Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Individual Differences in Reliance on Intuition Predict Harsher Moral Judgments

The notion that intuition guides moral judgment is widely accepted. Yet, there is a dearth of research examining whether individual differences in reliance on intuition influence moral judgment. Five studies provided evidence that faith in intuition (FI) predicts higher condemnation of moral transgressions. Studies 1 and 2 (combined N = 543) demonstrated that FI predicted higher moral condemnation of strange actions characterized by ambiguous harm. This association maintained controlling for a host of relevant ideological and emotional “third” variables. Three experiments demonstrated this relationship to be robust in the face of manipulations. In Study 3 (N = 320), participants rated whether moral scenarios involved harm or victims prior to (vs. after) moral judgments. Although considering harm and victims prior to judgments lowered condemnation toward these actions, the manipulation did not moderate the association between FI and condemnation. FI related to moral condemnation of unconventional actions even after consideration of harm and victims. In Study 4 (N = 236), a manipulation designed to enhance deliberation lowered overall moral condemnation (vs. control group), but did not attenuate the relationship between FI and moral condemnation. In Study 5 (N = 204), participants quickly categorized actions according to whether or not they were immoral, harmful, or involved victims. FI predicted higher condemnation of ambiguously harmful actions even when these judgments were made rapidly. Implications for examining individual differences in intuition in the context of dominant theories in moral psychology (dyadic morality, Moral Foundations Theory) are addressed.
On Improving Pseudo-Relevance Feedback using an Absorbing Document

: Pseudo-Relevance Feedback assumes that the top-ranked k documents of the initial retrieval are relevant, and then terms of these documents are used to re-weight the terms of the initial query (add new terms and/or change the weights of existing terms in the query). In this paper, we propose a new approach for query expansion for ad hoc search, by using an absorbing document which is the cross product of irrelevant documents. This document will be orthogonal to irrelevant ones. We show how this absorbing document can extract better expansion terms from the top-ranked k documents. The experiments show that our approach gives improvements for both collections, TREC-7 and TREC-8, over known models
Therapeutic dosages of aspirin counteract the IL-6 induced pro-tumorigenic effects by slowing down the ribosome biogenesis rate

Chronic inflammation is a risk factor for the onset of cancer and the regular use of aspirin reduces the risk of cancer development. Here we showed that therapeutic dosages of aspirin counteract the pro-tumorigenic effects of the inflammatory cytokine interleukin(IL)-6 in cancer and non-cancer cell lines, and in mouse liver in vivo. We found that therapeutic dosages of aspirin prevented IL-6 from inducing the down-regulation of p53 expression and the acquisition of the epithelial mesenchymal transition (EMT) phenotypic changes in the cell lines. This was the result of a reduction in c-Myc mRNA transcription which was responsible for a down-regulation of the ribosomal protein S6 expression which, in turn, slowed down the rRNA maturation process, thus reducing the ribosome biogenesis rate. The perturbation of ribosome biogenesis hindered the Mdm2-mediated proteasomal degradation of p53, throughout the ribosomal protein-Mdm2-p53 pathway. P53 stabilization hindered the IL-6 induction of the EMT changes. The same effects were observed in livers from mice stimulated with IL-6 and treated with aspirin. It is worth noting that aspirin down-regulated ribosome biogenesis, stabilized p53 and up-regulated E-cadherin expression in unstimulated control cells also. In conclusion, these data showed that therapeutic dosages of aspirin increase the p53-mediated tumor-suppressor activity of the cells thus being in this way able to reduce the risk of cancer onset, either or not linked to chronic inflammatory processes.
PAM50 and Risk of Recurrence Scores for Interval Breast Cancers

