Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Altered Levels of Decidual Immune Cell Subsets in Fetal Growth Restriction, Stillbirth, and Placental Pathology

Immune cells are critically involved in placental development and functioning, and inadequate regulation of the maternal immune system is associated with placental pathology and pregnancy complications. This study aimed to explore numbers of decidual immune cells in pregnancies complicated with fetal growth restriction (FGR) and stillbirth (SB), and in placentas with histopathological lesions: maternal vascular malperfusion (MVM), fetal vascular malperfusion (FVM), delayed villous maturation (DVM), chorioamnionitis (CA), and villitis of unknown etiology (VUE). Placental tissue from FGR (n = 250), SB (n = 64), and healthy pregnancies (n = 42) was included. Histopathological lesions were classified according to criteria developed by the Amsterdam Placental Workshop Group. Tissue slides were stained for CD68 (macrophages), CD206 (M2-like macrophages), CD3 (T cells), FOXP3 [regulatory T (Treg) cells], and CD56 [natural killer (NK) cells]. Cell numbers were analyzed in the decidua basalis using computerized morphometry. The Mann-Whitney U-test and Kruskal Wallis test with the Dunn's as post-hoc test were used for statistical analysis. Numbers of CD68+ macrophages were higher in FGR compared to healthy pregnancies (p < 0.001), accompanied by lower CD206+/CD68+ ratios (p < 0.01). In addition, in FGR higher numbers of FOXP3+ Treg cells were seen (p < 0.01) with elevated FOXP3+/CD3+ ratios (p < 0.01). Similarly, in SB elevated FOXP3+ Treg cells were found (p < 0.05) with a higher FOXP3+/CD3+ ratio (p < 0.01). Furthermore, a trend toward higher numbers of CD68+ macrophages was found (p < 0.1) in SB. Numbers of CD3+ and FOXP3+ cells were higher in placentas with VUE compared to placentas without lesions (p < 0.01 and p < 0.001), accompanied by higher FOXP3+/CD3+ ratios (p < 0.01). Elevated numbers of macrophages with a lower M2/total macrophage ratio in FGR suggest a role for a macrophage surplus in its pathogenesis and could specifically indicate involvement of inflammatory macrophages. Higher numbers of FOXP3+ Treg cells with higher Treg/total T cell ratios in VUE may be associated with impaired maternal-fetal tolerance and a compensatory response of Treg cells. The abundant presence of placental lesions in the FGR and SB cohorts might explain the increase of Treg/total T cell ratios in these groups. More functionality studies of the observed altered immune cell subsets are needed.
Establishment of a Transformation Coupled in vitro End Joining Assay to Estimate Radiosensitivity in Tumor Cells

Here, we present a modified in vitro end-joining (EJ) assay to quantify EJ capacity, accuracy as well as pathway switch to alternative end-joining (Alt-EJ) or single strand annealing (SSA). A novel transformation assay was established to specifically measure circular repair products, which correlate with classical EJ efficiency. The EJ assay was validated using EJ-deficient mammalian cell lines (Ku80, DNA-PKcs, LigIV, or XRCC4 mutants). A pathway switch to Alt-EJ and SSA was seen exclusively in Ku-deficient cells. Circular EJ product formation correlated with cell survival and DSB repair capacity after X-irradiation. Investigation of 14 HNSCC cell lines revealed differences in the total EJ capacity but a broader variation in the amount of circular repair products. Sequencing of repair junctions in HNSCC cells demonstrated a predominance of high-fidelity EJ and an avoidance of both Alt-EJ and SSA. A significant correlation was observed between the amount of circular repair products, repair of IR-induced DSB and radiosensitivity. Collectively, these data indicate that the presented in vitro-EJ-assay can not only estimate the repair capacity of cancer cells to enable the stratification into radiosensitive or radioresistant, but can also identify repair pathway deregulation such as a switch to Alt-EJ or SSA, which enables tumor targeting.
Shape Targeting: A Versatile Active Elasticity Constitutive Model

