Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The study of spatio-temporal variation of impervious surfaces for Dianci Basin using TM imagery from 2002 to 2009

Impervious surface area (ISA) extraction is important for many planning and management applications because of the impacts that impervious surfaces have on a range of environmental resources such as groundwater, hydrological cycle simulation, water management and area pollution assessment. The Dianci Basin is the most developed economic district of the Yunnan province. In recent years, with the rapid urbanization especially surrounding the Dianchi water body, the impervious surface coverage rate has also grown rapidly and has resulted in severe degradation of basin water environment within the Dianci watershed. Extracting the dynamic expansion of impervious surfaces for the Dianci basin in both space and time is essential for analyzing the impacts on the environment. Landsat and other medium-resolution satellites provided the necessary spatial details and temporal frequency for mapping impervious surface expansion of Dianci Basin in the past decade. In this paper, we extracted the ISA informations based on Landsat images of 2002, 2006 and 2009 by using artificial neural network and monitored impervious surface change in the Dianci Basin by analyzing the multi-temporal impervious surfaces. Results of this study were as follows: (1) the area of ISA in the Dianci Basin increased 47 square km from 2002 to 2006 and 73 square km from 2006 to 2009 separately. (2) The spatial distribution of ISA was described according to the 2002/2006 percentage respectively. Most of middle and high percentage ISA was mainly located in the city interior of Kunming. (3) High percentage of ISA moved from the inner city to southeastern and south portions of Kunming and surrounding the Dianci Lake during 2006-2009. (4) Combining the change of ISA with social condition, the driving relationship was analyzed in detail. It was evident that ISA change has a deep relationship with the economic development of this basin in the past eight years. Because of the government of Yunnan province has proposed a “Building new developed Kunming city” and a “Strategy about surrounding Dianci lake development,” the new Chenggong city, some industrial parks and a new international airport have been building since 2003. The results were important and valuable for land use management, ecological protection and Dianci lake pollution treatment.
Visualisation of Social Networks Using CAVALIER

Social Network Analysis is an approach to analysing organisations focusing on relationships as the most important aspect. In this paper we discuss visualisation techniques for Social Network Analysis, including spring-embedding and simulated annealing techniques. We introduce a visualisation technique based on Kohonen neural networks, and also introduce social flow diagrams for demonstrating the relationship between two forms of conceptual distance.
Implementing leap traversals of the itemset lattice

The Leap-Traversal approach consists of traversing the item-set lattice by deciding on carefully selected nodes and avoiding systematic enumeration of candidates. We propose two ways to implement this approach. The first one uses a simple header-less frequent pattern tree and the second one partitions the transaction space using COFI-trees. In this paper we discuss how to avoid nodes in the lattice that would not participate in the answer set and hence drastically reduce the number of candidates to test out. We also study the performance of HFP-Leap and COFI-Leap in comparison with other algorithms.
Tribological Properties of Lubricin Mutant Mouse Knee Joints

s 1. Drewniak EI, Jay GD, Cha CJ, Warman ML, Fleming BC, Crisco JJ: “Coefficient of Friction of Articular Cartilage of Intact Prg4 Mutant Mouse Knees Increases with Cyclic Loading,” Transactions of the 55 Annual Meeting, Orthopaedic Research Society, Las Vegas, NV; February 22-25, 2009. 2. Henn CM, Brunner AM, Drewniak EI, Lesieur-Brooks AM, Crisco JJ, Ehrlich MG: “At What Point Can We Save Cartilage? ,” Transactions of the 55 Annual Meeting, Orthopaedic Research Society, Las Vegas, NV; February 22-25, 2009. 3. Drewniak EI, Crisco JJ: “Cartilage Wear Testing of Intact Mutant PRG4 Mouse Knees with a Pendulum System,” 16 Annual Research Celebration, Rhode Island Hospital, Providence, RI November 20, 2008. 4. Henn CM, Brunner AM, Drewniak EI, Lesieur-Brooks AM, Crisco JJ, Ehrlich MG: “In Vivo Joint Forces and Early Biomechanical Evidence of Osteoarthritis During Progressive Bowing in the Rabbit Knee,” 2008 Pediatric Orthopaedic Society of North America, Albuquerque, NM; May 1-3, 2008. 5. Drewniak EI, Crisco JJ: “Cartilage Wear Testing of Intact Mutant PRG4 Mouse Knees with a Pendulum System,” Transactions of the 54 Annual Meeting, Orthopaedic Research Society, San Francisco, CA; March 2-5 2008. 6. Drewniak EI, Crisco JJ, “Wear Testing of Articular Joints with an Unconstrained Driven Pendulum System,” 15 Annual Research Celebration, Rhode Island Hospital, Providence, RI; November 9, 2007.
KSHV Latency Locus Cooperates with Myc to Drive Lymphoma in Mice

