Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Directing Real Actors and Virtual Characters

The new interactive ways of storytelling, which can be realised as interactive narratives, virtual storytelling, interactive fiction, interactive drama, are often regarded as a significant break from traditional storytelling methods. In this paper we focus on the role of a person in an interactive storytelling context who facilitates the story construction process, the Director. The term Director is often associated with roles such as theatre director, stage director, film director or even television director. The meaning usually assigned to this concept is of someone who: "oversees and orchestrates the mounting of a play by unifying various endeavours and aspects of production. The director's function is to ensure the quality and completeness of a theatrical product". In our research, the concept of a Director is extended and does not only have the role of supervising the acting in a play where every actor knows his/her role in a wellknown plot, but to supervise the role being played by a set of autonomous virtual characters and to provide support to the users that engage in the story by controlling and commanding virtual actors. In our view, our concept of a Director is challenging because its role is vital in the sense that it does not only supervise a set of synthetic characters but has to accommodate the choices made by the users, within our context children, and at the same time guarantee that the coherence of the story is maintained.
Circulating Tumor Cells Detected by RT-PCR for CK-20 before Surgery Indicate Worse Prognostic Impact in Triple-Negative and HER2 Subtype Breast Cancer

Purpose Circulating tumor cells (CTC) clearly correlate with unfavorable outcomes for patients with metastatic breast cancer, but the long-term prognostic implications of CTC for molecular subtypes of operable breast cancer are not yet known. We explored the relationships between previously established prognostic factors and CTC in operable breast cancer, and the significance of CTC by breast cancer molecular subtype. Methods We retrospectively evaluated 166 patients with operable breast cancer (stage I-IIIA) diagnosed from April 1997 to May 2003. CTC were detected using cytokeratin-20 (CK-20) mRNA expression in peripheral blood samples that were collected just prior to surgery under general anesthesia. Clinicopathological characteristics of the cancer were analyzed according to CTC status. Metastasis-free survival (MFS) and overall survival (OS) were analyzed according to CTC status and breast cancer molecular subtype. Results CK-20 mRNA-positive CTC was detected in 37 of 166 patients (22.3%) and was not correlated with any previous clinical factors in univariate analysis (p>0.05). After a median follow-up of 100 months, the patients with CK-20 mRNA-positive CTC had less favorable outcomes in terms of MFS and OS than those without detectable CTC (log-rank p<0.05). Among molecular subtypes of operable breast cancer, the patients with CK-20 mRNA-positive CTC had shorter MFS and OS in triple negative and human epidermal growth factor 2 (HER2) breast cancer subtype (log-rank, p<0.05). Conclusion CK-20 mRNA-positive CTC may lend insight into tumor progression as a prognostic indicator especially in the triple negative and HER2 subtypes of operable breast cancer.
Spontaneous mutation rates in mammalian cells: effect of differential growth rates and phenotypic lag.

We calculated a spontaneous rate of 26-37 x 10(-6) mutations per cell division for L5178Y MOLY (mouse lymphoma) cells at the thymidine kinase locus (tk+/(-)----tk-/-) using a procedure that isolated and segregated cells during expression. This rate was 50 times higher than when cells expressed the mutant phenotype in suspension. The higher mutation rates obtained with the in situ procedure suggest that many of the mutants, whether expressed or unexpressed, grew more slowly than wild-type cells prior to selection with trifluorothymidine (TFT), implying that the slow growth phenotype is expressed earlier than the TFTr (TFT-resistant) phenotype. The loss of mutants was not restricted to cells forming small colonies; the mutation rate for cells forming large colonies was more than ten times higher using the in situ procedure. In this new procedure, the cells expressed spontaneous mutations while growing in semisolid medium for up to 3 days without TFT. Mutants were then selected in situ by adding an overlay of TFT and the visible colonies were analyzed after 11 days. Cells with spontaneous mutations at the tk locus required approximately 30 hr for the more rapidly expressing cells with new mutations to be detected. Most of the TFTr colonies selected after 60 hr of growth in semisolid medium represented independent mutations that had accumulated during the first 30 hr. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Hyperpolarizing GABAergic Transmission Requires the KCC2 C-Terminal ISO Domain

