Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Clinical use of microRNAs as potential non‐invasive biomarkers for detecting non‐small cell lung cancer: A meta‐analysis

Emerging studies have revealed that microRNA (miRNA) in body fluid may serve as a potential biomarker to detect non‐small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). However, the diagnostic accuracy of miRNA for NSCLC detection is still under debate because there is inconsistency in previous studies. Hence, we conducted this meta‐analysis to comprehensively evaluate the diagnostic performance of miRNA. A systematic literature search was performed to retrieve relevant articles in PubMed and other databases, and STATA 12.0 (StataCorp, College Station, TX, USA) was used to calculate the pooled parameters. A total of 28 articles involving 2121 NSCLC patients and 1582 healthy controls were included in this meta‐analysis. The overall pooled sensitivity and specificity of miRNA were 0.75 and 0.79, respectively. The pooled positive likelihood ratio was 3.6, negative likelihood ratio was 0.32 and diagnostic odds ratio was 12. The area under the curve (AUC) was 0.84. Subgroup and meta‐regression analyses established that miRNA assays were more accurate in Caucasian populations (AUC of 0.86, sensitivity of 0.79 and specificity of 0.82, respectively) than in Asian populations (AUC, sensitivity and specificity of 0.83, 0.72 and 0.80, respectively). In addition, the multiple miRNA assays (AUC of 0.89, sensitivity of 0.83 and specificity of 0.82, respectively) showed a higher accuracy than single miRNA assays (AUC, sensitivity and specificity of 0.81, 0.77 and 0.71, respectively) in NSCLC detection. Subgroup analyses based on specimen types suggested that blood‐based miRNA (AUC of 0.86, sensitivity of 0.78 and specificity of 0.80, respectively) may have a higher diagnostic accuracy as biomarkers than sputum‐based miRNA (AUC of 0.81, sensitivity of 0.69 and specificity of 0.80, respectively). In conclusion, miRNA may serve as a potential biomarker in NSCLS detection, especially the multiple miRNA from blood, with a relatively high diagnostic accuracy.
The Design of LQG Controller for Active Suspension Based on Analytic Hierarchy Process

A full vehicle model with seven degrees of freedom based on active suspension control is established, and linear quadratic gaussian (LQG) is designed by applying optimal control theory. Especially, the methodology of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is used to make the selection of weighted coefficients of performance indexes, which can reduce ineffective job in contrast with experience method. From the simulation results, it is shown that ride quality of the vehicle with active suspension has been effectively improved in comparison with the vehicle of passive suspension by the methodology of AHP applying to the selection of the weights.
Behavior of Accelerated Gradient Methods Near Critical Points of Nonconvex Problems

We examine the behavior of accelerated gradient methods in smooth nonconvex unconstrained optimization, focusing in particular on their behavior near strict saddle points. Accelerated methods are iterative methods that typically step along a direction that is a linear combination of the previous step and the gradient of the function evaluated at a point at or near the current iterate. (The previous step encodes gradient information from earlier stages in the iterative process.) We show by means of the stable manifold theorem that the heavy-ball method method is unlikely to converge to strict saddle points, which are points at which the gradient of the objective is zero but the Hessian has at least one negative eigenvalue. We then examine the behavior of the heavy-ball method and other accelerated gradient methods in the vicinity of a strict saddle point of a nonconvex quadratic function, showing that both methods can diverge from this point more rapidly than the steepest-descent method.
Rwanda’s urban transition and the RPF political settlement: Expropriation, construction and taxation in Kigali

