Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Apoptosis in erythroid progenitors deprived of erythropoietin occurs during the G1 and S phases of the cell cycle without growth arrest or stabilization of wild-type p53

Erythropoietin (Epo) inhibits apoptosis in murine proerythroblasts infected with the anemia-inducing strain of Friend virus (FVA cells). We have shown that the apoptotic process in FVA cell populations deprived of Epo is asynchronous as a result of a heterogeneity in Epo dependence among individual cells. Here we investigated whether apoptosis in FVA cells correlated with cell cycle phase or stabilization of p53 tumor suppressor protein. DNA analysis in nonapoptotic FVA cell subpopulations cultured without Epo demonstrated little change in the percentages of cells in G1,S, and G2/M phases over time. Analysis of the apoptotic subpopulation revealed high percentages of cells in G1 and S, with few cells in G2/M at any time. When cells were sorted from G1 and S phases prior to culture without Epo, apoptotic cells appeared at the same rate in both populations, indicating that no prior commitment step had occurred in either G1 or S phase. Steady-state wild-type p53 protein levels were very low in FVA cells compared with control cell lines and did not accumulate in Epo-deprived cultures; however, p53 protein did accumulate when FVA cells were treated with the DNA-damaging agent actinomycin D. These data indicate that erythroblast apoptosis caused by Epo deprivation (i) occurs throughout G1 and S phases and does not require cell cycle arrest, (ii) does not have a commitment event related to cell cycle phase, and (iii) is not associated with conformational changes or stabilization of wild-type p53 protein.
The CEA/CD3-Bispecific Antibody MEDI-565 (MT111) Binds a Nonlinear Epitope in the Full-Length but Not a Short Splice Variant of CEA

MEDI-565 (also known as MT111) is a bispecific T-cell engager (BiTE®) antibody in development for the treatment of patients with cancers expressing carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA). MEDI-565 binds CEA on cancer cells and CD3 on T cells to induce T-cell mediated killing of cancer cells. To understand the molecular basis of human CEA recognition by MEDI-565 and how polymorphisms and spliced forms of CEA may affect MEDI-565 activity, we mapped the epitope of MEDI-565 on CEA using mutagenesis and homology modeling approaches. We found that MEDI-565 recognized a conformational epitope in the A2 domain comprised of amino acids 326–349 and 388–410, with critical residues F326, T328, N333, V388, G389, P390, E392, I408, and N410. Two non-synonymous single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) (rs10407503, rs7249230) were identified in the epitope region, but they are found at low homozygosity rates. Searching the National Center for Biotechnology Information GenBank® database, we further identified a single, previously uncharacterized mRNA splice variant of CEA that lacks a portion of the N-terminal domain, the A1 and B1 domains, and a large portion of the A2 domain. Real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction analysis of multiple cancers showed widespread expression of full-length CEA in these tumors, with less frequent but concordant expression of the CEA splice variant. Because the epitope was largely absent from the CEA splice variant, MEDI-565 did not bind or mediate T-cell killing of cells solely expressing this form of CEA. In addition, the splice variant did not interfere with MEDI-565 binding or activity when co-expressed with full-length CEA. Thus MEDI-565 may broadly target CEA-positive tumors without regard for expression of the short splice variant of CEA. Together our data suggest that MEDI-565 activity will neither be impacted by SNPs nor by a splice variant of CEA.
Mortality modeling: Lee-Carter and the macroeconomy

Using data for six OECD countries, this paper studies the effect of macroeconomic conditions on the mortality index kt in the well-known Lee-Carter model. Significant correlations are found with real GDP growth rates in Australia, Canada, and the United States, and with unemployment rate changes in Japan, for the period 1950â€“2005. In recent years, the relationship between the state of the economy and mortality is found to change from procyclical to countercyclical in all six countries. Based on these findings, variants of the Lee-Carter model are proposed that capture a substantial fraction of the variation in the mortality index.
Osteomyelitis of the Skull

Osteomyelitis of the skull is a direct infection of the bone. It can be an acute or chronic disease. It usually has an insidious initial onset. Complications can be life-threatening and even fatal. The most frequently associated organism responsible for the disease is Staphylococcus aureus. Tissue specimens must be obtained for definitive culture and sensitivity reports. It is also important that devitalized bone and sequestra be removed as part of adequate therapy. A typical presentation on skull series is a moth-eaten appearance; however, this may not be recognized radiographically for several months. The antibiotic chosen must be given in high enough doses to assure adequate serum levels to eradicate the organism responsible for causing the disease. Length of treatment depends on the clinical course and the extent of infection but may involve several months or longer. Good nursing care is essential in dealing with osteomyelitis and involves preventive as well as therapeutic management. Patient education and support are important aspects of nursing care in helping the patient cope with the disease.
Two-stage false contour detection using directional contrast and its application to adaptive false contour reduction

