Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Enabling Integration across Heterogeneous Care Networks

The paper shows how the CASMAS modeling lan- guage, and its associated pervasive computing architecture, can be used to facilitate continuity of care by providing members of patient- centered communities of care with a support to cooperation and knowledge sharing through the usage of electronic documents and digital devices. We consider a scenario of clearly fragmented care to show how proper mechanisms can be defined to facilitate a better integration of practices and information across heterogeneous care networks. The scenario is declined in terms of architectural compo- nents and cooperation-oriented mechanisms that make the support reactive to the evolution of the context where these communities operate. Keywords—Pervasive Computing, Communities of Care, Hetero- geneous Care Networks, Multi-Agent System.
Value-gradient learning

We describe an Adaptive Dynamic Programming algorithm VGL(λ) for learning a critic function over a large continuous state space. The algorithm, which requires a learned model of the environment, extends Dual Heuristic Dynamic Programming to include a bootstrapping parameter analogous to that used in the reinforcement learning algorithm TD(λ). We provide on-line and batch mode implementations of the algorithm, and summarise the theoretical relationships and motivations of using this method over its precursor algorithms Dual Heuristic Dynamic Programming and TD(λ). Experiments for control problems using a neural network and greedy policy are provided.
Network Experimentation for Cooperative Localization

This paper introduces the notion of network experimentation and proposes an experimentation methodology particularly suited for cooperative wireless networks. Based on this methodology we performed extensive measurement campaigns and compare various cooperative localization techniques under a common setting. Network experiments enable (i) the quantification of cooperation benefits, (ii) the development of techniques for harnessing environmental information, and (iii) the characterization of network localization algorithms. As a case study, we consider ultrawide bandwidth cooperative location-aware networks in cluttered indoor environments and evaluate their performance based on measurements collected from network experiments.
Purification of IgG and albumin from human plasma by aqueous two phase system fractionation

The current shortages in human plasma products at global levels justify the development of new, cost effective plasma fractionation methods. We have developed a fractionation process to obtain immunoglobulin G (IgG) and albumin‐enriched fractions based on polymer‐salt aqueous two phase system (ATPS). A small‐scale (0.02 L) ATPS composed of polyethyleneglycol 3350 (PEG), potassium phosphate and sodium chloride, at pH 6.1, was evaluated and subjected to 50‐fold scale‐up (1 L). Further purification of the fractions was performed using caprylic acid precipitation and ion exchange chromatography. Similar yield and purity were obtained at both small and large scales. IgG precipitated in the PEG rich upper phase at 83% recovery and 2.75‐fold purification factor. An 81% pure albumin fraction was obtained in the salt rich bottom phase with a 91% yield. After polishing, IgG was obtained at a recovery of 70% and a purity of 92%. Corresponding values for albumin were 91% and 90%. This IgG and albumin fractionation technology deserves further evaluation as it may represent a potential alternative to conventional plasma fractionation methods. © 2012 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Biotechnol. Prog. , 28: 1005–1011, 2012
Present situation and new strategies for Chagas disease chemotherapy: a proposal.

Treatments for Chagas disease have been administered since the first attempts by Mayer & Rocha Lima (1912, 1914) and up to the drugs currently in use (nifurtimox and benznidazole), along with potential drugs such as allopurinol and first, second and third-generation antifungal agents (imidazoles and triazoles), in separate form. Several diseases such as tuberculosis, leprosy and AIDS only came under control after they were treated with associations of drugs with different mechanisms of action. This not only boosts the action of the different compounds, but also may avoid the development of parasite resistance . To this end, over the short term, we propose experimental studies on laboratory animals and clinical trials with the following associations: (i) nifurtimox (8 mg/kg/day) + benznidazole (5 mg/kg/day) x 60 consecutive days; (ii) nifurtimox (8 mg/kg/day) or benznidazole (5 mg/kg/day) + allopurinol (8-10 mg/kg/day) x 60 days and (iii) nifurtimox (8 mg/kg/day) or benznidazole (5 mg/kg/day) + ketoconazole, fluconazole or itraconazole (5-6 mg/kg/day) x 60 consecutive days. The doses of the drugs and the treatment schedules for the clinical trials must be adapted according to the side effects. From these, other double or triple associations could be made, using drugs with different mechanisms of action. This proposal does not exclude investigations on new drugs over the median and long terms, targeting other aspects of the metabolism of Trypanosoma cruzi. Until such time as the ideal drug for specific treatment of Chagas disease might be discovered, we need to develop new strategies for achieving greater efficacy with the old drugs in associations and to develop rational experimentation with new drugs.
The threshold for polyglutamine-expansion protein aggregation and cellular toxicity is dynamic and influenced by aging in Caenorhabditis elegans