Although still predominantly rural, Rwanda is one of the world’s fastest-urbanising countries. This paper considers the Rwandan Patriotic Front’s approach to urban development in the context of intense pressure on land and a stated long-term agenda of moving towards a future that is ‘100% urban’. The RPF government has won plaudits for its transformation of Kigali, and its Land Tenure Regularisation programme is proceeding at a pace few anticipated. Its approach to the urban question remains, however, both highly controversial abroad and contested within the country. There is widespread acknowledgement that aspects of the government’s urban agenda have been disadvantageous to the poor, but it is also unclear whether the implementation of this agenda is furthering or hindering their overarching drive for economic growth, structural transformation and political stability. In particular, the expropriation of urban land and the political-economic interests embedded in the real estate sector have critical impacts on Rwanda’s development trajectory. Utilising a ‘political settlements’ approach but introducing a spatial perspective focused on the transformation of Kigali, this paper explores the governance of land reform, urban planning, expropriation and property taxation, analyses how these illuminate the broader settlement in place, and considers the implications for Rwanda’s future.
Twenty‐four hour spatiotemporal mapping of colonic propagating sequences provides pathophysiological insight into constipation

Abstract Colonic propagating sequences (PS)s are a major determinant of luminal propulsion. A global appreciation of spatiotemporal patterning of PSs requires evaluation of 24 h pan‐colonic recordings, a difficult task given that PSs are relatively infrequent events that are not uniformly distributed throughout the colon. Here we developed a means of space‐time‐pressure ‘mapping’ in a condensed format, 24 h of colonic recording in such a manner that readily permits an overall view of colonic antegrade and retrograde colonic PSs within a single figure. Such graphical representation readily permits appreciation and identification of aberrant patterns in severe constipation and may be an important clinical and research tool in the assessment of colonic motor disorders.
MicroRNA Profiling in Chemoresistant and Chemosensitive Acute Myeloid Leukemia

MicroRNA (miRNA) deregulation is associated with progression and treatment outcome in various types of cancers. To identify miRNAs related to therapeutic response, we applied an miRNA microarray followed by PCR verification of 33 available diagnostic bone marrow core biopsies from 33 acute myeloid leukemia patients including 15 chemoresistant and 18 chemosensitive patients. We found 3 significantly upregulated miRNAs, miR-363, miR-532-5p and miR-342-3p, related to therapeutic response (q < 0.05). Further validation of miR-532-5p and miR-363 expression by quantitative RT-PCR confirmed microarray analysis results. Genes targeted by miR-363 include RGS17 and HIPK3, both reported to be associated with drug response.
Neurons in monkey parietal area LIP are tuned for eye-movement parameters in three-dimensional space.

1. A functional class of neurons in area LIP on the lateral bank of the intraparietal sulcus were shown previously (Gnadt and Andersen 1988) to be related to the metrics of saccadic eye movements. In this study, we tested LIP neurons at different depths with respect to the plane of fixation. 2. Sixty-one neurons were identified for their increased activity before saccadic eye movements. While holding the location of the target constant at the center of the frontoparallel (saccadic) response field, the neurons were tested systematically during eye movements to target positions proximal (near) to the plane of fixation, at the plane of fixation, and distal (far) to the plane of fixation. By necessity, the movements of these targets required a combination of saccadic and vergence movements. 3. Seventy-two percent of the neurons were found to change their activity as a function of target depth relative to the plane of fixation. The neurons had broad tuning curves for depth. Some cells preferred "near" target positions, some preferred "far" positions, and others responded best in the frontoparallel plane of fixation. 4. The location of a neuron's response field in the frontoparallel plane remained constant regardless of target depth. However, the magnitude of the neuron's response increased when the target was positioned at the preferred depth and it decreased for targets positioned at nonpreferred depths. This indicated that the neurons always were related to the same frontoparallel coordinates, but responded more vigorously when the target was positioned at its preferred depth. 5. The visual display apparatus allowed independent presentation of two stimulus cues for depth: binocular disparity and accommodative demand whereas other cues were held constant. For many neurons, either cue was sufficient to tune the activity in depth, though most neurons responded best for the geometrically appropriate combination of the two cues. 6. Comparison of the binocular tuning for depth with the individual monocular responses showed that the tuning for depth was not produced by simple linear combination of two monocular response fields. 7. We tested a subset of the neurons in a double-movement task that dissociated the retinal coordinates of the visual stimuli from the eye-movement coordinates of the second movement. These tests confirmed earlier findings that this functional class of neurons are active when the eye-movement coordinates matched the neurons' response field. It was not necessary for a visual stimulus to fall within the neurons' response field for them to become active. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
Cardiopulmonary resuscitation in undiagnosed situs inversus totalis in emergency department: An intensivist challenge

