Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Detection of the c-kit D816V mutation in systemic mastocytosis by allele-specific PCR

Aims: The c-kit D816V activating mutation is found in >80% of cases of systemic mastocytosis (SM) and represents a potential drug target. Furthermore, because D816V is one of the diagnostic criteria for SM, it is clinically relevant to determine whether the mutation is present. Traditional techniques such as DNA sequencing are often not sensitive enough to detect mutations in low-abundance tumour cells, including SM. Here, an allele-specific assay to detect the D816V mutation in DNA from archived formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissues is described. Methods: A two-tube PCR format was employed to amplify c-kit exon 17 as a control and an allele-specific reaction to selectively amplify the D816V mutant allele using standard oligonucleotides. A D816V-mutant plasmid control was generated by site-directed mutagenesis of wild-type cells. 14 cases of SM, one D816V-positive seminoma sample, and 35 cases without SM were analysed using the assay. Results: The assay successfully amplified D816V in the mutant plasmid control, 13/14 cases of SM, and confirmed D816V in a seminoma sample. In addition, D816V was not amplified in 35/35 cases without SM. Serial dilution experiments demonstrated sensitivity down to <1%. Conclusion: A sensitive, specific and cost-effective assay to detect the D816V mutation in archived formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissues from cases of SM has been developed.
Prevalence of primary open angle glaucoma in general ophthalmic practice in the United Kingdom

Aim: To estimate the predicted prevalence of primary open angle glaucoma (POAG) from the activity of a local ophthalmology department. Method: Using clinic audit data, the local incidence and prevalence of POAG in the registered population of two primary care trusts were calculated. Results: The local derived prevalence estimate for POAG was 978 per 100 000 people aged 40–89 years (95% CI 753 to 1272) compared with the expected prevalence from a published model of 1230 people per 100 000 people aged 40–89 years. Conclusion: The derived prevalence was not statistically significantly different from that predicted. Based on the published evidence that about half of the POAG cases are undetected, it would have been expected that local audit figures would have yielded figures about 50% lower than the epidemiological model. The main reason for this higher prevalence is thought to be differences in the diagnostic criteria used. This lack of consensus on the case definition for POAG is a deficit, which will hamper future needs assessment.
Indications, Techniques, and Complications of Lumbar Interbody Fusion

Lumbar interbody arthrodesis is a surgical technique that results in fusion of the anterior column of the spine. The indications for this procedure have evolved over time, and current indications include spinal deformity, segmental instability, and discogenic low back pain. Arthrodesis in the interbody space can be accomplished through anterior or posterior approaches to the spine, and these techniques are discussed. Surgical approaches in performing an interbody arthrodesis can be complicated by nerve and vascular injury. Clinical outcome studies are important in better defining the role of lumbar interbody arthrodesis as a substitute for posterior fusion in the lumbar spine.
Interleukin‐15 mediates protection against experimental tuberculosis: A role for NKG2D‐dependent effector mechanisms of CD8+ T cells

CD8+ T cells are involved in protection against Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection and represent a promising target for new vaccine strategies. Because IL‐15 is important for the homeostasis of CD8+ T cells, we studied the immune response in IL‐15‐deficient mice during tuberculosis. In the absence of IL‐15, CD8+ T cells failed to efficiently accumulate in draining lymph nodes and at the site of infection. The expression of antigen‐specific effector functions, such as the production of interferon‐γ and cytotoxicity, were impaired in CD8+ T cells, but not CD4+ T cells, from IL‐15‐deficient mice. This defect was associated with an increased mortality of IL‐15‐deficient mice during the chronic phase of infection. The lectin‐like stimulatory receptor natural killer group 2D (NKG2D) was up‐regulated on CD8+ T cells only from wild‐type mice, but not from IL‐15‐deficient mice. Mechanistically, blocking NKG2D function with an mAb inhibited M. tuberculosis‐directed CD8+ T cell responses in vitro. We conclude that in addition to regulating the expansion of CD8+ T cells, IL‐15 is also necessary for inducing effector mechanisms in CD8+ T cells that depend on NKG2D expression. Hence, our results implicate IL‐15 and NKG2D as promising targets for modulating CD8+ T cell‐mediated protection against tuberculosis.
Pinpoint Vertical Integration of Spintronic Devices for Reconfigurable Resiliency

