Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Potential of colloidal or silver nanoparticles to reduce the growth of B16F10 melanoma tumors

Previosuly, we reported the cytotoxic effect of colloidal silver (AgC) on MCF-7 breast cancer cell line. However, there is scarce information on its antitumor potential. The aim of this study was to evaluate the anti-tumoral activity of colloidal silver (AgC) or silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) in a B16F10 melanoma mice model. In vitro, B16F10 cells were treated with different concentrations of AgC or AgNPs and cell viability was evaluated by MTT method, both treatments had cytotoxic effects against B16F10 cell line. In vivo, B16F10 melanoma cells (5 × 105) were implanted in six weeks old C57BL/6 mice. About 8 days after cells injection, the subcutaneous treatments were started with AgC or AgNPs, tumor volume and tumor weight were evaluated and the difference of treated groups and control demonstrated that melanoma tumor growth was significantly decreased. Our results suggest that AgC or AgNPs could be useful as an antiproliferative drug, inducing an impairment of tumoral growth. Key words: Colloidal silver, silver nanoparticles, melanoma, cancer, tumor.
Learning Low Density Separators

We define a novel, basic, unsupervised learning problem – learning hyperplane passing through the origin with the lowest probability density. Namely, given a random sample generated by some unknown probability distribution, the task is to find a hyperplane passing through the origin with smallest integral of the probability density on the hyperplane. This task is relevant to several problems in machine learning, such as semisupervised learning and clustering stability. We investigate the question of existence of a universally consistent algorithm for this problem. We propose two natural learning paradigms and prove that, on input random samples generated i.i. d. by any distribution, they are guaranteed to converge to the optimal separator for that distribution. We complement this result by showing that no learning algorithm for our task can achieve learning rates that are independent of the data generating distribution.
Reversible Coma: A Rare Presentation of Spontaneous Intracranial Hypotension

Background: Spontaneous intracranial hypotension (SIH) is a well-recognized neurologic disorder that typically presents with orthostatic headaches, low cerebral spinal fluid pressures and distinct abnormalities on magnetic resonance imaging. Methods: We present a case of a rare presentation of SIH. Results: A 49-year-old man presented with a two week history of orthostatic headaches that rapidly progressed to encephalopathy and coma, requiring intubation. Neuroimaging revealed abnormalities typical of SIH; diffusely enhancing pachymeninges, subdural fluid collections, and descent of the brain. Treatment with an epidural blood patch reversed his coma within minutes. Following a second blood patch, the patient became asymptomatic. No cerebral spinal leak could be identified on magnetic resonance imaging or on a nuclear medicine technetium cerebral spinal fluid flow study. At six month follow-up, he remained symptom free. Conclusion: The mechanism of coma in SIH is presumed to be compression of the diencephalon from downward displacement of the brain. Although it is very unusual for patients with SIH to present with coma, it is important to recognize since the coma may be reversible with epidural blood patches.
[The SCOOP II trial in heart failure].

BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a health education intervention aimed at improving therapeutic compliance and quality of life of patients with chronic heart failure (CHF). In this 1100 bed Community hospital 97% of patients with CHF admitted to the Internal Medicine Unit have a high rate of readmission, mortality and negative quality of life. METHODS Two hundred patients (123 males, 77 females, mean age 75 years) were enrolled and randomized. CHF patients admitted to the Internal Medicine Unit were randomly assigned to usual care (n=100) or intervention group (n=100), which consisted of a nurse-guided education program, facilitated telephone communication and regularly scheduled follow-up visits with an internist. The primary endpoints were quality of life and quality of service improvement, and improved compliance with the heart failure guidelines. All patients were submitted to echocardiography. RESULTS Ejection fraction is available for 87% of them. Baseline quality of life is similar in both groups. Final data will be available after April 2001.
Carotid Bifurcation Geometry Is an Independent Predictor of Early Wall Thickening at the Carotid Bulb