The recent “Phace” facial modeling and animation framework [Ichim et al. 2017] introduced a specific formulation of an elastic energy potential that induces mesh elements to approach certain prescribed shapes, modulo rotations. This target shape is defined for each element as an input parameter, and is a multi-dimensional analogue of activation parameters in fiber-based anisotropic muscle models. We argue that the constitutive law suggested by this energy formulation warrants consideration as a highly versatile and practical model of active elastic materials, and could rightfully be regarded as a “baseline” parametric description of active elasticity, in the same fashion that corotational elasticity has largely established itself as the prototypical rotation-invariant model of isotropic elasticity. We present a formulation of this constitutive model in the spirit and style of Finite Element Methods for continuum mechanics, complete with closed form expressions for strain tensors and exact force derivatives for use in implicit and quasistatic schemes. We demonstrate the versatility of the model through various examples in which active elements are employed.
Variations of Clinical Target Volume Delineation for Primary Site of Nasopharyngeal Cancer Among Five Centers in China

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate the current status of clinical target volume (CTV) delineation for primary site of nasopharyngeal cancer (NPC) among five large tertiary cancer centers in China. Materials and Methods The simulation CT and MR images of a patient with T3N2M0 NPC were sent to the centers participating. Fourteen experienced physicians contoured the targets independently, and the outlined structures were compared. The consistency and differences among these 14 CTVs are discussed. Results Two different CTV designs were used in the centers. “One-CTV” design defines one CTV with a dose of 60 Gy, whereas “two-CTV” design has a high-risk CTV with dose of 60 Gy and a medium risk CTV with dose of 54 Gy. We found that the coverage of prophylactic area is very consistent between these two designs. The variances on the coverage of some sites were also significant among physicians, including covering cavernous sinus at un-involved side, posterior space of styloid process, and caudal border on posterior pharyngeal wall. Conclusions Standardization is the main requirement for personalization of care; our study shows that among the 14 physicians in the five centers the coverage of prophylactic areas is in excellent agreement. Two distinct strategies on CTV design are currently being used, and multiple controversies were found, suggesting further optimization of CTV for primary site of NPC is needed.
First-Time Mothers’ and Fathers’ Developmental Changes in the Perception of Their Daughters’ and Sons’ Temperament: Its Association With Parents’ Mental Health

Objective Most studies investigating the role of parenting behaviors on a child’s development are directed to mothers. However, recent analyses show that mothers and fathers have a different influence on a child’s functioning, specifically her/his temperament. The present study explored the developmental change of parents’ perception of their daughters’ and sons’ temperament and its association with parental mental health problems. Methods The sample included 188 parents (94 couples) and their at-term 94 babies (55.3% boys, 44.7% girls). Assessments by self-reports were conducted at 3 (Time 1) and 12 (Time 2) months after the children’s birth; at Time 1, mothers and fathers independently answered: the State–Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS), and the Infant Behavior Questionnaire (IBQ-R). At Time 2, EPDS, STAI, and IBQ-R were again administered to mothers and fathers. Results In general, mothers and fathers would give similar descriptions of their child’s temperament throughout the first year of life; however, infant temperament showed developmental changes as well as gender differences. Mother and father anxiety and depression symptoms are associated with the infants’ negative affectivity. Also, mothers with high anxiety and depression levels perceive their infants with a minor tendency to approach novelty, to seek environmental stimulation, and to express/experience positive emotions. Conclusion The results highlight the need to screen for infants’ temperament vulnerabilities in the context of maternal and paternal depression in order to protect the child from behavioral, cognitive, and emotional difficulties and to create specific programs aimed at preventing dysfunctional parent–infant relationships.
Efficient Multiscale Rendering of Specular Microstructure

Texturing is a ubiquitous technique used to enrich surface appearance with fine detail. While standard filtering approaches, such as mipmapping or summed area tables, are available for rendering diffuse reflectance textures at different levels of detail, no widely accepted filtering solution exists for multiresolution rendering of surfaces with fine specular normal maps. The current state of the art offers accurate filtering solutions for specular reflection at the cost of very high memory requirements and expensive 4D queries. We propose a novel normal map filtering solution for specular surfaces which supports data pre-filtering, and with an evaluation speed that is roughly independent of the filtering footprint size. Its memory usage and evaluation speed are significantly more favorable than for existing methods. Our solution is based on high-resolution binning in the half-vector domain, which allows us to quickly build a very memory efficient data structure.
Energy Consumption, Carbon Emission, and Well-Being in Africa

