Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Molecular Biology of Multiple Myeloma

Multiple myeloma is a disease of malignant plasma cells in the bone marrow. Interaction of malignant plasma cells with the bone marrow microenvironment plays a key role in the pathogenesis of myeloma. Recognition of potential adverse cytogenetic and genomic abnormalities has led to identification of newer targets, translating to development of newer drugs. The introduction of two new such classes of molecules, namely immunomodulators (e.g.thalidomide, lenalidomide, pomalidomide), and proteasome inhibitors (e.g. bortezomib, carfilzomib), consolidation with high dose chemotherapy and autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) and improved supportive care has led to improved outcome, more so in younger patients (age <65 years). Frequent relapses despite initial responses to therapy remain a major clinical challenge. Identification of patients at high risk of relapse based on cytogenetics and comprehensive gene expression profiling is currently an active area of research. In this review we have made an attempt to cover the landscape of chromosomal abnormalities in myeloma and its clinical impact on outcome.
A Domain Knowledge-Assisted Nonlinear Model for Head-Related Transfer Functions Based on Bottleneck Deep Neural Network

Many methods have been proposed for modeling head-related transfer functions (HRTFs) and yield a good performance level in terms of log-spectral distortion (LSD). However, most of them utilize linear weighting to reconstruct or interpolate HRTFs, but not consider the inherent nonlinearity relationship between the basis function and HRTFs. Motivated by this, a domain knowledge-assisted nonlinear modeling method is proposed based on bottleneck features. Domain knowledge is used in two aspects. One is to generate the input features derived from the solution to sound wave propagation equation at the physical level, and the other is to design the loss function for model training based on the knowledge of objective evaluation criterion, i.e., LSD. Furthermore, with utilizing the strong representation ability of the bottleneck features, the nonlinear model has the potential to achieve a more accurate mapping. The objective and subjective experimental results show that the proposed method gains less LSD when compared with linear model, and the interpolated HRTFs can generate a similar perception to those of the database.
Perinatal Death: Uncovering the Needs of Midwives and Nurses and Exploring Helpful Interventions in the United States, England, and Japan

Perinatal death is a crisis for midwives and nurses as well as for bereaved parents and extended families. Surveys and interviews conducted in the United States, England, and Japan described the needs and responses of nurses and mid-wives as they coped with their own feelings while caring for bereaved parents. Results emphasized common needs of caregivers for increased knowledge, mentored experience, communication skills, and personal support to confidently provide sensitive care to families. Although need for education regarding cultural-specific care was revealed, participants identified helpful strategies of care for bereaved parents that could extend and improve care universally.
Interacting Fermi gas in a harmonic trap

the effects of the attractive atom-atom interaction on several thermodynamic properties and on the momentum and density distributions. The dependence of the chemical potential, the specific heat and the density and momentum distributions on the number of particles in the trap is obtained. We also calculate the energy of the gas. Comparison is made with results of a semiclassical calculation and with the properties of a non-interacting gas. We find that the effect of the interactions is rather large for realistic trap frequencies. Hence, it is important to include these interactions in any quantitative predictions relevant for experiments.
When does Formal control Fail? An Experiment

There are mixed findings on whether formal control will or will not improve performance. To address this paradox, we propose that types of formal control (enabling vs. coercive) influence performance separately because of the different costs they impose on the controlee. We conducted an experiment, and obtained unexpected, but interesting results: the controlee performs best for simple tasks in the no formal control condition, because costs of the control override its benefits. Our preliminary results suggest that there might be an interaction between types of formal control and degrees of task complexity. A difficult version of the same experimental task will be employed in our next experiment to test the interaction effect.
A comparison of three statistical methods for analysing extinction threat status

