Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The molecular and functional characterization of a dominant minor H antigen, H60.

Minor histocompatibility (H) Ags elicit T cell responses and thereby cause chronic graft rejection and graft-vs-host disease among MHC identical individuals. Although numerous independent H loci exist in mice of a given MHC haplotype, certain H Ags dominate the immune response and are thus of considerable conceptual and therapeutic importance. To identify these H Ags and their genes, lacZ-inducible CD8+ T cell hybrids were generated by immunizing C57BL/6 (B6) mice with MHC identical BALB.B spleen cells. The cDNA clones encoding the precursor for the antigenic peptide/Kb MHC class I complex were isolated by expression cloning using the BCZ39.84 T cell as a probe. The cDNAs defined a new H locus (termed H60), located on mouse chromosome 10, and encoded a novel protein that contains the naturally processed octapeptide LTFNYRNL (LYL8) presented by the Kb MHC molecule. Southern blot analysis revealed that the H60 locus was polymorphic among the BALB and the B6 strains. However, none of the H60 transcripts expressed in the donor BALB spleen were detected in the host B6 strain. The expression and immunogenicity of the LYL8/Kb complex in BALB.B and CXB recombinant inbred strains strongly suggested that the H60 locus may account for one of the previously described antigenic activity among these strains. The results establish the source of an immunodominant autosomal minor H Ag that, by its differential transcription in the donor vs the host strains, provides a novel peptide/MHC target for host CD8+ T cells.
A task-level pipelined many-SIMD augmented reality processor with congestion-aware network-on-chip scheduler

A 36 Heterogeneous multicore processor is proposed to accelerate recognition-based markerless augmented reality. To enable a real-time operation of the proposed augmented reality, task-level pipelined multicore architecture with DLP/TLP optimized SIMD processing elements is implemented. In addition, the multicore employs a congestion-aware network-on-chip scheduler for 2D-mesh network-on-chip to support massive internal data transaction caused by task-level pipeline. As a result, it achieves 1.22TOPS peak performance and 1.57TOPS/W energy-efficiency, which are 88% and 76% improvement over a state-of-the-art augmented reality processor, for 30fps 720p test input video.
Impact of multiple frequency channels usage on the performance of TDMA-based broadband fixed cellular multihop networks

This work analyzes the impact of having more than one frequency channel on outage probability and node throughput in TDMA-based broadband fixed cellular multihop networks. The scenario considered is a low node density, start-up network with inadequate single-hop coverage. In this scenario the user terminals themselves act as relays, therefore, there are no additional relays deployed by the service provider: besides, no separate relaying channels are used (this scenario ensures a fair comparison between the multihop cellular network considered here and the traditional single-hop cellular network). In a situation where there is outage with a single-hop due to poor coverage, a suitable multihop route with minimum number of hops is sought. It is observed that as the number of available channels increases the coverage is enhanced remarkably; in addition, the average node throughput is increased as well although no explicit attempt for throughput maximization is made during the search for the multihop routes.
A Randomized Double-Blind Placebo-Controlled Trial of Lactobacillus reuteri for Chronic Functional Abdominal Pain in Children

Background: Functional abdominal pain (FAP) is one of the most common diseases, and large percentages of children suffer from it. Objectives: The purpose of the study was to evaluate the effect of Lactobacillus reuteri in treatment of children with functional abdominal pain. Patients and Methods: This study was a randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial. Children aged 4 to 16 years with chronic functional abdominal pain (based on Rome III criteria) were enrolled in the study. They were randomly divided into two groups, one receiving probiotic and the other placebo. Results: Forty children received probiotic and forty others placebo. There were no significant differences in age, weight, sex, location of pain, associated symptoms, frequency and intensity of pain between the groups. The severity and frequency of abdominal pain in the first month compared to baseline was significantly less and at the end of the second month, there was no significant difference between both groups compared to the end of the first month. Conclusions: This study showed that the severity of pain was significantly reduced in both groups. There was no significant difference in pain scores between them. The effect of probiotic and placebo can probably be attributed to psychological effect of the drugs.
An Augmented Lagrangian Based Algorithm for Distributed NonConvex Optimization

