Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Brain Recovery after a Plane Crash: Treatment with Growth Hormone (GH) and Neurorehabilitation: A Case Report

The aim of this study is to describe the results obtained after growth hormone (GH) treatment and neurorehabilitation in a young man that suffered a very grave traumatic brain injury (TBI) after a plane crash. Methods: Fifteen months after the accident, the patient was treated with GH, 1 mg/day, at three-month intervals, followed by one-month resting, together with daily neurorehabilitation. Blood analysis at admission showed that no pituitary deficits existed. At admission, the patient presented: spastic tetraplegia, dysarthria, dysphagia, very severe cognitive deficits and joint deformities. Computerized tomography scanners (CT-Scans) revealed the practical loss of the right brain hemisphere and important injuries in the left one. Clinical and blood analysis assessments were performed every three months for three years. Feet surgery was needed because of irreducible equinovarus. Results: Clinical and kinesitherapy assessments revealed a prompt improvement in cognitive functions, dysarthria and dysphagia disappeared and three years later the patient was able to live a practically normal life, walking alone and coming back to his studies. No adverse effects were observed during and after GH administration. Conclusions: These results, together with previous results from our group, indicate that GH treatment is safe and effective for helping neurorehabilitation in TBI patients, once the acute phase is resolved, regardless of whether or not they have GH-deficiency (GHD).
Irregular LDPC coded BICM in image transmission over Rayleigh fading channel

If the degree distribution is chosen carefully, the irregular LDPC codes can outperform the regular ones. In this paper, we proposed an LDPC coded BICM scheme in image transmission system to improve both efficiency and reliability. Simulation results show that LDPC codes are good coding schemes over fading channel in image communication. Simultaneously, irregular codes can obtain a code gain of about 0.7 dB than regular ones when BER is 10/sup -4/. So the irregular LDPC codes are more suitable for image transmission than the regular codes.
Astrophysical Applications of Numerical Relativity - from Teragrid to Petascale

The TeraGrid is growing to a Petascale environment. Its latest additions and future planned systems will allow astrophysicists to investigate astrophysical objects that cannot be studied with today’s observational methods, and which were previously excluded from computational study by lack of both computational power and appropriate codes. We present an overview of recent results in relativistic astrophysics, including binary black hole systems and stellar core collapse scenarios. We describe the main properties of our software infrastructure and our physics codes that we employ on the TeraGrid, and we outline our plans towards new and groundbreaking physics in the coming years.
Designing the optimal bit: balancing energetic cost, speed and reliability

We consider the challenge of operating a reliable bit that can be rapidly erased. We find that both erasing and reliability times are non-monotonic in the underlying friction, leading to a trade-off between erasing speed and bit reliability. Fast erasure is possible at the expense of low reliability at moderate friction, and high reliability comes at the expense of slow erasure in the underdamped and overdamped limits. Within a given class of bit parameters and control strategies, we define ‘optimal’ designs of bits that meet the desired reliability and erasing time requirements with the lowest operational work cost. We find that optimal designs always saturate the bound on the erasing time requirement, but can exceed the required reliability time if critically damped. The non-trivial geometry of the reliability and erasing time scales allows us to exclude large regions of parameter space as suboptimal. We find that optimal designs are either critically damped or close to critical damping under the erasing procedure.
Models and Technologies Identi fi cation of Kinase Inhibitor Targets in the Lung Cancer Microenvironment by Chemical and Phosphoproteomics

A growing number of gene mutations, which are recognized as cancer drivers, can be successfully targeted with drugs. The redundant and dynamic nature of oncogenic signaling networks and complex interactions between cancer cells and the microenvironment, however, can cause drug resistance. While these challenges can be addressed by developing drug combinations or polypharmacology drugs, this benefits greatly from a detailed understanding of the proteome-wide target profiles. Using mass spectrometry-based chemical proteomics, we report the comprehensive characterization of the drug–protein interaction networks for the multikinase inhibitors dasatinib and sunitinib in primary lung cancer tissue specimens derived from patients. We observed in excess of 100 protein kinase targets plus various protein complexes involving, for instance, AMPK, TBK1 (sunitinib), and ILK (dasatinib). Importantly, comparison with lung cancer cell lines andmouse xenografts thereof showed that most targets were shared between cell lines and tissues. Several targets, however, were only present in tumor tissues. In xenografts, most of these proteins were of mouse origin suggesting that they originate from the tumor microenvironment. Furthermore, intersection with subsequent global phosphoproteomic analysis identified several activated signaling pathways. These included MAPK, immune, and integrin signaling, which were affected by these drugs in both cancer cells and the microenvironment. Thus, the combination of chemical and phosphoproteomics can generate a systems view of proteins, complexes, and signaling pathways that are simultaneously engaged by multitargeted drugs in cancer cells and the tumormicroenvironment. This may allow for the design of novel anticancer therapies that concurrently target multiple tumor compartments. Mol Cancer Ther; 13(11); 2751–62. 2014 AACR.
Identification of cagA Tyrosine Phosphorylation DNA Motifs in Helicobacter pylori Isolates from Peptic Ulcer Patients by Novel PCR-Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism and Real-Time Fluorescence PCR Assays

