Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Apolipoprotein D: An overview of its role in aging and age-related diseases

“It’s got to be doing something important! ”-Seymour Benzer, reflecting on the observation that ApoD mRNA levels increase 500-fold following neuronal crush injury. Seymour Benzer’s curiosity was legendary and seemingly limitless. Towards the end of his life, one of the (many) questions that kept him awake at night concerned the emerging role of Apolipoprotein D (ApoD) in aging and neurological disease. In this perspective, we will discuss the clinical and biochemical data on ApoD, and the input from the recent genetic studies in model systems, including those from the Benzer lab.
Millimeter-Wave Propagation Channel Characterization for Short-Range Wireless Communications

This paper presents and analyzes the results of millimeter-wave 60-GHz frequency range propagation channel measurements that are performed in various indoor environments for continuous-route and direction-of-arrival (DOA) measurement campaigns. The statistical parameters of the propagation channel, such as the number of paths, the RMS delay spread, the path loss, and the shadowing, are inspected. Moreover, the interdependencies of different characteristics of the multipath channel are also investigated. A linear relationship between the number of paths and the delay spread is found, negative cross correlation between the shadow fading and the delay spread can be established, and an upper bound exponential model of the delay spread and the path loss is developed to estimate the worst case of the RMS delay spread at given path loss. Based on the DOA measurements that are carried out in a room [line of sight (LOS)] and in a corridor with both LOS and nonline-of-sight (NLOS) scenarios, radio-wave propagation mechanisms are studied. It is found that considering the direct wave and the first-order reflected waves from smooth surfaces is sufficient in the LOS cases. Transmission loss is very high; however, diffraction is found to be a significant propagation mechanism in NLOS propagation environments. The results can be used for the design of 60-GHz radio systems in short-range wireless applications.
ISOLATION OF RABBIT IGA ANTIHAPTEN ANTIBODY AND DEMONSTRATION OF SKIN-SENSITIZING ACTIVITY IN HOMOLOGOUS SKIN

Multiple antibody components of rabbit antisera against p-azobenzenearsonate (Rp) were studied with respect to their globulin nature and skin-sensitizing activity. IgA antibody was characterized by isolating two IgA-rich fractions from a specifically purified antibody preparation. Examination of these fractions showed that IgA antibodies existed in two molecular forms, one with a sedimentation constant of 7S and the other 9S. Skin-sensitizing activity was examined by a P-K type test and a PCA test with Rp-rabbit serum albumin in homologous (rabbit) species. Only the 7S but not 9S IgA antibody sensitized rabbit skin. IgM antibody showed no activity and IgG antibody showed very low activity. In contrast, only IgG antibody was active in the P-K type test to sensitize a heterologous species (guinea pig). None of the antibodies of other classes showed sensitizing activity in heterologous skin. The 7S IgA antibody lost its sensitizing activity upon reduction and alkylation, although no change in its molecular size could be observed. The loss of sensitizing activity was not due to the destruction of antigen-binding activity since the treated 7S IgA antibody retained this activity as shown by radioimmunoelectrophoresis and by binding to the specific immunoadsorbent. The 9S IgA antibody was more resistant to these treatments than the IgM antibody and showed no indication of dissociation. The treated 9S IgA also retained antigen-binding activity. Both the P-K type and PCA reactions were considerably stronger when the interval between injections of antibody and antigen was 24 hr rather than 4 to 5 hr.
Intelligent Time-Adaptive Transient Stability Assessment System

Online identification of postcontingency transient stability is essential in power system control, as it facilitates the grid operator to decide and coordinate system failure correction control actions. Utilizing machine learning methods with synchrophasor measurements for transient stability assessment has received much attention recently with the gradual deployment of wide-area protection and control systems. In this paper, we develop a transient stability assessment system based on the long short-term memory network. By proposing a temporal self-adaptive scheme, our proposed system aims to balance the trade-off between assessment accuracy and response time, both of which may be crucial in real-world scenarios. Compared with previous work, the most significant enhancement is that our system learns from the temporal data dependencies of the input data, which contributes to better assessment accuracy. In addition, the model structure of our system is relatively less complex, speeding up the model training process. Case studies on three power systems demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed transient stability as sessment system.
Micromachined cochlear-like acoustic sensor