This paper is about distributed derivative-based algorithms for solving optimization problems with a separable (potentially nonconvex) objective function and coupled affine constraints. A parallelizable method is proposed that combines ideas from the fields of sequential quadratic programming and augmented Lagrangian algorithms. The method negotiates shared dual variables that may be interpreted as prices, a concept employed in dual decomposition methods and the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM). Here, each agent solves its own small-scale nonlinear programming problem and communicates with other agents by solving coupled quadratic programming problems. These coupled quadratic programming problems have equality constraints for which parallelizable methods are available. The use of techniques associated with standard sequential quadratic programming methods gives a method with superlinear or quadratic convergence rate under suitable conditions. This is in contrast to existing decomposition.
Randomized Clinical Trial To Evaluate the Immunogenicity of Quadrivalent Meningococcal Conjugate and Polysaccharide Vaccines in Adults in the United Kingdom

ABSTRACT Meningococcal conjugate vaccines are today successfully deployed in universal programs for children and adolescents in different geographic regions to control meningitis and septicemia. However, in adults, the advantages of these conjugates over the older polysaccharide vaccines are less clear. In this randomized clinical trial, we demonstrated that both conjugate and polysaccharide quadrivalent meningococcal vaccines elicit protective antibody responses in adults aged 18 to 70. (This study has been registered at www.clinicaltrials.gov under registration no. NCT00901940.)
Enabling collaborative research using the Biomedical Informatics Research Network (BIRN)

OBJECTIVE As biomedical technology becomes increasingly sophisticated, researchers can probe ever more subtle effects with the added requirement that the investigation of small effects often requires the acquisition of large amounts of data. In biomedicine, these data are often acquired at, and later shared between, multiple sites. There are both technological and sociological hurdles to be overcome for data to be passed between researchers and later made accessible to the larger scientific community. The goal of the Biomedical Informatics Research Network (BIRN) is to address the challenges inherent in biomedical data sharing. MATERIALS AND METHODS BIRN tools are grouped into 'capabilities' and are available in the areas of data management, data security, information integration, and knowledge engineering. BIRN has a user-driven focus and employs a layered architectural approach that promotes reuse of infrastructure. BIRN tools are designed to be modular and therefore can work with pre-existing tools. BIRN users can choose the capabilities most useful for their application, while not having to ensure that their project conforms to a monolithic architecture. RESULTS BIRN has implemented a new software-based data-sharing infrastructure that has been put to use in many different domains within biomedicine. BIRN is actively involved in outreach to the broader biomedical community to form working partnerships. CONCLUSION BIRN's mission is to provide capabilities and services related to data sharing to the biomedical research community. It does this by forming partnerships and solving specific, user-driven problems whose solutions are then available for use by other groups.
Resection of colorectal liver metastases: current perspectives.

BACKGROUND Metastases to the liver is the leading cause of death in patients with colorectal cancer. METHODS The authors review the data on diagnosis and management of this clinical problem, and they discuss management options that can be considered. RESULTS Complete surgical resection of metastases from colorectal cancer that are localized to the liver results in 5-year survival rates ranging from 26% to 40%. CONCLUSIONS By adding modalities such as targeted systemic therapy and other "local" treatments for liver metastases, further gains in survival are anticipated.
A multi-time scale non-Gaussian model of stock returns

We propose a stochastic process for stock movements that, with just one source of Brownian noise, has an instantaneous volatility that rises from a type of statistical feedback across many time scales. This results in a stationary non-Gaussian process which captures many features observed in time series of real stock returns. These include volatility clustering, a kurtosis which decreases slowly over time together with a close to log-normal distribution of instantaneous volatility. We calculate the rate of decay of volatility-volatility correlations, which depends on the strength of the memory in the system and fits well to empirical observations.
How to Rationally Use Information Diagnostic Technologies in Family and General Medicine Practice

CONFLICT OF INTEREST: NONE DECLARED New discoveries in technology indeed enabled significant improvement of health care in the last three decades. Only during the last few years a significant breakthrough is achieved in the field of antiviral drugs, biotechnology, digital diagnostic technology, molecular diagnosis, tissues and organs transplantation as well as surgical and information technologies, which all contributed to the improvement of health care. Rapid growth of medical technology has led to the increase in costs of health care, increased access to these technologies and improvement of health care that is permanently encouraging the further development of technology. Technology encompasses the skills, knowledge and ability to understand, use and create useful things. It is the practical application of knowledge. Evaluation of health technology is the systematic evaluation of characteristics, results or impact of health technologies. The primary purpose of evaluation is to provide information to responsible parties for the technology in the health care system, which will be used in decision-making and introduction of these technologies. Information technology in medicine and health care represents all medical and health technology in the process of work, monitoring and evaluation done using computer technology. Progress of medical science in recent years especially needs to thank to the development of information technologies. The health care system of Bosnia and Herzegovina is currently operating in the two sub-systems of primary health care. One is inherited from the past system, in which the primary health care is provided by general practitioners, specialists in general practice, as well as gynecologists, pediatricians and pulmologists, and the second subsystem occurs when in PHC is introduced the system of family medicine doctors and family medicine specialists. Family medicine, based on the concept of orientation towards the methods which are more effective, rational and cost-effective health care, use of defined procedures and evidence-based medicine, and more adequate education can empower and stimulate general practice doctors, especially family medicine specialists, who have passed various forms of training and courses in this area, to more rational and efficient use of diagnostic technology in their daily practice, without unnecessary duplication of tests. With this they make savings to the healthcare system, improve the financial position of overall health system, especially in the PHC segment, increase satisfaction of doctors providing that health care, but also the users of health services.
A multi-feature fusion moving target recognition method based on believability regression reasoning

