Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
PADyC: a synergistic robot for cardiac puncturing

Computer assisted surgery (CAS) attempts primarily to optimize the performance of medical tasks. This consists in planning optimal strategies and accurately transferring and executing these plans in intra-operative conditions. One clinical purpose is to minimize the intervention invasiveness by increasing the selectivity of anatomical target localization and reducing the aggressiveness of the target access through minimal incisions or natural openings. This generally results for the surgeon in a lack of perception (vision, tactile feeling) and dexterity. It may also raise accessibility problems and may require a higher positional and force accuracy. Therefore, an interface device of some sort is needed in order to connect the "information world" of images, plans, and computers, to the physical world of surgeons, patients, and tools. Such a device is called a "guiding system". We discuss the PADyC system whose purpose is to limit the possible actions of the surgeon to what is strictly authorized in the planning. PADyC relies on man-machine cooperation. We present its principles and we discuss its application to cardiac punctures.
POSTER: biTheft: Stealing Your Secrets by Bidirectional Covert Channel Communication with Zero-Permission Android Application

Android has 81.5% of the smartphone market now, and it is also suffering from the explosive growth of malicious applications (or apps). These apps steal users' secret data and transmit it out of the phones. By analyzing the required permissions and the abnormal behaviors, some malicious apps may be easily detected. However, in this paper, we present a bidirectional covert channel in Android, named biTheft, which steals secrets and privacies covertly without any permission. biTheft firstly collects secret data from a set of unprotected shared resources in Android system. Then, it analyzes and infers secrets from the data. With the Intent mechanism, biTheft transmits secrets by legally launching some activities of other apps without requiring any permission itself. biTheft also monitors the usages and statuses of the shared resources to receive commands from remote server. We implement a biTheft scenario, and demonstrate that some types of secrets can be stolen and transmitted out. With pre-agreement, biTheft dynamically adjusts according with the remote server commands. Comparing with the traditional covert channels, biTheft is more practical in the real world scenarios.
TnaA, an SP-RING Protein, Interacts with Osa, a Subunit of the Chromatin Remodeling Complex BRAHMA and with the SUMOylation Pathway in Drosophila melanogaster

Tonalli A (TnaA) is a Drosophila melanogaster protein with an XSPRING domain. The XSPRING domain harbors an SP-RING zinc-finger, which is characteristic of proteins with SUMO E3 ligase activity. TnaA is required for homeotic gene expression and is presumably involved in the SUMOylation pathway. Here we analyzed some aspects of the TnaA location in embryo and larval stages and its genetic and biochemical interaction with SUMOylation pathway proteins. We describe that there are at least two TnaA proteins (TnaA130 and TnaA123) differentially expressed throughout development. We show that TnaA is chromatin-associated at discrete sites on polytene salivary gland chromosomes of third instar larvae and that tna mutant individuals do not survive to adulthood, with most dying as third instar larvae or pupae. The tna mutants that ultimately die as third instar larvae have an extended life span of at least 4 to 15 days as other SUMOylation pathway mutants. We show that TnaA physically interacts with the SUMO E2 conjugating enzyme Ubc9, and with the BRM complex subunit Osa. Furthermore, we show that tna and osa interact genetically with SUMOylation pathway components and individuals carrying mutations for these genes show a phenotype that can be the consequence of misexpression of developmental-related genes.
Equivalence of intrathecal chemotherapy and radiotherapy as central nervous system prophylaxis in children with acute lymphatic leukemia: a pediatric oncology group study.

