Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
External Auditory Canal Cholesteatoma: Reassessment of and Amendments to Its Categorization, Pathogenesis, and Treatment in 34 Patients

Objective: External auditory canal cholesteatoma (EACC) is a rarity. Although there have been numerous case reports, there are only few systematic analyses of case series, and the pathogenesis of idiopathic EACC remains enigmatic. Study Design: In a tertiary referral center for a population of 1.5 million inhabitants, 34 patients with 35 EACC (13 idiopathic [1 bilateral] and 22 secondary) who were treated between 1994 and 2006 were included in the study. Results: EACC cardinal symptoms were longstanding otorrhea (65%) and dull otalgia (12%). Focal bone destruction in the external auditory canal with retained squamous debris and an intact tympanic membrane were characteristic. Only 27% of the patients showed conductive hearing loss exceeding 20 dB. Patients with idiopathic EACC had lesions typically located on the floor of the external auditory canal and were older, and the mean smoking intensity was also greater (p < 0.05) compared with patients with secondary EACC. The secondary lesions were assigned to categories (poststenotic [n = 6], postoperative [n = 6], and posttraumatic EACC [n = 4]) and rare categories (radiogenic [n = 2], postinflammatory [n = 1], and postobstructive EACC [n = 1]). In addition, we describe 2 patients with EACC secondary to the complete remission of a Langerhans cell histiocytosis of the external auditory canal. Thirty of 34 patients were treated surgically and became all free of recurrence, even after extensive disease. Discussion: For the development of idiopathic EACC, repeated microtrauma (e.g., microtrauma resulting from cotton-tipped applicator abuse or from hearing aids) and diminished microcirculation (e.g., from smoking) might be risk factors. A location other than in the inferior portion of the external auditory canal indicates a secondary form of the disease, as in the case of 2 patients with atypically located EACC after years of complete remission of Langerhans cell histiocytosis, which we consider as a new posttumorous category and specific late complication of this rare disease.
Cyclin-dependent kinase regulatory subunit 1 promotes cell proliferation by insulin regulation

Cyclin-dependent kinase regulatory subunit 1 (CKS1) helps regulate the cell cycle to increase cell number. However, the hormonal regulation on CKS1 expression is not well understood. We report that CKS1 is involved in the promotion of cell proliferation with insulin regulation in the lepidopteran insect Helicoverpa armigera. CKS1 is expressed in various tissues during the larval feeding stage. CKS1 knockdown results in larval death, body weight decrease, pupation time delay, and small-sized pupa formation. The underlying mechanism involves the blocking of cell proliferation and the repression of gene expression in the insulin pathway after CKS1 knockdown. CKS1 overexpression in the epidermal cell line results in cell proliferation. The N45 amino acid asparagine in the CKS domain is essential for the function of CKS in cell proliferation. CKS1 is upregulated by insulin via an insulin receptor, but is repressed by a high level of steroid hormone 20-hydroxyecdysone (20E). Results suggest that CKS1 promotes cell proliferation and body growth in coordination with the regulatory actions of insulin and steroid hormone 20E.
Prp45 affects Prp22 partition in spliceosomal complexes and splicing efficiency of non‐consensus substrates

