Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Afebrile Plasmodium falciparum parasitemia decreases absorption of fortification iron but does not affect systemic iron utilization: a double stable-isotope study in young Beninese women.

BACKGROUND Iron deficiency anemia (IDA) affects many young women in sub-Saharan Africa. Its etiology is multifactorial, but the major cause is low dietary iron bioavailability exacerbated by parasitic infections such as malaria. OBJECTIVE We investigated whether asymptomatic Plasmodium falciparum parasitemia in Beninese women would impair absorption of dietary iron or utilization of circulating iron. DESIGN Iron absorption and utilization from an iron-fortified sorghum-based meal were estimated by using oral and intravenous isotope labels in 23 afebrile women with a positive malaria smear (asexual P. falciparum parasitemia; > 500 parasites/μL blood). The women were studied while infected, treated, and then restudied 10 d after treatment. Iron status, hepcidin, and inflammation indexes were measured before and after treatment. RESULTS Treatment reduced low-grade inflammation, as reflected by decreases in serum ferritin, C-reactive protein, interleukin-6, interleukin-8, and interleukin-10 (P < 0.05); this was accompanied by a reduction in median serum hepcidin of ≈ 50%, from 2.7 to 1.4 nmol/L (P < 0.005). Treatment decreased serum erythropoietin and growth differentiation factor 15 (P < 0.05). Clearance of parasitemia increased geometric mean dietary iron absorption (from 10.2% to 17.6%; P = 0.008) but did not affect systemic iron utilization (85.0% compared with 83.1%; NS). CONCLUSIONS Dietary iron absorption is reduced by ≈ 40% in asymptomatic P. falciparum parasitemia, likely because of low-grade inflammation and its modulation of circulating hepcidin. Because asymptomatic parasitemia has a protracted course and is very common in malarial areas, this effect may contribute to IDA and blunt the efficacy of iron supplementation and fortification programs. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT01108939.
Keyword-Based Sentiment Mining using Twitter

Big Data are the new frontier for businesses and governments alike. Dealing with big data and extracting valuable and actionable knowledge from it poses one of the biggest challenges in computing and, simultaneously, provides one of the greatest opportunities for business, government and society alike. The content produced by the social media community and in particular the micro blogging community reflects one of the most opinion-and knowledge-rich, real-time accessible, expressive and diverse data sources, both in terms of content itself as well as context related knowledge such as user profiles including user relations. Harnessing the embedded knowledge and in particular the underlying opinion about certain topics and gaining a deeper understanding of the overall context will provide new opportunities in the inclusion of user opinions and preferences. This paper discusses a keyword-based classifier for short message based sentiment mining. It outlines a simple classification mechanism that has the potential to be extended to include additional sentiment dimensions. Eventually, this could provide a deeper understanding about user preferences, which in turn could actively and in almost real time influence further development activities or marketing campaigns.
Collaborative depression treatment in older and younger adults with physical illness: pooled comparative analysis of three randomized clinical trials.

OBJECTIVE There have been few comparisons of the effectiveness of collaborative depression care between older versus younger adults with comorbid illness, particularly among low-income populations. DESIGN Intent-to-treat analyses are conducted on pooled data from three randomized controlled trials that tested collaborative care aimed at improving depression, quality of life, and treatment receipt. SETTINGS Trials were conducted in oncology and primary care safety net clinics and diverse home healthcare programs. PARTICIPANTS Thousand eighty-one patients with major depressive symptoms and cancer, diabetes, or other comorbid illness. INTERVENTION Similar intervention protocols included patient, provider, sociocultural, and organizational adaptations. MEASUREMENTS The Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ)-9 depression, Short-Form Health Survey-12/20 quality of life, self-reported hospitalization, ER, intensive care unit utilization, and antidepressant, psychotherapy treatment receipt are assessed at baseline, 6, and 12 months. RESULTS There are no significant differences in reducing depression symptoms (p ranged 0.18-0.58), improving quality of life (t = 1.86, df = 669, p = 0.07 for physical functioning at 12 months, and p ranged 0.23-0.99 for all others) patients aged between >/=60 years versus 18-59 years. Both age group intervention patients have significantly higher rates of a 50% PHQ-9 reduction (older: Wald chi[df = 1] = 4.82, p = 0.03; younger: Wald chi[df = 1] = 6.47, p = 0.02), greater reduction in major depression rates (older: Wald chi[df = 1] = 7.72, p = 0.01; younger: Wald chi[df = 1] = 4.0, p = 0.05) than enhanced-usual-care patients at 6 months and no significant age group differences in treatment type or intensity. CONCLUSION Collaborative depression care in individuals with comorbid illness is as effective in reducing depression in older patients as younger patients, including among low-income, minority patients. Patient, provider, and organizational adaptations of depression care management models may contribute to positive outcomes.
Structures of Azaspiracid Analogs, Azaspiracid-4 and Azaspiracid-5, Causative Toxins of Azaspiracid Poisoning in Europe