The efficacy of intrathecal (i.t.) chemoprophylaxis was compared with cranial radiotherapy plus i.t. methotrexate (MTX) in a Southwest Oncology Group (SWOG) study accessing 408 patients from September 10, 1974, to October 29, 1976. Randomization was stratified by prognostic groups (PGs) based on age and white blood cell count at diagnosis. All received induction therapy with vincristine and prednisone (Pred); maintenance therapy consisted of daily 6-mercaptopurine and weekly MTX. Consolidation for arm 1 employed cyclophosphamide and L-asparaginase followed by biweekly 5-day courses of parenteral MTX. The first dose of each course of MTX was given i.t. in triple chemoprophylaxis (MTX, hydrocortisone, and cytosine arabinoside). During maintenance, i.t. chemoprophylaxis was bimonthly and 28-day Pred "pulses" were given every 3 mo. Arm 2 i.t. chemoprophylaxis was initiated on achievement of remission, and arm 3 i.t. on treatment day 1; both continued 1 yr. Arm 4 induction included two doses of L-asparaginase. On achievement of remission, CNS prophylaxis (radiotherapy, 2400 rad plus i.t. MTX) was given. For all, therapy was discontinued after 3 yr of continuous complete remission. Survival and the incidence of extramedullary relapse were similar for the treatments employing either i.t. chemoprophylaxis or radiotherapy plus i.t. MTX upon achievement of remission. Among poor prognosis patients, the duration of complete remission was significantly better with the regimen using i.t. chemoprophylaxis as a component of consolidation therapy than with the regimen employing i.t. chemoprophylaxis early in induction or with the treatment using radiotherapy plus i.t. MTX for CNS prophylaxis. In poor prognosis patients, the initiation of i.t. chemoprophylaxis during consolidation was also associated with hematologic remissions that were significantly better than those achieved with the treatment employing early CNS chemoprophylaxis or with the regimen using radiotherapy plus i.t. MTX. Among average prognosis patients, therapy with CNS chemoprophylaxis during consolidation, as well as the regimen employing radiotherapy and i.t. MTX for CNS prophylaxis, produced hematologic remissions that were significantly longer than those obtained with the regimen using early CNS chemoprophylaxis. Hematologic remissions of good prognosis patients who received treatment with the regimen employing i.t. chemoprophylaxis during consolidation were statistically superior when compared to the regimen employing CNS radiotherapy plus i.t. MTX. This study indicates that i.t. chemoprophylaxis may be substituted for cranial radiotherapy when utilizing effective systemic regimens. Additionally, chemoprophylaxis may be reduced from 3 to 1 yr in patients with good prognostic factors.
A Survey of Trust Management and Resource Discovery Technologies in Peer-to-Peer Applications

Decentralized peer-to-peer (P2P) applications are characterized by the absence of a central authority or infrastructure that coordinates the behavior of entities in the system. These entities, called peers, interact directly with each other and make local autonomous decisions in order to achieve their individual goals. In the absence of a single authority that maintains all the data and handles all the queries, peers themselves are responsible for seeking, storing, and sharing information efficiently. Placing a large amount of information on every peer or broadcasting a request to every peer greatly reduces the performance and efficiency of the system. Hence, it is essential that decentralized applications employ efficient storage mechanisms and reliable search mechanisms. Further, an open decentralized system that does not regulate the joining of peers can be subject to grave risks. In particular, malicious peers may be encouraged to resort to a variety of attacks, including sending spurious information, posing as other peers, etc. It is important for each peer in the system to defend against such attacks. This survey discusses these two essential issues that characterize P2P decentralized applications: storage and discovery mechanisms, and trust management. It identifies and defines key properties for each of these and also summarizes the efforts of the P2P community in addressing these properties by categorizing and discussing relevant technologies and approaches. A Survey of Trust Management and Resource Discovery Technologies in Peer-to-Peer Applications Girish Suryanarayana, Richard N. Taylor Institute for Software Research University of California, Irvine {sgirish,taylor}@ics.uci. edu ISR Technical Report # UCI-ISR-04-6
Shaking Our Foundations, Part 2: Into the Future

