Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cell-Specific Promoters Enable Lipid-Based Nanoparticles to Deliver Genes to Specific Cells of the Retina In Vivo

Non-viral vectors, such as lipid-based nanoparticles (liposome-protamine-DNA complex [LPD]), could be used to deliver a functional gene to the retina to correct visual function and treat blindness. However, one of the limitations of LPD is the lack of cell specificity, as the retina is composed of seven types of cells. If the same gene is expressed in multiple cell types or is absent from one desired cell type, LPD-mediated gene delivery to every cell may have off-target effects. To circumvent this problem, we have tested LPD-mediated gene delivery using various generalized, modified, and retinal cell-specific promoters. We achieved retinal pigment epithelium cell specificity with vitelliform macular dystrophy (VMD2), rod cell specificity with mouse rhodopsin, cone cell specificity with red/green opsin, and ganglion cell specificity with thymocyte antigen promoters. Here we show for the first time that cell-specific promoters enable lipid-based nanoparticles to deliver genes to specific cells of the retina in vivo. This work will inspire investigators in the field of lipid nanotechnology to couple cell-specific promoters to drive expression in a cell- and tissue-specific manner.
Hinted caching in the web

The World Wide Web, like any practical distributed system, benefits greatly from caching. Many studies have shown relatively poor cache performance, because existing caches depend on temporal locality, and reference patterns in the Web do not have particularly high temporal locality. We can improve Web caching by exploiting spatial locality. This requires protocol changes to allow servers to provide hints to caches, both to support prefetching and to improve allocation and replacement policies.
Function and structure of the mirror neuron system in autism

Utilizing MRI, this thesis identified wide-spread brain abnormalities in autism. White matter deficits were more pronounced in the left hemisphere, attributable to atypical myelination. Regarding the mirror neuron system, functional anomalies were situated in the right, dorsal, premotor cortex which further demonstrated reduced functional connectivity with the inferior parietal lobule.
Efficacy of submucosal injection of different solutions inclusive blood components on mucosa elevation for endoscopic resection

Background Endoscopic resection has become the standard treatment for noninvasive gastrointestinal malignancies. In flat mucosal tumors, normal saline is frequently used for submucosal fluid injection in order to reduce the risk of complications during endoscopic resection. Recent studies have demonstrated longer-lasting mucosa elevation by injection of agents such as hyaluronic acid or glyceol, rather than normal saline. We investigated the efficacy of different blood components in comparison with other solutions for use as a submucosal fluid cushion. Methods Normal saline, sodium hyaluronate, glyceol, hydroxyethyl starch, serum, plasma, and whole blood were evaluated for their effectiveness in creating a submucosal cushion. One milliliter of each solution was injected into the submucosa of 5 × 5 cm specimens of resected porcine stomach. Mucosa elevation was measured before and up to 60 minutes after injection. Results The shortest duration of mucosa elevation was observed after injection of normal saline, glyceol, and 0.125% hyaluronic acid. A significantly longer duration was obtained after injection of hydroxyethyl starch, 0.25% and 0.5% hyaluronic acid, serum, and plasma. However, whole blood generated a longer-lasting mucosa elevation than all other agents. Conclusion The results of the current study suggest that whole blood is more effective in generating long-lasting mucosa elevation than any other commonly used solution. Because autologous blood is readily available at almost no cost, this seems to be an optimal agent for creating the mucosa elevation needed for endoscopic resection. Further in vivo studies in humans are needed to clarify the potential role of autologous blood for long-lasting endoscopic mucosa resection or endoscopic submucosal dissection.
Invasive Hemophilus influenzae type b disease in children hospitalized at the Chiang Mai University Hospital between 1996 and 2004

Background: Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) is one of the worldwide leading causes of invasive diseases in infants and children. Hib meningitis is associated with high morbidity and mortality, many survivors suffered from severe neurological sequelae. Previous studies in Thailand had demonstrated the annual incidence of Hib meningitis was 3.8 to 5.8 per 100,000 in children under five years old. We aimed to summarize the clinical and laboratory characteristics of invasive Hib diseases in tertiary care setting. Methods: Retrospective study at the Department of Pediatrics, Chiang Mai University Hospital. Medical records of all proven invasive Hib disease patients hospitalized during January 1996 to December 2004 were reviewed. The criteria for diagnosis were 1) Organism isolation from blood, cerebrospinal fluid or fluid from any normally sterile site or 2) Antigen detection in normally sterile fluid by latex particle agglutination technique. Results: Thirty children was included, 13 (43%)meningitis, 9(30%) pneumonia, and 8 (27%) bacteremia. Forty-five percent of invasive Hib disease occurred in infants under 12 months of age (92% were meningitis), whereas 55% occurred in older children with underlying illnesses (88% were bacteremia). Fever was the most common presenting symptom (100%) followed by alteration of consciousness (69%). Thirty-three percent, 74%, and 100% of isolates were susceptible to ampicillin, chloramphrenicol, and cefotaxime. The overall mortality rate was 13.3%. Conclusions: As invasive Hib diseases occurred among young infants and children with underlying diseases leading to high morbidity and mortality, Hib vaccination should be considered to be implemented for high risk groups. (Thai Journal of Pediatrics 2007 ; 46 : 27-35)
Ostia: A Delegating Architecture for Secure System Call Interposition

