Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cardiac Proteomics

Approximately one-third of all deaths are attributed to cardiovascular diseases, and ischaemic heart disease is the primary cause of death globally. Hence there continues to be a pressing need for advances in preventative, diagnostic, and interventional strategies for cardiovascular disease. The mul-tifactorial nature of cardiovascular disease, which encompasses both genetic and environmental factors, presents a major challenge to research in these areas. Furthermore, personalised strategies, which are anticipated to hold the key to reducing cardiovascular mortality rates, require yet more sophisticated biomarkers capable of accurately predicting disease risk, informing clinical decision-making, or monitoring therapeutic responsiveness. Omic approaches, including genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics, exploit genome information and use high-throughput analysis techniques. Because the data are comprehensive and the measurements are performed in parallel (i.e., reducing interassay variability), it lends itself to interrogation by bioinformatic tools that provide objective " unbiased " / " unsupervised " assessment of pertinent features, functional clusters, interactions, and regulatory networks. The marriage between comprehensive data collection and computational analysis is proven as powerful and pragmatic means of discovering new information and candidate biomarkers, which might not otherwise have been investigated. This editorial aims to orientate the reader with regard to where proteomic studies sit amongst the other levels of investigation (i.e., genomics, transcriptomics, etc.) and draw attention to the particular strengths and challenges involved in proteomic work. The heritability of cardiovascular disease is estimated to be approximately 40%, but large multinational efforts to link disease risk to specific genetic variations have not yet identified high-penetrance genes with large effects. Indeed, the top 34 candidate genes explain less than 15% of the variance in heritable disease risk, and each gene has small (<5%) individual effects (reviewed in [1]). This emphasises the complex polygenetic nature of cardiovascular disease and also highlights the prominent influence that environmental factors have in determining cardiovascular risk. Because the genome is essentially static, genomic studies are not best placed to capture interactions with the environment. On the other hand, the transcriptome is cell-specific and can be influenced by epigenetic modifications and environmental inputs. Moreover, the technology for monitoring gene expression is particularly advanced and high-throughput arrays can be performed on a genome-wide scale, which provides an unsurpassed breadth of information. Notwithstanding the strengths of transcriptome tools, gene expression (i.e., mRNA abundance) cannot be assumed to be associated with similar changes in the abundance or activity of their products (i.e., proteins). In part, …
Review: mucosal melanoma of the head and neck

Head and neck mucosal melanoma (MM) is a rare and aggressive neoplasm, with high rates of local, regional, and distant failure. Owing to the small size of most reported series and their retrospective nature, and the lack of uniform comprehensive staging system, the effect of various treatment strategies on disease control and survival has been difficult to assess. The optimal management of head and neck MM is not well defined. Surgical treatment has being advocated as the primary treatment modality, with growing consideration for postoperative radiotherapy, as wide surgical resection in the head and neck region is often difficult. Radiotherapy is recently reported as a beneficial management modality, regardless of the fact that MM has been considered to be radioresistant. As significant morbidity is expected in high doses of radiotherapy to the head and neck region, new radiographic modalities with better precision are required. Furthermore, high-energy radiotherapy was suggested as a better therapy to mucosal MM due to the suggested biology of the tumor. The high rates of locoregional recurrence and distant metastasis also suggest that a systemic treatment is needed. Currently, there is no role for adjuvant systemic therapy for patients who have been successfully resected, but recent developments in the understanding of the biology of melanoma and, in particular, specific growth pathways holds promise for the future. We strongly recommend further evaluation of the role of chemotherapy and immunotherapy to decrease the rates of distant metastasis and improve survival.
Role of the flagellum in cell-cycle-dependent expression of bacteriophage receptor activity in Caulobacter crescentus

The rate of adsorption of Caulobacter bacteriophage phi CbK to Caulobacter crescentus is dependent on the structural integrity of the flagellum. Cells lacking part or all of the flagellum because of either mutation or mechanical shear were defective in adsorption, and the extent of the defect in adsorption reflected the amount of flagellar structure missing. Maximal adsorption rates were also dependent on cellular motility and energy metabolism, since adsorption to cells with paralyzed flagella was slower than adsorption to motile cells and inhibition of cellular energy metabolism with azide also reduced adsorption rates, even for nonmotile cells. Nevertheless, the flagellum is not the receptor for phage phi CbK, since flagellumless mutants adsorbed phi CbK at detectable rates. While some portion of the fluctuation in the phi CbK receptor activity during the C. crescentus cell cycle can be ascribed to the periodicity of flagellar loss and reappearance, the phage receptor activity remaining in flagellumless mutants was periodic in the cell cycle. Therefore, the periodic expression of phage receptor activity is an intrinsic property of the C. crescentus cell cycle, although the amplitude of the oscillation may be altered by the periodic expression of flagellar motility.
Infections in Oncology Vancomycin-Resistant Enterococci: Approach to Treatment and Control

