Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in metastatic breast cancer (MBC): prognosis, drug resistance and phenotypic characterization.

BACKGROUND the expression of ATP-binding cassette transporters on circulating tumor cells (CTCs) is predictive of response to chemotherapy in cancer patients. We tested the hypothesis that drug-resistant CTCs might have predictive value in metastatic breast cancer (MBC) and possibly retain stem-like properties. PATIENTS AND METHODS CTCs obtained from 42 MBC patients were evaluated for multidrug-resistance-related proteins (MRPs), aldehyde dehydrogenase 1 (ALDH1), estrogen receptor α (ERα) and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2/neu). Primary objective was to evaluate the prognostic and predictive value of CTCs profile. Secondary end points were the level of concordance in ERα and HER2/neu status between primary tumors and CTCs and the correlation in CTCs between ALDH1, drug resistance profile and number of MRPs. RESULTS A difference in progression-free survival (PFS) was found between CTCs-positive and CTCs-negative patients. PFS was shorter in patients with a 'drug resistance' CTCs profile and in patients whose CTCs expressed two or more MRPs. No correlation was found between tumor characteristics and ALDH1. ALDH1 correlated to negative ERα and positive HER2/neu status in CTCs. The correlation between the number of MRPs expressed in CTCs and ALDH1 was statistically significant. CONCLUSION in MBC, the presence of CTCs expressing MRPs and ALDH1 is predictive of response to chemotherapy.
Ant mobility model platform for network simulator

Various ad hoc routing algorithms were proposed to increase the performance in ad hoc network. In order to estimate the performance of routing algorithms, they always simulate in ad hoc network environment, and a mobility model is also used for network simulation. There are two types of mobility models: trace and synthetic models. Trace models are more accurate than synthetic ones, and their simulation results are more accurate, too. However, new routing network environments are not easily modeled if traces have not yet been created. That is why most of the simulations are based on synthetic models. We implement, a tool for generating a special trace model, called ant mobility model. We mimic the ants' movements of an ant colony. The movement is similar to the workers in a store. We focus on the integration between the ant mobility model and the network environment. When users setup the parameters for generating an ant mobility model, the generated model can be used directly in the network environment. In order to illustrate the feasibility of ant mobility model, it is compared with the random waypoint mobility model based on the same routing algorithm, AODV, by using NS-2 simulator. Three major performance metrics, throughput, network latency, and control overhead message, are estimated. As we expected, these three metrics of the ant mobility model are better than that of the random waypoint mobility model. We suggest that a trace model, like ant mobility model, should be integrated quickly with the network environment in the same way.
Classifying rangeland vegetation type and coverage from NDVI time series using Fourier Filtered Cycle Similarity

We present a method for a supervised classification of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) time series that identifies vegetation type and vegetation coverage, absolute in %coverage or relative to a reference NDVI cycle. The shape of the NDVI cycle, which is diagnostic for certain vegetation types, is our primary classifier. A Discrete Fourier Filter is applied to time series data in order to minimize the influence of high‐frequency noise on class assignments. Similarity between filtered NDVI cycles is evaluated using a linear regression technique. The correlation coefficients calculated between the Fourier filtered reference cycle and likewise filtered target cycles describe the similarity of their phenology, and the corresponding regression coefficients are an expression of coverage relative to the reference. The regression coefficients are correlated with field measured vegetation coverage. The Fourier Filtered Cycle Similarity method (FFCS) compensates phenological shifts, which are typical in areas with a strong climate gradient, and prevents the break‐up of classes of identical vegetation types on the basis of vegetation coverage. Some other advantages compared to traditional unsupervised classifications are: synoptic visualization of vegetation type and coverage variation, independence from scene statistics, and consistent classification of biophysical characteristics only, without rock/soil reflectance dominating class assignment as it often does in unsupervised classifications of sparsely vegetated areas. Using the FFCS classification we differentiated a total of five rangeland vegetation types for the area of Syria including their intra‐class coverage variation. Classified classes are dominated by one of two shrub types, one of two annual grass types or a bare soil/sparsely vegetated type.
Cover Cropping Alters the Diet of Arthropods in a Banana Plantation: A Metabarcoding Approach

