Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
p27-p16 Fusion Gene Inhibits Angioplasty-Induced Neointimal Hyperplasia and Coronary Artery Occlusion

Inhibition of proliferative neointima formed by vascular smooth muscle cells is a potential target in preventing angioplasty-induced restenosis. We have created a potent antiproliferative by fusing the active regions of the p27 and p16 cell cycle inhibitors. Intravascular delivery of a replication-deficient adenoviral vector (AV) encoding this p27-p16 fusion protein, named W9, inhibited balloon injury–induced neointimal hyperplasia in rabbit carotid arteries. In a therapeutically more relevant model, AV-W9 was delivered to balloon-injured porcine coronary arteries in vivo using an infusion catheter. Of the three coronary arteries, two were injured with a 15-mm balloon catheter and either were left untreated or were treated with 1012 viral particles of either AV-W9 or a control null virus. AV-W9 treatment significantly inhibited neointimal hyperplasia in this porcine arterial balloon injury model compared with untreated or control virus–treated vessels. The average intimal area of the AV-W9–treated group 10 days after balloon injury and treatment was 0.42±0.36 mm2, whereas the AV-null group demonstrated an intimal area of 0.70±0.52 mm2. At day 10 the average intimal thickness of the AV-W9–treated vessels was 9.1 &mgr;m (n=5, ×20 magnification) compared with 21.2 &mgr;m (n=5, ×20 magnification) in control virus–treated vessels. This trend was also observed at 28 days after balloon injury and gene transfer during which AV-W9–treated vessels demonstrated an average intimal thickness of 4.7 &mgr;m (n=8, ×20 magnification) compared with 13.3 &mgr;m (n=3, ×20 magnification) in control virus–treated vessels and 7.3 &mgr;m (n=5, ×20 magnification) in the sham-treated vessels. The AV-W9 treatment was safe and well tolerated. These data suggest that AV-W9 gene therapy may be useful in preventing angioplasty–induced intimal hyperplasia in the coronary artery.
Enlarging Paraphrase Collections through Generalization and Instantiation

This paper presents a paraphrase acquisition method that uncovers and exploits generalities underlying paraphrases: paraphrase patterns are first induced and then used to collect novel instances. Unlike existing methods, ours uses both bilingual parallel and monolingual corpora. While the former are regarded as a source of high-quality seed paraphrases, the latter are searched for paraphrases that match patterns learned from the seed paraphrases. We show how one can use monolingual corpora, which are far more numerous and larger than bilingual corpora, to obtain paraphrases that rival in quality those derived directly from bilingual corpora. In our experiments, the number of paraphrase pairs obtained in this way from monolingual corpora was a large multiple of the number of seed paraphrases. Human evaluation through a paraphrase substitution test demonstrated that the newly acquired paraphrase pairs are of reasonable quality. Remaining noise can be further reduced by filtering seed paraphrases.
A New Approach to Planning in Networks

Control of networks like those for transportation, power distribution, communication to name a few, provides challenges to planning and scheduling. Many problems can be defined in terms of a basic state space model, but more general problems require an expressive language for talking about the topology and connectivity of the system, which are outside the scope of standard planning languages. In this work we introduce a general framework for defining planning languages for networked systems, with capability to express properties of connectivity and topology of such systems.
Interaction sign patterns in biological networks: From qualitative to quantitative criteria

In stable biological and ecological networks, the steady-state influence matrix gathers the signs of steady-state responses to step-like perturbations affecting the variables. Such signs are difficult to predict a priori, because they result from a combination of direct effects (deducible from the Jacobian of the network dynamics) and indirect effects. For stable monotone or cooperative networks, the sign pattern of the influence matrix can be qualitatively determined based exclusively on the sign pattern of the system Jacobian. For other classes of networks, we show that a semi-qualitative approach yields sufficient conditions for Jacobians with a given sign pattern to admit a fully positive influence matrix, and we also provide quantitative conditions for Jacobians that are translated eventually nonnegative matrices. We present a computational test to check whether the influence matrix has a constant sign pattern in spite of parameter variations, and we apply this algorithm to quasi-Metzler Jacobian matrices, to assess whether positivity of the influence matrix is preserved in spite of deviations from cooperativity. When the influence matrix is fully positive, we give a simple vertex algorithm to test robust stability. The devised criteria are applied to analyse the steady-state behaviour of ecological and biomolecular networks.
Optimum post-filter estimation for noise reduction in multichannel speech processing

