Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Autologous Limbal Stem Cell Transplantation: The Progression of Diagnosis and Treatment

ABSTRACT Though the corneoscleral limbus has been studied for more than 150 years, our ability to successfully treat those with limbal stem cell deficiency (LSCD) is still a work in progress. Today, the only definitive cure for LSCD is stem cell transplantation. This review briefly discusses the evolution of our understanding of limbal stem cell function, provides an outline of the history of autologous limbal stem cell (LSC) transplantation, and discusses current techniques and future strategies for LSCD treatment.
Evolva: Towards Automatic Ontology Evolution

Ontologies form the core of Semantic Web systems, and as such, they need to evolve to meet the changing needs of the system and its users. Information is exponentially increasing in organizations’ intranets as well as on the web, especially with the increased popularity of tools facilitating content generation such as wikis, blogs and social software. In such dynamic environments, evolving ontologies should be agile, i.e. with the least knowledge experts’ input, for reflecting fast changes occurring in repositories, and keeping Semantic Web systems up-to-date. Most of current ontology evolution frameworks mainly rely on user input throughout their evolution process. We propose Evolva, an ontology evolution framework, aiming to substantially reduce or even eliminate user input through exploiting various background knowledge sources. Background knowledge exists in various forms including lexical databases, web pages and Semantic Web ontologies. Evolva has five main components: information discovery, data validation, ontological changes, evolution validation and evolution management. We present in this report an overview of the current work on ontology evolution, followed by our ontology evolution approach and pilot study conducted so far, and we finally conclude with a discussion and our future directions.
Hemianopic and quadrantanopic field loss, eye and head movements, and driving.

PURPOSE To compare eye and head movements, lane keeping, and vehicle control of drivers with hemianopic and quadrantanopic field defects with controls, and to identify differences in these parameters between hemianopic and quadrantanopic drivers rated safe to drive by a clinical driving rehabilitation specialist compared with those rated as unsafe. METHODS Eye and head movements and lane keeping were rated in 22 persons with homonymous hemianopic defects and 8 with quadrantanopic defects (mean age, 53 years) who were ≥6 months post-injury and 30 persons with normal fields (mean age, 53 years). All were licensed to drive and were current drivers or aimed to resume driving. Participants drove a 6.3-mile route along non-interstate city roads under in-traffic conditions. Vehicle control was assessed objectively by vehicle instrumentation for speed, braking, acceleration, and cornering. RESULTS As a group, drivers with hemianopic or quadrantanopic defects drove slower, exhibited less excessive cornering or acceleration, and executed more shoulder movements than the controls. Those drivers with hemianopic or quadrantanopic defects rated as safe also made more head movements into their blind field, received superior ratings regarding eye movement extent and lane position stability, and exhibited less sudden braking and drove faster than those rated unsafe. CONCLUSIONS Persons with hemianopic and quadrantanopic defects rated as safe to drive compensated by making more head movements into their blind field, combined with more stable lane keeping and less sudden braking. Future research should evaluate whether these characteristics could be trained in rehabilitation programs aimed at improving driving safety in this population.
Stenciling: Designing Structurally‐Sound Surfaces with Decorative Patterns

We present a novel method to design shells with artistic cutouts in a manner that produces a stable final result. The process of stenciling, removing material with a fixed shape, is a particularly appealing way to introduce a decorative pattern into the design of architectural structures, furniture, or household objects. However, removing material can easily weaken an object to the point where its integrity is compromised, while purely functional distributions of cutouts lack the desired aesthetic component. We tackle this problem by combining aesthetics, stability, and material efficiency in an optimization that determines the distribution and scaling of these stencils in a way that complies as much as possible with both pattern and stability objectives. We demonstrate the capabilities of our system on examples from architecture, furniture design, and decorative items, and show how user interaction can be integrated to guide the aesthetics of the final result.
Resistance of murine lung tumors to xenobiotic-induced cytotoxicity.