KCC2 is the neuron-specific member of the of K+-Cl− cotransporter gene family. It is also the only member of its family that is active under physiologically normal conditions, in the absence of osmotic stress. By extruding Cl− from the neuron under isotonic conditions, this transporter maintains a low concentration of neuronal Cl−, which is essential for fast inhibitory synaptic transmission by GABA and glycine in the mature nervous system. The other members of this K+-Cl− cotransporter gene family are exclusively swelling-activated. Here we demonstrate that a 15 aa region near the end of the C terminus, unique to KCC2 (termed the ISO domain), is required for KCC2 to cotransport K+ and Cl− out of the neuron under isotonic conditions. We made this discovery by overexpressing chimeric KCC2-KCC4 cDNA constructs in cultured hippocampal neurons prepared from Sprague Dawley rat embryos and assaying neuronal Cl− through gramicidin perforated patch-clamp recordings. We found that when neurons had been transfected with a chimeric KCC2 that lacked the unique ISO domain, hyperpolarizing responses to GABA were abolished. This finding indicates that the ISO domain is required for neuronal Cl− regulation. Furthermore, we discovered that when KCC2 lacks the ISO domain, it still retains swelling-activated transport, which demonstrates that there are exclusive molecular determinants of isotonic and swelling-induced K+-Cl− cotransport in neurons.
Validation of the Turkish version of the Thought Control Questionnaire-Insomnia Revised (TCQI-R)

Date of accept: 29 January 2018 ABSTRACT Objective: Attempts of thought control as a counterproductive strategy have been thought to be implicated in the formation and perseverance of sleep problems. The current study investigated the psychometric properties of a Turkish version of the Thought Control Questionnaire-Insomnia Revised (TCQI-R), an instrument developed to assess various strategies of thought control during difficult times of sleep. Method: Forty-five patients with major depressive disorder and four hundred sixty-three individuals from general population participated in the study (N=508; Mean age = 22.96; SD ± 4.82). Approximately half of the sample were female (n=294 57.87%). The TCQI-R, Insomnia Severity Index, and Depression Anxiety Stress Scale -21 (DASS-21) were administered in the study. Results: Analysis of the current data suggested a three factor latent structure of the instrument: aggressive suppression and worry, behavioral and cognitive distraction, and reappraisal. The TCQI-R revealed considerable internal consistency and temporal stability. All three types of thought control strategies specific to insomnia were found to be significantly associated with sleep disturbances as well as measures of depression and anxiety. Mediation latent structural equation model showed that pre-sleep thought management strategies significantly predicted severity of insomnia and indirectly cause significant increase in insomnia symptoms through exacerbation of negative emotional states (depression, anxiety and stress). Conclusion: We concluded in light of present results that the Turkish version of the TCQI-R has sound and promising features for research addressing implication of thought control strategies in sleep disturbances.
Watermarking using complex wavelets with resistance to geometric distortion

We present a watermarking algorithm in the complex wavelet domain and show why complex wavelets are better than real wavelets. Being an oversampled transform, the Complex Wavelet Transform requires special precautions during watermark embedding. We then model the watermarking process as a communcation channel and our results show that the complex wavelets domain has relatively higher capacity than both the spatial and the real wavelets domains. We will also outline a motion-based algorithm for image registration, which can help recovering watermarks from images suffering from geometric distortion.
One-year outcome of intravitreal aflibercept injection for age-related macular degeneration resistant to ranibizumab: rapid morphologic recovery and subsequent visual improvement

