Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Clinical Significance of Lobar Atrophy in Frontotemporal Dementia: Application of an MRI Visual Rating Scale

Background/Aims: The status of imaging findings in the clinical diagnosis of frontotemporal dementia (FTD) remains uncertain; while they may be supportive of a diagnosis of frontotemporal dementia, they are not mandatory. Our aim was to assess patterns of lobar atrophy in a large sample of clinically defined, prospectively studied, patients using a magnetic resonance image (MRI) rating scale, to (1) determine whether imaging findings warrant a more prominent position in FTD diagnosis and (2) correlate the extent of lobar atrophy with clinical data. Methods: We adapted a recently devised post mortem rating scale for FTD to rate lobar atrophy on MRI scans. The areas rated included the frontal cortex and both anterior and posterior temporal regions bilaterally. All available brain scans from all patients seen in the Cambridge Dementia Clinic (n = 258) diagnosed as having FTD, together with controls (n = 20), were used to assess the reliability of the method. A subset of these (n = 121) were used for clinico-anatomic analysis. Results: The scale proved quick and reliable (intra-, inter-rater k = 0.80, 0.67). MRI scans were abnormal in the majority of patients (75%), with focal atrophy present in 100% of semantic dementia (SD) patients. By contrast, nearly half (47%) of the patients with clinical behavioural variant FTD had scans within the normal range. Behavioural cases with normal scans generally had fewer cognitive deficits and milder functional impairment than those with abnormal scans, yet displayed a clinically indistinguishable behavioural syndrome. They were not, however, simply at an earlier stage of the disease. Conclusions: MRI findings should form part of the diagnostic criteria for SD; the absence of atrophy on MRI in many behavioural cases raises the prospect that the behavioural syndrome of FTD is not specific for patients with a neurodegenerative disease.
Psychological Stress Exerts an Adjuvant Effect on Skin Dendritic Cell Functions In Vivo 1

Psychological stress affects the pathophysiology of infectious, inflammatory, and autoimmune diseases. However, the mechanisms by which stress could modulate immune responses in vivo are poorly understood. In this study, we report that application of a psychological stress before immunization exerts an adjuvant effect on dendritic cell (DC), resulting in increased primary and memory Ag-specific T cell immune responses. Acute stress dramatically enhanced the skin delayed-type hypersensitivity reaction to haptens, which is mediated by CD8+ CTLs. This effect was due to increased migration of skin DCs, resulting in augmented CD8+ T cell priming in draining lymph nodes and enhanced recruitment of CD8+ T cell effectors in the skin upon challenge. This adjuvant effect of stress was mediated by norepinephrine (NE), but not corticosteroids, as demonstrated by normalization of the skin delayed-type hypersensitivity reaction and DC migratory properties following selective depletion of NE. These results suggest that release of NE by sympathetic nerve termini during a psychological stress exerts an adjuvant effect on DC by promoting enhanced migration to lymph nodes, resulting in increased Ag-specific T cell responses. Our findings may open new ways in the treatment of inflammatory diseases, e.g., psoriasis, allergic contact dermatitis, and atopic dermatitis.
Caching on dual-mode flash memory

NAND flash memory has attracted wide attention in both academia and industry in recent years. Its high random access performance fills the gap between DRAM and hard disks. While MLC is endorsed for higher density and lower cost per bit, it suffers from poor performance and endurance. Dual-mode flash combines SLC and MLC in a single device and thus provides the opportunity to trade density for performance. In this paper, we propose the Scalable Flash Storage(SFS) abstraction layer to facilitate cache management on dual-mode flash. SFS exposes a virtualized address space to hide the variable density of the medium. A differentiated write interface is introduced, which allows the cache manager to explicitly send write requests to SLC for high performance. SFS dynamically scales the proportions of SLC and MLC to balance between cache capacity and performance. SFS provides partially persistent storage service. It allows the cache manager to manage the data persistence on flash so that critical data can be retained persistently. Non-persistent data are discarded during garbage collection to mitigate write amplification. Based on the SFS, a Dual-mode Flash Cache(DMFC) architecture is designed to utilize the configurable density and performance. Experimental results show that DMFC can significantly improve overall performance for various workloads.
Commentary: the dog and the frisbee