ABSTRACT Cag pathogenicity island-containing Helicobacter pylori (type I) induces signal transduction pathways resulting in tyrosine phosphorylation of proteins adjacent to the site of bacterial adhesion on host gastric epithelial cells. Conventional block PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) and real-time LightCycler (LC) PCR hybridization assays, validated by direct sequencing, were designed to test for the presence of three nucleotide sequences corresponding to tyrosine phosphorylation motifs (TPMs) A, B, and C in 84 isolates of H. pylori type I from patients in England. Overall, the PCR assays demonstrated that one or more TPMs were present in 62 strains (75%). Motif A was common (71% of strains), whereas motifs B and C were rarer (8% of strains). Strains lacking a TPM were typically vacuolating cytotoxin genotype vacA m2. Motif A was widely distributed in relation to disease severity and was more commonly (but not significantly [P = 0.071]) associated with gastric ulcer than with duodenal ulcer (86 versus 56%). The LC hybridization assay provided a rapid means of detecting all three motifs, but RFLP analysis was more specific for TPM-A. TPMs provide novel additional strain markers for defining cagA variation, including identification of RFLP types within TPM-A. The presence of a particular TPM was not of direct diagnostic value, either singly or in combination, but the higher proportion of TPM-A strains in gastric ulcer patients merits further investigation.
A Comparison of Machine Learning Algorithms for Mapping of Complex Surface-Mined and Agricultural Landscapes Using ZiYuan-3 Stereo Satellite Imagery

Land cover mapping (LCM) in complex surface-mined and agricultural landscapes could contribute greatly to regulating mine exploitation and protecting mine geo-environments. However, there are some special and spectrally similar land covers in these landscapes which increase the difficulty in LCM when employing high spatial resolution images. There is currently no research on these mixed complex landscapes. The present study focused on LCM in such a mixed complex landscape located in Wuhan City, China. A procedure combining ZiYuan-3 (ZY-3) stereo satellite imagery, the feature selection (FS) method, and machine learning algorithms (MLAs) (random forest, RF; support vector machine, SVM; artificial neural network, ANN) was proposed and first examined for both LCM of surface-mined and agricultural landscapes (MSMAL) and classification of surface-mined land (CSML), respectively. The mean and standard deviation filters of spectral bands and topographic features derived from ZY-3 stereo images were newly introduced. Comparisons of three MLAs, including their sensitivities to FS and whether FS resulted in significant influences, were conducted for the first time in the present study. The following conclusions are drawn. Textures were of little use, and the novel features contributed to improve classification accuracy. Regarding the influence of FS: FS substantially reduced feature set (by 68% for MSMAL and 87% for CSML), and often improved classification accuracies (with an average value of 4.48% for MSMAL using three MLAs, and 11.39% for CSML using RF and SVM); FS showed statistically significant improvements except for ANN-based MSMAL; SVM was most sensitive to FS, followed by ANN and RF. Regarding comparisons of MLAs: for MSMAL based on feature subset, RF achieved the greatest overall accuracy of 77.57%, followed by SVM and ANN; for CSML, SVM had the highest accuracies (87.34%), followed by RF and ANN; based on the feature subsets, significant differences were observed for MSMAL and CSML using any pair of MLAs. In general, the proposed approach can contribute to LCM in complex surface-mined and agricultural landscapes.
Rogue Psychotic Mindset … The Cerebral Seat of Delusive Misconception?

In 1986, I suffered a psychotic breakdown. With support from the staff at Fulbourn Hospital, I was able to overcome my illness. My mental health had been blighted by fearful dark delusion and associated alarm for 15 years. As I recovered, I developed my own interpretation of psychosis and have constructed a personal theory that attempts to give form and structure to a nebulous and very disturbing state of mind. My theory is of the existence of an active and directive rogue psychotic mindset; hereafter referred to as the RPM. I would define this mindset as being a body of nonsensical thoughts, ideas, beliefs, suppositions and assumptions that occupy a volume in the mind. This body of cognitions is given credence by being tentatively linked to the factual world. It is active in the sense that one is influenced by its rogue contents. As such it is directive and can drive not only one's thoughts, but also one's behaviour. Other normal mindsets co-exist cerebrally with the RPM. Such mindsets serve to tip the balance and normalize behaviour. During and after psychotic breakdown; in the absence of clinical psychology knowledge, my RPM developed as I struggled and tried to explain the unusual experience of going psychotic.
Detecting pitch-pulse asynchronies and differences in fundamental frequency.

