Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Human natural killer cells.

Natural killer (NK) cells were discovered 30 NK cells are large granular lymphocytes that belong to the innate immune system because unlike T or B lymphocytes of the adaptive or antigen-speciﬁc immune system, NK cells do not rearrange T-cell receptor or immunoglobulin genes from their germline con-ﬁguration. 2 decades there has been a substantial gain in our understanding of what and how NK-cells “see,”lendingimportantinsightsintotheir functions and purpose in normal immune surveillance. The most recent discoveries in NK-cell receptor biology have fu-eled translational research that has led to remarkable results in treating human ma-lignancy. (Blood. 2008;112:461-469)
Stress, Meditation, and Alzheimer’s Disease Prevention: Where The Evidence Stands

Abstract Although meditation is believed to be over five thousand years old, scientific research on it is in its infancy. Mitigating the extensive negative biochemical effects of stress is a superficially discussed target of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) prevention, yet may be critically important. This paper reviews lifestyle and stress as possible factors contributing to AD and meditation’s effects on cognition and well-being for reduction of neurodegeneration and prevention of AD. This review highlights Kirtan Kriya (KK), an easy, cost effective meditation technique requiring only 12 minutes a day, which has been successfully employed to improve memory in studies of people with subjective cognitive decline, mild cognitive impairment, and highly stressed caregivers, all of whom are at increased risk for subsequent development of AD. KK has also been shown to improve sleep, decrease depression, reduce anxiety, down regulate inflammatory genes, upregulate immune system genes, improve insulin and glucose regulatory genes, and increase telomerase by 43%; the largest ever recorded. KK also improves psycho-spiritual well-being or spiritual fitness, important for maintenance of cognitive function and prevention of AD. KK is easy to learn and practice by aging individuals. It is the premise of this review that meditation in general, and KK specifically, along with other modalities such as dietary modification, physical exercise, mental stimulation, and socialization, may be beneficial as part of an AD prevention program.
A Dirichlet Mixture Model of Hawkes Processes for Event Sequence Clustering

We propose an effective method to solve the event sequence clustering problems based on a novel Dirichlet mixture model of a special but significant type of point processes --- Hawkes process. In this model, each event sequence belonging to a cluster is generated via the same Hawkes process with specific parameters, and different clusters correspond to different Hawkes processes. The prior distribution of the Hawkes processes is controlled via a Dirichlet distribution. We learn the model via a maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) and propose an effective variational Bayesian inference algorithm. We specifically analyze the resulting EM-type algorithm in the context of inner-outer iterations and discuss several inner iteration allocation strategies. The identifiability of our model, the convergence of our learning method, and its sample complexity are analyzed in both theoretical and empirical ways, which demonstrate the superiority of our method to other competitors. The proposed method learns the number of clusters automatically and is robust to model misspecification. Experiments on both synthetic and real-world data show that our method can learn diverse triggering patterns hidden in asynchronous event sequences and achieve encouraging performance on clustering purity and consistency.
Do transient ischemic attacks with diffusion-weighted imaging abnormalities correspond to brain infarctions?

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Our aim was to determine whether diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) changes associated with transient ischemic attack (TIA) are reversible or correspond to permanent tissue injury. METHODS Among 103 consecutive patients admitted for TIA, 36 (34.9%) had abnormalities on initial DWI (delay from TIA = 30 +/- 33 hours [mean +/- SD]). Thirty-three patients (59 DWI lesions) had an MR imaging follow-up (delay from TIA = 10.6 +/- 5 months) including fluid-attenuated inversion recovery, T2, DWI, and 3D T1-weighted sequences. For each lesion, we recorded the quantitative parameters on initial DWI (volume, apparent diffusion coefficient [ADC]) and performed a comparison between reversible and irreversible lesions. RESULTS MR imaging failed to detect any permanent injury in 7 patients and identified subsequent infarct in regions corresponding to the original DWI abnormalities in 26 patients (79%). Of the 59 lesions initially identified on DWI, 45 (76.3%) were associated with permanent injury on follow-up MR imaging. The DWI volume was significantly larger (0.91 +/- 1.7 versus 0.21 +/- 0.21 cm(3), P = . 003) and the ADC ratio values lower (79 +/- 15% versus 91 +/- 9%, P = .001) in lesions with subsequent infarct than in those that were fully reversible. CONCLUSION By showing that most patients with DWI-positive TIAs share the same imaging outcome as stroke patients, our data provide additional support for the redefinition of TIA, which considers that all cases of transient deficit with characteristic neuroimaging abnormalities should be diagnosed as a stroke.
Synthesis of flower-like Ag-ZnO nanostructure and its application in the photodegradation of methyl orange