Objective To describe the 1-year efficacy of aflibercept in Japanese patients with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) who were resistant to ranibizumab treatment. Design Retrospective case series. Participants Fourteen consecutive eyes of 14 patients with AMD were enrolled who had no substantial response or developed resistance to intravitreal ranibizumab injections. Methods All patients were subcategorized into one of two subtypes of AMD: seven patients with occult choroidal neovascularization (CNV) and seven with polypoidal choroidal vasculopathy (PCV). Serial intravitreal aflibercept (IVA) injections were administered. Comprehensive ophthalmic examinations, including optical coherence tomography, were conducted at baseline and at follow-up examinations at 1, 3, 6, and 12 months after the initial IVA injection. The best-corrected visual acuity converted to logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution (logMAR) and central macular thickness (CMT) at each follow-up visit were compared with the baseline values. The anatomic response was also assessed with absorption or reduction of fluid in the subretina or subretinal pigment epithelial space. Results The logMAR best-corrected visual acuity improved significantly at 3, 6, and 12 months in the total cohort: at 3 and 6 months in patients with occult CNV and at 3 and 12 months in patients with PCV. The CMT decreased significantly at all follow-up visits in the total cohort as well as in both subtypes, except for the CMT at 6 months in PCV patients. The anatomic improvement was also demonstrated in all cases, and pigment epithelial detachments tended to be resolved more rapidly in patients with PCV than in patients with occult CNV. Conclusion Conversion to IVA was effective in patients with AMD resistant to ranibizumab, showing rapid morphologic improvement. The logMAR visual acuity was raised significantly within 12 months, and the clinical course of visual acuity improvement may differ according to the AMD subtypes.
Culling Dogs in Scenarios of Imperfect Control: Realistic Impact on the Prevalence of Canine Visceral Leishmaniasis

Background Visceral leishmaniasis belongs to the list of neglected tropical diseases and is considered a public health problem worldwide. Spatial correlation between the occurrence of the disease in humans and high rates of canine infection suggests that in the presence of the vector, canine visceral leishmaniasis is the key factor for triggering transmission to humans. Despite the control strategies implemented, such as the sacrifice of infected dogs being put down, the incidence of American visceral leishmaniasis remains high in many Latin American countries. Methodology/Principal Findings Mathematical models were developed to describe the transmission dynamics of canine leishmaniasis and its control by culling. Using these models, imperfect control scenarios were implemented to verify the possible factors which alter the effectiveness of controlling this disease in practice. Conclusions/Significance A long-term continuous program targeting both asymptomatic and symptomatic dogs should be effective in controlling canine leishmaniasis in areas of low to moderate transmission (R0 up to 1.4). However, the indiscriminate sacrifice of asymptomatic dogs with positive diagnosis may jeopardize the effectiveness of the control program, if tests with low specificity are used, increasing the chance of generating outrage in the population, and leading to lower adherence to the program. Therefore, culling must be planned accurately and implemented responsibly and never as a mechanical measure in large scale. In areas with higher transmission, culling alone is not an effective control strategy.
Acute Spontaneous Coronary Artery Thrombosis as Initial Presentation of HIV Infection in a Young Man

Introduction. The presentation of acute coronary syndrome (ACS) in young HIV patients may be atypical with different pathophysiological and clinical features. Acute coronary thrombosis, as a presentation of acute coronary syndrome in young patients with HIV, raises diagnostic and treatment challenges. Case Presentation. We describe a case of a 33-year-old African man, without traditional atherosclerotic risk factors, who presented with chest pain of acute onset. Emergent coronary angiography revealed extensive thrombus in the left anterior descending coronary artery with no evidence of atherosclerosis in this or other coronary vessels. Plaque and/or thrombus prolapse through the stent was noted following percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Resolution of chest pain and improvement in ST-segment elevation was noted after the procedure. A diagnosis of HIV infection was made during the workup for HIV infection. Conclusion. In young patients without traditional risk factors, HIV infection is a possible etiological factor for spontaneous coronary artery thrombosis. Percutaneous coronary intervention in patients with this presentation may be compounded with atherothrombotic complications. The likely pathophysiological pathway is superficial endothelial cell denudation as a result of chronic inflammation and immune activation.
Programming for dependability in a service-based grid