Human transcription co‐regulator SNW1/SKIP is implicated in the regulation of both transcription elongation and alternative splicing. Prp45, the SNW/SKIP ortholog in yeast, is assumed to be essential for pre‐mRNA processing. Here, we characterize prp45(1–169), a temperature sensitive allele of PRP45, which at permissive temperature elicits cell division defects and hypersensitivity to microtubule inhibitors. Using a synthetic lethality screen, we found that prp45(1–169) genetically interacts with alleles of NTC members SYF1, CLF1/SYF3, NTC20, and CEF1, and 2nd step splicing factors SLU7, PRP17, PRP18, and PRP22. Cwc2‐associated spliceosomal complexes purified from prp45(1–169) cells showed decreased stoichiometry of Prp22, suggesting its deranged interaction with the spliceosome. In vivo splicing assays in prp45(1–169) cells revealed that branch point mutants accumulated more pre‐mRNA whereas 5′ and 3′ splice site mutants showed elevated levels of lariat‐exon intermediate as compared to wild‐type cells. Splicing of canonical intron was unimpeded. Notably, the expression of Prp45(119–379) in prp45(1–169) cells restored Prp22 partition in the Cwc2‐pulldowns and rescued temperature sensitivity and splicing phenotype of prp45(1–169) strain. Our data suggest that Prp45 contributes, in part through its interaction with the 2nd step‐proofreading helicase Prp22, to splicing efficiency of substrates non‐conforming to the consensus. J. Cell. Biochem. 106: 139–151, 2009. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Automatic user state recognition for hand gesture based low-cost television control system

Hand gesture based television (TV) control is attracting more and more researchers. Most of existing works focus on the hand gesture recognition algorithm and the corresponding user interface, while the power consumption or computational cost is not considered carefully. In practice, keeping the camera device and the gesture recognition module running all the time often costs much energy. Till now, few methods have been reported to solve this problem. This paper proposes an automatic user state recognition scheme to recognize the TV user's state and activate the camera-based gesture recognition module only when the user is trying to control the TV. Specifically, the user's behavior active or not is detected by lowcost sensors, the user's gaze watching TV or not is tracked by the face-based view detection, and the user's state is then decided according to a finite-state machine composed of four states: Absent, OtherAction, Controlling, and Watching. The prototypes based on an ultrasonic distance sensor array, a red-green-blue (RGB) camera, and a depth camera are implemented and tested. The results show that the proposed scheme can effectively reduce the power consumption or computational cost of the original hand gesture based control schemes.
Accelerating Occlusion Rendering on a GPU via Ray Classification

Accurately rendering occlusions is required when ray-tracing objects to achieve more realistic rendering of scenes. Indeed, soft phenomena such as shadows and ambient occlusion can be achieved with stochastic ray tracing techniques. However, computing randomized incoherent ray-object intersections can be inefficient. This is problematic in Graphics Processing Unit GPU applications, where thread divergence can significantly lower throughput. The authors show how this issue can be mitigated using classification techniques that sort rays according to their spatial characteristics. Still, classifying occlusion terms requires sorting millions of rays. This is offset by savings in rendering time, which result from a more coherent ray distribution. The authors survey and test different ray classification techniques to identify the most effective. The best results were achieved when sorting rays using a compress-sort-decompress approach using 32-bit hash keys.
Epidemiology of neural tube defects

Objectives: To find the prevalence of neural tube defects (NTDs), and compare the findings with local and international data, and highlight the important role of folic acid supplementation and flour fortification with folic acid in preventing NTDs. Methods: This is a retrospective study of data retrieved from the medical records of live newborn infants admitted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), Security Forces Hospital (SFH), Riyadh, Saudi Arabia with NTDs spanning 14 years (1996-2009). All pregnant women on their first antenatal visit to the primary care clinic were prescribed folic acid 0.5 mg daily, or 5 mg if there is a family history of NTD. The pre-fortification prevalence is compared to post-fortification, before and after excluding syndromic, genetic, and chromosomal causes. The results were compared with reports from other parts of Saudi Arabia and internationally, through a literature search using MEDLINE. Results: The prevalence of NTDs during the period was 1.2 per 1000 live births. The pre-fortification of flour with folic acid prevalence was 1.46 per 1000 live births. The post-fortification prevalence was 1.05 (p=0.103). After excluding syndromic, genetic, and chromosomal causes from calculation of the prevalence, there was a significant reduction in the prevalence, from 1.46 to 0.81 per 1000 live births (p=0.0088). Syndromic, genetic, and chromosomal causes were identified in 20 cases (19.4%). Only 2% of mothers received preconception folic acid, and only 10% of them received it during the first 4 weeks of gestation. Conclusion: Despite the implementation of fortification of flour with folic acid since 2001, the prevalence of NTDs in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is still high. This is due to the impact of genetic, syndromic, and chromosomal causes of NTD not preventable by folic acid. Other factors like unplanned pregnancy and lack of awareness of the role of folic acid in preventing nonsyndromic causes, play a significant role.
Determination of rutting distresses on hot mix asphalts by advanced techniques

