Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
THE EXTRACELLULAR SPACE IN THE TOAD RETINA AS DEFINED BY THE DISTRIBUTION OF FERROCYANIDE

Measurements of the uptake of compounds that ordinarily do not penetrate into cells have been a source of data on the size of the extracellular space in nervous tissue. The distribution of one such compound, ferrocyanide, has been studied in the toad retina by means of the light and electron microscopes. At the level of the light microscope, ferrocyanide, detected as Prussian blue, appears to penetrate predominantly within the inner processes of Müller cells. A diffuse background staining by Prussian blue can be noticed also at the inner retinal layers. At the level of the electron microscope, Müller cells exhibit an extensively developed system of channels which are formed by infoldings of the plasma membrane. Ferrocyanide, detected as copper ferrocyanide deposits, is found occupying the lumina of these channels and in the narrow intercellular gaps of the retina. These observations indicate that in the toad retina the extracellular medium includes the intercellular spaces plus a glial compartment formed by the infoldings of the plasma membrane of the Müller cells.
Comparison of zotarolimus-eluting and everolimus-eluting coronary stents.

BACKGROUND New-generation coronary stents that release zotarolimus or everolimus have been shown to reduce the risk of restenosis. However, it is unclear whether there are differences in efficacy and safety between the two types of stents on the basis of prospectively adjudicated end points endorsed by the Food and Drug Administration. METHODS In this multicenter, noninferiority trial with minimal exclusion criteria, we randomly assigned 2292 patients to undergo treatment with coronary stents releasing either zotarolimus or everolimus. Twenty percent of patients were randomly selected for repeat angiography at 13 months. The primary end point was target-lesion failure, defined as a composite of death from cardiac causes, any myocardial infarction (not clearly attributable to a nontarget vessel), or clinically indicated target-lesion revascularization within 12 months. The secondary angiographic end point was the extent of in-stent stenosis at 13 months. RESULTS At least one off-label criterion for stent placement was present in 66% of patients. The zotarolimus-eluting stent was noninferior to the everolimus-eluting stent with respect to the primary end point, which occurred in 8.2% and 8.3% of patients, respectively (P<0.001 for noninferiority). There were no significant between-group differences in the rate of death from cardiac causes, any myocardial infarction, or revascularization. The rate of stent thrombosis was 2.3% in the zotarolimus-stent group and 1.5% in the everolimus-stent group (P=0.17). The zotarolimus-eluting stent was also noninferior regarding the degree (+/-SD) of in-stent stenosis (21.65+/-14.42% for zotarolimus vs. 19.76+/-14.64% for everolimus, P=0.04 for noninferiority). In-stent late lumen loss was 0.27+/-0.43 mm in the zotarolimus-stent group versus 0.19+/-0.40 mm in the everolimus-stent group (P=0.08). There were no significant between-group differences in the rate of adverse events. CONCLUSIONS At 13 months, the new-generation zotarolimus-eluting stent was found to be noninferior to the everolimus-eluting stent in a population of patients who had minimal exclusion criteria. (ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00617084.)
Níveis de autocompaixão, regulação emocional e síndrome de burnout em professores da Educação Básica

O objetivo geral do artigo foi identificar os níveis de autocompaixão, regulação emocional e perfis de esgotamento profissional em professores da Educação Básica. O estudo foi realizado com 243 profissionais da Educação Básica da rede pública estadual de ensino dos municípios de Aracaju e interior da Bahia. Foram utilizados os seguintes questionários: Questionário Sociodemográfico, Escala de Autocompaixão e Questionário de Regulação Emocional. As informações coletadas foram analisadas por meio de estatística descritiva, utilizando o Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). Os professores distanciam-se do seu próprio conteúdo emocional, através da estratégia de supressão emocional, característica do perfil de exaustão frenética. Os perfis desgastados e subdesafiado estão presentes, mais caracteristicamente, nos docentes, com maior experiência na profissão. A pesquisa acrescenta mais evidências ao acervo de indicadores negativos de saúde mental nesta população trabalhadora.
Prioritizing Data Acquisition for end-to-end Speech Model Improvement