This paper proposes a post-filtering estimation scheme for multichannel noise reduction. The proposed method is an extension and improvement of the existing Zelinski and McCowan post-filters which use the auto- and cross-spectral densities of the multichannel input signals to estimate the transfer function of the Wiener post-filter. A drawback in previous two post-filters is that the noise power spectrum at the beamformer's output is over-estimated and therefore the derived filters are sub-optimal in the Wiener sense. The proposed method overcomes this problem and can be used for the construction of an optimal post-filter which is also appropriate for a variety of different noise fields. In experiments with real noise multichannel recordings the proposed technique has shown to obtain a significant gain over the other studied methods in terms of signal-to-noise ratio, log area ratio distance and speech degradation measure. In particular the proposed post-filter presents a relative SNR enhancement of 17.3% and a relative decrease on signal degradation of 21.7% compared to the best of all the other studied methods.
Exact Local Whittle Estimation of Fractional Integration

An exact form of the local Whittle likelihood is studied with the intent of developing a general purpose estimation procedure for the memory parameter (d) that applies throughout the stationary and nonstationary regions of d and which does not rely on tapering or differencing prefilters. The resulting exact local Whittle estimator is shown to be consistent and to have the same N(0,1/4) limit distribution for all values of d.
A fine-grained technique of NBTI-aware voltage scaling and body biasing for standard cell based designs

As the technology scales, the increase of circuit delay over time due to NBTI (negative bias temperature instability) effect is not negligible any more. It has been known that voltage scaling is an effective scheme that is able to mitigate the NBTI effect. However, a careful control of voltage scaling is required not to increase the dissipation of dynamic power significantly. On the other hand, body biasing can also be used to mitigate the NBTI effect by lowering down the threshold voltage, but its effectiveness is limited, as will be demonstrated in this work, and it increases the leakage power. This work addresses an important problem of minimizing the power consumption of circuit while controlling the NBTI induced delay increase to meet the circuit timing constraint by simultaneously utilizing the effects of voltage scaling and body biasing on both NBTI and power consumption. Precisely, we solve the problem of finding a set of supply and body biasing voltage values to apply circuit clusters on standard cell based design to minimize the total power consumption while satisfying the constraint of circuit life time, considering the NBTI induced delay factor in circuit timing computation. By a comprehensive analysis on the relations between the values of supply and body biasing voltages and the values of the resulting power consumption and NBTI induced delay, we precisely formulate the problem, and transform it into a problem of convex optimization to solve it efficiently. Through extensive experimentation using ISCAS benchmark designs, it is shown that the proposed approach to the simultaneous exploitation of supply voltage and body biasing is able to produce designs with 14% and 8% reduced energy consumption on average over the designs produced by the design time NBTI-aware guard-banding based voltage scaling [20] and the run time NBTI-aware voltage scaling [4], respectively.
Physical Activity Self-Definitions: Correlates and Perceived Criteria

Three studies investigated the correlates of physical activity self-definitions among undergraduate exercisers and athletes, and examined the perceived criteria for defining oneself as a weightlifter, basketball player, and exerciser. Perceptions about behavior, motivation-related variables, and social world variables showed consistent relationships with self-definition; correlations between self-definition and enjoyment varied according to activity. Although affective criteria were mentioned by a sizable number of those with and without physical activity self-definitions, participants cited far more behavioral than affective criteria. Other frequently mentioned criteria were also identified. Implications for self-inference are discussed and a preliminary model of physical activity self-definition is presented.
Music in infant-directed digital video discs: a content analysis

