Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
In Vitro and Ex Vivo Approaches to Evaluate Next-Generation Tobacco and Non-Tobacco Products on Human Blood Platelets

Abstract Human blood platelets are major hemostatic regulators in the circulation and important in the mediation of chronic inflammation and immunomodulation. They are key elements that promote cardiovascular pathogenesis that leads to atherosclerosis, thrombosis, myocardial infarction, and stroke. New information on tobacco use and platelet dysregulation shows that these highly understudied vascular cells are dysregulated by tobacco smoke. Thus, platelet function studies should be an important consideration for the evaluation of existing and next-generation tobacco and non-tobacco products. Novel in vitro approaches are being sought to investigate these products and their influence on platelet function. Platelets are ideally suited for product assessment, as robust and novel in vitro translational methods are available to assess platelet function. Furthermore, the use of human biological systems has the advantage that risk predictions will better reflect the human condition.
Controllability and Persistence of Money Market Rates along the Yield Curve: Evidence from the Euro Area

Abstract Controllability of longer-term interest rates requires that the persistence of their deviations from the central bank’s policy rate (i.e. the policy spreads) remains sufficiently low. This paper applies fractional integration techniques to assess the persistence of policy spreads of euro area money market rates along the yield curve. Independently from anticipated policy rate changes, there is strong evidence for all maturities that policy spreads exhibit long memory. We show that recent changes in the operational framework and the communication strategy of the European Central Bank (ECB) have significantly decreased the persistence of euro area policy spreads and, thus, have enhanced the ECB’s influence on longer-term money market rates.
Investigating the influence of knowledge management on organizational innovation in higher educational institutions

Purpose This study aims to investigate the relationship between knowledge management (KM) and organizational innovation (OI) in higher educational institutions. Design/methodology/approach The research method in the study was the descriptive – correlative type and was applied research based on the target. The study population consisted of managers and staff members of 63 Iranian higher educational institutions. In this research, descriptive and inferential statistics were used. To analyse research data, descriptive statistics, and for inferential statistics, the Pearson correlation coefficient test, the simple linear regression test and multiple regression tests were used. For data analysis, SPSS software was used. Findings The results of the study demonstrated that there was a significant relationship between KM and OI, and all alternative hypotheses were confirmed. In addition, KM predicted the aspects of organizational innovation in higher educational institutions. Originality/value This study supported the members of higher educational institutions to understand how to increase OIbetter and to improve the knowledge and experience of the employees through KM.
Accurate and efficient transient simulation of interconnect networks with nonlinear terminations

The Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) method is one of the most popular schemes for the transient simulation of interconnect structures. It provides quite accurate results as far as the number of discretization points per wavelength is high. Otherwise, it is well known that numerical dispersion strongly affects the accuracy of the simulation. This can be a relevant problem when nonlinear terminations are to be handled, since interaction of incident pulses with nonlinear circuits may lead to spikes and sharp variations that may not be well represented on the FDTD mesh. To overcome these limitations, we propose to use high-order difference schemes for the transient simulation of interconnects with nonlinear loads. In particular, we focus our attention on centered fourth-order schemes [3, 2], which offer significant improvement with respect to the standard second-order FDTD scheme. As an example, we report a numerical dispersion test obtained by launching a gaussian pulse on an infinite length transmission line (modeled through periodic boundaries). Both the FDTD results and the fourthorder scheme results are shown in Fig. 1. Time stepping is provided by the standard fourth-order Runge-Kutta (RK4) integrator, which has been selected for its very large stability region and because its approximation order is matched to the order of the spatial discretization.
Three‐dimensional relationships between perisynaptic astroglia and human hippocampal synapses