SUMMARY The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List provides a globally-recognized evaluation of the conservation status of species, with the aim of catalysing appropriate conservation action. However, in some parts of the world, species data may be lacking or insufficient to predict risk status. If species with shared ecological or life history characteristics also tend to share their risk of extinction, then ecological or life history characteristics may be used to predict which species may be at risk, although perhaps not yet classified as such by the IUCN. Statistical models may be a means to determine whether there are non-threatened or unclassified species that share the characteristics of threatened species, however there are no data on which model might be most appropriate or whether multiple models should be used. In this paper, three types of statistical models, namely regression trees, logistic regression and discriminant function analysis are compared using data on the ecological characteristics of Finnish lepidopterans (butterflies and moths). Overall, logistic regression performed slightly better than discriminant function analysis in predicting species status, and both outperformed regression trees. Uncertainty in species classification suggests that multiple analyses should be performed and particular attention devoted to those species for which the methods disagree. Such standard statistical methods may be a valuable additional tool in assessing the likely threat status of a species where there is a paucity of abundance data.
Evaluation of the in vitro antimicrobial activity of crude extracts of three Miconia species

The antimicrobial activity of nine crude extracts of three Miconia species (M. albicans, M. rubiginosa and M. stenostachya) was tested against eleven selected microorganisms: Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus saprophyticus, Proteus mirabilis, Escherichia coli, Enterococcus faecalis, Shigella flexneri, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Salmonella sp, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Streptococcus agalactiae and Candida albicans. The results of the test showed that three extracts had some antimicrobial activity by well diffusion method. The ethanol extracts of Miconia albicans and Miconia rubiginosa were the most active.
An Exploratory Study of Internet Addiction, Usage and Communication Pleasure

This study examined the correlation between Internet addiction, usage, and communication pleasure. Research questions were: (1) What is computer network addiction? (2) How can one measure the degree of computer network addiction? (3) What is the correlation between the degree of users' network addiction and their network usage? (4) What is the correlation between the degree of users' network addiction and their self-reported communication pleasure? and (5) What research questions are recommended for future studies on computer network addiction? A survey was distributed on the National Chiao Tung University (Taiwan) Internet bulletin board systems (BBS). The survey contained three parts: the Internet-Related Addictive Behavior Checklist (IRABC), the Pleasure Experience of Internet Usage (PEIU) questionnaire, and a demographic and network usage data questionnaire. A total of 104 valid surveys were returned. Results indicated that Internet addiction does exist among some of Taiwan's Internet users. Internet addiction scores were positively correlated with escape pleasure, interpersonal relationship pleasure, and total communication pleasure. Internet addiction scores were also positively correlated with BBS use hours or Internet use hours and total Internet use hours. It was concluded that greater communication pleasure, BBS use hours, or Internet use hours related to higher Internet addiction scores. Internet Addiction Disorder diagnostic criteria are appended. (Contains 17 references.) (MES) ******************************************************************************** * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * * from the original document. * ********************************************************************************
Detection of erythromycin-resistant determinants by PCR

Erythromycin resistance determinants include Erm methylases, efflux pumps, and inactivating enzymes. To distinguish the different mechanisms of resistance in clinical isolates, PCR primers were designed so that amplification of the partial gene products could be detected in multiplex PCRs. This methodology enables the direct sequencing of amplified PCR products that can be used to compare resistance determinants in clinical strains. Further, this methodology could be useful in surveillance studies of erythromycin-resistant determinants.
Activated Mouse Notch1 Transactivates Epstein-Barr Virus Nuclear Antigen 2-Regulated Viral Promoters