Background and Purpose— Lumen geometry has long been suspected as a risk factor for atherosclerosis by virtue of its influence on blood flow disturbances. Confirmation of this geometric risk hypothesis has, however, proved challenging owing to possible effects of wall thickening on geometry and unproven links between candidate geometric variables and disturbed flow. The purpose of this study was to overcome these challenges. Methods— The study relied on imaging and risk factor data from progressively refined subsets of the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Carotid MRI study. Group 1 (n=467) included only nonstenotic cases having sufficient quality angiography for 3-dimensional analysis. Group 2 (n=346) excluded cases from group 1 having common and internal carotid artery wall thickness above previously identified thresholds for inward remodeling. Group 3 (n=294) excluded cases from group 2 having lumen irregularities and thus was least likely to include lumen geometries influenced by wall thickening. Results— Multiple linear regressions showed that for group 3, bifurcation flare and proximal curvature were independent predictors of internal carotid artery wall thickness, consistent with their previously demonstrated roles in predicting disturbed flow. For the broadest group 1, flare was an independent predictor of internal carotid artery wall thickness but with a sign change in regression coefficient reflecting effects of wall thickening on lumen geometry. Conclusions— Carotid bifurcation geometry is an independent, albeit weak, predictor of its early wall thickening, but only when assumptions about geometric factors, and the influence of disease on them, are confronted. This highlights pitfalls of previous attempts to confirm geometric risk of atherosclerosis.
Summarization : A New Paradigm for Efficient Publish / Subscribe Systems

We contribute a new paradigm for publish/subscribe systems. It is centered on the novel notion of subscription summarization. We first present the summarization structures for a broker’s subscriptions and accompanying algorithms, which operate on the summary structures to match incoming events to the brokers with relevant subscriptions and for the maintenance of subscriptions in the face of updates. Second, we present novel algorithms for efficiently propagating subscription summaries to brokers. Finally, we present a novel algorithm for the efficient distributed processing of incoming events, utilizing the propagated subscription summaries to route the events to brokers with matched subscriptions. We study the performance of our contributions, comparing them against a baseline approach and against corresponding techniques employed in a well-known event-based distributed system. Our results show the significant performance gains introduced for both the subscription propagation and distributed event processing tasks.
Optimal morphological filter design using a bacterial swarming algorithm

Noise removal is an underlying issue of image processing. This paper proposes a generic approach to design an optimal filter which combines linear and morphological filtering techniques, so that both Gaussian and non-Gaussian noise can be rejected. The optimisation process is performed by a bacterial swarming algorithm (BSA), which is derived from the bacterial foraging algorithm (BFA) and involves underlying mechanisms of bacterial chemotaxis and quorum sensing. The performance of the combined filter optimised by BSA is analysed in comparison with the filter optimised by the genetic algorithm (GA), as well as with other commonly used filters. The simulation results demonstrated in this paper have shown the merits of the proposed filtering technique and the optimisation algorithm.
The role of adrenal hyperandrogenism, insulin resistance, and obesity in the pathogenesis of polycystic ovarian syndrome.

