Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Novel Endoscopic Cerenkov Luminescence Imaging System for Intraoperative Surgical Navigation

Cerenkov luminescence imaging is an emerging optical technique for imaging the distribution of radiopharmaceuticals in vivo. However, because of the light scattering effect, it cannot obtain optical information from deep internal organs. To overcome this challenge, we established a novel endoscopic Cerenkov luminescence imaging system that used a clinically approved laparoscope and an electron-multiplying charge-coupled device camera. We assessed the performance of the system through a series of in vitro and in vivo experiments. The results demonstrated superior superficial imaging resolution (0.1 mm), a large field of view (500 mm2 with 10 mm imaging distance), and superb imaging sensitivity (imaging 1 μCi) of our system. It captured the weak Cerenkov signal from internal organs successfully and was applied to intraoperative surgical navigation of tumor resection. It offered objective information of the tumor location and tumor residual during the surgical operation. This technique holds great potential for clinical translation.
Cellular models for beta‐cell function and diabetes gene therapy

Diabetes is characterized by the destruction and/or relative dysfunction of insulin‐secreting beta‐cells in the pancreatic islets of Langerhans. Consequently, considerable effort has been made to understand the physiological processes governing insulin production and secretion in these cells and to elucidate the mechanisms involved in their deterioration in the pathogenesis of diabetes. To date, considerable research has exploited clonal beta‐cell lines derived from rodent insulinomas. Such cell lines have proven to be a great asset in diabetes research, in vitro drug testing, and studies of beta‐cell physiology and provide a sustainable, and in many cases, more practical alternative to the use of animals or primary tissue. However, selection of the most appropriate rodent beta cell line is often challenging and no single cell line entirely recapitulates the properties of human beta‐cells. The generation of stable human beta‐cell lines would provide a much more suitable model for studies of human beta‐cell physiology and pathology and could potentially be used as a readily available source of implantable insulin‐releasing tissue for cell‐based therapies of diabetes. In this review, we discuss the history, development, functional characteristics and use of available clonal rodent beta‐cell lines, as well as reflecting on recent advances in the generation of human‐derived beta‐cell lines, their use in research studies and their potential for cell therapy of diabetes.
A combined computational/experimental study on HSA binding of two water-soluble Schiff base ligands derived from pyridine derivative and ethylendiamine

Due to the interesting chemical and physical properties, Schiff bases have received significant attention in recent years (Amiri et al., 2017; Shahraki, Shiri, & Saeidifar, 2017). In these compounds, imine bond is formed easily by condensation of primary or secondary amines with carbonyl groups. The Schiff base ligands have high coordination ability and very strong biological properties (Shahraki et al., 2017). Although in the past decade these compounds have been extensively studied, still they are highly considered. These compounds exhibited many biological activity such as antitumor, antibiotics, antifungal, antimicrobial, anticancer and antibacterial properties, and finally, they have appropriate for binding to DNA and HSA macromolecules (Dehkhodaei, Sahihi, & Amiri Rudbari, 2017). In the field of bioinorganic chemistry, the Schiff base ligands that derived from heterocyclic compounds such as pyridine are of high importance because of the presence of one or more ring containing nitrogen atom with a localized pair of electrons (Shokohi-Pour, Chiniforoshan, Sabzalian, Esmaeili, & Momtazi-borojeni, 2017). Human serum albumin (HSA) is the most abundant plasma protein. Also, it is known as the dominant transporter plasma protein for endogenous and exogenous ligands (e.g. fatty acids and hormones) and is one of the most important targets in binding of various drugs (e.g. warfarin, diazepam and Ibuprofen) and metal ions. The HSA-binding of a drug increases its solubility in plasma, decreases its toxicity, protects it from oxidation, prolongs it’s in vivo half-life, and increases its pharmaceutical effect. Understanding of these interaction mechanisms help us to know the pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics effects of drugs. Hence, investigation of the interaction of small drug molecules with HSA is very important for the discovery of the mystery of life and the interaction mechanisms of drugs (Shahraki & Heydari, 2017). In this paper, two water-soluble Schiff bases were synthesized by the reaction of 4-pyridinecarbaldehyde or 4-pyridylmethyl ketone with ethylenediamine (Scheme S1). Then, the bidentate Schiff base compounds were characterized by H NMR spectroscopies and elemental analysis. In addition, the molecular structure of one of these compounds was determined by single crystal X-ray diffraction technique. Then, the binding ability of these two Schiff bases with HSA was investigated using UV–vis and fluorescence spectroscopy, molecular docking, and molecular dynamics simulation methods.
Senior Services that Support Housing First in Metro Vancouver