A series of experiments investigated the detection of pitch-pulse asynchronies (PPAs) and of differences in fundamental frequency (delta F0's) between two simultaneous "formants," each of which consisted of a group of sinusoidal components spaced sufficiently closely in frequency to be incompletely resolved by the peripheral auditory system. For such stimuli, introducing a delta F0 caused the pitch pulses of the two groups to become progressively more asynchronous at later and later parts of the stimulus. A comparison of the psychometric functions for the detection of delta F0's and of (constant) PPAs suggested that listeners could, under some circumstances, detect delta F0's from the resulting asynchrony. Using an adaptive procedure, it was also shown that, for a range of F0's from 20 to 125 Hz, the threshold PPA was constant at about 2.5 ms. This relationship between PPA threshold and F0 differs from that previously reported for the detection of envelope asynchronies between pairs of sinusoidally modulated tones [e.g., Strickland et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 86, 2160-2166 (1989)], which remain constant in degrees, rather than in ms. Further experiments investigated the role of onset asynchronies in the detection of PPAs and showed that, although an asynchrony between the first pitch pulse in each formant was sufficient for near-asymptotic performance, listeners could still do the task when this cue was removed. For the detection of delta F0's, onset asynchronies also aided, but were not necessary for, discrimination.
Tribalism, Loss and Grief: Issues for Multiprofessional Education

This paper examines tensions between a sense of loss of professional identity and drivers for change in achieving multiprofessional education and practice. Key ideas of Marris (1986), including feelings of ambivalence and ‘the conservative impulse’, are used as a framework for the paper and are linked to the vivid anthropological metaphor of ‘tribalism' (Beattie, 1994; 1995). The issues are considered to be important for innovations in multiprofessional education since they point to a dilemma which cannot be safely ignored. Legitimate expressions of resistance, arising from confusing expressions of ambivalence, conflict and grief, occur when boundaries of distinct groups appear to come under threat from integration of various professional groups and tribalism is often viewed as a negative expression of retreat and rejection of change. However, both can be seen as legitimate laments for betrayed traditions with elements of bereavement processes. As such they present a challenge for educationalists to adopt.
Health habits of U.S. adults, 1985: the "Alameda 7" revisited.

Seven health habits, commonly referred to as the "Alameda 7," were shown to be associated with physical health status and mortality in a pioneer longitudinal study initiated in 1965 in Alameda County, CA. These habits are having never smoked, drinking less than five drinks at one sitting, sleeping 7-8 hours a night, exercising, maintaining desirable weight for height, avoiding snacks, and eating breakfast regularly. The Alameda study focused attention on the importance of everyday practices for the maintenance of good health and, ultimately, for longer life. This report presents selected findings on the prevalence of the seven Alameda practices (defined slightly differently in some cases) among the general U.S. population aged 18 years and older, by sex, according to age, education, income, and race. In general, men are more likely than women to smoke, drink, and exercise. Younger people are more likely than older people to skip breakfast, snack, and drink, and younger women are more likely than older women to smoke. Education, income, and racial differences were found for most health practices. Of all subgroups discussed, blacks, particularly black women, are the most likely to have lifestyles that would be considered unhealthy using the Alameda criteria. Overall, the data reported suggest that although large numbers of U.S. adults have healthy habits, many do not, particularly persons in socially and economically disadvantaged groups.
Embedding Spatio-Temporal Information into Maps by Route-Zooming

Analysis and exploration of spatio-temporal data such as traffic flow and vehicle trajectories have become important in urban planning and management. In this paper, we present a novel visualization technique called route-zooming that can embed spatio-temporal information into a map seamlessly for occlusion-free visualization of both spatial and temporal data. The proposed technique can broaden a selected route in a map by deforming the overall road network. We formulate the problem of route-zooming as a nonlinear least squares optimization problem by defining an energy function that ensures the route is broadened successfully on demand while the distortion caused to the road network is minimized. The spatio-temporal information can then be embedded into the route to reveal both spatial and temporal patterns without occluding the spatial context information. The route-zooming technique is applied in two instantiations including an interactive metro map for city tourism and illustrative maps to highlight information on the broadened roads to prove its applicability. We demonstrate the usability of our spatio-temporal visualization approach with case studies on real traffic flow data. We also study various design choices in our method, including the encoding of the time direction and choices of temporal display, and conduct a comprehensive user study to validate our embedded visualization design.
The UK′s Management Charter Initiative: The First Three Years

