Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Role of Epigenetic Modification in Tumorigenesis and Progression of Pituitary Adenomas: A Systematic Review of the Literature

Background Pituitary adenomas (PAs) are commonly occurring neoplasms with diverse endocrine and neurological effects. Although somatic gene mutations are uncommon in sporadic PAs, recent studies lend support to epigenetic modification as a potential cause of tumorigenesis and tumor progression. Methods A systematic literature review of the PubMed and Google Scholar databases was conducted to identify abstracts (n=1,082) pertaining to key targets and mechanisms implicated in epigenetic dysregulation of PAs published between 1993-2013. Data regarding histopathological subtype, target genes, mode of epigenetic modification, and clinical correlation were recorded and analyzed. Results Of the 47 that studies met inclusion criteria and focused on epigenomic assessment of PAs, only 2 were genome-scale analyses. Current evidence supports epigenetic alteration in at least 24 PA genes, which were categorized into four groups based on function and epigenetic alteration: 1) Sixteen tumor suppressor genes silenced via DNA methylation; 2) Two oncogenes overexpressed via histone acetylation and hypomethylation; 3) Three imprinted genes with selective allelic silencing; and 4) One epigenome writer inducing abnormal genome-scale activity and 5) Two transcription regulators indirectly modifying the genome. Of these, 5 genes (CDKN2A, GADD45y, FGFR2, caspase-8, and PTAG) showed particular susceptibility to epigenetic modification, with abnormal DNA methylation in >50% of PA samples. Several genes displayed correlations between epigenetic modification and clinically relevant parameters, including invasiveness (CDKN2A; DAPK; Rb1), sex (MAGE-A3), tumor size (GNAS1), and histopathological subtype (CDKN2A; MEG3; p27; RASSF1A; Rb1). Conclusions Epigenetic modification of selected PA genes may play a key role in tumorigenesis and progression, which may translate into important diagnostic and therapeutic applications.
The spatial distribution of immunotoxins in solid tumors: assessment by quantitative autoradiography.

The spatial distribution of i.v. administered immunotoxins in s.c. human rhabdomyosarcoma RD2 xenografts was studied. The toxin and immunotoxins were: (a) diphtheria toxin (DT); (b) a binding-deficient form of DT (CRM107) linked to a monoclonal IgG1 antibody (454A12) directed against the human transferrin receptor (454A12-107); (c) the binding-deficient form of DT linked to the Fab' fragment of 454A12 (Fab'-107); and (d) the binding-deficient form of DT coupled to MOPC21, a monoclonal IgG1 with no significant binding to RD2 cells. DT and the immunotoxins were radiolabeled with 125I and injected via the tail vein into tumor-bearing athymic mice (median tumor weight, 0.25 g). Tumors were removed 2, 6, and 24 h after injection of DT or immunotoxin. Film images of 20-microns frozen sections were digitized by video microscopy, and gray levels were converted to tissue concentrations based upon the film response to radioactivity standards and the specific activity of the radiolabeled toxins. Images of the tumors were characterized quantitatively by the kurtosis and the area above threshold; the kurtosis is a measure of the spatial heterogeneity of the radiolabeled immunotoxins, and the area above threshold is defined here as the fractional tumor area that reaches or exceeds 1.5% of the initial plasma concentration. The spatial distribution of DT in the tumors was extremely uniform, characterized by low kurtosis values. In contrast, the autoradiograms of 454A12-107 were punctate in appearance and were characterized by very high kurtosis values. Fab'-107, which has approximately one-half the molecular weight of the intact immunotoxin and binds only monovalently, also produced punctate images with kurtosis values similar to those for 454A12-107. The nonbinding immunotoxin distributed somewhat less uniformly than DT but much more homogeneously than either of the binding immunotoxins. DT, 454A12-107, and Fab'-107 have similar affinities for their respective receptors, but the concentration of binding sites for DT on RD2 cells (<3,000 receptors/cell) is much lower than the concentration of transferrin receptor (60,000 receptors/cell). Thus, the heterogeneous distribution of 454A12-107 and Fab'-107 probably reflects retarded penetration due to binding to the tumor cells. The area above threshold was greatest for DT and lowest for 454A12-107; the fragment and nonbinding immunotoxins had intermediate values. The lower area above threshold for the nonbinding immunotoxin as compared with DT may be due to the considerably large molecular weight and hence the lower capillary permeability and diffusion coefficient of the immunotoxin. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
Mucosal colonisation with Lactobacillus casei mitigates barrier injury induced by exposure to trinitronbenzene sulphonic acid