Hyperandrogenism, insulin resistance, and obesity are common features of polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS). This study was designed to investigate the relationship among these factors and how they might contribute to ovulatory dysfunction in PCOS. Adrenal androgen secretion and insulin resistance were quantified in oligomenorrheic women with PCOS and in three groups of eumenorrheic women: weight-matched hirsute women, obese nonhirsute women, and thin nonhirsute women. Adrenal androgen secretion was defined as the androstenedione response to synthetic corticotropin. Insulin resistance was estimated by calculating the area under the curve for serum insulin levels in response to a 75 g oral glucose load. The mean serum androstenedione response (nmol/L) to corticotropin in PCOS (5.6 +/- 1.3) was greater than that in eumenorrheic hirsute women (3.4 +/- 0.5; P < 0.10), obese nonhirsute women (1.8 +/- 0.8; P < 0.05), and lean nonhirsute women (1.9 +/- 0.5; P < 0.05). The serum androstenedione response was not correlated with body mass index (BMI). The area under the curve for serum insulin (mU/L.min/1000) in PCOS (29.1 +/- 5.3) was greater (P < 0.001) than in eumenorrheic hirsute women (9.1 +/- 1.7), obese nonhirsute women (5.8 +/- 1.0), and lean nonhirsute women (4.5 +/- 0.4). The serum insulin response was highly correlated with BMI (P < 0.001) in the three groups of obese women, but women with PCOS became significantly more insulin resistant with increasing BMI (P < 0.02). There was no correlation between adrenal androgen secretion and insulin resistance in any of the groups. We conclude that adrenal hyperandrogenism and insulin resistance are independent predictors of anovulation in hirsute women. These conditions are present in both oligomenorrheic and eumenorrheic hirsute women, but are present to a greater extent in anovulatory women. Obese women with PCOS also differ from eumenorrheic controls by developing a greater degree of insulin resistance as body mass increases.
Psychological Research and the Prostate-Cancer Screening Controversy

In October of 2011, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force released a draft report in which they recommended against using the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test to screen for prostate cancer. We attempt to show that four factors documented by psychological research can help explain the furor that followed the release of the task force’s report. These factors are the persuasive power of anecdotal (as opposed to statistical) evidence, the influence of personal experience, the improper evaluation of data, and the influence of low base rates on the efficacy of screening tests. We suggest that augmenting statistics with facts boxes or pictographs might help such committees communicate more effectively with the public and with the U.S. Congress.
High Fragmentation Characterizes Tumour-Derived Circulating DNA

Background Circulating DNA (ctDNA) is acknowledged as a potential diagnostic tool for various cancers including colorectal cancer, especially when considering the detection of mutations. Certainly due to lack of normalization of the experimental conditions, previous reports present many discrepancies and contradictory data on the analysis of the concentration of total ctDNA and on the proportion of tumour-derived ctDNA fragments. Methodology In order to rigorously analyse ctDNA, we thoroughly investigated ctDNA size distribution. We used a highly specific Q-PCR assay and athymic nude mice xenografted with SW620 or HT29 human colon cancer cells, and we correlated our results by examining plasma from metastatic CRC patients. Conclusion/Significance Fragmentation and concentration of tumour-derived ctDNA is positively correlated with tumour weight. CtDNA quantification by Q-PCR depends on the amplified target length and is optimal for 60–100 bp fragments. Q-PCR analysis of plasma samples from xenografted mice and cancer patients showed that tumour-derived ctDNA exhibits a specific amount profile based on ctDNA size and significant higher ctDNA fragmentation. Metastatic colorectal patients (n = 12) showed nearly 5-fold higher mean ctDNA fragmentation than healthy individuals (n = 16).
Isobaric cure shrinkage behaviors of epoxy molding compound in isothermal state

The warpage of plastic-encapsulated IC packages after molding is believed to be induced by thermal and cure shrinkage of epoxy molding compound (EMC). To study the warpage behaviors of EMC, the amount of cure-induced shrinkage needs to be understood. Volume shrinkage behaviors induced by cure reaction of EMC in isothermal and isobaric states were studied with a differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) and a pressure–temperature-controlled dilatometer. The results show that higher pressure induce more volume shrinkage under fixed temperature but the difference of volume shrinkage under different pressure levels doesn't obey the principle of linearity. It is observed that the amount of chemical volume shrinkage at 145 °C is higher than those under three other temperatures: 160, 175, and 190 °C. The chemical volume shrinkage of EMC is found to be very process dependent. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 43: 2392–2398, 2005
Activated Human T Cells, B Cells, and Monocytes Produce Brain-derived Neurotrophic Factor In Vitro and in Inflammatory Brain Lesions: A Neuroprotective Role of Inflammation?

Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) has potent effects on neuronal survival and plasticity during development and after injury. In the nervous system, neurons are considered the major cellular source of BDNF. We demonstrate here that in addition, activated human T cells, B cells, and monocytes secrete bioactive BDNF in vitro. Notably, in T helper (Th)1- and Th2-type CD4+ T cell lines specific for myelin autoantigens such as myelin basic protein or myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein, BDNF production is increased upon antigen stimulation. The BDNF secreted by immune cells is bioactive, as it supports neuronal survival in vitro. Using anti-BDNF monoclonal antibody and polyclonal antiserum, BDNF immunoreactivity is demonstrable in inflammatory infiltrates in the brain of patients with acute disseminated encephalitis and multiple sclerosis. The results raise the possibility that in the nervous system, inflammatory infiltrates have a neuroprotective effect, which may limit the success of nonselective immunotherapies.
Application of Support Vector Machine for Emotion Classification

Emotions are a great source of information in communication and interaction among people. There is a continuous interaction between emotions, thoughts and behavior, in such a way that they constantly influence each other. In this paper, we propose an emotion classification system that can classify four emotions (happiness, sadness, fear and anger). Participants' physiological signals are acquired by electrocardiogram (ECG), galvanic skin responses (GSR), blood volume pulse (BVP), and pulse. We adopt sequential floating forward selection (SFFS) and F-score feature selection methods to get discriminative features that influence emotion. The selected features are used to train the support vector machine (SVM) classifier. Experiment results show that the proposed method achieves 89.6%.
Early Tertiary mammals from North Africa reinforce the molecular Afrotheria clade

The phylogenetic pattern and timing of the radiation of mammals, especially the geographical origins of major crown clades, are areas of controversy among molecular biologists, morphologists and palaeontologists. Molecular phylogeneticists have identified an Afrotheria clade, which includes several taxa as different as tenrecs (Tenrecidae), golden moles (Chrysochloridae), elephant-shrews (Macroscelididae), aardvarks (Tubulidentata) and paenungulates (elephants, sea cows and hyracoids). Molecular data also suggest a Cretaceous African origin for Afrotheria within Placentalia followed by a long period of endemic evolution on the Afro-Arabian continent after the mid-Cretaceous Gondwanan breakup (approx. 105–25 Myr ago). However, there was no morphological support for such a natural grouping so far. Here, we report new dental and postcranial evidence of Eocene stem hyrax and macroscelidid from North Africa that, for the first time, provides a congruent phylogenetic view with the molecular Afrotheria clade. These new fossils imply, however, substantial changes regarding the historical biogeography of afrotheres. Their long period of isolation in Africa, as assumed by molecular inferences, is now to be reconsidered inasmuch as Eocene paenungulates and elephant-shrews are here found to be related to some Early Tertiary Euramerican ‘hyopsodontid condylarths’ (archaic hoofed mammals). As a result, stem members of afrotherian clades are not strictly African but also include some Early Paleogene Holarctic mammals.
Contribution of the Nucleus Cuneiformis to the Antinociceptive Effects of Systemic Morphine on Inflammatory Pain in Rats

behaviors have already been demonstrated. Systemic morphine inhibited both the early and late phases of the formalin-induced licking responses, and this action was naloxone-sensitive (Dubuisson & Dennis, 1977; Oluyomi, Hart, & Smith, 1992) as well. It has been shown that wide variety of brain regions including the frontal lobe, anterior cingulate cortex, insula, amygdala, hypothalamus, periaqueductal gray
TR 08-034 Conditionally Positive Definite Kernels and Infinitely Divisible Distributions

We give a precise characterization of two important classes of conditionally positive definite (CPD) kernels in terms of integral transforms of infinitely divisible distributions. In particular, we show that for any stationary CPD kernel A(x, y) = f(x − y), f is the log-characteristic function of a uniquely determined infinitely divisible distribution; further, for any additive CPD kernel A(x, y) = g(x + y), g is the log-moment generating function of a uniquely determined infinitely divisible distribution. The results strengthen the connections between CPD kernels and infinitely divisible distributions.
Virulence evolution and the trade‐off hypothesis: history, current state of affairs and the future

