Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Change in Brow Position After Upper Blepharoplasty or Levator Advancement

AbstractBrow position after blepharoplasty is somewhat controversial. Some authors insist that brow position remains unchanged after surgery. On the other hand, there is also an opinion that brow position changes after surgery.We evaluate the influence of upper blepharoplasty or correction of ptosis on brow position in East Asians. Sixty patients (120 eyes) who underwent upper blepharoplasty or levator advancement were evaluated for change in brow position. Marginal reflex distance 1, brow height from medial canthus, upper eyelid margin on midpupillary level, lateral canthus, and brow height from the center of the pupil were measured before surgery and 6 months after surgery. The distance between the upper lid margin and the brow was shortened after upper blepharoplasty or levator advancement, which could cause brow depression. Change in brow height was greater after levator advancement than after blepharoplasty. These findings might be helpful for the prediction of brow position after surgery. Our study also implies that the possibility of a change in postoperative brow position change should be explained to patients before surgery, particularly ptosis patients.
Characterization of SNDR degradation in nonlinear wireless transmitters

This article presents a measurement strategy and a characterization bench for the evaluation of Signal to Noise and Distortion Ratio (SNDR) in nonlinear wireless systems when in presence of memory effects. This measurement proposal will be combined with a closed analysis of the nonlinear mechanisms appearing in communication systems presenting memory. The analysis of this memory mechanism, when the system is excited by complex modulated signals with different statistics, will be a useful tool for design engineers to evaluate the degradation of SNDR in nonlinear wireless systems. Finally, the proposed measurement approach will be applied to a CDMA communication system, by evaluating carefully the SNDR of that system. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE, 2009.
Capillary microsampling of 25 µl blood for the determination of toxicokinetic parameters in regulatory studies in animals.

BACKGROUND Capillary microsampling (CMS) is a new technique for simplified collection, handling and analysis of small, exact volumes of liquid matrices. CMS was compared with conventional large volume sampling, in toxicology studies in rat and dog. RESULTS Bioanalytical validation data were well within acceptance limits. Toxicokinetic (TK) parameters from microsampling were in agreement with data from conventional volume sampling. Clinical pathology parameters in rats measured 2 days after repeated microsampling were not affected when compared with rats not sampled. CONCLUSION The fast collection and simple handling of small, exact volumes of liquid blood makes the CMS technique generic and flexible, as well as easily implemented and automated. Presented data support that TK measurements can be performed in main study rats, instead of dosing additional satellite animals only for TK sampling, giving both a higher scientific value and a substantial reduction of animal numbers in preclinical development.
Hypercalcemic-type of small cell carcinoma of the ovary: characterization of a new tumor line.

BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to develop and characterize a mouse xenograft model for the hypercalcemic-type of small cell carcinoma of the ovary (HTSCCO). PATIENTS AND METHODS Tumor fragments were removed from a patient and cultured in six subsequent generations of nude mice. Histology, comparative genomic hybridization (CGH), electron microscopy and serum calcium levels were investigated. RESULTS Morphology remained the same from the primary tumor of the patient through the 6th passage in the mouse. Serum calcium levels were significantly higher in the tumor-bearing mice compared to controls. CGH of the HTSCCO did not show evidence of a close relationship to either a germ cell tumor or an epithelial ovarian cancer. CONCLUSION Some evidence was provided that the HTSCCO is an inhomogeneous tumor that is neither related to a germ cell tumor nor to an epithelial ovarian cancer, but is a distinct tumor entity.
HIV Risk Behavior Among Bisexual and Heterosexual Drug Users