Perisynaptic astroglia are critical for normal synaptic development and function. Little is known, however, about perisynaptic astroglia in the human hippocampus. When mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE) is refractory to medication, surgical removal is required for seizure quiescence. To investigate perisynaptic astroglia in human hippocampus, we recovered slices for several hours in vitro from three surgical specimens and then quickly fixed them to achieve high‐quality ultrastructure. Histological samples from each case were found to have mesial temporal sclerosis with Blumcke Type 1a (mild, moderate) or 1b (severe) pathology. Quantitative analysis through serial section transmission electron microscopy in CA1 stratum radiatum revealed more synapses in the mild (10/10 μm3) than the moderate (5/10 μm3) or severe (1/10 μm3) cases. Normal spines occurred in mild and moderate cases, but a few multisynaptic spines were all that remained in the severe case. Like adult rat hippocampus, perisynaptic astroglial processes were preferentially associated with larger synapses in the mild and moderate cases, but rarely penetrated the cluster of axonal boutons surrounding multisynaptic spines. Synapse perimeters were only partially surrounded by astroglial processes such that all synapses had some access to substances in the extracellular space, similar to adult rat hippocampus. Junctions between astroglial processes were observed more frequently in moderate than mild case, but were obscured by densely packed intermediate filaments in astroglial processes of the severe case. These findings suggest that perisynaptic astroglial processes associate with synapses in human hippocampus in a manner similar to model systems and are disrupted by severe MTLE pathology. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
"O-ZONE": AUTOMATIC GENERATOR OF ZONAL MODEL DEDICATED TO DYNAMIC SIMULATIONS OF AIR FLOWS AND HEAT TRANSFERS IN A ROOM

The aim of this paper is to present an automatic generator of zonal models that makes it possible to free the user from the choice of the specific flows models that have to be implemented in the zonal model and from the partitioning stage. The dynamic simulation tool called “O-Zone” is based on an advanced formulation of zonal models. It uses on a new way of sub-dividing the room that allows us to obtain a dynamic partitioning based on airflow patterns. The partitioning method chosen is the Octree method. It is a hierarchical representation of the space based on the successive and recursive subdivision of a cube in eight smaller cubes. NOMENCLATURE
Comparison of Pork Quality Characteristics of Different Parts from Domesticated Pig Species

국내 소비자 기호에 적합한 한국형 비육돈 생산을 위한 국내에 보급된 돼지 품종의 육질 특성을 비교하기 위하여, Landrace(L), Yorkshire(Y), Duroc(D), Berkshire(B) 및 Chester White(C)의 다섯 가지 품종의 등심, 목심 및 삼겹살 부위에 대한 육질특성 분석 및 관능평가를 실시하였다. 등심 부위에 있어서 D품종의 지방함량이 다른 품종에 비해 높았으며, 목심과 삼겹살에서는 B품종의 지방함량이 가장 높았다. 육색에서는 C품종만이 등심과 목심 부위에서 a* 및 b*값이 낮았으며, 삼겹살에서는 지방층의 간섭으로 육색지수 차이가 크지 않았다. 지방함량이 낮은 부위인 등심과 목심에서는 Y품종이 D 및 B품종에 비하여 보수력이 우수하였으나 삼겹살의 가열감량은 D 및 B품종이 낮아, 보수력이나 가열감량과 같은 물리적 특성은 부위별로 매우 다른 양상을 보였다. 삼겹살의 경우 B품종은 높은 지방함량 수치에도 불구하고 가열하여 7일간 보관한 시료에서도 낮은 TBARS값을 보였다. 지방산의 경우 품종 및 부위별로 미세한 차이만 있었으며 품종보다는 사료의 성분 차이로 사료된다. 이화학적 분석 및 관능검사를 토대로 등심에서는 D품종이, 목심에서는 B품종의 육질특성이 상대적으로 우수한 것으로 평가되었으며, 삼겹살에서는 C품종만이 열등한 것으로 평가되었다. 품종별 육질특성을 비교하였을 때 부위별 육질특성이 일치되지 않는 경향을 보였으며, 본 연구결과는 국내 소비자의 선호부위로 알려진 목심과 삼겹살 부위의 육질특성을 간주하면서도 비선호 부위로 알려진 등심의 이용도를 높일 수 있는 돼지선발 체계에 기초적 자료로 이용될 것이다.
Minimizing the Probability of Ruin When Consumption is Ratcheted