The second article presents the conclusions of a detailed analysis of the relationship between occupational therapists and their helpers. In order to consolidate their insecure status, it could appear that occupational therapists are dedicating themselves to the pursuit of professionalism. This is to compensate for anxiety about their role which causes them to feel threatened by the large group of unqualified workers necessary to help with the job in hand. Their reaction is to emulate the traditional male model with helpers kept firmly in the subordinate role of women, ‘invisible’ in terms of the recognition they receive for their contributions to the work of the occupational therapist Attempts are currently being made to enhance helpers' knowledge and skill in appreciation of their value, but the trained workers would nevertheless appear to be maintaining their dominant position on the assumption that, for them, the way forward inevitably has to be up.
State-of-the-art in characterization-based printed electronics RF design

Printed electronics manufacturing technology is well suited for thin, flexible wireless sensor applications. This work summarizes a state-of-the-art design methodology for printed electronics including recent advances in wide-band electrical material characterization process, characterization-based RF design, optimized antenna design for inkjet printing, and an example of an inkjet-printed wireless sensor. The research is relevant for modeling-based design of flexible wireless sensors.
Intracellular Serine Protease Inhibitor SERPINB4 Inhibits Granzyme M-Induced Cell Death

Granzyme-mediated cell death is the major pathway for cytotoxic lymphocytes to kill virus-infected and tumor cells. In humans, five different granzymes (i.e. GrA, GrB, GrH, GrK, and GrM) are known that all induce cell death. Expression of intracellular serine protease inhibitors (serpins) is one of the mechanisms by which tumor cells evade cytotoxic lymphocyte-mediated killing. Intracellular expression of SERPINB9 by tumor cells renders them resistant to GrB-induced apoptosis. In contrast to GrB, however, no physiological intracellular inhibitors are known for the other four human granzymes. In the present study, we show that SERPINB4 formed a typical serpin-protease SDS-stable complex with both recombinant and native human GrM. Mutation of the P2-P1-P1′ triplet in the SERPINB4 reactive center loop completely abolished complex formation with GrM and N-terminal sequencing revealed that GrM cleaves SERPINB4 after P1-Leu. SERPINB4 inhibited GrM activity with a stoichiometry of inhibition of 1.6 and an apparent second order rate constant of 1.3×104 M−1s−1. SERPINB4 abolished cleavage of the macromolecular GrM substrates α-tubulin and nucleophosmin. Overexpression of SERPINB4 in tumor cells inhibited recombinant GrM-induced as well as NK cell-mediated cell death and this inhibition depended on the reactive center loop of the serpin. As SERPINB4 is highly expressed by squamous cell carcinomas, our results may represent a novel mechanism by which these tumor cells evade cytotoxic lymphocyte-induced GrM-mediated cell death.
A distributed auction-based algorithm to allocate bandwidth over paths

In the literature, Vickrey-Clark-Groves (VCG) double-sided auctions have been applied to inter-domain traffic exchange because they provide incentives to be truthful and lead to an efficient use of the network, among relevant properties of mechanism design. Unfortunately, the resulting resource allocation scheme is neither budget-balanced nor solvable in a decentralized way, two important properties. We present a different but more realistic auction-based algorithm for allocating bandwidth over paths to end users or ISPs, leading to a new budget-balanced pricing scheme for which allocations and charges can be computed in a decentralized way.
Coexpression of heparanase activity, cathepsin L, tissue factor, tissue factor pathway inhibitor, and MMP-9 in proliferative diabetic retinopathy