Kaposi sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) has been linked to Kaposi sarcoma and B-cell malignancies. Mechanisms of KSHV-induced oncogenesis remain elusive, however, in part due to lack of reliable in vivo models. Recently, we showed that transgenic mice expressing the KSHV latent genes, including all viral microRNAs, developed splenic B cell hyperplasia with 100% penetrance, but only a fraction converted to B cell lymphomas, suggesting that cooperative oncogenic events were missing. Myc was chosen as a possible candidate, because Myc is deregulated in many B cell lymphomas. We crossed KSHV latency locus transgenic (latency) mice to Cα Myc transgenic (Myc) mice. By itself these Myc transgenic mice develop lymphomas only rarely. In the double transgenic mice (Myc/latency) we observed plasmacytosis, severe extramedullary hematopoiesis in spleen and liver, and increased proliferation of splenocytes. Myc/latency mice developed frank lymphoma at a higher rate than single transgenic latency or Myc mice. These data indicate that the KSHV latency locus cooperates with the deregulated Myc pathways to further lymphoma progression.
What makes you click: exploring visual signals to entice interaction on public displays

Most studies take for granted the critical first steps that prelude interaction with a public display: awareness of the interactive affordances of the display, and enticement to interact. In this paper we investigate mechanisms for enticing interaction on public displays, and study the effectiveness of visual signals in overcoming the 'first click' problem. We combined 3 atomic visual elements (color/greyscale, animation/static, and icon/text) to form 8 visual signals that were deployed on 8 interactive public displays on a university campus for 8 days. Our findings show that text is more effective in enticing interaction than icons, color more than greyscale, and static signals are more effective than animated. Further, we identify gender differences in the effectiveness of these signals. Finally, we identify a behavior termed "display avoidance" that people exhibit with interactive public displays.
Epithelial Transforming Growth Factor-β Signaling Does Not Contribute to Liver Fibrosis but Protects Mice From Cholangiocarcinoma.

BACKGROUND & AIMS Transforming growth factor-β (TGFβ) exerts key functions in fibrogenic cells, promoting fibrosis development in the liver and other organs. In contrast, the functions of TGFβ in liver epithelial cells are not well understood, despite their high level of responsiveness to TGFβ. We sought to determine the contribution of epithelial TGFβ signaling to hepatic fibrogenesis and carcinogenesis. METHODS TGFβ signaling in liver epithelial cells was inhibited by albumin-Cre-, K19-CreERT-, Prom1-CreERT2-, or AAV8-TBG-Cre-mediated deletion of the floxed TGFβ receptor II gene (Tgfbr2). Liver fibrosis was induced by carbon tetrachloride, bile duct ligation, or disruption of the multidrug-resistance transporter 2 gene (Mdr2). Hepatocarcinogenesis was induced by diethylnitrosamine or hepatic deletion of PTEN. RESULTS Deletion of Tgfbr2 from liver epithelial cells did not alter liver injury, toxin-induced or biliary fibrosis, or diethylnitrosamine-induced hepatocarcinogenesis. In contrast, epithelial deletion of Tgfbr2 promoted tumorigenesis and reduced survival of mice with concomitant hepatic deletion of Pten, accompanied by an increase in tumor number and a shift from hepatocellular carcinoma to cholangiocarcinoma. Surprisingly, both hepatocyte- and cholangiocyte-specific deletion of Pten and Tgfbr2 promoted the development of cholangiocarcinoma, but with different latencies. The prolonged latency and the presence of hepatocyte-derived cholangiocytes after AAV8-TBG-Cre-mediated deletion of Tgfbr2 and Pten indicated that cholangiocarcinoma might arise from hepatocyte-derived cholangiocytes in this model. Pten deletion resulted in up-regulation of Tgfbr2, and deletion of Tgfbr2 increased cholangiocyte but not hepatocyte proliferation, indicating that the main function of epithelial TGFBR2 is to restrict cholangiocyte proliferation. CONCLUSIONS Epithelial TGFβ signaling does not contribute to the development of liver fibrosis or formation of hepatocellular carcinomas in mice, but restricts cholangiocyte proliferation to prevent cholangiocarcinoma development, regardless of its cellular origin.
Temozolomide: A Safe and Effective Treatment for Malignant Digestive Endocrine Tumors