The sustainable use of non-renewable natural resources, such as asphalt binder, can be achieved by adequate planning. The proper assessment of asphalt binders is a prerequisite to the appropriate designing of road constructions that can eventually result in pavements in which the development of pavement distresses can be mitigated. Rutting is the most common distress occurring at high temperatures, which is frequently experienced by such countries as Indonesia; thus, the use of adequate asphalt binder in hot mix asphalt pavements results in long-lasting road constructions. By means of advanced techniques, e.g., multiple stress creep recovery test, conducted on a dynamic shear rheometer, it is possible to determine the rutting potential of asphalt binders. This technique, however, still seems to be imprecise at currently determined shear stress values. This paper aims to investigate on the example of ten different asphalt binders, if creep and recovery measured at higher shear stresses result in better correlation with rutting potential of hot mix asphalts than that at the standardized stress levels. Concurrently, other conventional asphalt binder properties (e.g., penetration, softening point, elastic recovery) are determined and compared with rutting.
Rebooting MOOC Research

Improve assessment, data sharing, and experimental design The chief executive officer of edX, Anant Agarwal, declared that Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) should serve as “particle accelerator for learning” (1). MOOCs provide new sources of data and opportunities for large-scale experiments that can advance the science of learning. In the years since MOOCs first attracted widespread attention, new lines of research have begun, but findings from these efforts have had few implications for teaching and learning. Big data sets do not, by virtue of their size, inherently possess answers to interesting questions. For MOOC research to advance the science of learning, researchers, course developers, and other stakeholders must advance the field along three trajectories: from studies of engagement to research about learning, from investigations of individual courses to comparisons across contexts, and from a reliance on post hoc analyses to greater use of multidisciplinary, experimental design.
Low complexity disparity estimation for immersive 3D video transmission

Bandwidth-limited channels demand the transmission of the per-pixel depth maps with the texture data to provide immersive 3D video services that allow arbitrary 3D viewpoint reconstruction. This auxiliary depth data offers geometric information, which together with the multi-view and epipolar geometries, can be exploited during 3D video coding to calculate geometric positions for the search areas of disparity estimation. These positions represent a more accurate estimate match to compensate the current macro-block from than those provided by the median adopted by the H.264/MVC standard. The result is smaller search areas that reduce the encoder's computational requirement. In this work, we exploit this fact together with the largest depth variation within the macro-block to encode, to calculate and adaptively adjust these areas along the epipolar lines. The proposed solution achieves a speedup gain of up-to 32 times over the original disparity estimation, with negligible influence on the rate-distortion performance of 3D video coding. This highly reduces the computational cost of the H.264/MVC encoder and eases its need to be implemented on highly expensive systems that are otherwise necessary to meets the stringent latency requirement of broadcast transmissions. Moreover, it provides similar coding efficiencies required for such scenarios.
Terlipressin in hepatorenal syndrome: Evidence for present indications

Hepatorenal syndrome (HRS) is the most frequent life threatening complication of advanced liver failure and cirrhosis. HRS results from a functional renal dysfunction due to circulatory disturbances in patients with advanced liver disease and portal hypertension. Reduction in the effective circulating blood volume and hence hypoperfusion of the kidney is the basic underlying common pathogenetic mechanism for the development of hepatorenal syndrome. The prognosis for HRS remains very poor with types 1 and 2—both having an expected survival time of 2 weeks and 6 months, respectively.
Fluctuations in peroxidase and catalase activities of resistant and susceptible black gram (Vigna mungo (L.) Hepper) genotypes elicited by Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius) feeding

