Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Active and Persistent Cytomegalovirus Infections Affect T Cells in Young Adult HIV Patients Commencing Antiretroviral Therapy.

Altered T cell profiles have been linked with metrics of persistent cytomegalovirus (CMV) infections in healthy aging and older HIV patients stable on antiretroviral therapy (ART). In this study, we use CMV DNA to identify active infections, and levels of CMV-reactive antibody to assess the persistent burden of CMV in a longitudinal study of 78 young adult patients beginning ART in Jakarta, Indonesia, with <200 CD4 T cells/μL. CMV antibodies, inflammatory markers (C-reactive protein [CRP], soluble interferon-α/β receptor) and T cell phenotypes were assessed before ART (V0) and after 1, 3, 6, and 12 months (V1-V12). CMV DNA was detected in 41 patients (52%) at V0, irrespective of CD4 T cell counts, gender, age, or plasma HIV RNA. CMV DNA+ patients had higher levels of antibody reactive with CMV Immediate Early 1 (IE-1) at V0 and V12 (p = 0.04), and with CMV lysate at V12 (p = 0.01). Detectable CMV DNA did not align with inflammatory markers, but associated with lower CD4/CD8 ratios until V3. CMV antibody levels correlated inversely with proportions of naive CD4 and CD8 T cells, and directly with proportions of CD57+ and activated memory T cells (CD3+ CD45RA-) after 3-12 months on ART. Overall, active CMV replication is common in HIV patients beginning ART in Indonesia and associates with low CD4/CD8 ratios. Elevated levels of CMV-reactive antibody measured on ART also mark a depletion of naive T cells, accumulation of memory T cells, and may be a stable metric of the burden of CMV.
Area prior constrained level set evolution for medical image segmentation

The level set framework has proven well suited to medical image segmentation1-6 thanks to its ability of balancing the contribution of image data and prior knowledge in a principled, flexible and transparent way. It consists of evolving a curve toward the target object boundaries. The curve evolution equation is sought following the optimization of a cost functional containing two types of terms: data terms, which measure the fidelity of segmentation to image intensities, and prior terms, which traduce learned prior knowledge. Without priors many algorithms are likely to fail due to high noise, low contrast and data incompleteness. Different priors have been investigated such as shape1 and appearance priors.7 In this study, we propose a simple type of priors: the area prior. This prior embeds knowledge of an approximate object area and has two positive effects. First, It speeds up significantly the evolution when the curve is far from the target object boundaries. Second, it slows down the evolution when the curve is close to the target. Consequently, it reinforces curve stability at the desired boundaries when dealing with low contrast intensity edges. The algorithm is validated with several experiments using Magnetic Resonance (MR) images and Computed Tomography (CT) images. A comparison with another level set method illustrates the positive effects of the area prior.
Increasing risk of prosthetic joint infection after total hip arthroplasty

Background and purpose The risk of revision due to infection after primary total hip arthroplasty (THA) has been reported to be increasing in Norway. We investigated whether this increase is a common feature in the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden). Materials and methods The study was based on the Nordic Arthroplasty Register Association (NARA) dataset. 432,168 primary THAs from 1995 to 2009 were included (Denmark: 83,853, Finland 78,106, Norway 88,455, and Sweden 181,754). Adjusted survival analyses were performed using Cox regression models with revision due to infection as the endpoint. The effect of risk factors such as the year of surgery, age, sex, diagnosis, type of prosthesis, and fixation were assessed. Results 2,778 (0.6%) of the primary THAs were revised due to infection. Compared to the period 1995–1999, the relative risk (with 95% CI) of revision due to infection was 1.1 (1.0–1.2) in 2000–2004 and 1.6 (1.4–1.7) in 2005–2009. Adjusted cumulative 5–year revision rates due to infection were 0.46% (0.42–0.50) in 1995–1999, 0.54% (0.50–0.58) in 2000–2004, and 0.71% (0.66–0.76) in 2005–2009. The entire increase in risk of revision due to infection was within 1 year of primary surgery, and most notably in the first 3 months. The risk of revision due to infection increased in all 4 countries. Risk factors for revision due to infection were male sex, hybrid fixation, cement without antibiotics, and THA performed due to inflammatory disease, hip fracture, or femoral head necrosis. None of these risk factors increased in incidence during the study period. Interpretation We found increased relative risk of revision and increased cumulative 5–year revision rates due to infection after primary THA during the period 1995–2009. No change in risk factors in the NARA dataset could explain this increase. We believe that there has been an actual increase in the incidence of prosthetic joint infections after THA.
Reversal Theory: Understanding the Motivational Styles of Espionage

