Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Androgen Receptor Variants Occur Frequently in Castration Resistant Prostate Cancer Metastases

Background Although androgens are depleted in castration resistant prostate cancer (CRPC), metastases still express nuclear androgen receptor (AR) and androgen regulated genes. We recently reported that C-terminal truncated constitutively active AR splice variants contribute to CRPC development. Since specific antibodies detecting all C-terminal truncated AR variants are not available, our aim was to develop an approach to assess the prevalence and function of AR variants in prostate cancer (PCa). Methodology/Principal Findings Using 2 antibodies against different regions of AR protein (N- or C-terminus), we successfully showed the existence of AR variant in the LuCaP 86.2 xenograft. To evaluate the prevalence of AR variants in human PCa tissue, we used this method on tissue microarrays including 50 primary PCa and 162 metastatic CRPC tissues. RT-PCR was used to confirm AR variants. We observed a significant decrease in nuclear C-terminal AR staining in CRPC but no difference between N- and C-terminal AR nuclear staining in primary PCa. The expression of the AR regulated proteins PSA and PSMA were marginally affected by the decrease in C-terminal staining in CRPC samples. These data suggest that there is an increase in the prevalence of AR variants in CRPC based on our ability to differentiate nuclear AR expression using N- and C-terminal AR antibodies. These findings were validated using RT-PCR. Importantly, the loss of C-terminal immunoreactivity and the identification of AR variants were different depending on the site of metastasis in the same patient. Conclusions We successfully developed a novel immunohistochemical approach which was used to ascertain the prevalence of AR variants in a large number of primary PCa and metastatic CRPC. Our results showed a snapshot of overall high frequency of C-terminal truncated AR splice variants and site specific AR loss in CRPC, which could have utility in stratifying patients for AR targeted therapeutics.
Is the postsubiculum involved in associating landmarks with location

A form of plasticity is required for the long term stability o f head direction and place cell activity. It is suspected that such plasticity may be found i the postsubiculum. This report describes several experiments and models which attempt to c onfirm or deny this hypothesis. Although the experimental data was inconclusive, the proje ct did develop a robust protocol for further research. The model has given an insight into how the various cells could be combined and what sorts of remapping are possible.
Using Constraints for Efficient Query Processing in Nondeterministic Databases

Nondeterministic databases store disjunctive data using OR-objects. For example, data such as "Part#1 is implementable using Nickel or Cobalt" is stored as Implement(Part#1, o/sub 1/) where Dom(o/sub 1/)={Nickel, Cobalt} is the domain of the OR-object o/sub 1/. A possible world of a database is obtained by replacing every OR-object by a member from its domain, and it is said to be conforming if it satisfies all the FDs (functional dependencies) associated with the database. A database D is said to fully incorporate a set F of FDs if every possible world of D is conforming. This paper studies the problem of preprocessing databases to achieve full incorporation, and also the problem of incrementally maintaining a database fully incorporated under insertions and deletions. We first define a certain property called goodness of a class D of databases for a set F of FDs; goodness can be tested efficiently and enforced easily at schema design time. For any class D of databases that is good for F, we present: 1) a quadratic time algorithm for fully incorporating F; 2) efficient algorithms for maintaining full incorporation under updates; and 3) lower-bounds for the algorithms of (1) and (2). Next, we show that, for classes of databases that are not good, the problem of full incorporation is, in general, coNP-complete. We also examine the complexity when OR-objects are restricted to have no more than two members, and obtain some interesting tractable algorithms, and intractability results.
Role of P-selectin and PSGL-1 in coagulation and thrombosis

Summary P-selectin and PSGL-1 are cell adhesion molecules, regulating the initial interactions between leukocytes and the blood vessel wall as well as between activated platelets and leukocytes. P-selectin is expressed on activated endothelial cells and platelets, while its major ligand PSGL-1 is expressed on leukocytes. Multiple studies have shown that these adhesion molecules are required for the normal recruitment of leukocytes during an inflammatory reaction. More recently, these adhesion molecules have been implicated in recruitment of leukocytes and leukocyte microparticles to thrombi. The P-selectinand PSGL-1-dependent delivery of circulating microparticles to thrombi appears to be important for normal tissue factor accumulation and fibrin generation in thrombi.
Driving pressure and survival in the acute respiratory distress syndrome.