Abstract We assume that an agent’s rate of consumption is ratcheted; that is, it forms a nondecreasing process. We assume that the agent invests in a financial market with one riskless and one risky asset, with the latter’s price following geometric Brownian motion as in the Black-Scholes model. Given the rate of consumption, we act as financial advisers and find the optimal investment strategy for the agent who wishes to minimize his probability of ruin. To solve this minimization problem, we use techniques from stochastic optimal control.
Histogram-Based Reversible Information Hiding Improved by Prediction with the Variance to Enhance Image Quality

Reversible data hiding based on prediction-based is a good technique that can hide message bits into digital images with low distortion. In this paper, we propose a reversible data hiding method based on interleaving prediction and local complexity for enhancing stego-image quality. The thresholds and local complexity are used to determine which predicted error should join the group of pixel shifting or message concealing. If the local complexity is smaller than thresholds, the predicted error will be taken for message hiding or pixel shifting, otherwise, if the local complexity is larger than thresholds, the predicted error will quit joining the process of data concealing and pixel shifting. Therefore, more pixels will avoid executing the process of pixel shifting, resulting to images with lower distortion. The experimental results show that our image quality is superior to other approaches at the same payload.
Effect of Glyceraldehyde Cross-Linking on a Rabbit Bullous Keratopathy Model

Background. To evaluate the effects of corneal glyceraldehyde CXL on the rabbit bullous keratopathy models established by descemetorhexis. Methods. Fifteen rabbits were randomly divided into five groups. Group A (n = 3) is the control group. The right eyes of animals in Groups B,C, D, and E (n = 3, resp.) were suffered with descemetorhexis procedures. From the 8th day to the 14th day postoperatively, the right eyes in Groups C and D were instilled with hyperosmolar drops and glyceraldehyde drops, respectively; the right eyes in Group E were instilled with both hyperosmolar drops and glyceraldehyde drops. Central corneal thickness (CCT), corneal transparency score, and histopathological analysis were applied on the eyes in each group. Results. Compared with Group A, statistically significant increase in CCT and corneal transparency score was found in Groups B, C, D, and E at 7 d postoperatively (P < 0.05) and in Groups C, D, and E at 14 d postoperatively (P < 0.05). Conclusion. Chemical CXL technique using glyceraldehyde improved the CCT and corneal transparency of the rabbit bullous keratopathy models. Topical instillation with glyceraldehyde and hyperosmolar solutions seems to be a good choice for the bullous keratopathy treatment.
URBAN DYNAMICS MODELLING USING ANT NEST BUILDING

Urban dynamics deal with spatial organizations where a great complexity of interactions appears. Social and economic aspects interact and environmental objectives are nowadays a major purpose for sustainable urban development. We propose some generic modelling processes able to face with this complexity, in order to simulate the evolution of the city centers. These organizational centers need a multi-criteria description for their evolution, including feed-back phenomena of them over their environment and components. We propose a swarm intelligence algorithm, using social-insect collective behavior. We combine a decentralized approach, based on emergent clustering mixed with spatial constraints or attractions, as an extension of the ant nest building algorithm with multi-center. Typically, this model is currently used by ourself, to model and analyze cultural equipment dynamics in urban area.
A Novel Multi-Antigen Virally Vectored Vaccine against Mycobacterium avium Subspecies paratuberculosis

Background Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis causes systemic infection and chronic intestinal inflammation in many species including primates. Humans are exposed through milk and from sources of environmental contamination. Hitherto, the only vaccines available against Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis have been limited to veterinary use and comprised attenuated or killed organisms. Methods We developed a vaccine comprising a fusion construct designated HAV, containing components of two secreted and two cell surface Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis proteins. HAV was transformed into DNA, human Adenovirus 5 (Ad5) and Modified Vaccinia Ankara (MVA) delivery vectors. Full length expression of the predicted 95 kDa fusion protein was confirmed. Principal Findings Vaccination of naïve and Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis infected C57BL/6 mice using DNA-prime/MVA-boost or Ad5-prime/MVA-boost protocols was highly immunogenic resulting in significant IFN-γ ELISPOT responses by splenocytes against recombinant vaccine antigens and a range of HAV specific peptides. This included strong recognition of a T-cell epitope GFAEINPIA located near the C-terminus of the fusion protein. Antibody responses to recombinant vaccine antigens and HAV specific peptides but not GFAEINPIA, also occurred. No immune recognition of vaccine antigens occurred in any sham vaccinated Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis infected mice. Vaccination using either protocol significantly attenuated pre-existing Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis infection measured by qPCR in spleen and liver and the Ad5-prime/MVA-boost protocol also conferred some protection against subsequent challenge. No adverse effects of vaccination occurred in any of the mice. Conclusions/Significance A range of modern veterinary and clinical vaccines for the treatment and prevention of disease caused by Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis are needed. The present vaccine proved to be highly immunogenic without adverse effect in mice and both attenuated pre-existing Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis infection and conferred protection against subsequent challenge. Further studies of the present vaccine in naturally infected animals and humans are indicated.
Elderly and prostate cancer screening.

