Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Adventitial myofibroblasts contribute to neointimal formation in injured porcine coronary arteries.

BACKGROUND The adventitia undergoes remodeling changes after a deep medial coronary injury. Because this process is associated with the formation of adventitial myofibroblasts, which resemble medial smooth muscle (SM) cells, we have examined myofibroblast involvement in the development of neointima. METHODS AND RESULTS In a porcine model, severe endoluminal coronary injury resulted in fibroblast proliferation and adventitial remodeling. Significant adventitial responses were associated with increased neointimal formation (P < .01). To examine the contribution of adventitial cells to the development of neointima, proliferating cells were labeled with bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU) at 12 and 24 hours after injury, and their subsequent localization was determined by immunohistochemistry (n = 24). At 2 to 3 days after severe injury, the adventitia contained numerous BrdU-labeled cells (37 +/- 4%), whereas the media demonstrated infrequent labeled cells (4 +/- 1%). Adventitial cells lacked alpha-SM actin and desmin, which distinguished them from medial SM cells. At 7 to 8 days, some labeled cells acquired characteristics of myofibroblasts expressing alpha-SM actin. They were found to translocate to the gap between dissected media and contributed to the formation of neointima (76 +/- 19%). At 18 to 35 days, labeled cells were abundant in the neointima (86 +/- 5%). They showed uniform immunostaining for alpha-SM actin but not for desmin, thereby differing from medial SM cells and blood-borne cells. CONCLUSIONS This study demonstrates translocation of adventitial fibroblasts to neointima, their phenotypic modulation to myofibroblasts, and distinct characteristics of myofibroblasts within neointima after severe endoluminal coronary injury. These findings suggest the significance of vascular fibroblasts in the process of arterial repair.
A Practical Two-Step Method for Testing Moment Inequalities

This paper considers the problem of testing a finite number of moment inequalities. We propose a two-step approach. In the first step, a confidence region for the moments is constructed. In the second step, this set is used to provide information about which moments are “negative. ” A Bonferonni-type correction is used to account for the fact that with some probability the moments may not lie in the confidence region. It is shown that the test controls size uniformly over a large class of distributions for the observed data. An important feature of the proposal is that it remains computationally feasible, even when the number of moments is large. The finite-sample properties of the procedure are examined via a simulation study, which demonstrates, among other things, that the proposal remains competitive with existing procedures while being computationally more attractive.
Live Music Promotes Positive Behaviours in People with Alzheimer's Disease

Introduction: Behavioural symptoms of Alzheimer's disease present barriers to providing a holistic standard of care. Limited attention has been given to the potential effects of live music, rather than background music or music therapy, on mood, function, and participation in and performance of daily activities. This exploratory study investigated whether live music could facilitate the expression of positive behaviour in people with Alzheimer's disease. Method: A live musical violin intervention, provided on a one-to-one basis in a residential care facility, was employed to assess positive behaviour in people with moderate-to-severe Alzheimer's disease using a one-group repeated measures design. Seven participants were video-recorded before, during, and after the intervention, which was provided individually in three separate sessions. The investigator and a blinded assessor used an investigator-modified version of the Cohen-Mansfield Agitation Inventory to assess 16 positive behaviours. Quotations from study participants are presented. Data were analysed using the Friedman test. Results: The total number of positive behaviours increased significantly from a median number of 4.3 (range 1.3–13) before the intervention to 30 (range 13–47.7) during, and 24.3 (range 4–27.7) after the intervention (p = 0.001). Conclusion: Live individualized music may provide occupational therapists with a useful strategy to enrich the lives of people with Alzheimer's disease.
Emphysema-like Pulmonary Disease Associated with Human Immunodeficiency Virus Infection

