Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The use of erection enhancing medication and party drugs among men living with HIV in Europe

Studies have shown more erectile dysfunction (ED) in men living with HIV (MLHIV), relative to age matched HIV-negative men. Erection enhancing medication (EEM) is more frequently used by HIV-positive men than in the general male population. Increased sexually transmitted infection has been described in HIV-positive men with ED using EEM. This study investigated the use of EEM and party drugs (methyleendioxymethamfetamine (XTC), gammahydroxybutyrate (GHB) “fluid XTC” and alkyl nitrites “poppers”) among MLHIV. Self-administered questionnaires were distributed consecutively to all patients attending 17 European HIV treatment centers. The sample included 1118 HIV-positive men, among whom 74.5% men having sex with men (MSM). The use of EEM was more frequent in MSM than in heterosexual men (odds ratio (OR) 3.33, p<0.001) and was associated with increased sexual risk behavior (OR 3.27, p<0.001). Nonmedically indicated use of EEM was linked to increased use of party drugs (OR 2.30, p=0.01). Physicians taking care of MLHIV need to be aware of the high prevalence of (nonmedical) use of EEM and party drugs. Medical provision of EEM should be combined with a discussion on safer sex behavior and the risk related to concomitant use of party drugs and illegal EEM.
Structurally diverse dendritic libraries : A highly efficient functionalization approach using Click chemistry

The high fidelity and efficiency of Click chemistry are exploited in the synthesis of a library of chain end functionalized dendritic macromolecules. In this example, the selectivity of the Cu-catalyzed [3 + 2π] cycloaddition reaction of azides with terminal acetylenes, coupled with mild reaction conditions, permits unprecedented functional group tolerance during the derivatization of dendrimeric and hyperbranched scaffolds. The resulting dendritic libraries are structurally diverse, encompassing a variety of backbones/surface functional groups, and are prepared in almost quantitative yields under very mild conditions. The robust and simple nature of this procedure, combined with its applicability to many aspects of polymer synthesis and materials chemistry, demonstrates an evolving synergy between advanced organic chemistry and functional materials.
Realizing whole-body tactile interactions with a self-organizing, multi-modal artificial skin on a humanoid robot

In this paper, we present a new approach to realize whole-body tactile interactions with a self-organizing, multi-modal artificial skin on a humanoid robot. We, therefore, equipped the whole upper body of the humanoid HRP-2 with various patches of CellulARSkin – a modular artificial skin. In order to automatically handle a potentially high number of tactile sensor cells and motors units, the robot uses open-loop exploration motions, and distributed accelerometers in the artificial skin cells, to acquire its self-centered sensory-motor knowledge. This body self-knowledge is then utilized to transfer multi-modal tactile stimulations into reactive body motions. Tactile events provide feedback on changes of contact on the whole-body surface. We demonstrate the feasibility of our approach on a humanoid, here HRP-2, grasping large and unknown objects only via tactile feedback. Kinesthetically taught grasping trajectories, are reactively adapted to the size and stiffness of different test objects. Our paper contributes the first realization of a self-organizing tactile sensor-behavior mapping on a full-sized humanoid robot, enabling a position controlled robot to compliantly handle objects. Graphical Abstract
Obesity and osteoarthritis: more complex than predicted!

