Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Human Pancreas as a Source of Protolerogenic Extracellular Matrix Scaffold for a New-generation Bioartificial Endocrine Pancreas

Objectives: Our study aims at producing acellular extracellular matrix scaffolds from the human pancreas (hpaECMs) as a first critical step toward the production of a new-generation, fully human-derived bioartificial endocrine pancreas. In this bioartificial endocrine pancreas, the hardware will be represented by hpaECMs, whereas the software will consist in the cellular compartment generated from patient's own cells. Background: Extracellular matrix (ECM)-based scaffolds obtained through the decellularization of native organs have become the favored platform in the field of complex organ bioengineering. However, the paradigm is now switching from the porcine to the human model. Methods: To achieve our goal, human pancreata were decellularized with Triton-based solution and thoroughly characterized. Primary endpoints were complete cell and DNA clearance, preservation of ECM components, growth factors and stiffness, ability to induce angiogenesis, conservation of the framework of the innate vasculature, and immunogenicity. Secondary endpoint was hpaECMs’ ability to sustain growth and function of human islet and human primary pancreatic endothelial cells. Results: Results show that hpaECMs can be successfully and consistently produced from human pancreata and maintain their innate molecular and spatial framework and stiffness, and vital growth factors. Importantly, hpaECMs inhibit human naïve CD4+ T-cell expansion in response to polyclonal stimuli by inducing their apoptosis and promoting their conversion into regulatory T cells. hpaECMs are cytocompatible and supportive of representative pancreatic cell types. Discussion: We, therefore, conclude that hpaECMs has the potential to become an ideal platform for investigations aiming at the manufacturing of a regenerative medicine-inspired bioartificial endocrine pancreas.
On the Fingerprinting of Software-Defined Networks

Software-defined networking (SDN) eases network management by centralizing the control plane and separating it from the data plane. The separation of planes in SDN, however, introduces new vulnerabilities in SDN networks, since the difference in processing packets at each plane allows an adversary to fingerprint the network's packet-forwarding logic. In this paper, we study the feasibility of fingerprinting the controller-switch interactions by a remote adversary, whose aim is to acquire knowledge about specific flow rules that are installed at the switches. This knowledge empowers the adversary with a better understanding of the network's packet-forwarding logic and exposes the network to a number of threats. In this paper, we collect measurements from hosts located across the globe using a realistic SDN network comprising of OpenFlow hardware and software switches. We show that, by leveraging information from the RTT and packet-pair dispersion of the exchanged packets, fingerprinting attacks on SDN networks succeed with overwhelming probability. We additionally show that these attacks are not restricted to active adversaries, but can also be mounted by passive adversaries that only monitor traffic exchanged with the SDN network. Finally, we discuss the implications of these attacks on the security of SDN networks, and we present and evaluate an efficient countermeasure to strengthen SDN networks against fingerprinting. Our results demonstrate the effectiveness of our countermeasure in deterring fingerprinting attacks on SDN networks.
Single Character Chinese Named Entity Recognition

Single character named entity (SCNE) is a name entity (NE) composed of one Chinese character, such as "[Abstract contained text which could not be captured. ]" (zhong1, China) and "[Abstract contained text which could not be captured. ]" (e2, Russia). SCNE is very common in written Chinese text. However, due to the lack of in-depth research, SCNE is a major source of errors in named entity recognition (NER). This paper formulates the SCNE recognition within the source-channel model framework. Our experiments show very encouraging results: an F-score of 81.01% for single character location name recognition, and an F-score of 68.02% for single character person name recognition. An alternative view of the SCNE recognition problem is to formulate it as a classification task. We construct two classifiers based on maximum entropy model (ME) and vector space model (VSM), respectively. We compare all proposed approaches, showing that the source-channel model performs the best in most cases.
Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Is Expressed in Ovine Pulmonary Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells in Vitro and Regulated by Hypoxia and Dexamethasone 1

Chronic lung disease in neonates results from both lung injury and inadequate repair processes. Little is known about the growth factors involved in lung injury and repair, but vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) has recently been reported in several animal models of lung injury. VEGF is an endothelial cell-specific mitogen, which is also known as vascular permeability factor because of its ability to induce vascular leak in some tissues. Chronic lung disease is complicated by increased vascular permeability, which can be improved by avoidance of hypoxia and in some cases by dexamethasone therapy. In many cells, hypoxia stimulates VEGF expression. Also, in some cases, dexamethasone blocks VEGF expression. This study examined the role of hypoxia and dexamethasone in regulating the expression of VEGF in pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells. An ovine VEGF cDNA fragment (453 bp) was cloned and found to be highly homologous to known human sequences for VEGF165. Sheep pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells were cultured and exposed to room air, hypoxia, and dexamethasone, alone or in combination for 6 h. At baseline these cells expressed VEGF mRNA at approximately 3.9 kb. The half-life of VEGF mRNA in the smooth muscle cells was 171 min, more than 3-fold longer than previous reports for epithelial cells. Exposure to hypoxia caused a 3-fold increase in mRNA abundance, primarily through transcriptional up-regulation. Dexamethasone blocked the hypoxia-induced increase in VEGF mRNA. The results demonstrate that hypoxia and dexamethasone are regulators of VEGF expression in ovine pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells. It is not known whether VEGF derived from these cells is involved in lung injury and/or normal homeostatsis.
Influence of population and exercise protocol characteristics on hemodynamic determinants of post-aerobic exercise hypotension

