Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A novel anti‐prion protein monoclonal antibody and its single‐chain fragment variable derivative with ability to inhibit abnormal prion protein accumulation in cultured cells

mAbs T1 and T2 were established by immunizing PrP gene ablated mice with recombinant MoPrP of residues 121–231. Both mAbs were cross‐reactive with PrP from hamster, sheep, cattle and deer. A linear epitope of mAb T1 was identified at residues 137–143 of MoPrP and buried in PrPC expressed on the cell surface. mAb T1 showed no inhibitory effect on accumulation of PrPSc in cultured scrapie‐infected neuroblastoma (ScN2a) cells. In contrast, mAb T2 recognized a discontinuous epitope ranged on, or structured by, residues 132–217 and this epitope was exposed on the cell surface PrPC. mAb T2 showed an excellent inhibitory effect on PrPSc accumulation in vitro at a 50% inhibitory concentration of 0.02 μg/ml (0.14 nM). The scFv form of mAb T2 (scFv T2) was secreted in neuroblastoma (N2a58) cell cultures by transfection through eukaryotic secretion vector. Coculturing of ScN2a cells with scFv T2‐producing N2a58 cells induced a clear inhibitory effect on PrPSc accumulation, suggesting that scFv T2 could potentially be an immunotherapeutic tool for prion diseases by inhibition of PrPSc accumulation.
Impact of electric vehicles on household voltage profiles and possible mitigation approach

The objective of this paper is to identify the impact of electric vehicles (EVs) on household voltage profiles and propose possible mitigation approaches. The proposed method is based on a decentralized voltage control algorithm, aiming at maintaining nodal voltages at a distribution transformer and end-use customer meters within an acceptable limit. The objective is to prevent distribution transformer overloads and flattening transformer load profile as much as possible. Instead of solely relying on controlling EV charging profiles, the proposed approach controls all household power-intensive appliances including EVs to accomplish the desired objectives. The proposed algorithm can be embedded in an emerging smart distribution transformer technology to allow local voltage control at household levels.
Hierarchical Scheduling of Dynamic Parallel Computaion on Hypercube Multicomputers

Abstract In this paper a hierarchical task scheduling strategy for assigning parallel computations with dynamic structures to large hypercube multicomputers is proposed. Such computations represent a wide range of recursive and divide/conquer algorithms for which structure of the problem varies dynamically. To achieve load balancing and reduce processor contentions, the system is divided into multiple regions of processors for which the first level of scheduling is done by the host computer that spreads out the initial computations into these regions. The second level scheduling is done by a set of median processors of these regions which enable the processors of their regions to optimally balance the dynamically created load and to communicate with each other with reduced overhead. The results of an extensive simulation study are presented that exhibit the performance of the proposed strategy under different loading conditions, varying degrees of depth and parallelism, and communication costs. The proposed dual-level hierarchical scheduling is shown to outperform a well known distributed scheduling strategy.
Breastfeeding and working full time Experiences of nurse mothers in Karachi, Pakistan

BA C K G ROUND: Culture, beliefs and practices, mother’s employment, and increasing modernization are linked to breastfeeding. In Pakistan, some false beliefs and practices interfere with breastfeeding even among nurses. This led to the development of this study with the focus on nurses’ breastfeeding experiences since nurses constitute the major workforce in any health care setting and most importantly are in a position to influence breast feeding. AIM:The objectives of this study are: (a) To explore the experiences of nurses who are working mothers and are breastfeeding. (b) To identify the underlying problems faced by the working mothers in relation to breastfeeding practices. (c) To develop possible recommendations in order to help nurse respondents to work more productively. MA T ERIAL-METHOD: A descriptive phenomenology was used to describe the experiences of nurse mothers in Karachi, Pakistan, working full time and breastfeeding. Twelve mothers constitute the participants who were selected purposively in six hospitals in Karachi. Unstructured interviews and observations were used to gather data guided by Colaizzi’s data analysis method. RESUL T S: Three themes emerged from the data: positive experiences, mediating health behavior, and negative experiences. The participants recommended setting up a day care center to address their breastfeeding problems. C O NCL U SIONS :Breastfeeding rises to the mothers both positive and negative experiences mediated by mothers’ health behaviors. Mothers working full time and breastfeeding find their whole experience rewarding as well as challenging. Although they know the importance and value of breastfeeding, due to their working circumstance they are unable to do this task, thus they made recommendations through this study to stress their negative experiences. KEY-W O RDS :Breastfeeding, working full time, nurse mothers, experiences, Karachi, Pakistan
The Fucose-binding Lectin from Ralstonia solanacearum