Nanostructured Ag-ZnO materials were successfully synthesized by first producing a ZnO with flower-like morphology using a simple precipitation method, and then Ag nanoparticles were prepared directly on the surface by a facile photoreduction method. The materials were characterized by scanning and transmission electron microscopy (SEM and TEM), by X-ray diffractometry (XRD) and atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS). They were shown to be composed of metallic Ag particles dispersed on the surface of flower-like ZnO structures. Photocatalytic effect of Ag-ZnO on the photodegradation of methyl orange (MO) under UV irradiation was investigated in aqueous suspension. The effect of pH, Ag content, photodeposition time, concentration of the organic dye and presence of Mg2+, Ca2+, NO3-, Cl- and SO42- on the photocatalytic degradation and decolorization reaction of MO was studied. The photocatalytic method was applied for the degradation of MO in several synthetic wastewater samples with satisfactory results.
ICA Extracts Epileptic Sources from fMRI in EEG-Negative Patients: A Retrospective Validation Study

Simultaneous EEG-fMRI has proven to be useful in localizing interictal epileptic activity. However, the applicability of traditional GLM-based analysis is limited as interictal spikes are often not seen on the EEG inside the scanner. Therefore, we aim at extracting epileptic activity purely from the fMRI time series using independent component analysis (ICA). To our knowledge, we show for the first time that ICA can find sources related to epileptic activity in patients where no interictal spikes were recorded in the EEG. The epileptic components were identified retrospectively based on the known localization of the ictal onset zone (IOZ). We demonstrate that the selected components truly correspond to epileptic activity, as sources extracted from patients resemble significantly better the IOZ than sources found in healthy controls. Furthermore, we show that the epileptic components in patients with and without spikes recorded inside the scanner resemble the IOZ in the same degree. We conclude that ICA of fMRI has the potential to extend the applicability of EEG-fMRI for presurgical evaluation in epilepsy.
Enriching Ontological User Profiles with Tagging History for Multi-Domain Recommendations

Many advanced recommendation frameworks employ ontologies of various complexities to model individuals and items, providing a mechanism for the expression of user interests and the representation of item attributes. As a result, complex matching techniques can be applied to support individuals in the discovery of items according to explicit and implicit user preferences. Recently, the rapid adoption of Web2.0, and the proliferation of social networking sites, has resulted in more and more users providing an increasing amount of information about themselves that could be exploited for recommendation purposes. However, the unification of personal information with ontologies using the contemporary knowledge representation methods often associated with Web2.0 applications, such as community tagging, is a non-trivial task. In this paper, we propose a method for the unification of tags with ontologies by grounding tags to a shared representation in the form of Wordnet and Wikipedia. We incorporate individuals’ tagging history into their ontological profiles by matching tags with ontology concepts. This approach is preliminary evaluated by extending an existing news recommendation system with user tagging histories harvested from popular social networking sites.
Characterization of trenbolone acetate and estradiol metabolite excretion profiles in implanted steers

Exogenous growth promoters have been used in US beef cattle production for over 50 yr. The environmental fate and transport of steroid growth promoters suggest potential for endocrine‐disrupting effects among ecological receptors; however, the initial excretion of steroid metabolites from cattle administered growth promoters has not been well characterized. To better characterize excretion of trenbolone acetate and estrogen metabolites, steers were assigned to 1 of the following treatment groups: control, given no implant, or treatment, administered a combination implant (200 mg trenbolone acetate, 40 mg estradiol). Blood, urine, and fecal samples were collected over the course of 112 d following implantation. Samples were extracted and analyzed by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry for trenbolone acetate and estrogen metabolites. In both urine and feces, 17α‐trenbolone and 17α‐estradiol were the predominant metabolites following implantation. Mean concentrations of 17α‐trenbolone and 17α‐estradiol in feces of implanted steers were 5.9 ± 0.37 ng/g and 2.7 ± 0.22 ng/g, respectively. A best‐fit model is presented to predict 17α‐trenbolone and 17α‐estradiol excretion from steers receiving implants. The present study provides the first characterization of both trenbolone and estrogen metabolites in excreta from implanted cattle and will help provide estimates of steroid production from feedyards in the United States. Environ Toxicol Chem 2014;33:2850–2858. © 2014 SETAC
Bah humbug: Unexpected Christmas cards and the reciprocity norm

ABSTRACT The reciprocity norm refers to the expectation that people will help those who helped them. A well-known study revealed that the norm is strong with Christmas cards, with 20% of people reciprocating a Christmas card received from a stranger. I attempted to conceptually replicate and extend this effect. In Study 1, 755 participants received a Christmas card supposedly from a more- versus less-similar stranger. The reciprocation rate was unexpectedly low (2%), which did not allow for a test of a similarity effect. Two potential reasons for this low rate were examined in Study 2 in which 494 participants reported their likelihood of reciprocating a Christmas card from a stranger as well as their felt suspicions/threat about the card and their frequency of e-mail use. Reciprocation likelihood was negatively correlated with perceived threat/suspicion and e-mail use. It appears that reciprocating a gift from a stranger in offline settings may be less likely than expected.
Mental health professionals’ attitudes toward patients with PTSD and depression