Is espionage a question of preference? Are there definite psychological needs that compel individuals to seek satisfaction through spying against the interests of their own country? To address these questions, I apply Dr. Michael J. Apter's Reversal Theory (RT) to the espionage or insider threat problem to further our understanding of what may be done-pro actively-to counter what the former u.s. National Counterintelligence Executive calls "the top counterintelligence challenge to our community. "! About the varied application of his theory, Apter writes:
Emotions, Cognitions, and Well-Being

In this study, we examined interrelationships among emotional overexcitability, perfectionism, emotion regulation, and subjective well-being. Dabrowski and Piechowski’s theoretical conceptualization of overexcitabilities and J. J. Gross and John’s constructs of emotion regulation strategies provided a framework to guide hypotheses in the present study. Participants were 191 adults who responded to surveys administered via online methodology. Multiple-regression analyses revealed that participants in the present study with higher emotional overexcitability had lower degrees of emotion regulation overall, whereas individuals reporting higher levels of adaptive perfectionism (strivers) had higher levels of emotion regulation. Furthermore, strivers and those who used cognitive reappraisal strategies for emotion regulation were linked to higher subjective well-being for participants in this study.
Microwave measurements in cured concrete — Experiment and modelling

Cured concrete is a low-loss insulating material. A copper rod placed in a concrete beam (350 × 100 × 100 mm3) was exposed to microwave radiation (1–5 GHz) from a slot antenna optimised for impedance matching to the concrete surface. The copper rod enhanced the power inside the concrete samples. Surface measurements of the scattered electric field show a series of interference nulls reaching amplitude of −30 dB. This paper reports experimental measurements and modeling results of the surface electric field. Particle swarm optimization was used to match the modelled to the experimental E-field by varying the relative permittivity and electric conductivity. The technique was used to determine the electromagnetic properties of cured concrete in the frequency range 1–5 GHz.
Tissue Transglutaminase Promotes Drug Resistance and Invasion by Inducing Mesenchymal Transition in Mammary Epithelial Cells

Recent observations that aberrant expression of tissue transglutaminase (TG2) promotes growth, survival, and metastasis of multiple tumor types is of great significance and could yield novel therapeutic targets for improved patient outcomes. To accomplish this, a clear understanding of how TG2 contributes to these phenotypes is essential. Using mammary epithelial cell lines (MCF10A, MCF12A, MCF7 and MCF7/RT) as a model system, we determined the impact of TG2 expression on cell growth, cell survival, invasion, and differentiation. Our results show that TG2 expression promotes drug resistance and invasive functions by inducing epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT). Thus, TG2 expression supported anchorage-independent growth of mammary epithelial cells in soft-agar, disrupted the apical-basal polarity, and resulted in disorganized acini structures when grown in 3D-culture. At molecular level, TG2 expression resulted in loss of E-cadherin and increased the expression of various transcriptional repressors (Snail1, Zeb1, Zeb2 and Twist1). Tumor growth factor-beta (TGF-β) failed to induce EMT in cells lacking TG2 expression, suggesting that TG2 is a downstream effector of TGF-β-induced EMT. Moreover, TG2 expression induced stem cell-like phenotype in mammary epithelial cells as revealed by enrichment of CD44+/CD24-/low cell populations. Overall, our studies show that aberrant expression of TG2 is sufficient for inducing EMT in epithelial cells and establish a strong link between TG2 expression and progression of metastatic breast disease.
Correction: Biophysical Analysis of Anopheles gambiae Leucine-Rich Repeat Proteins APL1A1, APL1B and APL1C and Their Interaction with LRIM1