Studies were performed to test the hypothesis that urethane-induced murine lung tumors exhibit xenobiotic resistance and alterations in pulmonary cytochrome P-450 enzymes. 1,1-Dichloroethylene, naphthalene, and paraquat were administered to tumor-bearing and control mice to elicit acute lung cytotoxicity, and responses were evaluated in tumors (papillary and solid), uninvolved surrounding tissue, and untreated control lung. 1,1-Dichloroethylene (125 mg/kg, i.p.) and naphthalene (225 mg/kg, i.p.) caused preferential necrosis of Clara cells in control lungs and uninvolved tissue of tumor-bearing lungs. In contrast, papillary and solid tumors were both resistant to 1,1-dichloroethylene-induced cytotoxicity. Paraquat (10, 20 mg/kg, i.v.) elicited Clara cell damage in control lungs and uninvolved lung tissue of tumor-bearing mice, with minor disruption of the alveolar epithelium. Neither papillary nor solid tumors sustained any apparent cell damage from paraquat. Immunoblots of P-450 enzymes confirmed constitutive expression of CYP2B1 in control lung and uninvolved lung tissue of tumor-bearing mice, but this P-450 enzyme was not detected in either adenomas or carcinomas. Lung CYP1A1 was inducible by beta-naphthoflavone in non-tumor-bearing mice and uninvolved tissue of tumor-bearing mice; however, inducibility was decreased in adenomas and abolished in carcinomas. These results demonstrate resistance of lung tumor cells to chemically induced cytotoxicity and diminished expression of cytochrome P-450 enzymes in tumors.
Plant sterol and stanol margarines and health

A new polyunsaturated margarine with added plant stanols, Benecol, has been introduced in the United States and in several European countries, and a similar margarine (Take Control) with added plant sterols is available in theUnited States and will be introduced in Europe under the Flora label later this year. These products lower serum concentrations of cholesterol, but they are expensive.1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14In the United States, the cost is about $4.00 for a 250-g tub. This article considers quantitatively the health aspects of adding plant sterols and stanols to margarines and other foods.
Color, Race, and Genomic Ancestry in Brazil

In the contemporary world, “race” narratives are so multifaceted that at times, different views of the concept appear mutually incompatible. In recent decades biologists, especially geneticists, have repeatedly stated that the notion of race does not apply to the human species. On the other hand, social scientists claim that race is highly significant in cultural, historical, and socioeconomic terms because it molds everyday social relations and because it is a powerful motivator for social and political movements based on race differences. In this paper we present the results of an interdisciplinary research project incorporating approaches from genetics and anthropology. Our objective is to explore the interface between information about biology/genetics and perceptions about color/race in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. We argue that the data and interpretation of our research resonate far beyond the local level, stimulating discussion about methodological, theoretical, and political issues of wider national and international relevance. Topics addressed include the complex terminology of color/race classification in Brazil, perceptions about ancestry in the context of ideologies of Brazilian national identity, and the relationship between genetic information about the Brazilian population and a sociopolitical agenda that turns on questions of race and racism.
Embodied artificial agents for understanding human social cognition

In this paper, we propose that experimental protocols involving artificial agents, in particular the embodied humanoid robots, provide insightful information regarding social cognitive mechanisms in the human brain. Using artificial agents allows for manipulation and control of various parameters of behaviour, appearance and expressiveness in one of the interaction partners (the artificial agent), and for examining effect of these parameters on the other interaction partner (the human). At the same time, using artificial agents means introducing the presence of artificial, yet human-like, systems into the human social sphere. This allows for testing in a controlled, but ecologically valid, manner human fundamental mechanisms of social cognition both at the behavioural and at the neural level. This paper will review existing literature that reports studies in which artificial embodied agents have been used to study social cognition and will address the question of whether various mechanisms of social cognition (ranging from lower- to higher-order cognitive processes) are evoked by artificial agents to the same extent as by natural agents, humans in particular. Increasing the understanding of how behavioural and neural mechanisms of social cognition respond to artificial anthropomorphic agents provides empirical answers to the conundrum ‘What is a social agent? ’
Experimental study of speed up techniques for timetable information systems

In recent years, many speed up techniques for DIJKSTRA Algorithm have been developed. Unfortunately, research mainly focused on road networks although fast algorithms are also needed for other applications like timetable information systems. Even worse, the adaption of recently developed techniques to graphs deriving from timetable information problems is often more complicated than expected. In this work, we check whether results from road networks are transferable to timetable information systems. To this end, we present an extensive experimental study of the most prominent speed up techniques on inputs deriving from different applications. It turns out that recently developed techniques are much slower on graphs derived from timetable information problems than on road networks. In addition, we gain interesting insights into the behavior of speed up techniques in general. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. NETWORKS, 2011
Ethanol Effect on BK Channels is Modulated by Magnesium.