While technology scaling increases density and near threshold voltage operation slashes energy consumption, serious reliability concerns such as radiation-induced soft errors and timing violations due to Process Variation (PV) become exacerbated. For instance, the probability of single upsets, and more realistically, multiple upsets, is projected to increase several fold at sealevel for sub-10nm technology nodes. Meanwhile, the existing error mitigation techniques utilize selective spatial or temporal redundancy and/or rollback, which rely heavily on CMOS-based golden elements susceptible to soft errors, or else require area-consuming fortification to mitigate such possibilities. Meanwhile spintronic devices offer radiation immunity and incur near-zero standby energy consumption, making them ideal elements for these golden components. They also realize a fabric of amorphous resources in standby mode to regain lost functionality from hard or intermittent faults, and PV. The challenge is to provide a flexible yet effective mapping of spintronic devices to adapt their functionality for resilience at runtime. Magnetic Tunnel Junction (MTJ)-based Lookup Tables (LUTs) are proposed to be placed at critical points of an ASIC to implement various logic functions as a runtime adaptable fabric under middleware control. Radiation immunity of MTJ devices decrease the susceptibility of these golden elements of the design to radiation-induced errors. Moreover, the pinpointed magnetic LUTs provides the fabric with sufficient reconfigurability features to mitigate PV. The fabric will be leveraged for fault detection and recovery using the adaptive self-healing approaches. Synthesis tools such as Synopsys Design Compiler will be utilized to determine the composition of the fabric, as well as synthesizing and optimizing the HDL codes. MTJs comprising the storage elements in the adaptable LUTs are vertically-integrated as a backend process of typical CMOS fabrication. In addition to soft error immunity, this significantly reduces the area cost of the redundancy. PINPOINT VERTICAL INTEGRATION OF SPINTRONIC DEVICES FOR RECONFIGURABLE RESILIENCY
The Effects of Structural Adjustment on Youth Unemployment in Egypt

The persistence of high unemployment rates in recent years has become a major problem in many MENA countries, especially in Egypt. The aim of this paper is to examine the effects of economic reforms in Egypt on youth unemployment. The paper investigates the extent to which reforms in the early 1990s have led to higher unemployment among the youth in Egypt. The paper presents new evidence on the incidence of youth unemployment before and after the structural adjustment period, in 1988 and 1998. In addition, it examines the determinants of unemployment duration and the probability of exiting unemployment by estimating hazard functions for exits to public sector and private sector employment. The main findings of the paper show that the incidence of youth unemployment has increased during the 1990s. In addition, the empirical evidence suggests that youth unemployment is the result of not only queuing for public sector jobs, but also and more importantly the limited role played by the private sector in job creation and labor absorption.
Controlling Aflatoxin and Fumonisin in Maize by Crop Management

Maize is a vital food and feed grain worldwide. Aflatoxin and fumonisin, mycotoxins produced primarily by the fungi Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus Speare, and Fusarium moniliforme J. Sheld, respectively, are very potent carcinogens in both humans and livestock and can readily contaminate maize grain in the field and in storage. Stress on developing maize, particularly during reproductive growth, facilitates infection by the fungi, production of mycotoxins and contamination of the grain. Drought, excessive heat, inadequate plant nutrition, insect feeding on developing kernels, weeds, excessive plant populations, and other plant diseases can produce plant stress and facilitate the infection of maize grain by mycotoxin producing fungi. Timely planting of adapted hybrids, proper plant nutrition, irrigation, and insect control either by insecticides or the use of transgenic hybrids all assist in curbing mycotoxin contamination. Production practices that produce high yields are basically the same ones that help control mycotoxins. Care must also be exercised in harvesting and handling grain in transport and storage to reduce kernel breakage and prevent contamination. Harvesting early and artificial drying helps reduce the incidence of mycotoxins as well as preventing kernel breakage and stored‐grain insect infestations.
Using Knowledge Graph and Search Query Click Logs in Statistical Language Model for Speech Recognition