Plant diversification using cover crops may promote natural regulation of agricultural pests by supporting alternative prey that enable the increase of arthropod predator densities. However, the changes in the specific composition of predator diet induced by cover cropping are poorly understood. Here, we hypothesized that the cover crop can significantly alter the diet of predators in agroecosystems. The cover crop Brachiaria decumbens is increasingly used in banana plantations to control weeds and improve physical soil properties. In this paper, we used a DNA metabarcoding approach for the molecular analysis of the gut contents of predators (based on mini-COI) to identify 1) the DNA sequences of their prey, 2) the predators of Cosmopolites sordidus (a major pest of banana crops), and 3) the difference in the specific composition of predator diets between a bare soil plot (BSP) and a cover cropped plot (CCP) in a banana plantation. The earwig Euborellia caraibea, the carpenter ant Camponotus sexguttatus, and the fire ant Solenopsis geminata were found to contain C. sordidus DNA at frequencies ranging from 1 to 7%. While the frequencies of predators positive for C. sordidus DNA did not significantly differ between BSP and CCP, the frequency at which E. caraibea was positive for Diptera was 26% in BSP and 80% in CCP; the frequency at which C. sexguttatus was positive for Jalysus spinosus was 14% in BSP and 0% in CCP; and the frequency at which S. geminata was positive for Polytus mellerborgi was 21% in BSP and 3% in CCP. E. caraibea, C. sexguttatus and S. geminata were identified as possible biological agents for the regulation of C. sordidus. The detection of the diet changes of these predators when a cover crop is planted indicates the possible negative effects on pest regulation if predators switch to forage on alternative prey.
TraceLab: An experimental workbench for equipping researchers to innovate, synthesize, and comparatively evaluate traceability solutions

TraceLab is designed to empower future traceability research, through facilitating innovation and creativity, increasing collaboration between researchers, decreasing the startup costs and effort of new traceability research projects, and fostering technology transfer. To this end, it provides an experimental environment in which researchers can design and execute experiments in TraceLab's visual modeling environment using a library of reusable and user-defined components. TraceLab fosters research competitions by allowing researchers or industrial sponsors to launch research contests intended to focus attention on compelling traceability challenges. Contests are centered around specific traceability tasks, performed on publicly available datasets, and are evaluated using standard metrics incorporated into reusable TraceLab components. TraceLab has been released in beta-test mode to researchers at seven universities, and will be publicly released via CoEST.org in the summer of 2012. Furthermore, by late 2012 TraceLab's source code will be released as open source software, licensed under GPL. TraceLab currently runs on Windows but is designed with cross platforming issues in mind to allow easy ports to Unix and Mac environments.
Augmented-View for Restricted Visual Field: Multiple Device Implementations

Purpose. An augmented-view device for patients with severely restricted peripheral visual fields (tunnel vision) was proposed, combining a see-through head-mounted display and a simultaneous minified view of a wide field presented as contour information. Here we create and evaluate multiple implementations of the augmented-view concept and report responses from potential users. Methods. Several prototypes using commercial off-the-shelf devices were implemented. Then they were evaluated in real environments in daylight and at night by two retinitis pigmentosa patients. Results. Effective expansion of the visual field of patients was achieved. Patients indicated their preferences for different properties, devices, and combinations. Conclusions. Patients found the augmented-view concept of help for their impairment, but wanted much more ergonomic design than the prototypes provided. Benefits, limitations, and possible improvements for the evaluated devices are discussed
Metronomic Gemcitabine in Combination with Sunitinib Inhibits Multisite Metastasis and Increases Survival in an Orthotopic Model of Pancreatic Cancer

Metronomic chemotherapy suppresses growth of primary tumors and established metastases. However, its effect on metastatic progression is essentially unknown. We report the treatment of a metastatically competent model of pancreatic cancer with metronomic gemcitabine and sunitinib. Mice with orthotopic, red fluorescent protein-expressing, pancreatic cancer tumorgrafts were treated with gemcitabine on a metronomic (1 mg/kg daily, METG) or maximum tolerated dose (150 mg/kg twice weekly, MTDG) schedule with or without sunitinib (SU). Rates of primary tumor growth, metastasis, ascites, and survival were calculated. Gemcitabine at a daily dose of 2 mg or greater led to toxicity within 1 month in mice without tumors but METG at 1 mg/kg/d was well tolerated. Mice with pancreatic cancer tumorgrafts died with metastatic disease at a median of 25 days. METG/SU significantly prolonged median overall survival (44 days) compared with control or either regimen alone (P < 0.05). Primary tumor growth was inhibited by METG/SU (P = 0.03) but neither METG nor sunitinib alone. In contrast, treatment with METG suppressed metastasis at multiple sites, an effect enhanced by sunitinib. MTDG with or without sunitinib had the most favorable effect on primary tumor growth and survival, but its antimetastatic efficacy was similar to that of METG/SU. von Willebrand factor expression was inhibited by METG. Antimetastatic activity approaching that of MTDG is achieved with a total dose reduced 42 times using METG and is further enhanced by sunitinib. Our results suggest the potential of this therapeutic paradigm against pancreatic cancer in the adjuvant and maintenance settings. Mol Cancer Ther; 9(7); 2068–78. ©2010 AACR.
Schur‐Weyl Duality as an Instrument of Gauge‐String Duality

