Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evaluation of Serological Diagnostic Test Systems Assessing the Immune Response to Japanese Encephalitis Vaccination

A new commercial anti-Japanese encephalitis virus IgM and IgG indirect immunofluorescence test (IIFT) was evaluated for the detection of the humoral immune response after Japanese encephalitis vaccination. The IgM IIFT was compared to two IgM capture ELISAs and the IgG IIFT was analysed in comparison to a plaque reduction neutralization test (PRNT50) and an IgG ELISA. Moreover, the course of the immune reaction after vaccination with an inactivated JEV vaccine was examined. For the present study 300 serum samples from different blood withdrawals from 100 persons vaccinated against Japanese encephalitis were used. For the IgM evaluation, altogether 78 PRNT50 positive samples taken 7 to 56 days after vaccination and 78 PRNT50 negative sera were analyzed with the Euroimmun anti-JEV IgM IIFT, the Panbio Japanese Encephalitis – Dengue IgM Combo ELISA and the InBios JE Detect IgM capture ELISA. For the IgG evaluation, 100 sera taken 56 days after vaccination and 100 corresponding sera taken before vaccination were tested in the PRNT50, the Euroimmun anti-JEV IgG IIFT, and the InBios JE Detect IgG ELISA. The Euroimmun IgM IIFT showed in comparison to the Panbio ELISA a specificity of 95% and a sensitivity of 86%. With respect to the InBios ELISA, the values were 100% and 83.9%, respectively. The analysis of the Euroimmun IgG IIFT performance and the PRNT50 results demonstrated a specificity of 100% and a sensitivity of 93.8%, whereas it was not possible to detect more than 6.6% of the PRNT50 positive sera as positive with the InBios JE Detect IgG ELISA. Thus, the IIFT is a valuable alternative to the established methods in detecting anti-JEV antibodies after vaccination in travellers and it might prove useful for the diagnosis of acutely infected persons.
Combining Shallow and Deep NLP Methods for Recognizing Textual Entailment

We combine two methods to tackle the textual entailment challenge: a shallow method based on word overlap and a deep method using theorem proving techniques. We use a machine learning technique to combine features derived from both methods. We submitted two runs, one using all features, yielding an accuracy of 0.5625, and one using only the shallow feature, with an accuracy of 0.5550. Our method currently suffers from a lack of background knowledge and future work will be focussed on that area.
Dietary Fiber and Fiber Fraction Intakes and Colorectal Cancer Risk in Chinese Adults

Few studies have been conducted in Chinese adults to investigate the effect of fiber intake on colorectal cancer risk. The present study aimed to examine the associations of dietary fiber and fiber fraction intakes with colorectal cancer risk in Chinese adults. A total of 613 cases with colorectal cancer were consecutively recruited between July 2010 and October 2012 and frequency matched to 613 controls by age (5-yr interval) and gender. Dietary information was collected through a validated food frequency questionnaire by face-to-face interviews. Multivariate logistic regression models were used to estimate the odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) after adjustment for potential confounders. Total dietary fiber and fiber fraction intakes were found to be inversely associated with colorectal cancer risk. Compared with the lowest quartile, the adjusted ORs (95% CIs) for the highest quartile were 0.38 (0.27–0.55) for total dietary fiber, 0.45 (0.32–0.64) for vegetable fiber, and 0.41 (0.28–0.58) for fruit fiber, respectively. In addition, no significant association was found between soy fiber intake and colorectal cancer risk. This study showed that a high intake of dietary fiber, particularly derived from vegetables and fruit, was inversely associated with colorectal cancer risk in Chinese adults.
Complexity study of the Gamma correction method for text extraction from complex images

In this paper, we present a complexity study of the Gamma correction method for automatic text extraction from complex images. This study is based on the build of a simple and adequate algorithm for future hardware solution. Then, a profiling study for each function of the proposed solution was done. After validation, using C/C++ environment, a comparison with the OpenCV based algorithm developed by ESIEE Paris was performed. We show a clear improvement in the run time. Profiling and experimental results, using diverse images prove that our study achieves an excellent balance between simplicity, precision, and computational speed. This study will be operated in the future work of hardware implementation.
How to Best Deploy Your Fog Applications, Probably

