Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sex- and age-dependent human transcriptome variability: Implications for chronic heart failure

Heart failure (HF) is the end result of progressive and diverse biological adaptations within the diseased myocardium. We used cDNA microarrays and quantitative PCR to examine the transcriptomes of 38 left ventricles from failing and nonfailing human myocardium. After identification of a pool of putative HF-responsive candidate genes by microarrays on seven nonfailing and eight failing hearts, we used quantitative PCR and a general linear statistical model in a larger sample set (n = 34) to validate and examine the role of contributing biological variables (age and sex). We find that most HF-candidate genes (transcription factors, Cebpb, Npat; signaling molecules, Map2k3, Map4k5; extracellular matrix proteins, Lum, Cola1; and metabolic enzymes, Mars) demonstrated significant changes in gene expression; however, the majority of differences among samples depended on variables such as sex and age, and not on HF alone. Some HF-responsive gene products also demonstrated highly significant changes in expression as a function of age and/or sex, but independent of HF (Ngp1, Cd163, and Npat). These results emphasize the need to account for biological variables (HF, sex and age interactions) to elucidate genomic correlates that trigger molecular pathways responsible for the progression of HF syndromes.
Sequential hemodynamic change in hepatocellular carcinoma and dysplastic nodules: CT angiography and pathologic correlation.

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to clarify the hemodynamic changes associated with hepatocarcinogenesis using CT angiography. MATERIALS AND METHODS Eighty-six hepatocellular lesions were confirmed at pathology in 49 patients who underwent CT with both hepatic arteriography and arterioportography. These images were compared with lesion-to-liver vascular ratios of cumulative arteries, preexisting hepatic arteries, and portal veins in resected specimens. Lesions were classified in five groups according to intranodular hemodynamics determined by CT hepatic arteriography and CT during arterioportography: group 1, isoattenuating on both procedures; group 2, hypoattenuating on CT hepatic arteriography and isoattenuating on CT during arterioportography; group 3, hypoattenuating on both procedures; group 4, isoattenuating on CT hepatic arteriography and hypoattenuating on CT during arterioportography; and group 5, hyperattenuating on CT hepatic arteriography and hypoattenuating on CT during arterioportography. RESULTS Among 86 lesions, we identified seven low-grade dysplastic nodules, eight high-grade dysplastic nodules, 14 well-differentiated hepatocellular carcinomas, 45 moderately differentiated hepatocellular carcinomas, and 12 poorly differentiated hepatocellular carcinomas. The lesions were classified as group 1 (n = 5), group 2 (n = 13), group 3 (n = 6), group 4 (n = 2), or group 5 (n = 60). Intranodular hemodynamics was significantly correlated with pathologic grading (p < 0.001). For correlations between combinations of the groups and pathologic gradings, the order "groups 1-2-3-4-5" was the most significant (p < 0.001). CONCLUSION During hepatocarcinogenesis, most hepatocellular nodules show deterioration of arterial blood flow before loss of portal blood flow. Vascular imaging of hepatic nodules may predict malignant abnormality via the early loss of hepatic arterial flow seen before portal flow changes.
Roles in building web applications using Java

In this paper we apply the powerJava model of roles and relationships to a web application programming environment. First we show how the notion of role, as defined in powerJava, combines and automates several aspects which are important in web application programming, and which are now unrelated and dealt with separately and mostly by hand, and thus prone to errors. Second we show how from the powerJava code a web application can be automatically constructed using Struts and Spring.
Generation of superset of perfect complementary codes for next generation CDMA systems

This paper introduces an algebraic approach to generate super-set of perfect complementary (PC) codes suitable for interference-free CDMA applications. The approach takes into account major impairing factors in real applications, such as MAI, multipath interference, asynchronous up-link transmissions and random signs in consecutive symbols. Two important conclusions are drawn by the analysis given in this paper. First, implementation of an interference-free CDMA is never possible unless using some properly selected complementary code sets, such as the PC code sets proposed in this paper. Second, to enable interference-free CDMA operation, the flock size of the PC codes must be made equal to their set size. An implementation scheme of a CDMA system based on the PC codes is presented and its performance is compared with traditional CDMA systems by simulations, whose results show that the proposed new CDMA architecture offers a performance limited only by noise.
New Developments in Voice Biometrics for User Authentication