Enterococci have become increasingly important nosocomial pathogens in many hospitals in the United States within the past few years. This is a result of an increased incidence of enterococci resistance to many antimicrobials. Drugs that were once the mainstay in the treatment of enterococci, including penicillins, aminoglycosides, and vancomycin, are no longer effective in many situations where resistant enterococci are encountered. The treatment of enterococci that are resistant to single or combination antibiotic regimens now presents a clinical challenge to physicians, pharmacists, and other health care professionals.
International Examples of Large-Scale Systems - Theory and Practice III: Competition and Strategy in Electronic Marketplaces

Electronic marketplaces are evolving in both business to business, and business to consumer contexts. Although the initial hype surrounding all types of marketplaces appears to overstate their short-term impact, established companies across all types of industrial sectors are entering into collaborative, industry-wide initiatives to agree on common technical and trading standards to improve the effectiveness of the interactions between buyers and sellers on a global scale. An overview of contemporary developments is presented, and common patterns across different sectors are identified. Three case studies are presented in the areas of automotive, banking, and consumer markets. It is shown that product-market characteristics affect the formation of business relationships and market structures, and the design of information flows and shared systems is a reflection of typically strong business relationships and hierarchical market structures.
Modelling of strain hardening during friction stir welding of stainless steel

Friction stir welding of stainless steel has been modelled using a steady-state, Eulerian formulation that considers coupled viscoplastic flow and heat transfer in three dimensions. The model equations are solved using the finite element method to determine the velocity field and temperature distribution, with a modified Petrov–Galerkin employed to stabilize the temperature distribution. Strain hardening is incorporated using a scalar state variable for the isotropic strength that evolves with deformation as material moves along streamlines of the flow field. The evolution equation for the hardening is integrated along streamlines of the flow field. The influence of pin threads on the friction between the tool and the workpiece was modelled by supplementing the tangential tractions along the pin interface with axial tractions that depend on the pitch of the threads. The formulation is used to conduct a parametric study to determine the influences of various welding parameters on the flow, heating and hardening of the stainless steel. For parameters corresponding to available experimental data, comparisons are drawn between the simulation results and measured values of hardness and temperature.
Multiresolution based hierarchical disparity estimation for stereo image pair compression

Stereo vision is the process of viewing two different perspective projections of the same real world scene and perceiving the depth that was present in the original scene. These projections offer a compact 2-dimensional means of representing a 3-dimensional scene, as seen by one observer. Different display schemes have been developed to ensure that each eye sees the image that is intended for it. Each image in the image pair is referred to as the left or right image depending on the eye it is intended for. The binocular cues contain unambiguous information in contrast to monocular cues like shading or coloring. Hence binocular stereo may be quite useful, for instance, in video based training of personnel. On the entertainment side, it can make mundane TV material lively. Though the concept has been around for more than half a century, only recently have technically effective ways of making stereoscopic displays and the usually required eyeware emerged. Despite this progress, stereo TV can be made a cost effective add-on option only if the increased bandwidth requirement is relaxed somehow. Since the two images are projections of the same scene from two nearby points of view, they are bound to have a lot of redundancy between them. By properly exploiting this redundancy, the two image streams might be compressed and transmitted through a single monocular channel's bandwidth. The first step towards stereoscopic image sequence compression is 'still' stereo image pair compression that exploits the high correlation between the left and right images, in addition to exploiting the spatial correlation within each image. The temporal correlation between the frames can be taken advantage of, along the lines of the MPEG (Motion Picture Experts Group) standards, to achieve further compression. The final step would be to explore the correlation between left and right frames with a time offset between them. In this paper a multiresolution based approach is proposed for compressing 'still' stereo image pairs. In Section II the task at hand is contrasted with the stereo disparity estimation problem in the machine vision community; a block based scheme on the lines of a motion estimation scheme is suggested as a possible approach. In Section III, the suitability of hierarchical techniques for disparity estimation is outlined. Section IV provides an overview of wavelet decomposition. Section V details the multiresolution approach taken. In section VI, the typical computational gains and compression ratios possible with this …
Safety and efficacy of readministration of infliximab after longterm continuous therapy and withdrawal in patients with ankylosing spondylitis.