Features of dynamic target under the complex natural background change drastically, and methods based on single feature recognition could not adapt to the drastic changes, while the method based on multi-feature fusion recognition is one of the important research directions. However, the target distance, scale and background environment vary widely in the process of dynamic target tracking; the basic reliability of multifeature classifiers based on fusion reasoning is unpredictable. This paper proposes a multi-feature fusion recognition algorithm for dynamic target based on reliability regression reasoning. To begin with, target multi-dimensional independent features were extracted; what's more, the basic probability distribution of D-S reasoning based on SVM classifiers was designed according to the mixed matrix distance measure and SVM recognition rate of each feature classifier; furthermore, the relationship between the basic probability distribution and target distance, founded by least square fitting and reliability regression model of D-S reasoning, was acquired. Finally, the method based on multifeature fusion recognition for moving target was fulfilled under the condition of target distance continuous variation at complex environment. Comparative experiments showed that the algorithm has good generalization ability as well as higher efficiency, and the uncertainty of target recognition in the process of dynamic target tracking was reduced to a large extent.
Flaccidoxide-13-Acetate Extracted from the Soft Coral Cladiella kashmani Reduces Human Bladder Cancer Cell Migration and Invasion through Reducing Activation of the FAK/PI3K/AKT/mTOR Signaling Pathway

Metastasis of cancer is the cause of the majority of cancer deaths. Active compound flaccidoxide-13-acetate, isolated from the soft coral Cladiella kashmani, has been found to exhibit anti-tumor activity. In this study, Boyden chamber analysis, Western blotting and gelatin zymography assays indicated that flaccidoxide-13-acetate exerted inhibitory effects on the migration and invasion of RT4 and T24 human bladder cancer cells. The results demonstrated that flaccidoxide-13-acetate, in a concentration-dependent manner, reduced the levels of matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP-2), MMP-9, urokinase-type plasminogen activator receptor (uPAR), focal adhesion kinase (FAK), phosphatidylinositide-3 kinases (PI3K), p-PI3K, AKT, p-AKT, mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), p-mTOR, Ras homolog gene family, member A (Rho A), Ras, mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase 7 (MKK7) and mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase kinase 3 (MEKK3), and increased the expressions of tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-1 (TIMP-1) and TIMP-2 in RT4 and T24 cells. This study revealed that flaccidoxide-13-acetate suppressed cell migration and invasion by reducing the expressions of MMP-2 and MMP-9, regulated by the FAK/PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway. In conclusion, our study was the first to demonstrate that flaccidoxide-13-acetate could be a potent medical agent for use in controlling the migration and invasion of bladder cancer.
Protein secondary structure prediction by combining hidden Markov models and sliding window scores

Instead of conformation states of single residues, refined conformation states of quintuplets are proposed to reflect conformation correlation. Simple hidden Markov models combined with sliding window scores are used to predict the secondary structure of a protein from its amino acid sequence. Since the length of protein conformation segments varies within a narrow range, we can ignore the duration effect of the length distribution. The window scores for residues are a window version of the Chou-Fasman propensities estimated under an approximation of conditional independency. Different window widths are examined, and the optimal width is found to be 17. A high accuracy of about 70% is achieved.
A 40 nm CMOS 195 mW/55 mW Dual-Path Receiver AFE for Multi-Standard 8.5–11.5 Gb/s Serial Links