Background: Systemic chemotherapies are associated with limited response rates and significant toxicity in patients with malignant digestive endocrine tumors (DET). Preliminary studies have reported interesting results with temozolomide in patients with DET. Aim: It was the aim of this study to assess the efficacy and safety of temozolomide in patients with malignant DET. Patients and Methods: Twenty-one patients, median age 61 years (range 56–77), with metastatic well-differentiated DET were retrospectively studied. All patients except 1 had received prior treatment (hepatic resection, chemotherapy). All patients had progressive disease in the 3 months prior to entry into the study. Temozolomide was administered at doses of 200 mg/m2 daily for 5 days, every 28 days. Treatment was assessed for safety, progression-free and overall survival. Results: The median number of temozolomide cycles was 5 (range 2–15). Grade 3 hematological toxicity occurred in 5 patients. There were no toxic deaths. According to the Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors criteria, partial response and stabilization were obtained in 1 (5%) and 17 patients (81%), respectively. The median time to progression was 9 months (range 3–26). The 1-year progression-free survival and overall survival were 42 and 77%, respectively. Conclusion: Temozolomide is a well-tolerated oral chemotherapy in patients with malignant DET, including those who have already received treatment. In patients with progressive disease, temozolomide controls tumor progression in 86% of cases.
Listeriolysin O-Dependent Bacterial Entry into the Cytoplasm Is Required for Calpain Activation and Interleukin-1α Secretion in Macrophages Infected with Listeria monocytogenes

ABSTRACT Listeriolysin O (LLO), an hly-encoded cytolysin of Listeria monocytogenes, plays an essential role in the entry of L. monocytogenes into the host cell cytoplasm. L. monocytogenes-infected macrophages produce various proinflammatory cytokines, including interleukin-1α (IL-1α), that contribute to the host immune response. In this study, we have examined IL-1α production in macrophages infected with wild-type L. monocytogenes or a nonescaping mutant strain deficient for LLO (Δhly). Expression of IL-1α mRNA and accumulation of pro-IL-1α in the cytoplasm were induced by both strains. In contrast, the secretion of the mature form of IL-1α from infected macrophages was observed in infection with wild-type L. monocytogenes but not with the Δhly mutant. A recovery of the ability to induce IL-1α secretion was shown in a mutant strain complemented with the hly gene. The Toll-like receptor (TLR)/MyD88 signaling pathway was exclusively required for the expression of pro-IL-1α, independently of LLO-mediated cytoplasmic entry of L. monocytogenes. The LLO-dependent secretion of mature IL-1α was abolished by addition of calcium chelators, and only LLO-producing L. monocytogenes strains were able to induce elevation of the intracellular calcium level in infected macrophages. A calcium-dependent protease, calpain, was implicated in the maturation and secretion of IL-1α induced by LLO-producing L. monocytogenes strains based on the effect of calpain inhibitor. Functional activation of calpain was detected in macrophages infected with LLO-producing L. monocytogenes strains but not with a mutant strain lacking LLO. These results clearly indicated that LLO-mediated cytoplasmic entry of bacteria could induce the activation of intracellular calcium signaling, which is essential for maturation and secretion of IL-1α in macrophages during L. monocytogenes infection through activation of a calcium-dependent calpain protease. In addition, recombinant LLO, when added to macrophages infected with the Δhly strain, could induce calcium influx and IL-1α secretion at doses exhibiting cytolytic activity, suggesting that LLO produced by intracellular L. monocytogenes may be implicated in induction of calcium influx through pore formation.
Assessing the Impact of Service Level When Customer Needs Are Uncertain: An Empirical Investigation of Hospital Step-Down Units