Abstract This study examined the sexual and drug use behaviors for bisexual and heterosexual drug users (n=11,435 males and n=5,636 females) who participated in the NIDA AIDS Cooperative Agreement study. Results of the study suggest that, for males, bisexuality was highly associated with being homeless, having ever been paid for sex, having five or more sex partners in the month preceding the interview, having an IV drug-using sexual partner in the month preceding the interview, using crack, and sharing injection equipment in the month preceding the interview. For females, bisexuality was associated with ever having been arrested, past substance abuse treatment, ever having been paid for sex, ever having paid for sex, having five or more sexual partners in the month preceding the interview, ever using cocaine, and sharing injection equipment in the month preceding the interview. Overall, results from this study indicate that both male and female bisexuals, when compared to heterosexuals, were at higher risk for HIV and were more likely to be HIV positive. One implication of these results is that a universal prevention message may not be as effective as targeting prevention messages specifically for bisexual males and females.
Nomic probability and the foundations of induction

This book deals with the subject of probabilistic reasoning. Professor Pollock attempts to make general philosophical sense of objective probabilities and he explores their relationship to the problem of induction. He argues that probability is fundamental not only to physical science, but to induction, epistemology, the philosophy of science and to much reasoning of interest to artificial intelligence. He attempts to show how his understanding of probability throws light on these related issues. Pollock's main claim is that the fundamental notion of probability is nomic - that is, it involves the notion of natural law, valid across possible worlds. The various epistemic and statistical conceptions of probability, he demonstrates, are derived from this nomic notion. He goes on to provide a theory of statistical induction; an account of computational principles allowing some probabilities to be derived from others; an account of acceptance rules; and a theory of direct inference.
The effect of progressive muscle relaxation on daily cortisol secretion

Abstract Abbreviated progressive muscle relaxation (APMR) is a much used stress-management technique. Its efficacy relevant to placebo control is already established in the literature and the primary aim of the present study was to ascertain whether its proven impact on psychological stress measures is matched by a decrease in prevailing levels of the stress-associated hormone cortisol, using accurate and robust measurement based on multiple sampling of full diurnal cortisol secretion profiles. First-year university students can face significant stress in adjustment to academic demands and immersion in a novel social network and provided a convenient study population. One hundred and one first-year students completed APMR with prevailing stress levels assessed a week before and after intervention. Both cortisol and self-report measures were significantly reduced post-intervention by 8% and 10%, respectively. The efficacy of the intervention was independent of, and not modulated by neuroticism, gender, age and smoking status. We also demonstrated that cortisol reduction was unlikely to have been a consequence of adaptation to any initial cortisol elevation prompted by the challenge of the demanding saliva collection protocol. We conclude that the efficacy of APMR in this population extends to reduction in biologically expressed stress levels as well as levels based solely on self-report.
Complexity of two-variable logic with counting

Let C/sub k//sup 2/ denote the class of first order sentences with two variables and with additional quantifiers "there exists exactly (at most, at least) m", for m/spl les/k, and let C/sup 2/ be the union of C/sub k//sup 2/ taken over all integers k. We prove that the problem of satisfiability of sentences of C/sub 1//sup 2/ is NEXPTIME-complete. This strengthens a recent result of E. Gradel, Ph. Kolaitis and M. Vardi (1997) who proved that the satisfiability problem for the first order two-variable logic L/sup 2/ is NEXPTIME-complete and a very recent result by E. Gradel, M. Otto and E. Rosen (1997) who proved the decidability of C/sup 2/. Our result easily implies that the satisfiability problem for C/sup 2/ is in non-deterministic, doubly exponential time. It is interesting that C/sub 1//sup 2/ is in NEXPTIME in spite of the fact, that there are sentences whose minimal (and only) models are of doubly exponential size.
Rapid Publication In Vitro Model of Intestinal Crypt Abscess

