Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cryo-Electron Microscopy Structure of Porcine Deltacoronavirus Spike Protein in the Prefusion State

ABSTRACT Coronavirus spike proteins from different genera are divergent, although they all mediate coronavirus entry into cells by binding to host receptors and fusing viral and cell membranes. Here, we determined the cryo-electron microscopy structure of porcine deltacoronavirus (PdCoV) spike protein at 3.3-Å resolution. The trimeric protein contains three receptor-binding S1 subunits that tightly pack into a crown-like structure and three membrane fusion S2 subunits that form a stalk. Each S1 subunit contains two domains, an N-terminal domain (S1-NTD) and C-terminal domain (S1-CTD). PdCoV S1-NTD has the same structural fold as alpha- and betacoronavirus S1-NTDs as well as host galectins, and it recognizes sugar as its potential receptor. PdCoV S1-CTD has the same structural fold as alphacoronavirus S1-CTDs, but its structure differs from that of betacoronavirus S1-CTDs. PdCoV S1-CTD binds to an unidentified receptor on host cell surfaces. PdCoV S2 is locked in the prefusion conformation by structural restraint of S1 from a different monomeric subunit. PdCoV spike possesses several structural features that may facilitate immune evasion by the virus, such as its compact structure, concealed receptor-binding sites, and shielded critical epitopes. Overall, this study reveals that deltacoronavirus spikes are structurally and evolutionally more closely related to alphacoronavirus spikes than to betacoronavirus spikes; it also has implications for the receptor recognition, membrane fusion, and immune evasion by deltacoronaviruses as well as coronaviruses in general. IMPORTANCE In this study, we determined the cryo-electron microscopy structure of porcine deltacoronavirus (PdCoV) spike protein at a 3.3-Å resolution. This is the first atomic structure of a spike protein from the deltacoronavirus genus, which is divergent in amino acid sequences from the well-studied alpha- and betacoronavirus spike proteins. Here, we described the overall structure of the PdCoV spike and the detailed structure of each of its structural elements. Moreover, we analyzed the functions of each of the structural elements. Based on the structures and functions of these structural elements, we discussed the evolution of PdCoV spike protein in relation to the spike proteins from other coronavirus genera. This study combines the structure, function, and evolution of PdCoV spike protein and provides many insights into its receptor recognition, membrane fusion, and immune evasion.
How Symmetric Are Real-World Graphs? A Large-Scale Study

The analysis of symmetry is a main principle in natural sciences, especially physics. For network sciences, for example, in social sciences, computer science and data science, only a few small-scale studies of the symmetry of complex real-world graphs exist. Graph symmetry is a topic rooted in mathematics and is not yet well-received and applied in practice. This article underlines the importance of analyzing symmetry by showing the existence of symmetry in real-world graphs. An analysis of over 1500 graph datasets from the meta-repository networkrepository.com is carried out and a normalized version of the “network redundancy” measure is presented. It quantifies graph symmetry in terms of the number of orbits of the symmetry group from zero (no symmetries) to one (completely symmetric), and improves the recognition of asymmetric graphs. Over 70% of the analyzed graphs contain symmetries (i.e., graph automorphisms), independent of size and modularity. Therefore, we conclude that real-world graphs are likely to contain symmetries. This contribution is the first larger-scale study of symmetry in graphs and it shows the necessity of handling symmetry in data analysis: The existence of symmetries in graphs is the cause of two problems in graph clustering we are aware of, namely, the existence of multiple equivalent solutions with the same value of the clustering criterion and, secondly, the inability of all standard partition-comparison measures of cluster analysis to identify automorphic partitions as equivalent.
Validation of the English version of the Walking Estimated-Limitation Calculated by History (WELCH) questionnaire in patients with intermittent claudication

