Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Raman spectroscopy imaging reveals interplay between atherosclerosis and medial calcification in the human aorta

Raman spectroscopy of tissue biochemistry reveals the interplay between atherosclerosis and medial calcification in human aorta. Medial calcification in the human aorta accumulates during aging and is known to be aggravated in several diseases. Atherosclerosis, another major cause of cardiovascular calcification, shares some common aggravators. However, the mechanisms of cardiovascular calcification remain poorly understood. To elucidate the relationship between medial aortic calcification and atherosclerosis, we characterized the cross-sectional distributions of the predominant minerals in aortic tissue, apatite and whitlockite, and the associated extracellular matrix. We also compared the cellular changes between atherosclerotic and nonatherosclerotic human aortic tissues. This was achieved through the development of Raman spectroscopy imaging methods that adapted algorithms to distinguish between the major biomolecules present within these tissues. We present a relationship between apatite, cholesterol, and triglyceride in atherosclerosis, with the relative amount of all molecules concurrently increased in the atherosclerotic plaque. Further, the increase in apatite was disproportionately large in relation to whitlockite in the aortic media directly underlying a plaque, indicating that apatite is more pathologically significant in atherosclerosis-aggravated medial calcification. We also discovered a reduction of β-carotene in the whole aortic intima, including a plaque in atherosclerotic aortic tissues compared to nonatherosclerotic tissues. This unprecedented biomolecular characterization of the aortic tissue furthers our understanding of pathological and physiological cardiovascular calcification events in humans.
Apoptotic Cells Deliver Processed Antigen to Dendritic Cells for Cross-Presentation

Antigen derived from engulfed apoptotic cells can be cross-presented by dendritic cells (DCs) for the generation of major histocompatibility class I/peptide complexes. While the early events of recognition and internalization of the dying cell have been characterized, the antigen-processing pathway or pathways remain unknown. We established a mouse model assaying for the activation of polyclonal T cells reactive to antigen derived from apoptotic cells, and demonstrated two distinct pathways for the trafficking of exogenous epitopes. In the first, exogenous antigen is dependent on the DC's expression of a functional transporter associated with antigen processing (TAP). Surprisingly, we found evidence that a second pathway exists in which transfer of processed antigen from the dying cell allows formation of major histocompatibility class I/peptide complexes in TAP-deficient DCs. In vivo data suggest that in situations of stress (e.g., viral infection), this latter pathway may be more efficient, illustrating that dying cells may preselect immunologically important antigenic determinants.
The relationship of polymorphisms in ABCC2 and SLCO1B3 with docetaxel pharmacokinetics and neutropenia: CALGB 60805 (Alliance).

Docetaxel-related neutropenia was associated with polymorphisms in the drug transporters ABCC2 and SLCO1B3 in Japanese cancer patients. We hypothesized that this association is because of reduced docetaxel clearance, associated with polymorphisms in those genes. We studied 64 US cancer patients who received a single cycle of 75 mg/m of docetaxel monotherapy. We found that the ABCC2 polymorphism at rs-12762549 trended to show a relationship with reduced docetaxel clearance (P=0.048), but not with neutropenia. There was no significant association of the SLCO1B3 polymorphisms with docetaxel clearance or neutropenia. We conclude that the relationship between docetaxel-associated neutropenia and polymorphisms in drug transporters identified in Japanese patients was not confirmed in this cohort of US cancer patients.
Efficacy of Short-term Low Dose Oral Steroid in Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

To determine the efficacy of four weeks course of oral steroid in the conservative treatment of idiopathic mild to moderate carpal tunnel syndrome this observational study was carried out in the department of neurology, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU), Dhaka from January to December 2005. A total of 60 patients with carpal tunnel syndrome were randomly divided in two treatment groups. One group of 30 patients designated as case treated with oral steroid. Initial two weeks 20 mg oral prednisolone, next two weeks 10 mg oral prednisolone with Omeprazole 20 mg twice daily for 4 weeks. Another 30 patients who were clinically and electrophysiologically as CTS treated with physiotherapy. A symptoms questionnaire was used to determine the five major symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome (numbness, pain, weakness/clumsiness, tingling, and nocturnal awakening) on a scale of 0 (nil) to 10 (severe); The resulting global symptom score was used to evaluate the efficacy of treatment. Assessments were made at baseline and at one month. Electro-diagnosis was repeated at the end of the study to validate improvement. After treatment with short-term low dose oral prednisolone GSS improved in 56.3% and electrophysiological parameters showed significant improvement in all measured. It may be concluded that low dose short-term oral prednisolone is an effective treatment of idiopathic carpal tunnel syndrome.
Constant-time monocular self-calibration