In order to model crypt abscesses, a histological finding which correlates with disease activity in intestinal inflammation, human polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMN) were layered onto monolayers of the human intestinal epithelial cell line T84, a crypt-like epithelium which is capable of Clsecretion. Such PMN-epithelial interaction had no substantial effect on monolayer integrity or function. However, when PMN were stimulated by conditions including those present naturally in the human colonic lumen, monolayers responded with a bumetanidesensitive short circuit current (Isc) indicative of Clsecretion, the basis of secretory diarrhea. This Isc response was induced by a neutrophil-derived secretagogue (NDS), which was only active when applied to the luminal surface of monolayers and did not require PMN-epithelial contact. NDS activity is resistant to boiling, acid, and trypsin and passes a 500 nominal mol wt cutoff filter. NDS activity is not secondary to the respiratory burst products Oor H202 and does not appear to be a myeloperoxidase product. We speculate NDS elicited Clsecretion may contribute to the secretory diarrhea seen in patients with intestinal inflammation and crypt abscesses. (J. Clin. Invest. 1991. 87:1474-1477.)
BIT at SemEval-2017 Task 1: Using Semantic Information Space to Evaluate Semantic Textual Similarity

This paper presents three systems for semantic textual similarity (STS) evaluation at SemEval-2017 STS task. One is an unsupervised system and the other two are supervised systems which simply employ the unsupervised one. All our systems mainly depend on the (SIS), which is constructed based on the semantic hierarchical taxonomy in WordNet, to compute non-overlapping information content (IC) of sentences. Our team ranked 2nd among 31 participating teams by the primary score of Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC) mean of 7 tracks and achieved the best performance on Track 1 (AR-AR) dataset.
Pose-Invariant Hand Shape Recognition Based on Finger Geometry

In this paper, a pose-invariant hand shape recognition method based on the geometry of the fingers is proposed. Firstly, inspired by the segmentation method presented by Yoruk et al., we conduct a novel improvement on the segmentation for extracting the region of the fingers when the hand is in a natural pose. Secondly, Fourier descriptors and finger area functions are employed to extract the finger boundary curve features and region areas, respectively. Finally, score-level fusion based on a weighted sum is used to obtain matching results. Because the finger segmentation strategy and the feature extraction method are both rotation and translation invariant, the proposed method is more suitable for a naturally posed hand. Experiments using the Bogazici University Hand database show that the proposed method can achieve an equal error rate of 0.0369 for all data and 0.0273 for samples with an intragroup angle deviation of less than 45°. Thus, the proposed method is suitable for real-world applications.
Criterios de selecao de modelos para o modelo de regressao Beta

The Beta regression model holds a great practical applicability, in particular, for modelling rates and proportions and such as the others regression models, it also requires methods to determinate which is the best model. The main objetive of this work is to implement and evaluate the performance of differents model selection criteria in the Beta regression model. For such, by using differents studies of Monte Carlo simulations, we have analised some criteria selected by taking into consideration its asymptotic properties, which were obtained by maximum likelihood function. The simulations results show that the performances of those criteria depend on the model specification as well as on the sample size. We have also presented an application related to the Human Development Index from United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which is a right variable for the modelling in study, since its values vary in the interval (0,1). In this application, we have observed that with the sample of all Northeast’s cities the differents used criteria selected the same model.
Association of Immunophilins with Mammalian TRPC Channels*