The mammalian cochlea achieves remarkable acoustic transduction characteristics in a compact and robust design. For this reason, its mechanics have been extensively studied, both mathematically and experimentally. Recently, a number of researchers have attempted to mimic the cochlear function of the basilar membrane in micromachined mechanical devices. This paper presents a design for a silicon cochlea which extends previous work by utilizing a micromachined liquid-filled two duct structure similar to the duct structure of the biological cochlea. Design issues related to both mechanical structure and electrical transduction will be discussed, particularly with regard to optimization of transducer performance. A parallel beam array structure is proposed as a model for an orthotropic membrane. Fabrication procedures and results are also presented. Challenging Fabrication issues related to through-wafer etching, adhesive wafer bonding, device release, and fluid injection are emphasized.
IT Capability of Domestic Research Review

Information technology (IT) investment does not necessarily bring a corresponding value returns for enterprises, and the thing that can help enterprises to gain the core competitiveness is IT capability. Based on 78 articles related literature from CSSCI, we found that: 1) We have fruitful achievement, but the quality and quantity need to be increased; 2) Existing literature use a variety of methods in research, but we should pay more attention to empirical research especially case study and secondary data research; 3) we need to strengthen the research of "before" aspect, especially in combination with characteristics of Chinese enterprises and the enterprise's situation characteristic so as to reveal the "logic of thinking" in Chinese enterprise; 4) effective local cooperation study is not enough, especially the need to strengthen the cooperation between native scholars and cross-regional cooperation research across institutions.
Image dependent log-likelihood ratio allocation for repeat accumulate code-based decoding in data hiding channels

Error correction codes of suitable redundancy are used for ensuring perfect data recovery in noisy channels. For iterative decoding based methods, the decoder needs to be initialized with proper confidence values, called the log likelihood ratios (LLRs), for all the embedding locations. If these confidence values or LLRs are accurately initialized, the decoder converges at a lower redundancy factor, thus leading to a higher effective hiding rate. Here, we present an LLR allocation method based on the image statistics, the hiding parameters and the noisy channel characteristics. It is seen that this image-dependent LLR allocation scheme results in a higher data-rate, than using a constant LLR across all images. The data-hiding channel parameters are learned from the image histogram in the discrete cosine transform (DCT) domain using a linear regression framework. We also show how the effective data-rate can be increased by suitably increasing the erasure rate at the decoder.
Histomages: fully synchronized views for image editing

We present Histomages, a new interaction model for image editing that considers color histograms as spatial rearrangements of image pixels. Users can select pixels on image histograms as they would select image regions and directly manipulate them to adjust their colors. Histomages are also affected by other image tools such as paintbrushes. We explore some possibilities offered by this interaction model, and discuss the four key principles behind it as well as their implications for the design of feature-rich software in general.
Analyzing the potential of different fractions of photosynthetically active radiation (FPARS) to estimate gross primary production

The fraction of photosynthetically active radiation (FPAR) as a key biophysical variable plays an important role in gross primary production (GPP) modeling. In this study, we employed six different FPAR derived from MODIS FPAR, leaf area index (LAI), normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and enhanced vegetation index (EVI), respectively, which were widely used for modeling GPP in previous studies. Flux GPP was collected from ChinaFLUX, covering four forest sites and four non-forest sites. Correlation analysis was used to evaluate the potential of different FPAR to model GPP. Our results showed that FPAR derived from EVI had the stronger correlation with flux GPP than MOD15 FPAR and FPAR derived from LAI, but FPAR derived from NDVI was not observed. This study highlights the potential of FPAR derived from EVI in GPP modeling.
Dimethyl 2-(4-methylbenzylidene)malonate