Purpose Heparanase cleaves heparan sulfate side chains of heparan sulfate proteoglycans, activity that is implicated in angiogenesis. Proteolytic cleavage of proheparanase by cathepsin L leads to the formation of catalytically active heparanase. We investigated the expression levels of heparanase enzymatic activity and correlated these with the levels of cathepsin L, the angiogenic factors tissue factor (TF) and matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9), and the angiostatic factor tissue factor pathway inhibitor (TFPI) in proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR). Methods Vitreous samples from 25 patients with PDR and 20 nondiabetic patients and epiretinal membranes from 12 patients with PDR were studied with enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, western blot analysis, and immunohistochemistry. Results We observed a significant increase in the expression of heparanase activity in vitreous samples from patients with PDR compared to the nondiabetic controls (p=0.027). Significant positive correlations were found between the levels of heparanase activity and the levels of cathepsin L (r=0.51; p=0.001), TF (r=0.6; p<0.0001), and TFPI (r=0.49; p=0.001). The expression levels of cathepsin L (p=0.019), TF (p<0.0001), TFPI (p<0.0001), and MMP-9 (p=0.029) were significantly higher in the vitreous samples with detected heparanase activity compared to the vitreous samples with undetected heparanase activity. Western blot analysis demonstrated proteolytic cleavage of TFPI in the vitreous samples from patients with PDR. In the epiretinal membranes, cathepsin L, TF, and TFPI were expressed in vascular endothelial cells and CD45-expressing leukocytes. Significant positive correlations were detected between the number of blood vessels that expressed CD31 and the number of blood vessels that expressed TF (r=0.9; p<0.0001) and TFPI (r=0.81; p=0.001). Conclusions The coexpression of these angiogenesis regulatory factors suggests cross-talk between these factors and pathogenesis of PDR angiogenesis.
Glucocorticoids Play a Fundamental Role in Protecting the Brain during Innate Immune Response

The innate immune system plays a crucial role in protecting the host against infectious microorganisms. An inappropriate control of this system may have profound consequences, because of the maintained production of specific proinflammatory molecules. Glucocorticoids are the most efficient endogenous molecules that provide negative feedback on proinflammatory signaling and gene expression. Here we show that activation of this system is not detrimental for the brain but a profound neurodegeneration takes place in animals treated with the glucocorticoid receptor inhibitor Mifepristone (RU486). This drug increased the inflammatory reaction induced by a single intracerebral bolus of lipopolysaccharide (LPS). Inhibition of tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α) totally abolished the neurotoxic effect of the endotoxin, and chronic infusion of the cytokine mimicked the treatment combining RU486 and LPS. The neuronal damage caused by TNF-α is dependent on both nitric oxide and caspase pathways. In controlling the cerebral innate immunity and microglial TNF-α production, glucocorticoids play a major role in protecting the brain against bacterial cell wall components.
The Self-Threat of Unsolicited Social Comparison and Its Balance

People often encounter comparative information, actively or passively, to judge one’s self-worth. The Selective Accessible Theory (SAT) (Mussweiler, 2003) proposed that the similarity and dissimilarity test are the core mechanisms to determine the consequences of comparison on the basis of informational foci. This suggests that the information activated by the social context can actually determine the self-evaluation outcomes, displacing toward or away from the comparison target. However, little has done to explore the individual spontaneous choice toward different comparison target based on SAT and its influence on the self, especially in Chinese cultural context. Chinese people prefer upward comparison, i.e., comparing with more capable target to find their competency gap. Downward comparison would be used only if they cannot find effective ways to eliminate the negative feelings accompanied with upward comparison. Such dissimilarity hypothesis has been found to result in lower self-evaluation, according to SAT. Thus, the self-threat of comparison appears. The present study explores the source of such threat of comparison and its balance through 3 experiments. In experiment 1, participants were required to write down the names of three potential comparison targets. Control group is also used as a basic level to examine the effect after comparison. As expected, the information of routine upward comparison target was activated and the threat of comparison to self has emerged. Experiment 2 extends this finding by introducing the task relevance (high/low) to explore its influencing factor. Performance feedback (contrastive/non-contrastive) was provided to simulate an implicit upward comparison target, which would increase the information intensity of upward comparison target. Results suggest that the interaction between task relevance and performance feedback significantly influenced self-evaluation. Specifically, regardless of the level of task relevance, the contrastive and the non-contrastive performance feedback both led to lowered self-evaluation, suggesting the generalized trend of the threat of comparison among Chinese people. However, the generalization of self-threat of comparison doesn’t emerge in the emotional variable. Experiment 3 further explores the balancing strategy used by Chinese people to alleviate the threat of comparison. Results show that if people have the opportunity to affirm themselves, the threat of comparison would be attenuated, and knowledge foundation of the threat from upward comparison target would be inaccessible, yet the negative emotion was still there and exhibited a trend of generalization. Based on the results of these experiments, selective accessibility of dissimilar information exerts significant influence on the social comparison effect, and the Chinese people indeed show something different in this process. The implication and suggestions for future researches are discussed.
Susceptibility of Snails to Infection with Schistosomes is influenced by Temperature and Expression of Heat Shock Proteins