However, my role as the discussant is not to congratulate the authors nor to emphasize features consistent with our priors, but to provide comments and questions regarding the main results of the paper. This should strengthen the case for simple rules, although at the end of my review I will conclude that implementing simple rules is quite hard to do, in particular, given the complexities of financial markets.
De novo unbalanced translocation leading to monosomy 9p24.3p24.1 and trisomy 19q13.42q13.43 characterized by microarray‐based comparative genomic hybridization in a child with partial cortical dysplasia and craniofacial dysmorphisms without trigonocephaly

De Novo Unbalanced Translocation Leading to Monosomy 9p24.3p24. 1 and Trisomy 19q13.42q13. 43 Characterized by Microarray-Based Comparative Genomic Hybridization in a Child With Partial Cortical Dysplasia and Craniofacial Dysmorphisms Without Trigonocephaly Nicoletta Resta,* Lucrezia De Cosmo, Francesco Claudio Susca, Donatella Capodiferro, Anna Maria Nardone, Diana Pastorivo, Marta Bertoli, Carmela Serlenga, MariaGabriella Burattini, Federico Schettini, and Nicola Laforgia Sez. di Genetica Medica, Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche ed Oncologia Umana, Universit a degli Studi di Bari ‘‘A. Moro’’, Bari, Italy Sez.Neonatologia e Terapia Intensiva Neonatale, Dipartimento di Ginecologia Ostetricia e Neonatologia, Universit a degli Studi di Bari ‘‘A. Moro’’, Bari, Italy Department of Medical Genetics, Tor Vergata University of Rome, Rome, Italy Research Center and Medical Genetics Center, S. Pietro Fatebenefratelli Hospital, Rome, Italy
Salmeterol in nocturnal asthma: a double blind, placebo controlled trial of a long acting inhaled beta 2 agonist.

OBJECTIVE--To determine whether inhaled salmeterol, a new long acting inhaled beta adrenergic agonist, reduces nocturnal bronchoconstriction and improves sleep quality in patients with nocturnal asthma. DESIGN--Randomised, double blind, placebo controlled crossover study. SETTING--Hospital outpatient clinics in Edinburgh. SUBJECTS--Twenty clinically stable patients (13 women, seven men) with nocturnal asthma, median age 39 (range 18-60) years. INTERVENTIONS--Salmeterol 50 micrograms and 100 micrograms and placebo taken each morning and evening by metered dose inhaler. Rescue salbutamol inhalers were provided throughout the run in and study periods. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES--Improvement in nocturnal asthma as measured by peak expiratory flow rates and change in sleep quality as measured by electroencephalography. RESULTS--Salmeterol improved the lowest overnight peak flow rate at both 50 micrograms (difference in median values (95% confidence interval for difference in medians) 69 (18 to 88) l/min) and 100 micrograms (72 (23 to 61) l/min) doses twice daily. While taking salmeterol 50 micrograms twice daily patients had an objective improvement in sleep quality, spending less time awake or in light sleep (-9 (-4 to -44) min) and more time in stage 4 sleep (26 (6-34) min). CONCLUSIONS--Salmeterol is an effective long acting inhaled bronchodilator for patients with nocturnal asthma and at a dose of 50 micrograms twice daily improves objective sleep quality.
Development of lymphoma in patients with primary Sjögren syndromes

Background: Lymphoma is the main complication of primary Sjogren syndrome (pSS). The aim of this study was to describe the prevalence and incidence rate of lymphoma in patients with pSS in eleven centers in Argentina. To determine the frequency of commitment of the domains of the baseline clinical ESSDAI in the patients who developed lymphoma in the course of their follow-up and compare it with the rest of the sample. Methods and findings: We included patients older than 18 years with a diagnosis of pSS according to American College of Rheumatology/European League against Rheumatism (ACR/EULAR)2002/2016 criteria, included in a multi-center Argentine database. Patients diagnosed with another associated autoimmune rheumatic disease were excluded. Six hundred and eighty one patients were included, 95% female, with a mean age of 54.41 years (± 13.70). Sixteen patients presented lymphoma (prevalence: 2.35%, 95% CI: 1.2-3.4%). The average follow-up time was 4.7 years (± 4.94). Six hundread and thirty three patients contributed data for the survival analysis. The incidence rate of lymphoma was 0.54 per 100 patient-years (95% CI: -0,26 a 1,34). The most frequently lymphoma type was MALT. Patients who developed lymphoma had a higher frequency of involvement of most of the domains of the baseline clinical ESSDAI compared to patients who did not present this complication, observing statistically significant differences in glandular (68,75% vs 28.69%, p:0,001), and cutaneous (31.25% vs 10.99%, p: 0.01) domains. The glandular domain of clinical ESSDAI was the main domain associated lymphoma development (H.R: 4.54, 95% CI: 1.57-13.12). Conclusion: This was the first study with data on the population of Argentina about the prevalence of lymphoma in patients diagnosed with Sjogren's syndrome. The prevalence of lymphoma in our cohort was lower than previously published. Despite observing a lower frequency of lymphoma in our study, we found an association with risk markers described in the literature, such as baseline parotidomegaly and cutaneous involvement.
THE MECHANISM OF BICARBONATE REABSORPTION IN THE PROXIMAL AND DISTAL TUBULES OF THE KIDNEY.