Application sandboxes provide restricted execution environments that limit an application’s access to sensitive OS resources. These systems are an increasingly popular method for limiting the impact of a compromise. While a variety of mechanisms for building these systems have been proposed, the most thoroughly implemented and studied are based on system call interposition. Current interpositionbased architectures offer a wide variety of properties that make them an attractive approach for building sandboxing systems. Unfortunately, these architectures also possess several critical properties that make their implementation error prone and limit their functionality. We present a study of Ostia, a sandboxing system we have developed that relies on a “delegating” architecture which overcomes many of the limitations of today’s sandboxing systems. We compare this delegating architecture to the “filtering” architecture commonly used for sandboxes today. We present the salient features of each architecture and examine the design choices that significantly impact security, compatibility, flexibility, deployability, and performance in this class of system.
Semantize: visualizing the sentiment of individual document

A plethora of tools exist for extracting and visualizing key sentiment information from a corpus of text documents. Often, however, there is a need for quickly assessing the sentiment and feelings that arise from an individual document. We describe an interactive tool that visualizes the sentiment of a specific document such as an online opinion, blog, or transcript, by visually highlighting the sentiment features while leaving the document text intact.
The Factors Shaping Entrepreneurial Intentions

This book is a combination of chapters exploring the entrepreneurial attributes of university students and specifically their intentions to become entrepreneurs. It provides detailed insights into the personal and environmental factors that affect university students’ decisions to establish their own businesses. The first six chapters explore these factors through an exploratory approach and provide descriptive data on students’ entrepreneurial attributes such as self-regulation, self-efficacy, skills, metacognition (knowledge of cognition and regulation of cognition) and subjective and social norms of entrepreneurship. In these chapters, the authors provide an overall picture of entrepreneurial attributes among students from both public and private universities. The last three chapters examine students’ entrepreneurial intentions using the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) techniques. The chapters explain the interactions between personal (attitudes toward entrepreneurship and self-efficacy) and environmental (social and family norms and education) factors, and investigate how these factors affect students’ entrepreneurial career choice.
The energy balance of polars revisited

In the EXOSAT and ROSAT eras, a significant number of polars were found to show a soft/hard X-ray ratio much greater than that expected from the standard accretion shock model. This was known as the 'soft X-ray excess'. We have made an snapshot survey of polars using XMM-Newton and determined their soft/hard ratios. We find that less than one in five systems show a significant soft X-ray excess, while the rest show ratios consistent with that predicted by the standard model. We have investigated the discrepancy between this and the previous investigations by re-examining all the available ROSAT PSPC-pointed observations of polars using more recent calibrations than in the original studies. We find that these data show an energy balance ratio which is broadly consistent with that of our XMM-Newton results. We conclude that the previous studies were affected by the data being less well calibrated. We discuss which physical mechanisms might give rise to a high soft X-ray excess and whether systems with high ratios show more variation in soft X-rays. Surprisingly, we find that six out of 21 systems found in a high accretion state did not show a distinct soft X-ray component. Two systems showed one pole with such a component and one which did not. Based on the ratio of the observed soft X-ray to UV flux measurements (which were obtained simultaneously using the Optical Monitor) we suggest that this is because the reprocessed component in these systems is cool enough to have moved out of the soft X-ray band and into the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) or the UV band.
Framework for Analytic Cognition (FAC): A Guide for Doing All-Source Intelligence Analysis

Abstract : The Framework for Analytic Cognition (FAC) is designed to provide an end-to-end guide for doing intelligence analysis that is systematic, yet flexible enough to accommodate the unstructured and highly iterative nature of the work. FAC focuses on aiding the analyst in developing a thorough, deep understanding of both capabilities and intentions as shaped by human decision and actions for their subject of study. FAC leverages existing knowledge relevant to intelligence analysis from potentially applicable scientific and professional subject areas. Systematic review of the literature continued during development and evaluation of the FAC. FAC incorporates new knowledge and work aids based on both the literature and the domain expertise of the investigators.
The long road to patient safety: a status report on patient safety systems.