Dysregulation of lipid homeostasis is one of the mechanisms leading to osteoarthritis Osteoarthritis is usually considered to be a joint disorder the central pathological feature of which is cartilage destruction. However, this concept has evolved, and today osteoarthritis is generally regarded as a disease that may affect the whole joint (bone, muscles, ligaments and synovium). Although the aetiology of osteoarthritis is not established, the main risk factors are well known and commonly include mechanical, biochemical and genetic factors. Of these risk factors, obesity is beyond doubt considered a prominent one. The overload effect on joint cartilage may explain part of the increased risk of osteoarthritis, at least for osteoarthritis of the knee, in overweight people. A recent discovery in the discipline of cartilage biology is the presence of mechanoreceptors at the surface of chondrocytes, which are sensitive to pressure and link extracellular environment to intracellular signalling cascades. Three types of mechanoreceptors have been described on chondrocytes: the stretch-activated channels, the α-5β1 integrin and CD44. Compression and stretch stimulate integrins and stretch-activated channels leading to the activation of signalling pathways (mitogen-activated protein kinase, NF-κB), as well as the release of second messengers (calcium, Inositol triphosphate and Adenosine monophosphate cyclic). 1 After mechanoreceptor activation, cytokines, growth factors and metalloproteinases may be expressed, and mediators such as prostaglandins or nitric oxide may be produced.2 As experimental studies have shown that under specific conditions overload may trigger both inhibition of matrix synthesis and cartilage degradation, we can speculate that obesity may induce cartilage damage through activation of these mechanoreceptors. In the same manner, the mechanoreceptors expressed on osteoblasts3,4 may also be involved in the impaired response of chondrocytes to the obesity-induced overload. Even if it is usually accepted that mechanical loading contributes to joint cartilage destruction in overweight patients, recent advances …
Synthesis And Characterization Of Nanocrystalline Hydroxyapatite Powder; And The Effects Of Oxide-based Sintering Additives On Tricalcium Phosphate

Calcium phosphate (CP) materials have been used extensively for bone replacement and augmentation due to their similarity to the mineral component of bone. In addition to being nontoxic, they are biocompatible, not recognized as foreign materials in vivo, and most importantly, exhibit osteoconductive behavior, being able to help in bone formation during healing. CPs form an intimate physicochemical bond with the host tissue, termed osseointegration. However the main limitation of calcium phosphates is their inherent brittle nature and poor mechanical performance under complex stress states. As a result, these materials have been used clinically only in non-load-bearing applications, primarily as granules. The primary goal of this research was to enhance mechanical performance of CPs, tricalcium phosphate (TCP) and hydroxyapatite (HAp) to be precise, in an attempt to develop controlled strength-loss resorbable/ bioactive ceramic bone-grafts for hard tissue engineering. In my work on TCP, I selected and introduced small quantities of single and multi-oxide sintering additives in TCP, to study their influence on sintering behavior, densification, mechanical properties and biodegradation/ biomechanical properties in vitro. Through this research, I could improve mechanical performance of β-tricalcium phosphate (β-TCP) and controlled its rate of biodegradation by introducing of certain additives. In my second work, I improved mechanical performance of HAp (Ca10(PO4)6(OH)2 by reducing particle-size of the powder through the synthesis of stoichiometric, nanocrystalline, single phase HAp powder in the range of 2-20 nm. Synthesis of powder was accomplished via a modified low temperature sol-gel technique using ethanol/ water as solvent.
Multifunctional silica nanoparticles as a promising theranostic platform for biomedical applications

Theranostic nanoplatforms represent an important tool in the diagnosis and therapy of many major diseases, especially in the field of cancer theranostics, for which a myriad of nanoplatforms, such as polymeric micelles, liposomes and inorganic nanoparticles (NPs), have been designed and developed in recent decades. Among these nanoplatforms, silica NPs provide many advantages over other similar systems for therapeutics, bioimaging, bio-adhesives and many other biomedical applications. Therapeutic nanoplatforms based on mesoporous silica NPs (typically of pore size 2–50 nm) have been reviewed extensively. Herein, we provide an overview of recent advances in the development of theranostic nanoplatforms based on nonporous silica NPs within a size range of 1–200 nm for many critical biomedical applications, particularly stimuli-triggered drug delivery, precise cancer diagnosis as well as tissue bio-adhesive materials.
Adaptive RLS algorithm for nonlinearity modeling in the nanometrology system