ABSTRACT Epstein-Barr virus nuclear antigen 2 (EBNA2) is essential for B-cell immortalization by EBV, most probably by its ability to transactivate a number of cellular and viral genes. EBNA2-responsive elements (EBNA2REs) have been identified in several EBNA2-regulated viral promoters, each of them carrying at least one RBP-Jκ recognition site. RBP-Jκ recruits EBNA2 to the EBNA2RE and, once complexed to EBNA2, is converted from a repressor into an activator. An activated form of the cellular receptor Notch also interacts with RBP-Jκ, providing a link between EBNA2 and Notch signalling. To determine whether activated Notch is able to transactivate EBNA2-responsive viral promoters, we performed cotransfection experiments with activated mouse Notch1 (mNotch1-IC) and luciferase constructs of the BamHI C, LMP1, and LMP2A promoters. We present here evidence that mNotch1-IC transactivates viral promoters known to be regulated by EBNA2. As shown for EBNA2, mutations or deletions of the RBP-Jκ sites diminish or eliminate mNotch1-IC-mediated transactivation of the promoters, pointing to an essential role for Notch–RBP-Jκ interaction. In addition to RBP-Jκ, other cellular factors may bind within the EBNA2REs of viral promoters. While some factors appear to play an important role in both EBNA2- and mNotch1-IC-mediated transactivation, others are only important for the activity of either EBNA2 or mNotch1-IC. We could observe specific mNotch1-IC-responsive regions, thereby throwing more light upon which cofactors interact with EBNA2 and mNotch1-IC, thus enabling them to become functionally transactivators in vivo.
A Multiform Balanced Dependency Treebank for Romanian

The UAIC-RoDia-DepTb is a balanced treebank, containing texts in non-standard language: 2,575 chats sentences, old Romanian texts (a Gospel printed in 1648, a codex of laws printed in 1818, a novel written in 1910), regional popular poetry, legal texts, Romanian and foreign fiction, quotations. The proportions are comparable; each of these types of texts is represented by subsets of at least 1,000 phrases, so that the parser can be trained on their peculiarities. The annotation of the treebank started in 2007, and it has classical tags, such as those in school grammar, with the intention of using the resource for didactic purposes. The classification of circumstantial modifiers is rich in semantic information. We present in this paper the development in progress of this resource which has been automatically annotated and entirely manually corrected. We try to add new texts, and to make it available in more formats, by keeping all the morphological and syntactic information annotated, and adding logical-semantic information. We will describe here two conversions, from the classic syntactic format into Universal Dependencies format and into a logical-semantic layer, which will be shortly presented.
The Effects of Relinquishing Control in Platform Ecosystems: Implications from a Policy Change on Kickstarter

Managing platform ecosystems requires the providers to maintain a delicate balance between retaining control and devolving autonomy to complementors in order to encourage contribution and innovation. In this study, we make use of a policy change that abolished the previously mandatory approval process for campaigns on Kickstarter, one of the dominant reward-based crowdfunding platforms. Analyzing a total of 67,384 Kickstarter campaigns under conditions of a natural experiment, we find that abolishing the input control was a double-edged sword for Kickstarter’s ecosystem: While the average platform revenue increased after the policy change, it became more volatile, and while project diversity increased, average campaign quality decreased. Project creators are now confronted with an even higher level of competition, while backers face greater uncertainties about campaign quality, which shifts their focus to alternative quality signals. The new strategy might threaten Kickstarter’s unique status as a high-quality platform in the striving business of crowdfunding.
Performance comparison of IEEE 802.11, and ETSI HIPERLAN type 1 under influence of burst noise channel

We have compared different performance measures of the two standardized WLANs, IEEE 802.11 and ETSI HIPERLAN type 1. Two essential performance-limitation factors have been considered: the BER of the fading air medium and the number of stations in the ad-hoc network. Regarding the HIPERLAN 1, most of the performance measures are insensitive to the number of stations due to the more sophisticated but complex EY-NPMA MAC protocol. However, its high overhead redundancy causes great throughput degradation as the BER is increased. The relatively simple and low overhead CSMA/CD protocol in the IEEE 802.11 suffers from many collisions at higher loads, producing high sensitiveness to the number of stations.
Shear wave propagation in complex sub wavelength tissue geometries: Theoretical and experimental implications in the framework of cornea and skin shear wave imaging