The freshwater snail, Biomphalaria glabrata is the obligate intermediate host for the transmission of the parasitic trematode, Schistosoma mansoni the causative agent of the chronic debilitating neglected tropical disease, schistosomiasis. We showed previously that in juvenile snails, early and significant induction of stress manifested by the expression of stress proteins, Hsp 70, Hsp 90 and reverse transcriptase (RT) of the non- LTR retrotransposon, nimbus, is a characteristic feature of juvenile susceptible NMRI but not resistant BS-90 snails. These latter, however, could be rendered susceptible after mild heat shock at 32°C, revealing that resistance in the BS-90 resistant snail to schistosomes is a temperature dependent trait. Here we tested the hypothesis that maintenance of BS-90 resistant snails at the permissive temperature for several generations affects the resistance phenotype displayed at the non-permissive temperature of 25°C. The progeny of BS-90 snails bred and maintained through several generations (F1 to F4) at 32°C were susceptible to the schistosome infection when returned to room temperature, shedding cercariae at four weeks post-infection. Moreover, the study of expression levels of the heat shock protein (Hsp) 70 protein by ELISA and western blot analysis, showed that this protein is also differentially expressed between susceptible and resistant snails, with susceptible snails expressing more protein than their resistant counterparts after early exposure to wild-type but not to radiation-attenuated miracidia. These data suggested that in the face of global warming, the ability to sustain a reduction in schistosomiasis by using refractory snails as a strategy to block transmission of the disease might prove challenging since non-lethal elevation in temperature, affects snail susceptibility to S. mansoni.
Correlation of noncarious cervical lesion size and occlusal wear in a single adult over a 14-year time span.

STATEMENT OF PROBLEM Noncarious cervical lesions are described as having a multifactorial cause, with occlusal trauma and toothbrush abrasion frequently mentioned as major factors. Finite element modeling studies have demonstrated a relocalization of occlusal stresses to the cervical area due to flexure of the crown. This may cause microcracking, especially under tensile stresses, that will lead to a loss of enamel and dentin in the cervical region. Clinical confirmation of an occlusal cause for noncarious cervical lesions has been difficult to obtain. PURPOSE This study investigated whether occlusal wear was correlated with an increase in the size of noncarious cervical lesions. MATERIAL AND METHODS Loss of contour at occlusal and cervical sites on 3 teeth of a single individual was measured using digital and visualization techniques at 3 time intervals over a 14-year time span. The 1983 baseline casts and 1991, 1994, and 1997 clinical impressions of a single adult patient with existing noncarious cervical lesions were replicated in epoxy. Surfaces of all replicas were digitized with a contact digitizing system. Sequential digitized surfaces were fit together and analyzed using AnSur-NT surface analysis software. Clinical losses of surface contour by volume and depth of the left mandibular first molar and first and second premolars were recorded. RESULTS Nine measurements of cervical volume loss (range 0.9 to 11.5 mm(3)) and 9 corresponding measurements of occlusal volume loss (range 0.39 to 7.79 mm(3)) were made. The correlation between occlusal and cervical volume loss was strong (r(2)=0.98) and significant (P<.0001). CONCLUSION For the single adult patient in this study, there was a direct correlation between occlusal wear and the growth of noncarious cervical lesions.