The periodic nonlinearity in the nanometrology systems based on the laser heterodyne interferometers mainly arises from imperfect laser source and misalignment of their optical setup. The accuracy of the nanometric displacement measurements can be effectively limited by the periodic nonlinearity. In this paper, we model the periodic nonlinearity in a modified laser heterodyne interferometer by adaptive recursive least square (RLS) algorithm. It is shown that this approach can obtain optimal modeling parameters of the nonlinearity. The results show that the RLS algorithm has faster conversions speed and lower steady state mean square error (MSE) in the nonlinearity modeling, comparing the neural network approach.
Model-based Adaptive Target Detection in Clutter Using MIMO Radar

In this paper the problem of target detection using coherent pulse terrain in auto regressive (AR) clutter has been considered for MIMO radars. We have formulated this problem as a hypothesis test. Using the generalized likelihood ratio test (GLRT) an adaptive decision scheme has been developed for clutter with known order but unknown parameters. The performance of the proposed detectors have been evaluated using Monte-Carlo simulations. The results show the superiority of the MIMO radars with temporal coherent processing over the conventional phased arrays due to both angular spread and a newly presented phenomenon which is called Doppler spread in this paper
The And-compositionality of CLP Computed Answer Constraints

We present a semantic characterization of CLP languages for the class of quick-checking systems. We define a semantics of computed answer constraints which is AND-compositional, does not loose the distinction between active and passive constraints in the answers and has both a top-down and a bottom-up characterization. We also show that an incrementality property we impose on the constraint solver is essential in order to define an AND-compositional atombased semantics.
Sec13 Shuttles between the Nucleus and the Cytoplasm and Stably Interacts with Nup96 at the Nuclear Pore Complex

ABSTRACT Sec13 is a constituent of the endoplasmic reticulum and the nuclear pore complex (NPC). At the endoplasmic reticulum, Sec13 is involved in the biogenesis of COPII-coated vesicles, whereas at the NPC its function is unknown. We show here, by yeast two-hybrid screenings and biochemical assays, that a region at the amino terminus of the human nuclear pore complex protein Nup96 interacts with the WD (Trp-Asp) repeat region of human Sec13. By using immunofluorescence and confocal and immunoelectron microscopy, we found that in interphase, Sec13 and Nup96 are localized at both sides of the NPC in addition to other intracellular sites. In mitosis, Sec13 was found dispersed throughout the cell, whereas a pool of Nup96 colocalized with the spindle apparatus. Photobleaching experiments showed that Sec13 shuttles between intranuclear sites and the cytoplasm, and a fraction of Sec13 is stably associated with NPCs. Cotransfection of Sec13 and the Sec13 binding site of Nup96 decreased the mobile pool of Sec13, demonstrating the interaction of Sec13 and Nup96 in vivo. Targeting studies showed that Sec13 is actively transported into the nucleus and contains a nuclear localization signal. These results indicate that Sec13 stably interacts with Nup96 at the NPC during interphase and that the shuttling of Sec13 between the nucleus and the cytoplasm may couple and regulate functions between these two compartments.
FEATURE SELECTION USING MODIFIED PARTICLE SWARM OPTIMISATION FOR FACE RECOGNITION

One of the major influential factors which affects the accuracy of classification rate is the selection of right features. Not all features have vital role in classification. Many of the features in the dataset may be redundant and irrelevant, which increase the computational cost and may reduce classification rate. In this paper, we used DCT(Discrete cosine transform) coefficients as features for face recognition application. The coefficients are optimally selected based on a modified PSO algorithm. In this, the choice of coefficients is done by incorporating the average of the mean normalized standard deviations of various classes and giving more weightage to the lower indexed DCT coefficients. The algorithm is tested on ORL database. A recognition rate of 97% is obtained. Average number of features selected is about 40 percent for a 10 × 10 input. The modified PSO took about 50 iterations for convergence. These performance figures are found to be better than some of the work reported in literature.
Characterization and modeling of fiber reinforced concrete for structural applications in beams and plates

work presented in this thesis offers new insights into application of Fiber Reinforced Concrete (FRC) in structural elements and presents findings on experimental characterization and quantification of material properties in tension, bending, shear and creep. A new design model for FRC materials with softening and hardening post-cracking responses was developed to predict the flexural behavior of structural elements. The model was applied in specific cases to provide design examples and to verify its accuracy.
Electron beam lithography for nano-antenna fabrication