Background: Trinitrobenzene sulphonic acid (TNBS) induces chronic transmural inflammatory lesions in the rat colon. Injury is facilitated by barrier disruption and invasion of commensal bacteria. However, certain bacteria have shown anti-inflammatory properties in in vitro models. Aim: To investigate in vivo the anti-inflammatory effect of Lactobacillus casei DN-114 001. Methods: Rats with a colonic segment excluded from faecal transit were surgically prepared. After washing the lumen with antibiotics, the excluded segment was recolonised (control group: standard flora of rat origin; test group: standard flora and L casei). Microbial colonisation was confirmed by culture of segment washing, and colitis was then induced by instillation of TNBS. One day after, intestinal lesions were blindly graded by macro- and microscopic scores, and myeloperoxidase activity measured in tissue homogenates. Translocation of bacteria to mesenteric lymph nodes, spleen and liver was investigated. Results: Test rats showed a smaller area of mucosal injury than control rats (p<0.05). Maximum depth lesion scores were similar in both groups but myeloperoxidase activity was lower in test than in control rats (p<0.05). Remarkably, bacterial translocation was quantitatively lower (p<0.01) and less frequent (p<0.05) in test than in control rats. Conclusion: In rats colonised with L casei, mucosal injury, inflammatory response, and barrier disruption after TNBS challenge were attenuated. Bacterial communities colonising the mucosa can modify inflammatory responses to luminal challenges.
A large-scale study on map search logs

Map search engines, such as Google Maps, Yahoo! Maps, and Microsoft Live Maps, allow users to explicitly specify a target geographic location, either in keywords or on the map, and to search businesses, people, and other information of that location. In this article, we report a first study on a million-entry map search log. We identify three key attributes of a map search record—the keyword query, the target location and the user location, and examine the characteristics of these three dimensions separately as well as the associations between them. Comparing our results with those previously reported on logs of general search engines and mobile search engines, including those for geographic queries, we discover the following unique features of map search: (1) People use longer queries and modify queries more frequently in a session than in general search and mobile search; People view fewer result pages per query than in general search; (2) The popular query topics in map search are different from those in general search and mobile search; (3) The target locations in a session change within 50 kilometers for almost 80% of the sessions; (4) Queries, search target locations and user locations (both at the city level) all follow the power law distribution; (5) One third of queries are issued for target locations within 50 kilometers from the user locations; (6) The distribution of a query over target locations appears to follow the geographic location of the queried entity.
Sampling in a Union of Frame Generated Subspaces

A new paradigm in Sampling theory has been developed recently by Lu and Do. In this new approach the classical linear model is replaced by a non-linear, but structured model consisting of a union of subspaces. This is the natural approach for the new theory of compressed sampling, representation of sparse signals and signals with finite rate of innovation. In this article we extend the theory of Lu and Do, for the case that the subspaces in the union are shift-invariant spaces. We describe the subspaces by means of frame generators instead of orthonormal bases. We show that, the one to one and stability conditions for the sampling operator, are valid for this more general case.
Webs of meaning: Theories and evidence from contemporary Ireland

Meaning is basic to social life. Without it we are, as Bourdieu put it, like fish out water. And yet, within mainstream sociology, meaning is taken for granted. There are two questions. Is it important to try and get at meaning? And, if yes, how do we do so? In this article, I argue that we have progressed much theoretically from the debate that took place between Schutz and Parsons back in the 1960s. It is as if meaning and structures are opposite sides of the same coin but we either look at one side or the other: we cannot address them simultaneously. However, I argue that to do good sociology, it is necessary to try to marry what is going on in the actor with the way in which the actor is constituted within social structures. Given that we can only develop an approximate understanding of any actor and that we can only develop an approximate understanding of social structures, any attempt to link the two is necessarily tentative but, nevertheless, worthwhile.
Comparing Different Word Lattice Rescoring Approaches Towards Keyword Spotting