Service-based Grid infrastructures emphasize service composition rather than sharing of low level resources. The idea is to build Grid applications out of computational services provided by the different sites of the Grid. Recent developments in the area of Web services have strengthened this idea by standardizing procedures like service description, publication and invocation. What is still missing is the infrastructure necessary to support the complete life cycle of applications running on service based Grids, i.e., suitable programming paradigms, execution infrastructure, and the ability to monitor and control such computations. Moreover, once computations are made of composable services, dependability becomes a key issue that needs to be addressed by the infrastructure as it cannot be addressed separately by each individual service. To address these concerns, we have developed the BioOpera Grid computing platform. BioOpera is a process support system for dependable cluster computing that has been extended with additional functionality to provide adequate support for service-based Grids. In this paper we describe how BioOpera can be used to develop, execute, and administer highly dependable computations over service-based Grids.
Payphones, Parking-meters, Vending Machines and Bayesian Prediction of Fill-Times

Payphones, parking meters and vending machines illustrate the modern business practice of substituting manpower with machinery. These do not eliminate manual labor completely, for it is still needed to replace full coin-boxes and to stock vending machines. This makes ll-time prediction of such coin-boxes an important problem. There are risks to both under-and over-estimation. This paper suggests methods to predict, with desired accuracy, the ll-time for such coin boxes. The methodology uses collection history and speciies common prior distributions over average daily ll-rate and standard deviation at each box. The methodology is implemented and tested on data collected on 11,308 payphones over a large geographical region. When the desired accuracy is 95%, our methods provide better optimal ll-rate predictions than current methods in at least 69.9% of the cases. This translates into an average potential collection cost reduction of at least 21%. The authors thank an associate editor and four referees whose extensive comments greatly improved the presentation of this paper. They also acknowledge the help provided by at diierent stages in the retrieval and analysis of the dataset used in this paper.
Broken spectral reflection symmetry in a solvable PT-symmetric model

Any non-Hermitian PT −symmetric quantum Hamiltonian H remains physical in a domain of parameters D where the spectrum is real and, hence, measurable. It has been conjectured and verified, recently, that the postulate of a self-duality of the spectrum E j = −E N +1−j could simplify the structure of the manifold D. An independent constructive support of the plausibility of such a relationship is given here via a three-parametric counterexample. A complicated shape of the boundary ∂D is found and described by non-numerical formulae in a non-self-dual " benchmark " matrix model.
Influence of the rod photoresponse on light adaptation and circadian rhythmicity in the cone ERG

Purpose In the mammalian retina, rod and cone pathways are fundamentally intertwined, with signals from both converging on cone bipolar cells to reach retinal ganglion cells. Psychophysical and electrophysiological data suggests that, as a consequence, rod signal transduction has a suppressive effect on the activity of cone pathways. It therefore might be assumed that the balance between rod and cone input to cone bipolar cells would be subject to dynamic regulation. There is evidence of light and time-of-day dependent alterations in this parameter. Here we set out to determine the extent to which such changes in rod-cone pathway convergence explain alterations in cone pathway function associated with light adaptation and circadian phase by recording cone electroretinograms (ERGs) in mice deficient in rod phototransduction. Methods Cone-isolated ERGs elicited by bright flashes superimposed on a rod saturating background light were recorded from wild-type and rod transducin deficient (Gnat1−/−) mice. The process of light adaptation was observed by tracing changes in the ERG waveform over 20 min exposure to the background light in these genotypes, and circadian control by comparing responses at subjective midday and midnight. Results The cone ERG b-wave exhibited significantly enhanced amplitude and reduced latency (implicit time) in Gnat1−/− mice under all conditions. Light adaptation was associated with a robust increase in b-wave amplitude in Gnat1−/− mice but, in contrast to wild types, almost no change in implicit time. Gnat1−/− mice retained circadian rhythms in the cone ERG with b-wave amplitudes larger and latencies reduced during the subjective day. Conclusions Rod phototransduction has a strong suppressive effect on the cone ERG. Light adaptation in cone pathways relies in part on reductions in this effect, although mechanisms intrinsic to cone pathways also play an important role. Similarly, while changes in coupling between rod and cone pathways over the course of the day may contribute to circadian regulation of the cone pathway they are not sufficient to explain circadian rhythms in the wild-type cone ERG.
Hilbert maps: Scalable continuous occupancy mapping with stochastic gradient descent