It has been more than two decades since the formulation of the so‐called ‘trade‐off’ hypothesis as an alternative to the then commonly accepted idea that parasites should always evolve towards avirulence (the ‘avirulence hypothesis’). The trade‐off hypothesis states that virulence is an unavoidable consequence of parasite transmission; however, since the 1990s, this hypothesis has been increasingly challenged. We discuss the history of the study of virulence evolution and the development of theories towards the trade‐off hypothesis in order to illustrate the context of the debate. We investigate the arguments raised against the trade‐off hypothesis and argue that trade‐offs exist, but may not be of the simple form that is usually assumed, involving other mechanisms (and life‐history traits) than those originally considered. Many processes such as pathogen adaptation to within‐host competition, interactions with the immune system and shifting transmission routes, will all be interrelated making sweeping evolutionary predictions harder to obtain. We argue that this is the heart of the current debate in the field and while species‐specific models may be better predictive tools, the trade‐off hypothesis and its basic extensions are necessary to assess the qualitative impacts of virulence management strategies.
Deriving the Normalized Min-Sum Algorithm from Cooperative Optimization

The normalized min-sum algorithm can achieve near-optimal performance at decoding LDPC codes. However, it is a critical question to understand the mathematical principle underlying the algorithm. Traditionally, people thought that the normalized min-sum algorithm is a good approximation to the sum-product algorithm, the best known algorithm for decoding LDPC codes and turbo codes. This paper offers an alternative approach to understand the normalized min-sum algorithm. The algorithm is derived directly from cooperative optimization, a newly discovered general method for global/combinatorial optimization. This approach provides us another theoretical basis for the algorithm and offers new insights on its power and limitation. It also gives us a general framework for designing new decoding algorithms
Diverse and abundant antibiotic resistance genes in Chinese swine farms

Antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) are emerging contaminants posing a potential worldwide human health risk. Intensive animal husbandry is believed to be a major contributor to the increased environmental burden of ARGs. Despite the volume of antibiotics used in China, little information is available regarding the corresponding ARGs associated with animal farms. We assessed type and concentrations of ARGs at three stages of manure processing to land disposal at three large-scale (10,000 animals per year) commercial swine farms in China. In-feed or therapeutic antibiotics used on these farms include all major classes of antibiotics except vancomycins. High-capacity quantitative PCR arrays detected 149 unique resistance genes among all of the farm samples, the top 63 ARGs being enriched 192-fold (median) up to 28,000-fold (maximum) compared with their respective antibiotic-free manure or soil controls. Antibiotics and heavy metals used as feed supplements were elevated in the manures, suggesting the potential for coselection of resistance traits. The potential for horizontal transfer of ARGs because of transposon-specific ARGs is implicated by the enrichment of transposases—the top six alleles being enriched 189-fold (median) up to 90,000-fold in manure—as well as the high correlation (r2 = 0.96) between ARG and transposase abundance. In addition, abundance of ARGs correlated directly with antibiotic and metal concentrations, indicating their importance in selection of resistance genes. Diverse, abundant, and potentially mobile ARGs in farm samples suggest that unmonitored use of antibiotics and metals is causing the emergence and release of ARGs to the environment.
Usefulness of magnetic particle imaging for monitoring the therapeutic effect of magnetic hyperthermia

Magnetic hyperthermia treatment (MHT) is a cancer therapy that relies on the heat generated by magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) under an alternating magnetic field (AMF), and it has the potential to realize a local treatment with fewer side effects. The purpose of this study was to investigate the usefulness of magnetic particle imaging (MPI) for monitoring the therapeutic effect of MHT using phantom and small animal experiments.