Two new analogs of azaspiracid, azaspiracid-4 and azaspiracid-5, isolated from the mussel Mytilus edulis, involved in a newly emerged shellfish poisoning in Europe were determined to be 3-hydroxy-22-demethylazaspiracid and 23-hydroxy-22-demethylazaspiracid, respectively.
Notch and Minichromosome Maintenance (MCM) Proteins: Integration of Two Ancestral Pathways in Cell Cycle Control

Notch transmembrane receptors govern a highly evolutionarily conserved intercellular signaling mechanism activated by the engagement of Notch receptors by their cognate ligands expressed on neighboring cells. The subsequently cleaved intracellular domain of Notch receptors translocates to the nucleus where it interacts with the transcriptional regulator CSL, thereby regulating expression of target genes. The Notch pathway controls cell fate by regulating proliferation, differentiation, and apoptosis. Mini-chromosome maintenance (MCM) proteins are components of the pre-replicative complex (pre-RC) that are essential for DNA replication. It has recently been shown that activated Notch downregulates mini-chromosome-maintenance (MCM) proteins MCM2 and MCM6 by a CSL-dependent mechanism. Here, we review the canonical pathway mediated by Notch receptors and discuss recent findings connecting the Notch pathway with the ancestral MCM complex during cell cycle progression.
Minimum Transmit Power NOMA Beamforming for Millimeter-Wave Communications

In order to improve the spectral efficiency of downlink in a multiuser system, nonorthogonal multiple access (NOMA) has been extensively studied for 5th generation (5G) systems. NOMA allows a group of users to share a given channel by exploiting the power difference. Since downlink multiuser beamforming can also be used to support multiple users for a given channel, in this paper, we combine NOMA and downlink beamforming for a millimeter (mm)-wave multiuser system. Since the performances of NOMA and downlink beamforming depend on the channel conditions, we consider a problem formulation that incorporates NOMA in multiuser beamforming selectively depending on the channel conditions. As a result, we can have NOMA beamforming that can outperform conventional beamforming for mm-wave channels.
Enhancing Machine Translation of Academic Course Catalogues with Terminological Resources

This paper describes an approach to translating course unit descriptions from Italian and German into English, using a phrase-based machine translation (MT) system. The genre is very prominent among those requiring translation by universities in European countries in which English is a non-native language. For each language combination, an in-domain bilingual corpus including course unit and degree program descriptions is used to train an MT engine, whose output is then compared to a baseline engine trained on the Europarl corpus. In a subsequent experiment, a bilingual terminology database is added to the training sets in both engines and its impact on the output quality is evaluated based on BLEU and post-editing score. Results suggest that the use of domain-specific corpora boosts the engines quality for both language combinations, especially for German-English, whereas adding terminological resources does not seem to bring notable benefits.
Imaging Memory Encoding in Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) using fMRI