In the molecule of the title compound, C13H14O4, the benzene ring forms dihedral angles of 18.60 (7) and 81.36 (8)° with the two arms of the malonate moiety. The crystal structure features C—H⋯O interactions, which form chains running parallel to the b axis.
Achiral bis-imine in combination with CoCl2: A remarkable effect on enantioselectivity of lipase-mediated acetylation of racemic secondary alcohol

Summary A bis-imine (prepared via a new FeCl3-based method) in combination with CoCl2 facilitated lipase-mediated acetylation of the (R)-isomer of a racemic benzylic secondary alcohol with 91% ees. The methodology was used for the preparation of the known drug rivastigmine.
Correlated Occurrence and Bypass of Frame-Shifting Insertion-Deletions (InDels) to Give Functional Proteins

Short insertions and deletions (InDels) comprise an important part of the natural mutational repertoire. InDels are, however, highly deleterious, primarily because two-thirds result in frame-shifts. Bypass through slippage over homonucleotide repeats by transcriptional and/or translational infidelity is known to occur sporadically. However, the overall frequency of bypass and its relation to sequence composition remain unclear. Intriguingly, the occurrence of InDels and the bypass of frame-shifts are mechanistically related - occurring through slippage over repeats by DNA or RNA polymerases, or by the ribosome, respectively. Here, we show that the frequency of frame-shifting InDels, and the frequency by which they are bypassed to give full-length, functional proteins, are indeed highly correlated. Using a laboratory genetic drift, we have exhaustively mapped all InDels that occurred within a single gene. We thus compared the naive InDel repertoire that results from DNA polymerase slippage to the frame-shifting InDels tolerated following selection to maintain protein function. We found that InDels repeatedly occurred, and were bypassed, within homonucleotide repeats of 3–8 bases. The longer the repeat, the higher was the frequency of InDels formation, and the more frequent was their bypass. Besides an expected 8A repeat, other types of repeats, including short ones, and G and C repeats, were bypassed. Although obtained in vitro, our results indicate a direct link between the genetic occurrence of InDels and their phenotypic rescue, thus suggesting a potential role for frame-shifting InDels as bridging evolutionary intermediates.
Tweet4act: Using incident-specific profiles for classifying crisis-related messages

We present Tweet4act, a system to detect and classify crisis-related messages communicated over a microblogging platform. Our system relies on extracting content features from each message. These features and the use of an incident-specific dictionary allow us to determine the period type of an incident that each message belongs to. The period types are: pre-incident (messages talking about prevention, mitigation, and preparedness), during-incident (messages sent while the incident is taking place), and post-incident (messages related to the response, recovery, and reconstruction). We show that our detection method can effectively identify incident-related messages with high precision and recall, and that our incident-period classification method outperforms standard machine learning classification methods.
Diet blues: Methodological problems in comparing non-pharmacological weight management programs for patients with schizophrenia

Obesity is an evident problem in patients with schizophrenia because it involves serious risks of health and has major effects on morbidity and mortality. Compared with the general population the prevalence of obesity is significantly increased in people with schizophrenia. Since second-generation antipsychotics have been established, the problem has become even more prevalent. Causes and treatment of obesity are both very complex issues. This article analyzes weight management programs for people with schizophrenia in regard to scientific methodology like intervention criteria, target definition and study design.
Soluble Epoxide Hydrolase Deficiency Attenuates Neointima Formation in the Femoral Cuff Model of Hyperlipidemic Mice