Plant pathogens, like animal ones, use protein-carbohydrate interactions in their strategy for host recognition, attachment, and invasion. The bacterium Ralstonia solanacearum, which is distributed worldwide and causes lethal wilt in many agricultural crops, was shown to produce a potent l-fucose-binding lectin, R. solanacearum lectin, a small protein of 90 amino acids with a tandem repeat in its amino acid sequence. In the present study, surface plasmon resonance experiments conducted on a series of oligosaccharides show a preference for binding to αFuc1-2Gal and αFuc1-6Gal epitopes. Titration microcalorimetry demonstrates the presence of two binding sites per monomer and an unusually high affinity of the lectin for αFuc1-2Gal-containing oligosaccharides (KD = 2.5 × 10-7 m for 2-fucosyllactose). R. solanacearum lectin has been crystallized with a methyl derivative of fucose and with the highest affinity ligand, 2-fucosyllactose. X-ray crystal structures, the one with α-methyl-fucoside being at ultrahigh resolution, reveal that each monomer consists of two small four-stranded anti-parallel β-sheets. Trimerization through a 3-fold or pseudo-3-fold axis generates a six-bladed β-propeller architecture, very similar to that previously described for the fungal lectin of Aleuria aurantia. This is the first report of a β-propeller formed by oligomerization and not by sequential domains. Each monomer presents two fucose binding sites, resulting in six symmetrically arranged sugar binding sites for the β-propeller. Crystals were also obtained for a mutated lectin complexed with a fragment of xyloglucan, a fucosylated polysaccharide from the primary cell wall of plants, which may be the biological target of the lectin.
Obesity and colorectal adenomatous polyps.

Obesity has been investigated as a risk factor for various malignancies, including colon cancer. A case-control study was conducted on patients in three colonoscopy practices in New York City to determine possible risk factors for colorectal adenomatous polyps, a known precursor lesion for most cases of colorectal cancer. Among 301 case subjects with incidence adenomatous polyps (174 men and 127 women) and 506 control subjects (223 men and 283 women), an increased risk was observed with increasing body mass index in women (odds ratio 2.1, 95% confidence interval 1.1-4.0; for highest versus lowest quartile, linear trend P = .02). A nonsignificant trend was observed for men. The increased risk seen in women is consistent with prior observations regarding reproductive hormonal and dietary risk factors for colorectal cancer.
A 10-bit 150MS/S SAR ADC with a novel capacitor switching scheme

This paper presents a 10-bit 150-MS/s successive-approximation-register (SAR) analog-to-digital converter (ADC). Firstly, combining the merged capacitor switching scheme (MCS scheme) with the split capacitive digital-to-analog converter (split CDAC), a novel capacitor switching scheme is presented which greatly improve the power efficiency of the ADC. Moreover, the use of a non-binary redundancy algorithm corrects the incomplete settling of the CDAC and increases the sample rate of the ADC. The ADC achieves an SNDR of 51.5 dB for a 15 MHz input and 49.6 dB for a 74.5 MHz input, and the total power consumption is 537 μW from a 1.2-V supply.
MyMovieHistory: Social Recommender System by Discovering Social Affinities Among Users