Drosophila photoreceptor channels TRP and TRPL are held in a large signalplex by the scaffolding protein, INAD. Immunophilin FKBP59, another member of the signalplex, binds to both INAD and TRPL. Mutation P702Q or P709Q in the highly conserved TRPL sequence 701LPPPFNVLP709, eliminates TRPL interaction with FKBP59. The first leucylprolyl (LP) dipeptide in this region is conserved in mammalian TRPC channel proteins. However, the second LP is changed to isoleucylprolyl (IP) in TRPC1, -C4, and -C5, and valylprolyl (VP) in TRPC3, -C6, and -C7. The purpose of the present study was to determine if mammalian FKBP12 or FKBP52 interact with TRPC channel proteins. Using TRPC-specific antibodies, immunoprecipitations from Sf9 cells individually co-expressing each of the TRPC proteins along with the immunophilins showed that TRPC3, -C6, and -C7 interact with FKBP12, whereas TRPC1, -C4, and -C5 interact with FKBP52. The binding of FKBP12 and FKBP52 was specific and could be displaced by the immunosuppressant drug FK506, at concentrations of 0.5 and 10 μm, respectively. To evaluate TRPC-immunophilin interactions in vivo, immunoprecipitations were performed using membrane lysates of rat cerebral cortex. FKBP12 co-immunoprecipitated with TRPC3, -C6, and -C7 from rat brain, whereas FKBP52 was found to associate with TRPC1, -C4, and -C5. The association of immunophilins with the TRPC channels in rat brain lysates could be displaced by FK506. Receptor-mediated activation of TRPC6, stably expressed in HEK cells, was significantly inhibited by FK506, which also disrupted interaction between TRPC6 and the endogenous immunophilin found in HEK cells. Pro to Gln mutations in the first LP dipeptide in the putative FKBP binding domain eliminated FKBP12 and FKBP52 interaction with TRPC3 and -C6, and TRPC1 and -C4, respectively. However, mutual swap of VP and IP in TRPC3 and TRPC5 did not alter the association or the selectivity of the channels for their respective immunophilin binding partner. These results suggest that immunophilins are TRPC channel accessory proteins that play an important role in the mechanism of channel activation following receptor stimulation.
Challenges towards MR imaging of the peripheral inflammatory response in the subacute and chronic stages of transient focal ischemia

Intravenous administration of iron oxide nanoparticles after experimental stroke has been shown to produce focal signal intensity changes in the ischemic boundary on MRI images. These changes have been attributed to the influx of iron‐laden blood‐borne macrophages, although it has been suggested that this effect might not always be completely specific to inflammatory cells. The aim of the present study was to investigate this phenomenon in a subacute time frame that is more relevant to the peripheral inflammatory response. Imaging experiments (T2‐, T2*‐ and T1‐weighted sequences) were acquired in Wistar rats 6 days after transient middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO). Animals were intravenously infused with different doses of ultrasmall superparamagnetic iron oxide (USPIO) nanoparticles (300, 600 or 1000 µmol Fe/kg), or saline and gadolinium, and imaged again 24 h later. Tissue was immediately processed for immunohistochemistry with the macrophage marker ED‐1, in combination with Prussian blue for iron. Ischemic tissue exhibited a large increase in T2 values, and overall contrast enhancement was apparent in the brain and surrounding muscle. In contrast with previous reports, there were no regions of focal signal intensity changes in the ischemic territory in any of the images, although a region of interest analysis revealed a trend towards iron accumulation in the ischemic hemisphere, particularly in the cortex of T2* images. However, histological examination revealed that, despite extensive ED‐1‐positive macrophage accumulation in the entire ischemic territory, none of these cells were Prussian blue positive, except in the meninges of one animal that received a high dose of USPIO nanoparticles. These results imply that the observed trend is a result of the presence of contrast agent in the blood, or meninges, and not iron‐containing inflammatory cells. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Towards the neurocomputer : an investigation of VHDL neuron models

The investigation of neuron structures is an incredibly difficult and complex task that yields relatively low rewards in terms of information from biological forms (either animals or tissue). The structures and connectivity of even the simplest invertebrates are almost impossible to establish with standard laboratory techniques, and even when this is possible it is generally time consuming, complex and expensive. Recent work has shown how a simplified behavioural approach to modelling neurons can allow “virtual” experiments to be carried out that map the behaviour of a simulated structure onto a hypothetical biological one, with correlation of behaviour rather than underlying connectivity. The problems with such approaches are numerous. The first is the difficulty of simulating realistic aggregates efficiently, the second is making sense of the results and finally, it would be helpful to have an implementation that could be synthesised to hardware for acceleration. This work presents a VHDL implementation of a neuron model which is verified through simulations of the Caenorhabditis Elegans (C.Elegans) locomotory system. The C.Elegans system is synthesized into hardware showing a massive improvement in simulation time because the hardware design runs in real-time, meaning a 19 second simulation takes 19 seconds vs. the 1.5 hours taken by the CAD simulation. Logic cells using the VHDL neuron model are produced and verified through simulation to demonstrate the deterministic side of modelling neuronal circuits. The C.Elegans design is then analysed using these neuron logic cells to produce a simple logic version of C.Elegans which produces the same outputs given the same inputs as the Neuron C.Elegans model. Finally the hardware neuron concept was extended to the case of a general purpose programmable neuron array designed to have 100 neurons and 200 synapses The configuration of the neurons and synapses is written to the device over a simple SPI bus, with a second SPI bus used to simultaneously write enable data and read the current states of the neuron outputs. The design was demonstrated to work correctly using the reference C.Elegans design.
Managing Literature Reviews Information through Visualization