The Walking Estimated-Limitation Calculated by History (WELCH) questionnaire has recently been proposed as a valid and simple instrument for assessing walking limitation in patients with intermittent claudication. The aim of this study was to validate an English version of the WELCH questionnaire in an English native population. Thirty-nine patients (ankle–brachial index 0.59 ± 0.16, age 65 ± 11 years, 82% male) completed an English version of the WELCH questionnaire. Maximum walking distance was measured objectively using the Gardner–Skinner treadmill test and the 6-minute walk test. The median WELCH score was 24 (9–39). Maximum walking distances were 412 m (149–675 m) for the treadmill test and 381 ± 88 m for the 6-minute walking test. The Spearman’s correlation coefficient was ρ = 0.59 between the WELCH score and treadmill distance (p < 0.001) and ρ = 0.82 between the WELCH score and 6-minute walk distance (p < 0.001). These findings suggest that the English version of the WELCH questionnaire is a valid instrument for assessing walking impairment in patients with intermittent claudication.
Effect of short-term exposure to air pollution and pollen on medical emergency calls: a case-crossover study in Spain.

BACKGROUND A symmetric case-crossover design was used to analyse the short-term relationship between air pollution, pollen and emergency calls to medical services. METHODS This study covered patients who made medical emergency calls in the City of Vigo (Spain) during the period 1996-1999. Morbidity data were obtained from the records of the 061 Medical Emergency Control Center, in its capacity as the body officially coordinating all medical emergencies by telephone. Air pollution data were furnished by the Vigo Municipal Air Pollution Surveillance Grid. Pollen levels were provided by the staff of the Spanish Aerobiology Network in Vigo. RESULTS A rise of 10 microg/m(3) in ambient particulate levels led to the risk of medical emergency calls requesting attention increasing by: (i) 1.97% [95% confidence interval (95% CI): 1.83-2.11%] for circulatory causes on the same day; (ii) 1.95% (95% CI: 1.76-2.14%) for respiratory causes at 2 days and (iii) 1.34% (95% CI: 1.23-1.45%) for combined circulatory and respiratory causes on the same day. A number of pollens displayed a statistically significant relationship with emergency calls. No interaction was in evidence between pollens and air pollutants. CONCLUSIONS While elevations in particulate air pollution increase medical emergency calls because of cardiac or respiratory causes or both combined, elevations in pollen levels increase medical emergency calls because of respiratory causes.
Proportional delay differentiation service in DTN-enabled web servers: An adaptive control approach

The Delay/Disruption Tolerant Networks (DTNs) provides a new option for the future network applications, but nothing has been done for the research on how to design and deploy the web servers which can provide performance guarantee or service differentiation on DTNs. Response delay is a key performance metric for web servers and proportional delay differentiated service is an important DiffServ model. This paper designs a DTN-enabled web server supporting differentiated service, and implements proportional delay differentiated service based on an adaptive control approach. Periodically the adaptive controller calculates and adjusts the number of worker threads in web server for different types of clients according to the pre-specified delay differentiation parameters. Simulation results demonstrate that proportional delay differentiation can be achieved in the DTN-enabled web server even under dynamic workloads, different workload distributions and varying references.
Impact of Atrial Fibrillation on Outcome of Patients with Idiopathic Dilated Cardiomyopathy: Data from the Heart Muscle Disease Registry of Trieste

Objective: There is a paucity and inconsistency of data regarding the natural history of patients affected by idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy (IDCM) and atrial fibrillation (AF). We examined the prognostic implications of AF in a subset of patients with IDCM. Methods: We analyzed the data of 539 patients with IDCM enrolled in the Heart Muscle Disease Registry of Trieste. Results: At baseline, 52 (9.6%) of 539 patients had AF. There was no difference in survival of patients with either AF or sinus rhythm at enrollment (P=.28). During long-term follow-up (90±58 months), AF was detected on ECG/ECG-Holter monitoring in 28 (5.7%) of 487 patients in sinus rhythm at baseline. Predictors of new onset of AF at multivariate analysis were a more dilated left atrium (OR 1.35, 95% CI 1.06–1.72; P=.01) and a lower left ventricle ejection fraction (for 10% decrease, OR 2.41, 95% CI 1.24–4.69, P=.016). Patients developing AF had higher mortality/heart transplantation rate compared to patients who maintained sinus rhythm during follow-up (P<.001). At multivariate analysis, new onset AF (HR 3.67, 95% CI 2.07–6.5; P<.001) in the first three years after diagnosis, but not baseline AF, was found to be independently associated with a worse outcome. Conclusions: Atrial fibrillation is relatively frequent in patients with IDCM. The early development of AF during follow-up, but not its presence at baseline, is associated with poor survival.
Extending the Platinum-Free Interval with a Non-Platinum Therapy in Platinum-Sensitive Recurrent Ovarian Cancer