ABSTRACT Social network information has recently been used for the improvement of the performances of recommender systems with regard to both individual users and groups. During the selection of the items for a group, the role of the corresponding relationships (e.g., position, dependency, and the strength of the social ties) is often more important than the individual preferences; however, the existing works do not sufficiently consider this important factor for group recommendations. We therefore propose a novel recommendation method that is based on a social affinity between the common histories of users. The proposed method consists of an intermovie similarity calculation that is based on weighted features for the generation of an initial social-affinity graph, and the subsequent computation of a user’s affinity to a group that is based on the graph. To apply the method for a service, we developed a “MyMovieHistory” application for the Facebook social media platform, and the synthetic dataset results of the experiment show that our proposed method can discover social affinities in an efficient manner.
Approaching Tolerance in Transplantation

Basic research has provided substantial encouragement that tolerance processes may be harnessed to the benefit of organ transplants. The goal of achieving mixed chimerism to ensure a robust tolerance, however elegant, may yet prove to be too complex and, consequently, risky as a procedure to compensate for the breadth of genetic differences, and prior immunological experiences of donor and host. Tolerance through regulation may prove to be easier to generate, but insufficiently robust to maintain. In the end the chosen protocol will be one that is simple, cheap and can guarantee patient compliance. Pragmatically, such a protocol need not be one aimed at clear-cut drug-free tolerance, but rather one which is trouble free. This could end up as a combination of partial tolerance (where tolerance processes have been harnessed) induced through a short-term treatment, in conjunction with easily tolerated maintenance therapy with select immunosuppressive drugs. Perhaps to the patient, the holy grail of tolerance is not as important as the complete assurance that the graft will survive and continue to function in all circumstances.
A Cost-Utility Analysis of Recurrent Laryngeal Nerve Monitoring in the Setting of Total Thyroidectomy.

Importance Intraoperative nerve monitoring (IONM) of the recurrent laryngeal nerve (RLN) is used as a tool to decrease the rate of nerve injury, although study findings are divergent on IONM efficacy. The cost-effectiveness of this approach to total thyroidectomy has not been well studied. Objective To determine whether IONM is a cost-effective intervention in the setting of total thyroidectomy. Design and Setting This study creates a decision-tree model of total thyroidectomy to analyze, from a societal perspective, the cost-effectiveness of universal IONM (ie, use in every case) vs selective IONM (ie, high-risk cases including reoperative cases, substernal or toxic goiters, and cases with known cancer) vs no IONM (visual identification only). Parameters for the model were derived from review of the literature, and deterministic and probabilistic analyses were performed to test the model's robustness. All analyses were performed from the model; there were no human participants. Interventions Modeled total thyroidectomy with and without IONM of the RLN. Main Outcomes and Measures Cost-effectiveness of universal IONM vs selective IONM vs visual identification only of the RLN. Results Visual identification of the RLN led to a cost savings of $179.40 and $683.20 per patient, and an improvement of 0.001 and 0.004 quality-adjusted life-years, over selective IONM and universal IONM, respectively. Visual identification was the most cost-effective approach, despite variations in costs and utilities in both deterministic and probabilistic sensitivity analyses. In a 1-way sensitivity analysis, decreasing the probability of RLN injury with IONM made selective IONM more cost-effective. When the rate of RLN injury for visual identification was kept constant (at 3.86%), selective IONM became the most cost-effective approach when its RLN injury rate dropped below 1.9%. As the rate of RLN injury with IONM dropped below 50.4% of the visual identification RLN injury rate, selective IONM became the most cost-effective approach. Conclusions and Relevance Visual identification of the RLN is more cost-effective than any use of IONM. If a clinician can, with use of IONM, decrease the rate of RLN injury by 50.4% or more compared with visual identification, selective use of IONM in high-risk cases is most cost-effective.
The natural history of prevalent ischaemic heart disease in middle-aged men.