This paper demonstrates how Knowledge Graph (KG) and Search Query Click Logs (SQCL) can be leveraged in statistical language models to improve named entity recognition for online speech recognition systems. Due to the missing in the training data, some named entities may be recognized as other common words that have the similar pronunciation. KG and SQCL cover comprehensive and fresh named entities and queries that can be used to mitigate the wrong recognition. First, all the entities located in the same area in KG are clustered together, and the queries that contain the entity names are selected from SQCL as the training data of a geographical statistical language model for each entity cluster. These geographical language models make the unseen named entities less likely to occur during the model training, and can be dynamically switched according to the user location in the recognition phase. Second, if any named entities are identiﬁed in the previous utterances within a conversational dialog, the probability of the n-best word sequence paths that contain their related entities will be increased for the current ut-terance by utilizing the entity relationships from KG and SQCL. This way can leverage the long-term contexts within the dialog. Experiments for the proposed approach on voice queries from a spoken dialog system yielded a 12.5% relative perplexity reduction in the language model measurement, and a 1.1% absolute word error rate reduction in the speech recognition measurement.
Fluorescent dye incorporation causes weakened gene association and intracellular aggregate formation in nonviral carriers

The successful application of nonviral gene transfer technologies requires both improved understanding and control with respect to intracellular trafficking and release. However, the intracellular space is highly complex and hence well‐defined, stable structures are necessary to probe the stages of the delivery pathway. Fluorescent labeling is a regularly used approach to monitor nonviral delivery and release, yet few studies investigate the effects of label incorporation on the structure and activity of gene‐containing vehicles.
Cardiorespiratory parameters in the awake pigeon and during anaesthesia with isoflurane.

OBJECTIVE To determine baseline cardiovascular and respiratory variables in the awake pigeon, and to assess those variables during anaesthesia at the individual minimal anaesthetic concentration (MAC) of isoflurane during spontaneous breathing. STUDY DESIGN Prospective, experimental trial. ANIMALS Seven healthy adult pigeons weighing a mean ± standard deviation (SD) of 438 ± 38 g. METHODS Heart rate (HR), heart rhythm, respiratory rate (fR), end-expired carbon dioxide tension (Pe'CO2), indirect systolic arterial pressure (SAP) and cloacal temperature (T) were measured in birds in the awake state (after acclimatization to handling). Two weeks later, the pigeons were anaesthetized with isoflurane in order to determine their MAC and evaluate the same cardiovascular and respiratory variables during a further 40 minutes of isoflurane anaesthesia. RESULTS In the awake pigeon, mean ± SD HR, SAP, fR, Pe'CO2 and T were, respectively, 155 ± 28 beats minute(-1), 155 ± 21 mmHg, 34 ± 6 breaths minute(-1), 38 ± 8 mmHg (5.1 ± 1.1 kPa) and 41.8 ± 0.5 °C. Mean isoflurane MAC was 1.8 ± 0.4%. During maintenance of anaesthesia at MAC, although no significant decreases between values obtained in the awake and anaesthetized states emerged in HR or respiratory rate, significant decreases in SAP and cloacal temperature and an increase in Pe'CO2 were observed. No arrhythmia was identified in awake pigeons, whereas second- and third-degree atrioventricular blocks occurred under isoflurane. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE Isoflurane MAC in pigeons appeared to be higher than in other avian species. Isoflurane anaesthesia in pigeons resulted in hypercapnia, hypotension, mild hypothermia and second- and third-degree atrioventricular blocks.
The cross-correlation distribution of a p-ary m-sequence of period p2k-1 and its decimated sequence by ( (pk+1)2 / 2(pe+1) )