Situs inversus totalis is a rare congenital condition. A 34-year-old woman with undiagnosed situs inversus was referred to our emergency department with cardiac arrested state. She underwent cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and defibrillation with a modified approach. We faced different challenging aspects during intensive care management. Ultrasonography in CPR in our patient was very helpful. We restricted our discussion on special aspect of SIT in emergency and intensive care unit.
Mutations in Hepatitis C Virus RNAs Conferring Cell Culture Adaptation

ABSTRACT As an initial approach to studying the molecular replication mechanisms of hepatitis C virus (HCV), a major causative agent of acute and chronic liver disease, we have recently developed selectable self-replicating RNAs. These replicons lacked the region encoding the structural proteins and instead carried the gene encoding the neomycin phosphotransferase. Although the replication levels of these RNAs within selected cells were high, the number of G418-resistant colonies was reproducibly low. In a search for the reason, we performed a detailed analysis of replicating HCV RNAs and identified several adaptive mutations enhancing the efficiency of colony formation by several orders of magnitude. Adaptive mutations were found in nearly every nonstructural protein but not in the 5′ or 3′ nontranslated regions. The most drastic effect was found with a single-amino-acid substitution in NS5B, increasing the number of colonies ∼500-fold. This mutation was conserved with RNAs isolated from one cell line, in contrast to other amino acid substitutions enhancing the efficiency of colony formation to a much lesser extent. Interestingly, some combinations of these nonconserved mutations with the highly adaptive one reduced the efficiency of colony formation drastically, suggesting that some adaptive mutations are not compatible.
VERSION-PRIOR TO PRODUCTION The psychological challenges of living with an ileostomy : An interpretative phenomenological analysis

Objectives: Ileostomy, in which the small intestine is re-directed out of an abdominal wall so that waste is collected using a bag, is used to treat conditions including Inflammatory Bowel Disease and colorectal cancer. This paper reports an in depth idiographic analysis of the experience of living with an ileostomy. Methods: 21 participants took part in semi-structured interviews about their lives and relationships. Those interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using the experiential qualitative methodology Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Results: Two super-ordinate themes arose from the data: Ileostomy’s intrapersonal impact; the impact of ileostomy on relationships with others. We found that ileostomy may destabilise the sense of self, disrupt body image, and alter experience of age and sexuality. Other participants were able to employ their illness to positively reframe the self. Disclosure of ileostomy status was difficult for some. Intimate and friend relationships were often challenged by stoma status, whilst other family relationships were largely characterised as supportive. Conclusions: Ileostomy may impact upon both intra and interpersonal aspects of the lives of those who live with it, in both negative and positive ways. Consequently, the sense of self can appear challenged, and relationships with partners, family members and friendships could be causes of distress. On the other hand, some partners were supportive, and children were found to be sources of comfort.
Lactobacillus strains belonging to Casei group display various adherence to enterocytes and mucus.