A class of mathematical dualities have played a central role in mapping states in gauge theory to states in the spacetime string theory dual. This includes the classical Schur‐Weyl duality between symmetric groups and Unitary groups, as well as generalisations involving Brauer and Hecke algebras. The physical string dualities involved include examples from the AdS/CFT correspondence as well as the string dual of two‐dimensional Yang‐Mills.
Efficient depth propagation in videos with GPU-acceleration

In this paper we propose an optimized semiautomatic approach for efficient 2D-to-3D video conversion. It is based on a conversion algorithm that leverages segmentation and filtering techniques to propagate sparse depth information that was provided by a user. Our GPU acceleration of in the work of Brosch et al. (2011) significantly reduces the computation time of the original algorithm. Since the limited capacity of the CPU's onboard memory hinders the parallel execution of large data such as videos, we additionally propose a temporally coherent clip-based 2D-to-3D conversion approach for long videos. Evaluations show that the proposed, optimized conversion approach is capable of generating high-quality results, while significantly reducing the execution time compared to the original, un-optimized approach.
A versatile multi-modality serial link

Serial data links are often designed targeting a specific transmission medium. High-speed links using different predetermined transmission media have been demonstrated in the past [1-3]. This, however, restricts user's ability to use an integrated link interface with other transmission media once the chip is fabricated. For example, traditional transceivers for copper interconnects typically transmit baseband data, which is incompatible with a free-space wireless channel that is bandpass in nature and often uses RF carriers. A multi-modality transceiver block compatible with different transmission media is highly desirable as it offers great versatility by allowing the exact same interface circuitry to be used with different transmission media. Such a versatile interface can relax the board and system design requirements and enable the reuse of the same transceiver core with different media, reducing the time and cost overhead of re-designing and re-manufacturing.
A New Process For Removing Fiber From Distillers Dried Grains With Solubles

A new process was developed to separate fiber from distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS) in a dry grind corn process. Separation of fiber from DDGS would provide two valuable coproducts: 1) DDGS with reduced fiber, increased fat and increased protein contents and 2) fiber. The process, called Elusieve process, used two separation methods, sieving and elutriation, to separate the fiber. Material carried by air to the top of the elutriation column was called the “lighter fraction” and material that settled to the bottom of the column was called the “heavier fraction”. We evaluated the compositions of fractions produced from sieving and elutriation. Two commercial samples of DDGS were obtained from two dry grind corn plants. Sieving over four screens (869, 582, 447 and 234 µm openings) created five size categories. The two smallest size categories contained > 40% (w/w) of the original DDGS and had reduced fiber and increased protein and fat contents relative to the original DDGS. Elutriation of the remaining three size categories increased protein and fat contents and reduced fiber contents in the heavier fractions. Elutriation at air velocities between 1.59 and 5.24 m/s increased the protein content of the heavier fraction by 13 to 41% and increased the fat content of the heavier fraction by 4 to 127% compared to the bulk fractions of each size category. This process was effective in separating fiber from both DDGS samples evaluated. Elusieve process does not require changes in the existing dry grind process and can be implemented at the end of the dry grind process.
A Trajectory-Space Approach to Hybrid Systems

We develop a framework for studying dynamical properties of hybrid systems based on considering the space of all possible trajectories of the system. In this way it is possible to treat both nondeterministic systems and systems for which the evolution does not depend continuously on the initial conditions. We show that the trajectory space is compact for the class of upper-semicontinuous hybrid systems, obtain results on Zeno properties and invariant measures for systems with compact trajectory set. Since many classes of hybrid system can be recast in upper-semicontinuous form, these results are of general applicability.
A Framework for Searching for General Artificial Intelligence

There is a significant lack of unified approaches to building generally intelligent machines. The majority of current artificial intelligence research operates within a very narrow field of focus, frequently without considering the importance of the 'big picture'. In this document, we seek to describe and unify principles that guide the basis of our development of general artificial intelligence. These principles revolve around the idea that intelligence is a tool for searching for general solutions to problems. We define intelligence as the ability to acquire skills that narrow this search, diversify it and help steer it to more promising areas. We also provide suggestions for studying, measuring, and testing the various skills and abilities that a human-level intelligent machine needs to acquire. The document aims to be both implementation agnostic, and to provide an analytic, systematic, and scalable way to generate hypotheses that we believe are needed to meet the necessary conditions in the search for general artificial intelligence. We believe that such a framework is an important stepping stone for bringing together definitions, highlighting open problems, connecting researchers willing to collaborate, and for unifying the arguably most significant search of this century.
Anytime properties of protograph-based repeat-accumulate codes