Many service systems have servers with different capabilities and customers with varying needs. One common way this occurs is when servers are hierarchical in their skills or in the level of service they can provide. Much of the literature studying such systems relies on an understanding of the relative costs and benefits associated with serving different customer types by the different levels of service. In this work, we focus on estimating these costs and benefits in a complex healthcare setting where the major differentiation among server types is the intensity of service provided. Step-down units (SDUs) were initially introduced in hospitals to provide an intermediate level of care for semicritically ill patients who are not sick enough to require intensive care but not stable enough to be treated in the general medical/surgical ward. One complicating factor is that the needs of customers is sometimes uncertain—specifically, it is difficult to know a priori which level of care a particular patient nee.
Surgery for children with Crohn's disease: indications, complications and outcome

Background Outcome data for surgery in paediatric Crohn's disease are limited. We report 10 years’ experience at a regional paediatric gastroenterology centre. Methods Children undergoing surgery for Crohn's disease (January 2002–December 2012) were identified from an onsite patient register. Patients were followed until transition to adult services. Data were obtained from medical records and are expressed as median (range). Results Sixty-nine children, aged 13.8 years (6.3–17.0) at diagnosis, were included. 42 were male (61%). Follow-up was 1.8 years (27 days–6 years). Surgery followed diagnosis by 9 months (0 days–7 years). 52 children (75%) received thiopurines and 5 (7%) anti-TNF (tumour necrosis factor) therapy preoperatively. 58 (84%) underwent intra-abdominal surgery (40 right hemicolectomy, 8 stoma formation, 2 subtotal colectomy, 2 small bowel resection, 6 other) and 10 (14%) underwent surgery for perianal disease. The commonest indications for intra-abdominal surgery were stricturing disease 35 (60%) and unresponsive luminal disease 13 (22%). There were 13 (22%) early, and 5 (8.6%) late, complications following intra-abdominal surgery. Nine children had disease relapse, five required further surgery. Height SD scores (SDS) did not increase between diagnosis; −0.5 (−3.4–2.1) and most recent follow up; −0.4 (−3.0–1.1). Body Mass Index (BMI) SDS increased from −1.0 (−6.3–1.5) to −0.3 (−3.3–2.0) (p<0.05). Conclusions Surgery was associated with a 22% early complication rate and a 15% risk of relapse. 21% of patients required a second unplanned intra-abdominal procedure. Surgical intervention was associated with an increase in BMI SDS, but not in height SDS.
PrPSc-specific antibodies do not induce prion disease or misfolding of PrPC in highly susceptible Tga20 mice

Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) are fatal neurodegenerative disorders caused by misfolding of a cellular protein PrPC into an infectious conformation PrPSc. Previously our group demonstrated induction of PrPSc-specific antibodies with a SN6b vaccine that targets regions of the protein that are exposed upon misfolding. There are concerns that these antibodies could function as templates to promote misfolding and cause disease. To evaluate the consequences of prolonged exposure to PrPSc-specific antibodies in a prion sensitized animal, tga20 mice were vaccinated with the SN6b vaccine. No clinical signs of disease were detected up to 255 d post-vaccination, and postmortem assay of brains and spleens revealed no proteinase-K resistant PrP. These results suggest that vaccinating against TSEs with the SN6b antigen is safe from the standpoint of prion disease induction.
TCP/IP Cache Characterization in Commercial Server Workloads