OBJECTIVE To analyze the safety and efficacy of the anti-tumor necrosis factor agent infliximab in patients with ankylosing spondylitis (AS) after discontinuation of longterm therapy over 1 year and readministration, using clinical and laboratory assessments including serum levels of antibodies to infliximab (ATI). METHODS Altogether 42/43 patients with AS in a 3-year multicenter trial discontinued therapy after continuous treatment with infliximab (5 mg/kg/6 wks). Infliximab was only readministered in case of a clinical relapse [judged by Bath AS Disease Activity Index (BASDAI) and physician global assessment > 4]. ATI were measured at different timepoints. The primary outcome was safety, and efficacy outcomes were secondary. RESULTS One patient dropped out after the eighth infusion after retreatment due to repeated local infections. ATI were detected in this patient only. No other relevant adverse events were observed. One patient remained in clinical remission without therapy for more than 1 year. The other 40 patients (97.6%) were reinfused because of clinical relapse. There was no correlation between ATI and clinical measures. BASDAI 50% responses were seen in 25 (63%) and partial remission in 12 (30%) patients. The mean (+/- SD) BASDAI score dropped from 6.0 +/- 1.4 at the time of relapse to 2.6 +/- 2.0, and the median C-reactive protein from 11.2 to 1.8 mg/l after 1 year (all p < 0.05). CONCLUSION Readministration of infliximab after discontinuation of longterm treatment was generally safe and efficacious. Ongoing remission after discontinuation was rare. There was only one patient with relevant adverse events. ATI were detected only in this patient, but there was no correlation to clinical data. Formation of ATI seems to be rare after longterm infliximab therapy in AS.
Acquisition of Phrase-level Bilingual Correspondence using Dependency Structure

This paper describes a method to find phrase-level translation patterns from parallel corpora by applying dependency structure analysis. We use statistical dependency parsers to determine dependency relations between base phrases in a sentence. Our method is tested with a business expression corpus containing 10000 English-Japanese sentence pairs and achieved approximately 90% accuracy in extracting bilingual correspondences. The result shows that the use of dependency relation helps to acquire interesting translation patterns.
Relations of the human vertex potential to acoustic input: loudness and masking.

The rate of increase of amplitude of V (vertex) potentials with the SPL of tone bursts is very slow. In one experiment, the exponent of the power law was 0.15 at 250 Hz, 0.11 at 1000 Hz, and only 0.08 at 4000 Hz. Individual differences across subjects seemed more important than the interval between stimuli (1 sec vs 3.2 sec), and variability across trials often obscured the relation to intensity. In the presence of appropriate bands of masking noise, the input‐output curves rise abruptly from the masked threshold to approach the unmasked amplitude at a level about 30 dB above the corresponding masked threshold. The effect resembles recruitment of loudness. Tone pips and tone bursts of different frequency that were judged equally loud evoked slow V potentials of approximately equal amplitude. In some subjects, however, bursts of white noise evoked significantly larger responses than equally loud tone bursts or pips. In spite of the partial similarities between them, the amplitude of the V potential and the.
CHILD Syndrome: Successful Treatment of Skin Lesions with Topical Simvastatin/Cholesterol Ointment—A Case Report

CHILD syndrome is a rare X‐linked dominant condition that presents with congenital hemidysplasia, Ichthyosiform erythroderma, and limb defects in affected patients. We report the case of a 10‐year‐old girl treated with topical simvastatin and cholesterol ointment, after which her skin lesions significantly improved within the first 30 days of treatment.
Trichloroethene Reductive Dehalogenase fromDehalococcoides ethenogenes: Sequence of tceA and Substrate Range Characterization

ABSTRACT The anaerobic bacterium Dehalococcoides ethenogenes is the only known organism that can completely dechlorinate tetrachloroethene or trichloroethene (TCE) to ethene via dehalorespiration. One of two corrinoid-containing enzymes responsible for this pathway, TCE reductive dehalogenase (TCE-RDase) catalyzes the dechlorination of TCE to ethene. TCE-RDase dehalogenated 1,2-dichloroethane and 1,2-dibromoethane to ethene at rates of 7.5 and 30 μmol/min/mg, respectively, similar to the rates for TCE,cis-dichloroethene (DCE), and 1,1-DCE. A variety of other haloalkanes and haloalkenes containing three to five carbon atoms were dehalogenated at lower rates. The gene encoding TCE-RDase,tceA, was cloned and sequenced via an inverse PCR approach. Sequence comparisons of tceA to proteins in the public databases revealed weak sequence similarity confined to the C-terminal region, which contains the eight-iron ferredoxin cluster binding motif, (CXXCXXCXXXCP)2. Direct N-terminal sequencing of the mature enzyme indicated that the first 42 amino acids constitute a signal sequence containing the twin-arginine motif, RRXFXK, associated with the Sec-independent membrane translocation system. This information coupled with membrane localization studies indicated that TCE-RDase is located on the exterior of the cytoplasmic membrane. Like the case for the two other RDases that have been cloned and sequenced, a small open reading frame, tceB, is proposed to be involved with membrane association of TCE-RDase and is predicted to be cotranscribed with tceA.
The Theory of Environmental Taxes : First , Second and Third-Best Instruments in Developing and Transition Countries