During the first three years of its existence, the Management Charter Initiative (MCI) has become a powerful force for change in the field of management education, training and development. Nearly 1,000 British companies have pledged to obey the Code of Practice, occupational management standards for junior and middle managers have been published and strong links are being forged between MCI networks and Training and Enterprise Councils and Local Enterprise Companies.
Sonification of 3D body movement using parameter mapping technique

Most of instructions by trainers or therapists in body movements, such as walking, turning, rising arms or legs are mostly done through voice instructions or touches. This does not have much problem to normal people as they can see it at the same time. To follow these instructions without seeing it can cause confusion in terms of actions and directions. Unfortunately, there is no other option for people who are blind. Thus, this research will try to replace those voice and touches form of instructions into non-speech sound instructions. The method involves transforming 3-dimensional data of body movements (kinematics) into sounds. It is hoped by only listening to the sounds, a person should be able to follow the exact movements of the body of another person or instructor without any voice commands or instructions. The novel contribution of this research is to produce an effective and efficient sonification technique (converting the data into sound) to represent the actions and directions of the body movements in 3-dimensional space. The conversion approach to be used is Parameter Mapping, where the movement properties will be mapped to sound properties. The parameter mapping will involve at least 3 transformation processes - data, acoustics parameters and sound representations. The effectiveness and efficiency of this approach is depending on all of these transformation processes. This research will use Kinect (a device used to play game with Microsoft Xbox game console) as the live 3D movements input data stream. This device is intentionally used in this research, as it is readily available and cheap. Thus, the potential applications or products from this research later on can also use this device.
Monitoring of biomarkers in sweat with printed sensors combined with sport wearables

Wearables for monitoring physiological parameters of the human body gained a lot of attention and maturity over the last years. To date mostly electrically or mechanically measurable data like heart or breathing rate are obtained --. The acquisition of biochemical, most likely in vivo, data is as interesting as the prior mentioned data, but far more difficult to obtain due to the fact that most of these data acquire invasive methods. Here we present a wearable, screen printed ion-selective sensor for monitoring and analysis of biomarkers in sweat. We show how the setup based on potentiometric evaluation of ion concentrations can be integrated with wearables and present an use case, where ions like ammonia or complementary electrolytes can provide insight into intra-corporal physiological processes and help to control training intensity in sports.
Body Weight, Cerebral Atherosclerosis and Cerebral Vascular Disease: An Autopsy Study

The severity of atherosclerotic involvement of intracranial cerebral arteries was assessed at autopsy in 3,315 adult subjects. Ponderal index values were calculated for each sex and ten-year age group. In most age groups, subjects with cerebral vascular disease, or one or more of several conditions known to be associated with increased cerebral atherosclerosis, had higher relative body weight than did subjects without those conditions. Subjects in the lower quartile of ponderal index distribution (“overweight” group) had more severe cerebral atherosclerosis than did subjects in the upper quartile (“underweight” group). However, when subjects with disease conditions known to be associated with increased cerebral atherosclerosis were excluded from the analysis, no relationship between relative body weight and severity of cerebral atherosclerosis could be demonstrated. Clinical and/or pathological evidence of cerebral vascular disease was apparently present more often in “overweight” than in “underweight” subjects, at least in certain age groups.
Antitumor activity of new pyrazolo[3,4-d]pyrimidine SRC kinase inhibitors in Burkitt lymphoma cell lines and its enhancement by WEE1 inhibition

Burkitt lymphoma (BL) is a highly aggressive B cell neoplasm. Although intensive polychemotherapy regimens have proven very effective, they are associated with significant toxicities. Therefore, more rational therapies that selectively target the molecular abnormalities of BL are needed. Recent data suggest that the tyrosine kinase SRC could represent a therapeutic target for BL. We found that new pyrazolo[3,4-d]pyrimidine SRC inhibitors exerted a significant cytotoxic effect and induced apoptosis on two BL cell lines, as determined by MTS assays, cytofluorimetric analyses and caspase 3 assay. Notably, our SRC inhibitors proved to be more effective than the well-known SRC inhibitor PP2 [4-amino-5-(4-chlorophenyl)-7-(dimethylethyl)pyrazolo[3,4-d]pyrimidine] in BL cells. Moreover, our small molecules induced a G2/M arrest in BL cells through a possible new mechanism, whereby SRC inhibition hinders an AKT-WEE1-cyclin-dependent kinase 1 (CDK1) axis, leading to inhibition of CDK1, the main trigger of entry into mitosis. By using a small-molecule inhibitor of WEE1, a crucial CDK1 negative regulator, we were able to shift the balance toward apoptosis rather than growth arrest and enhance the efficacy of the SRC inhibitors, suggesting a possible use of these selective drugs in combination for a safe and efficient treatment of BL.