This paper describes an extensible framework for real-time self-calibration of cameras in the simultaneous mapping and localization (SLAM) setting. The system is demonstrated to calibrate both pinhole and fish-eye camera models from unknown initial parameters while seamlessly solving the maximum likelihood online SLAM problem in real-time. Self-calibration is performed by tracking image features, and requires no predetermined calibration target. By automatically identifying and using only those portions of the sequence that contain useful information for the purpose of calibration the system achieves accurate results incrementally and in constant-time vs. the number of images. Furthermore, no special initialization movements are necessary. Parameters estimated by the framework are shown to closely match the batch solution as well as offline calibration values, but are computed live in constant-time. By not rolling information into an assumed prior distribution, the system avoids inconsistencies caused by early linearization - a problem that limits filtering techniques. The system is evaluated with experimental data and shown to be accurate vs. both the offline and batch calibration estimates.
Zoltan Hajnal and Jessica Trounstine and the Urban Vote What Underlies Urban Politics ? Race , Class , Ideology , Partisanship

What is urban politics really about? Despite decades of research, there is still considerable disagreement about the relative roles of race, class, ideology, partisanship, and other factors in shaping the urban vote. In this article, we assemble a wide range of data on a diverse set of urban elections and offer a more explicit empirical test of what shapes urban politics. Our results suggest that local elections are partly an ideological battle, partly a partisan contest, and at least marginally linked to class, religion, and morality. Race, however, is the dominant factor in the local electoral arena. Local elections are in no small part a competition between blacks, whites, Latinos, and Asian-Americans over the leadership of their cities. We also assess how and why these divides vary across cities and electoral contexts finding that a theory of realistic group conflict best predicts patterns in the vote.
Copy-editor: the Dynamic Lift of Developmental Process

What are the essential properties of human intelligence, currently unparalleled in its power relative to other biological forms and relative to artificial forms of intelligence? We suggest that answering this question depends critically on understanding developmental process. This paper considers three principles potentially essential to building human-like intelligence: the heterogeneity of the component processes, the embedding of development in a social world, and developmental processes that change the cog-nitive system as a function of the history of soft-assemblies of these heterogeneous processes in specific tasks. The paper uses examples from human development and from developmental robotics to show how these processes also may underlie biological intelligence and enable us to generate more advanced forms of artificial intelligence.
Training terminology on perceptions of women who engage in muscle strengthening activities

The present study examined the impact of muscle strengthening terminology on impressions formed of female exercisers, in addition to the influence of participant impression motivation and BSRI category on ratings of personality and physical attributes. Male and female participants (N = 265, Mage = 21.23) were presented with one of four vignettes describing a female target (weight trainer, resistance trainer, strength trainer, control). Participants then rated the target on personality and physical characteristics. Results indicated no significant differences among ratings of target types (p > .05). Moreover, the participants’ impression motivation did not influence target ratings (p > .05). A significant main effect emerged for BSRI category (p < .05). Participants classified as masculine-typed rated all targets as less kind compared to participants classified as feminine-typed or androgynous. It is possible the vignettes did not provide enough information about muscle strengthening to elicit stereotypes. Avenues for future directions are discussed.
A Multiscale Approach for Spatio‐Temporal Outlier Detection

A spatial outlier is a spatially referenced object whose thematic attribute values are significantly different from those of other spatially referenced objects in its spatial neighborhood. It represents an object that is significantly different from its neighbourhoods even though it may not be significantly different from the entire population. Here we extend this concept to the spatio‐temporal domain and define a spatial‐temporal outlier (ST‐outlier) to be a spatial‐temporal object whose thematic attribute values are significantly different from those of other spatially and temporally referenced objects in its spatial or/and temporal neighbourhoods. Identification of ST‐outliers can lead to the discovery of unexpected, interesting, and implicit knowledge, such as local instability or deformation. Many methods have been recently proposed to detect spatial outliers, but how to detect the temporal outliers or spatial‐temporal outliers has been seldom discussed. In this paper we propose a multiscale approach to detect ST‐outliers by evaluating the change between consecutive spatial and temporal scales. A four‐step procedure consisting of classification, aggregation, comparison and verification is put forward to address the semantic and dynamic properties of geographic phenomena for ST‐outlier detection. The effectiveness of the approach is illustrated by a practical coastal geomorphic study.
Analysis of eye movements in the judgment of enjoyment and non-enjoyment smiles