OBJECTIVE To describe a possible association between prolonged infection with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and a pathophysiologic process suggestive of pulmonary emphysema. DESIGN Case series. SETTING The Ohio State University Hospital, Columbus, Ohio. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS We describe four HIV-seropositive individuals ranging in age from 32 to 55 years who presented with dyspnea. Radiographic examination of the chest showed no infiltrates. All patients were presumed to have had prolonged HIV infection (mean CD4 count, 99.8 +/- 43 cells/mm3), but none had a previous history of pneumonia or opportunistic infections. Comprehensive examination of bronchoalveolar lavage fluid showed no pathogens or other complications of HIV infection. All patients had markedly abnormal pulmonary function tests that were suggestive of emphysema with air-trapping, hyperinflation, and a markedly decreased diffusing capacity. However, only minimal evidence of airflow obstruction was noted. Three patients subsequently had high-resolution computed tomographic scans of the chest that revealed emphysema-like bullous changes. Known causes of emphysema were not present in these patients. CONCLUSIONS Our findings support an association between prolonged HIV infection and an emphysema-like process. This syndrome may occur in the absence of previous pulmonary infections or apparent pulmonary complications and is characterized by unusual pulmonary function test abnormalities.
Characterization of the metal ion binding helix-hairpin-helix motifs in human DNA polymerase beta by X-ray structural analysis.

X-ray crystallographic studies have shown that DNA binding by human polymerase beta (pol beta) occurs primarily through two structurally and sequentially homologous helix-hairpin-helix (HhH) motifs, one in the fingers subdomain and the other in the 8-kDa domain [Pelletier, H. , Sawaya, M. R. , Wolfle, W. , Wilson, S. H. , & Kraut, J. (1996a) Biochemistry 35, 12742-12761]. In that DNA binding by each HhH motif is facilitated by a metal ion, we set out to determine the identity of the metal ion that most likely binds to the HhH motif in vivo. Crystal soaking experiments were performed on human pol beta-DNA cocrystals with Mg2+, Ca2+, Na+, and K+, the four most prevalent metal ions in the cell, and in each case a data set was collected and the resulting structure was refined. Under the conditions tested, the HhH motifs of pol beta have an affinity for these biologically prevalent metal ions in the order Mg2+ < Ca2+ < Na+ < K+, with K+ displaying the strongest binding. Crystals soaked in the presence of Tl+, a commonly used spectroscopic probe for K+, were too X-ray-sensitive to establish the binding behavior of Tl+, but soaking experiments with Ba2+ and Cs+ resulted in relatively stable crystals that gave evidence of metal ion binding in both HhH motifs, confirming that larger monovalent and divalent metal ions are capable of binding to the HhH metal sites. Although Mn2+, which has been categorized as a potent polymerase mutagen, binds to the HhH motifs with a greater affinity than Mg2+, Mn2+ does not bind to the HhH motifs in the presence of equimolar concentrations of Na+. These results suggest that in vivo, where Mn2+ is present only in trace amounts, Mn2+ probably does not have a large effect on DNA binding and may instead manifest a mutagenic effect on pol beta primarily by distorting nucleotide binding or by directly affecting the catalytic step [Pelletier, H. , Sawaya, M. R. , Wolfle, W. , Wilson, S. H. , & Kraut, J. (1996b) Biochemistry 35, 12762-12777]. Crystal soaking experiments with 31-kDa apoenzyme crystals show that, in the absence of DNA, the HhH motif in the fingers subdomain binds metal ions with either much lower occupancy or not at all, indicating that metal ion binding is dependent on the presence of the DNA substrate.
Sociology, Eurocentrism and Postcolonial Theory

Postcolonial theory, particularly in its poststructuralist variant, presents important challenges to sociology's self-image, and open debate on these attempts to `unsettle' the modernist, Westernized disciplines is both conceptually and politically interesting. However, the postcolonial unsettling of sociology has to be actively extracted and reconstructed from the key texts of postcolonial theory - it is not transparently available as such - and this is the first main goal of the article. Particular attention is paid to the framings of these issues by Stuart Hall, Homi Bhahba and Robert Young. Second, the article offers the elements of a counter-critique, pointing out where the anti-sociological impulses of postcolonialism are exaggerated or unfounded, and also indicating serious internal problems for postcolonial theory when it is pitched as a direct and superior alternative to the modernist sociological `imaginary'. The continuing centrality (and difficulty) of questions on the nature of and purpose of explanatory social theory and postcolonial cultural studies are discussed.
Relativity and Representativeness