CONTEXT Since the Institute of Medicine (IOM) reports on medical errors and quality, national attention has focused on improving patient safety through changes in "systems" of care. These reports resulted in a new paradigm that, rather than centering on individual errors, focuses on the "systems" necessary to facilitate and enhance quality and protect patients. OBJECTIVES To assess the status of hospital patient safety systems since the release of the IOM reports and to identify changes over time in 2 states that collaborated on a patient safety project funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Survey of all acute care hospitals in Missouri and Utah at 2 points in time, in 2002 and 2004, using a 91-item comprehensive questionnaire (n = 126 for survey 1 and n = 128 for survey 2). To assess changes over time, we also studied the cohort of 107 hospitals that responded to both surveys. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Responses to the 91-question survey as well as changes in responses to the survey questions over an 18-month period. Seven latent variables were constructed to represent the most important patient safety constructs studied: computerized physician order entry systems, computerized test results, and assessments of adverse events; specific patient safety policies; use of data in patient safety programs; drug storage, administration, and safety procedures; manner of handling adverse event/error reporting; prevention policies; and root cause analysis. For each hospital, the 7 latent variables were summed to give an overall measure of the patient safety status of the hospital. RESULTS Development and implementation of patient safety systems is at best modest. Self-reported regression in patient safety systems was also found. While 74% of hospitals reported full implementation of a written patient safety plan, nearly 9% reported no plan. The area of surgery appears to have the greatest level of patient safety systems. Other areas, such as medications, with a long history of efforts in patient safety and error prevention, showed improvements, but the percentage of hospitals with various safety systems was already high at baseline for many systems. Some findings are surprising, given the overall trends; for example, while a substantial percentage of hospitals have medication safety systems, only 34.1% [corrected] reported full implementation at survey 2 of computerized physician order entry systems for medications, despite the growth of computer technology in general and in hospital billing systems in particular. CONCLUSIONS The current status of hospital patient safety systems is not close to meeting IOM recommendations. Data are consistent with recent reports that patient safety system progress is slow and is a cause for great concern. Efforts for improvement must be accelerated.
A Generic Approach for Generating Interesting Interactive Pac-Man Opponents

This paper follows on from our previous work focused on formulating an efficient generic measure of user’s satisfaction (‘interest’) when playing predator/prey games. Viewing the game from the predators’ (i.e. opponents’) perspective, a robust on-line neuroevolution learning mechanism has been presented capable of increasing — independently of the initial behavior and playing strategy — the well known Pac-Man game’s interest as well as keeping that interest at high levels while the game is being played. This mechanism has also demonstrated high adaptability to changing PacMan playing strategies in a relatively simple playing stage. In the work presented here, we attempt to test the on-line learning mechanism over more complex stages and to explore the relation between the interest measure and the topology of the stage. Results show that the interest measure proposed is independent of the stage’s complexity and topology, which demonstrates the approach’s generality for this game.
Signal-to-Noise Ratio of Direct Sampling Receivers with Realistic Sampling Circuit Models

Employing direct sampling receivers for multi-mode multi-band operation in mobile communications is advantageous due to their high flexibility and programmability. But this type of receiver needs to be properly adjusted regarding the parameters of the sampling and the quantization stage of the analog- to-digital converter to comply with certain performance requirements. This paper studies the impact of the ideal, the track-and-hold and the sample-and-hold sampling circuit on the effective in-band signal-to-noise ratio of the receive signal. It also proposes sets of valid parameters of the complete analog-to- digital converter in terms of the duty cycle, the sampling rate, and the quantization resolution for a given band-pass input signal to limit the maximum performance loss. Moreover, the investigations for the different samplers and the overall analog-to- digital converter are used to trade-off the individual parameters in case of an exemplary LTE signal reception.
Social interaction and the development of knowledge

Contents: J.I. M. Carpendale, U. Muller, Social Interaction and the Development of Rationality and Morality: An Introduction. W.F. Overton, A Relational and Embodied Perspective on Resolving Psychology's Antinomies. R.F. Kitchener, Piaget's Social Epistemology. J. Boom, Individualism and Collectivism: A Dynamic Systems Interpretation of Piaget's Interactionism. T.G. Amin, J. Valsiner, Coordinating Operative and Figurative Knowledge: Piaget, Vygotsky and Beyond. M.H. Bickhard, The Social Ontology of Persons. R. Dobert, The Development and Overcoming of "Universal Pragmatics" in Piaget's Thinking. B.W. Sokol, M.J. Chandler, A Bridge Too Far: On the Relations Between Moral and Secular Reasoning. L. SmithDevelopmental Epistemology and Education. L. Nucci, Social Interaction and the Construction of Moral and Social Knowledge. U. Muller, J.I. M. Carpendale, From Joint Activity to Joint Attention: A Relational Approach to Social Development in Infancy. O. Lourenco, Piaget's Theory and Children's Development of Prosocial Behavior: The Force of Negation. T.P. Racine, Wittgenstein's Internalistic Logic and Children's Theories of Mind.
Antibodies against CD20 (rituximab) for treating multiple sclerosis: US20100233121

