Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Biological agents in the treatment of uveitis

Inflammatory uveitis is a difficult condition to treat. Recently, a new class of drugs obtained by a biological process and therefore defined as “biologics” has been successfully used in the treatment of immunemediated rheumatic diseases. These drugs target different pro-inflammatory cytokines including tumor necrosis factor-α, interleukin-1 and interleukin-6, or immune effector cells including B and T lymphocytes. Their use has been then extended to different forms of uveitis resistant to standard therapy in small uncontrolled trials, with general and unexpected efficacy. The present review analyzes the literature on treatment of uveitis with the biologics currently available for the treatment of inflammatory rheumatic diseases. We used PubMed search engine as the main source of information. Among the papers included in the reference list, a particular emphasis was given on articles published during the last 5 years.
Managing Hospitality Internship Practices: A Conceptual Framework

By challenging the existing paradigms governing hospitality internship practices over the last two decades the paper presents some innovative ideas, in the form of a framework, as to how the practice can be enhanced for the benefit of all stakeholders involved. The framework, which lay its foundation in Kolb's (1984) theory of experiential learning, covers the fundamentals of designing, monitoring, and evaluating students' internship practices, as well as providing an exploration of the theory and rationale of internships as effective educational practices. The proposed framework is of value and has practical implications both for academic scholars, who wish to further investigate the issue, and industry practitioners, since it can serve as a guide for the provision of a pedagogically sound internship experience to the next generation of hospitality professionals.
Depression in South Asian women: Asian women's beliefs on causes and cures

A qualitative, grounded theory approach within a constructivist paradigm is employed to explore perceptions of causes and cures of depression in South Asian women. Ten Asian women suffering from depression and three of their carers were interviewed about their beliefs around the cause of their own and their relative's depression, and the implications of these beliefs for treatment. Findings suggested that understanding their experience of conflicting cultural expectations, distinctions between psychosocial, spiritual, physical health problems and communication problems (general and culture specific) were central to these women's experiences of depression The implications of results for services are discussed and limitations of the study considered in line with criteria developed for constructivist research.
DESIGN STRUCTURES FOR OBJECT-BASED SYSTEMS Jos

Ð A formal notion of design structure is proposed for the modular specification of reactive systems in temporal logic. A design structure consists of a kernel theory that specifies the behaviour of a component, a collection of theories specifying the interfaces via which the component is connected to the other components of the system, and another theory (the body) which connects the interfaces with the kernel. In contrast with previously given structural methods for the connection between reactive systems and temporal logic, which mainly exploit the algebraic structure of system representations, the method proposed here is directly compositional in the module structure of the system. In this setting, different ways of interconnecting design structures are discussed and formalised, including client-server relationships.
Cost effective analysis of web based transmission

This paper examines the techniques for passing information from one web site to another, the methodologies that have been developed and the advances in technology that has occurred in relation to these techniques. This paper then utilises one of these technologies to develop an environment where the major techniques (Polling and Push) can be tested. This paper's research finds that Polling uses substantially more resources than Push, particularly in regard to server usage. In situations where this is an issue the use of Push can reduce server cost by at least a factor of 5 and possibly more in a real world application. The reduction in network cost is more difficult to determine using the tools in this paper but here the indications are that the reduction in cost may be by a factor of 3. Finally this paper presents the view that the techniques are complementary and both should be used within most real world application.
IMPROVED COCKTAIL-PARTY PROCESSING

The human auditory system is able to focus on one speech signal and ignore other speech signals in an auditory scene where several conversations are taking place. This ability of the human auditory system is referred to as the “cocktail-party effect”. This property of human hearing is partly made possible by binaural listening. Interaural time differences (ITDs) and interaural level differences (ILDs) between the ear input signals are the two most important binaural cues for localization of sound sources, i.e. the estimation of source azimuth angles. This paper proposes an implementation of a cocktail-party processor. The proposed cocktail-party processor carries out an auditory scene analysis by estimating the binaural cues corresponding to the directions of the sources. And next, as a function of these cues, suppresses components of signals arriving from non-desired directions, by speech enhancement techniques. The performance of the proposed algorithm is assessed in terms of directionality and speech quality. The proposed algorithm improves existing cocktail-party processors since it combines low computational complexity and efficient source separation. Moreover the advantage of this cocktailparty processor over conventional beam forming is that it enables a highly directional beam over a wide frequency range by using only two microphones.
A new beta-lactam-binding protein derived from penicillin-binding protein 3 of Escherichia coli