Systematic Literature Review (SR) and Systematic Mappings (SM) are scientific literature review techniques that follow well-defined stages, according to a protocol previously elaborated. The goal is helping in finding evidence about a particular research topic and mapping a research area, respectively. Their steps are laborious and a computational support is essential to improve the quality of their conduction. Aiming to offer computational support to these types of reviews, the StArt (State of the Art through Systematic Review) tool was developed. Besides the expected functionalities, StArt generates studies score, uses information visualization and text mining techniques to facilitate the research area mapping and to identify the studies relevance. StArt has been developed through an incremental process by academics who adopt SR and SM. As the expectation is to have a tool that really aids the conduction of these types of reviews, new ideas are always investigated and make StArt different from other alternatives. Visualization and text mining techniques seems to be a powerful resource for facilitating data abstraction in the context of SRs and SMs, allowing the improvement of the review and the conclusions about it.
The Development of Cognitive Vulnerability to Hopelessness Depression

A reference sample for the calibration of a device for characterizing doses implanted on a wafer, consisting in defining a succession of at least two parallel strips on the wafer. The reference sample is produced by depositing a first implant mask on the wafer according to a pattern leaving a first strip accessible, performing a first ionic implant of a first dose, removing the first implant mask and depositing a second implant mask on the wafer according to a pattern leaving accessible the first strip as well as a second contiguous strip, performing a second ionic implant of a second dose, and removing the second implant mask.
Amounts of DNA , RNA , and the Secreted Fibroin per Pair of Posterior Silk Glands of Silkworm Strains Having Different Allelic Combinations

A locus responsible for the Nd-s mutation of the silkworm, Bombyx mori, has been mapped very close to or within the fibroin light (L) chain gene on the 14th chromosome (Takei, E , K. Kimura, S. Mizuno, T. Yamamoto, and K. Shimura, 1984, Jpn. J. Genet., 59:307-313). A strain of B. mori carrying the homozygous Nd-s D mutation (Nd-sD/Nd-sD; Nd-s D is allelic to Nd-s) secretes <0.3% of fibroin into the lumen of the posterior silk gland compared with a strain carrying the homozygous wild-type alleles (+/+) . The small amount of fibroin that is secreted in the Nd-sD/ Nd-s D strain consists of the heavy (H) chain only and lacks the L chain, although the L chain mRNA and the proteins that are cross-reactable with the anti-L chain serum are present in the posterior silk gland cells. In the hybrid silkworm, Nd-sD/+, the H chain derived from either the Nd-s D or + allele forms disulfide linkage with the L chain derived from the + allele and these fibroins are secreted into the lumen with an equal efficiency, but the L chain derived from the Nd-s ° allele remains in the cell unbound to the H chain. Some evidence suggesting structural abnormality of the L chain derived from the Nd-s D allele is presented. These results, together with the previous results on the effect of the H chain gene-linked Nd(2) mutation (Takei, E , F. Oyama, K. Kimura, A. Hyodo, S. Mizuno, and K. Shimura, 1984, J. Cell Biol., 99:2005-2010), strongly suggest that the H-L subunit combination of silk fibroin is important for its efficient