Studies of the mutant gene in Huntington's disease, and for eight related neurodegenerative disorders, have identified polyglutamine (polyQ) expansions as a basis for cellular toxicity. This finding has led to a disease hypothesis that protein aggregation and cellular dysfunction can occur at a threshold of approximately 40 glutamine residues. Here, we test this hypothesis by expression of fluorescently tagged polyQ proteins (Q29, Q33, Q35, Q40, and Q44) in the body wall muscle cells of Caenorhabditis elegans and show that young adults exhibit a sharp boundary at 35–40 glutamines associated with the appearance of protein aggregates and loss of motility. Surprisingly, genetically identical animals expressing near-threshold polyQ repeats exhibited a high degree of variation in the appearance of protein aggregates and cellular toxicity that was dependent on repeat length and exacerbated during aging. The role of genetically determined aging pathways in the progression of age-dependent polyQ-mediated aggregation and cellular toxicity was tested by expressing Q82 in the background of age-1 mutant animals that exhibit an extended lifespan. We observed a dramatic delay of polyQ toxicity and appearance of protein aggregates. These data provide experimental support for the threshold hypothesis of polyQ-mediated toxicity in an experimental organism and emphasize the importance of the threshold as a point at which genetic modifiers and aging influence biochemical environment and protein homeostasis in the cell.
Robust Locally Linear Analysis with Applications to Image Denoising and Blind Inpainting

We study the related problems of denoising images corrupted by impulsive noise and blind inpainting (i.e., inpainting when the deteriorated region is unknown). Our basic approach is to model the set of patches of pixels in an image as a union of low-dimensional subspaces, corrupted by sparse but perhaps large magnitude noise. For this purpose, we develop a robust and iterative method for single subspace modeling and extend it to an iterative algorithm for modeling multiple subspaces. We prove convergence for both algorithms and carefully compare our methods with other recent ideas for such robust modeling. We demonstrate state-of-the-art performance of our method for both imaging problems.
A New Level-Set-Based Protocol for Accurate Bone Segmentation From CT Imaging

A new medical image segmentation pipeline for accurate bone segmentation from computed tomography (CT) imaging is proposed in this paper. It is a two-step methodology, with a pre-segmentation step and a segmentation refinement step, as follows. First, the user performs a rough segmenting of the desired region of interest. Second, a fully automatic refinement step is applied to the pre-segmented data. The automatic segmentation refinement is composed of several sub-steps, namely, image deconvolution, image cropping, and interpolation. The user-defined pre-segmentation is then refined over the deconvolved, cropped, and up-sampled version of the image. The performance of the proposed algorithm is exemplified with the segmentation of CT images of a composite femur bone, reconstructed with different reconstruction protocols. Segmentation outcomes are validated against a gold standard model, obtained using the coordinate measuring machine Nikon Metris LK V20 with a digital line scanner LC60-D and a resolution of $28~\mu \text{m}$ . High sub-pixel accuracy models are obtained for all tested data sets, with a maximum average deviation of 0.178 mm from the gold standard. The algorithm is able to produce high quality segmentation of the composite femur regardless of the surface meshing strategy used.
Cell surface proteoglycan binds mouse mammary epithelial cells to fibronectin and behaves as a receptor for interstitial matrix