A rapidly growing industry creates and markets a vast range of screen media products designed specifically for babies and children under the age of three. Marketing of these products targets parents and is based on both implicit and explicit educational claims. Although the majority of products target literacy and numeracy, music presentations are also available. Thirteen DVDs with titles implying a contribution to young children's musical development and education are the focus of this paper. Using ethnographic content analysis, they were examined in light of their repertoire; representations of the multimodal and interactional nature of young children's musical experiences; the developing intermodal perception of infants and toddlers; and the formal production features used to elicit attention. Observations of young children viewing the DVDs and semi-structured interviews with their mothers allowed data triangulation. DVDs found to provide the most valuable presentations for babies offer a variety of repertoire that includes singing and the use of acoustic instruments; model musical interactions between babies and others; and are temporally synchronous and audio-visually congruent. Producers of infant-directed media must consider the developmental needs of young children if their productions are to play a positive role in the musical lives of young children.
At the Heart of a Conflict

Value-based conflicts are prone to escalation and rather insensitive to standard conflict resolution techniques. To understand why this is the case, we assessed self-regulatory and cardiovascular (CV) responses to test how people cope with conflict, depending on whether values versus resources are at stake. Our results show that a value conflict induces a CV threat profile and raises a prevention focus. Conversely, a resource conflict induces a CV challenge profile and decreases prevention focus. These results suggest that value conflicts are linked to more prevention-focused motivational profiles than resource conflicts. This knowledge can foster the development of specific strategies to facilitate resolution of value conflicts.
Qualitative Content Analysis

Qualitative content analysis is commonly used for analyzing qualitative data. However, few articles have examined the trustworthiness of its use in nursing science studies. The trustworthiness of qualitative content analysis is often presented by using terms such as credibility, dependability, conformability, transferability, and authenticity. This article focuses on trustworthiness based on a review of previous studies, our own experiences, and methodological textbooks. Trustworthiness was described for the main qualitative content analysis phases from data collection to reporting of the results. We concluded that it is important to scrutinize the trustworthiness of every phase of the analysis process, including the preparation, organization, and reporting of results. Together, these phases should give a reader a clear indication of the overall trustworthiness of the study. Based on our findings, we compiled a checklist for researchers attempting to improve the trustworthiness of a content analysis study. The discussion in this article helps to clarify how content analysis should be reported in a valid and understandable manner, which would be of particular benefit to reviewers of scientific articles. Furthermore, we discuss that it is often difficult to evaluate the trustworthiness of qualitative content analysis studies because of defective data collection method description and/or analysis description.
Investigation of the Multidimensional Model of Job Insecurity in China and the USA

Il y a plus d’une decennie, Ashford, Lee, and Bobko (1989) ont developpe un outil de mesure standard permettant evaluer des niveaux individuels d’insecurite au travail. Les annees suivantes, des chercheurs se sont demande si la totalite des mesures composant cet instrument etait necessaire. Nous avons donc examine l’utilite des differentes dimensions du test multidimensionnel de l’Insecurite au travail de Ashford et al. (1989) aux Etats Unis et en Chine, en eprouvant et elargissant les conclusions anterieures. Nos resultats suggerent qu’eliminer les dimensions “caracteristiques du travail” et “impuissance” de l’instrument multidimensionnel initial est premature dans les deux cultures. D’autres recherches s’averent donc necessaires pour determiner l’utilite de cet outil dans sa version complete. Les implications de nos resultats sont discutees. Over a decade ago, Ashford, Lee, and Bobko (1989) developed a standard measure for those interested in assessing levels of individual job insecurity. In ensuing years, some researchers have questioned whether the entire measure is necessary. We examined the usefulness of the components of Ashford et al.'s (1989) multidimensional measure of job insecurity in both the United States and China, as well as replicating and extending prior findings regarding antecedents and consequences. Our results suggest that the call to eliminate job features or powerlessness from the fully composite measure of job insecurity is premature in both cultures. We call for more research on the utility of the fully operationalised measure. Implications of our findings are discussed.
Parties, conditionality and leader effects in parliamentary elections