Enjoyment smiles are more often associated with the simultaneous presence of the Cheek raiser and Lip corner puller action units, and these units' activation is more often symmetric. Research on the judgment of smiles indicated that individuals are sensitive to these types of indices, but it also suggested that their ability to perceive these specific indices might be limited. The goal of the current study was to examine perceptual-attentional processing of smiles by using eye movement recording in a smile judgment task. Participants were presented with three types of smiles: a symmetric Duchenne, a non-Duchenne, and an asymmetric smile. Results revealed that the Duchenne smiles were judged happier than those with characteristics of non-enjoyment. Asymmetric smiles were also judged happier than the non-Duchenne smiles. Participants were as effective in judging the latter smiles as not really happy as they were in judging the symmetric Duchenne smiles as happy. Furthermore, they did not spend more time looking at the eyes or mouth regardless of types of smiles. While participants made more saccades between each side of the face for the asymmetric smiles than the symmetric ones, they judged the asymmetric smiles more often as really happy than not really happy. Thus, processing of these indices do not seem limited to perceptual-attentional difficulties as reflected in viewing behavior.
Classification of quasigroups based on period factors

Edon80 is a stream cipher design that had advanced to the third and last phase of the eSTREAM project. The core of the cipher consists quasigroup string e-transformations and it employs four quasigroups of order 4. The employed quasigroups have influence on the period of the keystream. There are 576 quasigroups of order 4 in total which have different period factors. The four quasigroups used in Edon80 were chosen by numerous computer experiments. In this paper, based on permutation groups, we give a theory criterion for the determination of quasigroups and give a complete classification for the 576 quasigroups of order 4 according to their period factors.
Collaborative care for patients with depression and chronic illnesses.

BACKGROUND Patients with depression and poorly controlled diabetes, coronary heart disease, or both have an increased risk of adverse outcomes and high health care costs. We conducted a study to determine whether coordinated care management of multiple conditions improves disease control in these patients. METHODS We conducted a single-blind, randomized, controlled trial in 14 primary care clinics in an integrated health care system in Washington State, involving 214 participants with poorly controlled diabetes, coronary heart disease, or both and coexisting depression. Patients were randomly assigned to the usual-care group or to the intervention group, in which a medically supervised nurse, working with each patient's primary care physician, provided guideline-based, collaborative care management, with the goal of controlling risk factors associated with multiple diseases. The primary outcome was based on simultaneous modeling of glycated hemoglobin, low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, and systolic blood-pressure levels and Symptom Checklist-20 (SCL-20) depression outcomes at 12 months; this modeling allowed estimation of a single overall treatment effect. RESULTS As compared with controls, patients in the intervention group had greater overall 12-month improvement across glycated hemoglobin levels (difference, 0.58%), LDL cholesterol levels (difference, 6.9 mg per deciliter [0.2 mmol per liter]), systolic blood pressure (difference, 5.1 mm Hg), and SCL-20 depression scores (difference, 0.40 points) (P<0.001). Patients in the intervention group also were more likely to have one or more adjustments of insulin (P=0.006), antihypertensive medications (P<0.001), and antidepressant medications (P<0.001), and they had better quality of life (P<0.001) and greater satisfaction with care for diabetes, coronary heart disease, or both (P<0.001) and with care for depression (P<0.001). CONCLUSIONS As compared with usual care, an intervention involving nurses who provided guideline-based, patient-centered management of depression and chronic disease significantly improved control of medical disease and depression. (Funded by the National Institute of Mental Health; ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00468676.).
Data Cleaning of Medical Data for Knowledge Mining

Data mining or data analysis in biomedicine is different from other research fields, because the data in biomedical are heterogeneous and, and they are from different sources. Data from different medical sources are voluminous, each of the resources may have different data structure or data schema, the data quality is also different. Moreover, each physician may have its own interpretation with the same clinical records. In this paper, we analyze the features of medical data, and study data cleaning for medical data in order to mine valuable knowledge. Experiments show that the proposed method is more efficient than the baseline Bayesian network model.
Numerical Simulations of a Nonconservative Hyperbolic System with Geometric Constraints Describing Swarming Behavior

The Vicsek model is a very popular individual based model which describes collective behavior among animal societies. A macroscopic version of the Vicsek model has been derived from a large scale limit of this individual based model \cite{degond2007ml}. In this work, we want to numerically validate this Macroscopic Vicsek model (MV). To this aim, we compare the simulations of the macroscopic and microscopic models one with each other. The MV model is a non-conservative hyperbolic equation with a geometric constraint. Due to the lack of theory for this kind of equations, we derive several equivalents for this system leading to specific numerical schemes. The numerical simulations reveal that the microscopic and macroscopic models are in good agreement provided that we choose one of the proposed formulations based on a relaxation of the geometric constraint. This confirms the relevance of the macroscopic equation but it also calls for a better theoretical understanding of this type of equations.
In situ with bystanders of augmented reality glasses: perspectives on recording and privacy-mediating technologies