As speech processing moves toward more data-hungry models, data selection and acquisition become crucial to building better systems. Recent efforts have championed quantity over quality, following the mantra “The more data, the better. ” However, not every data brings the same benefit. This paper proposes a data acquisition solution that yields better models with less data – and lower cost. Given a model, a task, and an objective to maximize, we propose a process with three steps. First, we assess the model’s baseline performance on the task. Second, we use efficient mining techniques to identify subgroups that maximize the target objective if acquired first as new samples. Being the subgroups interpretable, we can determine which samples to acquire. Third, we run incremental training sampling from those subgroups. Experiments with two state-of-the-art speech models for Intent Classification across two datasets in English and Italian show that our method is significantly better than random or complete acquisition and clustering-based techniques.
Improved 3D Model Search for Facial Feature Location and Pose Estimation in 2D images

This paper tackles the problem of accurately matching a 3D deformable face model to sequences of images in challenging real-world scenarios with large amounts of head movement, occlusion, and difficult lighting conditions. A baseline system involves searching with a set of view-dependent local patches to locate image features, and using these to update the face shape model parameters. We show here two modifications that lead to improvements in performance and can be applied in other similar systems. These are: explicitly searching for occluding boundaries, which prevents the model from rotating rather than changing shape; and a simple method for weighting the relative importance of each located match for model fit. We demonstrate the improvements on both standard test sets and on a series of difficult in-car driver videos, showing more accurate matching and fewer search failures.
A Trust Discovery Model Based on Weighted Closeness

In order to improve the trustworthiness of network and decrease the cheating behavior among the nodes in the network, a model for trust discovery based on weighted closeness (WCTD) is presented. This model considers the factors such as the transition fading, time decay, and weights of the path and so on when performing the trust path searching and choosing. So trustor can find the node which satisfies its demand with low time complexity and perform the transaction with it. The combination of the trust path is realized by the weighted closeness and the policy to inhibit the malicious recommendation is given. Finally, the experiment has shown that this model has improved the trustworthiness of the network comparing with the existed trust model. The trust combination based on weighted closeness can be used in various trust models and it has better adaptability.
Possible ENSO Influences on the Northwestern Tibetan Plateau Revealed by Annually Resolved Ice Core Records

Two annually resolved ice core records, one drilled on Mutztagata (7,000 m above sea level) on the western slope (dated 1952–2002) and the other drilled on Kuokuosele (5,600 m above sea level) on the southwestern slope (dated 1900–2010) of the Pamir Plateau of the northwestern Tibetan Plateau (TP), were selected to study possible El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) influences on the northwestern TP. δ18O at KKSL was more enriched, though both records varied in phase. Eight of the 10 noticeably strong El Niño events since 1955 corresponded to δ18O depletions in both ice core records, which were followed by δ18O enrichment. Atmospheric circulation indices, including water vapor flux and divergence, had a coincidence of a positive Indian Ocean Dipole mode with El Niño events, which contributed to the northward transport of southerly flows from the western Indian Ocean; its convergence with midlatitude wind flows at high levels depleted δ18O levels. The meridional shift in the Asian‐Pacific subtropical high induced by latent heat release due to precipitation in the northwestern Pacific was found to play an important role in initiating convergence. A statistical analysis confirmed the significant correlations in δ18O with the ENSO index and tropical and subtropical summer monsoon circulations. We noted that the dominant circulation pattern over the northwestern TP was characterized by a midlatitude flow regime that had a teleconnection with tropical sea surface temperatures. Therefore, ENSO is one of a variety of influences on ice core δ18O on the TP.
Bacillus anthracis Edema Toxin Inhibits Staphylococcus aureus Enterotoxin B Effects In Vitro: a Potential Protein Therapeutic?