Episodic memory declines with age and is the most prominent and earliest domains of cognitive impairment in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). To further improve our understanding of the pathophysiological mechanisms behind the memory decline seen in AD this thesis used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the neuronal activity during successful encoding in cognitively intact individuals (controls) and individuals diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Individuals with MCI are considered to be at risk of AD, with a yearly conversion rate of 15-20%, and likely harbor early AD pathology, particularly in the posteromedial cortex (PMC). The main goal of this thesis was to investigate whether the MCI individuals would demonstrate altered functional memory processes, particularly in the hippocampus and PMC, as compared to healthy control subjects. In accordance with the hypothesis, the results demonstrated that MCI subjects failed to show deactivation in the PMC compared to healthy controls. In addition, although both the groups demonstrated significant bilateral activation in the hippocampus, the MCI showed a paradoxical hyperactivation in the hippocampus compared to the controls. These results are consistent with previous studies and suggest a possible compensatory mechanism in the MCI subjects, most likely due to accumulation of AD pathology. The current results are potentially very important because it marks the memory processes in the PMC and the hippocampus as an early indicator of dysfunction, indicating that testing memory function with fMRI could provide a useful diagnostic marker that may be used to identify individuals in a preclinical (that is, asymptomatic) stage of AD.
Assessing the Impact of Innovation Generation on Adaptability in Electronic supply Chains

This paper aims to examine how information technology infrastructure flexibility interacts with innovation generation influencing the adaptability in electronic supply chains. A novel research model comprises three constructs and three research hypotheses, with innovation generation as mediating constructs. The empirical study is conducted on electronic supply chains, with data collected from Taiwan’s manufacturing firms. The findings of the study provide useful insights into how electronic supply chain members should reinforce their open innovation via enhancing the innovation generation and in turn enhance the adaptability for the electronic supply chain as a whole.
Prowling wolves in sheep's clothing: the search for tumor stem cells

Abstract The importance of a subset of cells which have ‘stem like’ characteristics and are capable of tumor initiation has been reported for a range of tumors. Isolation of these tumor-initiating cells (TICs) has largely been based on differential cell surface protein expression. However, there is still much debate on the functional significance of these markers in initiating tumors, as many properties of tumor initiation are modified by cell-cell interactions. In particular, the relationship between TICs and their microenvironment is poorly understood but has therapeutic implications, as the microenvironment can maintain tumor cells in a prolonged period of quiescence. However, a major limitation in advancing our understanding of the crosstalk between TICs and their microenvironment is the lack of sensitive techniques which allow the in vivo tracking and monitoring of TICs. Application of new in vivo cellular and molecular imaging technologies holds much promise in uncovering the mysteries of TIC behavior at the three-dimensional level. This review will describe recent advances in our understanding of the TIC concept and how the application of in vivo imaging techniques can advance our understanding of the biological fate of TICs. A supplementary resource guide describing TICs from different malignancies is also presented.
Ameliorative Potential of Spirulina platensis against Lead Acetate Induced ImmunoSuppression and Kidney Apoptosis in Rats

Background: Environmental toxicants have been found to induce multiple adverse effects on human and animal’s body organs including, kidney and immune system. Presently, this experiment was designed to assess the nephro-protective and immune-stimulant effects of spirulina platensis microalgae against lead acetate induced attenuated body immune response and oxidative renal damages. Methods: 40 male albino rats were randomly divided into equal 4 groups. In comparison with control (C) group. Animals were received spirulina platenesis (300 mg/kg b. wt, orally) and/ or lead acetate (50 mg/kg b.wt, IP) for 4 weeks. Samples were collected at the end of the experimental period. Protective effects of SP were checked by measuring selective hematological, immunological and biochemical tests, besides histopathological and immunohistochemical investigations. Results: Co-exposed SP/LD rats showed significant (P < 0.05) suppression in the levels of LD induced –elevated urea, creatinine, MDA, MCV, retics%, and caspaes-3 over-expression, in contrast, they evoked significant elevation in LD-induced depleting GSH, SOD, IgG, IgM, hypoproteinemia, hypo-albuminemia, hypo-gamma-globulinemia, RBCs, Hb, PCV, MCHC, WBCs, Lymphocytes, and CD8 down-expression. Additionally, SP restored the renal histological structure near the normal. Conclusion: SP protects from toxic immunological, hematological, and nephrotoxic impacts of LD through its powerful free radical-scavenging, antioxidant, and immunostimulant activities.
Graph Embedding aided Relationship Prediction in Heterogeneous Networks CS 512 Project Report