Natural infection of Anopheles gambiae by malaria-causing Plasmodium parasites is significantly influenced by the APL1 genetic locus. The locus contains three closely related leucine-rich repeat (LRR) genes, APL1A, APL1B and APL1C. Multiple studies have reported the participation of APL1A—C in the immune response of A. gambiae to invasion by both rodent and human Plasmodium isolates. APL1C forms a heterodimer with the related LRR protein LRIM1 via a C-terminal coiled-coil domain that is also present in APL1A and APL1B. The LRIM1/APL1C heterodimer protects A. gambiae from infection by binding the complement-like protein TEP1 to form a stable and active immune complex. Here we report solution x-ray scatting data for the LRIM1/APL1C heterodimer, the oligomeric state of LRIM1/ APL1 LRR domains in solution and the crystal structure of the APL1B LRR domain. The LRIM1/APL1C heterodimeric complex has a flexible and extended structure in solution. In contrast to the APL1A, APL1C and LRIM1 LRR domains, the APL1B LRR domain is a homodimer. The crystal structure of APL1B-LRR shows that the homodimer is formed by an N-terminal helix that complements for the absence of an N-terminal capping motif in APL1B, which is a unique distinction within the LRIM1/APL1 protein family. Full-length APL1A and APL1B form a stable complex with LRIM1. These results support a model in which APL1A, APL1B and APL1C can all form an extended, flexible heterodimer with LRIM1, providing a repertoire of functional innate immune complexes to protect A. gambiae from a diverse array of pathogens.
Efficacy of Priming: Evidence from Expert Performance

The vast majority of studies performed on the priming of attitudes, dispositions, and behavior engaged non-selective group of students as participants. This study engaged highly skilled experts as well as student cohorts. In a series of 3 experiments, professional chess players as well as non-selected groups of students were primed for risk-taking behavior. The priming manipulations included words (Experiments 1-2) and pictures (Experiment 3). The results showed that priming was roughly effective to the same extent with experts and non-experts. We conclude that experts are not immune of the influence of priming—their high motivation and domain-specific performance notwithstanding.
On Periodicity of Solutions For Thermocontrol Problems with Hysteresis-Type Switches

Mathematical models of thermocontrol processes occurring in chemical reactors and climate control systems are considered. In the models under consideration, the temperature inside a domain is controlled by a thermostat acting on the boundary. The feedback is based on temperature measurements performed by thermal sensors inside the domain. The solvability of the corresponding nonlinear nonlocal problems and the periodicity of solutions are studied.
Exploring the Effects of Peer Review and Teachers' Corrective Feedback on EFL Students' Online Writing Performance

The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of the combination of teacher-led feedback and peer review (TF + PR) and a single TF method on the writing performance of English as a foreign language (EFL) university students within a collaborative online learning system. The students' perceptions of the writing course were also examined. An experimental PR + TF group and a comparison TF group, with a total of 107 undergraduate students majoring in nursing, participated in this study during the fall semester of 2011. The results revealed that the students in the TF + PR group demonstrated greater improvements than those who received only TF in terms of holistic writing skills and the subscales of content, organization, grammar, mechanics, and style. The PR perceptions of the TF + PR group learners and the manner in which they adopted strategies for coping with peer feedback are discussed.
Latency-Oriented Task Completion via Spatial Crowdsourcing

