Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Short-Term Environmental Conditioning Enhances Tumorigenic Potential of Triple-Negative Breast Cancer Cells

Tumor microenvironments expose cancer cells to heterogeneous, dynamic environments by shifting availability of nutrients, growth factors, and metabolites. Cells integrate various inputs to generate cellular memory that determines trajectories of subsequent phenotypes. Here we report that short-term exposure of triple-negative breast cancer cells to growth factors or targeted inhibitors regulates subsequent tumor initiation. Using breast cancer cells with different driver mutations, we conditioned cells lines with various stimuli for 4 hours before implanting these cells as tumor xenografts and quantifying tumor progression by means of bioluminescence imaging. In the orthotopic model, conditioning a low number of cancer cells with fetal bovine serum led to enhancement of tumor-initiating potential, tumor volume, and liver metastases. Epidermal growth factor and the mTORC1 inhibitor ridaforolimus produced similar but relatively reduced effects on tumorigenic potential. These data show that a short-term stimulus increases tumorigenic phenotypes based on cellular memory. Conditioning regimens failed to alter proliferation or adhesion of cancer cells in vitro or kinase signaling through Akt and ERK measured by multiphoton microscopy in vivo, suggesting that other mechanisms enhanced tumorigenesis. Given the dynamic nature of the tumor environment and time-varying concentrations of small-molecule drugs, this work highlights how variable conditions in tumor environments shape tumor formation, metastasis, and response to therapy.
Factors associated with mortality in persons co-infected with tuberculosis and HIV in Suriname: a retrospective cohort study

ABSTRACT Objective. To identify socio-demographic and clinical factors associated with mortality among persons with tuberculosis (TB) and TB/HIV co-infection in Suriname. Methods. This was a retrospective cohort study using data from the national TB and HIV databases for 2010 – 2015. The survival probability of TB and TB/HIV co-infected patients was analyzed using the Kaplan-Meier estimates and the log-rank test. A Cox proportional hazard model was applied. Results. The study showed that HIV-seropositivity (aHR: 2.08, 95%CI: 1.48 – 2.92) and older age (aHR: 5.84, 95%CI: 3.00 – 11.4) are statistically associated with higher mortality. For the TB/HIV co-infected patients, TB treatment (aHR: 0.43, 95%CI: 0.35 – 0.53) reduces the risk of death. Similarly, HIV treatment started within 56 days (aHR: 0.15, 95%CI: 0.12 – 0.19) and delayed (aHR: 0.25, 95%CI: 0.13 – 0.47) result in less hazard for mortality; Directly-Observed Treatment (aOR: 0.16, 95%CI: 0.09 – 0.29) further reduces the risk. Conclusions. The Ministry of Health of Suriname should develop strategies for early case-finding in key populations, such as for HIV and TB in men 60 years of age and older. Implementation of Isoniazid Preventive Therapy for HIV should be pursued. Scaling up TB and HIV treatment, preferably through supervision, are essential to reducing the TB/HIV mortality.
Cancer Stem Cells of Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphoma Are Not Enriched in the CD45+CD19- cells but in the ALDHhigh Cells

Although the existence of cancer stem cells (CSCs) has been suggested in diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL), there is still no definitive marker. CD45+CD19- has been regarded as a potential marker of CSCs in mantle cell lymphoma (MCL). So, we explored the role of CD45+CD19- in DLBCL. However, both CD45+CD19- cells and CD45+CD19+ cells did not generate tumors until more than 100,000 cells were inoculated in NOD/SCID mice, even CD45+CD19+ cells generated more and larger tumors, as well as the soft agar colony formation in vitro; The aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) activity was also identified in this study. Only 1,500 ALDHhigh cells were enough to generate tumors in mice while the same number of ALDH- cells were not. Moreover, both groups formed tumors when more cells were inoculated, but ALDHhigh cells formed more and larger tumors. The similar result was obtained in vitro clonogenicity experiments. OCT4, SOX2, Nanog, and ABCG2 genes did not show any difference in CD45+CD19+, CD45+CD19-, ALDHhigh and ALDH- cells. Taken together, CSCs are not enriched in the CD45+CD19- cells but in the ALDHhigh cells in DLBCL cell lines.
Clinical audit to determine efficacy of daily infusion of low dose of 20% albumin in combination with antibiotics in patients with spontaneous bacterial peritonitis