Deploying composite applications to Fog nodes in a QoS-and context-aware manner is challenging due to the heterogeneity and scale of Fog infrastructures. Application components must be provided with the software and hardware capabilities they need. Communication links that support interactions between components must meet certain QoS (latency and bandwidth). On the other hand, different Fog and Cloud nodes provide different software and hardware capabilities, and actual communication links support different QoS over time. In this paper we present a prototype (FogTorchII) capable of determining deployments of composite applications to Fog infrastructures, which fulfil software, hardware and QoS requirements. FogTorchII exploits Monte Carlo simulations to take into account possible variations of the QoS of communication links. It classifies eligible deployments both in terms of QoS-assurance and of Fog resource consumption. We illustrate the utility of FogTorchII over a motivating example where we compare different possible deployments for a smart agriculture application.
THE STRESS RESPONSE TO ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE IN CAPTIVE CHEETAHS (ACINONYX JUBATUS)

Abstract The captive North American cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) population is not self-sustaining because of high prevalences of unusual diseases and poor reproductive success. Cheetahs are commonly moved between zoos for breeding purposes to maintain genetic diversity within the captive population, and movement may exacerbate infertility and disease. Fecal corticoids were analyzed by radioimmunoassay to measure the stress response of cheetahs to movement between facilities. Fecal samples were collected from 15 cheetahs for 14 days before movement and for at least 30 days after movement. For each cheetah, premovement fecal corticoid concentrations were used to determine baseline and then compared with trends in postmovement concentrations. In general, postmovement corticoid concentrations either increased (n = 8), did not change (n = 2), or decreased (n = 5). Although individual animal differences occurred, corticoid concentrations increased for most animals moved on-exhibit and decreased in animals moved off-exhibit. Animals moving on-exhibit had an 18-times greater risk of having corticoids elevated more than two standard deviations above baseline for 30 days after movement compared with animals that moved off-exhibit. In addition, greater day-to-day variation in corticoids occurred in animals moved on-exhibit. In general, animals with initially low baseline corticoid concentrations had a greater postmovement corticoid response than cheetahs with initially high baseline levels. These results indicate that some cheetahs have a prolonged stress response when moved between facilities, and the magnitude and character of this response is influenced by the exhibit environment.
A 3D aligning method for stimulated emission depletion microscopy using fluorescence lifetime distribution

Optimal resolution by stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy requires precise alignment of the donut‐shaped depletion focus to the excitation focus. In this article, we demonstrate that fluorescence lifetime distribution can be implemented to align the STED system. Different from the traditional aligning methods in which a scattering imaging module is often equipped, the lifetime‐based method is free from probable mismatches between the scattering mode and the fluorescent mode, drift errors caused by separate imaging and complex fitting methods. Based on this method, a spatial resolution of 38 nm by time‐gated detection has been achieved. Microsc. Res. Tech. 77:935–940, 2014. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Long-term kidney graft survival by delayed T cell ablative treatment in rhesus monkeys.

BACKGROUND Tolerance to organ allografts in primates including man has been elusive, although in rodents and pigs tolerance can be achieved to organ allografts with relatively short courses of immunosuppressive treatment. In all varieties of graft acceptance that do not require full-dose maintenance immunosuppression, immunological engagement of donor and recipient and an early unstable period have been observed. On the basis of the hypothesis that elimination of aggressive T cell function should tip the balance in favor of an operationally tolerant state, experiments have been performed in monkeys allowing recipient-donor interaction before T-cell ablation and a short course of immunosuppression. METHODS Rhesus monkeys received an allogeneic kidney graft from a MHC-mismatched donor. The animals either received anti-CD3 immunotoxin (FN18-CRM9) alone, started 2 days after transplantation, or in combination with a short course of cyclosporine (CsA) and/or rapamycin (RAPA), started at 5 days after transplantation. Kidney function was followed by monitoring serum creatinine levels and regular biopsies. Humoral and cellular antidonor immunity was tested in vitro before and at several time points after transplantation. RESULTS Graft survival of monkeys that received CsA alone (mean survival time (MST)=29.3) was significantly prolonged compared with the controls (MST=6). FN18-CRM9 treatment alone also resulted in prolonged graft survival (MST=29.4). The combined treatment of FN18-CRM9 and CsA and/or RAPA resulted in prolonged graft survival after all immunosuppression was stopped (MST=207.8). CONCLUSIONS It seems feasible to postpone immunosuppression posttransplantation and yet prevent allograft rejection without the need of permanent immunosuppression.
Categories as Acts of Meaning: The Case of Categories in Olfaction and Audition