In the era of digital television, artifacts such as false contours unnoticed in small television sets appear conspicuously as the size of display devices increases. This paper proposes a two-stage false contour detection algorithm and its application to false contour reduction. In stage 1 of false contour detection, smooth regions are first removed by bit-depth reduction or re-quantization. In stage 2, false contours are separated from edges or texture regions using directional contrast features, yielding the binary false contour decision map that shows possible candidate regions of false contours. Also a number of non-directional and directional features for possible false contour detection are considered and their performance is compared. For false contour reduction, variable-size directional smoothing is applied only to candidate regions that are specified by the false contour decision map. We use one-dimensional variable-size directional smoothing masks whose directions are orthogonal to the directions determined by the directional contrast features found in the false contour detection step. Computer simulations with several test images with various types of false contours show the effectiveness of the proposed false contour reduction algorithm in terms of visual quality and the peak signal-to-noise ratio. The proposed algorithm can also be used as a post-processing method for artifact reduction in various display devices.
Physically based models with rigid and deformable components

A class of physically based models suitable for animating flexible objects in simulated physical environments was proposed earlier by the authors (1987). The original formulation works as well in practice for models whose shapes are moderately to highly deformable, but it tends to become numerically ill conditioned as the rigidity of the models is increased. An alternative formulation of deformable models is presented in which deformations are decomposed into a reference component, which may represent an arbitrary shape, and a displacement component, allowing deformation away from this reference shape. The application of the deformable models to a physically based computer animation project is illustrated. <<ETX>>
Aryl Hydrocarbon Receptor Control of Adaptive Immunity

The aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) is a ligand-activated transcription factor that belongs to the family of basic helix-loop-helix transcription factors. Although the AhR was initially recognized as the receptor mediating the pathologic effects of dioxins and other pollutants, the activation of AhR by endogenous and environmental factors has important physiologic effects, including the regulation of the immune response. Thus, the AhR provides a molecular pathway through which environmental factors modulate the immune response in health and disease. In this review, we discuss the role of AhR in the regulation of the immune response, the source and chemical nature of AhR ligands, factors controlling production and degradation of AhR ligands, and the potential to target the AhR for therapeutic immunomodulation.
Social support as a contingency in psychological well-being.

This paper considers the association between social support, conceived and assessed from a social-psychological perspective, and psychological well-being. The magnitude and consistency of the relationship are evaluated across four studies involving very diverse populations. Evidence is also presented on causal ordering and the distinctiveness of the social support and psychological well-being dimensions, and on the question of whether social support has pervasive effects or functions only, or primarily, as a buffer in the face of unusual difficulty. Findings across the four studies suggest a modest, but reliable, association between the experience of social support and psychological well-being. Evidence is also presented consistent with the view that some part of the causation involved goes from social support to psychological well-being and vice versa, and indicating that the two variables have different major determinants. Evaluation of the effects of level of stress upon the support/well-being relationship suggests that social support has significant main effects, that it is most important in stressful circumstances, and that these relationships vary across social class groupings.
Effects of various metal contacts on contact resistance and barrier height of metal/graphene interface

Graphene has attracted enormous attention as a possible candidate to replace Silicon in CMOS technology owing to its unique and superior carrier mobility. It was found that graphene is a zero bandgap semiconductor and its carrier behaves as a massless Dirac fermion with mobility as high as 200,000 cm2/Vs, which is more than 100 times higher than that of Silicon [1]. This makes graphene as a suitable material for the realization of ultra-high speed electronic device with low power consumption. In order to fully utilize the potential of graphene, issues such as synthesis method of graphene, ohmic and schottky contact formation and bandgap modulation method have been extensively studied.
Acquisition of Linguistic Patterns for Knowledge-Based Information Extraction

The paper presents an automatic acquisition of linguistic patterns that can be used for knowledge based information extraction from texts. In knowledge based information extraction, linguistic patterns play a central role in the recognition and classification of input texts. Although the knowledge based approach has been proved effective for information extraction on limited domains, there are difficulties in construction of a large number of domain specific linguistic patterns. Manual creation of patterns is time consuming and error prone, even for a small application domain. To solve the scalability and the portability problem, an automatic acquisition of patterns must be provided. We present the PALKA (Parallel Automatic Linguistic Knowledge Acquisition) system that acquires linguistic patterns from a set of domain specific training texts and their desired outputs. A specialized representation of patterns called FP structures has been defined. Patterns are constructed in the form of FP structures from training texts, and the acquired patterns are tuned further through the generalization of semantic constraints. Inductive learning mechanism is applied in the generalization step. The PALKA system has been used to generate patterns for our information extraction system developed for the fourth Message Understanding Conference (MUC-4). >
Improvement in Stress, General Self-Efficacy, and Health Related Quality of Life following Patient Education for Patients with Neuroendocrine Tumors: A Pilot Study