Due to differences in study populations and protocols, the hemodynamic determinants of post-aerobic exercise hypotension (PAEH) are controversial. This review analyzed the factors that might influence PAEH hemodynamic determinants, through a search on PubMed using the following key words: “postexercise” or “post-exercise” combined with “hypotension”, “blood pressure”, “cardiac output”, and “peripheral vascular resistance”, and “aerobic exercise” combined only with “blood pressure”. Forty-seven studies were selected, and the following characteristics were analyzed: age, gender, training status, body mass index status, blood pressure status, exercise intensity, duration and mode (continuous or interval), time of day, and recovery position. Data analysis showed that 1) most postexercise hypotension cases are due to a reduction in systemic vascular resistance; 2) age, body mass index, and blood pressure status influence postexercise hemodynamics, favoring cardiac output decrease in elderly, overweight, and hypertensive subjects; 3) gender and training status do not have an isolated influence; 4) exercise duration, intensity, and mode also do not affect postexercise hemodynamics; 5) time of day might have an influence, but more data are needed; and 6) recovery in the supine position facilitates systemic vascular resistance decrease. In conclusion, many factors may influence postexercise hypotension hemodynamics, and future studies should directly address these specific influences because different combinations may explain the observed variability in postexercise hemodynamic studies.
Establishment of a Functional Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 (HIV-1) Reverse Transcription Complex Involves the Cytoskeleton

After interaction of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) virions with cell surface receptors, a series of poorly characterized events results in establishment of a viral reverse transcription complex in the host cell cytoplasm. This process is coordinated in such a way that reverse transcription is initiated shortly after formation of the viral reverse transcription complex. However, the mechanism through which virus entry and initiation of reverse transcription are coordinated and how these events are compartmentalized in the infected cell are not known. In this study, we demonstrate that viral reverse transcription complexes associate rapidly with the host cell cytoskeleton during HIV-1 infection and that reverse transcription occurs almost entirely in the cytoskeletal compartment. Interruption of actin polymerization before virus infection reduced association of viral reverse transcription complexes with the cytoskeleton. In addition, efficient reverse transcription was dependent on intact actin microfilaments. The localization of reverse transcription to actin microfilaments was mediated by the interaction of a reverse transcription complex component (gag MA) with actin but not vimentin (intermediate filaments) or tubulin (microtubules). In addition, fusion, but not endocytosis-mediated HIV-1 infectivity, was impaired when actin depolymerizing agents were added to target cells before infection but not when added after infection. These results point to a previously unsuspected role for the host cell cytoskeleton in HIV-1 entry and suggest that components of the cytoskeleton promote establishment of the reverse transcription complex in the host cell and also the process of reverse transcription within this complex.
Spectro-Temporal Modelling with Time-Frequency LSTM and Structured Output Layer for Voice Conversion

From speech, speaker identity can be mostly characterized by the spectro-temporal structures of spectrum. Although recent researches have demonstrated the effectiveness of employing long short-term memory (LSTM) recurrent neural network (RNN) in voice conversion, traditional LSTM-RNN based approaches usually focus on temporal evolutions of speech features only. In this paper, we improve the conventional LSTM-RNN method for voice conversion by employing the two-dimensional time-frequency LSTM (TFLSTM) to model spectro-temporal warping along both time and frequency axes. A multi-task learned structured output layer (SOL) is afterward adopted to capture the dependencies between spectral and pitch parameters for further improvement, where spectral parameter targets are conditioned upon pitch parameters prediction. Experimental results show the proposed approach outperforms conventional systems in speech quality and speaker similarity.
Triangulation made easy

We describe a simple and efficient algorithm for two-view triangulation of 3D points from approximate 2D matches based on minimizing the L2 reprojection error. Our iterative algorithm improves on the one by Kanatani et al. [5] by ensuring that in each iteration the epipolar constraint is satisfied. In the case where the two cameras are pointed in the same direction, the method provably converges to an optimal solution in exactly two iterations. For more general camera poses, two iterations are sufficient to achieve convergence to machine precision, which we exploit to devise a fast, non-iterative method. The resulting algorithm amounts to little more than solving a quadratic equation, and involves a fixed, small number of simple matrix-vector operations and no conditional branches. We demonstrate that the method computes solutions that agree to very high precision with those of Hartley and Sturm's original polynomial method [2], though achieves higher numerical stability and 1–4 orders of magnitude greater speed.
Function of the htrB High Temperature Requirement Gene of Escherichia coli in the Acylation of Lipid A

