Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ingestion of Diet Soda Before a Glucose Load Augments Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 Secretion

OBJECTIVE The goal of this study was to determine the effect of artificial sweeteners on glucose, insulin, and glucagon-like peptide (GLP)-1 in humans. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS For this study, 22 healthy volunteers (mean age 18.5 ± 4.2 years) underwent two 75-g oral glucose tolerance tests with frequent measurements of glucose, insulin, and GLP-1 for 180 min. Subjects drank 240 ml of diet soda or carbonated water, in randomized order, 10 min prior to the glucose load. RESULTS Glucose excursions were similar after ingestion of carbonated water and diet soda. Serum insulin levels tended to be higher after diet soda, without statistical significance. GLP-1 peak and area under the curve (AUC) were significantly higher with diet soda (AUC 24.0 ± 15.2 pmol/l per 180 min) versus carbonated water (AUC 16.2 ± 9.0 pmol/l per 180 min; P = 0.003). CONCLUSIONS Artificial sweeteners synergize with glucose to enhance GLP-1 release in humans. This increase in GLP-1 secretion may be mediated via stimulation of sweet-taste receptors on L-cells by artificial sweetener.
Phase II study of axitinib in sorafenib-refractory metastatic renal cell carcinoma.

PURPOSE To investigate the efficacy and safety of axitinib, an oral, potent, and selective inhibitor of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) receptors 1, 2, and 3 in patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC) refractory to prior therapies that included, but were not limited to, sorafenib. PATIENTS AND METHODS In this multicenter, open-label, phase II study, patients with sorafenib-refractory mRCC received a starting dose of axitinib 5 mg orally twice daily. A one-arm, single-stage design was used to estimate the primary end point of objective response rate (ORR), defined by RECIST (Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors). Secondary end points included safety, duration of response, progression-free survival (PFS), overall survival (OS), and patient-reported outcomes. RESULTS Of 62 patients recruited, 100% had received prior sorafenib, and 74.2% had received two or more prior systemic treatments. The axitinib dose was titrated to greater than 5 mg twice daily in 53.2% of patients, and 35.5% of patients had the dose modified to less than 5 mg twice daily. In 62 patients evaluable for response, the ORR was 22.6%, and the median duration of response was 17.5 months. Median PFS and OS times were 7.4 months (95% CI, 6.7 to 11.0 months) and 13.6 months (95% CI, 8.4 to 18.8 months), respectively. All-causality grade 3 to 4 adverse events included hand-foot syndrome (16.1%), fatigue (16.1%), hypertension (16.1%), dyspnea (14.5%), diarrhea (14.5%), dehydration (8.1%), and hypotension (6.5%). CONCLUSION Axitinib has antitumor activity in patients with mRCC refractory to prior VEGF-targeted therapy, including sorafenib. Toxicities were mild to moderate and were manageable. A randomized, phase III trial to compare axitinib with sorafenib in patients who have mRCC refractory to one prior first-line therapy regimen is underway.
Induction of Protective Immunity Using Minigenes a

Antiviral vaccination has been remarkably successful, at least in “developed” countries, in protecting against several viral diseases. Smallpox has been eradicated, and the incidences of paralytic poliomyelitis, measles, and mumps have been markedly reduced. The clinical efficacy of antiviral vaccination was demonstrated at a relatively early stage, and perhaps in part because of this success, research to identify the component(s) of the vaccine-induced immune response that actually conferred the protection has been limited. For at least four reasons, however, complacency should be discouraged, and a full understanding of vaccine-induced immunity should be. pursued. Firstly, new approaches may be necessary to cope with certain pathogenic organisms such as HIV. Secondly, new synthetic vaccines are being suggested to augment andlor supplant the vaccines that have been used successfully over the past four decades; before discarding or supplementing these highly successful reagents, we must ensure that their substitutes can induce immune responses capable of combatting subsequent exposure to the pathogenic viruses. Thirdly, ‘ ‘inappropriate” vaccination can be harmful to the vaccinee; killed measles’ and respiratory syncytial virus* vaccines given to children in the late 1960s induced good antiviral antibody levels, but led to greater morbidity and mortality than those of unvaccinated individuals on subsequent exposure to the wild-type pathogen. Fourthly, changes in successful vaccine programs may have unforeseen consequences. Measles vaccination in Africa has radically reduced the incidence of disease; much of the remaining morbidity and mortality occurs in young children. To further improve vaccine efficacy, a high-titer vaccine was adopted and given to children of 6 months. Unexpectedly, an increase in mortality (cause unknown) was noted within 3 years postvaccination, particularly in females, and use of this vaccine is no longer recommended. Current recommendations have reverted to the previous protocol. In this brief review, the new generation of vaccines currently being tested cannot all be discussed at length. Vaccines have historically been classified as “live” or “killed,” but in terms of their interactions with the antigen presentation system they may better be respectively distinguished as “producing proteins within the host” or “administering preformed proteins to the host. ” The former type of vaccine can
Cytoplasmic Overexpression of HER2: a Key Factor in Colorectal Cancer