Lithography methods have been used for patterning of small features for decades; in this research project, I examined Electron Beam Lithography (EBL) for fabrication of nano-antennas and then parameterized EBL variables to improve patterning. I overcame difficulties in some steps of this method to make the process easier and faster. In this experiment I analyzed the relationship between the variation of pattern size and tuning the correct irradiation dose for that pattern. According to my observations, increasing the size of patterns, cause the right dose to decrease. I also examined the effect of varying resist composition in three different sizes of pattern to find which resist would provide the best result: sharper edges and easier fabrication. For instance, MMA(8.5)MAA would be a good choice if the pattern features are large, whereas SU-8 would be great choice for patterning really small features on a nanometer scale. This research also demonstrated that Cr would be a better choice as a metallic coating as compared with Cu. Furthermore for metal deposition methods, sputter coating would be a better method in comparison with PVD, because it gives a less damaged device during lift-off and also Cr’s lift-off time is much less than other metals. Finally, I worked on developing EBL multilayer patterning processes. Obtaining successful multilayer patterns of small features is helpful for fabricating the small complex facets of rectenna such as fabrication of metal-insulator-metal (MIM) diodes.
Teaching evidence-based software engineering to master students: a single lecture within a course or an entire semester-long course?

In this paper, we summarize our perspective on teaching evidence-based software engineering (EBSE) to master students. In this semester, we aimed to investigate this subject as a single lecture within a master course called Software Architecture instead of an entire semester-long course called EBSE. Each of the students delivered a systematic mapping study report related to the software architecture at the end of the semester and these project reports showed that this teaching approach is quite useful for master students even though this teaching activity is too short.
Zerovalent Fe, Co and Ni nanoparticle toxicity evaluated on SKOV‐3 and U87 cell lines

We have considered nanoparticles (NPs) of Fe, Co and Ni, three transition metals sharing similar chemical properties. NP dissolution, conducted by radioactive tracer method and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry, indicated that NiNPs and FeNPs released in the medium a much smaller amount of ions than that released by Co NPs. The two considered methodological approaches, however, gave comparable but not identical results. All NPs are readily internalized by the cells, but their quantity inside the cells is less than 5%. Cytotoxicity and gene expression experiments were performed on SKOV‐3 and U87 cells. In both cell lines, CoNPs and NiNPs were definitely more toxic than FeNPs. Real‐time polymerase chain reaction experiments aimed to evaluate modifications of the expression of genes involved in the cellular stress response (HSP70, MT2A), or susceptible to metal exposure (SDHB1 and MLL), or involved in specific cellular processes (caspase3, IQSEC1 and VMP1), gave different response patterns in the two cell lines. HSP70, for example, was highly upregulated by CoNPs and NiNPs, but only in SKOV‐3 cell lines. Overall, this work underlines the difficulties in predicting NP toxicological properties based only on their chemical characteristics. We, consequently, think that, at this stage of our knowledge, biological effects induced by metal‐based NPs should be examined on a case‐by‐case basis following studies on different in vitro models. Moreover, with the only exception of U87 exposed to Ni, our results suggest that metallic NPs have caused, on gene expression, similar effects to those caused by their corresponding ions. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Journal of Applied Toxicology published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Bottom-Up/Top-Down Image Parsing with Attribute Grammar

This paper presents a simple attribute graph grammar as a generative representation for made-made scenes, such as buildings, hallways, kitchens, and living rooms, and studies an effective top-down/bottom-up inference algorithm for parsing images in the process of maximizing a Bayesian posterior probability or equivalently minimizing a description length (MDL). Given an input image, the inference algorithm computes (or constructs) a parse graph, which includes a parse tree for the hierarchical decomposition and a number of spatial constraints. In the inference algorithm, the bottom-up step detects an excessive number of rectangles as weighted candidates, which are sorted in certain order and activate top-down predictions of occluded or missing components through the grammar rules. In the experiment, we show that the grammar and top-down inference can largely improve the performance of bottom-up detection.
Management of Malignant Meningiomas