By assaying lysates of Escherichia coli generated with the hybrid bacteriophages of an ordered library (Kohara, Y., Akiyama, K., and Isono, K.(1987) Cell 50, 495-508), we identified two clones (232 and 233) capable of overexpressing the lauroyl transferase that functions after 3-deoxy-D-manno-octulosonic acid (Kdo) addition in lipid A biosynthesis (Brozek, K. A., and Raetz, C. R. H.(1990) J. Biol. Chem. 265, 15410-15417). The E. coli DNA inserts in 232 and 233 suggested that a known gene (htrB) required for rapid growth above 33°C might encode the lauroyl transferase. Using the intermediate (Kdo)-lipid IV as the laurate acceptor, extracts of strains with transposon insertions in htrB were found to contain no lauroyl transferase activity. Cells harboring hybrid htrB plasmids overproduced transferase activity 100-200-fold. The overproduced transferase was solubilized with a non-ionic detergent and purified further by DEAE-Sepharose chromatography. With lauroyl acyl carrier protein as the donor, the purified enzyme rapidly incorporated one laurate residue into (Kdo)-lipid IV. The rate of laurate incorporation was reduced by several orders of magnitude when either one or both Kdos were absent in the acceptor. With a matched set of acyl-acyl carrier proteins, the enzyme incorporated laurate 3-8 times faster than decanoate or myristate, respectively. Transfer of palmitate, palmitoleate, or R-3-hydroxymyristate was very slow. Taken together with previous studies, our findings indicate that htrB encodes a key, late functioning acyltransferase of lipid A biosynthesis.
Adolescents’ Perspectives on Personalized E-Feedback in the Context of Health Risk Behavior Screening for Primary Care: Qualitative Study

Background Electronic health screening tools for primary care present an opportunity to go beyond data collection to provide education and feedback to adolescents in order to motivate behavior change. However, there is limited research to guide feedback message development. Objective The aim of this study was to explore youth perceptions of and preferences for receiving personalized feedback for multiple health risk behaviors and reinforcement for health promoting behaviors from an electronic health screening tool for primary care settings, using qualitative methodology. Methods In total, 31 adolescents aged 13-18 years completed the screening tool, received the electronic feedback, and subsequently participated in individual, semistructured, qualitative interviews lasting approximately 60 min. Participants were queried about their overall impressions of the tool, perceptions regarding various types of feedback messages, and additional features that would help motivate health behavior change. Using thematic analysis, interview transcripts were coded to identify common themes expressed across participants. Results Overall, the tool was well-received by participants who perceived it as a way to enhance—but not replace—their interactions with providers. They appreciated receiving nonjudgmental feedback from the tool and responded positively to information regarding the consequences of behaviors, comparisons with peer norms and health guidelines, tips for behavior change, and reinforcement of healthy choices. A small but noteworthy minority of participants dismissed the peer norms as not real or relevant and national guidelines as not valid or reasonable. When prompted for possible adaptations to the tool, adolescents expressed interest in receiving follow-up information, setting health-related goals, tracking their behaviors over time, and communicating with providers electronically between appointments. Conclusions Adolescents in this qualitative study desired feedback that validates their healthy behavior choices and supports them as independent decision makers by neutrally presenting health information, facilitating goal setting, and offering ongoing technological supports.
Fast algorithms for computing isogenies between elliptic curves

We survey algorithms for computing isogenies between elliptic curves defined over a field of characteristic either 0 or a large prime. We introduce a new algorithm that computes an isogeny of degree l (l different from the characteristic) in time quasi-linear with respect to l. This is based in particular on fast algorithms for power series expansion of the Weierstrass ℘-function and related functions.
Career Stage Effect on Organizational Commitment: Empirical Evidence from Indian Banking Industry

This study examines the career stage effect on organizational commitment of bank employees. The subjects included 660 clerical and managerial staff of Indian banks operating in the state of Punjab in northern India. Organizational commitment has been measured by Meyer et al.’s (1993) Organizational Commitment Scale. Career stages were identified by each respondent’s self- reported age, and tenure in the organization. Results of the study revealed significant differences in organizational commitment across career stages of employees when career stages were categorized on the basis of chronological age but no significant difference in any dimension of organizational commitment has been found between employees in early-career stage (up to 2 years of experience), and employees in mid-career stage (3-10 years of experience). The findings of the study have positive and useful implications for HR systems in Indian banks to design more effective organizational career planning programs and procedures.
Topiramate, zonisamide and weight loss in children and adolescents prescribed psychiatric medications