Trastuzumab, a humanized mouse monoclonal antibody directed against HER2 (Human Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor 2), is currently a keystone in the treatment of breast cancer. Meanwhile, trastuzumab has been validated for use in other types of cancer too. But the data on HER2 expression in colorectal cancer are ambiguous, with reported overexpression of HER2 varying between zero and 84%. In this review these studies are evaluated and compared. It shows that many factors influence the determination of HER2-expression, especially of the intracellular fraction of HER2. It is concluded that although membranous overexpression of HER2 is low in colorectal cancer with only 5% of all patients being positive, a significant proportion of the patients (30%) shows cytoplasmic HER2 overexpression. The clinical impact of enhanced intracellular HER2 is not known, because the nature and origin have not completely been revealed yet. Enlightening this process could be a stepping stone towards targeting of intracellular HER2 as a treatment option.
A multirate 3.4-to-6.8mW 85-to-66dB DR GSM/bluetooth/UMTS cascade DT ΔΣM in 90nm digital CMOS

The main advantages of discrete-time (DT) systems are their robustness and their ability to exploit the high switching speeds of transistors in scaled technologies [1]. Operating in discrete time also allows for system reconfiguration by changing the sampling frequency. Moreover, different sampling frequencies can be applied throughout a system. This multirate feature can then be exploited to trade performance for power and flexibility. The multirate technique can also be of benefit to discrete-time ΔΣ modulators. In ΔΣ modulators, the first integrators are the largest contributors to the overall power consumption since they set the overall noise and distortion of the modulator. The multirate technique can then be used to reduce the sampling speed of the first integrators and hence the power and compensate for loss in resolution by increasing the speed of the last integrators. However, multirate processing inside a single-loop ΔΣ modulator introduces additional complexity due to the feedback from the last integrators to the input operating at a lower sampling frequency. This complexity can be avoided by using a cascaded architecture in which the sampling frequency is modified between the stages. It can be shown [2] that a cascade ΔΣ with the first loop operating at fS/2 and the second loop at 2fS is equivalent in terms of resolution to a cascade ΔΣ with both loops operating at fS. Furthermore, a cascaded implementation can offer a power-efficient implementation in a multimode context by switching off the appropriate last stages [3,4]. In this paper we present a 90nm CMOS tri-mode DT multirate cascade ΔΣ modulator.
Planning with Temporally Extended Goals Using Heuristic Search

Temporally extended goals (TEGs) refer to properties that must hold over intermediate and/or final states of a plan. Current planners for TEGs prune the search space during planning via goal progression. However, the fastest classical domain-independent planners rely on heuristic search. In this paper we propose a method for planning with propositional TEGs using heuristic search. To this end, we translate an instance of a planning problem with TEGs into an equivalent classical planning problem. With this translation in hand, we exploit heuristic search to determine a plan. We represent TEGs using propositional linear temporal logic which is interpreted over finite sequences of states. Our translation is based on the construction of a nondeterministic finite automaton for the TEG. We prove the correctness of our algorithm and analyze the complexity of the resulting representation. The translator is fully implemented and available. Our approach consistently outperforms existing approaches to planning with TEGs, often by orders of magnitute.
Traffic matrices: balancing measurements, inference and modeling

Traffic matrix estimation is well-studied, but in general has been treated simply as a statistical inference problem. In practice, however, network operators seeking traffic matrix information have a range of options available to them. Operators can measure traffic flows directly; they can perform partial flow measurement, and infer missing data using models; or they can perform no flow measurement and infer traffic matrices directly from link counts. The advent of practical flow measurement makes the study of these tradeoffs more important. In particular, an important question is whether judicious modeling, combined with partial flow measurement, can provide traffic matrix estimates that are signficantly better than previous methods at relatively low cost. In this paper we make a number of contributions toward answering this question. First, we provide a taxonomy of the kinds of models that may make use of partial flow measurement, based on the nature of the measurements used and the spatial, temporal, or spatio-temporal correlation exploited. We then evaluate estimation methods which use each kind of model. In the process we propose and evaluate new methods, and extensions to methods previously proposed. We show that, using such methods, small amounts of traffic flow measurements can have significant impacts on the accuracy of traffic matrix estimation, yielding results much better than previous approaches. We also show that different methods differ in their bias and variance properties, suggesting that different methods may be suited to different applications.
Electrode Wear Rate of Graphite Electrodes during Electrical Discharge Machining Processes on Titanium Alloy Ti-5Al-2.5Sn

