation

There exist almost as many superpixel segmentation algorithms as applications they can be used for. So far, the choice of the right superpixel algorithm for the task at hand is based on their ability to resemble human-made ground truth segmentations (besides runtime and availability). We investigate the equally important question of how stable the segmentations are under image changes as they appear in video data. Further we propose a new quality measure that evaluates how well the segmentation algorithms cover relevant image boundaries. Instead of relying on human-made annotations, that may be biased by semantic knowledge, we present a completely data-driven measure that inherently emphasizes the importance of image boundaries. Our evaluation is based on two recently published datasets coming with ground truth optical flow fields. We discuss how these ground optical truth fields can be used to evaluate segmentation algorithms and compare several existing superpixel algorithms.
A new AdS/CFT correspondence

We consider a geometric zero-radius limit for strings on AdS5 × S5, where the Anti-de Sitter hyperboloid becomes the projective lightcone. In this limit the fifth dimension becomes non dynamical, yielding a different ``holographic'' interpretation than the usual ``bulk to boundary'' one. When quantized on the random lattice, the fifth coordinate acts as a new kind of Schwinger parameter, producing Feynman rules with normal propagators at the tree level: for example, in the bosonic case ordinary massless 4 theory is obtained. In the superstring case we obtain new, manifestly = 4 supersymmetric rules for = 4 super Yang-Mills. These gluons are also different from those of the usual AdS/CFT correspondence: they are the ``partons'' that make up the usual ``hadrons'' of the open and closed strings in the familiar QCD string picture. Thus, their coupling gYM and rank N of the ``color'' gauge group are different from those of the ``flavor'' gauge group of the open string. As a result we obtain different perturbation expansions in radius, coupling, and 1/N.