This paper presents the theory of environmental taxation with special reference to developing countries and countries with economies in transition. A review of the literature shows there exist numerous examples of the use of environmental taxes to reduce environmentally harmful behavior. Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union and China have large-scale systems of pollution taxes. Other countries are also experimenting with this instrument, particularly to reduce water pollution. Several countries have also used taxes on transport fuels to raise revenues and reduce air pollution. Introduction This paper concerns itself with the use of environmental taxes in countries with developing and transition economies. Developing countries are typically defined as having low to upper-middle per capita incomes. The World Bank defines the upper bound of upper middle income as $9265. This group includes countries such as Argentina, Malaysia and Panama, as well as many European transition economies that are moving away from economic planning as a resource allocation mechanism and toward reliance on markets. Examples of lowincome countries include Nepal, Mozambique and Nicaragua. These are countries with per capita incomes below $756 (World Bank, 2002). The question addressed in this paper is how do the particular conditions found in developing and transition countries relate to the use of environmental taxes. The next section sets the stage with a brief overview of the theory of environmental taxes as pertaining to developing and transition countries. Section 3 discusses experience with second-best environmental taxes in developing and transition economies and Section 4 evaluates the use of higher than second-best
Shape Memory Study of Thermoplastic Segmented Polyurethane: Influence of Hard Segment

Thermally stimulated shape memorypolymers (SMP) are defined by their ability to store and recoverstrains when subjected to a particular thermo-mechanical cycle. The thermo-mechanical behavior of SMPs can be tailored by modifying the molecular structure of the polymer. In this article, the shape memory behavior of thermoplastic segmented polyurethane (TSPU) as a function of hard segment (HS) has been reported. The experimental results showed that tailoring of hard and soft segment is extremely necessary for TSPU showing shape memory behavior. The thermo-mechanical properties of TSPU with four different concentrations of hard segment viz. 58.7, 47.9, 37.5, and 31.0% have been studied in this article. TSPU with 58.7% of hard segment content would not able to elongate even up to 30% in experimental condition. However, all other three samples show good shape memory behavior.
Aligned interference neutralisation for 2×2×2 interference channel with imperfect channel state information

We investigate the efficiency of interference alignment for 2 × 2 × 2 interference networks formed by concatenation of two user interference channels under the assumption of imperfect channel state information. We show that, as a result of cumulative noise in zero forcing receivers, aligned interference neutralisation is not practical when perfect channel state information is not available. We give analytical SNR and SINR expressions at relays and receivers and also provide some simulation results using a channel estimation error model.
A separation theorem for single-source network coding

In this paper, we consider a point-to-point communication network of discrete memoryless channels. In the network, there are a source node and possibly more than one sink node. Information is generated at the source node and is multicast to each sink node. We allow a node to encode its received information before loading it onto an outgoing channel, where the channels are independent of each other. We also allow the nodes to pass along messages asynchronously. In this paper, we characterize the admissibility of single-source multi-sink communication networks. Our result can be regarded as a network generalization of Shannon's result that feedback does not increase the capacity of a discrete memoryless channels (DMCs), and it implies a separation theorem for network coding and channel coding in such a communication network.
Assessing Possibilities and Limits for Solar Cells

What are the solar cell efficiencies that we can strive towards? We show here that several simple criteria, based on cell and module performance data, serve to evaluate and compare all types of today's solar cells. Analyzing these data allows to gauge in how far significant progress can be expected for the various cell types and, most importantly from both the science and technology points of view, if basic bounds, beyond those known today, may exist, that can limit such progress. This is important, because half a century after Shockley and Queisser (SQ) presented limits, based on detailed balance calculations for single absorber solar cells, those are still held to be the only ones, we need to consider; most efforts to go beyond SQ are directed towards attempts to circumvent them, primarily via smart optics, or optoelectronics. After formulating the criteria and analyzing known loss mechanisms, use of such criteria suggests–additional limits for newer types of cells, Organic and Dye‐Sensitized ones, and their siblings,–prospects for progress and–further characterization needs, all of which should help focusing research and predictions for the future.
Mining frequent closed cubes in 3D datasets

In this paper, we introduce the concept of frequent closed cube (FCC), which generalizes the notion of 2D frequent closed pattern to 3D context. We propose two novel algorithms to mine FCCs from 3D datasets. The first scheme is a Representative Slice Mining (RSM) framework that can be used to extend existing 2D FCP mining algorithms for FCC mining. The second technique, called CubeMiner, is a novel algorithm that operates on the 3D space directly. We have implemented both schemes, and evaluated their performance on both real and synthetic datasets. The experimental results show that the RSM-based scheme is efficient when one of the dimensions is small, while CubeMiner is superior otherwise.