Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Nanoscale optical communications modulator and acousto-optic transduction with vibrating graphene and resonance energy transfer

Graphene resonators are future promising in terms of ultra-low weight, high Young's modulus, strength and wideband resonance frequencies. Besides that, nanoscale optical wireless channels including visible light spectrum are alternatives to radio-frequency communications promising energy efficiency and high data rates. In this article, vibrating multi-layer graphene nanoelectromechanical resonators are combined with designed vibrating Forster resonance energy transfer (VFRET) mechanism to achieve a nanoscale acousto-optic modulator converting vibrations to multi-color photon emissions. The frequency, color and the vibration sensitivity of emission are tunable while vibrations are realized either passively or actively by exploiting acoustic, thermo-acoustic or opto-acoustic properties of graphene. The light is generated by FRET mechanism with oscillating donor-acceptor distance where donor molecules attached on graphene are chosen as CdSe/ZnS core-shell QDs with significant properties of broad absorption spectrum, large cross-sections, tunable emission spectra, size dependent emission wavelength, high photochemical stability and improved quantum yield. The designed modulator achieves acoustic and ultrasound frequencies between several KHz and tens of MHz and radiation power reaching several nanowatts with resonator sizes of hundreds of micrometers for ambient light intensity of 0.1 W/m2/nm. The proposed system promises significant applications including nanoscale acousto-optic communication, transduction, sensing, energy harvesting and biomedical nanoscale communications.
New IGFET short-channel threshold voltage model

A simple closed form expression for the threshold voltage VTof non-uniformly doped short-channel IGFET's is derived by solving two-dimensional Poisson equation over the depletion region under the gate using a step doping profile approximation. An exponential dependence on channel-length L and a linear dependence on drain-to-source voltage VDSand substrate bias VBSare predicted for\Delta V_{T}, the reduction in short-channel threshold voltage. These predictions are in close agreement with measured VTcharactersistics of submicron IGFET's.
Analysis of Cervical Injuries in Persons With Head Injuries

To determine which clinical factors are useful for predicting concomitant injuries of the cervical spine and cervical spinal cord in persons with head injuries, we examined the nature and mechanisms of cervical injuries. For 109 forensic autopsies of persons with head injuries, the cause of injury, mechanism of cervical injury, survival time, and anatomic injury severity (1990 revision of the abbreviated injury scale [AIS] and injury severity score) were determined. Traffic accidents were the most common cause of injuries (41.3%), followed by slips and falls (24.8%), assaults (17.4%), and falls from height (9.2%). The mean maximum AIS scores and the AIS scores of the head or neck were similar in the 4 groups. Cervical spine injuries and epidural or subdural hemorrhages of the cervical spinal cord were more common in persons dying in traffic accidents and falls from height than in persons dying in slips and falls or assaults. Cervical injuries were significantly more common in persons sustaining frontal impacts than lateral or rear impacts. The most common cervical hyperextension injuries were atlanto-occipital and atlantoaxial dislocation and injuries of the 5th intervertebral disc. Our results suggest that persons with injuries of the head due to high-energy frontal impacts should be carefully examined for concomitant cervical injuries. These findings should be helpful for decreasing preventable deaths from undiagnosed cervical injuries in head-injured persons.
The Issue of (Software) Plagiarism: A Student View

The issue of plagiarism is discussed in the context of university education in disciplines related to computing. The focus is therefore mainly on software plagiarism. First, however, a case is made for the claim that the most important reason that plagiarism cannot be tolerated lies in the essence of the concept of a university as it is rooted in the Western cultural tradition. The main contribution of this paper is in providing firsthand insight into students' views on some of the delicate questions related to student plagiarism. However, this paper presents views from both sides of the question, including the views of staff members. This paper is quite unique in that it is coauthored by students who provide independent comments and recommendations.
U.S. trends in refractive surgery: 2001 International Society of Refractive Surgery Survey.