Breast cancers detected after a negative breast screening examination and prior to the next screening are referred to as interval cancers. These cancers generally have poor clinical characteristics compared with screen-detected cancers, but associations between interval cancer and genomic cancer characteristics are not well understood. Mammographically screened women diagnosed with primary invasive breast cancer from 1993 to 2013 (n = 370) were identified by linking the Carolina Breast Cancer Study and the Carolina Mammography Registry. Among women with a registry-identified screening mammogram 0 to 24 months before diagnosis, cancers were classified as screen-detected (N = 165) or interval-detected (N = 205). Using logistic regression, we examined the association of mode of detection with cancer characteristics (clinical, IHC, and genomic), overall, and in analyses stratified on mammographic density and race. Interval cancer was associated with large tumors [>2 cm; OR, 2.3; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.5–3.7], positive nodal status (OR, 1.8; 95% CI, 1.1–2.8), and triple-negative subtype (OR, 2.5; 95% CI, 1.1–5.5). Interval cancers were more likely to have non-Luminal A subtype (OR, 2.9; 95% CI, 1.5–5.7), whereas screen-detected cancers tended to be more indolent (96% had low risk of recurrence genomic scores; 71% were PAM50 Luminal A). When stratifying by mammographic density and race, associations between interval detection and poor prognostic features were similar by race and density status. Strong associations between interval cancers and poor-prognosis genomic features (non-Luminal A subtype and high risk of recurrence score) suggest that aggressive tumor biology is an important contributor to interval cancer rates. Cancer Prev Res; 11(6); 327–36. ©2018 AACR.
Trade, Demand Spillovers, and Industrialization: The Emerging Global Middle Class in Perspective

In this paper, we investigate international demand spillovers brought about by a global middle class and their impact on trade patterns and industrialization. We propose a multi-industry and two-country trade model featuring demand complementarities propagating increasing returns across industries and national boundaries. We show how the international extent of demand spillovers depends upon asymmetries in domestic income distribution, labor efficiency, and labor force size; that is, on the global distribution of real income.
Inflammatory compound lipopolysaccharide promotes the survival of GM‐CSF cultured dendritic cell via PI3 kinase‐dependent upregulation of Bcl‐x

As professional antigen‐presenting cells, dendritic cells (DCs) initiate and regulate immune responses against inflammation. The invasion of pathogens into the body, however, can in turn cause the change of DCs in both activity and viability, which ultimately affect immune homeostasis. The exact mechanisms that the bacteria utilize to alter the lifespan of DCs, however, are far from clear. In this study, we found that the bacterial wall compound lipopolysaccharide (LPS) can promote the survival of GM‐CSF‐differentiated DCs (GM‐DCs). At molecular levels, we demonstrated that GM‐DCs had distinct pattern of mRNA expression for anti‐apoptotic BCL‐2 family members, of which, Bcl‐x increased significantly following LPS stimulation. Interestingly, specific inhibition of BCL‐XL protein alone was sufficient to remove the anti‐apoptotic effects of LPS on BM‐DCs. Further study of the signaling mechanisms revealed that although LPS can activate both Erk MAP kinase and PI3 kinase pathways, only blocking of PI3K abolished both Bcl‐x upregulation and the enhanced survival phenotype, suggesting that the PI3K signaling mediated the upregulation of Bcl‐x for the LPS‐induced pro‐survival in GM‐DCs. Collectively, this study unveils a molecular mechanism that DCs adapt to maintain innate immunity against the invasion of pathogens.
Building an Associative Classifier Based on Fuzzy Association Rules

Classification based on association rules is considered to be effective and advantageous in many cases. However, there is a so-called "sharp boundary" problem in association rules mining with quantitative attribute domains. This paper aims at proposing an associative classification approach, namely Classification with Fuzzy Association Rules (CFAR), where fuzzy logic is used in partitioning the domains. In doing so, the notions of support and confidence are extended, along with the notion of compact set in dealing with rule redundancy and conflict. Furthermore, the corresponding mining algorithm is introduced and tested on benchmarking datasets. The experimental results revealed that CFAR generated better understandability in terms of fewer rules and smother boundaries than the traditional CBA approach while maintaining satisfactory accuracy.
The search for drug-targetable diagnostic, prognostic and predictive biomarkers in chronic graft-versus-host disease