This paper presents the design of a power- and area-efficient, high-performance dual-path receiver analog front-end (AFE) for wide multistandard applications of 8.5-11.5 Gb/s, such as 10GBASE-LRM, 10GBASE-KR, 10GBASE-CX1, and 10GBASE-LR/SR. A common programmable gain amplifier (PGA) with programmable peaking is followed by ADC-based and slicer-based paths. The ADC-based path employs a low-power, 6-bit 10 Gs/s, 4X time-interleaved, low BER rectified flash 10 Gs/s ADC that is digitally calibrated to compensate for offset, gain, and phase mismatches between the interleaved channels. The ADC-based receiver with transmitter can compensate for up to a 34 dB insertion loss at 5 GHz Nyquist frequency for a copper backplane channel (10GBASE-KR). The ADC-based receiver can achieve greater than 6 dB margin for three 10GBASE-LRM stressors and dynamic channels. The ADC Figure of Merit (FoM) is a 0.59 pJ/conversion-step for a 5 GHz input at a 10.3125 GHz clock rate. The slicer-based path uses a continuous-time linear equalizer (CTLE) after high linear PGA to provide 10 dB total equalization at 5 GHz Nyquist frequency for 10GBASE-SR application. Its measured input sensitivity of 30 mVppd and high-frequency jitter tolerance of 0.35 UIpp with 0.7 UIpp total input jitter well exceed specifications in the standard. The receiver AFE occupies 0.82 mm 2 and consumes 195 mW for ADC path and 55 mW for slicer path in a 40 nm standard CMOS process.
Identification of buried unexploded ordnance from broadband electromagnetic induction data

A procedure is described for computing range and orientation invariant spectral signatures of buried unexploded ordnance (UXO) from electromagnetic induction (EMI) data. The normalized eigenvalues of the magnetic polarizability tensor that characterizes the target response are used as the orientation-invariant spectral signatures. It is shown that the eigenvalues can be normalized with respect to depth under the assumption that a multiplicative scale factor can be applied at all frequencies. The eigenvalues are derived by measuring the matrix elements of the polarizability tensor from above-ground spatial data and then by diagonalizing this matrix. This method is linear, and does not require a nonlinear parameter search. After normalizing for depth, the eigenvalues derived from an unknown object can then be compared with library eigenvalues using the L2 norm as a goodness-of-fit measure. The procedure is demonstrated using data obtained from cylinders and UXO at different orientations.
Effect of physical and subsequent processing parameters of glass fiber felts on sound insulation

Abstract The aim of this study is to explore the effect of physical parameters (fiber diameter, thickness, and resin content) and subsequent processing parameters (heat treatment and rolling compaction) on sound insulation of glass fiber felts. The results show an inversely proportional relationship between fiber diameter and sound insulation. The decrease of fiber diameter results in improvement of sound transmission loss (STL). Alternatively, the thickness of glass fiber felts increase leading to the increase of corresponding sound insulation. With the increase of resin content, STLs of glass fiber felts do not increase monotonically. The STLs of glass fiber felt are also improved with the increase of heat treatment temperature. Compressing can reduce the STL due to the reduction of thickness.
Electrostatic Interactions Drive Membrane Association of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Gag MA Domain

ABSTRACT The assembly of most retroviruses occurs at the plasma membrane. Membrane association is directed by MA, the N-terminal domain of the Gag structural protein. For human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1), this association is mediated in part by a myristate fatty acid modification. Conflicting evidence has been presented on the relative importance of myristoylation, of ionic interactions between protein and membrane, and of Gag multimerization in membrane association in vivo. We addressed these questions biochemically by determining the affinity of purified myristoylated HIV-1 MA for liposomes of defined composition, both for monomeric and for dimeric forms of the protein. Myristoylation increases the barely detectable intrinsic affinity of the apo-protein for liposomes by only 10-fold, and the resulting affinity is still weak, similar to that of the naturally nonmyristoylated MA of Rous sarcoma virus. Membrane binding of HIV-1 MA is absolutely dependent on the presence of negatively charged lipid and is abrogated at high ionic strength. Forced dimerization of MA increases its membrane affinity by several orders of magnitude. When green fluorescent protein fusions of monomeric or dimeric MA are expressed in cells, the dimeric but not the monomeric protein becomes strongly membrane associated. Computational modeling supports these results and suggests a molecular mechanism for the modest effect of myristoylation on binding, wherein the membrane provides a hydrophobic environment for the myristate that is energetically similar to that provided by the protein. Overall, the results imply that the driving force for membrane association stems largely from ionic interactions between multimerized Gag and negatively charged phospholipids.
Monotone control systems

Monotone systems constitute one of the most important classes of dynamical systems used in mathematical biology modeling. The objective of this paper is to extend the notion of monotonicity to systems with inputs and outputs, a necessary first step in trying to understand interconnections, especially including feedback loops, built up out of monotone components. Basic definitions and theorems are provided, as well as an application to the study of a model of one of the cell's most important subsystems.