Spatial crowdsourcing brings in a new approach for social media and location-based services (LBS) to collect location specific information via mobile users. For example, when a user checks in at a shop on Facebook, he will immediately receive and is asked to complete a set of tasks such as "what is the opening hour of the shop". It is non-trivial to complete a set of tasks timely and accurately via spatial crowdsourcing. Since workers in spatial crowdsourcing are often transient and limited in number, these social media platforms need to properly allocate workers within the set of tasks such that all tasks are completed (i) with high quality and (ii) with a minimal latency (estimated by the arriving index of the last recruited worker). Solutions to quality and latency control in traditional crowdsourcing are inapplicable in this problem because they either assume sufficient workers or ignore the spatiotemporal factors. In this work, we define the Latency-oriented Task Completion (LTC) problem, which trades off quality and latency (number of workers) of task completion in spatial crowdsourcing. We prove that the LTC problem is NP-hard. We first devise a minimum-cost-flow based algorithm with a constant approximation ratio for the LTC problem in the offline scenario, where all information is known a prior. Then we study the more practical online scenario of the LTC problem, where workers appear dynamically and the platform needs to arrange tasks for each worker immediately based on partial information. We design two greedy-based algorithms with competitive ratio guarantees to solve the LTC problem in the online scenario. Finally, we validate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed solutions through extensive evaluations on both synthetic and real-world datasets.
Logical evolution method for learning Boolean functions

In this paper, we present a new learning algorithm, referred to as the logical evolution (LE) method. To learn a Boolean function, the LE method uses not only new information in the given training examples but also old information learned in the past. By using only one network to learn many functions, old information can be re-used for learning new problems efficiently. In this paper, we present the network structure and the learning algorithm of LE and analyse its properties. Its learning capability is also shown by means of two experiments.
Split-spectrum amplitude-decorrelation angiography with optical coherence tomography

Amplitude decorrelation measurement is sensitive to transverse flow and immune to phase noise in comparison to Doppler and other phase-based approaches. However, the high axial resolution of OCT makes it very sensitive to the pulsatile bulk motion noise in the axial direction. To overcome this limitation, we developed split-spectrum amplitude-decorrelation angiography (SSADA) to improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of flow detection. The full OCT spectrum was split into several narrower bands. Inter-B-scan decorrelation was computed using the spectral bands separately and then averaged. The SSADA algorithm was tested on in vivo images of the human macula and optic nerve head. It significantly improved both SNR for flow detection and connectivity of microvascular network when compared to other amplitude-decorrelation algorithms.
Funnels, pathways, and the energy landscape of protein folding: A synthesis

The understanding, and even the description of protein folding is impeded by the complexity of the process. Much of this complexity can be described and understood by taking a statistical approach to the energetics of protein conformation, that is, to the energy landscape. The statistical energy landscape approach explains when and why unique behaviors, such as specific folding pathways, occur in some proteins and more generally explains the distinction between folding processes common to all sequences and those peculiar to individual sequences. This approach also gives new, quantitative insights into the interpretation of experiments and simulations of protein folding thermodynamics and kinetics. Specifically, the picture provides simple explanations for folding as a two‐state first‐order phase transition, for the origin of metastable collapsed unfolded states and for the curved Arrhenius plots observed in both laboratory experiments and discrete lattice simulations. The relation of these quantitative ideas to folding pathways, to uniexponential vs. multiexponential behavior in protein folding experiments and to the effect of mutations on folding is also discussed. The success of energy landscape ideas in protein structure prediction is also described. The use of the energy landscape approach for analyzing data is illustrated with a quantitative analysis of some recent simulations, and a qualitative analysis of experiments on the folding of three proteins. The work unifies several previously proposed ideas concerning the mechanism protein folding and delimits the regions of validity of these ideas under different thermodynamic conditions. © 1995 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
A Word of Caution: Human Rights, Disability, and Implementation of the Post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals

On 25 September 2015, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly unanimously voted for the post-2015 UN resolution on the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) agenda. This article argues that although the post-2015 SDG agenda is an advance on its precursor the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)—especially for progressing the human rights of persons with disabilities in development settings, everywhere—it should nonetheless be approached with caution. This article will identify “three steps forward” for persons with disabilities within the broad content of the post-2015 SDGs, while also highlighting four potential “steps back”. It concludes persons with disabilities, disability rights advocates and their supporters must remain vigilant as the post-SDG UN resolution is now operationalised and implemented by UN Member States and their many partners. This is particularly so if the content of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is to be effectively integrated into the post-2015 development policy and planning landscape.
Optimal Pricing and Rebate Strategies in a Two‐Level Supply Chain