BACKGROUND Mechanical-ventilation strategies that use lower end-inspiratory (plateau) airway pressures, lower tidal volumes (VT), and higher positive end-expiratory pressures (PEEPs) can improve survival in patients with the acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), but the relative importance of each of these components is uncertain. Because respiratory-system compliance (CRS) is strongly related to the volume of aerated remaining functional lung during disease (termed functional lung size), we hypothesized that driving pressure (ΔP=VT/CRS), in which VT is intrinsically normalized to functional lung size (instead of predicted lung size in healthy persons), would be an index more strongly associated with survival than VT or PEEP in patients who are not actively breathing. METHODS Using a statistical tool known as multilevel mediation analysis to analyze individual data from 3562 patients with ARDS enrolled in nine previously reported randomized trials, we examined ΔP as an independent variable associated with survival. In the mediation analysis, we estimated the isolated effects of changes in ΔP resulting from randomized ventilator settings while minimizing confounding due to the baseline severity of lung disease. RESULTS Among ventilation variables, ΔP was most strongly associated with survival. A 1-SD increment in ΔP (approximately 7 cm of water) was associated with increased mortality (relative risk, 1.41; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.31 to 1.51; P<0.001), even in patients receiving "protective" plateau pressures and VT (relative risk, 1.36; 95% CI, 1.17 to 1.58; P<0.001). Individual changes in VT or PEEP after randomization were not independently associated with survival; they were associated only if they were among the changes that led to reductions in ΔP (mediation effects of ΔP, P=0.004 and P=0.001, respectively). CONCLUSIONS We found that ΔP was the ventilation variable that best stratified risk. Decreases in ΔP owing to changes in ventilator settings were strongly associated with increased survival. (Funded by Fundação de Amparo e Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo and others.).
T cell receptor genes in a series of class I major histocompatibility complex-restricted cytotoxic T lymphocyte clones specific for a Plasmodium berghei nonapeptide: implications for T cell allelic exclusion and antigen-specific repertoire

We report here the first extensive study of a T cell repertoire for a class I major histocompatibility complex (MHC)-restricted cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) response. We have found that the T cell receptors (TCRs) carried by 28 H-2Kd-restricted CTL clones specific for a single Plasmodium berghei circumsporozoite nonapeptide are highly diverse in terms of V alpha, J alpha, and J beta segments and aminoacid composition of the junctional regions. However, despite this extensive diversity, a high proportion of the TCRs contain the same V beta segment. These results are in contrast to most previously reported T cell responses towards class II MHC-peptide complexes, where the TCR repertoires appeared to be much more limited. In our study, the finding of a dominant V beta in the midst of otherwise highly diverse TCRs suggests the importance of the V beta segment in shaping the T cell repertoire specific for a given MHC-peptide complex. As an additional finding, we observed that nearly all clones have rearranged both TCR alpha loci. Moreover, as many as one-third of the CTL clones that we analyzed apparently display two productive alpha rearrangements. This argues against a regulated model of sequential recombination at the alpha locus and consequently raises the question of whether allelic exclusion of the TCR alpha chain is achieved at all.
Avaliação da qualidade de serviços de uma empresa agrícola

Currently, quality is one of the concerns of organizations. The quality of products and services are determining factors, interfering in the image, in the results and in the position of the company in the market. In this context this research was conducted, seeking to evaluate the quality of the services offered by a company in the agricultural sector in the region of Missoes/RS, from the view of the customer, using the SERVPERF methodology. This methodology consists of a field search, in which a questionnaire was used as a tool. The descriptive and inferential statistic was used to analysis the data, especially the technique of multivariate analysis of correspondence. Seventy two customers participated in the survey, using a sample error margin of 5%. SERVPERF method, applied to the data, showed that the company has quality in its services, but needs to improve the exhibition service of the products, thus improving their organization and customer satisfaction.
Automatic Humor Classification on Twitter