In this paper, we further investigate the large vocabulary continuous speech recognition approach to keyword spotting. Given a speech utterance, recognition is performed to obtain a word lattice. The posterior probability of keyword hypotheses in the lattice is computed and used to derive a confidence measure to accept/reject the keyword. We extend this framework and replace the acoustic likelihoods in the lattice obtained from a Gaussian mixture model (GMM) with likelihoods derived from a multilayered perceptron (MLP). We compare the two rescoring techniques on the conversational telephone speech database distributed by NIST for the spoken term detection evaluation. Experimental results show that GMM lattices still perform better than the rescored lattices for short and medium length keywords, but on longer keywords, the MLP rescored word lattices perform slightly better.
The Aryl Hydrocarbon Receptor in Barrier Organ Physiology, Immunology, and Toxicology

The aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) is an evolutionarily old transcription factor belonging to the Per-ARNT-Sim–basic helix-loop-helix protein family. AhR translocates into the nucleus upon binding of various small molecules into the pocket of its single-ligand binding domain. AhR binding to both xenobiotic and endogenous ligands results in highly cell-specific transcriptome changes and in changes in cellular functions. We discuss here the role of AhR for immune cells of the barrier organs: skin, gut, and lung. Both adaptive and innate immune cells require AhR signaling at critical checkpoints. We also discuss the current two prevailing views—namely, 1) AhR as a promiscuous sensor for small chemicals and 2) a role for AhR as a balancing factor for cell differentiation and function, which is controlled by levels of endogenous high-affinity ligands. AhR signaling is considered a promising drug and preventive target, particularly for cancer, inflammatory, and autoimmune diseases. Therefore, understanding its biology is of great importance.
Sinnprovinzen in der Personalwissenschaft – Befunde einer empirischen Untersuchung

Ziel des Beitrages ist eine Kartierung insb. der theoretischen Sinnprovinzen der Personalwissenschaft. Grundlage der empirischen Studie sind Publikationen zur Disziplin in der vergangenen Dekade (1991 bis 2000). Auf der Basis der Literaturlisten dieser Beiträge, die deren Autoren als charakteristisch für die eigene wissenschaftliche Position ansehen, werden Ähnlichkeiten oder Gemeinsamkeiten aus Sicht der sozialwissenschaftlichen Netzwerkanalyse herausgearbeitet. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass man zwar durchaus verschiedene Sinnprovinzen innerhalb der Personalwissenschaft erkennen kann. Allerdings bilden deren Vertreter eher lose Gruppen als festgefügte Clans. Insgesamt handelt es sich bei der Personalwissenschaft um eine thematisch wie theoretisch äußerst zerklüftete Wissenslandschaft. Eine Ausnahme gibt es: eine personalökonomische Gruppierung hebt sich relativ deutlich als abgrenzbare Sinnprovinz heraus.
A DCT based nonlinear predictive coding for feature extraction in speech recognition systems

Speech representation strategies play a key role in automatic speech recognition systems. In this study, a nonlinear procedure has been proposed to overcome the complexities of speech sequence representations. The proposed method may be considered as an extension of nonlinear predictive coding representation procedure in cosine transform domain. The best results belong to classification of nonlinear behaved stop phonemes (i.e. /b/, /d/, /g/) in TIMIT database which show good performance while reducing the computational complexity in comparison to standard NPC.
Solving a New Mathematical Model for a Periodic Vehicle Routing Problem by Particle Swarm Optimization

This paper presents a new mathematical model for a periodic vehicle routing problem (PVRP) considering several assumptions that minimizes vehicle travel costs. We incorporate four problems in periodic planning, namely a capacitated vehicle routing problem (CVRP), a vehicle routing problem with time windows (VRPTW), a vehicle routing problem with simultaneous pickup and delivery (VRPSPD), and a vehicle routing problem with split service (VRPSS). As it is a unified model, we impose its computational complexity and are notable to solve such a hard problem by any optimization software in a reasonably computational time, especially for large-sized problems. Thus, we propose a meta-heuristic method based on particle swarm optimization (PSO). A number of instances are solved by this proposed PSO. Finally, the related results are illustrated and discussed.
Platelets and Platelet‐Derived Extracellular Vesicles in Liver Physiology and Disease