PURPOSE To determine the trends in refractive surgery in the United States in 2001. METHODS The 980 U.S. members of the International Society of Refractive Surgery were mailed the 2001 refractive surgery survey dealing with volumes, types, and preferences of refractive surgery performed. Questions regarding radial keratotomy, astigmatic keratotomy, photorefractive keratectomy, laser in situ keratomileusis (LASIK), laser subepithelial keratomileusis, intracorneal rings (Intacs), laser thermal keratoplasty, conductive keratoplasty, clear lens extraction, phakic intraocular lenses, and scleral expansion procedures for presbyopia were examined in the survey. Procedure preferences for low, moderate, and high myopia and hyperopia were compared with the results from the surveys of the previous 4 years. Preference for unilateral versus bilateral same-day surgery, laser type, and microkeratome choice were also compared with the survey data from previous years. Incidence and frequency of comanagement of refractive surgery patients were compared with 2000 data. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION LASIK remains the dominant refractive surgery for refractive errors from -12.00 to +3.00 D; the VISX excimer laser and the Hansatome microkeratome are the most frequently used instruments for LASIK.
Metastatic cancer stem cells--quo vadis?

Featured Article: Hermann PC, Huber SL, Herrler T, Aicher A, Ellwart JW, Guba M, et al. Distinct populations of cancer stem cells determine tumor growth and metastatic activity in human pancreatic cancer. Cell Stem Cell 2007;1:313–23.2 In 2003, Al-Hajj and colleagues demonstrated the existence and biological relevance of cancer stem cells (CSCs)3 in breast cancer, and thus for the first time in solid tumors (1). Then in 2007, our team (featured article) and a team from the US (2) independently reported the existence and functional features of CSCs in primary human pancreatic tumors. Interestingly, we not only demonstrated the existence of a CD133+ CSC population and its exclusive tumorigenicity but also described for the first time the inherent resistance of these cells to chemotherapy in pancreatic cancer. Most interesting, however, was our discovery that CD133+ CSCs were by no means a homogeneous population with respect to their functional properties. On the basis of the observation …
Stay healthy, be active and work! : Motive analysis of policy proposals on old age

This article discusses the motives of ageing policies, based on two cases of national policy documents, from Sweden and Poland. The discourse analysis applied in this study follows the key principles of motive analysis. The main findings indicate that neither document is primarily concerned about older people and their well-being. People and their lives are secondary to the main focus of the analysed policy proposals. Ageing is feared in those documents, and imagined consequences of the population ageing are attenuated.This study offers an insight into discursive spaces of old age in Poland and Sweden. Furthermore, it presents motive analysis as a valuable method for studying ways of problematising social policy issues. The article draws attention to discourses that shape social policy and are reinforced by it. It also shows the process of enacting a precautionary principle in social policy that often leads to reductionist and simplistic perspectives that focus on only one aspect of a given phenomenon.
The Effect of Regulatory Focus on the Link Between Purchase Behavior and Redemption Behavior