Much has been written about humor and even sarcasm automatic recognition on Twitter. The task of classifying humorous tweets according to the type of humor has not been confronted so far, as far as we know. This research is aimed at applying classification and other NLP algorithms to the challenging task of automatically identifying the type and topic of humorous messages on Twitter. To achieve this goal, we will extend the related work surveyed hereinafter, adding different types of humor and characteristics to distinguish between them, including stylistic, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic ones. We will keep in mind the complex nature of the task at hand, which emanates from the informal language applied in tweets and variety of humor types and styles. These tend to be remarkably different from the type specific ones recognized in related works. We will use semi-supervised classifiers on a dataset of humorous tweets driven from different Twitter humor groups or funny tweet sites. Using a Mechanical Turk we will create a gold standard in which each tweet will be tagged by several annotators, in order to achieve an agreement between them, although the nature of the humor might allow one tweet to be classified under more than one class and topic of humor.
Crowd mining

Harnessing a crowd of Web users for data collection has recently become a wide-spread phenomenon. A key challenge is that the human knowledge forms an open world and it is thus difficult to know what kind of information we should be looking for. Classic databases have addressed this problem by data mining techniques that identify interesting data patterns. These techniques, however, are not suitable for the crowd. This is mainly due to properties of the human memory, such as the tendency to remember simple trends and summaries rather than exact details. Following these observations, we develop here for the first time the foundations of crowd mining. We first define the formal settings. Based on these, we design a framework of generic components, used for choosing the best questions to ask the crowd and mining significant patterns from the answers. We suggest general implementations for these components, and test the resulting algorithm's performance on benchmarks that we designed for this purpose. Our algorithm consistently outperforms alternative baseline algorithms.
Association between influenza vaccination and cardiovascular outcomes in high-risk patients: a meta-analysis.

IMPORTANCE Among nontraditional cardiovascular risk factors, recent influenzalike infection is associated with fatal and nonfatal atherothrombotic events. OBJECTIVES To determine if influenza vaccination is associated with prevention of cardiovascular events. DATA SOURCES AND STUDY SELECTION A systematic review and meta-analysis of MEDLINE (1946-August 2013), EMBASE (1947-August 2013), and the Cochrane Library Central Register of Controlled Trials (inception-August 2013) for randomized clinical trials (RCTs) comparing influenza vaccine vs placebo or control in patients at high risk of cardiovascular disease, reporting cardiovascular outcomes either as efficacy or safety events. DATA EXTRACTION AND SYNTHESIS Two investigators extracted data independently on trial design, baseline characteristics, outcomes, and safety events from published manuscripts and unpublished supplemental data. High-quality studies were considered those that described an appropriate method of randomization, allocation concealment, blinding, and completeness of follow-up. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Random-effects Mantel-Haenszel risk ratios (RRs) and 95% CIs were derived for composite cardiovascular events, cardiovascular mortality, all-cause mortality, and individual cardiovascular events. Analyses were stratified by subgroups of patients with and without a history of acute coronary syndrome (ACS) within 1 year of randomization. RESULTS Five published and 1 unpublished randomized clinical trials of 6735 patients (mean age, 67 years; 51.3% women; 36.2% with a cardiac history; mean follow-up time, 7.9 months) were included. Influenza vaccine was associated with a lower risk of composite cardiovascular events (2.9% vs 4.7%; RR, 0.64 [95% CI, 0.48-0.86], P = .003) in published trials. A treatment interaction was detected between patients with (RR, 0.45 [95% CI, 0.32-0.63]) and without (RR, 0.94 [95% CI, 0.55-1.61]) recent ACS (P for interaction = .02). Results were similar with the addition of unpublished data. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE In a meta-analysis of RCTs, the use of influenza vaccine was associated with a lower risk of major adverse cardiovascular events. The greatest treatment effect was seen among the highest-risk patients with more active coronary disease. A large, adequately powered, multicenter trial is warranted to address these findings and assess individual cardiovascular end points.
Visual attention and active vision: from natural to artificial systems