Internet server applications (such as web servers, ecommerce front-ends, etc) spend a significant portion of time processing network data. These applications use TCP/IP as the communication protocol which is known to be very memory intensive. In this paper, we present a simulation-based characterization of the cache/memory access behavior of TCP/IP processing in two popular commercial benchmarks -SPECweb99 and TPC-W. Our Simple Scalar simulator is fed with network traces collected from commercial platforms running these benchmarks under various configurations. We identify the types of data (descriptors, headers, control blocks, etc) that the TCP/IP stack needs to access while processing packets and analyze the cache behavior, in terms of cache size and locality for these data. We show that the TCP/IP data falls into two categories; data with temporal locality such as hash nodes and TCBs and data with no locality (transient) such as descriptors and payload. Based on the cache characterization study, we propose the usage of a dedicated cache to store and manage TCP/IP data with and without locality. We study various approaches to organizing the network cache and their effects. We show that a small cache, in the order of 5 Kbytes is sufficient for near-optimal performance of TCP/IP processing with the additional advantage of minimizing the processor cache pollution. We also touch upon alternative approaches to enable network-friendly cache hierarchies without the need for a dedicated cache structure
Tracking driver's heart rate by continuous-wave Doppler radar

Developing driving safety system with medical assistance devices for preventing accidents has become a major social issue in recent year. These devices have been developed using electrocardiogram (ECG) and photoplethysmogram (PPG) for measuring the heart rate (HR). However, driver should directly contact with the sensor for monitoring the HR. Recently, non-contact system based on continuous-wave Doppler radar has widely studied for monitoring HR. The periodogram by Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) was used for estimating HR. However, if motion artifacts by movement of driver and vehicle vibration contaminate the radar signal, we cannot find spectral peak of HR using FFT. In this paper, we propose a method using multiple signal classification (MUSIC) for estimating HR. We compared MUSIC algorithms with a commonly used FFT method using real experiment data while driving. The results indicate that our proposed method can estimate HR accurately from received radar Doppler signal with motion artifacts.
The Minimum Biological Energy Quantum

Some anaerobic archaea and bacteria live on substrates that do not allow the synthesis of one mol of ATP per mol of substrate via substrate level phosphorylation (SLP). Energy conservation in these cases is only possible by a chemiosmotic mechanism that involves the generation of an electrochemical ion gradient across the cytoplasmic membrane that then drives ATP synthesis via an ATP synthase. The minimal amount of energy required for ATP synthesis is thus dependent on the magnitude of the electrochemical ion gradient, the phosphorylation potential in the cell and the ion/ATP ratio of the ATP synthase. It was always thought that the minimum biological energy quantum is defined as the amount of energy required to translocate one ion across the cytoplasmic membrane. We will discuss the thermodynamics of the reactions involved in chemiosmosis and describe the limitations for ion transport and ATP synthesis that led to the proposal that at least −20 kJ/mol are required for ATP synthesis. We will challenge this hypothesis by arguing that the enzyme energizing the membrane may translocate net less than one ion: By using a primary pump connected to an antiporter module a stoichiometry below one can be obtained, implying that the minimum biological energy quantum that sustains life is even lower than assumed to date.
Pattern of Intraocular Pressure Fluctuation in Uveitic Eyes Treated with Corticosteroids

Abstract Purpose: To determine IOP fluctuation in uveitic eyes treated with corticosteroids. Design: Prospective Observational Study. Method: Study of 116 consecutive new uveitis patients visiting Uveitis clinic, BPKLCOS. IOP was meticulously monitored. Data was analyzed in SPSS-16 using paired samples ‘t-test’. Results: The mean IOP in all patients at presentation, at 1 week, 3 weeks and 6 weeks were respectively 14.66 mmHg, 14.72 mmHg, 14.75 mmHg and 14.93 mmHg. This progressive IOP rise was not statistically significant. Ocular hypertension was seen in 20% eyes; 64.5% were due to corticosteroids. Steroid-induced ocular hypertension was seen in 37.03% of oral group, 14.28% of posterior subtenon group, 8.57% of topical group. Antiglaucoma medications were started in 61.2% of the cases with raised IOP. None had to undergo glaucoma filtering surgery. Conclusion: Incidence of ocular hypertension in uveitic eyes was 20% in this study.Majority of them was corticosteroid induced. Timely medical treatment averted the necessity of surgical intervention for IOP control.