PURPOSE To discuss the issue of screening for prostate cancer in elderly individuals. The impact of life expectancy on the choice of treatment in both patients and health care providers has been investigated as well. MATERIALS AND METHODS We identified studies published from 1990 onwards by searching the MEDLINE database of the National Library of Medicine. Initial search terms were "localized prostate cancer" and "early stage prostate cancer" combined with "elderly patients, life expectancy, palliative, curative, quality of life, watchful waiting, radical prostatectomy, brachytherapy, and external beam radiotherapy". RESULTS Despite the decrease in prostate carcinoma-specific mortality, the use of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) has been shown to increase the prostate cancer detection rate with a shift to detection at earlier and less invasive pathological stages, overriding concerns about over-diagnosis and over treating. However, PSA screening is mainly offered to younger individuals, and older patients are more likely to have progressive disease and high-risk prostate cancer at diagnosis. Given that PSA screening diagnoses mainly curable, early prostate cancer, screening decision could be offered to otherwise healthy elderly patients who are likely to benefit from aggressive treatment. CONCLUSION Prostate-specific antigen screening is not officially recommended and most scientific associations promote shared decision making. While PSA screening decision is currently based on physician's judgment, it is clear that a strict age cut-off of 75 years reduces over-screening, but also prohibits screening in healthy older men with a long life expectancy.
The Role of Interest and Enjoyment in Determining Students’ Approach to Learning

This paper provides information about findings from a recent research project that provides a new insight into how students’ approaches to learning may be impacted by their level of interest in and enjoyment of the topic being studied. The data from this research suggests that for contemporary students, interest and enjoyment play an important role in determining their approach to learning. As such there are implications for all educators who may wish to encourage their students to use a deep approach to learning.
Study of Clock Synchronization for High Speed Satellite Communication Transmission

— This paper exemplifies one practical way to design high speed symbol timing recovery using the parallel architecture to cope with time constraint of computational processing. Recently, as wideband satellite transponders that have 200 to 300MHz come out and active study is followed for efficient transmission in terms of power/bandwidth based on single carrier transmission. When taking into account a single carrier transmission, receiver for instance should be able to work at maximum 250MHz symbol rate on 300MHz transponder bandwidth. However, straightforward parallel processing entails increased amount of computational logic and makes it difficult for massive ASIC chipset production. As a result, this paper specifies efficient parallel processing of blocks susceptible to processing latency and manifests its effectiveness by means of performance assessment and FPGA implementation.
Intracystic Papillary Carcinoma of the Breast: Report of Three Cases and Literature Review

Intracystic papillary carcinoma is a rare malignant tumor of the breast. It occurs communally in postmenopausal women. Clinically it can be asymptomatic or manifested by a breast mass or a nipple discharge. On imaging intracystic papillary carcinoma has usually benign features. Pathologic diagnosis can be difficult at classical histological examination and identification of myoepithelial cells layer by immunohistochemical study can be useful. In the majority of cases of pure intracystic papillary carcinoma, conservative management is possible. Adjuvant therapy is still controversial and prognosis is excellent. We report three cases of intracystic papillary carcinoma diagnosed on immunohistochemical examination and managed with conservative surgery.
“Reinventing the Wheel”: A Novel Approach to Music Player Interfaces