The proteoglycan (PG) on the surface of NMuMG mouse mammary epithelial cells consists of at least two functional domains, a membrane- intercalated domain which anchors the PG to the plasma membrane, and a trypsin-releasable ectodomain which bears both heparan and chondroitin sulfate chains. The ectodomain binds cells to collagen types I, III, and V, but not IV, and has been proposed to be a matrix receptor. Because heparin binds to the adhesive glycoproteins fibronectin, an interstitial matrix component, and laminin, a basal lamina component, we asked whether the cell surface PG also binds these molecules. Cells harvested with either trypsin or EDTA bound to fibronectin; binding of trypsin-released cells was inhibited by the peptide GRGDS but not by heparin, whereas binding of EDTA-released cells was inhibited only by a combination of GRDS and heparin, suggesting two distinct cell binding mechanisms. In the presence of GRGDS, the EDTA-released cells bound to fibronectin via the cell surface PG. Binding via the cell surface PG was to the COOH-terminal heparin binding domain of fibronectin. In contrast with the binding to fibronectin, EDTA-released cells did not bind to laminin under identical assay conditions. Liposomes containing the isolated intact cell surface PG mimic the binding of whole cells. These results indicate that the mammary epithelial cells have at least two distinct cell surface receptors for fibronectin: a trypsin- resistant molecule that binds cells to the sequence RGD and a trypsin- labile, heparan sulfate-rich PG that binds cells to the COOH-terminal heparin binding domain. Because the cell surface PG binds cells to the interstitial collagens (types I, III, and V) and to fibronectin, but not to basal lamina collagen (type IV) or laminin, we conclude that the cell surface PG is a receptor on epithelial cells specific for interstitial matrix components.
An intuitionistic formula hierarchy based on high‐school identities

We revisit the notion of intuitionistic equivalence and formal proof representations by adopting the view of formulas as exponential polynomials. After observing that most of the invertible proof rules of intuitionistic (minimal) propositional sequent calculi are formula (i.e., sequent) isomorphisms corresponding to the high‐school identities, we show that one can obtain a more compact variant of a proof system, consisting of non‐invertible proof rules only, and where the invertible proof rules have been replaced by a formula normalization procedure. Moreover, for certain proof systems such as the G4ip sequent calculus of Vorob'ev, Hudelmaier, and Dyckhoff, it is even possible to see all of the non‐invertible proof rules as strict inequalities between exponential polynomials; a careful combinatorial treatment is given in order to establish this fact. Finally, we extend the exponential polynomial analogy to the first‐order quantifiers, showing that it gives rise to an intuitionistic hierarchy of formulas, resembling the classical arithmetical hierarchy, and the first one that classifies formulas while preserving isomorphism.
Dynamics and morphology of dendritic flux avalanches in superconducting films

We develop a fast numerical procedure for analysis of nonlinear and nonlocal electrodynamics of type-II superconducting films in transverse magnetic fields taking into account realistic boundary conditions. Using this procedure we explore stability of such films with respect to dendritic flux avalanches. The calculated flux patterns are very similar to experimental magneto-optical images of MgB2 and other superconductors, where the avalanche size and morphology change dramatically with temperature. We also find a threshold magnetic field, which agrees with both experiments and linear stability analysis. The simulations predict the temperature rise during an avalanche, where for a sub-microsecond time T ~ 1.5 Tc, and a precursor stage with large thermal fluctuations.
Are ACE inhibitors a "magic bullet" against oxidative stress?