The mechanism of HCO3- reabsorption in proximal and distal tubules was examined in rats undergoing NaHCO3 diuresis. The steady-state intratubular pH was measured with pH-sensitive glass microelectrodes and compared with the equilibrium pH calculated from the HCO3- concentration of the tubular fluid (measured with quinhydrone electrodes) and plasma Pco2. In the proximal tubule the intratubular pH and the equilibrium pH were identical, indicating no accumulation of excess H2CO3. After inhibition of carbonic anhydrase, however, intratubular pH was significantly lower (0.85 pH U) than the equilibrium pH. It was concluded that HCO3- reabsorption in the proximal tubule was mediated by H+ secretion, but that carbonic anhydrase located in the luminal membrane of the cell prevented H2CO3 from accumulating in the tubular fluid. In the distal tubule the intratubular pH was 0.85 U lower than the equilibrium pH. This difference could be obliterated by an intravenous injection of carbonic anhydrase. It was concluded that HCO3- reabsorption in this segment was also accomplished by H+ secretion. The accumulation of excess H2CO3 in the tubular fluid indicated that, in contrast to the proximal tubule, carbonic anhydrase was not located in the luminal membrane of distal tubular cells.
Recognising and Generating Terms using Derivatives of Parsing Expression Grammars

Grammar-based sentence generation has been thoroughly explored for Context-Free Grammars (CFGs), but remains unsolved for recognition-based approaches such as Parsing Expression Grammars (PEGs). Lacking tool support, language designers using PEGs have difficulty predicting the behaviour of their parsers. In this paper, we extend the idea of derivatives, originally formulated for regular expressions, to PEGs. We then present a novel technique for sentence generation based on derivatives, applicable to any grammatical formalism for which the derivative can be defined--now including PEGs. Finally, we propose applying derivatives more generally to other problems facing language designers and implementers.
Perception of Pak-Afghan Relations in American and Pakistani Press, Media’s Perspective of Foreign Policy (May 2011 to December 2011)

This study is an effort to analyze the foreign policies of both Pakistan and the United States of America in the national press regarding Pak-Afghan relations after Osama Bin Laden’s assassination. In this study, two national newspapers “Washington Post” from U.S. and “The Daily Dawn” from Pakistan are selected for study from May 2, 2011 to December 2011. The objective behind this work is to find out the facts of the foreign policy making by the governments and the role played by the mass media in the ground of international politics. Two theories are used for the theoretical grounds of the study first the Agenda Setting Theory as the study is focused to determine the ‘Media Agenda’ of the press of the two countries and framing theory is also used to examine that how media of different countries frames incidents regarding the foreign policy of the states for the other countries. In this study Pak-Afghan relations are analyzed by the content analysis of the editorials. The findings show that media does not essentially follow the view point of the government regarding the foreign policy of the country and the same thing was observed in the case of both Washington Post and Daily Dawn.
Mathematical modeling for mixed culture growth of two bacterial populations with opposite substrate preferences

An unstructured mathematical model is proposed for mixed culture growth of two different bacterial species that exhibit “opposite” substrate preferences in response to the “same” environmental conditions. The model incorporates enzymatic control mechanisms such as induction, repression, and inhibition in the microorganisms as manifested in their preferential utilization of substrates and microbial interactions such as amensalism and competition. The model predicts cell mass, substrate concentrations, dissolved oxygen tension, as well as key enzyme levels. The predictions of the model are compared with experimental data for pure culture growth and for mixed culture growth on two substrates, glucose and citrate, in a batch reactor.
Genome-Wide Interaction Analyses between Genetic Variants and Alcohol Consumption and Smoking for Risk of Colorectal Cancer