Previous research on loyalty program has verified the factors that influence redemption behavior and the understanding of the mechanism of redemption behavior with academic and practical implications. However, these research has not proven boundary conditions in which the phenomena can be strengthened or weakened? that is, the moderating effect remains unclear. The inclusion of moderating variables can provide a more extensive understanding of the mechanism of this behavior from academic and managerial perspectives alike. Therefore, this current research proposes regulatory focus as a moderating variable, which has received scarce attention in the study of loyalty program behavior, especially individual characteristic variables that, in turn, affect the consumers` purchasing behavior in various ways. Previous research on consumer decision making investigates the differential role of regulatory focus as a series of stages. Regulatory focus theory posits that people depend on the two types of regulatory focus when pursuing goals: promotion focus vs. prevention focus. The former induces tendencies to recognize a goal as a hope and ideal, as something that satisfies the need for accomplishment, and to be sensitive to the presence of a positive outcome of the match and to match the pursuit of goals. On the other hand, the latter tends to regard a goal as the responsibility or obligation to achieve the goal, has a tendency to avoid failure to meet a target, and is sensitive to the presence of the negative consequences that do not reach the target. The following propositions are suggested: 1) The effect of higher accumulation effort level on delaying point redemption speed will be relatively more pronounced for customers with prevention focus. 2) The effect of higher accumulation effort level on large redemption unit size will be relatively more pronounced for customers with prevention focus. 3) The effect of higher accumulation effort level on hedonic redemption ratio will be relatively more pronounced for customers with promotion focus. Therefore, this research provides a moderating variable that has the potential to be used as a reference for market segmentation and affects the relationship between point accumulation effort and three sides of point redemption behavior. On this basis, the direction for the future research on this issue is recommended. Future research could verify these propositions conducting a survey of customers` propensity of regulatory focus in conjunction with the history of the loyalty program of data. This would provide a more realistic effect on the usage behavior of loyalty program consumers by providing useful implications for both marketing practitioners and researchers.
Pathology Associated with AAV Mediated Expression of Beta Amyloid or C100 in Adult Mouse Hippocampus and Cerebellum

Accumulation of beta amyloid (Aβ) in the brain is a primary feature of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) but the exact molecular mechanisms by which Aβ exerts its toxic actions are not yet entirely clear. We documented pathological changes 3 and 6 months after localised injection of recombinant, bi-cistronic adeno-associated viral vectors (rAAV2) expressing human Aβ40-GFP, Aβ42-GFP, C100-GFP or C100V717F-GFP into the hippocampus and cerebellum of 8 week old male mice. Injection of all rAAV2 vectors resulted in wide-spread transduction within the hippocampus and cerebellum, as shown by expression of transgene mRNA and GFP protein. Despite the lack of accumulation of Aβ protein after injection with AAV vectors, injection of rAAV2-Aβ42-GFP and rAAV2- C100V717F-GFP into the hippocampus resulted in significantly increased microgliosis and altered permeability of the blood brain barrier, the latter revealed by high levels of immunoglobulin G (IgG) around the injection site and the presence of IgG positive cells. In comparison, injection of rAAV2-Aβ40-GFP and rAAV2-C100-GFP into the hippocampus resulted in substantially less neuropathology. Injection of rAAV2 vectors into the cerebellum resulted in similar types of pathological changes, but to a lesser degree. The use of viral vectors to express different types of Aβ and C100 is a powerful technique with which to examine the direct in vivo consequences of Aβ expression in different regions of the mature nervous system and will allow experimentation and analysis of pathological AD-like changes in a broader range of species other than mouse.
Identification of a cis-Acting Dendritic Targeting Element in MAP2 mRNAs

In neurons, a limited number of mRNAs have been identified in dendritic processes, whereas other transcripts are restricted to the cell soma. Here we have investigated the molecular mechanisms underlying extrasomatic localization of mRNAs encoding microtubule-associated protein 2 (MAP2) in primary neuronal cultures. Vectors expressing recombinant mRNAs were introduced into hippocampal and sympathetic neurons using DNA transfection and microinjection protocols, respectively. Chimeric mRNAs containing the entire 3′ untranslated region of MAP2 transcripts fused to a nondendritic reporter mRNA are detected in dendrites. In contrast, RNAs containing MAP2 coding and 5′ untranslated regions or tubulin sequences are restricted to the cell soma. Moreover, 640 nucleotides from the MAP2 3′ untranslated region (UTR) are both sufficient and essential for extrasomatic localization of chimeric mRNAs in hippocampal and sympathetic neurons. Thus, a cis-acting dendritic targeting element that is effective in two distinct neuronal cell types is contained in the 3′ UTR of MAP2 transcripts. The observation of RNA granules in dendrites implies that extrasomatic transcripts seem to assemble into multimolecular complexes that may function as transport units.
Homocysteine in the prevention of ischemic heart disease, stroke and venous thromboembolism: therapeutic target or just another distraction?