The vast amount of data robots can capture today motivates the development of fast and scalable statistical tools to model the space the robot operates in. We devise a new technique for environment representation through continuous occupancy mapping that improves on the popular occupancy grip maps in two fundamental aspects: (1) it does not assume an a priori discrimination of the world into grid cells and therefore can provide maps at an arbitrary resolution; (2) it captures spatial relationships between measurements naturally, thus being more robust to outliers and possessing better generalization performance. The technique, named Hilbert maps, is based on the computation of fast kernel approximations that project the data in a Hilbert space where a logistic regression classifier is learnt. We show that this approach allows for efficient stochastic gradient optimization where each measurement is only processed once during learning in an online manner. We present results with three types of approximations: random Fourier; Nyström; and a novel sparse projection. We also extend the approach to accept probability distributions as inputs, for example, due to uncertainty over the position of laser scans due to sensor or localization errors. In this extended version, experiments were conducted in two dimensions and three dimensions, using popular benchmark datasets. Furthermore, an analysis of the adaptive capabilities of the technique to handle large changes in the data, such as trajectory update before and after loop closure during simultaneous localization and mapping, is also included.
Radioembolization with selective internal radiation microspheres for neuroendocrine liver metastases

There are limited effective treatment options available and a poor 5‐year survival for patients with inoperable neuroendocrine liver metastases (NETLMs). In this study, the authors prospectively assessed the safety and efficacy of treatment with yttrium 90 (90Y) radioactive microspheres for patients with unresectable NETLMs.
The Effect of GCSB-5 a New Herbal Medicine on Changes in Pain Behavior and Neuroglial Activation in a Rat Model of Lumbar Disc Herniation

Objective Lumbar disc herniation can induce sciatica by mechanical compression and/or chemical irritation. The aim of this study was to compare the effects of GCSB-5 (Shinbaro®) and NSAIDs on pain-related behavior and on the expressions of microglia, astrocytes, CGRP, TRPV1, IL-6, and CX3CL1 in a rat model of lumbar disc herniation. Methods 112 male Sprague-Dawley rats underwent implantation of nucleus pulposus to a dorsal root ganglion (DRG). Rats were divided into five groups as follows; a saline group (the vehicle control group) (n=27), a 10 mg/kg aceclofenac group (the aceclofenac group) (n=22), and 100, 300 or 600 mg/kg GCSB-5 groups (the GCSB-5 100, 300, or 600 groups) (n=21 for each group). Rats were tested for mechanical allodynia at 3 days after surgery and at 1 day, 3 days, 7 days, 14 days, 21 days, 28 days, 35 days, 42 days, 49 days, and 56 days after treatment commencement. Immunohistochemical staining of microglia (Iba1), astrocytes (GFAP), CGRP, and TRPV1, and PCR for IL-6 and CX3CL1 were performed on spinal dorsal horns and DRGs at 56 days after medication commencement. Results After 56 days of GCSB-5 300 administration, mechanical withdrawal thresholds were significantly increased (p<0.05), and immunohisto-chemical expressions of Iba1, GFAP, CGRP, and TRPV1 were reduced than other groups, but this difference was not statistically significant. Conclusion These results indicate GCSB-5 reduces mechanical allodynia and downregulates neuroglial activity and the expressions of CGRP and TRPV1 in the spinal segments of a rat model of lumbar disc herniation.