Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reprogramming of Virus-specific T Cells into Leukemia-reactive T Cells Using T Cell Receptor Gene Transfer

T cells directed against minor histocompatibility antigens (mHags) might be responsible for eradication of hematological malignancies after allogeneic stem cell transplantation. We investigated whether transfer of T cell receptors (TCRs) directed against mHags, exclusively expressed on hematopoietic cells, could redirect virus-specific T cells toward antileukemic reactivity, without the loss of their original specificity. Generation of T cells with dual specificity may lead to survival of these TCR-transferred T cells for prolonged periods of time in vivo due to transactivation of the endogenous TCR of the tumor-reactive T cells by the latent presence of viral antigens. Furthermore, TCR transfer into restricted T cell populations, which are nonself reactive, will minimize the risk of autoimmunity. We demonstrate that cytomegalovirus (CMV)-specific T cells can be efficiently reprogrammed into leukemia-reactive T cells by transfer of TCRs directed against the mHag HA-2. HA-2-TCR–transferred CMV-specific T cells derived from human histocompatibility leukocyte antigen (HLA)-A2+ or HLA-A2− individuals exerted potent antileukemic as well as CMV reactivity, without signs of anti–HLA-A2 alloreactivity. The dual specificity of these mHag-specific, TCR-redirected virus-specific T cells opens new possibilities for the treatment of hematological malignancies of HLA-A2+ HA-2–expressing patients transplanted with HLA-A2–matched or –mismatched donors.
Efficiently and Accurately Comparing Real-valued Data Streams

Data streams are pervasive in many modern applications, and there is a pressing need to develop techniques for their efficient management. In this paper we consider real-valued streams and deal with the problem of reporting in real-time all the instants in which their distance falls below a given threshold. Current distance measures, such as Euclidean and Dynamic Time Warping (DTW ), either are inaccurate or are too time-consuming to be applied in a streaming environment. We propose SDTW , a novel DTW -like distance measure which can be continuously updated in constant time and experimentally show that it improves over DTW by orders of magnitude without sacrificing accuracy.
Physical workload and accelerated occurrence of lumbar spine diseases: risk and rate advancement periods in a German multicenter case-control study.

OBJECTIVE In a German multicenter case-control study of lumbar disc diseases, we calculated risk and rate advancement periods (RAP) for physical workload. METHODS Patients aged 25-70 years with clinically and radiologically verified lumbar disc herniation (286 males, 278 females) or symptomatic lumbar disc narrowing (145 males, 206 females) were compared with population control subjects (453 males and 448 females). For this analysis, all manual handling of objects of about ≥5 kg and postures with trunk inclination of ≥20 °, as assessed by technical experts, were included in the calculation of cumulative lumbar load, determined by biomechanical model calculations. Logistic regression analysis was applied to calculate RAP, adjusted for region. RESULTS We found a steep positive dose-response relationship between age and lumbar disc narrowing among men as well as women; however, we did not find a monotonic increase in lumbar disc herniation risk with age. As a monotonic increase in disease risk with age constitutes a fundamental assumption underlying the RAP concept, we restricted our RAP analysis to cases with symptomatic lumbar disc narrowing. Among men, there was a positive dose-response relationship between the cumulative lumbar load and the acceleration of lumbar disc narrowing. In the highest exposure category, a RAP of 28.0 years [95% confidence interval (95% CI) 9.7-46.3 years] was found. Among women, the RAP was 8.8 years (95% CI 2.4-15.2 years) in the highest exposure category. CONCLUSION This study emphasizes the conceptual importance of risk acceleration - causation not only comprises the occurrence of a disease (that without a specific exposure would not have occurred at all) but also the accelerated occurrence of a disease (that without exposure would have occurred later in life).
Location privacy based on trusted computing and secure logging

Many operators of cellphone networks now offer location-based services to their customers, whereby an operator often outsources service provisioning to a third-party provider. Since a person's location could reveal sensitive information about the person, the operator must ensure that the service provider processes location information about the operator's customers in a privacy-preserving way. So far, this assurance has been based on a legal contract between the operator and the provider. However, there has been no technical mechanism that lets the operator verify whether the provider adheres to the privacy policy outlined in the contract. We propose an architecture for location-based services based on Trusted Computing and Secure Logging that provides such a technical mechanism. Trusted Computing lets an operator query the configuration of a location-based service. The operator will hand over location information to the service only if the service is configured such that the service provider cannot get access to location information using software-based attacks. This includes passive attacks, where the provider monitors information flowing into and out of its service, and active attacks, where the provider modifies or injects customer queries to the service. We introduce several requirements that must be satisfied by a location-based service to defend against passive attacks. Furthermore, we present Secure Logging, an auditing mechanism to defend against active attacks.
Temporal alignment of anticipatory motor cortical beta lateralisation in hidden visual‐motor sequences