Families of $m-$sequences with low correlation property have important applications in communication systems. In this paper, for a prime $p\equiv 1\ \mathrm{mod}\ 4$ and an odd integer $k$, we study the cross correlation between a $p$-ary $m$-sequence $\{s_t\}$ of period $p^n-1$ and its decimated sequence $\{s_{dt}\}$, where $d=\frac{(p^k+1)^2}{2(p^e+1)}$, $e|k$ and $n = 2k$. Using quadratic form polynomial theory, we obtain the distribution of the cross correlation which is six-valued. Specially, our results show that the magnitude of the cross correlation is upper bounded by $2\sqrt{p^n}+1$ for $p=5$ and $e=1$, which is meaningful in CDMA communication systems.
HDAC5 integrates ER stress and fasting signals to regulate hepatic fatty acid oxidation[S]

Disregulation of fatty acid oxidation, one of the major mechanisms for maintaining hepatic lipid homeostasis under fasting conditions, leads to hepatic steatosis. Although obesity and type 2 diabetes-induced endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress contribute to hepatic steatosis, it is largely unknown how ER stress regulates fatty acid oxidation. Here we show that fasting glucagon stimulates the dephosphorylation and nuclear translocation of histone deacetylase 5 (HDAC5), where it interacts with PPARα and promotes transcriptional activity of PPARα. As a result, overexpression of HDAC5 but not PPARα binding-deficient HDAC5 in liver improves lipid homeostasis, whereas RNAi-mediated knockdown of HDAC5 deteriorates hepatic steatosis. ER stress inhibits fatty acid oxidation gene expression via calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II-mediated phosphorylation of HDAC5. Most important, hepatic overexpression of a phosphorylation-deficient mutant HDAC5 2SA promotes hepatic fatty acid oxidation gene expression and protects against hepatic steatosis in mice fed a high-fat diet. We have identified HDAC5 as a novel mediator of hepatic fatty acid oxidation by fasting and ER stress signals, and strategies to promote HDAC5 dephosphorylation could serve as new tools for the treatment of obesity-associated hepatic steatosis.
ESNigma: efficient feature selection for echo state networks

The paper introduces a feature selection wrapper designed specifically for Echo State Networks. It defines a feature scoring heuristics, applicable to generic subset search algorithms, which allows to reduce the need for model retraining with respect to wrappers in literature. The experimental assessment on real-word noisy sequential data shows that the proposed method can identify a compact set of relevant, highly predictive features with as little as 60% of the time required by the original wrapper.
Fingerprinting for Web Applications: From Devices to Related Groups

Identifying users and user devices is as important in web applications as in many other contexts. In web applications, user identification usually involves an authentication process, e.g., providing a username and a password. Identification is also possible without explicit authentication using cookies or device fingerprints. Device fingerprinting is also useful for other purposes, e.g., to serve as a second factor of authentication. Recently some interest appeared in the problem of cross-device fingerprinting, i.e., of the identification of the same user in different devices using fingerprinting. We target a variation of the problem that we call related group fingerprinting. We define a related group as a set of persons (e.g., a family) that share the same home network. We devised a related group fingerprinting scheme that we evaluated experimentally with data from hundreds of users. This evaluation suggests that group fingerprinting is feasible.
Effective requirements traceability: Models, tools, and practices

The complexity of telecom systems and their production, coupled with today's globalization of markets, customers, and development teams, have made it critical to define and institutionalize an effective strategy for requirements traceability. Being able to trace the life of requirements from their origin, through their allocation to components, to the finished product provides a basis for collaboration and control of functionality, quality, and changes. With the benefits of current software engineering techniques and tools, organizations can cost-effectively implement traceability aligned with the organization's business goals, software engineering maturity, project attributes, and team culture. Within Alcatel-Lucent, several business units have engaged in implementing traceability and our team has developed an automated traceability environment. Based on these experiences we present a framework of guidelines for designing effective traceability strategies and tools.
Differential diagnosis and treatment of bilateral facial pain after whiplash: a case report