Whitefly, Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius) (Hemiptera: Aleryrodidae), is a serious pest of black gram, (Vigna mungo (L.) Hepper), an important legume pulse crop grown in north India. This research investigated the potential role of selected plant oxidative enzymes in resistance/susceptibility to whitefly in nine black gram genotypes. Oxidative enzyme activity was estimated spectrophotometrically from leaf samples collected at 30 and 50 d after sowing (DAS) from whitefly infested and uninfested plants. The enzymes showed different activity levels at different times after the infestation. The results indicated that in general, whitefly infestation increased the activities of peroxidase and decreased the catalase activity. Resistant genotypes NDU 5-7 and KU 99-20 recorded higher peroxidase and catalase activities at 30 and 50 DAS under whitefly-stress conditions as compared with non-stressed plants. The results suggest that the enhanced activities of the enzymes may contribute to bioprotection of black gram plants against B. tabaci infestation. The potential mechanisms to explain the correlation of resistance to whitefly in black gram genotypes with higher activities of oxidative enzymes are also discussed.
Methods for Mining Data from Genome Wide High-Throughput Technologies

Current high-throughput technologies, like DNA-microarrays, produce measurement data concerning the structure and function of cellular molecules in a genome wide manner. Analysis of such data requires using efficient and robust computational tools. The standard output from microarray analysis is a set of genes which are coor differentially expressed. Biological interpretation of such outcome aims at finding the mechanisms that cause such expression. This step often involves searching the biological databases and literature for biological attributes that are over-represented in the gene set. Recent methods and software programs use statistical approaches for finding such information. Still, there remain many questions which they do not address. This work presents novel bioinformatic methods and software tools for biological interpretation of data obtained from high throughput technologies. The presented methods 1) discover expected relations of genes and experimental conditions by literature mining, 2) discover biological processes which can explain the coor differential expression by using cluster analysis of functional information on genes, 3) discover putative regulatory elements which can explain the genes' co-expression, and 4) find the chromosomal locations with enrichment of co-expressed genes by using a segmentation procedure. Methods presented in this work analyze categorical data representing the associations between genes and biological attributes. The methods include clustering and segmentation, and statistical evaluation of such results. For clustering of high dimensional binary data, we present a method based on Non-negative Matrix factorization (NMF). This recent matrix factorization method has shown good performance in the analysis of binary data. In segmentation, we apply heuristics in order to obtain results in reasonable time. As clustering and segmentation produce several solutions with different numbers of clusters, we show novel methods for results evaluation. The developed methods outperform the alternatives in comparisons performed by using real and simulated data. The methods are applied to interpretation of several different datasets. These include gene expression data obtained from salmon fish under the treatment of environmental toxins, baker's yeast during cell cycle and under the influence of antifungal drug, and nematode including human Parkinson’s Disease related transgene. Universal Decimal Classification: 575.111, 575.112 National Library of Medicine Classification: QU 26.5, QU 58.5, QU 450, QU 470 Medical Subject Headings: Computational Biology; Information Storage and Retrieval; Genes; Genome; Genomics; Gene Expression Profiling; Databases, Genetic; Microarray Analysis; Cluster Analysis; Transcription Factors; Bayes Theorem; Factor Analysis, Statistical; Models, Statistical
Multiregional, not multiple origins.