Attention in the study of leader effects in parliamentary elections has shifted from the question of whether party leaders do indeed have an electoral impact to that of the conditions under which their impact is greater or lesser in magnitude. Criticizing existing scholarship in this area for its assumption that the traditional notion of party identification captures the full range of electorally relevant party attachments in democratic electorates, this article demonstrates that parliamentary party leaders have their strongest impact not when, as is usually the case, they are conceptualized as electoral forces in their own right, but when evaluations of them as individuals are moderated by voters’ matching evaluations of the parties contesting the election. Comparing (aligned) Australia and (dealigned) Britain, it is shown that election-time party evaluations condition the magnitude of leader effects independently of the strength of party identification in the electorate.
Development of a Single-Reaction Multiplex PCR Toxin Typing Assay for Staphylococcus aureusStrains

ABSTRACT We describe here the development of a single-reaction multiplex PCR assay for the enterotoxin genes from Staphylococcus aureusthat utilizes a universal toxin gene primer in combination with toxin-specific primers to amplify characteristic toxin gene products. In combination with a new DNA purification method, the assay can detect enterotoxin genes A to E from a pure culture within 3 to 4 h. The test was used to characterize a diverse set of environmental S. aureus isolates, and a 99% correlation with toxin typing using standard immunological tests was found. The design of the assay allows it to be extended to include both newly characterized and as-yet-unknown toxin genes.
Advances in wound healing: topical negative pressure therapy

In clinical practice many wounds are slow to heal and difficult to manage. The recently introduced technique of topical negative pressure therapy (TNP) has been developed to try to overcome some of these difficulties. TNP applies a controlled negative pressure to the surface of a wound that has potential advantages for wound treatment and management. Although the concept itself, of using suction in wound management is not new, the technique of applying a negative pressure at the surface of the wound is. This paper explores the origins and proposed mechanisms of action of TNP therapy and discusses the types of wounds that are thought to benefit most from use of this system.
Identification and characterization of novel mutations of the major Fanconi anemia gene FANCA in the Japanese population

Fanconi anemia (FA) is a rare autosomal recessive disorder of hematopoiesis, with at least 11 complementation groups. FANCA, a gene for group A, accounts for the majority of FA patients. Previous studies of FANCA mutations revealed high allelic heterogeneity, frequent occurrence of large deletions, and interpopulation differences. However, systematic mutational analysis, including gene dosage assay to detect large deletions, has not been documented for Asian populations. A newly developed TaqMan™ quantitative PCR‐based gene dosage assay, combined with sequencing of exons and cDNA fragments, allowed for detection of 48 mutant alleles of FANCA in 27 (77%) of 35 unrelated Japanese FA families with no detectable mutations in FANCC or FANCG. We identified 29 different mutations (21 nucleotide substitutions or small deletions/insertions and eight large deletions), at least 20 of which were novel. The FANCA mutational spectrum of the Japanese was different from that of other ethnic groups so far studied. This is the largest scale of mutation analysis of FANCA in the Japanese population. Characterization of these mutations provided new information regarding the mutagenesis mechanisms and structure–function relationship of FANCA. Specifically, our data suggest that diverse mechanisms including nonhomologous recombination as well as Alu‐mediated homologous recombination are involved in the generation of large deletions in FANCA. Hum Mutat 24:481–490, 2004. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Conceptualizing Knowledge Used in Innovation: A Second Look at the Science-Technology Distinction and Industrial Innovation