The present paper reports on some of the main results and conclusions drawn from a set of psychological experiments (free sorting tasks) and linguistic investigations on categorization in olfaction and audition that were conducted over the last ten years. It leads to a discussion of the notion of category in its relation to linguistic labeling, and the generality of a model of categories which has been elaborated in previous studies on colors and visual objects.
Asymmetric Dimethylarginine and Reduced Nitric Oxide Bioavailability in Young Black African Men

Black Africans have a higher incidence of cardiovascular disease than white Europeans. We explored potential mechanisms of this excess risk by assessing endothelium function, inflammatory status (C-reactive protein), oxidative stress (isoprostane-F2&agr;), and plasma asymmetrical dimethyl arginine (ADMA; an endogenous competitive inhibitor of NO synthase) in each ethnic group. Thirty healthy black Africans and 28 well-matched white European male subjects were studied (mean age±SE: 32.2±0.9 and 29.2±1.2 years, respectively; P=0.07). High-resolution ultrasound was used to assess vascular function in the brachial artery by measuring flow mediated dilatation ([percentage of change]; endothelium-dependent function) and glyceryltrinitrate dilatation ([percentage of change]; endothelium-independent function). Blood pressure, fasting lipids, glucose, and estimated glomerular filtration rate levels were similar in both groups. There was no difference in C-reactive protein (black Africans: 0.8±0.1 mg/L; white Europeans: 0.6±0.1 mg/L; P=0.22), isoprostane-F2&agr; (black Africans: 42.9±1.5 pg/mL; white Europeans: 39.2±1.5 pg/mL; P=0.23), and leptin (black Africans: 64.1±10.2 ng/mL; white Europeans: 47.8±9.8 ng/mL; P=0.37) levels between the 2 ethnic groups. However, compared with white Europeans, plasma ADMA levels were significantly higher in black Africans (0.34±0.02 &mgr;mol/L and 0.25±0.03 &mgr;mol/L; P=0.03). There was no difference in the percentage of glyceryltrinitrate dilatation (P=0.7), but the percentage of flow-mediated dilatation was significantly lower in black Africans (black Africans: 5.2±0.3; white Europeans: 6.3±0.4; P=0.02). In a stepwise multiple regression model, ADMA level was the only independent determinant of flow-mediated dilatation (P=0.02). In turn, race was the only independent determinant of ADMA levels (P=0.03). Our findings indicate that circulating ADMA levels are significantly higher in healthy black African males than in white European males. This may contribute to the lower NO bioavailability and higher incidence of cardiovascular disease seen in black Africans.
Prevalence of renal cell carcinoma in patients with ESRD pre-transplantation: a pathologic analysis.

BACKGROUND Acquired renal cystic disease (ARCD), renal adenoma (AD), and renal cell carcinoma (RCC) are more common in patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD). However, the prevalence of these conditions in patients undergoing transplantation, and the clinical characteristics associated with their occurrence are unclear. METHODS At our institution, the majority of patients undergo an ipsilateral native nephrectomy at the time of transplantation, providing a unique opportunity to study the prevalence and pathology of ARCD, AD and RCC in ESRD. We retrospectively reviewed all consecutive nephrectomy pathology reports over a six year period. Demographic and clinical characteristics associated with these lesions were identified. RESULTS Two hundred and sixty nephrectomy reports were reviewed: ARCD, AD, RCC and oncocytoma were found in 33%, 14%, 4.2% and 0.6% of cases, respectively. On multivariable analysis, ARCD was positively associated with male sex and longer dialysis duration and negatively associated with peritoneal dialysis. Similarly, AD was positively associated with male sex, longer dialysis duration and greater age. There was a trend for RCC cases to share similar associations although the small total number of cases precluded findings of statistical significance. CONCLUSION By pathologic analysis, renal tumors are more common in the pre-transplant ESRD population than previously reported (using radiologic methods). Our study also identifies risk factors for their occurrence. This may prove useful in designing screening studies for renal tumors in this patient population.
Intact glycans from cestode antigens are involved in innate activation of myeloid suppressor cells