Purpose of reviewHomocysteine has been proposed as a potentially modifiable risk factor for arterial and venous vascular disease. This notion is supported by a large body of literature derived from observations in patients with rare inborn errors of metabolism associated with homocystinuria, experimental studies, which show that homocysteine promotes atherogenesis and thrombosis and epidemiological studies, which in general suggest a graded and independent relationship between homocysteine and atherothrombotic vascular risk. Recent findingsThe current review briefly summarizes observational studies with emphasis on new meta-analyses linking homocysteine to ischemic heart disease, stroke, and venous thromboembolism. These data support weak associations between homocysteine and vascular risk. A number of recent large randomized controlled trials failed to demonstrate benefit for homocysteine lowering with B vitamin supplements in the prevention of cardiovascular events and venous thrombosis. These studies, however, may have been insufficiently powered to detect modest but clinically important treatment benefits. Therefore, completion of ongoing large randomized trials is essential. SummaryAt present, the status of homocysteine as a target for intervention in the prevention of atherothrombotic arterial and venous disease is uncertain. Current evidence does not support the use of B vitamin supplements to reduce vascular risk. Ongoing large randomized trials will provide further clarity on this subject.
Recombinant Knowledge Relativity Threads for Contextual Knowledge Storage

- Research shows that generating new knowledge is accomplished via natural human means: mental insights, scientific inquiry process, sensing, actions, and experiences, while context is information, which characterizes the knowledge and gives it meaning [8]. This knowledge is acquired via scientific research requiring the focused development of an established set of criteria, approaches, designs, and analysis, as inputs into potential solutions. This cross-domain research is more commonplace, made possible by vast arrays of available web based search engines, devices, information content, and tools. Consequently, greater amounts of inadvertent cross-domain information content are exposed to wider audiences. Researchers and others, expecting specific results to queries end up acquiring somewhat ambiguous results and responses broader in scope. Therefore, resulting in a lengthy iterative learning process and query refinement, until sought after knowledge is discovered. This recursive refinement of knowledge and context occurs as user cognitive system interaction, over a period in time, where the granularity of information content results are analyzed, followed by the formation of relationships and related dependencies [17]. Ultimately the knowledge attained from assimilating the information content reaches a threshold of decreased ambiguity and level of understanding, which acts as a catalyst for decision-making, subsequently followed by actionable activity or the realization that a given objective or inference has been attained [4, 5].
An immunoreceptor tyrosine-based inhibition motif in varicella-zoster virus glycoprotein B regulates cell fusion and skin pathogenesis

Herpesvirus entry functions of the conserved glycoproteins gB and gH–gL have been delineated, but their role in regulating cell–cell fusion is poorly understood. Varicella-zoster virus (VZV) infection provides a valuable model for investigating cell–cell fusion because of the importance of this process for pathogenesis in human skin and sensory ganglia. The present study identifies a canonical immunoreceptor tyrosine-based inhibition motif (ITIM) in the gB cytoplasmic domain (gBcyt) and demonstrates that the gBcyt is a tyrosine kinase substrate. Orbitrap mass spectrometry confirmed that Y881, central to the ITIM, is phosphorylated. To determine whether the gBcyt ITIM regulates gB/gH–gL–induced cell–cell fusion in vitro, tyrosine residues Y881 and Y920 in the gBcyt were substituted with phenylalanine separately or together. Recombinant viruses with these substitutions were generated to establish their effects on syncytia formation in replication in vitro and in the human skin xenograft model of VZV pathogenesis. The Y881F substitution caused significantly increased cell–cell fusion despite reduced cell-surface gB. Importantly, the Y881F or Y881/920F substitutions in VZV caused aggressive syncytia formation, reducing cell–cell spread. These in vitro effects of aggressive syncytia formation translated to severely impaired skin infection in vivo. In contrast, the Y920F substitution did not affect virus replication in vitro or in vivo. These observations suggest that gB modulates cell–cell fusion via an ITIM-mediated Y881 phosphorylation-dependent mechanism, supporting a unique concept that intracellular signaling through this gBcyt motif regulates VZV syncytia formation and is essential for skin pathogenesis.
Subspace projection cepstral coefficients for noise robust acoustic event recognition