The purpose of the study was to evaluate changes in general self-efficacy, health related quality of life (HRQoL), and stress among patients with neuroendocrine tumors (NET) following a multidisciplinary educational intervention. Forty-one patients were enrolled in this exploratory pilot study. A total of 37 patients completed the full 26-week intervention based on the principles of self-efficacy. General self-efficacy was measured by the General Self-Efficacy Scale, HRQoL was measured with the SF-36, and stress was measured with the Impact of Event Scale. Mixed effect models were used to evaluate changes in general self-efficacy, mental and physical components of HRQoL, and stress adjusting for demographic and clinical variables. Results showed significant improvements in patients' general self-efficacy (β = 0.71; P < 0.05), physical component scores of HRQoL (β = 3.09; P < 0.01), and stress (β = −2.10, P = 0.008). Findings suggest that patients with NET have the capacity to improve their ability to cope with their disease, problem-solve, improve their physical status, and reduce their stress following an educational intervention based on the principles of self-efficacy. These preliminary data provide a basis for future randomized controlled trials to test interventions to improve HRQoL for patients with NET.
An automated image-registration technique based on multiple structure matching.

A new image-registration technique that matches multiple structures on complementary imaging data sets (e.g., CT and MRI) has been developed and tested with both phantom and patient data. The algorithm assumes a rigid-body transformation and is suitable for correlating structures within the cranium or at the skull base. The basic premise of the new technique is that an optimum transformation is achieved when the relative volume lying outside of the intersection between a structure and its transformed counterpart is a minimum. This relative volume is calculated numerically using a random sampling approach, and a binary searching algorithm was used to step through the nine-dimensional parameter space consisting of three rotation angles, three scaling factors and three components of a translation vector. For the nine tests using phantom data, the automated structure-matching technique was able to predict the correct rotation angles to within +/- 1 degree. The expected clinical performance of the new technique was assessed by comparing results obtained with the new method to those obtained using other techniques for 12 patients who were treated with charged particles at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (LBL) and who had image-registration studies performed as part of their treatment plan. For 9 of the 12 patients considered, the new structure-matching technique produced a significantly better registration than the older methods, as measured by the resultant average relative volume lying outside of the intersection between any structure and its transformed counterpart. For the other three patients, results were not significantly different for the new structure-matching method and the older techniques.
The Nature and Uses of Expectancy-Value Models in Consumer Attitude Research

In tests of two expectancy-value models of attitude reported recently in JMR, Sheth and Talarzyk [18] tested a model attributed to Rosenberg [14] while Bass and Talarzyk [3] tested a model attributed to Fishbein [7, 8]. The two models were tested on a common data base using essentially the same measures. ^ Unfortunately, neither article provided a valid test of either of these two models and served only to confuse rather than to clarify some of the issues regarding the use of expectancy-value models as a basis for understanding some aspects of consumer behavior. Because of the growing interest of consumer researchers in an expectancy-value approach to attitude structure and dynamics and behavioral prediction, it may be useful to specify the shortcomings of these two studies and clarify some essential characteristics of the expectancy-value approach. We intend to show that the authors: (1) did not provide tests of any expectancy-value model let alone those of Rosenberg or Fishbein; (2) actually proposed a new model which might be termed an "adequacy-importance" model; and (3) demonstrated that their model actually has less predictive validity than an expectancy-va lue model.
A compact representation of random phase and Gaussian textures

In this paper, we are interested in the mathematical analysis of the micro-textures that have the property to be perceptually invariant under the randomization of the phases of their Fourier Transform. We propose a compact representation of these textures by considering a special instance of them: the one that has identically null phases, and we call it “texton”. We show that this texton has many interesting properties, and in particular it is concentrated around the spatial origin. It appears to be a simple and useful tool for texture analysis and texture synthesis, and its definition can be extended to the case of color micro-textures.
Efficient Investment via Assortative Matching in One-Shot Games : Theory and Evidence