Objective—Epoxyeicosatrienoic acids (EETs) have antiinflammatory effects and are required for normal endothelial function. The soluble epoxide hydrolase (sEH) metabolizes EETs to their less active diols. We hypothesized that knockout and inhibition of sEH prevents neointima formation in hyperlipidemic ApoE−/− mice. Methods and Results—Inhibition of sEH by 12-(3-adamantan-1-yl-ureido) dodecanoic acid or knockout of the enzyme significantly increased plasma EET levels. sEH activity was detectable in femoral and carotid arteries. sEH knockout or inhibition resulted in a significant reduction of neointima formation in the femoral artery cuff model but not following carotid artery ligation. Although macrophage infiltration occurred abundantly at the site of cuff placement in both sEH+/+ and sEH−/−, the expression of proinflammatory genes was significantly reduced in femoral arteries from sEH−/− mice. Moreover, an in vivo 5-bromo-2′-deoxyuridine assay revealed that smooth muscle cell proliferation at the site of cuff placement was attenuated in sEH knockout and sEH inhibitor–treated animals. Conclusion—These observations suggest that inhibition of sEH prevents vascular remodeling in an inflammatory model but not in a blood flow–dependent model of neointima formation.
Robust chat for airborne command and control

We present the design, implementation, and evaluation of a prototype robust textual chat application to be utilized in dynamic distributed environments such as the Multi-Sensor Command and Control Constellation (MC2C). The MC2C environment consists of a set of airborne and ground sites, each of which contains a cluster of clients. Intra-site communication is reliable and exhibits high performance, whereas the performance and reliability of inter-site communication is variable and unpredictable. The two primary goals of the chat application are to deliver messages to clients with low latency and a globally consistent ordering. Since these goals conflict, our protocols strike a balance by satisfying a new property that we call the Intermittent Global Order (IGO) property. A protocol satisfying the IGO property guarantees global order while network connectivity permits, and sacrifices global order for bounded message delivery latencies while maintaining an intuitive and well-defined ordering on the message delivery when critical network connections are lost. We implemented our protocols on a hierarchical system architecture that places a server at every MC2C site. We developed a test-bed that simulates four MC2C sites in order to test the prototype. Testing revealed that the various IGO protocols implemented in the prototype all achieve the goals of robust and efficient collaborative communication even in the face of frequent link outages, but differ in how each balances global order and latency. Thesis Supervisor: Clifford J. Weinstein Title: Group Leader, Information Systems Technology Group, MIT Lincoln Laboratory Thesis Supervisor: Roger I. Khazan Title: Staff Member, Information Systems Technology Group, MIT Lincoln Laboratory
Regulation of the Formyl Peptide Receptor 1 (FPR1) Gene in Primary Human Macrophages

The formyl peptide receptor 1 (FPR1) is mainly expressed by mammalian phagocytic leukocytes and plays a role in chemotaxis, killing of microorganisms through phagocytosis, and the generation of reactive oxygen species. A large number of ligands have been identified triggering FPR1 including formylated and non-formylated peptides of microbial and endogenous origin. While the expression of FPR1 in neutrophils has been investigated intensively, knowledge on the regulation of FPR1 expression in polarized macrophages is lacking. In this study we show that primary human neutrophils, monocytes and resting macrophages do express the receptor on their cell surface. Polarization of macrophages with IFNγ, LPS and with the TLR8 ligand 3M-002 further increases FPR1 mRNA levels but does not consistently increase protein expression or chemotaxis towards the FPR1 ligand fMLF. In contrast, polarization of primary human macrophages with IL-4 and IL-13 leading to the alternative activated macrophages, reduces FPR1 cell surface expression and abolishes chemotaxis towards fMLF. These results show that M2 macrophages will not react to triggering of FPR1, limiting the role for FPR1 to chemotaxis and superoxide production of resting and pro-inflammatory M1 macrophages.
Randomized trial comparing the i-gel™ and Magill tracheal tube with the single-use ILMA™ and ILMA™ tracheal tube for fibreoptic-guided intubation in anaesthetized patients with a predicted difficult airway.