Beyond their role in hemostasis, platelets are proposed as key mediators of several physiological and pathophysiological processes of the liver, such as liver regeneration, toxic or viral acute liver injury, liver fibrosis, and carcinogenesis. The effects of platelets on the liver involve interactions with sinusoidal endothelial cells and the release of platelet‐contained molecules following platelet activation. Platelets are the major source of circulating extracellular vesicles, which are suggested to play key roles in platelet interactions with endothelial cells in several clinical disorders. In the present review, we discuss the implications of platelet‐derived extracellular vesicles in physiological and pathophysiological processes of the liver.
A new approach for similarity queries using proximity graphs

Proximity graphs have been widely used in the area of computa- tional geometry; through a vicinity concept these graphs establish relations of similarity between elements of a set. In this paper we propose the use of Relative Neighborhood Graph (RNG) in metric spaces in order to e-ciently answer similarity queries. Additionally we introduce a new algorithm for range queries and nearest neighbor queries making use of the spatial approx- imation in graphs. Experiments show that our proposal has a comparable performance in terms of Number of Distance Calculations (NDC) and time.
Text Dependent Speech based Biometric for Mobile Security

Mobile is a powerful data communication media through which confidential information can be exchanged. To communicate to the authorized person and network, biometric is used. In this paper, an efficient speaker recognition technique is proposed to solve the authenticity and security problem for the mobile in noisy environment. An effective feature extraction technique and two different speaker verification technique is used and compared to improve the recognition rate of the speaker in the noisy system for effective communication.
Law of large number for one dimensional Markov process

Received 28 May 2018 Revised 20 Oct 2018 Accepted 29 Mar 2019 The aim of this paper is to study the model of Markov process with the state space Z. The applied method is similar to Depauw et al. (2009) and Lam (2014) to prove that this stochastic process converges in probability to a constant (Theorem 1.1) and to give its rate also (Theorem 3.1). Precisely, let L be the corresponding operator of the previous stochastic process and f be a given function, we solve the equation Lg f  and then treat the limit of its solutions, the rate of the convergence is instantly given by the convergence of the moment of Markov process. Keywords
Quill : Exploiting Fast Non-Volatile Memory by Transparently Bypassing the File System

Fast non-volatile memories will soon make their appearance on the processor memory bus. They offer the potential for extremely low-latency, high-bandwidth access to persistent files. However, existing interfaces will impose large system call and file system overheads on those accesses, squandering the memories’ performance. At the same time, we would like to leverage existing file systems as much as possible, to reduce the cost of adopting these new storage technologies. We present a user space library, called Quill, that avoids system call overheads on most accesses by interposing on file operations and converting them into memory operations. Quill enforces the protections that the file system provides by transferring protection information into the process’s page table and accessing files directly via load and store instructions. We describe the Quill system and compare it to a conventional software stack accessing the same storage device.
A Retrospective Review of Rifampicin-Resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis between 2015 and 2017 in Port Harcourt, Nigeria

Background: The diagnosis and treatment of drug resistant tuberculosis (TB) is a significant challenge for the control of TB in Nigeria. Aim: The study was carried out to assess the prevalence of rifampicin-resistant TB at the point of initial diagnosis among subjects suspected of TB. Methods: A retrospective review of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) and rifampicin resistance detected by GeneXpert™ analysis between 2015 and 2017 in Braithwaite Memorial Specialist Hospital was carried out. Results: A total of 6733 samples were received and analyzed in the period under review, 1252 (19%) were positive for Mycobacterium tuberculosis and 5841 (81%) were negative. The prevalence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis was 24.56%, 20.11% and 16.86% from 2015 to 2017 respectively. There was a significant decline in the prevalence of MTB from 2015 to 2017 (c2 = 33.59, p = 0.0001). Rifampicin (RIF) resistance was 5.42%, 5.86% and 6.22% respectively from 2015 to 2017; but the trend was not statistically significant (c2 = 0.21; p = 0.6418). Conclusion: The study showed that despite a decrease in the prevalence of tuberculosis infection there was an increase in rifampicin resistance from 5.42% to 6.22% between 2015 and 2017. There is an urgent need to improve the management of TB in the Port Harcourt metropolis to improve treatment outcomes and to prevent the proliferation of drug resistant strains.
Risk based lattice cutting for segmental minimum Bayes-risk decoding