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified many genetic susceptibility loci for colorectal cancer (CRC). However, variants in these loci explain only a small proportion of familial aggregation, and there are likely additional variants that are associated with CRC susceptibility. Genome-wide studies of gene-environment interactions may identify variants that are not detected in GWAS of marginal gene effects. To study this, we conducted a genome-wide analysis for interaction between genetic variants and alcohol consumption and cigarette smoking using data from the Colon Cancer Family Registry (CCFR) and the Genetics and Epidemiology of Colorectal Cancer Consortium (GECCO). Interactions were tested using logistic regression. We identified interaction between CRC risk and alcohol consumption and variants in the 9q22.32/HIATL1 (Pinteraction = 1.76×10−8; permuted p-value 3.51x10-8) region. Compared to non-/occasional drinking light to moderate alcohol consumption was associated with a lower risk of colorectal cancer among individuals with rs9409565 CT genotype (OR, 0.82 [95% CI, 0.74–0.91]; P = 2.1×10−4) and TT genotypes (OR,0.62 [95% CI, 0.51–0.75]; P = 1.3×10−6) but not associated among those with the CC genotype (p = 0.059). No genome-wide statistically significant interactions were observed for smoking. If replicated our suggestive finding of a genome-wide significant interaction between genetic variants and alcohol consumption might contribute to understanding colorectal cancer etiology and identifying subpopulations with differential susceptibility to the effect of alcohol on CRC risk.
Interaction of nilotinib, dasatinib and bosutinib with ABCB1 and ABCG2: implications for altered anti‐cancer effects and pharmacological properties

Background and purpose: ABC multidrug transporters (MDR‐ABC proteins) cause multiple drug resistance in cancer and may be involved in the decreased anti‐cancer efficiency and modified pharmacological properties of novel specifically targeted agents. It has been documented that ABCB1 and ABCG2 interact with several first‐generation, small‐molecule, tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs), including the Bcr‐Abl fusion kinase inhibitor imatinib, used for the treatment of chronic myeloid leukaemia. Here, we have investigated the specific interaction of these transporters with nilotinib, dasatinib and bosutinib, three clinically used, second‐generation inhibitors of the Bcr‐Abl tyrosine kinase activity.
Ca2+ entry channels in rat thoracic aortic smooth muscle cells activated by endothelin-1.

The contraction of the rat aorta induced by endothelin-1 (ET-1) requires entry of extracellular Ca2+, but involvement of voltage-operated Ca2+ channel is minor. Using whole-cell recordings of patch-clamp and monitoring of the intracellular free Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]i), we characterized Ca2+ entry channels in A7r5 cells activated by ET-1. ET-1 activates three types of voltage-independent Ca2+ entry channels: two types of Ca2+-permeable nonselective cation channels (designated NSCC-1 and NSCC-2) and a store-operated Ca2+ channel (SOCC). Furthermore, it was found that these channels can be pharmacologically discriminated using Ca2+ channel blockers such as SK&F 96365 and LOE 908. NSCC-1 is resistant to SK&F 96365, but sensitive to LOE 908, whereas NSCC-2 is sensitive to both SK&F 96365 and LOE 908. SOCC is sensitive to SK&F 96365, but resistant to LOE 908. Using these channel blockers, we analyzed Ca2+ entry channels involved in the ET-1-induced contractions of rat thoracic aorta and increases in [Ca2+]i of single smooth muscle cells. The responses to lower concentrations of ET-1 (< or = 0.1 nM) were abolished by either SK&F 96365 or LOE 908 alone. In contrast, the responses to higher concentrations of ET-1 (> or = 1 nM) were suppressed by SK&F 96365 or LOE 908 to about 10% and 35% of controls, respectively, and abolished by combined treatment with SK&F 96365 and LOE 908. These results show that the responses of rat aorta to lower concentrations of ET-1 involve only one Ca2+ channel that is sensitive to SK&F 96365 and LOE 908 (NSCC-2), whereas those to higher concentrations of ET-1 involve NSCC-1, NSCC-2 and SOCC, contributing 10%, 55% and 35%, respectively, to total Ca2+ entry.
Belief consensus–based distributed particle filters for fault diagnosis of non-linear distributed systems