We consider the problem of predicting relationships in largescale heterogeneous networks. For example, one can try to predict if a researcher will publish at a conference (eg: VLDB) given her previous publications, or try to anticipate if two reputed researchers working in the same area will collaborate. The main challenge is to extract latent information from such real-world networks which are typically sparse. However, existing relationship prediction techniques do not take into account the sparsity of real-world networks. Our contributions in this project are two-fold: 1) we develop methods to combat network sparsity by using node similarities obtained from state-of-the-art embedding techniques, and 2) we describe how to enrich the original sparse network with latent relationships to further improve the quality of embedding, and consequently the prediction performance of our method. By evaluating under different scenarios, we demonstrate that in practice, our methods are highly effective in predicting relationships in sparse networks, and improve the accuracy by up to 47% over existing techniques.
Volume-dependent compliance and ventilation-perfusion mismatch in surfactant-depleted isolated rabbit lungs

ObjectiveVolume-dependent alterations of lung compliance are usually studied over a very large volume range. However, the course of compliance within the comparably small tidal volume (intratidal compliance-volume curve) may also provide relevant information about the impact of mechanical ventilation on pulmonary gas exchange. Consequently, we determined the association of the distribution of ventilation and perfusion with the intratidal compliance-volume curve after modification of positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP). DesignRepeated measurements in randomized order. SettingAn animal laboratory. SubjectsIsolated perfused rabbit lungs (n = 14). InterventionsSurfactant was removed by bronchoalveolar lavage. The lungs were ventilated thereafter with a constant tidal volume (10 mL/kg body weight). Five levels of PEEP (0–4 cm H2O) were applied in random order for 20 mins each. Measurements and Main Results The intratidal compliance-volume curve was determined with the slice method for each PEEP level. Concurrently, pulmonary gas exchange was assessed by the multiple inert gas elimination technique. At a PEEP of 0–1 cm H2O, the intratidal compliance-volume curve was formed a bow with downward concavity. At a PEEP of 2 cm H2O, concavity was minimal or compliance was almost constant, whereas higher PEEP levels (3–4 cm H2O) resulted in a decrease of compliance within tidal inflation. Pulmonary gas exchange did not differ between PEEP levels of of 0, 1, and 2 cm H2O. Pulmonary shunt was lowest and perfusion of alveoli with a normal ventilation-perfusion was highest at a PEEP of 3–4 cm H2O. Deadspace ventilation did not change significantly but tended to increase with PEEP. ConclusionsAn increase of compliance at the very beginning of tidal inflation was associated with impaired pulmonary gas exchange, indicating insufficient alveolar recruitment by the PEEP level. Consequently, the lowest PEEP level preventing alveolar atelectasis could be detected by analyzing the course of compliance within tidal volume without the need for total lung inflation.
Stability and performance optimization of InGaAs-OI and GeOI hetero-channel SRAM cells

InGaAs-OI and GeOI SRAM cells using optimized threshold voltage (Vt) design to enhance the intrinsic variation immunity of high-performance (super-threshold) and low-voltage (near-/sub-threshold) 6T SRAM cells are presented. For low-voltage SRAMs operating at low Vdd, low-Vt design shows smaller variability while the design trade-off between performance and leakage should be considered. For high-performance SRAMs operating at high Vdd, high-Vt design shows smaller variability. Moreover, compared with the SOI SRAMs with high-Vt design, InGaAs-OI/GeOI hetero-channel SRAM cells with high-Vt design exhibit improved Read/Write stability and performance, and maintain comparable RSNM variations for the high-performance SRAM applications.
A miniaturized piezoelectric turbine with self-regulation for increased air speed range

