Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Threshold dose response for tumor induction by genotoxic carcinogens modeled via cell-cycle delay.

Dose-response relationships for tumor induction in animal bioassays for carcinogenicity are often postulated to include thresholds, particularly for nongenotoxic chemicals that increase the rate of cell proliferation at high doses. In this report, thresholds are postulated also for genotoxic carcinogens. The hypothesis is based on the idea of a delay of the cell cycle induced by low-level DNA damage and an acceleration at cytotoxic dose levels, thus resulting in a J-shaped (or U-shaped) dose response for cell turnover. Calculations were based on the 2-stage clonal expansion model of carcinogenesis. The background values chosen for the model parameters resulted in a 10.5% "spontaneous" 2-year cumulative tumor incidence. Using this as a starting point, a decrease by 3, 10, and 30% in the rates of cell turnover resulted in a decrease in the spontaneous tumor incidence to 9.4, 7.1 and 3.0%, respectively. Dose-responses with J-shaped curves for the rates of cell birth and death were modeled by shifted quadratic functions reaching the minimum at dose 1. Combinations with linearly increasing mutation rates also generated, under certain conditions, J-shaped dose-response curves for tumor incidence. As an example, for a 30% increase in mutation rates and a 10% decrease in cell turnover rates (both at dose 1), the dose-response curve showed an initial decrease of tumor incidence below the spontaneous rate, a reversion to the background value at 0.8 dose units, and an increase thereafter. The 0.8 dose could be considered to represent the "threshold dose. " The approach presented might reconcile opposing views on thresholds on a biologically plausible mechanistic basis, and show a way for the quantitative estimation of threshold doses.
Some properties of avian skeletal muscle fibres with multiple neuromuscular junctions

It has recently been found that certain skeletal muscles of the bird contain fibres which are innervated at many points (Ginsborg, 1960; Ginsborg & Mackay, 1961). The purpose of this paper is to describe some of the characteristics of these fibres In particular, it will be shown that they are innervated by several axons, that they are able to produce propagated action potentials and that they respond to prolonged depolarization with a prolonged contracture. The experiments have been mainly carried out on the chick, either on single multiply-innervated fibres of the isolated biventer cervicis, or on the isolated anterior latissimus dorsi nerve-muscle preparation. The advantage of the latter preparation is that the anterior latissimus dorsi is composed largely, or perhaps entirely, of fibres with multiple neuromuscular junctions (Ginsborg & Mackay, 1961). The properties of such fibres may therefore be inferred from the properties of the muscle as a whole. Some of the results have been briefly reported (Ginsborg, 1959; Ginsborg & Mackay, 1960).
Nonsupine positioning is preferred by patients over face-down positioning and provides an equivalent closure rate in 25- and 23-gauge macular hole surgery.

PURPOSE Strict face-down positioning after macular hole surgery is very difficult for most patients. Our study seeks to determine if alleviated positioning (avoidance of supine positioning) has equivalent successful closure rates when compared with face-down positioning. A patient survey was also performed to determine patient preference. METHODS A single-center retrospective review of patients undergoing macular hole repair with a questionnaire completed by each patient after air bubble clearance summarizing the two postoperative scenarios. Patients were asked which positioning strategy they would choose if they were having repeat surgery. Eighty-two patients undergoing pars plana vitrectomy with primary full-thickness macular hole repair were identified. Repair was performed with either 3 days of strict face-down positioning (57 of 82 patients) or with the avoidance of supine positioning (25 of 82 patients) but no required face-down positioning. RESULTS The anatomical success rates were similar between the 2 groups with 96% of final hole closure (55/57) in the face-down group versus 100% (25/25) in the nonsupine group. Macular hole size appeared to be similar between the 2 groups (a mean of 408 μm in face-down group vs. that of 483 μm in nonsupine group, with a median of 400 in both groups). Patient preference was in favor of less stringent nonsupine postoperative requirements. Although 100% (25/25) of the nonsupine group would opt for the same strategy with repeat surgery, only 51% (29/57) of the face-down group would opt for face-down positioning with repeat surgery (P < 0.001). CONCLUSION This study demonstrates equivalent closure rates among the patients who were assigned nonsupine versus face-down positioning postoperatively for macular hole repair, and that most patients would prefer to avoid strict face-down positioning if reoperated.
Efficient automated protocol implementation using RTAG

RTAG is a system for automated implementation of communication protocols from formal specifications. The RTAG specification language is based on attribute grammars, and allows complex protocols to be specified concisely and with minimal need for additional program code. This paper describes a set of techniques for efficient automated implementation of protocols from RTAG specifications, and compares the performance to that of hand‐coded protocol implementations. We conclude that in many cases the performance of RTAG‐based protocol implementations is acceptable for experimental or production uses.
NS5A inhibitors for the treatment of hepatitis C infection