Multiregional evolution is a model to account for the pattern of human evolution in the Pleistocene. The underlying hypothesis is that a worldwide network of genic exchanges, between evolving human populations that continually divide and reticulate, provides a frame of population interconnections that allows both species-wide evolutionary change and local distinctions and differentiation. "Multiregional" does not mean independent multiple origins, ancient divergence of modern populations, simultaneous appearance of adaptive characters in different regions, or parallel evolution. A valid understanding of multiregional evolution would go a long way toward reducing the modern human origins controversy.
Novel Chroma Subsampling Strategy Based on Mathematical Optimization for Compressing Mosaic Videos With Arbitrary RGB Color Filter Arrays in H.264/AVC and HEVC

To save manufacturing cost, most color digital video cameras employ a single-sensor technology with a red-green- blue (RGB) color filter array (CFA) to capture real-world scenes. Due to only one primary color measured at each pixel location, the captured videos are usually referred to as the mosaic videos. For the purposes of economical storage and transmission, it is very important to achieve a good tradeoff between the quality and bitrate when compressing mosaic videos with different RGB-CFA structures. In this paper, based on mathematical optimization technique, a novel chroma subsampling strategy is presented for compressing mosaic videos with arbitrary RGB-CFA structures in H.264/AVC and High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC). For each 2 × 2 YUV block to be subsampled with 4:2:0 format, the proposed strategy determines the proper sampled U and V components by minimizing, prior to compression, the quality distortion between the original colocated mosaic block and the mosaic block conversed from the current subsampled YUV block. Through the mathematical optimization formulated in the proposed strategy, the significance of the sampled U and V components for reconstructing R, G, and B pixels can be simultaneously taken into consideration. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed chroma subsampling strategy has the best quality and bitrate tradeoff at a similar execution time requirement for compressing mosaic videos with arbitrary RGB-CFA structures in H.264/AVC and HEVC compared with the state-of-the-art ones by Chen et al. and Yang et al. as well as the three commonly used ones.
Blob‐based liquid morphing

In this paper, we propose a novel practical method for blob‐based liquid 3D morphing. Firstly, blobby objects are employed to approximate a given polygonal surface. The primitives in the medial axis sphere‐tree of a polygonal model are utilized as initial blobs—this greatly improves the robustness and efficiency of the blob‐based approximation. Secondly, we establish the blob correspondences between two models by sphere cellular matching and hierarchical matching. Finally, we interpolate the parameters of the implicit representation to get the intermediate shapes. Experiments show our method can produce visually pleasing liquid morphing effects. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Targeting Cerebral Small Vessel Disease With MRI.

Cerebral small vessel disease (SVD) is a severely debilitating disease affecting the smallest vessels in the brain. It is a major cause of cognitive decline, dementia, and functional disability in the elderly, and it is also responsible for ≈25% of all cerebral strokes.1,2 Still, treatment options are restricted to preventive risk management because there is currently no curative treatment available. Better understanding of both the pathogenesis of SVD and the subsequent pathophysiological mechanism by which SVD leads to macroscopic brain tissue damage (size ranging from mm to cm) could stimulate the development of more effective treatments. However, the nature of SVD hampers unraveling both its pathogenesis and the subsequent pathophysiological mechanisms that lead to macroscopic brain tissue damage. In the first place, SVD is a common term, grouping various pathology of the small arteries, arterioles, capillaries, and venules in the brain, regardless of the underlying pathogenesis.1 As a result, there are multiple potential cascades linking pathophysiological processes to SVD and to subsequent brain tissue damage and cognition loss. Most of these pathophysiological processes can coexist with mutual interaction, which makes it highly complex to unravel. Second, because SVD affects the smallest vessels in the brain, these vessels and their pathology are an order of magnitude below the imaging resolution of in vivo medical imaging equipment. Accordingly, current clinical markers of SVD do not reflect SVD itself but the consequences of SVD, such as loss of cognition. Similarly, image-based markers reflect macroscopic brain tissue damage secondary to SVD, such as (small) infarcts, white matter hyperintensities, perivascular spaces, microbleeds, and brain atrophy.3 These markers are marketed as indicators of SVD, even to such an extent that SVD has become synonymous with having macroscopic brain lesions on MRI.1 Trials testing the efficacy of new therapeutic treatments that …