Voice biometrics for user authentication is a task in which the object is to perform convenient, robust and secure authentication of speakers. In this work we investigate the use of state-of-the-art text-independent and text-dependent speaker verification technology for user authentication. We evaluate four different authentication conditions: speaker specific digit stings, global digit strings, prompted digit strings, and text-independent. Harnessing the characteristics of the different types of conditions can provide benefits such as authentication transparent to the user (convenience), spoofing robustness (security) and improved accuracy (reliability). The systems were evaluated on a corpus collected by Wells Fargo Bank which consists of 750 speakers. We show how to adapt techniques such as joint factor analysis (JFA), Gaussian mixture models with nuisance attribute projection (GMM-NAP) and hidden Markov models with NAP (HMM-NAP) to obtain improved results for new authentication scenarios and environments.
The Excess Co-Movement of Commodity Prices

This paper tests and confirms the existence of a puzzling phenomenon - the prices of largely unrelated raw commodities have a persistent tendency to move together. We show that this comovement of prices is well in excess of anything that can be explained by the common effects of past, current, or expected future values of macroeconomic variables such as inflation, industrial production, interest rates, and exchange rates. These results are a rejection of the standard competitive model of commodity price formation with storage.
Content-based music indexing and organization

While electronic music archives are gaining popularity, access to and navigation within these archives is usually limited to text-based queries or manually predefined genre category browsing. We present a system that automatically organizes a music collection according to the perceived sound similarity resembling genres or styles of music. Audio signals are processed according to psychoacoustic models to obtain a time-invariant representation of its characteristics. Subsequent clustering provides an intuitive interface where similar pieces of music are grouped together on a map display.
Poster: An Open-Source IPv6 over BLE Stack for Contiki

Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) has gained increasing popularity over the past years because of its energy efficiency, reliability under interference, and wide adoption in consumer devices such as smartphones, tablets, and wearables. In 2015, the IETF formalized the RFC 7668 standard that defines how BLE connections can be used to exchange IPv6 packets, practically allowing any BLE device to seamlessly connect to the Internet of Things. To date, however, very few open-source implementations of this standard are available to the research community. To fill this gap, in this poster we introduce ContikiBLE , the first fully open-source IPv6 over BLE communication stack for the Contiki operating system, and present an evaluation of its main features using off-the-shelf TI CC2650 SensorTag wireless sensor nodes.
Modelling Judicial Context in Argumentation Frameworks

Much work using argumentation frameworks treats arguments as entirely abstract, related by a uniform attack relation which always succeeds unless the attacker can itself be defeated. However, this does not seem adequate for legal argumentation. Some proposals have suggested regulating attack relations using preferences or values on arguments and which filter the attack relation, so that some attacks fail and so can be removed from the framework. This does not, however, capture a central feature of legal reasoning: how a decision with respect to the same facts and legal reasoning varies as the judicial context varies. Nor does it capture related context dependent features of legal reasoning, such as how an audience can prefer or value an argument, yet be constrained by precedent or authority not to accept it. Nor does it explain how certain types of attack may not be allowed in a particular procedural context. For this reason, evaluation of the status of arguments within a given framework must be allowed to depend not only on the attack relations along with the preference or value of arguments, but also on the nature of the attacks and the context in which they are made. We present a means to represent these features, enabling us to account for a number of factors currently considered to be beyond the remit of formal argumentation frameworks. We give three examples of the use of approach: appealing a case, overruling a precedent, and rehearing of a case as a civil rather than criminal proceeding.
miR‐495 sensitizes MDR cancer cells to the combination of doxorubicin and taxol by inhibiting MDR1 expression