This article presents a study on distributed fault diagnosis of spatially distributed systems composed of physically interconnected subsystems. To handle the complexity of such complicated systems, the overall state space model is decomposed to its constituent subsystems. Moreover, hybrid modelling is considered for the fault diagnosis problem. In this case, each subsystem is modelled as a hybrid one. Two different modes (healthy and faulty) are considered as discrete modes of the hybrid sub systems. A particle filtering–based algorithm is then proposed for the purpose of fault diagnosis of generally non-linear and non-Gaussian systems. The proposed method is applicable to a large class of distributed systems that undergo autonomous transitions from healthy to faulty modes. To implement the algorithm in a decentralized architecture, we employ embedded systems, called agents. Agents cooperate in the process of fault diagnosis by fusing local information to make the result of the decentralized approach asymptotically equivalent to the corresponding centralized one. To this end, belief (conditional probability) consensus algorithm is exploited. Simulation results are applied to a strongly interconnected four-tank system (as a benchmark) to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed method and how it improves the previous ones.
A cluster of fourteen genes from enteropathogenic Escherichia coli is sufficient for the biogenesis of a type IV pilus

Enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (EPEC) adhere to epithelial cells in microcolonies, a pattern termed localized adherence (LA). LA is dependent upon the presence of 50–70MDa plasmids, termed EPEC adherence factor (EAF) plasmids. Expression of an EAF plasm id‐encoded type IV fimbria, the bundle‐forming pilus (BFP), is associated with the LA phenotype. TnphoA insertions in bfpA, the gene encoding the major structural subunit of the BFP, abolish LA. While bfpA::TnphoA mutants cannot be complemented for LA by plasmids carrying the bfpA gene alone in trans, this work shows that they can be complemented by plasmids carrying the bfpA gene, as well as approximately 10kb of downstream sequence, suggesting that such mutations have polar effects on downstream genes. The identification and characterization of a cluster of 13 genes immediately downstream of bfpA are described. The introduction into a laboratory Escherichia coli strain of a plasmid containing these 14 bfp gene cluster genes, along with pJPN14, a plasmid containing another fragment derived from the EAF plasmid, confers LA ability and BFP biogenesis. However, when a mutation is introduced into the last gene of the bfp cluster, neither LA nor BFP biogenesis is conferred. This work also provides evidence to show that the fragment cloned in pJPN14 encodes a factor(s) which results in increased levels of the pilin protein. Finally, it is shown that expression of the 14 genes in the bfp cluster from an IPTG‐inducible promoter, in the absence of pJPN14, is sufficient to reconstitute BFP biogenesis in a laboratory E. cob strain, but is insufficient for LA. This is the first report demonstrating the reconstitution of a type IV pilus in a laboratory E. coli strain with a defined set of genes. The 8FP system should prove to be a useful model for studying the molecular mechanisms of type IV pilus biogenesis.
Structural classification of proteins through amino acid sequence using interval type-2 fuzzy logic system

This paper introduces a new multi-output interval type-2 fuzzy logic system (MOIT2FLS) that is automatically constructed from unsupervised data clustering method and trained using heuristic genetic algorithm for a protein secondary structure classification. Three structure classes are distinguished including helix, strand (sheet) and coil which correspond to three outputs of the MOIT2FLS. Quantitative properties of amino acids are used to characterize the twenty amino acids rather than the widely used computationally expensive binary encoding scheme. Amino acid sequences are parsed into learnable patterns using a local moving window strategy. Three clustering tasks are performed using the adaptive vector quantization method to derive an equal number of initial rules for each type of secondary structure. Genetic algorithm is applied to optimally adjust parameters of the MOIT2FLS with the purpose of maximizing the Q3 measure. Comprehensive experimental results demonstrate the strong superiority of the proposed approach over the traditional methods including Chou-Fasman method, Garnier-Osguthorpe-Robson method, and artificial neural network models.
Futures Markets, Bayesian Forecasting and Risk Modeling

Applications of the Bayesian approach to risk modeling regarding speculating trading strategies in Futures Markets is discussed in the context of the corresponding concepts of betting and investing, prices and expectations, and coherence and arbitrage-free pricing in the fields of Bayesian methodology and Finance. ∗BEST, LLC, Hoboken, NJ 07030 †Booth School of Business, The University of Chicago ‡Department of Statistical Science, Duke University