For many product categories, manufacturers and retailers often offer rebates to stimulate sales. Due to certain adverse effects, however, some manufacturers and retailers are contemplating the elimination of their rebate programs. This paper sheds light on the debate about the value of rebate programs by presenting a model for evaluating the conditions under which a firm should offer rebates in a competitive environment. Specifically, we consider a two‐level supply chain comprising one manufacturer and one retailer. Each firm makes three decisions: the regular (wholesale or retail) price, whether or not to offer rebates, and the rebate value should the firm decide to launch a rebate program. We determine the equilibrium of a vertical competition game between the manufacturer (leader) and the retailer (follower), and we provide insights about how competition affects the conditions under which a firm should offer rebates in equilibrium.
The effect of physical activity interventions on youth with autism spectrum disorder: A meta‐analysis

The purpose of this meta‐analysis was to examine the effect of physical activity interventions on youth diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. Standard meta‐analytical procedures determining inclusion criteria, literature searches in electronic databases, coding procedures, and statistical methods were used to identify and synthesize articles retained for analysis. Hedge's g (1988) was utilized to interpret effect sizes and quantify research findings. Moderator and outcome variables were assessed using coding procedures. A total of 29 studies with 30 independent samples (N = 1009) were utilized in this analysis. Results from meta‐analyses indicated an overall moderate effect (g = 0.62). Several outcomes indicated moderate‐to‐large effects (g ≥ 0.5); specifically, moderate to large positive effects were revealed for participants exposed to interventions targeting the development of manipulative skills, locomotor skills, skill‐related fitness, social functioning, and muscular strength and endurance. Moderator analyses were conducted to explain variance between groups; environment was the only subgrouping variable (intervention characteristics) to produce a significant difference (QB = 5.67, P < 0.05) between moderators. While no significant differences were found between other moderators, several trends were apparent within groups in which experimental groups outperformed control groups. Autism Res 2018, 11: 818–833. © 2018 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Aggressive early crystalloid resuscitation adversely affects outcomes in adult blunt trauma patients: An analysis of the Glue Grant database

BACKGROUND: Evidence suggests that aggressive crystalloid resuscitation is associated with significant morbidity in various clinical settings. We wanted to assess whether aggressive early crystalloid resuscitation adversely affects outcomes in adult blunt trauma patients. METHODS: Data were derived from the Glue Grant database. Our primary outcome measure was all‐cause in‐hospital mortality. Secondary outcomes included days on mechanical ventilation; intensive care unit (ICU) and hospital length of stay (LOS); inflammatory (acute lung injury and adult respiratory distress syndrome, or multiple‐organ failure) and resuscitation‐related morbidity (abdominal and extremity compartment syndromes or acute renal failure) and nosocomial infections (ventilator‐associated pneumonia, bloodstream, urinary tract, and surgical site infections). RESULTS: In our sample of 1,754 patients, in‐hospital mortality was not affected, but ventilator days (p < 0.001) as well as ICU (p = 0.009) and hospital (p = 0.002) LOS correlated strongly with the amount of crystalloids infused in the first 24 hours after injury. Amount of crystalloid resuscitation was also associated with the development of adult respiratory distress syndrome (p < 0.001), multiple‐organ failure (p < 0.001), bloodstream (p = 0.001) and surgical site infections (p < 0.001), as well as abdominal (p < 0.001) and extremity compartment syndromes (p = 0.028) in a dose‐dependent fashion, when age, Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS), severity of injury and acute physiologic derangement, comorbidities, as well as colloid and blood product transfusions were controlled for. CONCLUSION: Crystalloid resuscitation is associated with a substantial increase in morbidity, as well as ICU and hospital LOS in adult blunt trauma patients. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Therapeutic study, level III.