ABSTRACT Housing First is a model and philosophy for housing homeless people in immediate and permanent housing. In order to implement and deliver Housing First, research is essential to understand the system of support services as they currently exist. Guided by principles of community-based participatory research, this paper presents the findings from a senior-focused deliberative dialogue workshop in Metro Vancouver, Canada. Participants (16 service providers and 1 service recipient) identified services and resources available to support seniors in maintaining housing and barriers and facilitators for accessing services. Broadly, data were organized into seven themes: (1) Housing; (2) Home support; (3) Transportation; (4) Information availability, accessibility, and navigation; (5) Cultural diversity; (6) Discrimination; and (7) Funding and financial support. Results found that affordable housing that adapts to changing health conditions, income supports, health services, homecare, transportation, and culturally appropriate and nondiscriminatory informational resources are among the supports most needed for persons as young as 50 years old to succeed under the Housing First model in Metro Vancouver. Barriers to Housing First service provision, including rigid eligibility criteria for chronically and episodically homeless, should be revised to better support the growing number of older adults who are newly entering homelessness in Metro Vancouver.
Effect of Presentation Rate on Word List Learning in Patients with Dementia of the Alzheimer Type

The efficacy of simple interventions for the improvement of memory performance in patients with dementia of Alzheimer type (DAT) has rarely been evaluated. Therefore, we examined the effects of presentation duration and task practice on word list learning in this sample: 19 patients with DAT and 21 control subjects (with remitted major depression) repeatedly performed modifications of a word list learning task using five different presentation durations (i.e. 1, 2, 5, 10 or 20 s/word). In agreement with previous observations, prolonged visual presentation of words significantly improved recall and recognition in demented subjects, whereas task practice did not improve memory performance. The performance in the demented sample after long presentation times (20 s/item) does not reach the level of performance of the comparison group after short presentation times (1 s/item). Consequently, it seems unlikely that memory dysfunction is caused by increased item processing times in patients with dementia. To reach comparable performance of demented and controls for intervention or activation studies, presentation times must be shortened below 1 s/item in the control sample.
Experimental Analysis of Charging Characteristics of HTS Field Coils With HTS Contactless Rotary Excitation Device Considering Various HTS Loads

In this paper, the charging characteristics of high-Tc superconducting (HTS) field coils are analyzed experimentally to verify the efficiency of using HTS contactless rotary excitation devices (CREDs). The HTS CRED is composed of eight HTS rotor strands, which are connected in series with HTS load coils, and eight neodymium permanent magnets (N50). The magnetic field of N50 is approximately 0.14 T when the air gap between the HTS rotor strand and N50 is 8 mm. In order to verify the proper charging method, two types of experiments are performed. In the first experiment, the HTS loads are connected in series and are charged by eight HTS rotor strands of the HTS CRED. In the second, the HTS loads are located along the same axis, and each coil is charged by four HTS rotor strands of the HTS CRED. In these experiments, the currents flowing through the HTS loads are measured for rotor speeds ranging from 50 to 300 r/min.
A Dual-Switch Discontinuous Current-Source Gate Driver for a Narrow On-Time Buck Converter

This paper presents a new discontinuous current-source driver (CSD) with two control switches. The introduced CSD is appropriate for narrow on-time applications such as buck voltage regulator module. This driver has some important features such as considerable gate drive loss reduction due to gate energy recovery, significant reduction of switching losses, low circulating losses, and high Cdv/dt immunity. Compared to other discontinuous CSDs, the proposed circuit has following advantages: 1) reduced number of switches; 2) capability of operating at higher frequency for a specific duty cycle or ability to achieve smaller minimum duty cycle for a certain switching frequency. The proposed gate drive is analyzed and a 1-MHz prototype is implemented to validate the features of the proposed circuit.
Enhanced Operant Extinction and Prefrontal Excitability in a Mouse Model of Angelman Syndrome

Angelman syndrome (AS), a neurodevelopmental disorder associated with intellectual disability, is caused by loss of maternal allele expression of UBE3A in neurons. Mouse models of AS faithfully recapitulate disease phenotypes across multiple domains, including behavior. Yet in AS, there has been only limited study of behaviors encoded by the prefrontal cortex, a region broadly involved in executive function and cognition. Because cognitive impairment is a core feature of AS, it is critical to develop behavioral readouts of prefrontal circuit function in AS mouse models. One such readout is behavioral extinction, which has been well described mechanistically and relies upon prefrontal circuits in rodents. Here we report exaggerated operant extinction in male AS model mice, concomitant with enhanced excitability in medial prefrontal neurons from male and female AS model mice. Abnormal behavior was specific to operant extinction, as two other prefrontally dependent tasks (cued fear extinction and visuospatial discrimination) were largely normal in AS model mice. Inducible deletion of Ube3a during adulthood was not sufficient to drive abnormal extinction, supporting the hypothesis that there is an early critical period for development of cognitive phenotypes in AS. This work represents the first formal experimental analysis of prefrontal circuit function in AS, and identifies operant extinction as a useful experimental paradigm for modeling cognitive aspects of AS in mice. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Prefrontal cortex encodes “high-level” cognitive processes. Thus, understanding prefrontal function is critical in neurodevelopmental disorders where cognitive impairment is highly penetrant. Angelman syndrome is a neurodevelopmental disorder associated with speech and motor impairments, an outwardly happy demeanor, and intellectual disability. We describe a behavioral phenotype in a mouse model of Angelman syndrome and related abnormalities in prefrontal cortex function. We hypothesize that robust and reliable prefrontally encoded behavior may be used to model cognitive impairments in Angelman syndrome.
DNA Polymorphisms of Apolipoprotein B and Angiotensin I-Converting Enzyme Genes and Relationships with Lipid Levels in Italian Patients with Vascular Dementia or Alzheimer’s Disease