In this paper we describe a new beta-lactam-binding protein from the cell envelope of Escherichia coli. It can be detected in cells grown at either 37 or 42 degrees C in medium containing glucose but not in cells grown at 30 degrees C. This novel component has an apparent molecular size that is 2.0 kilodaltons larger than that of penicillin-binding protein 3 and is derived from the latter through a divalent-cation-mediated process probably catalyzed by components located in the periplasmic space. The significance of this protein with regard to regulation of the amount of functional penicillin-binding protein 3 in the cell is discussed.
Early Fusion of Low Level Features for Emotion Mining

We study the discrimination of emotions annotated in free texts at the sentence level: a sentence can either be associated with no emotion (neutral) or multiple labels of emotion. The proposed system relies on three characteristics. We implement an early fusion of grams of increasing orders transposing an approach successfully employed in the related task of opinion mining. We apply a filtering process that consists in extracting frequent n-grams and making use of the Shannon's entropy measure to respectively maintain dictionaries at balanced sizes and keep emotion specific features. Finally the overall system is implemented as a 2-step decision process: a first classifier discriminates between neutral and emotion bearing sentences, then one classifier per emotion is applied on emotion bearing sentences. The final decision is given by the classifier holding the maximum confidence. Results obtained on the testing set are promising.
Secure and Efficient Data-Sharing in Clouds

Cloud storage allows users to access and store data in clouds over the internet, and provides a cheap and reliable solution for users with the demand of data storage. One of the main challenges in public cloud storage is to protect the security of data and to efficiently share data. In the past years, several papers in the literature have used proxy re-encryption (PRE) to address this challenge, where the performance of the underlying PRE scheme is very critical to the overall performance of the cloud storage. In this paper, we dedicate to design a secure and practical PRE scheme, which is CCA secure under the computational Diffie-Hellman (CDH) assumption in the random oracle model. We evaluate the efficiency of our scheme both in theoretical comparisons with related schemes and in implementations at several security levels using the recommended elliptic curve parameters from NIST, and the results indicate that our scheme can be practical in cloud-based data-sharing.
Improving Auto-tagging by Modeling Semantic Co-occurrences

Automatic taggers describe music in terms of a multinomial distribution over relevant semantic concepts. This paper presents a framework for improving automatic tagging of music content by modeling contextual relationships between these semantic concepts. The framework extends existing auto-tagging methods by adding a Dirichlet mixture to model the contextual co-occurrences between semantic multinomials. Experimental results show that adding context improves automatic annotation and retrieval of music and demonstrate that the Dirichlet mixture is an appropriate model for capturing co-occurrences between semantics.
Relationship between Tardive Dyskinesia and psychopathology in a group of schizophrenic patients attending a rehabilitation centre

Twenty‐five of 76 patients suffering from chronic schizophrenia, treated in a rehabilitation centre, were found to have tardive dyskinesia (TD) according to the Tardive Dyskinesia Research Diagnostic Criteria (Schooler and Kane, 1982). Patients suffering from TD achieved significantly higher total scores on two subscales (affective flattening and blunting and avolition‐apathy, respectively) of the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms. On the other hand, positive symptoms assessed by the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale did not distinguish the two groups. Our findings support the idea that patients suffering predominantly from negative symptoms of schizophrenia may have a higher vulnerability for the development of TD than schizophrenic patients showing mainly positive symptoms.
Intracoronary angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibition improves diastolic function in patients with hypertensive left ventricular hypertrophy.

BACKGROUND There is increasing recognition of myocardial angiotensin-converting enzyme, which is induced with the development of left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH). The potential physiological significance of subsequent increased angiotensin I to II conversion in the presence of LVH is unclear but has been postulated to cause abnormal Ca2+ handling and secondary diastolic dysfunction. Accordingly, we hypothesized that acute angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibition would result in decreased production of angiotensin II and improved active (Ca(2+)-dependent) relaxation in patients with hypertensive LVH. METHODS AND RESULTS Intracoronary (IC) enalaprilat was administered to 25 patients with and without LVH secondary to essential hypertension. Indexes of diastolic and systolic LV function were determined from pressure (micromanometer)-volume (conductance) analysis at steady state and with occlusion of the inferior vena cava. Patients were divided into those receiving high- (5.0 mg, n = 15) and low-dose (1.5 mg, n = 10) IC enalaprilat during a 30-minute infusion at 1 mL/min. The high-dose patients were further divided along the median normalized LV wall thickness of 0.671 cm/m2. The time constant of isovolumic relaxation (TauL) was prolonged at baseline in patients receiving high-dose enalaprilat with wall thickness > 0.671 cm/m2 (TauL, 56 +/- 2 versus 44 +/- 2 and 45 +/- 2 milliseconds, respectively, P < .01 by ANOVA) and shortened only in this patient group (TauL, 49 +/- 3 versus 46 +/- 2 and 43 +/- 2 milliseconds, respectively, P < .01 versus baseline and other groups by ANOVA). The improvement in TauL was directly proportional to the degree of LVH (r = .92, P < .001). Although there was a decrease in LV end-diastolic pressure (23 +/- 2 to 15 +/- 1 mm Hg, P < .01) and volume (86 +/- 8 to 67 +/- 9 mL/m2, P < .05) in those patients with a reduction in TauL, this is due to movement down a similar diastolic pressure-volume relation with no change in chamber elastic stiffness (0.023 +/- 0.002 to 0.025 +/- 0.004 mL-1, P = NS). CONCLUSIONS Intracoronary enalaprilat resulted in an improvement in active (Ca(2+)-dependent) relaxation in those patients with more severe hypertensive LVH. The improvement in active relaxation was directly proportional to the severity of LVH. These results support the hypothesis that the cardiac renin-angiotensin system is an important determinant of active diastolic function in hypertensive LVH.
Biopolítica y Reservas de la Biosfera: espacios de (in) movilidad y conflicto. Una mirada etnográfica