The recently published Heart Outcomes Prevention Evaluation (HOPE) study,1,2 as well as the Study to Evaluate Carotid Ultrasound Changes in Patients Treated With Ramipril and Vitamin E (SECURE),3 demonstrated that treatment with an ACE inhibitor but not vitamin E had beneficial effects on the prognosis and progression of atherosclerosis. In these studies, long-term ACE inhibition significantly reduced the rate of death, myocardial infarction, and stroke and reduced the intima-to-media ratio of carotid arteries in patients at high risk for cardiovascular events. It is likely that these findings will have wide-ranging implications for the treatment of cardiovascular disease, and the contrasting results with respect to ACE inhibitors and vitamin E provide an opportunity to revisit the role of oxidative stress in vascular disease. ### LDL Oxidation and Cardiovascular Disease A surprising finding of these studies was the ineffectiveness of vitamin E in preventing the clinical manifestations of coronary artery disease and the progression of atherosclerosis. A wealth of previous experimental and epidemiological data suggested that excess LDL oxidation was, in part, responsible for the development of atherosclerosis.4 Because vitamin E can inhibit LDL oxidation ex vivo, a logical strategy to reduce oxidative stress would include the administration of antioxidants such as vitamin E. This approach carries considerable risk if the antioxidant is not active against all oxidants relevant to atherosclerosis. Although vitamin E effectively scavenges lipid peroxyl radicals, it has limited activity against other oxidants such as superoxide, peroxynitrite, and hypochlorous acid that have been implicated in atherosclerosis. Another risk with an antioxidant strategy relates to putative cellular compartments or “microdomains” in the vascular wall that do not contain appreciable amounts of the antioxidant. The sum total of these effects would be continued oxidation even in the presence of the antioxidant. Experimental evidence from both animals and patients suggests that lipid peroxidation does proceed …
A COMPARISON OF SERUM HEAT STABLE ALKALINE PHOSPHATASE AND URINARY OESTROGEN EXCRETION IN THE MOTHER AS PLACENTAL FUNCTION TESTS

The serum heat stable alkaline phosphatase (HSAP) was assayed using strict criteria to measure only the placental iso‐enzymes in a group of normal pregnant women in order to establish the normal range. One hundred patients with complica‐tions of pregnancy had paired serum HSAP and urinary oestrogen assays performed serially. Serum HSAP determinations were found to be of no use in predicting fetal distress, the Apgar score at birth, or fetal dysmaturity. Serial assays of urinary oestrogen output enabled dysmaturity to be correctly predicted in 72.4 per cent of cases, but there was also an incidence of 21.1 per cent false positive predictions. Urinary oestrogen assays were less reliable in predicting fetal distress or a low
The deleterious effects of bed rest among community-living older persons.

BACKGROUND Older persons often "take to bed" while they are ill or injured, but relatively little is known about the functional consequences of bed rest among community-living older persons. In this prospective cohort study, the association between episodes of bed rest and functional decline was evaluated during an 18-month period. METHODS Participants included 680 nondisabled, community-living persons aged 70 years or older. They were separated into 2 groups according to the presence or absence of physical frailty, which was defined based on slow gait speed. Episodes of bed rest were ascertained each month in a telephone interview for a median of 18 months. The completion rate was 99.1%. Functional decline was defined as a worsening in scores between the baseline and 18-month follow-up assessments in 1 or more of the following measures: instrumental activities of daily living, mobility, physical activity, and social activity. RESULTS Among the 404 (59.4%) participants who had at least 1 episode of bed rest, the mean number of months with bed rest was 2.8 (standard deviation, 2.4). After adjustments were made for several potential confounders, the number of months with bed rest was significantly associated with decline in each of the functional measures. Significant associations were also observed for each of the functional outcomes among participants who were not physically frail, but they were observed only for instrumental activities of daily living disability among participants who were physically frail. CONCLUSIONS These findings indicate that episodes of bed rest among community-living older persons are associated with decline in several important indicators of function.
Chitin and Chitosan Nanofibers: Preparation and Chemical Modifications

Chitin nanofibers are prepared from the exoskeletons of crabs and prawns, squid pens and mushrooms by a simple mechanical treatment after a series of purification steps. The nanofibers have fine nanofiber networks with a uniform width of approximately 10 nm. The method used for chitin-nanofiber isolation is also successfully applied to the cell walls of mushrooms. Commercial chitin and chitosan powders are also easily converted into nanofibers by mechanical treatment, since these powders consist of nanofiber aggregates. Grinders and high-pressure waterjet systems are effective for disintegrating chitin into nanofibers. Acidic conditions are the key factor to facilitate mechanical fibrillation. Surface modification is an effective way to change the surface property and to endow nanofiber surface with other properties. Several modifications to the chitin NF surface are achieved, including acetylation, deacetylation, phthaloylation, naphthaloylation, maleylation, chlorination, TEMPO-mediated oxidation, and graft polymerization. Those derivatives and their properties are characterized.
A Tale of Two Oxidation States: Bacterial Colonization of Arsenic-Rich Environments