The distribution of three DNA polymorphisms (XbaI, EcoRI, and I/D) of the apolipoprotein B (APOB) gene, and of the I/D polymorphism of the angiotensin I-converting enzyme (ACE) gene was investigated in 53 patients with vascular dementia, in 80 patients with late-onset sporadic Alzheimer’s disease, and in 153 age-matched control subjects. Furthermore, plasma total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, and triglycerides were measured in the three groups and the involvement of the genetic variation at APOB locus on lipid levels was determined. Major findings of this work are (1) no genotype or allele of the polymorphisms examined here seemed to be associated with vascular dementia or with Alzheimer’s disease, (2) total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol levels were lower in Alzheimer’s disease patients than in vascular dementia patients and in elderly controls, and (3) the dementia patients with APOB EcoRI R+R– genotype had higher total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol levels than R+R+ homozygotes.
Molecular Mechanism of Phenotypic Modulation of Smooth Muscle Cells

Phenotypic modulation of smooth muscle cells is closely associated with vasculogenesis, enterogenesis and some diseases such as atherosclerosis, hypertension and leiomyogenic tumorigenicity. During phenotypic modulation, smooth muscle cells change their morphology, cell function and biochemical characteristics. Recent studies have focused on the regulation mechanism of smooth muscle cell-specific genes at the levels of transcription and/or alternative splicing in a phenotype-dependent manner. Typical examples of such genes include caldesmon, α-tropomyosin, myosin heavy chain, SM22, calponin and α1 integrin. Cell adhesion molecules and growth factors/cytokines also play a critical role for controlling phenotype of smooth muscle cells via signal transduction pathways such as phosphoinositide 3-kinase and mitogen-activated protein kinases.
Finding Interesting Cleaning Rules from Dirty Data

Data cleaning is an important problem and data quality rules are the most promising way to address it. Previous researches have focused on constraints, such as functional dependencies (FDs), conditional functional dependencies (CFDs), fixing rules, and editing rules. These rules can be provided by experts, or discovered by mining algorithms and then experts verify. But in the condition of dirty dataset, it is highly unlikely that useful FDs could be discovered. If there are no useful cleaning rules, the user can not capture and correct errors in data. In this paper, we develop a system that is able to find interesting rules from dirty data. There is no hope to mine significant functional dependencies directly by the TANE algorithm because of the existence of errors in data. Thus, we discover approximate functional dependencies as candidate cleaning rules with the improved TANE algorithm. The number of candidate rules is very large, making it expensive for the user verification. Since not all candidate rules make sense in practice, we design two kinds of ranking methods: the support-based ranking and the comprehensive score ordering. Our ranking methods usually put the most useful rules ahead. Experimental results show that our sorting methods can effectively help the user find useful cleaning rules.
Reasons for initiation of treatment and predictors of response for patients with Rai stage 0/1 chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) receiving first-line therapy: an analysis of the Connect® CLL cohort study

Abstract A ‘watch-and-wait’ strategy is recommended for most patients with early-stage chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) prior to treatment initiation. In the Connect® CLL registry, a prospective observational cohort study of 1494 patients treated in 199 US centers, median time to first-line treatment initiation was 3.8, 1.5, and 0.6 years for patients with Rai stage 0, 1, and ≥2, respectively. Only 60% of patients with Rai stage 0/1 underwent FISH/cytogenetic testing prior to initiation of a new line of therapy. Lymphocytosis and lymphadenopathy were the most common reasons for treatment initiation. Lymphocytosis as a reason for treatment initiation was associated with inferior event-free survival at Rai stage 0/1. Short treatment duration was associated with inferior overall survival regardless of Rai stage; sensitivity analyses confirmed the association. The Connect CLL registry provides valuable information on a real-world population of patients with CLL, clarifying both the timing and rationale for initiating therapy.
An Accelerometry-Based System for the Assessment of Balance and Postural Sway