Abstract Study design: Clinical case report. Background: Symptoms in the face and jaw are common after whiplash. Few studies have reported cervicogenic headache in a trigeminal nerve distribution, and no published studies could be found describing such symptoms experienced bilaterally after whiplash. The objective of the current case report was to detail the clinical reasoning and management of an uncommon patient presentation. Case description: The 41-year-old female patient of the current case complained of shooting pain in the jaw, cheek and forehead beginning 7 days after her accident. No imaging was performed, and examination ruled out serious pathology. The patient was treated primarily with deep neck flexor (DNF) and proprioceptive training for 10 visits over an 8-week period. Outcomes: The Numeric Pain Rating Scale improved from 2/10 to 0/10, the Neck Disability Index improved from 17/50 to 1/50, and the Neck Flexor Muscle Endurance Test improved from 13 to 30 s. The patient remained symptom-free at 4-month follow-up. Discussion: The current case report describes a patient presentation unique to the literature. Significant changes were seen by week 3 with DNF and proprioceptive training. Additional research is required to determine the effectiveness of this intervention in similar presentations.
Bond softening in monolayer graphite formed on transition-metal carbide surfaces.

Full phonon-dispersion curves of the graphitic layer on some transition-metal carbides were measured by using high-resolution electron-energy-loss spectroscopy. The graphitic layer on (111) surfaces of TaC, HfC, and TiC showed anomalous softening within the layer, whereas the graphite layer on TaC(001) is similar to bulk graphite. The measured phonon dispersion has been analyzed with a force-constant model, and it has been revealed that the force constants for vertical angle bending and for bond twisting are much weaker in the former case. This is ascribed to the charge transfer into the overlayer from the substrate, resulting in the weakening of the \ensuremath{\pi} bond in graphite. The clear contrast in variations of phonons between the graphitic layer on TaC(111) and that on TaC(001) indicates that the microscopic structure at the interface determines the charge transfer.
Photonic Hat Trick Two independent groups have provided the first experimental demonstration of genuine three-photon interference

Q uantum interference effects lie at the heart of technologies that promise radically new capabilities for sensors, secure communications, and computing. Most existing experiments and applications rely on one photon interfering with itself, or two photons interfering with each other. However, the interference of a larger number of particles leads to a richer variety of phenomena, and may enable more sophisticated applications. Now, two independent groups, the first led by Thomas Jennewein at the University of Waterloo, in Canada [1], the second by Ian Walmsley at the University of Oxford, in the UK [2], have been able to isolate and observe, for the first time, “genuine” interference between three photons, that is, an effect deriving from the quantum interference of three photons that does not originate from two-photon or singlephoton interference. The two studies provide new tools for controlling multiphoton interference, which may help researchers design new fundamental tests of quantum mechanics, quantum-communication protocols, and powerful quantum simulators.
Distributed detection of flooding and gray hole attacks in Wireless Sensor Network

Wireless Sensor Networks(WSN) when sorted out as groups (clusters) increases throughput, energy savings and decreases delay. These types of WSN rely on cluster heads for data aggregation and transmission towards sink node. Subsequently cluster head nodes are outfitted with high energy. Conventional hierarchical routing protocols were not created considering security; they are helpless against Denial of Service (DoS) attacks. In the event that the information supply process is hampered and in this way the normal administrations get to be inaccessible because of the purposeful endeavors of the enemies, we consider this as a Denial of Service (DoS) attack. So in order to address this issue and to disseminate the computational heap of detection complexity among the cluster heads rather than the sink nodes, a distributed intrusion detection scheme (IDS) is developed. Among the various Denial of Service attacks, Flooding attacks consumes the maximum battery life of the sensor node, on the other hand Gray hole attack consumes the minimum battery life of the nodes. Thus based on energy these attacks are distinguished and isolated from the network using the proposed IDS and extensive simulations are carried out using NS2- MANNASIM framework.