ABSTRACT Introduction: Chronic graft-versus-host disease (cGVHD) continues to be the leading cause of late morbidity and mortality after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT), which is an increasingly applied curative method for both benign and malignant hematologic disorders. Biomarker identification is crucial for the development of noninvasive and cost-effective cGVHD diagnostic, prognostic, and predictive test for use in clinic. Furthermore, biomarkers may help to gain a better insight on ongoing pathophysiological processes. The recent widespread application of omics technologies including genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics and cytomics provided opportunities to discover novel biomarkers. Areas covered: This review focuses on biomarkers identified through omics that play a critical role in target identification for drug development, and that were verified in at least two independent cohorts. It also summarizes the current status on omics tools used to identify these useful cGVHD targets. We briefly list the biomarkers identified and verified so far. We further address challenges associated to their exploitation and application in the management of cGVHD patients. Finally, insights on biomarkers that are drug targetable and represent potential therapeutic targets are discussed. Expert commentary: We focus on biomarkers that play an essential role in target identification.
Facial expression recognition in the wild based on multimodal texture features

Abstract. Facial expression recognition in the wild is a very challenging task. We describe our work in static and continuous facial expression recognition in the wild. We evaluate the recognition results of gray deep features and color deep features, and explore the fusion of multimodal texture features. For the continuous facial expression recognition, we design two temporal–spatial dense scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT) features and combine multimodal features to recognize expression from image sequences. For the static facial expression recognition based on video frames, we extract dense SIFT and some deep convolutional neural network (CNN) features, including our proposed CNN architecture. We train linear support vector machine and partial least squares classifiers for those kinds of features on the static facial expression in the wild (SFEW) and acted facial expression in the wild (AFEW) dataset, and we propose a fusion network to combine all the extracted features at decision level. The final achievement we gained is 56.32% on the SFEW testing set and 50.67% on the AFEW validation set, which are much better than the baseline recognition rates of 35.96% and 36.08%.
Modified Cross-Linking, Ligation, and Sequencing of Hybrids (qCLASH) Identifies Kaposi's Sarcoma-Associated Herpesvirus MicroRNA Targets in Endothelial Cells

ABSTRACT Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) tumors are derived from endothelial cells and express Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) microRNAs (miRNAs). Although miRNA targets have been identified in B cell lymphoma-derived cells and epithelial cells, little has been done to characterize the KSHV miRNA targetome in endothelial cells. A recent innovation in the identification of miRNA targetomes, cross-linking, ligation, and sequencing of hybrids (CLASH), unambiguously identifies miRNAs and their targets by ligating the two species while both species are still bound within the RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC). We developed a streamlined quick CLASH (qCLASH) protocol that requires a lower cell input than the original method and therefore has the potential to be used on patient biopsy samples. Additionally, we developed a fast-growing, KSHV-negative endothelial cell line derived from telomerase-immortalized vein endothelial long-term culture (TIVE-LTC) cells. qCLASH was performed on uninfected cells and cells infected with either wild-type KSHV or a mutant virus lacking miR-K12-11/11*. More than 1,400 cellular targets of KSHV miRNAs were identified. Many of the targets identified by qCLASH lacked a canonical seed sequence match. Additionally, most target regions in mRNAs originated from the coding DNA sequence (CDS) rather than the 3′ untranslated region (UTR). This set of genes includes some that were previously identified in B cells and some new genes that warrant further study. Pathway analysis of endothelial cell targets showed enrichment in cell cycle control, apoptosis, and glycolysis pathways, among others. Characterization of these new targets and the functional consequences of their repression will be important in furthering our understanding of the role of KSHV miRNAs in oncogenesis. IMPORTANCE KS lesions consist of endothelial cells latently infected with KSHV. Cells that make up these lesions express KSHV miRNAs. Identification of the targets of KSHV miRNAs will help us understand their role in viral oncogenesis. The cross-linking and sequencing of hybrids (CLASH) protocol is a method for unambiguously identifying miRNA targetomes. We developed a streamlined version of CLASH, called quick CLASH (qCLASH). qCLASH requires a lower initial input of cells than for its parent protocol. Additionally, a new fast-growing KSHV-negative endothelial cell line, named TIVE-EX-LTC cells, was established. qCLASH was performed on TIVE-EX-LTC cells latently infected with wild-type (WT) KSHV or a mutant virus lacking miR-K12-11/11*. A number of novel targets of KSHV miRNAs were identified, including targets of miR-K12-11, the ortholog of the cellular oncogenic miRNA (oncomiR) miR-155. Many of the miRNA targets were involved in processes related to oncogenesis, such as glycolysis, apoptosis, and cell cycle control.
Hybrid T2‐ and T1‐weighted radial acquisition for free‐breathing abdominal examination