OBJECTIVE To describe the long-term outcome of different forms of symptomatic and asymptomatic ischaemic heart disease in middle-aged men. METHODS 7735 men aged 40-59, randomly selected from 24 general practices in Britain were classified into one of seven ischaemic heart disease groups according to a questionnaire and electrocardiogram (ECG): I=diagnosed myocardial infarction; II=unrecognized myocardial infarction; III= diagnosed angina; IV=angina symptoms; V=possible myocardial infarction symptoms; VI=ECG ischaemia or possible myocardial infarction; VII=no evidence of ischaemic heart disease. The association of disease group with a range of fatal and non-fatal outcomes during 15 years of follow-up was assessed. RESULTS At baseline 25% of men had evidence of ischaemic heart disease (groups I-VI). Risks of major ischaemic heart disease events, total and cardiovascular mortality, stroke, and major cardiovascular events tended to increase strongly from group VII to I. Diagnosed myocardial infarction was associated with a much poorer prognosis than all other groups (including unrecognized infarction) for all cardiovascular outcomes other than stroke. The relative risk associated with ischaemic heart disease at baseline declined dramatically over time. However, men with myocardial infarction who survived event-free for 10 years continued to experience a high excess risk in the subsequent 5 years, in contrast to event-free survivors of angina and other ischaemic heart disease. Adjusted to an average age of 50, the percentage of men surviving for 15 years free of a new major cardiovascular event was 44 for diagnosed myocardial infarction, 52 for unrecognized myocardial infarction, 66 for diagnosed angina, 68 for angina symptoms, 73 for possible myocardial infarction symptoms, 73 for ECG ischaemia, and 79 for no ischaemic heart disease. Comparison of outcome between prevalent and incident myocardial infarction illustrated the improved prognosis of men surviving the initial years after their event. CONCLUSIONS Differing manifestations of prevalent ischaemic heart disease are associated with widely differing outcome, and the majority of middle-aged men in the community who have evidence of ischaemic heart disease short of myocardial infarction survive for 15 years without heart attack or stroke. The excess risk associated with myocardial infarction appears more persistent than that associated with angina and other ischaemic heart disease, remaining high even after 10 years of event-free survival.
Profound Amnesia and Confabulation Following Traumatic Brain Injury

Amnesia and confabulation may persist following acute aneurysmal hemorrhage of the anterior communicating artery, chronic alcoholic Korsakoff’s syndrome, and late-stage dementia of the Alzheimer type. However, there is a paucity of information regarding the persistence of these symptoms following traumatic brain injury. We present the case of JL, a 43-year-old male with persistent and severe anterograde amnesia for verbal and visual information with co-occurring provoked confabulation which persists well into the chronic phase of recovery after a severe traumatic brain injury. Neuropsychological testing at 7 weeks post-injury demonstrated severe anterograde amnesia with co-occurring confabulation. Follow-up testing at 9.5 months post-injury showed persistent and severe anterograde amnesia and provoked confabulation despite superior non-verbal intelligence and above average attentional and perceptual abilities. Late computed tomography showed chronic hypodense regions in the temporal lobes, bilaterally (L > R), and in the region of the left ventrolateral frontal lobe. This case demonstrates that anterograde amnesia and provoked confabulation may persist long after the acute phase of recovery after traumatic brain injury, and also supports previous research which asserts that medial temporal lobe damage must be accompanied by ventral frontal lobe pathology to produce the amnestic-confabulatory syndrome.
Issues in designing an automated record system for clinical care and research

Automated clinical record systems have the potential for amassing a rich database for clinically focused research. Several requirements must be met for this to occur, however. The data must be valid and reliable, and they must be structured in such a way that they can be analyzed. In addition, the data must be housed in a software environment that permits easy retrieval and manipulation. Clinicians have their own requirements for clinical record systems, which may conflict with the objective of achieving a database useful for research. This article reports the experience of one group in designing a system that serves as both a clinical record system and a database that can directly assess the impact of a coordinated care program for postacute care of the elderly.
Remembering – but not knowing – disturbs the relational bindings newly established in short-term/working memory: an age-group comparison