The link among energy use, human welfare, and carbon emission has been a topical issue in the literature. In Africa, energy consumption has been on the increase owing to the production and consumption of sophisticated consumer goods and home appliances. Increased energy use triggers carbon emission that is detrimental to human welfare. This study investigates this puzzle in emerging African countries by utilizing panel vector autoregressive and system generalized method of moments (SYS-GMM) in the context of a mix of theories. The results indicate a unidirectional causality running from FUEL, COAL to per capita income (PCI). A unidirectional causality running from mortality rate (MOR) to COAL and CO2 was observed. There is a bidirectional relationship between MOR and energy use. The SYS-GMM results show that the effects of energy consumption on well-being are diverse. Increase in coal consumption reduces unemployment rate while electricity consumption reduces infant mortality rate. Fuel consumption aggravates incidence of mortality rate. CO2 reduces unemployment but worsens infant mortality rate. Electricity consumption reduces infant mortality rate. Hence, for the purpose of policy harmonization tailored toward improving well-being in the emerging economies of Africa, it is recommended that more of coal consumption and efficient use of electricity must be encouraged.
Development and Reorganization of Orientation Representation in the Cat Visual Cortex: Experience-Dependent Synaptic Rewiring in Early Life

To date, numerous mathematical models have been proposed on the basis of some types of Hebbian synaptic learning to account for the activity-dependent development of orientation maps as well as neuronal orientation selectivity. These models successfully reproduced orientation map-like spatial patterns. Nevertheless, we still have questions: (1) How does synaptic rewiring occur in the visual cortex during the formation of orderly orientation maps in early life? (2) How does visual experience contribute to the maturation of orientation selectivity of visual cortical neurons and reorganize orientation maps? (3) How does the sensitive period for orientation plasticity end? In this study, we performed animal experiments and mathematical modeling to understand the mechanisms underlying synaptic rewiring for experience-dependent formation and reorganization of orientation maps. At first, we visualized orientation maps from the intrinsic signal optical imaging in area 17 of kittens reared under single-orientation exposure through cylindrical-lens-fitted goggles. The experiments revealed that the degree of expansion of cortical domains representing the experienced orientation depends on the age at which the single-orientation exposure starts. As a result, we obtained the sensitive period profile for orientation plasticity. Next, we refined our previously proposed mathematical model for the activity-dependent self-organization of thalamo-cortical inputs on the assumption that rewiring is caused by the competitive interactions among transient synaptic contacts on the same dendritic spine. Although various kinds of molecules have been reported to be involved in such interactions, we attempt to build a mathematical model to describe synaptic rewiring focusing on brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and its related molecules. Performing computer simulations based on the refined model, we successfully reproduced orientation maps reorganized in kittens reared under single-orientation exposure as well as normal visual experience. We also reproduced the experimentally obtained sensitive period profile for orientation plasticity. The excellent agreement between experimental observations and theoretical reproductions suggests that the BDNF-induced competitive interaction among synaptic contacts from different axons on the same spine is an important factor for the experience-dependent formation and reorganization of orientation selectivity and orientation maps.
IgG Index Revisited: Diagnostic Utility and Prognostic Value in Multiple Sclerosis