MDR1 is highly expressed in MDR A2780DX5 ovarian cancer cells, MDR SGC7901R gastric cancer cells and recurrent tumours. It pumps cytoplasmic agents out of cells, leading to decreased drug accumulation in cells and making cancer cells susceptible to multidrug resistance. Here, we identified that miR‐495 was predicted to target ABCB1, which encodes protein MDR1. To reduce the drug efflux and reverse MDR in cancer cells, we overexpressed a miR‐495 mimic in SGC7901R and A2780DX cells and in transplanted MDR ovarian tumours in vivo. The results indicated that the expression of MDR1 in the above cells or tumours was suppressed and that subsequently the drug accumulation in the MDR cells was decreased, cell death was increased, and tumour growth was inhibited after treatment with taxol‐doxorubicin, demonstrating increased drug sensitivity. This study suggests that pre‐treatment with miR‐495 before chemotherapy could improve the curative effect on MDR1‐based MDR cancer.
Assessing IPv 6 Adoption

On February 3, 2011 the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) allocated the last unallocated blocks of IPv4 address space to the five Regional Internet Registries (RIRs). While many solutions that tackle the problem of address scarcity have been proposed (e.g. address markets), the predominant opinion is that networks will eventually adopt the new Internet Protocol, IPv6. As a result, the Internet is on the verge of its first fundamentally disruptive transition–one which will impose extensive change throughout the network. This inflection point offers a unique opportunity to measure the adoption of new technologies at an unprecedented scale. In this paper, we tackle the problem of measuring this significant transition by first providing a framework to assess the complex ecosystem that underlies IPv6 adoption. We then provide the largest and most comprehensive snapshot of this evolution to date.
Medical or surgical abortion and psychiatric outcomes

Aim. The objectives of this study are to compare the risk of psychological depression after medical and surgical abortions in first two trimesters and to evaluate the risk factors for post-abortion depression. Method. A retrospective study was conducted throughout 367 women who underwent surgical abortion and 458 women who underwent medical abortion between January 2006 and January 2007 in Dr. Zekai Tahir Burak Women's Health Hospital. Women were assessed by clinical psychologists one week after the intervention. The clinical characteristics and psychological assessment of these women were statistically correlated by means of non-parametric tests. Results. Of the study population, 27.1% was diagnosed with post-abortion depression. The frequency of post-abortion depression was 34.3% in surgical abortion patients and 22.8% in medical abortion patients. The women who underwent surgical abortion were found to have significantly elevated risk of post-abortion depression. The women with a high risk of post-abortion depression were significantly younger and had a more frequent history of psychiatric and depressive disorders. Conclusion. An important quotient of women experiences post-abortion mood depression which is significantly more frequent after surgical abortion. Women with past psychiatric and anxiety disorders should be carefully monitored for depression when they would undergo an abortion.
Continuing increase in incidence of germ‐cell testis cancer in young adults: Experience from Connecticut, USA, 1935–1992

The current study is designed to examine long‐term trends by histologic types of testis cancer in Connecticut. A regression model was used to identify age, period, or cohort as determinants of the time‐trend on histologic types of testis cancer. The results from this descriptive epidemiologic study show that the overall age‐adjusted incidence rate of testis cancer has increased 3.5‐fold in Connecticut during the past nearly 60 years of cancer registration. The rates for seminoma and nonseminoma have been increasing since the mid‐1950s and increase in a similar manner for those aged 15 to 49. The largest increase was observed in the age groups 20 to 44 for seminoma and 15 to 34 for non‐seminoma. The observed increase was limited to whites. The results from age‐period‐cohort modeling suggest that the observed increase in seminoma before 1950s could be largely attributable to a period effect, while the increase for cohorts born after about 1910 both for seminoma and for non‐seminoma are mainly explained by a strong birth‐cohort effect. Therefore, the observed increase in germ‐cell testis cancer in this population is likely to continue in the coming years. Thus far, the proposed hypotheses, such as exposure to DES in utero, earlier lifetime exposures to viruses, trauma or unusual amounts of heat to the testis, cannot adequately explain the observed incidence patterns of testis cancer. Analytical epidemiologic studies with large sample size are urgently needed to examine the risk factors responsible for the increase. © 1996 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Cultural tourism: the state and perspectives of development in the Republic of Croatia