Quantitative measurements of cornea and skin biomechanical properties have many applications in medicine. In ophthalmology, it could lead to a better diagnosis of pathologies or monitoring of treatments. In dermatology, it could help the skin lesions removal monitoring. In the framework of Supersonic Shear Imaging (SSI), these organs are characterized by their complex sub wavelength geometry (thin plate and thin capsule) that strongly influences the shear wave propagation. In this work, a theoretical framework is proposed and validated in experiments for the quantification of elastic modulus in these layered tissues. Shear wave dispersion induced by the guided propagation in such thin layers is estimated and fitted to the analytical dispersion curve derived from the “leaky” Lamb Wave theory. SSI is refined and used in order to map in real time the tissues elasticity. This technique consists in generating a shear wave by ultrasonic radiation force and imaging its propagation through the medium at a high frame rate (20 kHz). For infinite media the shear wave velocity is then linked to the Young's modulus. In cornea and skin layers, the high-frequency shear wave (from 500 to 2000 Hz) is guided similarly to a Lamb wave, with plate thickness (<1 mm) close to its wavelength. Experimental dispersion curves have been confronted to numerical studies. First, finite differences simulations were performed to obtain numerical dispersion curves in plates with exactly known thickness and elasticity. Besides, theoretical dispersion equations were derived by solving numerically the propagation equation. Dispersion curves obtained in vitro on phantoms are found consistent with analytical calculations. Least mean squares fitting of curves enables to recover a quantitative assessment of elasticity (standard deviation < 10%).
Suppression of Spurious Emissions From a Spiral Inductor Through the Use of a Frequency-Selective Surface

In this paper, a new concept of adding a band-stop frequency-selective surface (FSS) to suppress spurious emissions from a spiral inductor is proposed. These emissions are especially serious, when the inductor has a wide impedance-matching band. The added FSS is designed to narrow the impedance-matching bandwidth, and lower the radiation efficiency without sacrificing the series inductance and quality factor of the inductor. In particular, an FSS-added spiral inductor is implemented and the measured results show that, all the objectives are achieved. A new FSS for this application is also proposed.
Requirement of the IFN‐α/β‐induced CXCR3 chemokine signalling for CD8+ T cell activation

Background: Activation of both CD4+ T and CD8+ T cells is triggered by the engagement of the T cell antigen receptor (TCR) with MHC/peptide complexes on antigen‐presenting cells. This process also requires other molecular interactions, which transmit co‐stimulatory signals to these T cells. To ensure an effective immune response, distinct T cell subsets may additionally employ unique mechanism(s) for efficient activation.
Conservative surgery for giant cell tumors of the sacrum. The role of cryosurgery as a supplement to curettage and partial excision

Background. Giant cell tumors (GCTs) of the sacrum are a difficult clinical problem. Wide excision (total sacrectomy) is associated with high morbidity and pelvic/spinal instability. Curettage with or without supplemental radiotherapy is associated with a high recurrence rate. In view of the proven effectiveness of cryosurgery as an adjunct to curettage for extremity GCT, cryosurgery was used for treatment of GCTs of the sacrum.
Development of the PROMIS nicotine dependence item banks.

INTRODUCTION Nicotine dependence is a core construct important for understanding cigarette smoking and smoking cessation behavior. This article describes analyses conducted to develop and evaluate item banks for assessing nicotine dependence among daily and nondaily smokers. METHODS Using data from a sample of daily (N = 4,201) and nondaily (N =1,183) smokers, we conducted a series of item factor analyses, item response theory analyses, and differential item functioning analyses (according to gender, age, and race/ethnicity) to arrive at a unidimensional set of nicotine dependence items for daily and nondaily smokers. We also evaluated performance of short forms (SFs) and computer adaptive tests (CATs) to efficiently assess dependence. RESULTS A total of 32 items were included in the Nicotine Dependence item banks; 22 items are common across daily and nondaily smokers, 5 are unique to daily smokers, and 5 are unique to nondaily smokers. For both daily and nondaily smokers, the Nicotine Dependence item banks are strongly unidimensional, highly reliable (reliability = 0.97 and 0.97, respectively), and perform similarly across gender, age, and race/ethnicity groups. SFs common to daily and nondaily smokers consist of 8 and 4 items (reliability = 0.91 and 0.81, respectively). Results from simulated CATs showed that dependence can be assessed with very good precision for most respondents using fewer than 6 items adaptively selected from the item banks. CONCLUSIONS Nicotine dependence on cigarettes can be assessed on the basis of these item banks via one of the SFs, by using CATs, or through a tailored set of items selected for a specific research purpose.
Role of the luxS Gene in Initial Biofilm Formation by Streptococcus mutans