Objective: Early and accurate diagnosis of multiple sclerosis (MS) remains a clinical challenge. The main objective is to evaluate the diagnostic and prognostic value of the routinely performed immunoglobulin G (IgG) index for MS patients in the Asian population. Methods: A retrospective study was conducted among a cohort of clinically isolated syndrome (CIS) patients in China with known oligoclonal band (OCB) status and IgG index at baseline. We first evaluated the predictive value of IgG index for OCB status. Secondly, the diagnostic utility and prognostic value of IgG index alone were tested. Lastly, we incorporated IgG index into the 2017 McDonald criteria by replacing OCB with either “IgG index or OCB” (modified criteria 1), “IgG index and OCB” (modified criteria 2), or “IgG index” (modified criteria 3). The diagnostic utility of different criteria was calculated and compared. Results: In a CIS cohort in China (n = 105), IgG index > 0.7 forecasted OCB positivity (X2 = 22.90, P < 0.001). An elevated IgG index was highly prognostic of more clinical relapses [1-year adjusted odds ratio [OR] = 1.32, P = 0.015; 2-years adjusted OR = 1.69, P = 0.013] and Expanded Disability Status Scale worsening (1-year adjusted OR = 1.76, P = 0.040; 2-years adjusted OR = 1.85, P = 0.032). Under the 2017 McDonald criteria (Positive Likelihood Ratio = 1.54, Negative Likelihood Ratio = 0.56), an IgG index > 0.7 in CIS patients increased the likelihood of developing MS within 2 years, either when OCB status was unknown (Positive Likelihood Ratio = 2.11) or with OCB positivity (Positive Likelihood Ratio = 2.11) at baseline; An IgG index ≤ 0.7, along with a negative OCB, helped rule out the MS diagnosis (Negative Likelihood Ratio = 0.53). Conclusions: IgG index > 0.7 predicts OCB positivity at the initial attack of MS and is prognostic of early disease activity. IgG index serves as an easily-obtainable and accurate OCB surrogate for MS diagnosis in the Asian population.
The toxic benthic dinoflagellates of the genus Ostreopsis in temperate areas: a review

The genus Ostreopsis includes species largely distributed from tropical to temperate marine areas worldwide. Among the nine species of the genus, O. siamensis , O. mascarenensis , O. lenticularis and O. cf. ovata can produce toxins of the palytoxin group. In the last decade Ostreopsis cf. ovata and O . cf. siamensis originated intense blooms in all the rocky Mediterranean Sea coastal areas, typically during summer-late summer. The correct identification of Ostreopsis species in field samples is often problematic as Ostreopsis species are morphologically plastic and hardly discriminable under light microscopy and, therefore, molecular analyses are required. Ostreopsis blooms are often associated with noxious effects on health of both humans and benthic marine organisms mainly carried by aerosol and direct contact with seawater. Environmental factors have been shown to affect toxin content of Ostreopsis which generally produces more toxins per cell when growing under suboptimal conditions. O . cf. ovata is able to produce both temporary and resting cysts. In particular, the resting cysts are able to germinate in laboratory conditions for as long as 5 months after their formation at 25°C, but not at 21°C; the presence of a temperature threshold affecting cyst germination in the laboratory suggests that temperature represents a key factor for Ostreopsis cf. ovata bloom onset in natural environments as well. Several studies conducted to assess the role of abiotic factors (mainly hydrodynamics, water temperature and nutrients) on the bloom dynamics, revealed that the synergic effects of hydrodynamics, temperature and N:P ratios would lead the Ostreopsis blooms in temperate areas. Ostreopsis abundances showed a significant decrease with depth, likely related to light availability, although there are conflicting data about the relationship between light intensity and Ostreopsis growth in experimental conditions. The relationship between Ostreopsis blooms and salinity is not completely clear, complicated by the influence of high nutrient levels often associated to low salinity waters. Finally, Ostreopsis colonize a variety of substrata, although living substrata seems to allow lower concentration of epibionts than any other substrate, probably due to the production of some allelopathic compounds.
Characterization of Rheological Property of Mucoadhesive Polymeric Sol-Gel in the Presence of Black Ginger Kaempferia parviflora Extract

The local drug delivery based on mucoadhesion is an effective medical treatment. The mucoadhesive property relies on the formulated gel having optimized rheology. The addition of the drug also showed a major influence towards the sol-gel transition. In this study, compositional effect of Eudragit E100® base polymer, various mucoadhesive polymers, and the black ginger extract on the rheological property of the formulated sol-gel was assessed. It was found that gelling point and gel strength could be tuned mainly based on the concentration of Eudragit E100 limited at 40% w/w due to the viscosity. At Eudragit E100 of 30% w/w, 0.5% w/w herbal extract, and 1%w/w polyvinyl alcohol, the solution reached the gel point at 286 s (tan δ=1) with the gel strength of 1 kPa (G’=G”). For all the formulated sol-gels, the rheological property became better (faster gelling point with the gel strength varying from 100-700 kPa at low strain) a simulated saliva environment.
Designing a Programming Game to Improve Children’s Procedural Abstraction Skills in Scratch