This paper uses the concept of sites of contentious (im)mobility to highlight the centrality of mobility for bio-politics. The article draws ethnographic evidence from the study of conservation and ecotourism practices in the Biosphere Reserve of Ria Celestun (Yucatan, Mexico). Through the ethnographic attention to two disputes, the article shows how the biopolitical project associated to the conservation of biodiversity and the development of nature tourism has transformed the ria and the beach into two spaces of contentious immobility in which global flows (of people, capital and labour) are condensed and in which specific groups fight to stay still. In so doing, these groups use the global referents of biodiversity for their own local interests.
Feasibility and Consequences of Response to Intervention

This paper provides a response to the thoughtful paper presented by Gerber in this issue and at the National Research Center on Learning Disabilities Responsiveness-to-Intervention Symposium in Kansas City with guidance from five major questions posed by the organizers of the symposium. Gerber's paper provides interesting perspectives regarding the alternative approach to identification of learning disabilities (LD) or the “response to intervention” (RTI). Gerber raises questions and concerns about the theoretical and practical aspects of a response-to-intervention model on either a small- or large-scale basis. Guiding questions for this response include an examination of (a) changing roles of teachers and diagnosticians; (b) responsibility for fidelity of treatment implementation; (c) applications in secondary settings; (d) consistency of implementation from local to state to national levels; and (e) differentiation of LD from other disabilities. An alternative to both RTI and present procedures is proposed. Conclusions are discussed with respect to existing researchbased evidence.
Prevalence of pulmonary hypertension in systemic sclerosis.

OBJECTIVE To assess the prevalence of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) in patients with the diagnosis of systemic sclerosis (SSc) followed at a tertiary university service. MATERIAL AND METHODS Fifty-seven patients with SSc were studied by clinical assessment directed at the cardiopulmonary system, pulmonary function tests and Doppler echocardiography (ECHO). The following criteria were considered for the diagnosis of PAH: pulmonary artery systolic pressure (PASP) > or = 40 mmHg and/or the presence of other direct and indirect signs of PAH detected upon ECHO. RESULTS Sixteen patients (28%) were diagnosed with PAH upon ECHO, 13 based on PASP > or = 40 mmHg and 3 based on direct and indirect signs of PAH; 8 patients had isolated PAH and 8 had PAH secondary to pulmonary fibrosis. Nine patients showed signs suggestive of cor pulmonale upon ECHO; among these patients, 6 had pressure recordings > or = 40 mmHg and 3 had a PSAP between 35 and 40 mmHg; one patient was asymptomatic and 8 showed signs suggestive of PAH upon clinical examination. Among the clinical and laboratory variables studied, a correlation was only observed between PAH and an elevated erythrocyte sedimentation rate (p = 0.004). CONCLUSIONS The prevalence of PAH associated with SSc observed in this study was similar to those reported in the literature. However, the cut-off of PSAP measured by ECHO and used for the diagnosis of PAH associated with SSc needs to be revised.
Immune complex deposition in the choroid plexus of patients with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome

We identified immune complex deposits in the choroid plexus of approximately 75% of patients with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) who had either normal brains or human immunodeficiency virus encephalitis. Since circulating immune complexes are common in AIDS patients, and since local choroid plexus pathology usually was absent, their likely origin is from the bloodstream. Choroid plexus deposits of immune complexes have been implicated in altering the function of this structure or in enhancing its vulnerability to infection. Therefore, immune complex deposition in the choroid plexus of AIDS patients may be responsible for some of the common alterations in the cerebrospinal fluid and for the frequency of opportunistic infections in this region.
Identification of Legionella pneumophila genes required for growth within and killing of human macrophages