Today, we are witnessing a new era for the treatment of hepatitis C with excellent rates of virologic response and very good safety profiles. Among the many classes of direct‐acting antivirals, the inhibitors of nonstructural protein 5A are particularly interesting. NS5A is a phosphorylated protein with a relevant role in viral replication. HCV‐NS5A inhibitors show high potency, very good safety profile and high barrier to resistance. The amazing in vitro effectiveness of this class is associated with great efficacy in clinical trials in combination protocols with antivirals of other classes, with sustained virological response (SVR) obtained in more than 90% of patients. Herein, we sought to review the current knowledge regarding the NS5A protease complex inhibitors with special emphasis on clinical efficacy and development of viral resistance.
Sparse bilinear preserving projections

The techniques of linear dimensionality reduction have been attracted widely attention in the fields of computer vision and pattern recognition. In this paper, we propose a novel framework called Sparse Bilinear Preserving Projections (SBPP) for image feature extraction. We generalized the image-based bilinear preserving projections into sparse case for feature extraction. Different from the popular bilinear linear projection techniques, the projections of SBPP are sparse, i.e. most elements in the projections are zeros. In the proposed framework, we use the local neighborhood graph to model the manifold structure of the data set at first, and then spectral analysis and L1-norm regression by using the Elastic Net are combined together to iteratively learn the sparse bilinear projections, which optimal preserve the local geometric structure of the image manifold. Experiments on some databases show that SBPP is competitive to some state-of-the-art techniques.
PepSeeker: a database of proteome peptide identifications for investigating fragmentation patterns

Proteome science relies on bioinformatics tools to characterize proteins via their proteolytic peptides which are identified via characteristic mass spectra generated after their ions undergo fragmentation in the gas phase within the mass spectrometer. The resulting secondary ion mass spectra are compared with protein sequence databases in order to identify the amino acid sequence. Although these search tools (e.g. SEQUEST, Mascot, X! Tandem, Phenyx) are frequently successful, much is still not understood about the amino acid sequence patterns which promote/protect particular fragmentation pathways, and hence lead to the presence/absence of particular ions from different ion series. In order to advance this area, we have developed a database, PepSeeker (), which captures this peptide identification and ion information from proteome experiments. The database currently contains >185 000 peptides and associated database search information. Users may query this resource to retrieve peptide, protein and spectral information based on protein or peptide information, including the amino acid sequence itself represented by regular expressions coupled with ion series information. We believe this database will be useful to proteome researchers wishing to understand gas phase peptide ion chemistry in order to improve peptide identification strategies. Questions can be addressed to j.selley@manchester.ac. uk.
Peer Effect on Adolescent Weight Status

Economic literature suggests that individual health can be affected not only by an array of individual and family characteristics but also by the individual's social environment. Peer pressure can particularly be significant among adolescents, as the need for social acceptance is vital during the teen years. Peer pressure was found to affect a variety of health behaviors among youth, such as smoking, drinking, and illicit drug use. The goal of this study is to analyze the impact of peer pressure on the weight status of adolescents. A peer group can influence the weight status of its members in several ways. A peer group can affect the quantity and quality of physical activity undertaken by the group, or the amount and type of food consumed by its members. Additionally, peers can influence an individual's desired level of body mass, as different stereotypes of the ideal bodyweight may be shared within a social group. Hence, a teenager may gain weight or lose weight to conform to the expectations of the group. The peers to an individual can be measured at various levels. In this study we focus on a close circle of friends as identified by the respondent, as this group should have the strongest influence on the individual choices. We use data from the first wave of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescence. Respondents were asked to name up to five female friends and five male friends. Some of these friends were also interviewed. Thus we were able to construct the BMI for each respondent and their friends for more than 4,000 young men and women. We regress the respondent's BMI on his/her peers' average BMI controlling for individual characteristics (race and age) and behavioral choices (smoking, drinking, and exercising habit), as well as family background information (income, mother's education, mother's working status) and a series of school dummies. We found that in males an increase of about 5 points in the average BMI of friends is associated with a 1 point increase in the respondent BMI. In females, an increase of about 6 points in the average BMI of friends is associated with a 1 point increase in the respondent BMI. We also found that adolescents are more responsive to the body weight of their same gender friends. We recognize that the peer variables can be reverse causality. Additionally our estimates might suffer from unobserved heterogeneity, since individuals may self-select themselves into groups that share the same characteristics. We address these issues by running an IV procedure, using the obesity status of friends' parents the as an instrument. We found the peer effect continues to be positive and significant for both males and females. In fact the peer effect becomes even larger than in the non-IV case.
Clinical Interventions in Aging Dovepress Community-based Health Efforts for the Prevention of Falls in the Elderly