BACKGROUND The ability of lactobacilli to adhere to the surface of the intestine is an important functional characteristic which can largely determine the effective colonization of the intestinal tract by probiotics. The following study compares the adhesion efficiency of the twenty strains of Lactobacillus genus belonging to Casei group to the Caco-2 cells and gastrointestinal mucus. METHODS Twenty isolates of lactobacilli belonging to Casei group were tested. The ability of bacterial cells to adhere to mucus was examined using adhesion assay to gastrointestinal mucus. Obtained results were compared with adhesion efficiency to Caco-2 cells. Phylogenetic relationship between isolates was analysed by rep-PCR. RESULTS The results showed large differences in adhesion efficiency between strains, as well as differences in the efficiency of adhesion to the intestinal epithelial cells and mucus. Group similarity highlighted by a rep-PCR technique does not correspond with groups of similarity in terms of the characteristics of the ability to adhere to mucus or the epithelial cells of intestinal tract. CONCLUSIONS Strains having a high adhesion efficiency to enterocytes do not always show a high adhesion efficiency to the mucus. This may indicate the presence of different and multiple factors responsible for adhesion efficiency of Lactobacillus group Casei strains to epithelial cells and mucus.
Automatically Building VoIP Speech Parallel Corpora for Arabic Dialects

This article discusses the process of automatically building Arabic multi-dialect speech corpora using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). The Asterisk framework was adopted to act as the main connection between the parties, for which two virtual machines were created: a sender and a receiver. The sender makes a VoIP call to the receiver using the Asterisk framework, while the receiver records the call automatically, a process that is repeated for all the audio files involved in the corpora. In this work, more than 67,000 automatic calls were made between the sender and receiver machines, generating VoIP Arabic corpora for four Arabic dialects. The resulting corpora can be considered the first Arabic VoIP parallel speech corpora and will be made freely available to researchers in Arabic NLP and speech recognition research.
Host defenses during primary Venezuelan equine encephalomyelitis virus infection in mice. I. Passive transfer of protection with immune serum and immune cells.

The capacity of humoral antibody to confer protection against Venezuelan equine encephalomyelitis (VEE) infection did not require participation of cellular components of the immune response. Likewise, immune spleen cells conferred protection without participation of either preformed antibody or induction of an anamnestic antibody response. Time after donor immunization was a critical factor in determining the antiviral potential of transferred cells, and mice boosted with a second immunization of attenuated VEE virus did not have their antiviral capacity restored. Protection induced by transfer of immune spleen cells was immunospecific but could be inhibited by in vitro treatment of cell preparations with antithymocyte serum or anti-ϑ serum but not by treatment with anti-mouse γ-globulin. There was no evidence that preformed interferon contributed to the protective activity of passively transferred immune cells. Apparently, both humoral antibody and cellular immunity play important roles in protection against VEE virus infection in mice.
Dicer-Dependent Turnover of Intergenic Transcripts from the Human β-Globin Gene Cluster

ABSTRACT The widespread occurrence of intergenic transcription in eukaryotes is increasingly evident. Intergenic transcription in the β-globin gene cluster has been described in murine and human cells, and models for a role in gene and chromatin activation have been proposed. In this study, we analyze intergenic transcription and the chromatin state throughout the human β-globin gene cluster and find that the data are not consistent with such activation-linked models. Thus, intergenic transcript levels correlate with neither chromatin activation nor globin gene expression. Instead, we find that intergenic transcripts of the β-globin gene cluster are specifically upregulated in Dicer-deficient cells. This is accompanied by a shift towards more activated chromatin as indicated by changes in histone tail modifications. Our results strongly implicate RNA interference (RNAi)-related mechanisms in regulating intergenic transcription in the human β-globin gene cluster and further suggest that RNAi-dependent chromatin silencing in vertebrates is not restricted to the centromeres.
Differential regulation of FGFR3 by PTPN1 and PTPN2