Certain suggestions recently made by Brunswik (2) concerning the design of experiments in psychology seem to have far reaching implications. Indeed, Brunswik's suggestions appear to the writer to be congruent with Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. Congruences between such diverse disciplines as psychology and physics bear watching if for no other reason than the fact that psychologists frequently point to the physicist as the ideal scientist. Unfortunately, in the writer's opinion, the ideal which the psychologist still admires is the classical, or Newtonian, physicist rather than the modern, or Einsteinian, physicist-the psychologist's outlook being concomitantly distorted. Brunswik's theories of experimental design in psychology, however, are appealing for the very reason that they do not fit the mold of the classical physical experiment, but do seem to be congruent with Einstein's physical theories-with concomitant expansion of scope. Brunswik (2) points out that psychological experiments in the past have followed classical design in physics: namely, all variables on the stimulus side are held constant except one-the independent variable-then effects are observed upon the dependent variable on the subject side of the experiment. In psychology one is allowed generalization on the subject side in direct proportion to the adequacy of one's sampling of all relevant populational variables. The rule is: generalize only to those elements of the population sampled. Psychologists have developed a great deal of sophistication here, and it has become routine to apologize for the fact that most psychological generalizations concerning human behavior are based on the college sophomore. Brunswik, however, has raised an interesting issue. Why make any more claims for generality on the stimulus side of the experiment than on the subject side? To quote Brunswik "It is clear that the statistical significance of a result can be investigated in both directions" (2, p. 26). Psychologists create a "double standard" when they scrutinize carefully populational generality yet continue experiments following the classical design of one stimulus variable. This design permits no generalization beyond the meager limits of a situation with all variables held constant save one. Of greater significance are the psychologists' present attempts to overcome the obvious limitations of uni-variate design by increasing the number of variables, but varying them in a systematic' manner. Systematic, and therefore limited and specified, variation does not permit a multi-variate design to claim general-
Prognostic relevance of serum β2 microglobulin in patients with follicular lymphoma treated with anthracycline-containing regimens. A GISL study

Background and Objectives Although serum β2 microglobulin (β2 M) is an easy parameter to measure, and over-expressed in a large number of lymphoproliferative diseases, its prognostic value has been largely underestimated. The present study examined the influence of β2M levels on overall survival (OS) of patients with follicular lymphoma (FL). Design and Methods The prognostic role of β2M was evaluated in 236 patients with FL identified from the databases of the Gruppo Italiano per lo Studio dei Linfomi (GISL) and treated with anthracycline-based regimens from 1993 to 2003. Results Elevated serum β2M levels were found in 82 patients (35%). According to multivariate logistic regression analysis, elevated β2M levels were associated with elevated lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) (p=0.021), age (p=0.029), and number of involved nodal areas (p<0.001). The percentage of elevated β2M levels increased progressively with increasing FLIPI scores (17%, 38%, and 63% in the low-, intermediate-, and high-risk groups, respectively). Five-year OS was 61% (95% CI, 47–73%) and 89% (95% CI, 82–93%) for patients with elevated vs normal β2M levels respectively (p<0.001). Cox regression analysis showed that β2M level had an independent and stable prognostic value (HR=3.0; 95%CI, 1.6–5.7). In a multivariate analysis the impact of β2M level on survival was independent of FLIPI score, with a HR of 2.94 (95% CI, 1.54–5.62). Interpretation and Conclusions Our results demonstrate that in patients treated in the pre-rituximabera, β2M level was an independent prognostic marker in addition to FLIPI score. We thus suggest that β2M be routinely assessed and tested in future prognostic studies of FL patients treated with combination chemotherapy and anti-CD20 agents.
Music in a Double Bind: Instruction by Non-Specialists in Elementary Schools