This article reviews empirical and conceptual material from two distinct research traditions: on the science-technology relation and on industrial innovation. It aims both to shed new light on an old debate—the distinction between scientific and technological knowledge—and to refine our conceptualizations of the knowledge used by companies in the course of research and development leading to innovation. On the basis of three empirical studies, a composite categorization of different types of knowledge used in innovation is proposed, as part of a broader framework encompassing two further taxonomic dimensions. It is hoped that this typology and framework might provide useful research tools in furthering our understanding of the knowledge transfers and transformations that occur in the course of innovation. It could also prove useful for organizations and groups facing difficult strategic choices about technology.
A Feasibility Study of Cyclophosphamide, Trastuzumab, and an Allogeneic GM-CSF–Secreting Breast Tumor Vaccine for HER2+ Metastatic Breast Cancer

Chen and colleagues show in patients and in a mouse model of HER2+ breast cancer that abrogating immune suppression with low-dose cyclophosphamide along with administration of an allogeneic GM-CSF–secreting HER2+ tumor vaccine and trastuzumab weekly augmented HER2-specific T-cell responses and survival. Granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF)–secreting tumor vaccines are bioactive, but limited by disease burden and immune tolerance. Cyclophosphamide augments vaccine activity in tolerant neu mice and in patients with metastatic breast cancer. HER2-specific monoclonal antibodies (mAb) enhance vaccine activity in neu mice. We hypothesized that cyclophosphamide-modulated vaccination with HER2-specific mAb safely induces relevant HER2-specific immunity in neu mice and patients with HER2+ metastatic breast cancer. Adding both cyclophosphamide and the HER2-specific mAb 7.16. 4 to vaccination maximized HER2-specific CD8+ T-cell immunity and tumor-free survival in neu transgenic mice. We, therefore, conducted a single-arm feasibility study of cyclophosphamide, an allogeneic HER2+ GM-CSF–secreting breast tumor vaccine, and weekly trastuzumab in 20 patients with HER2+ metastatic breast cancer. Primary clinical trial objectives were safety and clinical benefit, in which clinical benefit represents complete response + partial response + stable disease. Secondary study objectives were to assess HER2-specific T-cell responses by delayed type hypersensitivity (DTH) and intracellular cytokine staining. Patients received three monthly vaccinations, with a boost 6 to 8 months from trial entry. This combination immunotherapy was safe, with clinical benefit rates at 6 months and 1 year of 55% [95% confidence interval (CI), 32%–77%; P = 0.013] and 40% (95% CI, 19%–64%), respectively. Median progression-free survival and overall survival durations were 7 months (95% CI, 4–16) and 42 months (95% CI, 22–70), respectively. Increased HER2-specific DTH developed in 7 of 20 patients [of whom 4 had clinical benefit (95% CI, 18–90)], with a trend toward longer progression-free survival and overall survival in DTH responders. Polyfunctional HER2-specific CD8+ T cells progressively expanded across vaccination cycles. Further investigation of cyclophosphamide-modulated vaccination with trastuzumab is warranted. (Clinicaltrials.gov identifier: NCT00399529) Cancer Immunol Res; 2(10); 949–61. ©2014 AACR.
Query expansion for Cross Language Information Retrieval Improvement

This paper is devoted to a new method that uses query expansion to improve multilingual information retrieval. The backbone is an Information Retrieval (IR) system based on a search engine and a multilingual module based on statistical machine translation of documents. To this system is added a Query Expansion (QE) module which mainly uses linguistic resources to perform the expansion. The aim is to use QE to overcome the limitations of machine translation, and to retrieve more relevant results. The authors demonstrate, with examples, the usefulness of such a system. They also validate it with several measures, which show a clear reduction of the silence for results.
Part I of Nicole Oresme's Algorismus proportionum

The importance of the first part of Nicole Oresme's A lgorismus proportionum (A lgorism of Ratios) h has long been recognized and appreciated.2 Thuis far it stands as the first known systematic attempt to present operational rules for multiplication and division (called addition and subtraction by Oresme) of ratios involving integral and fractional exponents. Since no translation of this work into a modern language has yet appeared, an obvious purpose of the present translation is to supply one. Furthermore, all who