In this paper, a novel feature for noise robust sound event recognition is proposed. The proposed feature is obtained by a two-step procedure. First, a subspace bank is established via target event analysis in complex vector space. Then, by projecting observation vectors onto the subspace bank, noise effect can be reduced while generating discriminant characters originated from differing event subspaces. To demonstrate robustness of the proposed feature, experiments with several classifiers were conducted with varying SNR cases under four noisy environments. According to the experimental results, the proposed method has shown superior performance over prominent conventional methods.
Powassan Virus—A New Reemerging Tick-Borne Disease

Powassan virus is a neurovirulent flavivirus consisting of two lineages causing meningoencephalitis. It is the only member of the tick-borne encephalitis serogroup which is present in mainland North America. With a total number of 27 cases from 1958 to 1998 and 98 cases from 1999 to 2016, reported cases have increased by 671% over the last 18 years. Powassan infection is transmitted by different tick species in different geographical regions. Ixodes scapularis is the primary vector that transmits the virus on the East Coast of US and Ixodes cookei in the Midwest and Canada, while Hemaphysalis longicornis is the vector in Russia. Powassan has no singular pathognomonic finding and presents with a wide spectrum of symptoms including severe neurological symptoms. The clinical challenge lies within the management of the disease as there is no standard diagnostic protocol and most cases are only diagnosed after a patient goes through an extensive workup for other infectious disease. The diagnosis is established by a combination of imaging and serologic tests. In case of Powassan meningoencephalitis, computed tomography scan and magnetic resonance imaging show vascular insults, which are also seen in cases of tick-borne encephalitis virus, another flavivirus of medical importance. Serologic tests are the gold standard for diagnosis, although testing is not widely available and only state health departments and Center for Disease Control and Prevention can perform Powassan-specific IgM antibody testing utilizing enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and immunofluorescence antibody. Powassan is also of veterinary medical importance. Wildlife animals act as a reservoir to the pathogens, hence possessing threat to humans and domestic animals. This review highlights Powassan’s neurotropic presentation, epidemiology, diagnostic challenges, and prevalence. Strong emphasis is placed on establishing diagnostic protocols, widespread Powassan-specific IgM testing, role of the vector in disease presentation, and necessary preventive research.
Hypofibrinolysis is a risk factor for arterial thrombosis at young age

The relationship between defective fibrinolysis and arterial thrombosis is uncertain. The evaluation of the plasma fibrinolytic potential might provide stronger evidence linking fibrinolysis to arterial thrombosis than the evaluation of the individual fibrinolytic factors. We determined the plasma fibrinolytic potential of 335 young survivors of a first arterial thrombosis, including coronary artery disease (n = 198), ischaemic stroke (n = 103) and peripheral artery disease (n = 34), enrolled in a population‐based case–control study and of 330 healthy individuals. Patients had significantly higher clot lysis times (CLTs) than the controls. Odds ratios (ORs) were calculated as a measure of relative risk. The OR for arterial thrombosis was determined in these subjects who had a CLT above the 60th, 70th, 80th, 90th and 95th percentiles of the values found in the control subjects. We found a progressive increase in risk of arterial thrombosis in subjects with hypofibrinolysis (OR: 1·7, 2·0, 2·3, 2·3 and 2·9, respectively). Relative risk estimates obtained in the whole group were comparable those obtained in the event‐subgroups. In conclusion, a low plasma fibrinolytic potential, found in 10% of the population, increases the relative risk of arterial thrombosis twofold. This points to an important contribution of hypofibrinolysis to the burden of arterial thrombosis.