The proper selection of machining parameters can result in better machining performance in the electrical discharge machining process. However, this job is not always easy since the phenomena occurring between the electrodes in EDM are not yet fully understood. This study reports the development of a comprehensive mathematical model for the electrode wear rate (EWR) of a graphite tool in EDM on Ti-5Al-2.5Sn alloy, which has not yet been presented. Experiments for positive polarity of the graphite electrode, based on design of experiment (DOE), are first conducted. Modeling and analysis are carried out through the response surface methodology, utilizing the experimental results. A confirmation test is also executed to confirm the validity and the accuracy of the mathematical model developed. The confirmation test exhibits an average error of less than 6%. Negative electrode wear is evidenced for particular settings. The combination of 15A peak current, 350µs pulse-on time, 180µs pulse-off time and 95V servo-voltage and positive polarity causes negative tool wear. It is apparent that the developed model can evaluate electrode wear rate accurately and successfully.
Short time-scale optical variability of the dwarf Seyfert nucleus in NGC 4395

We present optical spectroscopic observations of the least-luminous known Seyfert 1 galaxy, NGC 4395, which was monitored every half-hour over the course of three nights. The continuum emission varied by ∼35 per cent over the course of three nights and we find marginal evidence for greater variability in the blue continuum than the red. A number of diagnostic checks were performed on the data in order to constrain any systematic or aperture effects. No correlations were found that adequately explained the observed variability, hence we conclude that we have observed real intrinsic variability of the nuclear source. No simultaneous variability was measured in the broad Hβ line, although given the difficulty in deblending the broad and narrow components it is difficult to comment on the significance of this result. The observed short time-scale continuum variability is consistent with NGC 4395 having an intermediate-mass (∼ 10 5 M ○. ) central supermassive black hole, rather than a very low accretion rate. Comparison with the Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 5548 shows that the observed variability seems to scale with black hole mass in roughly the manner expected in accretion models. However, the absolute time-scale of variability differs by several orders of magnitude from that expected in simple accretion disc models in both cases.
Bimodal Fission in the Skyrme-Hartree-Fock Approach

Spontaneous fission properties of 256Fm, 258Fm, and 260Fm isotopes are studied within the Skyrme-Hartree-Fock+BCS framework. In the particle-hole channel we take the Skyrme SkM* effective force, while in the particle-particle channel we employ the seniority pairing interaction. Three static fission paths for all investigated heavy fermium isotopes are found. The analysis of these fission modes allows to describe observed asymmetric fission of 256Fm, as well as bimodal fission of 258Fm and symmetric fission in 260Fm.
Detection of vowel onset points in voiced aspirated sounds of indian languages

Vowel onset point (VOP) is deﬁned as the instant at which on-set of vowel takes place. Accurate detection of VOP is useful in many applications like syllable unit recognition, end-point detection, speaker veriﬁcation etc. Manually and automatically locating VOPs accurately in case of voiced aspirated (VA) sounds is found to be difﬁcult and ambiguous. This is due to the complex nature of the speech signal waveform around the VOP. This work addresses this issue and a manual marking approach us-ing electroglottograph (EGG) signal is described which accurately marks the VOPs without any ambiguity. The knowledge derived from this manual analysis is transformed into an automatic method for the detection of VOPs in VA sounds. An automatic method is proposed using both source and vocal tract information. VOP detection accuracy of the proposed method is found to be signiﬁcantly higher than some of the state of the art techniques.
Razor: An architecture for dynamic multiresolution ray tracing

Recent work demonstrates that interactive ray tracing is possible on desktop systems, but there is still much debate as to how to most efficiently support advanced visual effects such as soft shadows, smooth freeform surfaces, complex shading, and animated scenes. With these challenges in mind, we reconsider the options for designing a rendering system and present Razor, a new software rendering architecture for distribution ray tracing designed to produce high-quality images with high performance on future single-chip many-core hardware. Razor includes two noteworthy capabilities: a set of techniques for quickly building the kd-tree acceleration structure on demand every frame from a scene graph and a system design that allows for crack-free multiresolution geometry with each ray independently choosing its geometry resolution. Razor's per-frame kd-tree build is designed to robustly handle arbitrarily scene animation, while its per-ray multiresolution geometry provides continuous level of detail driven by ray and path differentials. Razor also decouples shading from visibility computations using a two-phase shading scheme inspired by the REYES system, and caches tessellated representations of freeform surfaces at multiple levels of detail. We present experimental results gathered from a prototype system implemented on eight CPU cores, and discuss which aspects of the system are most successful and which would benefit from further investigation.
Near-Field Characterization of Optical Micro/Nanofibres