Background: It has been proposed that extending the platinum-free interval with intervening non-platinum therapy increases the efficacy of a later re-treatment with platinum in platinum-sensitive recurrent ovarian cancer. This hypothesis is based on data from small series and although it has not been validated prospectively, this strategy has entered general practice in Italy in the last years. The SOCRATES study retrospectively assessed the pattern of care of a cohort of patients with recurrent platinum-sensitive ovarian cancer observed in the years 2000–2002 in 37 Italian centres. Data were collected between April and September 2005. Methods: Patients with recurrent ovarian cancer with a platinum-free interval >6 months were eligible. 493 patient files were collected and 428 were eligible and analyzed. Results: The interval from the end of the 1st line to relapse was 6–12 months in 164 patients (39.5%) and >12 months in 251 cases (60.5%). Patients received a 2nd (100%), 3rd (80.1%), 4th (50.2%), 5th (28.3%), and 6th (11.9%) line of chemotherapy. At 2nd line 282 (65.9%) received platinum (group A), while 146 (34.1%) received non-platinum chemotherapy (group B). In the latter group, 67 patients received platinum at later progression (group B1), while 79 never received platinum (group B2). Median time to platinum re-treatment was 20 and 23.1 months in patients of groups A and B1, respectively. The response rate to the first platinum received was 74.4 and 57.4% in groups A and B1, respectively (p = 0.02). Group B2 was characterized by the worst response rate and survival. At multivariate analysis time of first platinum re-treatment (2nd line vs. later; p = 0.0132; OR = 2.34) and age (p = 0.0029; OR = 2.41) was independently associated with a higher possibility of response to platinum. Conclusions: With the limits of a retrospective study, our data question the hypothesis that extending the platinum-free interval with an intervening non-platinum therapy in patients with recurrent platinum-sensitive ovarian cancer improves the response rate of a further platinum re-treatment.
Immunologic Investigations in Eight Patients with Incontinentia Pigmenti

Abstract: We studied eight patients with incontinentia pigmenti to investigate the possibility of immunologic abnormalities. In six patients a defect of polymorphonuclear chemotaxis was revealed; lymphocyte subpopulations, serum immunoglobulin levels, and peripheral eosinophiIs were within normal limits. We hope these findings will stimulate further investigations into the mechanisms involved.
Pattern Classification Using Ensemble Methods

Researchers from various disciplines such as pattern recognition, statistics, and machine learning have explored the use of ensemble methodology since the late seventies. Thus, they are faced with a wide variety of methods, given the growing interest in the field. This book aims to impose a degree of order upon this diversity by presenting a coherent and unified repository of ensemble methods, theories, trends, challenges and applications. The book describes in detail the classical methods, as well as the extensions and novel approaches developed recently. Along with algorithmic descriptions of each method, it also explains the circumstances in which this method is applicable and the consequences and the trade-offs incurred by using the method.
SNR-weighted ART applied to transmission tomography

In this work, a modification of the well-known algebraic reconstruction technique (ART) is applied to the reconstruction of images based on X-ray transmission measurements. The modified version takes the noise statistics of the measured data into account. The difference between a measured and an estimated line integral that is back-projected during the iteration is weighted by a confidence measure. This measure is inversely proportional to an estimate of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the line integral. The estimation is done using Gaussian error propagation of the known uncertainty of the measured intensity. The resulting algorithm is as efficient as the original ART and shows significantly better image quality.
Primary non-Hodgkin lymphoma of the uterine cervix of a follicular type – case report