BACKGROUND Alcoholics have been reported to have reduced levels of magnesium in both their extracellular and intracellular compartments. Calcium-dependent potassium channels (BK) are known to be one of ethanol (EtOH)'s better known molecular targets. METHODS Using outside-out patches from hippocampal neuronal cultures, we examined the consequences of altered intracellular Mg(2+) on the effects that EtOH has on BK channels. RESULTS We find that the effect of EtOH is bimodally influenced by the Mg(2+) concentration on the cytoplasmic side. More specifically, when internal Mg(2+) concentrations are ≤200 μM, EtOH decreases BK activity, whereas it increases activity when Mg(2+) is at 1 mM. Similar results are obtained when using patches from HEK cells expressing only the α-subunit of BK. When patches are made with the actin destabilizer cytochalasin D present on the cytoplasmic side, the potentiation caused by EtOH becomes independent of the Mg(2+) concentration. Furthermore, in the presence of the actin stabilizer phalloidin, EtOH causes inhibition even at Mg(2+) concentrations of 1 mM. CONCLUSIONS Internal Mg(2+) can modulate the EtOH effects on BK channels only when there is an intact, internal actin interaction with the channel, as is found at synapses. We propose that the EtOH-induced decrease in cytoplasmic Mg(2+) observed in frequent/chronic drinkers would decrease EtOH's actions on synaptic (e.g., actin-bound) BK channels, producing a form of molecular tolerance.
Simplification and Compression of 3D Scenes

The geometric complexity of 3D models used in scientific, industrial, medical, or military applications significantly exceeds the complexity of what can be rapidly downloaded over the internet and of what can be displayed at interactive rates on personal workstations. This situation is not likely to change, because the need for higher levels of accuracy in the 3D models and the complexity of the industrial and scientific 3D data sets increase at a much faster rate than network bandwidth, CPU speed, and graphics hardware performance. The solution requires intelligent techniques that compress the 3D scenes for fast transmission over the network or phone line and that use auxiliary datastructures and adaptive resolution techniques to avoid processing and displaying each geometric detail at each frame. This tutorial discusses 3D representation schemes for polyhedra, presents recent advances in 3D compression, reviews various graphics acceleration schemes, and teaches specific techniques for constructing and exploiting multi-resolution (LOD) models.
Paradigma y sintagma: chiste gráfico y tira cómica. Un estudio experimental Paradigmatic and syntagmatic axes: Joke and comic strip. An experimental study

ResumenDesde la perspectiva de la psicologia, y especificamente desde el desarrollo cognitivo del nino, se aborda experimentalmente la hipotesis que se deriva de la linguistica y de la semiologia visual sobre el funcionamiento de los ejes paradigmatico y sintagmatico. Esta polaridad se extrapola a situaciones como el «chiste» y la «tira comica», para introducir diferenciaciones a partir de las cuales explorar las operaciones cognitivas utilizadas para su comprension. Siguiendo la tradicion de los estudios sobre el humor, se parte de situaciones de resolucion de problemas. La muestra estuvo formada por 60 ninos y ninas de 3 anos y 6 meses de edad. Los resultados muestran que las producciones verbales de los ninos ante la «tira comica» dan lugar a operaciones propias de la atribucion de intenciones, de estados mentales, de emociones, asi como a los desarrollos temporales de dicha atribucion, a saber: anticipacion y proyeccion. Ante el «chiste», en cambio, la produccion verbal muestra producciones que aparec.
Recurrent Attentional Topic Model

In a document, the topic distribution of a sentence depends on both the topics of preceding sentences and its own content, and it is usually affected by the topics of the preceding sentences with different weights. It is natural that a document can be treated as a sequence of sentences. Most existing works for Bayesian document modeling do not take these points into consideration. To fill this gap, we propose a Recurrent Attentional Topic Model (RATM) for document embedding. The RATM not only takes advantage of the sequential orders among sentence but also use the attention mechanism to model the relations among successive sentences. In RATM, we propose a Recurrent Attentional Bayesian Process (RABP) to handle the sequences. Based on the RABP, RATM fully utilizes the sequential information of the sentences in a document. Experiments on two copora show that our model outperforms state-of-the-art methods on document modeling and classification.
Idebenone treatment in Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy.

Sir, We have read with great interest the results presented by Klopstock et al. (2011) concerning the RHODOS study on a clinical trial with idebenone in Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON) and we would like to share our own experience of idebenone therapy in LHON. Idebenone has been an approved drug (Mnesis®, Takeda Italia Farmaceutici) in Italy since the early 1990s and, after the initial report by Mashima et al . (1992) on its possible efficacy in LHON, we offered this therapeutic option to all of our new consecutive patients with LHON, almost all of whom accepted treatment. Idebenone was given after informed consent following the regulation for ‘off-label’ drug administration and was provided for free by the National Health Service, under the legislation for certified rare disorders. Patients were initially treated with 270 mg/day (Cortelli et al ., 1997; Carelli et al ., 1998 a , b ), but following the reports on idebenone treatment in Friedreich ataxia, the dosages were increased to 540–675 mg/day (Rustin et al ., 1999; Kearney et al ., 2009). To evaluate retrospectively the efficacy of idebenone therapy, we reviewed all of our patients with LHON, idebenone treated and untreated, after approval of the institutional Internal Review Board. Inclusion criteria for treated patients were the initiation of therapy within 1 year after visual loss in the second eye, and for all patients (treated and untreated) age at onset of at least 10 years and a follow-up of at least 5 years. We included only patients treated within 1 year after onset because this is the time frame to reach the nadir of the visual loss and the probability of spontaneous recovery of vision is highest in the following 5 years (Nikoskelainen et al . , 1983; Barboni et al . , 2005, 2010; …
Predicted function of the vaccinia virus G5R protein