The recent shift in compulsory education from ICT-focused computing curricula to informatics, digital literacy and computer science, has resulted in children being taught computing using block-based programming tools such as Scratch, with teaching that is often limited by school resources and teacher expertise. Even without these limitations, Scratch users often produce code with ‘code smells’ such as duplicate blocks and long scripts which impact how they understand and debug projects. These code smells can be removed using procedural abstraction, an important concept in computer science rarely taught to this age group. This article describes the design of a novel educational block-based programming game, Pirate Plunder, which concentrates on how procedural abstraction is introduced and reinforced. The article then reports an extended evaluation to measure the game’s efficacy with children aged 10 and 11, finding that children who played the game were then able to use procedural abstraction in Scratch. The article then uses game analytics to explore why the game was effective and gives three recommendations for educational game design based on this research: using learning trajectories and restrictive success conditions to introduce complex content, increasing learner investment through customisable avatars and suggestions for improving the evaluations of educational games.
AFL++ : Combining Incremental Steps of Fuzzing Research

In this paper, we present AFL ++ , a community-driven open-source tool that incorporates state-of-the-art fuzzing research, to make the research comparable, reproducible, combinable and — most importantly – useable. It offers a variety of novel features, for example its Custom Mutator API , able to extend the fuzzing process at many stages. With it, mutators for speciﬁc targets can also be written by experienced security testers. We hope for AFL ++ to become a new baseline tool not only for current, but also for future research, as it allows to test new techniques quickly, and evaluate not only the effectiveness of the single technique versus the state-of-the-art, but also in combination with other techniques. The paper gives an evaluation of hand-picked fuzzing technologies — shining light on the fact that while each novel fuzzing method can increase performance in some targets — it decreases performance for other targets. This is an insight future fuzzing research should consider in their evaluations.
Identity-based Public Key Cryptographic Primitive with Delegated Equality Test Against Insider Attack in Cloud Computing

The notion of attacks perpetuated by an insider (cloud server) is paramount in this era of cloud computing and data analytics. When a cloud server is delegated with certain responsibilities, it is possible for a cloud server to peddle with users’ encrypted data for proﬁt gains. The cloud server takes advantage of it’s authorization to launch what we referred to as insider attack. We put forward a new improved scheme on identity-based public key cryptographic primitive which integrate delegated equality test to resist insider attack in cloud computing. Our scheme resist the insider attack perpetuated by the cloud server (insider). We refer to our new scheme as identity-based public key cryptographic primitive with delegated equality test against insider attack in cloud computing (IB-PKC-DETIA). We construct our scheme using a witness based cryptographic primitive with an added pairing operation. Our scheme achieves weak indistinquishable identity chosen ciphertext (W-IND-ID-CCA) security us-ing the random oracle model.
Office Document Security and Privacy

OOXML and ODF are the de facto standard data formats for word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations. Both are XML-based, feature-rich container formats dating back to the early 2000s. In this work, we present a systematic analysis of the capabilities of malicious ofﬁce documents. Instead of focusing on implementation bugs, we abuse legitimate features of the OOXML and ODF speciﬁcations. We categorize our attacks into ﬁve classes: (1) Denial-of-Service attacks affecting the host on which the document is processed. (2) In-vasion of privacy attacks that track the usage of the document. (3) Information disclosure attacks exﬁltrating personal data out of the victim’s computer. (4) Data manipulation on the vic-tim’s system. (5) Code execution on the victim’s machine. We evaluated the reference implementations – Microsoft Ofﬁce and LibreOfﬁce – and found both of them to be vulnerable to each tested class of attacks. Finally, we propose mitigation strategies to counter these attacks.