Background. The application is in the field of medication and treatment for MS. Objective. It aims at identifying and characterizing the activity and potency of antibodies against CD20 (rituximab) for treating MS and at devising treatments and dosing protocols for various forms of MS. Methods. Various doses of antibody and different time points were assessed to devise treatments and dosing protocols for MS. Results. Rituximab depletes peripheral B cells and reduces the level of B cells in the cerebrospinal fluid of patients with relapsing-remitting MS. Various treatments and dosing protocols are proposed for improving the signs, symptoms or other indicators of patients with relapsing-remitting MS and with primary progressive MS. Conclusion. Antibodies against CD20 and rituximab offer new opportunities to treat patients with MS. The application claims the use of antibodies against CD20 and rituximab for treating the various forms of MS. The application claims the administration of the antibodies at separate intervals, and alone or in combination with other drugs and treatments. It claims a manufacture product for the medication. It further claims the administration of antibodies against CD20 by gene therapy for treating MS.
Digital Image Scaling

The proposed scaling algorithm outperforms other standard and widely used scaling techniques. The algorithm uses a mask of maximum four pixels and calculates the final luminosity of each pixel combining two factors; the percentage of area that mask covers from each source pixel and the difference in luminosity between the source pixels. The interpolation is capable of scaling both grey-scale and color images of any resolution in any scaling factor. Its key characteristics and low complexity make the interpolation very fast and capable of real time implementation. The performance results in a variety of standard tests are presented and compared to other scaling algorithms
The same or different? A phenomenological comparison of auditory verbal hallucinations in healthy and psychotic individuals.

OBJECTIVE Whereas auditory verbal hallucinations (AVHs) are most characteristic of schizophrenia, their presence has frequently been described in a continuum, ranging from severely psychotic patients to schizotypal personality disorder patients to otherwise healthy participants. It remains unclear whether AVHs at the outer borders of this spectrum are indeed the same phenomenon. Furthermore, specific characteristics of AVHs may be important indicators of a psychotic disorder. METHOD To investigate differences and similarities in AVHs in psychotic and nonpsychotic individuals, the phenomenology of AVHs in 118 psychotic outpatients was compared to that in 111 otherwise healthy individuals, both experiencing AVHs at least once a month. The study was performed between September 2007 and March 2010 at the University Medical Center, Utrecht, the Netherlands. Characteristics of AVHs were quantified using the Psychotic Symptoms Rating Scales Auditory Hallucinations subscale. RESULTS The perceived location of voices (inside/outside the head), the number of voices, loudness, and personification did not differentiate between psychotic and healthy individuals. The most prominent differences between AVHs in healthy and psychotic individuals were the emotional valence of the content, the frequency of AVHs, and the control subjects had over their AVHs (all P values < .001). Age at onset of AVHs was at a significantly younger age in the healthy individuals (P < .001). In our sample, the negative emotional valence of the content of AVHs could accurately predict the presence of a psychotic disorder in 88% of the participants. CONCLUSIONS We cannot ascertain whether AVHs at the outer borders of the spectrum should be considered the same phenomenon, as there are both similarities and differences. The much younger age at onset of AVHs in the healthy subjects compared to that in psychotic patients may suggest a different pathophysiology. The high predictive value of the emotional content of voices implies that inquiring after the emotional content of AVHs may be a crucial step in the diagnosis of psychotic disorders in individuals hearing voices.
Biped landing pattern modification method with nonlinear compliance control

Many researchers have been studied on acceleration control algorithms for biped robots to deal with uneven terrain. However, the control algorithms are difficult to be used for human-carrying biped walking robots because of modeling errors. In this paper, a landing pattern modification method is proposed which based on nonlinear compliance control. Theoretical compliance displacements calculated from a walking pattern are compared with the actual compliance displacements, while a robot's foot touches slightly uneven terrain. In result, the height of landing terrain is detected, and the preset walking pattern is modified. Using this method, a human-carrying biped robot would be able to walk stably on uneven terrain. This pattern modification method does not need any special sensors except force sensors. Through various walking experiments, the effectiveness of the method is confirmed
Towards a Strategy Design Method for Corporate Data Quality Management

Large, multidivisional enterprises need corporate data of high quality in order to meet a number of strategic business requirements, such as enterprise- wide process harmonization, integrated customer management or compliance. Therefore, many enterprises today are in the process of establishing Corporate Data Quality Management (CDQM), which requires an overarching CDQM strategy. This paper presents a method for the development and implementation of a CDQM strategy. On the one hand the method provides guidance to a CDQM team. On the other hand, for corporate executives the method ensures that the CDQM strategy is derived from their objectives and that their require- ments are systematically taken into account and fulfilled. Besides the method it- self, the paper illustrates the entire design process which encompasses, among others, focus group and expert interviews, participative case studies and a multi- perspective evaluation.