Aim of the study The recommended high dose albumin treatment for spontaneous bacterial peritonitis (SBP) is not possible in the Indian setting due to financial constraints. Aim of the study was the retrospective audit to determine the outcome of patients with SBP on combination treatment of low dose albumin and appropriate antibiotics. Material and methods Patients undergoing abdominal paracentesis in the period 2016-2018 were included. Patient details including age, gender, co-morbidity profile, details of previous hospitalisation and antibiotics, MELD score, and ascitic fluid analysis were noted. Details of albumin use and antibiotics were retrieved. SBP was classified based on mode of acquisition of infection and severity risk based on laboratory parameters. Statistics – χ2 test, Mann-Whitney U test, relative risk calculation. A p value of < 0.05 was considered as significant. Results 24 (18.8%), 38 (29.7%) and 66 patients (51.5%) belonged to low, intermediate and high risk SBP groups, respectively. The median dose of albumin was 20 g/day for a median duration of 5 days (range 1-8). Between the 3 subgroups, there was no significant difference in the median age; the majority were men. Antibiotic escalation was necessary in intermediate and high risk cases (42.1% vs. 84.8%, p < 0.0001). The mortality rate in intermediate and high risk groups was 29% and 42%, respectively (p = 0.18). Between the 2 subgroups of intermediate risk, patients with serum bilirubin < 4 mg/dl and serum creatinine > 1 mg/dl were significantly older (54 vs. 49 years, p = 0.02), and had high mortality (40.7% vs. 0%). Cirrhosis-related complications (CRC; one or more in combinations) were more frequent in high risk and intermediate risk patients (p = 0.001) with a 7-8 times higher risk of mortality compared to those who had no CRC. Conclusions Our protocol is associated with high mortality in intermediate and high risk SBP patients. Presence of one or more CRC increases the risk of mortality several fold.
ECHO: A Pilot Health Literacy Intervention to Improve Hypertension Self-Care

Background: Medication adherence and diet and weight control are essential contributors to blood pressure management. Low health literacy is also associated with poor health behaviors and outcomes among adults with hypertension. Objective: This study aims to pilot test the acceptability and feasibility of a brief health literacy intervention focused on hypertension self-care and to assess changes in self-care activities. Methods: We recruited patients with hypertension who were treated at a low-cost clinic. A 2-hour evidence-based class was delivered in Spanish and English, and a telephone follow-up survey was conducted 1 month later. Intervention content included health literacy activities, nutrition education, and medication use. Participants engaged in reading, writing, a group activity, and critical discussion. Health literacy was measured using the Newest Vital Sign and the Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults. Key Results: The intervention was delivered to 52 English- (52%) and Spanish-speaking adults (48%) with a mean age of 52.3 years (SD 7.9). More than one-half had Stage 1 or 2 hypertension (54%), and 56% had inadequate health literacy. At 1-month follow-up, participants showed improvement on all self-care measures with significant mean differences (p < .05) on diet adherence and weight management activities. These improvements were largely among Hispanics and those with low health literacy. Conclusions: Results suggest that teaching targeted self-care skills in a brief health literacy intervention can be effective in improving self-care activities relating to diet and weight management among vulnerable populations. [HLRP: Health Literacy Research and Practice. 2019;3(4):e259–e267. ] Plain Language Summary: This study explored the effects of a 2-hour health education class on self-care behaviors. At the follow-up, participants reported better self-care behaviors. Effects were more pronounced among those with low health literacy, suggesting brief exposure to health education may improve high blood pressure in this population.
Registered Nurses' Knowledge of and Experience with Health Literacy