Meningiomas are brain tumors that originate from arachnoid cap cells. They account for about one third of all brain tumors (CBTRUS, 2011), and their incidence increases with age. There are many histological subtypes of meningioma and they differ in their level of malignant behavior. The most commonly used World Health Organization (WHO) scheme (see 2.1) classifies them in three grades, which have distinct prognostic properties.
Fate of neural stem cells grafted into injured inner ears of mice

Loss of sensory hair cells in the inner ear is a major cause of permanent hearing loss, since regeneration of hair cells rarely occurs in mammals. The aim of this study was to examine the potential of neural stem cell transplantation to restore inner ear hair cells in mice. Fetal neural stem cells were transplanted into the mouse inner ear after drug-induced injury. Histological analysis demonstrates that the majority of grafted cells differentiated into glial or neural cells in the inner ear. Strikingly, however, we show that grafted cells integrate in vestibular sensory epithelia and express specific markers for hair cells. This finding suggests that transplanted neural stem cells have the potential to differentiate and restore inner ear hair cells.
Treatment of shoulder pain in spastic hemiplegia by reducing spasticity of the subscapular muscle: a randomised, double blind, placebo controlled study of botulinum toxin A

Objective: This randomised, double blind, placebo controlled, two parallel group study was conducted to assess the beneficial effect of injection of botulinum toxin A (Dysport) into the subscapularis muscle on shoulder pain in stroke patients with spastic hemiplegia. Methods: A single dose of botulinum toxin A (500 Speywood units) or placebo was injected into the subcapularis muscle. Pain was assessed using a 10 point verbal scale. Subscapularis spasticity was assessed by the change in passive shoulder lateral rotation and abduction. Upper limb spasticity was assessed using the Modified Ashworth Scale for shoulder medial rotators, and elbow, wrist and finger flexors. Assessments were carried out at baseline and at weeks 1, 2 and 4. Results: Twenty patients (10 patients per group), 11 with ischaemic stroke and 9 with haemorrhagic stroke, completed the study. Pain improvement with botulinum toxin A was observed from week 1; score difference from baseline at week 4 was 4 points versus 1 point with placebo (p = 0.025). Lateral rotation was also improved, with a statistically significant difference compared with placebo at week 2 (p = 0.05) and week 4 (p = 0.018). A general improvement in upper limb spasticity was observed; it was significant for finger flexors at week 4 (p = 0.025). Conclusions: Subscapularis injection of botulinum toxin A appears to be of value in the management of shoulder pain in spastic hemiplegic patients. The results confirm the role of spasticity in post-stroke shoulder pain.
Accretion Detection via Scanning Acoustic Microscopy in Microelectronic Components - Considering Symmetry Breaking Effects

Currently, micro – and nano-electronic devices are pushed towards higher performance, increased functionality and higher integration density. A promising technique to achieve „More than Moore devices“ is 3D integration. Here, layers of active electronic components are connected vertically via socalled through silicon vias (TSVs). These TSVs are practically cylindrical holes with diameters in the range from 5 – 200 μm in silicon which are filled or coated with conducting materials. The processing, design and the performance of TSVs faces many challenges and especially the defect detection, failure characterization and reliability analysis are in the focus of state of the art reliability studies [1, 2].
Estrogens and breast cancer.

The past 20 years of research have identified several risk and protective factors for breast cancer. All these factors can be understood as measures of the cumulative exposure of the breast to estrogen and, perhaps, progesterone. These ovarian hormones affect the rate of cell division and thus manifest their effect on the risk of breast cancer by causing proliferation of breast epithelial cells (1). Proliferating cells are susceptible to genetic errors during DNA replication, which, if uncorrected, can ultimately lead to a malignant phenotype.