Quorum sensing (QS) is a process by which bacteria communicate with each other by secreting chemical signals called autoinducers (AIs). Among Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria, AI-2 synthesized by the LuxS enzyme is widespread. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of QS luxS gene on initial biofilm formation by Streptococcus mutans. The bacterial cell surface properties, including cell hydrophobicity (bacterial adherence to hydrocarbons) and aggregation, which are important for initial adherence during biofilm development, were investigated. The biofilm adhesion assay was evaluated by the MTT method. The structures of the 5-hour biofilms were observed by using confocal laser scanning microscopy, and QS-related gene expressions were investigated by real-time PCR. The luxS mutant strain exhibited higher biofilm adherence and aggregation, but lower hydrophobicity than the wild-type strain. The confocal laser scanning microscopy images revealed that the wild-type strain tended to form smaller aggregates with uniform distribution, whereas the luxS mutant strain aggregated into distinct clusters easily discernible in the generated biofilm. Most of the genes examined were downregulated in the biofilms formed by the luxS mutant strain, except the gtfB gene. QS luxS gene can affect the initial biofilm formation by S. mutans.
Characteristic Views and the Visual Inspection of Simple Faceted and Smooth Objects: ‘Tetrahedra and Potatoes’

The way in which human subjects distribute their time when attempting to learn the surface appearance of objects placed on a stand free to rotate about its vertical axis was investigated. Experiments were undertaken to establish whether observers concentrate their time on particular views and, if so, to determine the image characteristics of the preferred views. For tetrahedra, subjects concentrated on views which presented a face or an edge centred on the line of sight. Both of these views were symmetric about the vertical axis. For potatoes as examples of opaque smooth objects, subjects concentrated on four views in which the object's principal (long) axis was oriented side-on or end-on to their line of sight. For such views the horizontal width (and surface area) of the object's image had maximum and minimum values. Preferred views were not systematically related to views defined as stable from the appearance of surface boundaries or ‘singularities’.
Mutational Analysis of Substrate Inhibition in Tyrosine Hydroxylase

Abstract: Substrate inhibition in tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) was analyzed by deletion mutagenesis. The deletion mutant TH 156/456 was the smallest section of TH to retain substrate inhibition. The TH 156/456 was monomeric, and so multimer formation does not play a role in substrate inhibition in TH. Further deletion at the N terminus to residue 169 produced a TH molecule with no substrate inhibition but high activity. A mutagenic scan of this region showed that mutations at Trp166 were responsible for this phenotype. A screen of a library of TH molecules containing random mutations identified three other mutants that had lost substrate inhibition but retained high activity. The results in this report are consistent with a model in which substrate inhibition acts through an allosteric mechanism.
Equation and Nomogram for Calculation of Testing and Treatment Thresholds

To the Editor: -According to the threshold model, the choice of a particular clinical strategy, observation vs testing vs treatment, is dictated by the probability of disease’s exceeding two relevant threshold probabilities. ’ If the probability of disease is below the testing threshold (ptt), testing should be withheld. If the probability of disease is above the treatment threshold (prj, then treatment should be given. The test should be performed only if the probability of disease is between the two thresholds. These threshold probabilities can be calculated from the