We present a novel interface to (portable) music players that benefit from intelligently structured collections of audio files. For structuring, we calculate similarities between every pair of songs and model a travelling salesman problem (TSP) that is solved to obtain a playlist (i.e., the track ordering during playback) where the average distance between consecutive pieces of music is minimal according to the similarity measure. The similarities are determined using both audio signal analysis of the music tracks and Web-based artist profile comparison. Indeed, we show how to enhance the quality of the well-established methods based on audio signal processing with features derived from Web pages of music artists. Using TSP allows for creating circular playlists that can be easily browsed with a wheel as input device. We investigate the usefulness of four different TSP algorithms for this purpose. For evaluating the quality of the generated playlists, we apply a number of quality measures to two real-world music collections. It turns out that the proposed combination of audio and text-based similarity yields better results than the initial approach based on audio data only. We implemented an audio player as Java applet to demonstrate the benefits of our approach. Furthermore, we present the results of a small user study conducted to evaluate the quality of the generated playlists
Association between use of statins and mortality among patients hospitalized with laboratory-confirmed influenza virus infections: a multistate study.

BACKGROUND Statins may have anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory effects that could reduce the risk of mortality from influenza virus infections. METHODS The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Emerging Infections Program conducts active surveillance for persons hospitalized with laboratory-confirmed influenza in 59 counties in 10 states. We analyzed data for hospitalized adults during the 2007-2008 influenza season to evaluate the association between receiving statins and influenza-related death. RESULTS We identified 3043 patients hospitalized with laboratory-confirmed influenza, of whom 1013 (33.3%) received statins and 151 (5.0%) died within 30 days of their influenza test. Patients who received statins were more likely to be older, male, and white; to suffer from cardiovascular, metabolic, renal, and chronic lung disease; and to have been vaccinated against influenza that season. In a multivariable logistic regression model, administration of statins prior to or during hospitalization was associated with a protective odds of death (adjusted odds ratio, 0.59 [95% confidence interval, .38-.92]) when adjusting for age; race; cardiovascular, lung, and renal disease; influenza vaccination; and antiviral administration. CONCLUSIONS Statin use may be associated with reduced mortality in patients hospitalized with influenza.
Retention Reliability Improvement of SONOS Non-volatile Memory with N2O Oxidation Tunnel Oxide

The reliability characteristics of polysilicon-oxide-nitride-oxide -silicon (SONOS) devices with different thin tunnel oxides are studied. The tunnel oxynitride growth in a pure N2O ambient with high temperature has better performance than in a dry oxidation with N2 annealing treatment including leakage current, programming speed, read disturb and retention. Besides, the surface roughness and interface states between tunnel oxide and Si substrate are also observed by atomic force microscope (AFM) technique and charge-pumping method to evaluate interfacial nitrogen incorporation. The results show that the reliability of data retention obtained a significant improvement while maintaining good programming/erase performance and can provide a straightforward way of reliability improvement for future flash memory application
Tau Alternative Splicing and Frontotemporal Dementia

A number of neurodegenerative diseases are characterized by the presence of abundant deposits containing Tau protein. Expression of the human tau gene is under complex regulation. Mutations in the tau gene have been identified in patients with frontotemporal lobe dementia. These mutations affect either biochemical/biophysical properties or the delicate balance of different splicing isoforms. In this review, we summarize recent advances in our understanding of genetics and molecular pathogenesis of tauopathies with the focus on frontotemporal lobe dementia. We review published studies on tau pre-mRNA splicing regulation. Understanding molecular mechanisms of tauopathies may help in developing effective therapies for neurodegenerative tauopathies and related disorders, including Alzheimer disease.
Smoke Detection in Video

In this paper, we propose a method for smoke detection in outdoor video sequences. We assume that the camera is mounted on a pan/tilt device.The proposed method is composed of three steps. The first step is to decide whether the camera is moving or not. While the camera is moving, we skip the ensuing steps. Otherwise, the second step is to detect the areas of change in the current input frame against the background image and to locate regions of interest (ROIs) by connected component analysis. The block-based approach is applied in both the first and second steps. In the final step, we decide whether the detected ROI is smoke by using the k- temporal information of its color and shape extracted from the ROI. We show the experimental results using in the forest surveillance videos.