ABSTRACT Various in vitro effects of staphylococcal enterotoxin B (SEB) on human peripheral blood mononuclear cells were mitigated by Bacillus anthracis edema toxin. In particular, levels of some SEB-induced cytokines (tumor necrosis factor alpha, gamma interferon) and chemokines (monocyte chemoattractant protein 1, macrophage inflammatory protein 1 alpha [MIP-1α], MIP-1β) were significantly diminished or even nonexistent, depending upon the timing of edema toxin administration. Overall, these results suggest a novel use of B. anthracis edema toxin against a bacterial superantigen.
ActivityMonitor: assisted life using mobile phones

In this work, we present a system and methodology for using mobile phones for monitoring physical activities of a user, and its applications in assisting elderly and people with need for special care and monitoring. The method is based on processing acceleration data provided by accelerometers integrated in mobile phones. This information is sent to a monitoring server, analyzed and presented as different health related factors for assistance, monitoring and healthcare purposes. A monitoring agent can use a desktop application to observe pattern of physical activities of several users in a live manner, and receive warnings in case of unexpected physical conditions. The data can be also stored offline for longer term analysis of physical behaviour and health. The desktop application also provides different options for managing, browsing, and searching activity related data.
Nodule Worm Infection in Humans and Wild Primates in Uganda: Cryptic Species in a Newly Identified Region of Human Transmission

Introduction Soil-transmitted helminths (STHs) are a major health concern in tropical and sub-tropical countries. Oesophagostomum infection is considered endemic to West Africa but has also been identified in Uganda, East Africa, among primates (including humans). However, the taxonomy and ecology of Oesophagostomum in Uganda have not been studied, except for in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), which are infected by both O. bifurcum and O. stephanostomum. Methods and Findings We studied Oesophagostomum in Uganda in a community of non-human primates that live in close proximity to humans. Prevalence estimates based on microscopy were lower than those based on polymerase chain reaction (PCR), indicating greater sensitivity of PCR. Prevalence varied among host species, with humans and red colobus (Procolobus rufomitratus) infected at lowest prevalence (25% and 41% by PCR, respectively), and chimpanzees, olive baboons (Papio anubis), and l'hoest monkeys (Cercopithecus lhoesti) infected at highest prevalence (100% by PCR in all three species). Phylogenetic regression showed that primates travelling further and in smaller groups are at greatest risk of infection. Molecular phylogenetic analyses revealed three cryptic clades of Oesophagostomum that were not distinguishable based on morphological characteristics of their eggs. Of these, the clade with the greatest host range had not previously been described genetically. This novel clade infects humans, as well as five other species of primates. Conclusions Multiple cryptic forms of Oesophagostomum circulate in the people and primates of western Uganda, and parasite clades differ in host range and cross-species transmission potential. Our results expand knowledge about human Oesophagostomum infection beyond the West African countries of Togo and Ghana, where the parasite is a known public health concern. Oesophagostomum infection in humans may be common throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, and the transmission of this neglected STH among primates, including zoonotic transmission, may vary among host communities depending on their location and ecology.
A platform for rapid prototyping of synthetic gene networks in mammalian cells

Mammalian synthetic biology may provide novel therapeutic strategies, help decipher new paths for drug discovery and facilitate synthesis of valuable molecules. Yet, our capacity to genetically program cells is currently hampered by the lack of efficient approaches to streamline the design, construction and screening of synthetic gene networks. To address this problem, here we present a framework for modular and combinatorial assembly of functional (multi)gene expression vectors and their efficient and specific targeted integration into a well-defined chromosomal context in mammalian cells. We demonstrate the potential of this framework by assembling and integrating different functional mammalian regulatory networks including the largest gene circuit built and chromosomally integrated to date (6 transcription units, 27kb) encoding an inducible memory device. Using a library of 18 different circuits as a proof of concept, we also demonstrate that our method enables one-pot/single-flask chromosomal integration and screening of circuit libraries. This rapid and powerful prototyping platform is well suited for comparative studies of genetic regulatory elements, genes and multi-gene circuits as well as facile development of libraries of isogenic engineered cell lines.
Vertical Mixing Effects on Phytoplankton Dynamics and Organic Carbon Export in the Western Mediterranean Sea