Background: Limited skill in health literacy is a global issue. Variation in health literacy skills within societies is a source of health inequality unless health care providers apply health literacy practices to effectively communicate with all clients. Objective: This study examined Iranian registered nurses' knowledge of and experience with health literacy practices. Methods: This cross-sectional study provides a quantitative description of knowledge of and experience with health literacy practices. Using a rigorous process, we adapted the Health Literacy Knowledge and Experience Survey to collect data from the participants, who were 190 registered nurses working in Tehran, Iran. Key Results: Findings identify gaps in participants' knowledge and experience with health literacy practices. Knowledge deficits are most noticeable in standards to create written materials, screening tools to identify limited health literacy, and the Teach-Back strategies to determine people's understanding. Limited experience is prominent in using health literacy screening tools, evaluating written health information, and applying technologies to provide health information. Our multivariate analysis suggests participants who reported more interaction with health care professionals for personal reasons scored higher in knowledge of health literacy practices. Conclusions: This study indicated that registered nurses in Iran do not have adequate knowledge and experience regarding health literacy practices. Addressing this issue is fundamental to promoting health equity. Future investigations should identify both barriers and facilitators for nurses to apply health literacy practices. [HLRP: Health Literacy Research and Practice. 2019;3(4):e268–e279. ] Plain Language Summary: Health literacy practices enable health care professionals to offer understandable health information to all people and contribute to health equity. We surveyed 190 registered nurses in Iran to assess their knowledge of and experience with health literacy practices. The findings will be a guide to create interventions to improve registered nurses' knowledge of these practices and to use them to communicate clearly with clients.
Draft genome sequences of Salmonella Oslo isolated from seafood and its laboratory generated auxotrophic mutant

In recent years, the concept of bacteria-mediated cancer therapy has gained significant attention as an alternative to conventional therapy. The focus has been on non-typhoidal Salmonella (NTS), particularly S. Typhimurium, for its anti-cancer properties, however, other NTS serovars such as Salmonella Oslo, which are associated with foodborne illnesses could potentially be effective anti-cancer agents. Here, we report the draft genome sequence of Salmonella Oslo isolated from seafood and its laboratory generated auxotrophic mutant.
Further Investigations on Developing an Arabic Sentiment Lexicon

The availability of lexical resources is huge to accelerate and simplify the sentiment analysis in English. In Arabic, there are few resources and these resources are not comprehensive. Most of the current research efforts for constructing Arabic Sentiment Lexicon (ASL) depend on a large number of lexical entities. However, the coverage of all Arabic sentiment expressions can be applied using refined regular expressions rather than a large number of lexical entities. This paper presents an ASL that more comprehensive than the existing lexicons, for covering many expressions with different dialects including Franco-Arabic, and in the same time more compact. Also, this paper shows how to integrate different lexicons and to refine them. To enrich lexical entries with very robust morphological syntactical information, regular expressions, the weight of sentiment polarity and n-gram terms have been augmented to each
TARGETED MANY-CORE ARCHITECTURE 3 . 1 Fine-Grained Many-Core Architecture

Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) has been lately accepted by NIST as the symmetric key standard for encryption and decryption of blocks of data. In encryption, the AES accepts a plaintext input, which is limited to 128 bits, and a key that can be specified to be 128 bits to generate the Cipher text. By exploring different granularities of data-level and task-level parallelism, we map 16 implementations of an Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) cipher on a field programmable gate array system. In comparison with published AES cipher implementations on general purpose processors. The proposed design has occupied less area and small delay.
A Multi-server ORAM Framework with Constant Client Bandwidth Blowup