Augmented reality (AR) devices are poised to enter the market. It is unclear how the properties of these devices will affect individuals' privacy. In this study, we investigate the privacy perspectives of individuals when they are bystanders around AR devices. We conducted 12 field sessions in cafés and interviewed 31 bystanders regarding their reactions to a co-located AR device. Participants were predominantly split between having indifferent and negative reactions to the device. Participants who expressed that AR devices change the bystander experience attributed this difference to subtleness, ease of recording, and the technology's lack of prevalence. Additionally, participants surfaced a variety of factors that make recording more or less acceptable, including what they are doing when the recording is being taken. Participants expressed interest in being asked permission before being recorded and in recording-blocking devices. We use the interview results to guide an exploration of design directions for privacy-mediating technologies.
Redescription and Phylogenetic Relationships of Doswellia kaltenbachi (Diapsida: Archosauriformes) from the Upper Triassic of Virginia

ABSTRACT A detailed redescription of the Late Triassic archosauromorph reptile Doswellia kaltenbachi Weems, 1980 from the Poor Farm Member of the Falling Creek Formation in the Taylorsville basin (Newark Supergroup) in Virginia is presented based upon additional preparation of the holotype. The euryapsid skull has a distinctive occiput with a prominent supraoccipital process that is flanked by posterior “horn-like” projections of the squamosals. Postfrontals, tabulars, and postparietals are absent. Plesiomorphic features of the palate and braincase include a plate-like horizontal parabasisphenoid, a pair of foramina for the internal carotid arteries on the ventral surface of the basisphenoid, and two fields of teeth on the palatal surface of the pterygoid. A sharp angle along the cervical and anterior dorsal ribs clearly separates the dorsal and lateral sides of the neck and anterior thoracic region. The posterior thoracic region has shorter ribs that project laterally with only a slight curvature. The ilium has a laterally deflected blade with numerous deep grooves along its distal edge. The laterally extensive set of osteoderms includes a nuchal element that is composed of several interlocking osteoderms that lack the arrangement in distinct transverse rows that characterizes the remainder of the osteoderms. A phylogenetic analysis of basal archosauriforms incorporates new data of Doswellia and the taxa Turfanosuchus, Yonghesuchus, and Qianosuchus that have not previously been combined in a single study. Results include a sister-group relationship between Doswellia and proterochampsids, placement of Qianosuchus as a crurotarsan archosaur, and Yonghesuchus and Turfanosuchus as successive sister taxa to Archosauria.
Overview of Psychiatric Ethics II: Virtue Ethics and the Ethics of Care

Objective: The aim of this paper is to consider the components of two moral theories – the ethics of virtue and the ethics of care – and their relationship to psychiatry. Conclusions: Although both theories reflect fundamentally desirable human qualities, neither provides a comprehensive account of psychiatric ethics. We are therefore drawn to a similar conclusion as those of Hare (1993) and Bloch and Green (2006), in that these theories offer a complementary approach to other ethical theories in psychiatry.
Glutamate Receptor Exocytosis and Spine Enlargement during Chemically Induced Long-Term Potentiation

The changes in synaptic morphology and receptor content that underlie neural plasticity are poorly understood. Here, we use a pH-sensitive green fluorescent protein to tag recombinant glutamate receptors and monitor their dynamics onto dendritic spine surfaces. We show that chemically induced long-term potentiation (chemLTP) drives robust exocytosis of AMPA receptors. In contrast, the same stimulus produces a small reduction of NMDA receptors from the spine surface. chemLTP produces similar modification of small and large spines. Interestingly, during chemLTP induction, spines increase in volume before accumulation of AMPA receptors on their surface, indicating that distinct mechanisms underlie changes in morphology and receptor content.
Incomplete Immune Recovery in HIV Infection: Mechanisms, Relevance for Clinical Care, and Possible Solutions

Treatment of HIV-infected patients with highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) usually results in diminished viral replication, increasing CD4+ cell counts, a reversal of most immunological disturbances, and a reduction in risk of morbidity and mortality. However, approximately 20% of all HIV-infected patients do not achieve optimal immune reconstitution despite suppression of viral replication. These patients are referred to as immunological nonresponders (INRs). INRs present with severely altered immunological functions, including malfunction and diminished production of cells within lymphopoetic tissue, perturbed frequencies of immune regulators such as regulatory T cells and Th17 cells, and increased immune activation, immunosenescence, and apoptosis. Importantly, INRs have an increased risk of morbidity and mortality compared to HIV-infected patients with an optimal immune reconstitution. Additional treatment to HAART that may improve immune reconstitution has been investigated, but results thus far have proved disappointing. The reason for immunological nonresponse is incompletely understood. This paper summarizes the known and unknown factors regarding the incomplete immune reconstitution in HIV infection, including mechanisms, relevance for clinical care, and possible solutions.