Performance improves when participants respond to events that are structured in repeating sequences, suggesting that learning can lead to proactive anticipatory preparation. Whereas most sequence‐learning studies have emphasised spatial structure, most sequences also contain a prominent temporal structure. We used MEG to investigate spatial and temporal anticipatory neural dynamics in a modified serial reaction time (SRT) task. Performance and brain activity were compared between blocks with learned spatial‐temporal sequences and blocks with new sequences. After confirming a strong behavioural benefit of spatial‐temporal predictability, we show lateralisation of beta oscillations in anticipation of the response associated with the upcoming target location and show that this also aligns to the expected timing of these forthcoming events. This effect was found both when comparing between repeated (learned) and new (unlearned) sequences, as well as when comparing targets that were expected after short vs. long intervals within the repeated (learned) sequence. Our findings suggest that learning of spatial‐temporal structure leads to proactive and dynamic modulation of motor cortical excitability in anticipation of both the location and timing of events that are relevant to guide action.
“Is There a Getting Better From This, or Not?” Examining the Meaning and Possibility of Recovery From Mental Disorder

The concept of “recovery” from mental disorder is widely used in the national conversation about youth and adult mental health treatment as if everyone is on the same page about what it means. Fundamental disagreements among researchers and practitioners exist, however, on a variety of issues related to the precise nature and meaning of recovery from mental, emotional, and behavioral disorder generally. Among these issues are: (a) The meaning of recovery; (b) The possibility of full recovery; and (c) Effective support for recovery. After reviewing diverging responses for each of these three issues, we then trace practical implications of competing interpretations for treatment and recovery itself. As demonstrated throughout, the stance taken on these questions can have profound and lifelong consequences for youth and children in treatment.
Robustness Analysis of Binaural Hearing Aid Beamformer Algorithms by Means of Objective Perceptual Quality Measures

In this contribution different microphone array-based noise reduction schemes for hearing aids are suggested and compared in terms of their performance, signal quality and robustness against model errors. The algorithms all have binaural output and are evaluated using objective perceptual quality measures [1, 2, 3]. It has been shown earlier that these measures are able to predict subjective data that is relevant for the assessment of noise reduction algorithms. The quality measures showed clearly that fixed beamformers designed with head models were relatively robust against steering errors whereas for the adaptive beamformers tested in this study the robustness was limited and the benefit due to higher noise reduction depended on the noise scenario and the reliability of a direction of arrival estimation. Furthermore, binaural cue distortions introduced by the different binaural output strategies could be identified by the binaural speech intelligibility measure [3] even in case monaural quality values were similar. Thus, this perceptual quality measure seems to be suitable to discover the benefit that the listener might have from the effect of spatial unmasking.
Sticky projections — A new approach to interactive shader lamp tracking

Shader lamps can augment physical objects with projected virtual replications using a camera-projector system, provided that the physical and virtual object are well registered. Precise registration and tracking has been a cumbersome and intrusive process in the past. In this paper, we present a new method for tracking arbitrarily shaped physical objects interactively. In contrast to previous approaches our system is mobile and makes solely use of the projection of the virtual replication to track the physical object and “stick” the projection to it. Our method consists of two stages, a fast pose initialization based on structured light patterns and a non-intrusive frame-by-frame tracking based on features detected in the projection. In the initialization phase a dense point cloud of the physical object is reconstructed and precisely matched to the virtual model to perfectly overlay the projection. During the tracking phase, a radiometrically corrected virtual camera view based on the current pose prediction is rendered and compared to the captured image. Matched features are triangulated providing a sparse set of surface points that is robustly aligned to the virtual model. The alignment transformation serves as an input for the new pose prediction. Quantitative experiments show that our approach can robustly track complex objects at interactive rates.
Calculated threshold currents of nitride- and phosphide-based quantum-well lasers

We have calculated the room temperature gain-current characteristics for a 360 nm wavelength, 80 /spl Aring/ GaN-Al/sub 0.14/Ga/sub 0.86/N and a red-emitting, 80 /spl Aring/ Ga/sub 0.51/In/sub 0.49/P-(Al/sub 0.44/Ga/sub 0.56/)/sub 0.51/In/sub 0.49/P quantum well laser structures, including many body effects. Although the carrier density and spontaneous current are much higher (by a factor of 4 and 3, respectively) in the nitride structures for a given local gain, the higher confinement factor at short wavelengths means the intrinsic threshold current of these devices is predicted to be approximately twice that of red lasers with the same optical loss.
High and Low Reading Comprehension Achievers' Strategic Behaviors and Their Relation to Performance in a Reading Comprehension Situation