MOTIVATION Of the approximately 200 proteins that have been identified for the vaccinia virus (VACV) genome, many are currently listed as having an unknown function, and seven of these are also found in all other poxvirus genomes that have been sequenced. The G5R protein of VACV is included in this list, and to date, very little is known about this essential and highly conserved protein. Conventional similarity searches of protein databases do not identify significantly similar proteins, and experimental approaches have been unsuccessful at determining protein function. RESULTS Using HHsearch, a hidden Markov model (HMM) comparison search tool, the G5R protein was found to be similar to both human and archaeal flap endonucleases (FEN-1) with 96% probability. The G5R protein structure was subsequently successfully modeled using the Robetta protein structure prediction server with an archaeal FEN-1 as the template. The G5R model was then compared to the human FEN-1 crystal structure and was found to be structurally similar to human FEN-1 in both active site residues and DNA substrate binding regions.
STARDATA: A StarCraft AI Research Dataset

We release a dataset of 65646 StarCraft replays that contains 1535 million frames and 496 million player actions. We provide full game state data along with the original replays that can be viewed in StarCraft. The game state data was recorded every 3 frames which ensures suitability for a wide variety of machine learning tasks such as strategy classification, inverse reinforcement learning, imitation learning, forward modeling, partial information extraction, and others. We use TorchCraft to extract and store the data, which standardizes the data format for both reading from replays and reading directly from the game. Furthermore, the data can be used on different operating systems and platforms. The dataset contains valid, non-corrupted replays only and its quality and diversity was ensured by a number of heuristics. We illustrate the diversity of the data with various statistics and provide examples of tasks that benefit from the dataset.
Insm1a Regulates Motor Neuron Development in Zebrafish

Insulinoma-associated1a (Insm1a) is a zinc-finger transcription factor playing a series of functions in cell formation and differentiation of vertebrate central and peripheral nervous systems and neuroendocrine system. However, its roles on the development of motor neuron have still remained uncovered. Here, we provided evidences that insmla was a vital regulator of motor neuron development and provide a mechanistic understanding of how it contributes to this process. Firstly, we showed the localization of insmla in spinal cord and primary motor neurons (PMNs) of zebrafish embryos by in situ hybridization and imaging analysis of transgenic reporter line Tg(insmla: mCherry) ntu805. Then we demonstrated that the deficiency of insmla in zebrafish larvae lead to the defects of PMNs development, including the reduction of caudal primary motor neurons (CaP) and middle primary motor neurons (MiP), the excessive branching of motor axons, and the disorganized distance between adjacent CaPs. Additionally, knockout of insm1 impaired motor neuron differentiation in the spinal cord. Locomotion analysis showed that insmla-null zebrafish significantly reduced the swimming activity. Furthermore, we proved that the insmla loss of function significantly decreased the transcripts levels of both olig2 and nkx6.1. Microinjection of olig2 and nkx6.1 mRNA rescued the motor neuron defects in insmla deficient embryos. Taken together, these data indicate that insmla regulates the motor neuron development, at least in part, through modulation of the expressions of olig2 and nkx6.1.
Reciprocity in Organisations - Evidence from the WERS

Recent laboratory evidence suggests that social preferences may affect contractual outcomes under moral hazard. In accordance with previous research, this paper uses written personality tests for job candidates as a proxy for whether firms care about personality traits of employees, in particular whether these employees are inclined towards reciprocity. Using the British Workplace Employment Relations Survey 2004 (WERS) we find that behavior of employers and employees is consistent with the presence of gift-exchange motives: firms that screen applicants for personality are more likely to pay generous wages and to provide (non-pecuniary) benefits like employer pension, on-the-job training, or job security. Firms likewise benefit from reciprocal employees as they can implement more team-working and are generally more successful. Other modern human resource practises like competency tests or incentive pay only poorly predict these patterns. Moreover, there is no association between dismissals and personality tests, indicating that personality tests do not merely improve the fit between applicant and employer. Hence, we conclude that motivation based on gift-exchange motives remains as the most plausible explanation for our results.