Based on a three-year ethnographic study1, this article examines the instruction of music by elementary (nonspecialist) classroom teachers, its explicit and implicit messages, and the role of music within the school. The findings reveal that in spite of district and state curricular expectations, music instruction is scant. When music is present, it is delegated to the role of a vehicle for other ends: (a) to illustrate a subject matter, (b) to change pace, and (c) to provide a background activity; rather than cherished for its intrinsic aesthetic/cognitive value. Barriers to an improved music curriculum include teachers' lack of knowledge, resources, and appropriate structures, within an overall climate of pressure for academics. This pressure, communicated through vertical (hierarchical-based) as well as horizontal (peer-based) channels, places music in a double-bind: On the one hand, music instruction fails to draw on its cognitive, higherorder aspects in accordance with curricular advocacies; on the other hand, it is marginalized for its dispensable role as entertainment.
Becoming a Conversationalist Despite (or because of) Having an Older Sibling.

DUNN, JUDY, and SHATZ, MARILYN. Becoming a Conversationalist Despite (or Because of) Having an Older Sibling. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1989, 60, 399-410. Children grow up in a family world where much of the talk is not addressed to them. This study examined the question of whether young children attend to and understand the topic of such talk by analyzing their intrusions into conversations between their mothers and older siblings. 6 children were observed at home at 24, 26, 28, 30, 33, and 36 months. Intrusions formed a considerable proportion of their talk; in the course of the third year, children took up an increasing proportion of opportunities to intrude, their intrusions were more likely to include new and relevant information, and such new/relevant intrusions were most likely to lead to a response. While there was no decrease in children's tendency to talk about themselves, there was an increase in intrusions in which children turned the topic from other to self in a relevant way. It is argued that as early as the third year children are becoming effective participants in a multispeaker world, and that the conversations between others form an important, but relatively unstudied source of linguistic input for children.
Small GTP-Binding Protein Rac Is an Essential Mediator of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor-Induced Endothelial Fenestrations and Vascular Permeability

Background—Vascular endothelial growth factor/vascular permeability factor (VEGF/VPF) induces both angiogenesis and vascular permeability. Although its angiogenic activity has been well characterized, the signaling pathways of VEGF-induced permeability remain poorly understood. Methods and Results—Using the mouse corneal micropocket assay, Miles assay, and a combination of cytochemical, electron microscopic, and biochemical assays, we demonstrate that VEGF-induced vascular leakage partly can be separated from its angiogenic activity. VEGF but not FGF-2 induced capillaries with a highly fenestrated endothelium, a feature linked with increased vascular permeability. A cell-permeable Rac antagonist (TAT-RacN17) converted VEGF-induced, leaky vascular plexuses into well-defined vascular networks. In addition, this Rac mutant blocked formation of VEGF-induced endothelial fenestrations and vascular permeability but only partially inhibited angiogenesis. Studies on endothelial cell cultures further revealed that VEGF stimulated phosphorylation of VEGF receptor-2 (VEGFR-2), leading to activation of Rac as well as increased phosphorylation of phospholipase C&ggr; (PLC&ggr;), protein kinase B (Akt), endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS), and extracellular regulated kinase (Erk1/2). We further found that phosphatidylinositol-3-OH kinase (PI3K) acted upstream of Rac and Akt-eNOS in VEGF/VEGFR-2 signaling. Conclusions—Our findings indicate that the small GTP-binding protein Rac is a key component in mediation of VEGF-induced vascular permeability but less so in neovascularization. This may have conceptual implications for applying Rac antagonists in treatment and prevention of VEGF-induced vascular leakage and edema in connection with ischemic disorders.
Behavioral modeling of wireless transmitters for distortion mitigation