Minimum Bayes-Risk (MBR) speech recognizers have been shown to give improvements over the conventional maximum a-posteriori probability (MAP) decoders through N-best list rescoring and search over word lattices. Segmental MBR (SMBR) decoders simplify the implementation of MBR recognizers by segmenting the N-best lists or lattices over which the recognition is performed. We present a lattice cutting procedure that attempts to minimize the total Bayes-Risk of all word strings in the segmented lattice. We provide experimental results on the Switchboard conversational speech corpus showing that this segmentation procedure, in conjunction with SMBR decoding, gives modest but significant improvements over MAP decoders as well as MBR decoders on unsegmented lattices.
Chandra Detection of Fe XVII in Absorption: Iron Abundance in the Hot Gaseous Interstellar Medium

The iron depletion level and the gas-phase iron abundance in the hot (~106 K) interstellar medium (ISM) are critical to our understanding of its energy balance as well as the thermal sputtering, cooling, and heating processes of dust grains. Here, we report on the first detection of the Fe XVII absorption line at 15.02 Å from the hot ISM in the spectrum of the low-mass X-ray binary 4U 1820-303 observed with the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. By jointly analyzing this absorption line with those from O VII, O VIII, and Ne IX ions in the same spectrum, we obtain an abundance ratio as Fe/Ne = 0.8(0.4, 2.1) in units of the Anders & Grevesse solar value (90% confidence intervals). We find that the result is robust with respect to different assumed gas temperature distributions. The obtained Fe/Ne abundance ratio, albeit with large uncertainties, is consistent with the solar value, indicating that there is very little or no iron depleted into dust grains, i.e., most of or all of the dust grains have been destroyed in the hot ISM.
A watermarking technique for the protection of digital images IPR

Digital watermarking techniques represent a valid s olution to the ever increasing need for copyright protection and authentication of multimedia data, such as digitized images, video recordings or audio recordi ngs. A digital watermark is an identification code, embedded in the document to be protected, carrying information pertaining to copyright protection and data authent ication, thus allowing to identify the creator, owner, distributor, authorized consume r of digital data. A new image watermarking algorithm is proposed here which opera tes in the frequency domain. Experimental results are reported proving the robus tness of the presented algorithm against some of the most common image processing techniques.
Calibrated Automated Thrombin Generation Measurement in Clotting Plasma

Calibrated automated thrombography displays the concentration of thrombin in clotting plasma with or without platelets (platelet-rich plasma/platelet-poor plasma, PRP/PPP) in up to 48 samples by monitoring the splitting of a fluorogenic substrate and comparing it to a constant known thrombin activity in a parallel, non-clotting sample. Thus, the non-linearity of the reaction rate with thrombin concentration is compensated for, and adding an excess of substrate can be avoided. Standard conditions were established at which acceptable experimental variation accompanies sensitivity to pathological changes. The coefficients of variation of the surface under the curve (endogenous thrombin potential) are: within experiment ∼3%; intra-individual: <5% in PPP, <8% in PRP; interindividual 15% in PPP and 19% in PRP. In PPP, calibrated automated thrombography shows all clotting factor deficiencies (except factor XIII) and the effect of all anticoagulants [AVK, heparin(-likes), direct inhibitors]. In PRP, it is diminished in von Willebrand’s disease, but it also shows the effect of platelet inhibitors (e.g. aspirin and abciximab). Addition of activated protein C (APC) or thrombomodulin inhibits thrombin generation and reflects disorders of the APC system (congenital and acquired resistance, deficiencies and lupus antibodies) independent of concomitant inhibition of the procoagulant pathway as for example by anticoagulants.