This study aimed at investigating the actual strategic behaviors of high and low achievers in reading comprehension and their relation with respective performance. The participants were 45 individually examined third graders, 20 high and 25 low reading comprehension achievers. Cognitive, metacognitive, and motivational aspects of the participants' strategic behaviors during text comprehension was directly recorded by two observers by means of a structured observation form. The results revealed a relatively different profile of strategic behaviors between high and low achievers. Students' strategic behaviors during dealing with text comprehension were strongly related to respective performance for both groups.
Detection and Tracking of Stealthy Targets Using Particle Filters

In recent years, the particle filter has gained prominence in the area of target tracking because it is robust to non-linear target motion and non-Gaussian additive noise. Traditional track filters, such as the Kalman filter, have been well studied for linear tracking applications, but perform poorly for non-linear applications. The particle filter has been shown to perform well in non-linear applications. The particle filter method is computationally intensive and advances in processor speed and computational power have allowed this method to be implemented in real-time tracking applications. This thesis explores the use of particle filters to detect and track stealthy targets in noisy imagery. Simulated point targets are applied to noisy image data to create an image sequence. A particle filter method known as Track-Before-Detect is developed and used to provide detection and position tracking estimates of a single target as it moves in the image sequence. This method is then extended to track multiple moving targets. The method is analyzed to determine its performance for targets of varying signal-to-noise ratio and for varying particle set sizes. The simulation results show that the Track-Before-Detect method offers a reliable solution for tracking stealthy targets in noisy imagery. The analysis shows that the proper selection of particle set size and algorithm improvements will yield a filter that can track targets in low signal-to-noise environments. The multi-target simulation results show that the method can be extended successfully to multi-target tracking applications. This thesis is a continuation of automatic target recognition and target tracking research at Cal Poly under Dr. John Saghri and is sponsored by Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems.
An alternative storage organization for ROLAP aggregate views based on cubetrees

The Relational On-Line Analytical Processing (ROLAP) is emerging as the dominant approach in data warehousing with decision support applications. In order to enhance query performance, the ROLAP approach relies on selecting and materializing in summary tables appropriate subsets of aggregate views which are then engaged in speeding up OLAP queries. However, a straight forward relational storage implementation of materialized ROLAP views is immensely wasteful on storage and incredibly inadequate on query performance and incremental update speed. In this paper we propose the use of Cubetrees, a collection of packed and compressed R-trees, as an alternative storage and index organization for ROLAP views and provide an efficient algorithm for mapping an arbitrary set of OLAP views to a collection of Cubetrees that achieve excellent performance. Compared to a conventional (relational) storage organization of materialized OLAP views, Cubetrees offer at least a 2-1 storage reduction, a 10-1 better OLAP query performance, and a 100-1 faster updates. We compare the two alternative approaches with data generated from the TPC-D benchmark and stored in the Informix Universal Server (IUS). The straight forward implementation materializes the ROLAP views using IUS tables and conventional B-tree indexing. The Cubetree implementation materializes the same ROLAP views using a Cubetree Datablade developed for IUS. The experiments demonstrate that the Cubetree storage organization is superior in storage, query performance and update speed.
The Survey for Nursing Management Behavior of Diabetes Liaison Nurses in Guangdong Province

Aim: To develop a specific nursing work assessment scale for diabetes liaison nurses to standardize their practice. Background: Currently, there are no validated tools to assess the special practices of diabetes liaison nurses; therefore, the efficacy of these nurses cannot be evaluated properly. Design: The Delphi method, using 12 nurse experts from 8 tertiary hospitals in China, was used to construct the diabetic liaison nurse work assessment scale based on the Hamric Model of Advanced Practice Nurses. The scale was then tested on 21 diabetic liaison nurses. Method: An expert panel participated in 2 rounds of Delphi exercises to develop the assessment scale for diabetic liaison nurses by consensus using a Likert scale to indicate whether a dimension or item should be included in the assessment scale. The initial scale was then revised based on the suggestions from the experts' importance ratings. The final version of the scale was formed after 2 Delphi rounds and was tested for applicability in a preliminary test with 21 diabetic liaison nurses. A convenience and cluster sample of 426 diabetes liaison nurses from 25 hospitals in Guangdong province was invited to participate and complete the scale. Results: Experts reached consensus on a scale with 4 dimensions and 13 items. The item-level content validity index was 1 for 10 items and ≥ 0.75 for 3 items, and the scale-level content validity index was 0.96. The reliability was high; Cronbach's alpha was 0.851, and the retest reliability was 0.822. Construct validity was supported by the results of factor analysis; the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy was 0.822, and Bartlett's Test of Sphericity was statistically significant (P 1 accounted for 69.93% of the total variance. The results of the Rotated Component Matrix demonstrated that the factor loading of 12 items was > 0.6. Conclusion: The content validity of the scale was high; The specific nursing work assessment scale for diabetes liaison nurses is a promising tool that can be used to evaluate the specific nursing practices of diabetes liaison nurses. Relevance to clinical practice: Diabetes liaison nurses have been appointed at many hospitals to improve diabetes management of hospitalized patients. The specific nursing work assessment scale for diabetes liaison nurses is a validated tool that can be used to assess the special practices of diabetes liaison nurses.
Near-Infrared Spectroscopy versus Transcranial Doppler-Based Monitoring in Carotid Endarterectomy