Rad opisuje situaciju kulturnog turizma u Hrvatskoj. Iznosi pregled stanja hrvatskog turizma odnosno kulture. Fokus clanka je na problemima hrvatskog kulturno-turistickog sektora koji su posebno objasnjeni pružajuci jasnu sliku sektora. Kratko su predstavljeni glavni strateski dokumenti i institucije kulturnog turizma, a analizirana je i uloga države u hrvatskom kulturnom turizmu. Predstavljeni su neki rezultati analize te predložena moguca rjesenja problema tog interdisciplinarnog sektora.
Isolation from Cattle of a Prion Strain Distinct from That Causing Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy

To date, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and its human counterpart, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, have been associated with a single prion strain. This strain is characterised by a unique and remarkably stable biochemical profile of abnormal protease-resistant prion protein (PrPres) isolated from brains of affected animals or humans. However, alternate PrPres signatures in cattle have recently been discovered through large-scale screening. To test whether these also represent separate prion strains, we inoculated French cattle isolates characterised by a PrPres of higher apparent molecular mass—called H-type—into transgenic mice expressing bovine or ovine PrP. All mice developed neurological symptoms and succumbed to these isolates, showing that these represent a novel strain of infectious prions. Importantly, this agent exhibited strain-specific features clearly distinct from that of BSE agent inoculated to the same mice, which were retained on further passage. Moreover, it also differed from all sheep scrapie isolates passaged so far in ovine PrP-expressing mice. Our findings therefore raise the possibility that either various prion strains may exist in cattle, or that the BSE agent has undergone divergent evolution in some animals.
Context-aware role mining for mobile service recommendation

Finding and recommending suitable services for mobile users are increasingly important due to the popularity of mobile Internet. While recent research has attempted to use role-based approaches to recommend services, role discovery is still an ongoing research topic. In particular, numerous role mining approaches have been proposed in the context of RBAC (Role-Based Access Control) in which only two dimensions of parameters are considered (i.e., <user, permission>); and the notion of context-awareness has been disregarded. This paper proposes a context-aware role mining method to automatically group users according to their interests and habits, such that popular mobile services can be recommended to other members in the same group in a context dependent manner. Experiments show that our approach is efficient and practical for mobile service recommendation.
Bridging User Organizations: Knowledge Brokering and the Work of Information Technology Professionals

This interpretive case study examines knowledge brokering as an aspect of the work of information technology professionals. The purpose of this exploratory study is to understand knowledge brokering from the perspective of IT professionals as they reflect upon their work practice. As knowledge brokers, IT professionals see themselves as facilitating the flow of knowledge about both IT and business practices across the boundaries that separate work units within organizations. A qualitative analysis of interviews conducted with 23 IT professionals and business users in a large manufacturing and distribution company is summarized in a conceptual framework showing the conditions, practices, and consequences of knowledge brokering by IT professionals. The framework suggests that brokering practices are conditioned by structural conditions, including decentralization and a federated IT management organization, and by technical conditions, specifically shared IT systems that serve as boundary objects. Brokering practices include gaining permission to cross organizational boundaries, surfacing and challenging assumptions made by IT users, translation and interpretation, and relinquishing ownership of knowledge. Consequences of brokering are the transfer of both business and IT knowledge across units in the organization.
Clinical and Molecular Epidemiology of Human Rhinovirus C in Children and Adults in Hong Kong Reveals a Possible Distinct Human Rhinovirus C Subgroup