Background Childhood obesity is a growing epidemic that is contributed to by the use of psychopharmacological agents, such as antipsychotics. This study represents a preliminary investigation into the effectiveness of two anticonvulsants that were hypothesized to reduce weight in a pediatric sample seeking treatment at a psychiatric clinic. Methods The electronic medical records of a university-based child and adolescent psychiatric clinic were reviewed for patients who were first prescribed either topiramate or zonisamide between 1 July 2011 and 30 June 2013. Based on inclusionary criteria, the review identified 47 children or adolescents. Results Multilevel modeling was utilized for study analyses. Including the full sample and controlling for confounders, anticonvulsant dosage was uniquely associated with an average reduction in body mass index of 1.3 (dosages above 200 mg) to 4.1 (dosages below 50 mg) every six months of treatment. Exlucing patients whose baseline body mass index was below 25.0 and controlling for confounders, anticonvulsant dosage was uniquely associated with an average reduction in body mass index of 3.2 (dosages above 200 mg) to 6.1 (dosages below 50 mg) every six months of treatment. Weight reduction was not statistically different between topiramate or zonisamide. Anticonvulsants were associated with an increase in body mass index, yet the benefits of the two anticonvulsants on weight loss remained despite the counteractive effects of antipsychotics. Conclusions Results provide preliminary evidence that topiramate and zonisamide may be utilized for weight loss in a pediatric psychopharmacological treatment seeking sample, even if antipsychotics are also prescribed. A randomized controlled trial investigating the impact of topiramate and zonisamide on weight reduction is warranted.
Using the MatchDetectReveal System for Comparative Analysis of Texts

In this paper we are introducing the MatchDetectReveal system, which is capable of identifying the similarity between documents. Different applications of the system are discussed including cross-referencing multiple editions of literary works, plagiarism detection, organizing collections of documents and comparative analysis of texts. The system uses suffix trees and suffix vectors for comparing documents. These data structures are very fast and powerful, which allows fast comparison of documents. The front-end of the system is fully Web-based, thus users only need to use a Web browser to access the system. The results are also presented as HTML files utilising the hyperlink capabilities of HTML documents.
Understanding Group and Leader (UGL) trainers' personality characteristics and affective profiles

Background: The Understanding Group and Leader (UGL), provided by the Swedish National Defense College and mentored by UGL-trainers, is one of the most popular management programs among civilians in Sweden. However, there is a lack of scientific evidence regarding the training. We used the affective profile model (i.e., the combination of positive, PA, and negative affect, NA) to mapp important markers of empowerment, self-awareness, adaptive coping skills, and maturity among the UGL-trainers. The aims were: (1) to compare profiles between UGL-trainers and managers/supervisors and (2) to investigate differences in personal characteristics. Method: UGL-trainers (N = 153) and the comparison group (104 Swedish Chiefs of Police) completed an online survey on optimism, self-esteem, locus of control, and affect. The four profiles are: self-fulfilling (high PA, low NA), high affective (high PA, high NA), low affective (high PA, low NA), and self-destructive (low PA, high NA). Results: The self-fulfilling profile was more common among UGL-trainers (25.70%) than among Chiefs of Police (19.20%). UGL-trainers, compared to Chiefs of Police, were more likely to express a self-fulling than a low affective profile (OR = 2.22, p < 0.05) and a high affective than a low affective profile (OR = 1.43, p < 0.001). UGL-trainers with a self-fulfilling profile, compared to those with a self-destructive profile, scored higher in optimism, higher in self-esteem, and lower in external locus of control. Conclusions: The probability of self-fulfillment rather than low affectivity was higher among UGL-trainers. Self-fulfillment was associated to markers of self-awareness and adaptive coping skills. However, the most common profile was the low affective, which is associated to low performance during stress, low degree of personal development, low degree of purpose in life, and low resilience. Hence, it might be important for UGL-trainers to have a continuous training in awareness after certification.
Functional pearl: i am not a number--i am a free variable

In this paper, we show how to manipulate syntax with binding using a mixed representation of names for free variables (with respect to the task in hand) and de Bruijn indices [5] for bound variables. By doing so, we retain the advantages of both representations: naming supports easy, arithmetic-free manipulation of terms; de Bruijn indices eliminate the need for α-conversion. Further, we have ensured that not only the user but also the implementation need never deal with de Bruijn indices, except within key basic operations.Moreover, we give a hierarchical representation for names which naturally reflects the structure of the operations we implement. Name choice is safe and straightforward. Our technology combines easily with an approach to syntax manipulation inspired by Huet's 'zippers'[10]. Without the ideas in this paper, we would have struggled to implement EPIGRAM [19]. Our example-constructing inductive elimination operators for datatype families-is but one of many where it proves invaluable.