In this paper, a highly efficient protograph-based repeat-accumulate (P-RA) anytime code is proposed, which is derived from the combination of protograph-based low-density parity-check convolutional (P-LDPCC) and spatially coupled low-density parity-check convolutional (SC-LDPCC) codes. Density evolution technique is applied to demonstrate the anytime properties of the P-RA codes over the binary erasure channel (BEC). The simulation results show that P-RA codes perform better than SC-LDPCC and P-LDPCC codes. More importantly, the finite-length performance of P-RA codes is only dependent on the decoding delay rather than the decoding message position.
Heparan sulphate, its derivatives and analogues share structural characteristics that can be exploited, particularly in inhibiting microbial attachment

Heparan sulphate (HS) and the related polysaccharide, heparin, exhibit conformational and charge arrangement properties, which provide a degree of redundancy allowing several seemingly distinct sequences to exhibit the same activity. This can also be mimicked by other sulphated polysaccharides, both in overall effect and in the details of interactions and structural consequences of interactions with proteins. Together, these provide a source of active compounds suitable for further development as potential drugs. These polysaccharides also possess considerable size, which bestows upon them an additional useful property: the capability of disrupting processes comprising many individual interactions, such as those characterising the attachment of microbial pathogens to host cells. The range of involvement of HS in microbial attachment is reviewed and examples, which include viral, bacterial and parasitic infections and which, in many cases, are now being investigated as potential targets for intervention, are identified.
CHCHD10 variant p.(Gly66Val) causes axonal Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease

Objective: We describe the phenotype consistent with axonal Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease type 2 (CMT2) in 4 families with a c.197G>T (p.(Gly66Val)) variant in CHCHD10. Methods: We sequenced the CHCHD10 gene in a cohort of 107 families with CMT2 of unknown etiology. The patients were characterized by clinical examination and electroneuromyography. Muscle MRI and biopsy of the muscle or nerve were performed in selected cases. Neuropathologic autopsy was performed in 1 case. Results: The c.197G>T variant in CHCHD10 was found in 6 families, 4 of which included multiple individuals available for detailed clinical study. Variants in this gene have recently been associated with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis-frontotemporal dementia, mitochondrial myopathy, or spinal muscular atrophy Jokela type (SMAJ), but not with CMT2. Our patients had a late-onset distal axonal neuropathy with motor predominance, progressing to involve sensory nerves. Neurophysiologic and neuropathologic studies confirmed the diagnosis of sensorimotor axonal neuropathy with no loss of anterior horn neurons. Muscle biopsies showed occasional cytochrome c oxidase–negative fibers, combined with small amounts of mitochondrial DNA deletions. Conclusions: CHCHD10 c.197G>T (p.(Gly66Val)) is a cause of sensorimotor axonal neuropathy. This gene should be considered in patients presenting with a pure CMT2 phenotype, particularly when motor symptoms predominate.
Anandamide Inhibition of 5-HT3A Receptors Varies with Receptor Density and Desensitization

Converging evidence has suggested that anandamide (AEA), an endogenous agonist of cannabinoid (CB) receptors, can directly interact with certain types of ligand-gated ion channels (LGICs). However, little is known about the molecular and cellular mechanisms of AEA-induced direct effects on LGICs. Here, we report that AEA inhibited the function of serotoningated ion channels (5-HT3A) expressed in Xenopus laevis oocytes and human embryonic kidney 293 cells in a manner that was dependent on the steady-state receptor density at the cell surface. The magnitude of AEA inhibition was inversely correlated with the expression levels of receptor protein and function. With increasing surface receptor expression, the magnitude of AEA inhibition decreased. Consistent with this idea, pretreatment with actinomycin D, which inhibits transcription, decreased the amplitude of current activated by maximal concentrations of 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) and increased the magnitude of AEA inhibition. AEA did not significantly alter 5-HT3A receptor trafficking. However, AEA accelerated 5-HT3A receptor desensitization time in a concentration-dependent manner without significantly changing receptor activation and deactivation time. The desensitization time was correlated with the AEA-induced inhibiting effect and mean 5-HT current density. Applications of 5-hydroxyindole and nocodazole, a microtubule disruptor, significantly slowed 5-HT3A receptor desensitization and reduced the magnitude of AEA inhibition. These observations suggest that 5-HT3 receptor density at the steady state regulates receptor desensitization kinetics and the potency of AEA-induced inhibiting effect on the receptors. The inhibition of 5-HT3 receptors by AEA may contribute to its physiological roles in control of pain and emesis.