In the previous chapter, the MUlti-scale Symmetry Transform (MUST) is proposed for the detection of interest points based on symmetry. The performance of the method is compared to the SIFT interest-point detector. The results showed that symmetrical points are more stable over small changes of viewpoint and more robust to noise and changing light conditions. Moreover, the proposed method resulted in better SLAM performance when used to select visual landmarks to represent the environment. However, Figure 8.4 reveals that even for MUST the stability of the interest points drops quickly as a function of the displacement of the robot. Regions of interest are expected to be more stably detected than points, because they are supported by larger areas and thus less susceptible to noise. Therefore, a Symmetrical Region-of-Interest Detector (SymRoID) is proposed in this chapter to improve the stability and with that the SLAM performance. The results show that symmetrical regions-of-interest are less susceptible to noise, are more stable, and above all, result in better SLAM performance. with ground-truth positions. The results show that our model results in better SLAM performance.
Immunohistochemical Localization and Characterization of Putative Mesenchymal Stem Cell Markers in the Retinal Capillary Network of Rodents

Perivascular cells of microvascular niches are the prime candidates for being a reservoire of mesenchymal stem cell (MSC)-like cells in many tissues and organs that could serve as a potential source of cells and a target of novel cell-based therapeutic approaches. In the present study, by utilising typical markers of pericytes (neuronal-glial antigen 2, NG2, a chondroitin sulphate proteoglycan) and those of MSCs (CD146 and CD105) and primitive pluripotent cells (sex-determining region Y-box 2, Sox2), the phenotypic traits and the distribution of murine and rat retinal perivascular cells were investigated in situ. Our findings indicate that retinal microvessels of juvenile rodents are highly covered by NG2-positive branching processes of pericytic (perivascular) cells that are less prominent in mature capillary networks of the adult retina. In the adult rodent retinal vascular bed, NG2 labeling is mainly confined to membranes of the cell body resulting in a pearl-chain-like distribution along the vessels. Retinal pericytes, which were identified by their morphology and NG2 expression, simultaneously express CD146. Furthermore, CD146-positive cells located at small arteriole-to-capillary branching points appear more intensely stained than elsewhere. Evidence for a differential expression of the two markers around capillaries that would hint at a clonal heterogeneity among pericytic cells, however, is lacking. In contrast, the expression of CD105 is exclusively restricted to vascular endothelial cells and Sox2 is detected neither in perivascular nor in endothelial cells. In dissociated retinal cultures, however, simultaneous expression of NG2 and CD105 was observed. Collectively, our data indicate that vascular wall resident retinal pericytes share some phenotypic features (i.e. CD146 expression) with archetypal MSCs, which is even more striking in dissociated retinal cultures (i.e. CD105 expression). These findings might have implications for the treatment of retinal pathologies.
Seeking respite: issues around the use of day respite care for the carers of people with dementia

ABSTRACT Ageing in Place policies have transferred responsibility for many frail elderly people and those living with dementia from residential to in-home care. Despite this placing a greater obligation on families, in Australia carers continue to under-use day respite services. This qualitative design study identified issues around the use of day respite care from the perspective of the family carer, focusing on barriers to attendance and strategies to facilitate attendance. Telephone interviews were held in 2007 with Tasmanian carers whose family member refused to attend day respite care (ten carers) and those whose family member attended (17). Carers considering day respite care were often overwhelmed by the quantity of information, confused about the process, and worried about the recipient's safety in an unfamiliar environment. They felt anxious about public acknowledgement of the condition leading to fear of embarrassment. Day respite care users appreciated the break it provided them and the opportunity for their family member to socialise. To facilitate a greater uptake of day respite care, reliable information sources and strategies to help carers deal with the emotions they face on a daily basis, together with a wider social acceptance of dementia, are important. Furthermore, carers need an opportunity to talk with others, enabling them to gain support from those who have successfully introduced a family member to day respite care.
Building a web thesaurus from web link structure