A 3-D high-resolution coupled hydrodynamic-biogeochemical model of the western Mediterranean was used to study phytoplankton dynamics and organic carbon export in three regions with contrasting vertical regimes, ranging from deep convection to a shallow mixed layer. One month after the initial increase in surface chlorophyll (caused by the erosion of the deep chlorophyll maximum), the autumnal bloom was triggered in all three regions by the upward flux of nutrients resulting from mixed layer deepening. In contrast, at the end of winter, the end of turbulent mixing favored the onset of the spring bloom in the deep convection region. Low grazing pressure allowed rapid phytoplankton growth during the bloom. Primary production in the shallow mixed layer region, the Algerian subbasin, was characterized by a long period (4 months) of sustained phytoplankton development, unlike the deep convection region where primary production was inhibited during 2 months in winter. Despite seasonal variations, annual primary production in all three regions is similar. In the deep convection region, total organic carbon export below the photic layer (150 m) and transfer to deep waters (800 m) was 5 and 8 times, respectively, higher than in the Algerian subbasin. Although some of the exported material will be injected back into the surface layer during the next convection event, lateral transport, and strong interannual variability of MLD in this region suggest that a significant amount of exported material is effectively sequestrated.
Bilateral trigeminal nerve recurrence of non-hodgkin lymphoma revealed with FDG PET/CT

Bilateral trigeminal nerve involvement is a rare presentation of Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). The trigeminal nerve, also called the fifth cranial nerve, leaves the brainstem and exits the base of the skull to supply sensation to the face. In this case, we present a case of a 63-year-old male patient with a history of NHL and a more recent history of headache and trigeminal neuralgia. The patient underwent PET/CT demonstrating bilateral increased FDG uptake in trigeminal nerves.
A NOVEL PERSPECTIVE INTO THE NEURONAL ENCODING ALONG THE RETINAL PATHWAY EMPLOYING TIME-FREQUENCY TRANSFORMATION : PART I — FOR OBJECT

This paper presents an innovative approach to investigate the information encoding taking place in the visual pathway, particularly the retinal pathway. Gabor time-frequency (TF) transformation is applied to the spatio-temporal spike trains from the layers of the retinal pathway, corresponding to input object stimuli varying in shape, orientation & distance. These spike trains are generated by employing simulation tools. Using the TF transformation, a methodology is evolved to analyze information encoding in terms of dominant harmonic variations. Statistical analysis of these variations and extrapolation reveal that the dominant harmonic variations can be encoded as multinomial (multivariate polynomial) functions. For the set of input stimuli considered, a bivariate polynomial encoding is observed with the order of the polynomial and its coefficients encoding the variations in amplitude of dominant harmonics. Analysis of encoding is carried out for both ‘within the layers’, like horizontal only and ‘across the layers’, the entire retinal pathway. The simulation results presented enunciate the findings. In the companion paper part II, neuronal encoding for chromatic information is analyzed on similar lines. After analyzing the neuronal color encoding process in part II, a generalized encoding scheme applicable to object shapes as well as color is proposed.
FPGA-Accelerated Pre-Attentive Segmentation in Primary Visual Cortex

Visual attention systems inspired by the behavior of neural architectures have attracted the attention of many researchers in the computer vision field. Of special interest is the model proposed by Li where the bottom-up saliency features of an image are detected through a mechanism that simulates the operation of the primary visual cortex (VI). Beyond its biological nature, the specific model is also of interest because it performs texture segmentation and contour enhancement using the same circuitry. The main drawback of the proposed model is its computational complexity, making it time consuming to simulate the model in software to, e.g., explore the model parameters, and also limits its applicability in real-time scenarios. In this work, we explore the inherent parallelism that exists in the model and propose a flexible hardware architecture that can accelerate the model. More over, the flexibility of the proposed architecture to adapt to similar models of the brain is of significant concern. Performance evaluation shows that the proposed architecture gives results close to the software model, achieving at the same time a speed up of one order of magnitude.
Delta: automatic identification of unknown web-based infection campaigns