Oblivious Random Access Machine (ORAM) allows a client to hide the access pattern when accessing sensitive data on a remote server. It is known that there exists a logarithmic communication lower bound on any passive ORAM construction, where the server only acts as the storage service. This overhead, however, was shown costly for some applications. Several active ORAM schemes with server computation have been proposed to overcome this limitation. However, they mostly rely on costly homomorphic encryptions, whose performance is worse than passive ORAM. In this article, we propose S3ORAM, a new multi-server ORAM framework, which features O(1) client bandwidth blowup and low client storage without relying on costly cryptographic primitives. Our key idea is to harness Shamir Secret Sharing and a multi-party multiplication protocol on applicable binary tree-ORAM paradigms. This strategy allows the client to instruct the server(s) to perform secure and efficient computation on his/her behalf with a low intervention thereby, achieving a constant client bandwidth blowup and low server computational overhead. Our framework can also work atop a general k-ary tree ORAM structure (k ≥ 2). We fully implemented our framework, and strictly evaluated its performance on a commodity cloud platform (Amazon EC2). Our comprehensive experiments confirmed the efficiency of S3ORAM framework, where it is approximately 10× faster than the most efficient passive ORAM (i.e., Path-ORAM) for a moderate network bandwidth while being three orders of magnitude faster than active ORAM with O(1) bandwidth blowup (i.e., Onion-ORAM). We have open-sourced the implementation of our framework for public testing and adaptation.
Improved Estimates of Vegetation Biophysical Variables from Satellite Observations using Spatial and Temporal Constraints

A new method for estimating canopy biophysical variables from the satellite observations is developed based on a variational assimilation technique. This allows accounting for the spatial and temporal constraints in the estimation process of crop characteristics. Inversion will be achieved concurrently over an ensemble of pixels belonging to a spatial and temporal window. This ensures the problem to be better posed than when solved over single pixels and dates. Atmospheric characteristics are assumed steady within the spatial window, but vary from date to date. Conversely, surface characteristics are assumed to be steady within the limited temporal window, but spatially variable. This paper explains the variational assimilation theory used here, the surface and atmosphere radiative transfer models considered, and the ensemble assimilation scheme applied to account for the spatial and temporal constraints.
Continuous Control in Bearing-only Localization

In this work we model localization in the context of source seeking with drones. Specifically, we show how an autonomous drone fitted with radio antennas can minimize uncertainty over belief of a radio target. We model the problem as a belief Markov decision process and use deep deterministic policy gradient and twin delayed deep deterministic policy gradient as controllers.
The Goldilocks Zone and Geometric Features of High-Dimensional Parameter Spaces

Recently, it has been proposed that neural networks exhibit a ‘Goldilocks Zone’: a region in parameter space of low loss and high generalization accuracy, located in a hyper-annulus where the sum of squared weights is not too small and not too large. In this project, I report that neural networks trained on the CIFAR-10 dataset exhibit this phenomenon. I also explain some of the observed behaviors using geometric arguments about high-dimensional spaces.
An exploration of the facilitators and barriers for people with osteoarthritis to engage in exercise

Background/Aims: The benefits of exercise on general health are well publicised and indeed more so for people with osteoarthritis, but there is a lack of engagement in exercise by the general public, and further lack of engagement by people with osteoarthritis. The reasons for this are not known, despite the clear benefits for both groups. The aim of the study was to explore the perceptions of patient and public involvement representatives with osteoarthritis on the facilitators and barriers for their engagement with exercise. Methods: Using a qualitative semi-structured interview, transcripts of the participants' conversations with the interviewer were analysed using thematic analysis. Findings: Seven separate themes were identified. These were: type of exercise; benefits of exercise; drawbacks of exercise; effects of exercise; public information; psychological impact; and social support. The main findings indicate: When a person knows and understands the health benefits of exercise, then they are more l.
Ordered response model approach

Paper analyses subjective economic welfare and well-being in Polish households. The study is based on the Household Budget Survey carried out by the Central Statistical Office in Poland. Subjective measures are estimated using households’ answers to questions about the own satisfaction with their financial situation. The inspiration for this research comes from Schwarze’s article [2003] where ordered logit model was applied to estimate the equivalence scale elasticity. Such model implicitly assumes that the effects of the explanatory variables are identical at each cut-off point between categories, what is known as the “parallel regression assumption”. Paper indicates the violation of this assumption for the sample of Polish households of retirees as the whole, while the assumption cannot be rejected when we exclude the poorest and richest households. Some of the paper’s results are similar to typical findings in poverty research, such as U-shaped relationship between age and subjective income satisfaction. Different results are found with regard to gender of household head. Also, as compared with other research for Polish data, the method applied here produces higher equivalence scale elasticity.
Fake Review Detection on Yelp Restaurant Data