近地的扫描光显微镜学被用来借助于检测迅速凋落的波浪带的光力量调查光 micro/nanofibres (MNF ) 的 waveguiding 性质。 逐渐变细拉的硅石和 tellurite MNF，在低索引的底层上支持了，被用来为测试指导第 532-nm-waveleng 轻横梁。 MNF 的单个模式的条件的修正面对底层被观察。 纵的地紧张的空间调整(与一个 195-nm 时期) 在 760-nm-diameter 硅石 MNF 的产量结束附近，井被解决。 通过在二平行 MNF 之间的迅速凋落的联合的精力交换也被调查。
On the Design and Implementation of a Security Architecture for Software Defined Networks

In this paper, we propose techniques for securing Software Defined Networks(SDN). We describe the design of a security architecture that makes use of security applications on top of the SDN Controller to specify fine granular security policies based on domain wide knowledge of the domain and Security Agents to enforce these policies in the switches in the data plane. We have extended the Open Flow protocol to enable communication of the security policies between the security applications in the Controller to the agents in the switches. We have implemented the security architecture using POX Controller and demonstrated the operation of our architecture in a range of scenarios such as enforcing specific security policies for different traffic with different services, counteracting attacks such as Heartbleed and Shellshock as well as spoofing attacks, and protecting Content Management Systems(CMS) from data confidentiality attacks.
Recognition of Persian handwritten digits using Characterization Loci and Mixture of Experts

A method for recognition of Persian handwritten digits based on characterization loci and mixture of experts is proposed. This method utilizes the characterization loci, as the main feature. In the classification stage of our proposed method the mixture of experts are applied. This recognition method is applied to Farsi hand-written digits in the HODA database. The experimental results support our claim that this method improves the performance compare with conventional methods. Evaluating the proposed method with 20000 test samples and ME with 4 experts that each expert has 25 neurons in hidden layer and 5 neurons in hidden layers for gating network the recognition rate of 97.52% is achieved. Comparison with some of the most related methods indicates that the proposed method yields good recognition rate in Persian handwritten digits recognition.
Multiple Sclerosis as a By-Product of the Failure to Sustain Protective Autoimmunity: A Paradigm Shift

Autoimmune diseases are traditionally viewed as an outcome of a chaotic situation in which an individual’s immune system reacts against the body’s own proteins. In multiple sclerosis, a disease of the white matter of the central nervous system (CNS), the immune attack is directed against myelin proteins. In this article, the authors propose a paradigm shift in the perception of autoimmune disease. They suggest that an autoimmune disease may be viewed as a by-product of the malfunctioning of a physiological autoimmune response whose purpose is protective. The proposed view is based on observations by their group suggesting that an autoimmune response is the body’s own mechanism for coping with CNS damage. According to this view, all individuals are endowed with the potential ability to evoke an autoimmune response to CNS injuries. However, the inherent ability to control this response so that its beneficial effect will be expressed is limited and is correlated with the individual’s inherent ability to resist autoimmune disease induction. The same autoimmune T cells are responsible for neuroprotection and for disease development. In patients with CNS trauma or neurodegenerative disorders, it might be possible to gain maximal autoimmune protection and avoid autoimmune disease induction by boosting the immune response, using myelin-associated peptides that are nonpathogenic or antigens that simulate the activities of such peptides. In patients with multiple sclerosis and other neurodegenerative diseases, where the aim is to block the autoimmune disorder while deriving the potential benefit of the autoimmune response, the effect of treatment should be immunomodulatory rather than immunosuppressive. In this article, the authors present a novel concept of protective autoimmunity and propose that autoimmune disease is a by-product of failure to sustain it. They summarize the basic findings that led them to formulate the new concept and offer an explanation for the commonly observed presence of cells and antibodies directed against self-components in healthy individuals. The therapeutic implications of the new concept and their experimental findings are discussed.
The role of solid content of adhesive and panel density on the dimensional stability and mechanical properties of particleboard

The aim of this study was to investigate the role of the panel density and solid content of adhesive on the physical (thickness swelling) and mechanical properties (modulus of rupture, modulus of elasticity, and internal bonding strength) of particleboard composite. For the changing panel density, two different target densities (0.60 and 0.65 g/cm3), three different hot pressing pressures (20, 25, and 30 kg/cm2), two different shelling ratios (35% and 45%), and two different surface coating materials (at 70 and 90 g/m2 grammage) were applied during the manufacturing of test panels. Increasing pressure improved all the properties of particleboard. However, applying lower or higher pressure level than required and necessary level negatively affected the thickness of the panels. Shelling ratio was found to be effective on the mechanical and physical properties of particleboard. Increasing panel density improved the strength properties and thickness swelling after 2 h immersion. However, high panel density negatively affected the thickness swelling after 24 h immersion. Coating of particleboard surfaces caused superior mechanical, except for internal bond strength, and physical properties. Melamine-impregnated paper grammage significantly improved the modulus of rupture, modulus of elasticity, and thickness swelling. Increasing paper grammage improved these properties. However, internal bond strength was not affected by paper grammage. Decreasing solid content of adhesive in the surface layers significantly improved all the properties of particleboard composite.