Background To date, mental health professionals’ attitudes toward posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), compared to other psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia or depression, have rarely been studied. Objective We assessed mental health professionals’ attitudes toward patients with PTSD compared to patients suffering from depression. Method Case vignettes of a patient with either PTSD or depression were presented to two samples of mental health professionals: attendees of a conference on posttraumatic stress (N=226) or of a lecture for psychiatry residents (N=112). Participants subsequently completed a questionnaire that assessed their attitude reactions to the presented case. Results Participants showed similarly positive attitudes toward depression and PTSD. PTSD elicited a more favorable attitude with regard to prosocial reactions, estimated dependency, attributed responsibility, and interest in the case, particularly in mental health professionals specializing in psychotraumatology. Across diagnoses, higher age and longer professional experience were associated with more positive attitudes toward patients. Conclusions Mental health professionals’ positive attitudes toward patients with depression and PTSD correlate with their specific knowledge about the disorder, their level of professional training, and their years of professional experience. Limitations The instruments used, although based on established theoretical concepts in attitude research, were not validated in their present versions.
New mechanism for electron heating in shocks.

Electron trajectories diverge exponentially in a sufficiently small-scale electrostatic field with a static external magnetic field. This electron trajectory instability results in the electron heating in field structure typical for the collisionless shock front ramp. The magnitude of the effect is sufficient to explain the observed heating at the Earth's bow shock and interplanetary shocks. The heating features are consistent with the observations.
Eight Maximal Tractable Subclasses of Allen's Algebra with Metric Time

This paper combines two important directions of research in temporal resoning: that of finding maximal tractable subclasses of Allen's interval algebra, and that of reasoning with metric temporal information. Eight new maximal tractable subclasses of Allen's interval algebra are presented, some of them subsuming previously reported tractable algebras. The algebras allow for metric temporal constraints on interval starting or ending points, using the recent framework of Horn DLRs. Two of the algebras can express the notion of sequentiality between intervals, being the first such algebras admitting both qualitative and metric time.
Compact name-independent routing with minimum stretch

Given a weighted undirected network with arbitrary node names, we present a compact routing scheme, using aÕ(&sqrt;n,) space routing table at each node, and routing along paths of stretch 3, that is, at most thrice as long as the minimum cost paths. This is optimal in a very strong sense. It is known that no compact routing using o(n) space per node can route with stretch below 3. Also, it is known that any stretch below 5 requires Ω(&sqrt;n,)space per node.
COMP does not directly modify the expression of genes involved in cartilage homeostasis in contrast to several other cartilage matrix proteins

Abstract Objective: We investigated whether COMP may modify cartilage metabolism and play a role as an endogenous disease aggravating factor in OA. Materials and methods: Full-length and momomeric COMP was recombinantly expressed in human embryonic kidney cells and purified it via affinity chromatography. Purified COMP was used to stimulate either primary human chondrocytes or cartilage explants. Changes in the expression profiles of inflammatory genes, differentiation markers and growth factors were examined by immunoassay and by quantitative real-time reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction. Results: Incubation of primary human chondrocytes or cartilage explants in the presence of COMP did not induce statistically significant changes in the expression of IL-6, MMP1, MMP13, collagen I, collagen II, collagen X, TGF-β1 and BMP-2. Conclusions: In contrast to collagen II and matrilin-3, COMP lacks the ability to trigger a proinflammatory response in chondrocytes, although it carries an RGD motif and can bind to integrins. COMP is a well-accepted biomarker for osteoarthritis but increased COMP levels do not necessarily correlate with inflammation.
System Support for Privacy-preserving and Energy-efficient Data Gathering in the Global Smartphone Network - Opportunities and Challenges

Smartphones are becoming the predominant mobile computing device of the decade. By end of 2012 more than 150 million devices have already been sold and the yearly market growth is about 40%. The ubiquity of the smartphone creates tremendous opportunities for collecting and mining data from end users. Smartphones are becoming a global sensor network that could answer questions about user (customer) behavior and their interests, device status, security threats, and a vast amount of derived information such as CO 2 footprints, traffic conditions, etc. However, so far only very few market-leading companies, such as Apple and Google, are able to exploit this data source. Even though technologically possible, end user concerns such as privacy protection, energy consumption, and the general lack of incentives, make it difficult for smaller companies and private app developers to make use of the smartphone network. This paper will present the vision of an open system support platform for running flexible “Internet Queries” and “Collective Apps” in the global smartphone network. We analyze the problems of the current state of the art, derive platform requirements, and sketch the envisioned platform’s architecture. The discussion will culminate in a list of important research directions to be followed.
The clustering-based case-based reasoning for imbalanced business failure prediction: a hybrid approach through integrating unsupervised process with supervised process