The aim of this investigation was to develop an inexpensive, efficient system for the clinical assessment of static and dynamic balance and postural sway using accelerometry-based measurements. Subjects consisted of 10 young (range 18–32 years) and 10 older (range 69–86 years) individuals screened for polypharmacy and history of cardiovascular, neurological or orthopedic health conditions. A lightweight uniaxial accelerometer and general-purpose microcomputer were used to obtain measurements of postural sway. Customized software was written to acquire the data and provide a real-time display consisting of amplitude and frequency characteristics of the sway profile. Intraclass reliability coefficients greater than R = 0.75 were obtained in both eyes-open and challenging-standing balance tasks. Preliminary results demonstrate that the instrumentation can be used to discriminate among balance tasks and to differentiate healthy older adults from those with a tendency toward frequent falls. Moreover, the technique described yields a simple-to-administer, inexpensive procedure that can be conducted in the home or another natural environment. Accelerometry also allows for balance training and re-learning, using tasks that might ordinarily pose a balance challenge for the older or frail adult.
Site- and phase-selective x-ray absorption spectroscopy based on phase-retrieval calculation

Understanding the chemical state of a particular element with multiple crystallographic sites and/or phases is essential to unlocking the origin of material properties. To this end, resonant x-ray diffraction spectroscopy (RXDS) achieved through a combination of x-ray diffraction (XRD) and x-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) techniques can allow for the measurement of diffraction anomalous fine structure (DAFS). This is expected to provide a peerless tool for electronic/local structural analyses of materials with complicated structures thanks to its capability to extract spectroscopic information about a given element at each crystallographic site and/or phase. At present, one of the major challenges for the practical application of RXDS is the rigorous determination of resonant terms from observed DAFS, as this requires somehow determining the phase change in the elastic scattering around the absorption edge from the scattering intensity. This is widely known in the field of XRD as the phase problem. The present review describes the basics of this problem, including the relevant background and theory for DAFS and a guide to a newly-developed phase-retrieval method based on the logarithmic dispersion relation that makes it possible to analyze DAFS without suffering from the intrinsic ambiguities of conventional iterative-fitting. Several matters relating to data collection and correction of RXDS are also covered, with a final emphasis on the great potential of powder-sample-based RXDS (P-RXDS) to be used in various applications relevant to practical materials, including antisite-defect-type electrode materials for lithium-ion batteries.
Thermographic Abnormalities are Associated with Future Digital Ulcers and Death in Patients with Systemic Sclerosis

Objective. Capillaroscopic abnormalities are predictive of future digital ulcers (DU). Our aim was to investigate whether functional digital vascular disease (thermographically assessed) is also associated with future DU. Methods. A retrospective case note review of patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc) undergoing thermography and who were followed for up to about 3 years. Results. There were 138 patients (equal mixture of normal/abnormal thermography). Patients with abnormal thermography were more likely to develop DU (clinician-observed and/or patient-reported, OR 2.84, p = 0.021), including multiple episodes, and more likely to die (OR 5.42, p = 0.050). Conclusion. Abnormal thermography is associated with DU and disease severity in patients with SSc.
Combining argumentation and aspect-based opinion mining: The SMACk system

The extraction of the relevant and debated opinions from online social media and commercial websites is an emerging task in the opinion mining research field. Its growing relevance is mainly due to the impact of exploiting such techniques in different application domains from social science analysis to personal advertising. In this paper, we present SMACk, our opinion summary system built on top of an argumentation framework with the aim to exchange, communicate and resolve possibly conflicting viewpoints. SMACk allows the user to extract debated opinions from a set of documents containing user-generated content from online commercial websites, and to automatically identify the mostly debated positive aspects of the issue of the debate, as well as the mostly debated negative ones. The key advantage of such a framework is the combination of different methods, i.e., formal argumentation theory and natural language processing, to support users in making more informed decisions, e.g., in the context of online purchases.
Exact Relation between Singular Value and Eigenvalue Statistics

We use classical results from harmonic analysis on matrix spaces to investigate the relation between the joint density of the singular values and of the eigenvalues of complex random matrices which are bi-unitarily invariant (also known as isotropic or unitary rotation invariant). We prove that one of these joint densities determines the other one. Moreover we construct an explicit formula relating both joint densities at finite matrix dimension. This relation covers probability densities as well as signed densities. With the help of this relation we derive general analytical relations among the corresponding kernels and biorthogonal functions for a specific class of polynomial ensembles. Furthermore we show how to generalize the relation between the eigenvalue and singular value statistics to certain situations when the ensemble is deformed by a term which breaks the bi-unitary invariance.