As the demand for high speed and reliable wireless communication increases, the importance of having a linear transmitter has enhanced. Distortions created by the transmitter, such as power amplifier nonlinearity and I/Q imbalance, diminish the fidelity and limit the performance of wireless systems, if left undealt with. Among the techniques commonly used to mitigate these distortions, digital predistortion has established itself as a suitable candidate that minimizes the hardware overhead and only requires modest additional power in the transmitter architecture. An important pre-requisite for utilizing digital predistorters is developing accurate and low complex behavioral models, which is the main focus of this thesis. After analyzing the importance of modeling and compensating for the distortion created by modulators and power amplifiers in the transmitter architecture, an overview of some commonly used models in the literature is presented. A novel behavioral modeling approach is proposed which is capable of modeling long term memory effects in power amplifiers, and a new dual–input modeling approach for I/Q imbalance compensation is presented that successfully compensates for distortion created by the modulator. Compared with conventional and recently proposed techniques, the approaches presented in this thesis show promising results in modeling transmitters accurately. The important issue of computational complexity in behavioral models is also discussed, and the accuracy/compexity tradeoff of some common behavioral models is analyzed. Once behavioral modeling techniques are established, they are used for digital predistortion of wireless transmitters. Issues such as identification of digital predistorters and adaptation of parameters due to changes in power amplifier behavior are discussed and a new measurement testbed to evaluate the performance in parameter adaptation algorithms is proposed. The methods and techniques proposed in this work provide ways to both mitigate distortion in and evaluate performance of wireless transmitters in terms of accuracy and complexity, and can help contribute to a better service of quality in wireless communication systems.
Unsupervised learning of a scene-specific coarse gaze estimator

We present a method to estimate the coarse gaze directions of people from surveillance data. Unlike previous work we aim to do this without recourse to a large hand-labelled corpus of training data. In contrast we propose a method for learning a classifier without any hand labelled data using only the output from an automatic tracking system. A Conditional Random Field is used to model the interactions between the head motion, walking direction, and appearance to recover the gaze directions and simultaneously train randomised decision tree classifiers. Experiments demonstrate performance exceeding that of conventionally trained classifiers on two large surveillance datasets.
Robust Subspace Clustering With Complex Noise

Subspace clustering has important and wide applications in computer vision and pattern recognition. It is a challenging task to learn low-dimensional subspace structures due to complex noise existing in high-dimensional data. Complex noise has much more complex statistical structures, and is neither Gaussian nor Laplacian noise. Recent subspace clustering methods usually assume a sparse representation of the errors incurred by noise and correct these errors iteratively. However, large corruptions incurred by complex noise cannot be well addressed by these methods. A novel optimization model for robust subspace clustering is proposed in this paper. Its objective function mainly includes two parts. The first part aims to achieve a sparse representation of each high-dimensional data point with other data points. The second part aims to maximize the correntropy between a given data point and its low-dimensional representation with other points. Correntropy is a robust measure so that the influence of large corruptions on subspace clustering can be greatly suppressed. An extension of pairwise link constraints is also proposed as prior information to deal with complex noise. Half-quadratic minimization is provided as an efficient solution to the proposed robust subspace clustering formulations. Experimental results on three commonly used data sets show that our method outperforms state-of-the-art subspace clustering methods.
Self-taught recovery of depth data

Depth data captured by Kinect provides inexpensive geometric information to higher level computer vision tasks such as object detection and recognition. However, there are missing values in the depth map at object boundaries and those beyond the working distance of Kinect due to the limitations of the hardware employed. In this paper, we proposed a self-taught regression method to recover the missing depth data. First a rough estimation of the scene depth was made based on the color image from Kinect. We then trained a random forest using the estimated depth and the intensity from the neighborhood of each pixel that the depth can be captured by Kinect. The random forest was used to predict missing depth data in a self-taught manner that the pixels with largest number of valid neighborhood were predicted first and then added to the training set for the next round prediction. This repeats until all missing data was recovered. The experiment results show that our method outperforms existing approaches to depth recovery.