Case-based reasoning (CBR) is one of the main forecasting methods in business forecasting, which performs well in prediction and holds the ability of giving explanations for the results. In business failure prediction (BFP), the number of failed enterprises is relatively small, compared with the number of non-failed ones. However, the loss is huge when an enterprise fails. Therefore, it is necessary to develop methods (trained on imbalanced samples) which forecast well for this small proportion of failed enterprises and performs accurately on total accuracy meanwhile. Commonly used methods constructed on the assumption of balanced samples do not perform well in predicting minority samples on imbalanced samples consisting of the minority/failed enterprises and the majority/non-failed ones. This article develops a new method called clustering-based CBR (CBCBR), which integrates clustering analysis, an unsupervised process, with CBR, a supervised process, to enhance the efficiency of retrieving information from both minority and majority in CBR. In CBCBR, various case classes are firstly generated through hierarchical clustering inside stored experienced cases, and class centres are calculated out by integrating cases information in the same clustered class. When predicting the label of a target case, its nearest clustered case class is firstly retrieved by ranking similarities between the target case and each clustered case class centre. Then, nearest neighbours of the target case in the determined clustered case class are retrieved. Finally, labels of the nearest experienced cases are used in prediction. In the empirical experiment with two imbalanced samples from China, the performance of CBCBR was compared with the classical CBR, a support vector machine, a logistic regression and a multi-variant discriminate analysis. The results show that compared with the other four methods, CBCBR performed significantly better in terms of sensitivity for identifying the minority samples and generated high total accuracy meanwhile. The proposed approach makes CBR useful in imbalanced forecasting.
Diseases of the middle ear in childhood

Middle ear diseases in childhood play an important role in daily ENT practice due to their high incidence. Some of these like acute otitis media or otitis media with effusion have been studied extensively within the last decades. In this article, we present a selection of important childhood middle ear diseases and discuss the actual literature concerning their treatment, management of complications and outcome. Another main topic of this paper deals with the possibilities of surgical hearing rehabilitation in childhood. The bone-anchored hearing aid BAHA® and the active partially implantable device Vibrant Soundbridge® could successfully be applied for children. In this manuscript, we discuss the actual literature concerning clinical outcomes of these implantable hearing aids.
Alzheimer’s Disease: The Challenge of the Second Century

In the first of our State of the Art Review series, David M. Holtzman, John C. Morris, and Alison M. Goate explore the rapid pace of Alzheimer’s disease research and the challenges to translating research breakthroughs into clinical treatments. Alzheimer’s disease (AD) was first described a little more than 100 years ago. It is the most common cause of dementia with an estimated prevalence of 30 million people worldwide, a number that is expected to quadruple in 40 years. There currently is no effective treatment that delays the onset or slows the progression of AD. However, major scientific advances in the areas of genetics, biochemistry, cell biology, and neuroscience over the past 25 years have changed the way we think about AD. This review discusses some of the challenges to translating these basic molecular and cellular discoveries into clinical therapies. Current information suggests that if the disease is detected before the onset of overt symptoms, it is possible that treatments based on knowledge of underlying pathogenesis can and will be effective.
Investments, Time Preferences, and Public Transfers Paid to Women

The literature suggests that men and women may have different preferences. This paper exploits a social experiment in which women in treatment households were given a large public cash transfer (PROGRESA). In an effort to disentangle the effect of additional income in the household from the effect of changing the distribution of income within the household, the impact of PROGRESA income on savings and investments decisions is compared with all other income sources (after taking into account participation in the program). Additional money in the hands of women is spent on small livestock (which are traditionally managed and cared for by women), improved nutrition, and child goods (particularly clothing). Among single‐headed households, PROGRESA income is not treated differently from other income. Direct evidence on intertemporal preferences gathered in the Mexican Family Life Survey indicates that women are more patient than men when thinking about the future. Taken together, the results suggest that PROGRESA income results in a shift in the balance of power within households and that women allocated more resources toward investments in the future.
Observing and Transferring Material Histories

We consider the problem of modeling objects composed of materials that change over the course of time. First principles simulation of the processes that cause material change are either extraordinarily time consuming or impossible because the processes are not thoroughly understood. We take the approach of capturing the time variation of materials undergoing particular changes in appearance. We control and/or measure the relevant parameters that produce the changes. Some parameters may be independent of the object shape, such as thickness of a coating applied, while others depend on the shape. We use the data collected to generate synthetic objects composed of the same materials. The objects can be rendered at different steps in their history, with the material changes being unique to the shape and conditions of that object.