A 37 years old patient, G2 P2 presented with a 2 month history of intermenstrual and postcoital bleeding. She did not have other diseases in her history. On speculum examination, the presence of tumefaction was established affecting a larger part of the cervix. At bimanual examination, uterus and adnexa were normal. Cytological finding was NILM. Pathohistology together with immunohistology implied follicular type of NHL. There were no general (B) symptoms of systemic disease in terms of lymphadenopathy, hepatosplenomegaly, weight loss, high body temperature, etc. Blood count results were as follows: white blood cells 4.09 10l, red blood cells 4.33 10l haemoglobin 13 g/l, hematocrit 39.4%, platelets 218 10l . Lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) value was 154 U/L (normal range 125–243 U/L). Computed tomography (CT) examination results of the neck and thorax were normal, as well as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) finding of abdomen without signs of lymphadenopathy and hepatosplenomegaly. MRI examination of pelvis implied expansive change of vaginal fornix, with the largest diameter being 57 mm originating from the anterior cervical lip, also without lymphadenopathy . It did not involve the corpus uteri and it did not expand into the parametria. Bone marrow biopsy findings were also normal. She was staged as Ann Arbor IEA (Carbone PP et al. 1971). Primary cervical NHL is defined according to a criterion implying apparent presence of extranodal localisation, even in cases where the disease is disseminated as long as extranodal localisation is apparent and dominant (Otter et al. 1989). Taking in account the overall analysis which implied localised primary cervical extranodal NHL corresponding to low-grade follicular type, and the fact that the patient had completed her family surgical treatment was recommended as a first-line therapy. Considering the reproductive age of the patient, hysterectomy with bilateral conservation of adnexa was performed. Intraoperative palpation confirmed the absence of pelvic lymphadenopathy. After surgery, it was confirmed that the cervix was the primary location of the lymphoma (Figure 1.) and that it belonged to a rare low-grade follicular lymphoma, immunohistochemically (CD20, bcl2, bcl6, Ki 67-5%) after which on the advice of the hematologist it was decided to proceed as per ‘Watch and Wait’ (W&W) protocol. At present, 12 months after primary surgical treatment, the patients is without a relapse, having further regular follow ups.
Semantic Annotation of Images Extracted from the Web using RDF Patterns and a Domain Ontology

Semantic annotation of web resources presents a point of interest for several research communities. The use of this technique improves the retrieval process because it allows one to pass from the traditional web to the semantic web. In this paper, we propose a new method for semantically annotating web images. The main originality of our approach lies in the use of RDF (Resource Description Framework) patterns in order to guide the annotation process with contextual factors of web images. Each pattern presents a group of information to instantiate from contextual factors related to the image to annotate. We compared the generated annotations with annotations made manually. The results we obtain are encouraging.
Experimental Demonstration of Ferroelectric Gate-Stack AlGaN/GaN-on-Si MOS-HEMTs With Voltage Amplification for Power Applications

AlGaN/GaN-on-Si metal-oxide-semiconductor high-electron mobility transistors with integrated ferroelectric (FE) polarization gate-stacks improve the subthreshold swing (from 4 to 2 V/decade) and the peak transconductance (g<sub>m</sub>) (18.4% enhancement) using the negative capacitance (NC) effect. An I<sub>Dlin</sub> with~23% enhancement and a high overdrive voltage implies a higher dΨ/dV<sub>g</sub> at 2-D electron gas, due to NC with small V<sub>DS</sub>. The channel conductance (g<sub>d</sub>) at almost zero V<sub>DS</sub> exhibits a 33% enhancement due to internal voltage amplification. The polarization is experimentally established with the validity of FE gate-stack with NC characteristics.
Uniportal video-assisted thoracoscopic anatomic segmentectomy.