Abstract BackgroundA novel human rhinovirus (HRV) species, HRV-C, was recently discovered, but its clinical features and epidemiology, compared with HRV-A and HRV-B, remains poorly understood, especially in adults MethodsOne thousand two hundred nasopharyngeal aspirate samples obtained from hospitalized children and adults during a 1-year period were subject to reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction to detect HRV. The clinical and molecular epidemiology of the 3 HRV species was analyzed ResultsHRVs were detected in 178 (29.7%) of 600 nasopharyngeal aspirate samples from children and 42 (7%) of 600 nasopharyngeal aspirate samples from adults. HRV-A was most prevalent (n=111), followed by HRV-C (n=91) and HRV-B (n=18). Although upper respiratory tract infection was the most common presentation in children, 8 (62%) of the 13 adults with HRV-C infection had pneumonia, compared with 6 (27%) of the 22 adults with HRV-A infection (P<.05). Wheezing episodes were also more common among individuals with HRV-C (37%) and HRV-A (20%) infection than among those with HRV-B (0%) infection (P<.05). Clinical and molecular data analysis revealed HRV-C as a frequent cause of community and institutionalized outbreaks. A diverse set of HRV-C genotypes was circulating throughout the year, among which a potential distinct subgroup of strains was observed ConclusionHRV-C is associated with pneumonia in adults and outbreaks of respiratory infections requiring hospitalization. A potential novel HRV-C subgroup was identified
Constructing arabinofuranosidases for dual arabinoxylan debranching activity

Enzymatic conversion of arabinoxylan requires α‐L‐arabinofuranosidases able to remove α‐L‐arabinofuranosyl residues (α‐L‐Araf) from both mono‐ and double‐substituted D‐xylopyranosyl residues (Xylp) in xylan (i.e., AXH‐m and AXH‐d activity). Herein, SthAbf62A (a family GH62 α‐L‐arabinofuranosidase with AXH‐m activity) and BadAbf43A (a family GH43 α‐L‐arabinofuranosidase with AXH‐d3 activity), were fused to create SthAbf62A_BadAbf43A and BadAbf43A_SthAbf62A. Both fusion enzymes displayed dual AXH‐m,d and synergistic activity toward native, highly branched wheat arabinoxylan (WAX). When using a customized arabinoxylan substrate comprising mainly α‐(1 → 3)‐L‐Araf and α‐(1 → 2)‐L‐Araf substituents attached to disubstituted Xylp (d‐2,3‐WAX), the specific activity of the fusion enzymes was twice that of enzymes added as separate proteins. Moreover, the SthAbf62A_BadAbf43A fusion removed 83% of all α‐L‐Araf from WAX after a 20 hr treatment. 1H NMR analyses further revealed differences in SthAbf62A_BadAbf43 rate of removal of specific α‐L‐Araf substituents from WAX, where 9.4 times higher activity was observed toward d‐α‐(1 → 3)‐L‐Araf compared to m‐α‐(1 → 3)‐L‐Araf positions.
Coalitional Games in Partition Form for Joint Spectrum Sensing and Access in Cognitive Radio Networks

Unlicensed secondary users (SUs) in cognitive radio networks are subject to an inherent tradeoff between spectrum sensing and spectrum access. Although each SU has an incentive to sense the primary user (PU) channels for locating spectrum holes, this exploration of the spectrum can come at the expense of a shorter transmission time, and, hence, a possibly smaller capacity for data transmission. This paper investigates the impact of this tradeoff on the cooperative strategies of a network of SUs that seek to cooperate in order to improve their view of the spectrum (sensing), reduce the possibility of interference among each other, and improve their transmission capacity (access). The problem is modeled as a coalitional game in partition form and an algorithm for coalition formation is proposed. Using the proposed algorithm, the SUs can make individual distributed decisions to join or leave a coalition while maximizing their utilities which capture the average time spent for sensing as well as the capacity achieved while accessing the spectrum. It is shown that, by using the proposed algorithm, the SUs can self-organize into a network partition composed of disjoint coalitions, with the members of each coalition cooperating to jointly optimize their sensing and access performance. Simulation results show the performance improvement that the proposed algorithm yields with respect to the noncooperative case. The results also show how the algorithm allows the SUs to self-adapt to changes in the environment such as changes in the traffic of the PUs, or slow mobility.
CHALLENGES FOR PARALLEL I/O IN GRID COMPUTING

GRID computing uses heterogeneous resources to solve large-scale computational problems. With increasing dataset sizes in data-intensive GRID applications reaching terabytes and even petabytes, high-performance I/O is emerging as an important research area. We discuss much of the current status of research in GRID I/O. We also describe our research ideas for handling noncontiguous I/O access, consistency, caching, fault-tolerance and improved performance.