Falls are a major public health problem in the elderly population. The associated health care cost is great. It has therefore become an important public health matter to evaluate those interventions that might be effective in reducing the risk of falls. Risk factors that predict an increased risk of falling are described. We discuss interventions that can be employed in the community to reduce the risk of falls and associated injuries by discipline, including physiotherapy, occupational therapy, and physician-led interventions. We also discuss the cost-effectiveness of such interventions.
A Study on Communication Media Selection: Comparing the Effectiveness of the Media Richness, Social Influence, and Media Fitness

Media selection has become a more complex problem because of the fast development of Information and Communication Technology. However, there is little quantified work on the tools for media selection decisions. The three main tools available are Media Richness Theory (MRT) [1], Social Influence Perspectives (SIP) [2], and Media Fitness Framework (MFF) [3,4]. MFF is a combination of the factors from MRT and SIP with additional factors for environmental and resource limitations. In this research, we tested the effectiveness of media selection prediction of these three tools on 72 communication tasks from 18 companies. We then compared the results to real data. This comparison showed MFF to be more effective than either MRT or SIP, particularly in multiple-media situations. MFF also had a faster convergence of media selection prediction.
Chemistry in the Bioactivity of Chlorophylls: An Overview.

BACKGROUND In addition to the considerable number of different chlorophyll structures originated naturally, prominent research is made to produce new specific semisynthetic structures. The final target is to obtain chlorophyll derivatives with even better bioactive properties than those of the natural parent compounds. METHOD A detailed, extensive and critic literature search has been made in Web of Science™. RESULTS Great efforts are applying to optimize the function of chlorophyll-based photosensitizers, to understand the molecular mechanisms of the antioxidant and antigenotoxic properties of chlorophyll derivatives and, lastly, to investigate new biological actions of them. However, the fundamental physiological functions of the chlorophylls are their physicochemical properties. CONCLUSION This review aims to reflect the chemical grounds of the healthy and/or medical features of chlorophylls, including the consequences, advantages or even new actions that modifications over the chlorophyll structure introduce. Finally, new perspectives in the functionality of chlorophylls at molecular level are discussed.
Capillary Electrophoresis of Serum Proteins. Reproducibility, Comparison with Agarose Gel Electrophoresis and a Review of the Literature

Conditions of serum protein analysis by capillary electrophoresis were optimized and within day, between day and between capillary variations were examined for both migration times and relative peak areas. For the five currently accepted zones, albumin, alpha 1, alpha 2, beta and gamma-globulin, reproducibilities of migration times were in the range of 2.3-3.1% (n = 200 measurements). Although variations in relative peak areas were slightly higher than those obtained by conventional agarose gel electrophoresis, from a resolution perspective, capillary electropherograms provided better detail than the densitometric scans of agarose gel electrophoresis. Precise localization of C3 and transferrin in capillary electrophoresis resulted in more accurate detection of the beta-globulin fraction. When C3 appeared in the gamma-fraction it was not detected as a separate peak in agarose gel electrophoresis, whereas it was in capillary electrophoresis. In artificially prepared mixtures of highly purified albumin and gamma-globulin preparations, best correspondence with theoretical values was found with capillary electrophoresis. Inter-individual variations and reference values were obtained by measuring 140 samples from healthy controls (59 females, 81 males) with both techniques. For capillary electrophoresis the inter-individual variations of the albumin, alpha 1, alpha 2, beta and gamma fractions were respectively 6, 21, 19, 14 and 18% and for agarose gel electrophoresis 5, 20, 17, 18 and 22%. From these results it can be concluded that the more precise localization of the beta- and gamma-globulin fraction results in about 4% lower inter-individual variations in capillary electrophoresis compared to agarose gel electrophoresis. For the other fractions, comparable variations were obtained. Differences between males and females were not significant. For patient samples, a good correlation was found between capillary electrophoresis and agarose gel electrophoresis data for all five protein fractions. We conclude that separation efficiency of capillary electrophoresis is better than that of agarose gel electrophoresis and even weak monoclonal components can easily be distinguished with the capillary electropherogram. Capillary electrophoresis is a qualitatively good, cheap, fast and easy to perform alternative to agarose gel electrophoresis.
An improved method of assessing topical corticosteroid activity

Topical application of ointment bases causes varying degrees of epidermal thickening in guinea‐pigs This is reproducible and can be accurately measured. Suppression of these changes was produced by addition of beta‐methasone 17‐valerate, fluocinolone acetonide, fluocinonide and hydrocortisone acetate. The inhibitory effect of these steroids was related to the type of corticosteroid, its concentration and the ointment base. The effect was still evident at extremely high dilutions of the steroids and could be measured at concentrations as low as 5 × 10‐5% of fluocinonide in FAPG.
The Ehlers-Danlos syndrome: on beyond collagens.

The Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS) is a clinically and genetically heterogeneous connective tissue disorder affecting as many as 1 in 5,000 individuals (1). EDS is characterized in its most common form by hyperextensibility of the skin, hypermobility of joints often resulting in dislocations, and tissue fragility exemplified by easy bruising, atrophic scars following superficial injury, and premature rupture of membranes during pregnancy. The recognition of frequent ultrastructural abnormalities of collagen fibrils in EDS patients led to the concept that EDS is a disorder of fibrillar collagen metabolism (2). Following the identification of specific mutations in the genes encoding collagen types I, III, and V, as well as several collagen processing enzymes, the EDS classification scheme was collapsed into six distinct clinical syndromes (3), emphasizing the molecular basis of each form (Table ​(Table11). Table 1 The Villefranche classification of EDS Heterogeneity between the several clinical syndromes both complicates the diagnosis of EDS and makes accurate diagnosis imperative. Ultimately, one would like to be able to establish a molecular diagnosis for each EDS patient. This is a laudable goal because it may allow improved genetic counseling through correlation of mutant genotypes with specific outcomes or complications. However, as outlined below, the molecular defects described to date are not sufficient to explain disease in many EDS patients, including those with the most common classical and hypermobility types. As a result, the search for EDS genes recently has expanded beyond the collagens and collagen-modifying genes. An understanding of the complete complement of genes and proteins involved in EDS and the precise mechanisms by which they cause disease may teach us much about normal collagenous matrix deposition and remodeling. These processes are of critical importance during development, wound healing, and aging.
Search Results Clustering Based on Suffix Array and VSM

With the rapid growth of web pages, search engines will usually present a long ranked list of documents. The users must sift through the list with "title" and "snippet" (a short description of the document) to find the desired document. This method may be good for some simple and specific tasks but less effective and efficient for ambiguous queries such as "apple" or "jaguar". To improve the effect and efficiency of information retrieval, an alternative method is to automatically organize retrieval results into clusters. This paper presents an improved Lingo algorithm named Suffix Array Similarity Clustering (SASC) for clustering web search results. This method creates the clusters by adopting improved suffix array, which ignores the redundant suffixes, and computing document similarity based on the title and short document snippets returned by Web search engines. Experiments show that the SASC algorithm has not only a better performance in time-consuming than Lingo but also in cluster description quality and precision than Suffix Tree Clustering.
GPU cluster for acceleration of scientific and engineering applications in the context of higher education

Many fields of research now rely on High Performance Computing (HPC) systems which can process ever larger datasets, with increasing accuracy and speed. Many universities now provide a HPC service. Following the trend over the past few years of the worlds fastest supercomputers being accelerated using Graphical Processing Units (GPUs), there is a growing interest in the use of GPUs in Higher Education Institutions. The characteristics of GPUs make them excellently suited to any task exhibiting a high level of data parallelism. Recent developments in GPU technologies have focused on improving performance and integration in HPC, and for processing data other than display graphics. To investigate the benefits such a system could have to the University of Huddersfield, a small GPU cluster has been deployed. The intention behind this thesis is to detail the deployment of the system and to demonstrate, through case studies, the required effort a potential user could expect in order to take advantage of it. As a result of this work it can be demonstrated that even a modest GPU cluster can be of benefit to the University. The cluster is helping our researchers to analyse complex data using visualisation, and accelerating data processing.
A distributed architecture for enabling autonomous underwater Intervention Missions

This work introduces the main aspects related with a new architecture defined for an ongoing research project named RAUVI (i.e. Reconfigurable AUV for Intervention Missions). Two initially independent architectures for the underwater vehicle and the robotic arm have been combined into a new schema that allows for reactive and deliberative behaviours on both subsystems. Reactive actions are performed through a low-level control layer in communication with the robot hardware via an abstraction interface. On the other hand, the intervention mission is supervised at a high-level by a Mission Control System (MCS), implemented using the Petri net formalism. Both, the arm and vehicle perception and control modules communicate with the MCS by means of actions and events. They also share a centralized database where some sensor data is stored. The proposed architecture allows for the supervised execution of intervention missions requiring a tight coordination between the vehicle and the manipulator.