Identifying malicious web sites has become a major challenge in today's Internet. Previous work focused on detecting if a web site is malicious by dynamically executing JavaScript in instrumented environments or by rendering web sites in client honeypots. Both techniques bear a significant evaluation overhead, since the analysis can take up to tens of seconds or even minutes per sample. In this paper, we introduce a novel, purely static analysis approach, the Delta-system, that (i) extracts change-related features between two versions of the same website, (ii) uses a machine-learning algorithm to derive a model of web site changes, (iii) detects if a change was malicious or benign, (iv) identifies the underlying infection vector campaign based on clustering, and (iv) generates an identifying signature. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the Delta-system by evaluating it on a dataset of over 26 million pairs of web sites by running next to a web crawler for a period of four months. Over this time span, the Delta-system successfully identified previously unknown infection campaigns. Including a campaign that targeted installations of the Discuz! X Internet forum software, injected infection vectors into these forums, and redirected to an installation of the Cool Exploit Kit.
Quaternion-Based Hybrid Feedback for Robust Global Attitude Synchronization

We apply recent results on robust global asymptotic stabilization of the attitude of a single rigid body to the problem of globally synchronizing the attitude of a network of rigid bodies using a decentralized strategy. The proposed hybrid feedback scheme relies on the communication of a binary logic variable between each pair of neighboring rigid bodies that determines the orientation of a torque component acting to reduce their relative error. Through a hysteretic switch of this logic variable, the hybrid feedback achieves global synchronization under the assumption that the network is connected and acyclic. The hysteresis eliminates chattering while preventing the “unwinding phenomenon” apparent in some quaternion-based attitude control schemes. The results are exercised in a numerical example.
EHGNN: Enhanced Hypergraph Neural Network for Hyperspectral Image Classification

Recently, the hypergraph neural network (HGNN) has drawn increasing attention in modeling complex high-order correlations. Compared to simple graph neural networks, HGNNs exhibit more powerful representational ability. There are two limitations in the application of hypergraph theory to hyperspectral image (HSI) classification. One is the inadequate explicit representation of semantic information contained in HSIs. Another is the loss of pixel-level spectral–spatial information. Thus, an enhanced HGNN (EHGNN) is proposed to promote the application of hypergraph theory to HSI classification. Specifically, two important enhancements are introduced: 1) the concept of a key hypergraph, providing more rich semantic information and improving the interpretability for complex distribution structures and 2) the integration of the convolutional neural network (CNN) and HGNN architectures into an end-to-end framework, the loss of spectral–spatial information at the pixel level is effectively reduced. Through these two enhancements, EHGNN exhibits a 4% improvement in overall accuracy (OA) on the Pavia University dataset and a 2% improvement in OA on the Xuzhou dataset compared to HGNN. Furthermore, the test results on two HSI datasets demonstrate that our EHGNN achieves competitive performance compared to other state-of-the-art methods.
Effects of Probiotic Supplementation during Chronic Rhinosinusitis on the Microbiome

Probiotics are live microorganisms that induce health benefits to the host. The consumption of probiotics can result in both prophylactic and therapeutic effects. Chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) is an inflammatory condition that has a significant health and economic impact worldwide. Despite its great burden on the health-care system and patients’ quality of life, the variety of therapy options for CRS is currently limited. Inflammation, mucociliary dysfunction and changes in the microbial environment are thought to be the main factors causing the disease. Probiotics are a relatively new intervention, with a focus on the probiotic qualities and adaptive elements required for a bacterial strain to have a positive impact on CRS. The aim of this review was to review studies evaluating the potential beneficial effects of probiotics in the treatment of chronic rhinosinusitis. Future prospects and difficulties for probiotics in CRS are also highlighted.