Most clinical MR examinations require acquisition of different image contrasts. For abdominal exams, the scans are conventionally performed as separate acquisitions using respiratory gating or repeated breath holding, which can be time‐inefficient and challenging for patients. Here, a hybrid imaging approach is described that creates T2‐ and T1‐weighted images from a single scan and allows for free‐breathing acquisition.
Wireless technologies for isolated rural communities in developing countries based on cellular 3 G femtocell deployments M 43 Multiple flows control management

This is an internal intermediate document towards D43 defining the requirements and procedures for the control of flows, including the sensing of backhaul relevant quality parameters (needs to be interfaced with 5A2), offloading architectures and key performance indicators. These activities will feed WP6. Basically two topics will be addressed: traffic offloading and user scheduling. The investigation of traffic offloading techniques will allow reducing the congestion of the backhaul, a crucial aspect in TUCAN3G. On the other hand, with user scheduling and admission control we tackle the optimization of the access network in the short-term. Nevertheless, this latter aspect should also consider the required backhaul quality and the general design should take into account the proper interface between the access network and the transport network should be considered. Keyword list: traffic offloading, VSAT cache, scheduling, admission control, backhaul monitoring, energy consumption
Contraction control of a fleet circular formation of AUVs under limited communication range

This work proposes a novel control algorithm dedicated to multi-agent systems with nonlinear dynamics. The aim of this paper is for the agents to form a circular formation whose center is fixed and whose radius is given by a time-varying reference. The problem of uniform distribution of all the agents along the circle is also addressed under the assumption of limited communication range. This communication constraint is tackled by using a cooperative control scheme which includes the Laplacian matrix of the communication graph (distance-dependent). The multi-agent system is simulated with Matlab. Videos showing the simulations are accessible though Web.
The role of Rho kinase (Rock) in re-epithelialization of adult zebrafish skin wounds

ABSTRACT Complete re-epithelialization of full-thickness skin wounds in adult mammals takes days to complete and relies on numerous signaling cues and multiple overlapping cellular processes that take place both within the epidermis itself and in other participating tissues. We have previously shown that re-epithelialization of full-thickness skin wounds of adult zebrafish, however, is extremely rapid and largely independent of the other processes of wound healing allowing for the dissection of specific processes that occur in, or have a direct effect on, re-epithelializing keratinocytes. Recently, we have shown that, in addition to lamellipodial crawling at the leading edge, re-epithelialization of zebrafish partial- and full-thickness wounds requires long-range epithelial rearrangements including radial intercalations, flattening and directed elongation and that each of these processes involves Rho kinase (Rock) signaling. Our studies demonstrate how these coordinated signaling events allow for the rapid collective cell migration observed in adult zebrafish wound healing. Here we discuss the particular contribution of Rock to each of these processes.
Characterizing Signals Within Lesions and Mapping Brain Network Connectivity After Traumatic Axonal Injury: A 7 Tesla Resting-State FMRI Study

Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (RS-FMRI) has been widely used to map brain functional connectivity, but it is unclear how to probe connectivity within and around lesions. In this study, we characterize RS-FMRI signal time course properties and evaluate different seed placements within and around hemorrhagic traumatic axonal injury (hTAI) lesions. RS-FMRI was performed on a 7 Tesla scanner in a patient who recovered consciousness after traumatic coma and in three healthy controls. Eleven lesions in the patient were characterized in terms of (1) temporal signal-to-noise ratio (tSNR); (2) physiological noise, through comparison of noise regressors derived from the white matter (WM), cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), and gray matter (GM); and (3) seed-based functional connectivity. Temporal SNR at the center of the lesions was 38.3% and 74.1% lower compared with the same region in the contralesional hemisphere of the patient and in the ipsilesional hemispheres of the controls, respectively. Within the lesions, WM noise was more prominent than CSF and GM noise. Lesional seeds did not produce discernable networks, but seeds in the contralesional hemisphere revealed networks whose nodes appeared to be shifted or obscured due to overlapping or nearby lesions. Single-voxel seed analysis demonstrated that placing a seed within a lesion's periphery was necessary to identify networks associated with the lesion region. These findings provide evidence of resting-state network changes in the human brain after recovery from traumatic coma. Furthermore, we show that seed placement within a lesion's periphery or in the contralesional hemisphere may be necessary for network identification in patients with hTAI.
Absence of Fibrosis and Inflammation by Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients with Low to Moderate Disease Activity

Objective. The prevalence of heart failure is increased 2-fold in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA); this is not explained by ischemic heart disease or other risk factors for heart failure. We hypothesized that in patients with RA without known heart disease, cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (cMRI) would detect altered cardiac structure, function, and fibrosis. Methods. We performed 1.5-T cMRI in 59 patients with RA and 56 controls frequency-matched for age, race, and sex, and compared cMRI indices of structure, function, and fibrosis [late gadolinium enhancement (LGE), native T1 mapping, and extracellular volume (ECV)] using Mann-Whitney U tests and linear regression, adjusting for age, race, and sex. Results. Most patients with RA had low to moderate disease activity [28-joint count Disease Activity Score–C-reactive protein median 3.16, interquartile range (IQR) 2.03–4.05], and 49% were receiving anti-tumor necrosis factor agents. Left ventricular (LV) mass, LV end-diastolic and -systolic volumes indexed to body surface area, and LV ejection fraction and left atrial size were not altered in RA compared to controls (all p > 0.05). Measures of fibrosis were not increased in RA: LGE was present in 2 patients with RA and 1 control subject; native T1 mapping was similar comparing RA and control subjects, and ECV (median, IQR) was lower (26.6%, 24.7–28.5%) in patients with RA compared to control subjects (27.5%, 25.4–30.4%, p = 0.03). Conclusion. cMRI measures of cardiac structure and function were not significantly altered, and measures of fibrosis were similar or lower in RA patients with low to moderate disease activity compared to a matched control group.
The Association between the Mediterranean Dietary Pattern and Cognitive Health: A Systematic Review

The ageing population is accompanied by increased rates of cognitive decline and dementia. Not only does cognitive decline have a profound impact on an individual’s health and quality of life, but also on that of their caregivers. The Mediterranean diet (MD) has been known to aid in reducing the risk of cardiovascular diseases, cancer and diabetes. It has been recently linked to better cognitive function in the elderly population. The purpose of this review was to compile evidence based data that examined the effect of adherence to the MD on cognitive function and the risk of developing dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. This review followed PRISMA guidelines and was conducted using four databases and resulted in 31 articles of interest. Cross-sectional studies and cohort studies in the non-Mediterranean region showed mixed results. However, cohort studies in the Mediterranean region and randomized controlled trials showed more cohesive outcomes of the beneficial effect of the MD on cognitive function. Although more standardized and in-depth studies are needed to strengthen the existing body of evidence, results from this review indicate that the Mediterranean diet could play a major role in cognitive health and risk of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.