Background Proper monitoring of cerebral perfusion during carotid artery surgery is crucial for determining if a shunt is needed. We compared the safety and reliability of near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) with transcranial Doppler (TCD) for cerebral monitoring. Methods This single-center, retrospective review was conducted on patients who underwent carotid endarterectomy (CEA) using selective shunt-based TCD or NIRS at Daegu Catholic University Medical Center from November 2009 to June 2016. Postoperative complications were the primary outcome, and the distribution of risk factors between the 2 groups was compared. Results The medical records of 74 patients (45 TCD, 29 NIRS) were reviewed. The demographic characteristics were similar between the 2 groups. One TCD patient died within the 30-day postoperative period. Postoperative stroke (n=4, p=0.15) and neurologic complications (n=10, p=0.005) were only reported in the TCD group. Shunt usage was 44.4% and 10.3% in the TCD and NIRS groups, respectively (p=0.002). Conclusion NIRS-based selective shunting during CEA seems to be safe and reliable for monitoring cerebral perfusion in terms of postoperative stroke and neurologic symptoms. It also reduces unnecessary shunt usage.
Bearing Defect Classification Based on Individual Wavelet Local Fisher Discriminant Analysis with Particle Swarm Optimization

In order to enhance the performance of bearing defect classification, feature extraction and dimensionality reduction have become important. In order to extract the effective features, wavelet kernel local fisher discriminant analysis (WKLFDA) is first proposed; herein, a new wavelet kernel function is proposed to construct the kernel function of LFDA. In order to automatically select the parameters of WKLFDA, a particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm is employed, yielding a new PSO-WKLFDA. When compared with the other state-of-the-art methods, the proposed PSO-WKLFDA yields better performance. However, the use of a single global transformation of PSO-WKLFDA for the multiclass task does not provide excellent classification accuracy due to the fact that the projected data still significantly overlap with each other in the projected subspace. In order to enhance the performance of bearing defect classification, a novel method is then proposed by transforming the multiclass task into all possible binary classification tasks using a one-against-one (OAO) strategy. Then, individual PSO-WKLFDA (I-PSO-WKLFDA) is used for extracting effective features of each binary class. The extracted effective features of each binary class are input to a support vector machine (SVM) classifier. Finally, a decision fusion mechanism is employed to merge the classification results from each SVM classifier to identify the bearing condition. Simulation results using synthetic data and experimental results using different bearing fault types show that the proposed method is well suited and effective for bearing defect classification.
The cost of aggressive HTTP adaptive streaming: Quantifying YouTube's redundant traffic

Video content and, in particular, YouTube's content account for the largest amount of today's Internet traffic. However, little is known about the behavior of video streaming services for different kinds of network environments and under varying network conditions. Due to network operators' lack of knowledge about the transmitted content, network resources may not be optimally used in general. Thus, we propose a dyadic measurement system composed of application, i.e., client-based and network-based monitoring for YouTube's video traffic. Using our proposed monitoring methodology, we analyze the behavior of YouTube's HTTP-based adaptive video streaming mechanisms. In detail, we quantify via experimental measurements on real network traffic YouTube's behavior for different videos under static and varying network conditions. Our measurement results show that in case of varying network conditions, YouTube demands different video qualities in parallel in order to adapt to the network situation. However, this behavior can result in up to 33 % of redundant network traffic, i.e., downloaded video content of different quality levels for the same play time. Due to our findings, network operators should try to optimize the allocation of network resources for video content in a way that avoids varying network conditions, resulting in less waste of network resources.
Gender and Perceived Illness Severity

Although research has indicated a link between gender and perceived illness severity and the employment status of people with multiple sclerosis (MS), it has not addressed questions regarding the relationship between those variables and specific types of employment concerns. In this study, a sample of 1,310 adults with MS replied to a mail survey eliciting their concerns regarding employment services and policies. Regardless of perceived severity and gender, adults with MS were dissatisfied with many important employment services and policies. Findings also indicated gender and severity interactions, which are discussed in terms of implications for rehabilitation interventions.