Thesaurus has been widely used in many applications, including information retrieval, natural language processing, and question answering. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to automatically constructing a domain-specific thesaurus from the Web using link structure information. The proposed approach is able to identify new terms and reflect the latest relationship between terms as the Web evolves. First, a set of high quality and representative websites of a specific domain is selected. After filtering out navigational links, link analysis is applied to each website to obtain its content structure. Finally, the thesaurus is constructed by merging the content structures of the selected websites. The experimental results on automatic query expansion based on our constructed thesaurus show 20% improvement in search precision compared to the baseline.
Unlimited vocabulary speech recognition based on morphs discovered in an unsupervised manner

We study continuous speech recognition based on sub-word units found in an unsupervised fashion. For agglutinative languages like Finnish, traditional word-based n-gram language modeling does not work well due to the huge number of different word forms. We use a method based on the Minimum Description Length principle to split words statistically into subword units allowing efficient language modeling and unlimited vocabulary. The perplexity and speech recognition experiments on Finnish speech data show that the resulting model outperforms both word and syllable based trigram models. Compared to the word trigram model, the out-of-vocabulary rate is reduced from 20% to 0% and the word error rate from 56% to 32%.
Exploring the Role of Small Differences in Predictive Accuracy using Simulated Data

Research in student modeling often leads to only small improvements in predictive accuracy of models. The importance of such improvements is often hard to assess and has been a frequent subject of discussions in student modeling community. In this work we use simulated students to study the role of small differences in predictive accuracy. We study the impact of such differences on behavior of adaptive educational systems and relation to interpretation of model parameters. We also point out a feedback loop between student models and data used for their evaluation and show how this feedback loop may mask important differences between models.
Transmission of Theileria parva by a population of Rhipicephalus appendiculatus under simulated natural conditions

SUMMARY A 2 hectare paddock on the Muguga Estate, Kiambu District of Kenya (altitude 2100 m) free of Theileria parva-iniected ticks was seeded by applying Rhipicephalus appendiculatus nymphs to cattle infected with Theileria parva (Kiambu 4). It was estimated that over 50000 engorged nymphs fell onto the pasture from 4 cattle with high parasitaemias during the cold season (June). Samples of these ticks were placed in plastic cylinders under the vegetation in the paddock and sexual stages of T. parva were detected in gut lumen smears in these samples up to 21 days alter repletion. Zygotes were first observed to transform into kinetes on day 55 and parasites were first detected in salivary glands of adults on day 64. Moulting of the nymphs started on day 60 after repletion and was completed by day 87. Cattle introduced into the paddock showed their first infestation with adult R. appendiculatus on day 64 after repletion of the nymphs and the infestation level gradually increased. On day 76 after repletion, 17% of a sample of adult ticks infesting cattle showed salivary gland infections with T. parva and this increased to over 70% by day 150. From day 360 onwards, a decrease in both the percentage of ticks infected and the number of salivary gland acini infected/tick was noted. In addition, T. parva infections within the salivary glands required a longer period of feeding in the older ticks before they developed into sporozoites. Cycling of Theileria through ticks was prevented by the removal of female ticks before they completed repletion. Lethal challenge levels of T. parva for cattle existed in the paddock up to day 547 after repletion, after which introduced cattle showed no infection or only a sub-lethal infection. Cattle introduced into the paddock on day 808 after repletion showed no evidence of T. parva infection. The tick infestation of introduced cattle decreased markedly from day 368 and infestation had virtually ceased by day 808