Online product reviews are a fundamental part of the decision making process for customers in e-commerce. These reviews can be classified as positive/negative based on the way they describe the product/venue. They are very influential in making a product successful/unsuccessful by leading people to choose the wrong product. Our project tackles the problem of spam/fake reviews by developing a model, which could classify a given review as either fake or genuine, thereby helping to make more meaningful review information available to the customers. We worked with 6 different models Multinomial Naive Bayes, Logistic Regression, Neural Networks, CNNs, Gradient Tree Boosting and BER. BERT has the highest accuracy of 75%.
How to Develop Proper Communication in Company Combination with Topologies

Many companies are using computer networks in modern days because to make easy their works. Not like earlier, it is actually easy to work with computer networks. People use different topologies to communicate with networks. There are different kind of topologies in the world. For an examples Ring, bus, Mess, Star, etc. Not only that wireless technology has vastly developed within 5 years. Although there are some difficulties when communicating in networks. It is hard to categorize different access levels in network. Many companies are using networks to communicate. Many of them used different topologies to communicate. Therefore those researches face so many difficulties while communication. For an example in ring topology if one cable broken down there is no way to fulfill the communication. Modern days lot of companies do not involve with Network topologies because it is not efficient. Consider both topologies and wireless together, these fields are different fields in network. Although combination of both together it can made efficient network topology with wireless technology. From this concept it helps to made proper network topology. This conceptual schema helps to do communication most secure and
Natural Language Texts for Causal Inference in Randomized Experiments

We proposed a framework using supervised learning and NLP models to evaluate the causal effect of an intervention as measured by free-texts. We designed our own experiment and collected original data. Our work can be broken down into two tasks: first we explored different word embeddings and classifiers to predict which intervention a participant has been assigned to based on their post-intervention response. Then using the classifier’s training accuracy, we performed permutation tests to evaluate if the difference between the intervention and control group is significant. Our classifier achieved 0.81 5-fold cross validation accuracy and 0.84 accuracy on test data. The final result concluded that the interventions indeed had causal effects on the participants in our experiment.
Evaluation of Antioxidant Activity of Aqueous and Ethanolic Extracts of Myrianthus Holstii (Cecropiaceae) Barks, in Vitro

Original Research Article The purpose of this study is to evaluate the antioxidant activity of Myrianthus holstii (Cecropiaceae), a plant used in traditional medicine against gastroenteritis in western Côte d'Ivoire (Man). The extraction yields of the ethanolic extract (EE) and the aqueous extract are respectively 6.4% and 7.95%. Determination of the total phenol content by the colorimetric method gave the following results: EAeC (27.67 ± 1.45 mg EAG / g of extracts) and EEec (428.70 ± 1.67 mg EAG / g of extracts). The flavonoid assay using the AlCl3 aluminum chlorides method gave the following results: EAec (12 ± 0.57 EQ / g extracts) and EEec (53.33 ± 3.75 EQ / g of extracts). The evaluation of the antioxidant activity of extracts was carried out according two methods: the free radical scavenging by the DPPH and the measurement of the reducing power (FRAP). The results obtained indicate that ethanolic extract contains more polyphenolic compounds than the aqueous extract. Ethanolic extract (EAec) antioxidant properties (EEec, IC50 = 03.20 ± 0.45 mg/mL) are also greater than those of the aqueous extract (EAec, IC50 = 43.30 ± 0.40 mg/mL). This antioxidant activity which remains close to that of vitamin C (01.25 ± 0.02) could represent an additional asset in the management of pathologies linked to oxidative stress.