Microbial biotransformations have a major impact on contamination by toxic elements, which threatens public health in developing and industrial countries. Finding a means of preserving natural environments—including ground and surface waters—from arsenic constitutes a major challenge facing modern society. Although this metalloid is ubiquitous on Earth, thus far no bacterium thriving in arsenic-contaminated environments has been fully characterized. In-depth exploration of the genome of the β-proteobacterium Herminiimonas arsenicoxydans with regard to physiology, genetics, and proteomics, revealed that it possesses heretofore unsuspected mechanisms for coping with arsenic. Aside from multiple biochemical processes such as arsenic oxidation, reduction, and efflux, H. arsenicoxydans also exhibits positive chemotaxis and motility towards arsenic and metalloid scavenging by exopolysaccharides. These observations demonstrate the existence of a novel strategy to efficiently colonize arsenic-rich environments, which extends beyond oxidoreduction reactions. Such a microbial mechanism of detoxification, which is possibly exploitable for bioremediation applications of contaminated sites, may have played a crucial role in the occupation of ancient ecological niches on earth.
Excessive Long-Time Deflections of Prestressed Box Girders. I: Record-Span Bridge in Palau and Other Paradigms

The segmental prestressed concrete box girder of Koror-Babeldaob (KB) Bridge in Palau, which had a record span of 241 m (791 ft), presents a striking paradigm of serviceability loss because of excessive multidecade deflections. The data required for analysis have recently been released and are here exploited to show how the analysis and design could be improved. Erected segmentally in 1977, this girder developed a midspan deflection of 1.61 m (5.3 ft) compared with the design camber after 18 years, and it collapsed in 1996 as a consequence of remedial prestressing, after a 3-month delay. Compared with three-dimensional analysis, the traditional beam-type analysis of box girder deflections is found to have errors up to 20%, although greater errors are likely for bridges with higher box-width-to-span ratios than the KB Bridge. However, even three-dimensional finite-element analysis with step-by-step time integration cannot explain the observed deflections when the current American Concrete Institute, Japan Society of Civil Engineers, Comite Euro-International du Beton (or Comite Euro- International du Beton—Federation internationale de la precontrainte), and Gardner and Lockman prediction models for creep and shrinkage are used. These models give 18-year deflection estimates that are 50-77% lower than measured and yield unrealistic shapes of the deflection history. They also predict the 18-year prestress loss to be 46-56% lower than the measured mean prestress loss, which was 50%. Model B3, which is the only theoretically based model, underestimates the 18-year deflection by 42% and gives a prestress loss of 40% when the default parameter values are used. However, in Model B3, several input parameters are adjustable and if they are adjusted according to the long-time laboratory tests of Brooks, a close fit of all the measurements is obtained. For early deflections and their extrapolation, it is important that Model B3 can capture realistically the differences in the rates of shrinkage and drying creep caused by the differences in the thickness of the walls of the cross section. The differences in temperature and possible cracking of the top slab also need to be taken into account. Other paradigms on which data have recently been released are four bridges in Japan and one in the Czech Republic. Their excessive deflections can also be explained. The detailed method of analysis and the lessons learned are presented in Part II. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)ST.1943-541X . 0000487. © 2012 American Society of Civil Engineers. CE Database subject headings: Creep; Shrinkage; Box girders; Serviceability; Deflection; Span bridges. Author keywords: Prestressed box girder; Bridges; Segmental erection; Shear lag; Design standards; Concrete; Relaxation.
Parser evaluation: a survey and a new proposal

We present a critical overview of the state-of-the-art in parser evaluation methodologies and metrics. A discussion of their relative strengths and weaknesses motivates a new—and we claim more informative and generally applicable—technique of measuring parser accuracy, based on the use of grammatical relations. We conclude with some preliminary results of experiments in which we use this new scheme to evaluate a robust parser of English.