BACKGROUND The i-gel™ is a single-use supraglottic airway device (SAD) that allows fibreoptic-guided tracheal intubation through the device. Until now, no prospective data for this procedure are available. Therefore, in a prospective randomized controlled trial, we evaluated fibreoptic-guided tracheal intubation with a standard Rüsch™ PVC tracheal tube (TT) through the i-gel™ compared with the single-use ILMA™ (sILMA™) TT through the sILMA™ in patients with a predicted difficult airway. METHODS With ethics committee approval and written informed consent, 160 patients were randomly assigned to either SAD. After placement of the SAD, a fibreoptic bronchoscope was introduced into the trachea as a railroad for the TT. Primary outcome variable was the first-attempt fibreoptic-guided intubation success rate. Secondary variables included time for insertion and intubation, airway leak pressures, fibreoptic view, and adverse events. Data are presented as mean (sd) or percentages. A P-value of < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. RESULTS Fibreoptic-guided intubation was successful at the first attempt in 76 patients (96%) using the i-gel™ and in 71 patients (90%) using the sILMA™ (P=0.21). Most of the failed intubations were rescued by conventional laryngoscopy. Airway leak pressure was higher for the sILMA™. There were no problems during removal of either type of SAD. CONCLUSIONS Fibreopic-guided tracheal intubation through the i-gel™ using a standard Rüsch™ Magill TT is successful and an alternative to the sILMA™ with the sILMA™ TT.
The Nature and Measurement of Secondary School Students' Attitudes toward Reading.

In recent years attitudinal goals have increasingly become a planned facet of school curricula. As a result teachers have become more involved in assessing students’ attitudes toward what is being taught. Reading is certainly one area that receives considerable attention in this respect. Secondary teachers and administrators have come to realize that improving students’ attitudes toward reading is every bit as important as improving their reading comprehension, word recognition and word analysis skills. THE NATURE AND MEASUREMENT OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS' ATTITUDES TOWARD
Rectal Cancer: Assessment of Neoadjuvant Chemoradiation Outcome based on Radiomics of Multiparametric MRI

Purpose: To evaluate multiparametric MRI features in predicting pathologic response after preoperative chemoradiation therapy (CRT) for locally advanced rectal cancer (LARC). Experimental Design: Forty-eight consecutive patients (January 2012–November 2014) receiving neoadjuvant CRT were enrolled. All underwent anatomical T1/T2, diffusion-weighted MRI (DWI) and dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE) MRI before CRT. A total of 103 imaging features, analyzed using both volume-averaged and voxelized methods, were extracted for each patient. Univariate analyses were performed to evaluate the capability of each individual parameter in predicting pathologic complete response (pCR) or good response (GR) evaluated based on tumor regression grade. Artificial neural network with 4-fold validation technique was further utilized to select the best predictor sets to classify different response groups and the predictive performance was calculated using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. Results: The conventional volume-averaged analysis could provide an area under ROC curve (AUC) ranging from 0.54 to 0.73 in predicting pCR. While if the models were replaced by voxelized heterogeneity analysis, the prediction accuracy measured by AUC could be improved to 0.71–0.79. Similar results were found for GR prediction. In addition, each subcategory images could generate moderate power in predicting the response, which if combining all information together, the AUC could be further improved to 0.84 for pCR and 0.89 for GR prediction, respectively. Conclusions: Through a systematic analysis of multiparametric MR imaging features, we are able to build models with improved predictive value over conventional imaging metrics. The results are encouraging, suggesting the wealth of imaging radiomics should be further explored to help tailoring the treatment into the era of personalized medicine. Clin Cancer Res; 22(21); 5256–64. ©2016 AACR.
GlueTheos: automating the retrieval and analysis of data from publicly available software repositories

For efficient, large scale data mining of publicly available information about libre (free, open source) software projects, automating the retrieval and analysis processes is a must. A system implementing such automation must have into account the many kinds of repositories with interesting information (each with its own structure and access methods), and the many kinds of analysis which can be applied to the retrieved data. In addition, such a system should be capable of interfacing and reusing as much existing software for both retrieving and analyzing data as possible. As a proof of concept of how that system could be, we started sometime ago to implement the GlueTheos system, featuring a modular,flexible architecture which has been already used in several of our studies of libre software projects. In this paper we show its structure, how it can be used, and how it can be extended.