ABSTRACT The aim of this study was to highlight that episodic memory and working memory compete for the same resource, which would be diminished in aging. Using the remember/know paradigm, we compared the interference related to the retrieval of words on the parallel processing of preestablished relational bindings (Shifting condition) or newly established relational bindings (Updating condition). Within each age-group, participants had comparable performances in remembering across recognition conditions. However, the results showed that only updating activity was impaired after a remember response was given in the younger group. This specific interaction between updating and remembering – but not knowing – tends to indicate that both working memory and episodic memory rely on the ability to establish contextualized representations. In the older group, the performance in updating activity was impaired regardless of the kind of the competing retrieval. Limitations in terms of interference hypothesis and limited resource hypothesis are discussed.
Setting Standards: Information Accumulation in Development

We propose a model in which economic relations and institutions in advanced and less developed economies differ as these societies have access to different amounts of information. This lack of information makes it hard to give the right incentives to managers and entrepreneurs. We argue that differences in the amount of information arise because of the differences in the scale of activities in rich and poor economies; namely, there is too little repetition of similar activities in poor economies, thus insufficient information to set the appropriate standards for firm performance. Our model predicts a number of institutional and structural transformations as the economy accumulates capital and information.
Purchasing Power Parity And The Real Rand-Dollar Exchange Rate

Abstract This paper tests for evidence in support of the purchasing power parity (PPP) in the bilateral real exchange rate series of the South African rand against the US dollar. The importance of considering structural breaks in the PPP test is illustrated. Using standard unit root tests without considering structural breaks, the study is unable to reject the null hypothesis of a unit root in the exchange rate series. However, our additive outlier model clearly demonstrates the importance of multiple sudden structural breaks and supports the stationarity of rand's real exchange rate against the dollar. As expected the innovative outlier model, which seeks to suggest gradual shifts, only identifies a limited number of breaks and does not support purchasing power parity.
A Field Distribution of Dynamic-Link Magnetic Circuit for Room-Temperature Magnetic Refrigeration

A prevalent room-temperature magnetic refrigerator of permanent magnets usually utilize the structure of stationary magnetic circuit. A new notional method of dynamic-link magnetic circuit (DLMC) is proposed in this paper. The DLMC is made up of a changeable magnetic circuit, and it may generate a time-varying magnetic field in a certain space when some parts of the DLMC move. A typical DLMC is introduced in the paper, and a numerical value calculation and an experiment measuring for the DLMC are presented then. The research result shows that such a DLMC may produce a large variation of magnetic field when it is used in a rotary magnetic refrigerator. Although the minimum field is not equal to zero strictly, but it is much smaller than the maximum field, and the time-varying magnetic fields may be used to magnetize and demagnetize the magnetic refrigerants
Scenario Generation of Wind Power Based on Statistical Uncertainty and Variability

The short-term wind power scenarios have a significant impact on the operation cost and power system reliability due to the stochastic generation scheduling of wind-integrated power systems. In order to obtain the scenarios containing the information of forecast error distribution and fluctuation distribution for short-term wind power, a scenario generation method is proposed. This paper characterizes forecast error via empirical distributions of a set of forecast bins and assumes that wind power fluctuations over unit interval follow t location-scale distribution. An inverse transform sampling from a multivariate normal distribution is adopted to generate a large number of wind power scenarios. The covariance matrix of the multivariate normal distribution is estimated to fit the distribution of historical wind power fluctuations. The proposed scenario generation method is applied to the actual aggregate wind power data in the whole regions of Ireland's Power System. The results indicate that the variability of wind power scenarios can be adjusted by estimating the key range parameter in the exponential covariance structure of a multivariate normal distribution.