Legionella pneumophila was mutagenized with Tn903dIIlacZ, and a collection of mutants was screened for defects in macrophage killing (Mak-). Of 4,564 independently derived mutants, 55 (1.2%) showed a reduced or complete lack in the ability to kill HL-60-derived human macrophages. Forty-nine of the Mak- mutants could be assigned to one of 16 DNA hybridization groups. Only one group (9 of the 10 members) could be complemented for macrophage killing by a DNA fragment containing icm and dot, two recently described L. pneumophila loci that are required for macrophage killing. Phenotypic analysis showed that none of the mutants were any more sensitive than the wild type to human serum, oxidants, iron chelators, or lipophilic reagents nor did they require additional nutrients for growth. The only obvious difference between the Mak-mutants and wild-type L. pneumophila was that almost all of the Mak- mutants were resistant to NaCl. The effects of LiCl paralleled the effects of NaCl but were less pronounced. Resistance to salt and the inability to kill human macrophages are linked since both phenotypes appeared when Tn903dIIlacZ mutations from two Mak- strains were transferred to wild-type backgrounds. However, salt sensitivity is not a requisite for killing macrophages since a group of Mak- mutants containing a plasmid that restored macrophage killing remained resistant to NaCl. Mak- mutants from groups I through IX associated with HL-60 cells similarly to wild-type L. pneumophila. However, like the intracellular-multiplication-defective (icm) mutant 25D, the Mak- mutants were unable to multiply within macrophages. Thus, the ability of L. pneumophila to kill macrophages seems to be determined by many genetic loci, almost all of which are associated with sensitivity to NaCl.
Functional Dissection of a Poliovirus cis-Acting Replication Element [PV-cre(2C)]: Analysis of Single- and Dual-cre Viral Genomes and Proteins That Bind Specifically to PV-cre RNA

ABSTRACT The role of the cis replication element (cre) in the 2CATPase coding region of the poliovirus (PV) genome has been studied with a series of mutants derived from either a PV1 full-length genome or a replicon (P/L) containing the firefly luciferase reporter gene in place of the capsid region. Using the P/L replicon we have inserted cre elements at three different locations in the genome including the 5′ nontranslated region and within the open reading frame. The successful recovery of replication of a nonviable P/L (A5C) mutant replicon with an artificial cre element as “rescuer,” in addition to the results of site-directed mutagenesis and experiments with truncated forms of PV-cre(2C), indicated that (i) the sequence within the upper stem and loop regions contains the minimal cre RNA required for VPg uridylylation in vitro, (ii) the location of the cre RNA in the poliovirus genome is not relevant to RNA infectivity, and (iii) specific binding of 3CDpro to PV-cre(2C) occurs within the upper stem region and probably involves several contact residues. The role of a 14-nucleotide conserved “core” sequence among known cre structures in picornaviruses was examined by site-directed mutagenesis of individual nucleotides. In addition to a conserved AAA (4472 to 4474) triplet previously shown to be the primary RNA template for VPg uridylylation by the PV RNA polymerase 3Dpol (E. Rieder, A. V. Paul, D. W. Kim, J. H. van Boom, and E. Wimmer, J. Virol. 74:10371-10380, 2000), we have now shown that important residues (G4468 and A4481) are contained in a predicted internal bulge at the upper stem-loop of PV-cre(2C). We have further demonstrated that the viral proteins 3CDpro and 3Cpro form stable complexes with a transcript PV-cre(2C) RNA that can be considered critical for VPg uridylylation.
ISOP DC-DC converters equipped 5-level unidirectional T-Rectifier for aerospace applications

This paper deals with Input-Series Output-Parallel (ISOP) DC-DC converters to be used for capacitors voltage balancing in the 5-level unidirectional T-Rectifier for electric generating applications. The proposed generating unit is intended for aerospace applications, to this purpose the power electronic converter configuration is able to supply power to the electric loads at different voltage levels. The 5 level T-Rectifier output at ±270V feeds the ISOP DC-DC converters which output terminals are used to supply the 28V circuitry. Two different control strategies for the whole system are proposed, discussed and verified. First proposed architecture considers the AC-DC and DC-DC as coupled from the control point of view, introducing then the Couple Balancing Control Strategy (CBCS). A comparison is performed with respect to a completely decoupled regulation algorithm, where the AC-DC and DC-DC control loops are not nested, resulting in the Decoupled Balancing Control Strategy (DBCS).