This paper presents the design and demonstration of a piezoelectric turbine with self-regulation for increased air speed range. The turbine's transduction is achieved by magnetic “plucking” of a piezoelectric beam by the passing rotor. The increased speed range is achieved by the self-regulating mechanism which can dynamically adjust the magnetic coupling between the magnets on the turbine rotor and the piezoelectric beam using a micro-spring. The spring is controlled passively by the centrifugal force of the magnet on the rotor. This mechanism automatically changes the relative position of the magnets at different rotational speeds, making the coupling weak at low airflow speeds and strong at high speeds. Hence, the device can start up with a low airflow speed, and the output power can be ensured when the airflow speed is high. A theoretical model was established to analyse the turbine's performance, advantages, and to optimize its design parameters. A prototype was fabricated and tested in a wind tunnel. The start-up airflow speed was 2.34 m/s, showing a 30% improvement against a harvester without the mechanism.
IITP at SemEval-2017 Task 8 : A Supervised Approach for Rumour Evaluation

This paper describes our system participation in the SemEval-2017 Task 8 ‘RumourEval: Determining rumour veracity and support for rumours’. The objective of this task was to predict the stance and veracity of the underlying rumour. We propose a supervised classification approach employing several lexical, content and twitter specific features for learning. Evaluation shows promising results for both the problems.
Control and Optimization of Coherence of a Nano-Sized Spin-Torque Microwave Oscillator for Military Nano-Electronics

Abstract : A theory of generation linewidth of a spin-torque oscillator (STO) based on an in-plane magnetized nanopillar with an anisotropic 'free' magnetic layer has been developed. It is shown that the coherent properties of microwave generation strongly depend on the direction and magnitude of the in-plane bias magnetic field. In particular, it is predicted that by choosing the direction of the bias field H(O) along the 'hard' anisotropy axis of the STO 'free' layer and the magnitude of this field to be four times larger than the anisotropy field H(A) (H(O) 4H(A)) it would be possible to compensate the nonlinear phase noise and to achieve the minimum value of the generation linewidth, characteristic for an auto-oscillator without a nonlinear frequency shift. The developed theory of STO creates a possibility to unite nano-magnetism and microwave theory, and to develop a basis for a novel nano-spintronic microwave technology - the technology of nano-sized tunable microwave oscillators that are insensitive to ionizing radiation and, therefore, are suitable for applications in the future military nano-electronic integrated circuits.
Immunization after the elective end of antineoplastic chemotherapy in children

The aim of the present commentary is to discuss the multifaceted topic of vaccinations after treatment for cancer in the pediatric age. Publications in this field reveal conflicting data and opinions; no evidence‐based guidelines currently exist. However, in spite of several discrepancies some commonly accepted information and conclusions exist. Efforts to find a common strategy of re‐immunization should be directed towards setting up prospective studies on sufficient numbers of patients to obtain statistically relevant end points. Pediatr Blood Cancer 2009;52:165–168. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Transoesophageal echocardiography for the detection and quantification of pleural fluid in cardiac surgical patients.

BACKGROUND Transoesophageal echocardiography (TOE) can image pleural fluid. Left pleural collections may be easier to detect than right, as the thoracic aorta serves as an acoustic window. Attempts to quantify pleural fluid using TOE are restricted to a case report in which volume was predicted by multiplying maximal cross-sectional area (CSA(max)) by axial length (AL). A computed tomography (CT) derived formula for quantifying pleural effusions is maximal effusion depth squared (d2) multiplied by maximal effusion length. METHODS Eight patients were studied before chest closure following coronary bypass surgery. Fifty millilitre saline aliquots were instilled into the pleural space until detected by TOE. Saline was then instilled up to the next 200 ml increment and further 200 ml aliquots added until it spilled from the pleural space. CSA(max), d and AL were measured for each stage and used to calculate pleural fluid volume. RESULTS Median detection volume (range) was 125 ml (50-200) on the left and 225 ml (150-300) on the right (P = 0.016). Volume calculated by CSA(max) x AL correlated strongly with actual volume (r2 = 0.93 left and 0.92 right) as did volume calculated by d2 x AL (r2 = 0.86 left and 0.89 right). Mean difference between volume calculated by CSA(max) x AL and actual volume was - 51 ml on the left and 45 ml on the right vs - 253 ml on the left and - 212 ml on the right for volume calculated by d2 x AL. CONCLUSIONS TOE detects small volumes of pleural fluid on both sides of the chest. CSA(max) x AL provides a reasonably accurate measure of pleural fluid volume.