Anatomic segmentectomy was first described in 1939 for the treatment of benign lung conditions (1). The usual indications also include metastatic disease to the lung when ta parenchyma-sparing procedure is anticipated Nevertheless, anatomic pulmonary segmentectomy has been demonstrated to be effective in the resection of small primary lung cancers (2,3). Recently there has been a renewed interest in the use of anatomic segmentectomy, especially for patients unable to tolerate lobectomy because of poor cardiopulmonary function or severe comorbidities. Several recently published studies have shown that segmentectomy can be performed safely without compromising oncologic results (3-6).
Forecasting emerging technologies of low emission vehicle

The aim of this paper is to propose a patent search strategy in the case of emerging technology fields and to study the development patterns of the Low Emission Vehicle (LEV) technologies. An Automatic Patent Classification (APC) system has been developed based on text mining techniques to facilitate the patent retrieval process. The data was collected from Global Patent Index (GPI) database and interviews were conducted to involve expert's opinion. Technology forecasting method utilized the collected patent data to define the technological life cycles of LEV technology. The growth curves estimates steady growth in LEV technologies including hybrid and battery electronic vehicles, and apparently reaching to saturation point in few decades is inevitable. Plus, patenting activity of hydrogen fuel cell vehicle technology was experiencing the infancy period so far, and further it is anticipated to reach higher growth rate in line with other energy alternatives. The proposed method can help patent researchers in terms of retrieving accurate patents based on their technology target. Moreover, the technology forecasting techniques provide an insight to investors assisting them to allocate their resources properly. The results can benefit car industry stakeholders to anticipate the most promising technology areas in an uncertain dynamic market.
Active-vision system for multi-target surveillance

This paper presents a novel agent-based method for the dynamic, coordinated selection and positioning of groups of active-vision cameras for the surveillance of multiple object-of-interests as they travel through a cluttered environment with a priori unknown trajectories. The proposed dispatching algorithm has been tested via simulations and implemented on an experimental prototype setup for automated facial recognition. Both analyses have shown that the use of dynamic sensors along with an on-line dispatching algorithm can tangibly improve the performance of a surveillance system.
IgM expressed by leukemic CD5+ B cells binds mouse immunoglobulin light chain

Mouse immunoglobulin (Ig) molecules have previously been shown to bind to the surface of CD5+ B cells from patients with B‐cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (B‐CLL). The results indicated that surface IgM was involved in the interaction and suggested the phenomenon was an example of the polyreactive binding capacity of the surface Ig (sIg) expressed by these malignant cells. This article describes the further characterization of the interaction between human IgM and mouse Ig molecules and subunits. Mouse Ig molecules of both kappa and lambda light chain classes bound to the B‐CLL cell surface. The dissociation constant for the interaction of mouse IgG1 (K121) with the B‐CLL cell surface was 3.6 × 10−7 M. To confirm the involvement of the human IgM expressed by the B‐CLL cells in the interaction, the malignant cells were stimulated in vitro to induce secretion of human IgM. Enzyme immunoassay was used to show that secreted human IgM bound to intact mouse Ig, as occurred with the cell surface analysis. The mouse Ig epitope recognized by the purified secreted human IgM was shown by Western blot analysis to be located on the light chain of the mouse Ig molecule and to be conformationally dependent. K121 light chain was cloned and expressed in E. coli and the recombinant light chain bound to the surface of CLL B cells. The results confirm that human IgM is the reactive ligand in the interaction with mouse Ig and indicate that the interaction of polyreactive IgM with mouse IgG occurs via the light chain component of IgG. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Digital watermarks using stochastic screens

A method will be shown to incorporate digital watermarks in printed halftone images using stochastic screens. The watermark is not visible to the eye and introduces no loss in image quality. Although it cannot be seen, the watermark can be extracted at a later time with post processing. Watermarks of high contrast are incorporated in the image by varying the statistics of the stochastic screen. The watermark information can be made visible by comparing the relative changes in spatial correlation in the halftone texture of the image. Watermarking allows a printed image to be tested for the purposes of identifying the owner or the source of the image. Arbitrary customer information can be incorporated into the image, including variable information, such as the data or time of day. The technique is robust to copying of the printed image and the watermark can be detected in reproductions of the halftoned image.