Aberrant expression and activation of FGFR3 is associated with disease states including bone dysplasia and malignancies of bladder, cervix, and bone marrow. MS analysis of protein‐phosphotyrosine in multiple myeloma cells revealed a prevalent phosphorylated motif, D/EYYR/K, derived from the kinase domain activation loops of tyrosine kinases including FGFR3 corresponding to a recognition sequence of protein‐tyrosine phosphatase PTPN1. Knockdown of PTPN1 or the related enzyme PTPN2 by RNAi resulted in ligand‐independent activation of FGFR3. Modulation of FGFR3 activation loop phosphorylation by both PTPN1 and PTPN2 was a function of receptor trafficking and phosphotyrosine phosphatase (PTP) compartmentalization. The FGFR3 activation loop motif DYYKK650 is altered to DYYKE650 in the oncogenic variant FGFR3K650E, and consequently it is constitutively fully activated and unaffected by activation loop phosphorylation. FGFR3K650E was nevertheless remarkably sensitive to negative regulation by PTPN1 and PTPN2. This suggests that in addition to modulating FGFR3 phosphorylation, PTPN1 and PTPN2 constrain the kinase domain by fostering an inactive‐state. Loss of this constraint in response to ligand or impaired PTPN1/N2 may initiate FGFR3 activation. These results suggest a model wherein PTP expression levels may define conditions that select for ectopic FGFR3 expression and activation during tumorigenesis.
Prolonged Activated Partial Thromboplastin Time

To review the diagnostic difficulties of a prolonged activated partial thromboplastin time (aPTT) when 2 inhibitors with opposite clinical presentations coexist, we searched MEDLINE from January 1970 to November 2013 using acquired, factor VIII (FVIII), factor IX, hemophilia A and B, inhibitor, lupus anticoagulant (LA), antiphospholipid, anticardiolipin, anti-β2-glycoprotein I, antibodies, syndrome, bleeding, and thrombosis. We identified 13 articles for a total of 15 cases of possible coexistence of FVIII inhibitor and LA. The presenting clinical manifestation was thrombosis in 6 cases and bleeding in 9 cases. Activated partial thromboplastin time was the presenting laboratory abnormality in all cases, and first-line investigations suggested the coexistence of LA and acquired FVIII inhibitor. None of the articles addressed the diagnostic accuracy of the screening tests by performing “second line” assays. We reviewed the diagnostic pitfalls of the cases under study and provide some guidance for alternative tests when facing a prolonged aPTT that may have a double meaning.
Novel GA-based approach and neural fuzzy networks application in short-term load forecasting

An integrated genetic algorithm (GA)/fuzzy system (FS), tabu search (TS) and neural fuzzy network (NFN) method for load forecasting is presented in this paper. A fuzzy hyper-rectangular composite neural networks (FHRCNNs) was used for the initial load forecasting. Then we used CGAFS and TS to find the optimal solution of the parameters of the FHRCNNs, instead of backpropagation (BP)(including parameters such as synaptic weights, biases, membership functions, sensitivity factor in membership functions and adjustable synaptic weights). First the CGAFS generates a set of feasible solution parameters and then puts the solution into the TS. The CGAKS has good global optimal search capabilities, but poor local optimal search capabilities. The TS method on the other hand has good local optimal search capabilities. We combined both methods to try and obtain both advantages, and in doing so eliminate the drawback of the traditional ANN training by BP. Finally, we used the (GAFSTS-NFN) to see if we could improve the quality of the solution, and if we actually could reduce the error of load forecasting. The proposed CGAFS-TS load forecasting scheme was tested using data obtain from a sample study, including one year, one week and 24-hours time periods. The results demonstrated the accuracy of the proposed load forecasting scheme.
Vision, applications and future challenges of Internet of Things: A bibliometric study of the recent literature

Purpose – The emergent field of Internet of Things (IoT) has been evolving rapidly with a geometric growth in the number of academic publications in this field. The purpose of this paper is to review the literature of IoT in past 16 years using rigorous bibliometric and network analysis tools, offering at the same time future directions for the IoT research community and implications for managers and decision makers. Design/methodology/approach – The authors adopted the techniques of bibliometric and network analysis. The paper reviewed the articles published on IoT from 2000 to 2015. Findings – This study identifies top contributing authors; key research topics related to the field; the most influential works based on citations and PageRank; and established and emerging research clusters. Scholars are encouraged to further explore this topic. Research limitations/implications – This study focusses only on vision and applications of IoT. Scholars may explore various other aspects of this area of research.