This paper studies pre-commitment investment strategy in a one shot game, where agents seek to form matches in the presence of an assortative matching rule. We show that a bimodal distribution of investment arises in equilibrium where most players select high levels of investment —achieving a pareto superior solution— meanwhile few stay at the lower bound —the trivial NE. The experimental evidence obtained supports our predictions and shows that the median investment levels are remarkably high, close to 91 percent of the initial endowment. This result is novel as one shot games have generally been unable to produce such high levels of cooperation (efficiency).
Spatially-variant mathematical morphology

In this paper, we present a comprehensive theory of spatially-variant (SV) mathematical morphology. A kernel representation of increasing operators in terms of the union (resp., intersection) of SV erosions (resp., SV dilations) is provided. A representation of algebraic openings (resp., algebraic closings) in terms of the union (resp., intersection) of SV openings (resp., SV closings) is also provided. <<ETX>>
Flexcode - flexible audio coding

Modern networks are highly variable and, as a result, source coders are commonly used under conditions that they were not designed for. We address this problem with a source-coding philosophy that aims at the instantaneous re-optimization of a source coder to match a wide range of constraints on rate or quality and a wide range of packet-loss rates. We present a number of technologies that can be reconfigured by solving analytic relations that use the current conditions and a statistical description of the source as input. The technologies include distribution-preserving quantizers, flexible multiple-description quantizers, and a rate distribution scheme. Based on the generic technologies, we created a complete audio coder. Formal listening tests show that the resulting audio coding scheme with full flexibility provides a quality that is on-par with the best standardized codecs for any particular rate.
Itu -telecommunication Standardization Sector Question(s): Q17/12, " Noise Aspects in Evolving Networks " Frame-level Noise Classification in Mobile Environments

Background environmental noises degrade the performance of speech-processing systems (e.g. speech coding, speech recognition). By modifying the processing according to the type of background noise, the performance can be enhanced. This requires noise classification. In this work, four pattern-recognition frameworks have been used to design noise classification algorithms. Classification is done on a frame-by-frame basis (e.g. once every 20 ms). Five commonly encountered noises in mobile telephony (i.e. car, street, babble, factory, and bus) have been considered in our study. Our experimental results show that the Line Spectral Frequencies (LSFs), derived from the linear prediction coefficients, are robust features in distinguishing different classes of noises.
A Framework to Incorporate Decision-Maker Preferences Into Simulation Optimization to Support Collaborative Design

In this paper, we are concerned with the use of simulation optimization to handle collaborative design problems where more than one decision-maker is involved. We assume that the designers cannot enumerate all their considerations in closed-form, precise mathematical expressions but they can examine the merits of solutions with respect to their preferences and can compare candidate solutions with one another. We propose a three-stage framework to take the decision-makers' such considerations into account. The first step is to obtain a diverse set of designs that can all be considered efficient in terms of a performance metric (i.e., the objective function values of the simulation optimization model). These solutions are then passed on to the decision-makers to be analyzed in terms of their preferences that could not have been previously considered. Finally, the most appropriate solution is chosen. We address the problem encountered in the first step as a multimodal optimization problem. We address the second and the third subproblems as a preference aggregation problem in the social choice theory. We also illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach through a supply chain design problem inspired from the literature. We use the crowding clustering genetic algorithm as an example to demonstrate the first step. We use a multiplicative variant of the popular analytic hierarchy process to illustrate how the second and the third steps can be handled.
Coherence of randomly pre-conditioned matrices

In many applications of compressed sensing, coherence of the matrix A plays an important role in theoretical guarantees for obtaining sparse solutions to linear system of equations, y = Ax. For a given matrix G with trivial right null space, the system Gy = GAx is equivalent. In this paper we establish that if G is a random matrix with i.i. d. realizations of Gaussian or Bernoulli random variables then the coherence of GA cannot be made smaller than the coherence of A with very high probability, in the limit when the row size of G tends to infinity. A similar result is also shown when G is a square random Gaussian matrix and its row size tends to infinity.
An Average-Case Analysis of the k-Nearest Neighbar Classifier for Noisy Domains

This paper presents an average-case analysis of the fc-nearest neighbor classifier (k-NN). Our analysis deals with m-of-n// concepts, and handles three types of noise: relevant attribute noise, irrelevant attribute noise, and class noise. We formally compute the expected classification accuracy of fc-NN after a certain fixed number of training instances. This accuracy is represented as a function of the domain characteristics. Then, the predicted behavior of fc-NN for each type of noise is explored by using the accuracy function. We examine the classification accuracy of fc-NN at various noise levels, and show how noise affects the accuracy of fc-NN. We also show the relationship between the optimal value of k and the number of training instances in noisy domains. Our analysis is supported with Monte Carlo simulations.