During helminthic infections, strong Th2 type‐biased responses concomitant with impaired cell‐proliferative responses to parasitic and unrelated antigens are major immunological hallmarks. Parasite glycan structures have been proposed to play a role in modulating these responses. To understand early events related to immune modulation during cestode infection, we have examined the role of intact glycans of antigens from Taenia crassiceps in the recruitment of innate cells. Soluble antigens from this cestode contained higher levels of carbohydrates than proteins. Intraperitoneal injection of the antigens rapidly recruited a cell population expressing F4/80+/Gr‐1+surface markers, which adoptively suppressed naïve T‐cell proliferation in vitro in response to anti‐CD3/CD28 MAb stimulation in a cell‐contact dependent manner. Soluble antigens with altered glycans by treatment with sodium periodate significantly reduced the recruitment of F4/80+/Gr1+cells, concomitantly their suppressive activity was abrogated, indicating that glycans have a role in the early activation of these suppressor cells. Using C3H/HeJ and STAT6‐KO mice, we found that expansion and suppressive activity of F4/80+Gr1+cells induced by T. crassiceps intact antigens was TLR4 and Th2‐type cytokine independent. Together with previous studies on nematode and trematode parasites, our data support the hypothesis that glycans can be involved on a similar pathway in the immunoregulation by helminths.
Sparse Coding via Thresholding and Local Competition in Neural Circuits

While evidence indicates that neural systems may be employing sparse approximations to represent sensed stimuli, the mechanisms underlying this ability are not understood. We describe a locally competitive algorithm (LCA) that solves a collection of sparse coding principles minimizing a weighted combination of mean-squared error and a coefficient cost function. LCAs are designed to be implemented in a dynamical system composed of many neuron-like elements operating in parallel. These algorithms use thresholding functions to induce local (usually one-way) inhibitory competitions between nodes to produce sparse representations. LCAs produce coefficients with sparsity levels comparable to the most popular centralized sparse coding algorithms while being readily suited for neural implementation. Additionally, LCA coefficients for video sequences demonstrate inertial properties that are both qualitatively and quantitatively more regular (i.e., smoother and more predictable) than the coefficients produced by greedy algorithms.
Correlation between chronic headaches and the rectus capitis posterior minor muscle: A comparative analysis of cross-sectional trail

Objective We aimed to investigate the morphological changes and potential correlation between chronic headaches and the rectus capitis posterior minor muscle (RCPmi). Methods Comparison of RCPmi between patients with chronic headaches and healthy adult volunteers were collected using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and Mimics software. Results Among the 235 MRI images analyzed, the data between the two groups were considered statistically significant. The number of males was larger than that of females (p < 0.001) and the headache group showed greater hypertrophy than the control group in both males (p < 0.001) and females (p = 0.001). Conclusions Chronic headaches were correlated with the RCPmi. Patients with chronic headaches suffered from more obvious hypertrophy than that of the control group. Additionally, it was supposed that RCPmi hypertrophy may be one pathogenesis of the chronic headaches.
Sentiment Classification Based on Random Process

Sentiment classification has attracted increasing interest from Natural Language Processing. The goal of sentiment classification is to automatically identify whether a given piece of text expresses positive or negative opinion towards a topic of interest. We present the standpoint that uses a human model based on random process to determine text polarity classification. Experiment results showed that on movie review corpus, the human modeling approach has a relatively higher accuracy than that of SVMs and Naïve Bayes classifier.
Preferences for improved health examined in 1,024 patients with rheumatoid arthritis: pain has highest priority.

OBJECTIVE To examine preferences for improved health in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). METHODS A survey was mailed to patients with RA enrolled in a county-based register. The questionnaire comprised a variety of health status measures (Medical Outcome Study Short Form-36, Arthritis Impact Measurement Scales 2 [AIMS2], Modified Health Assessment Questionnaire, and visual analog scale for pain and fatigue). The patients were asked to check 3 of 12 areas in which they would most like to see improvement (item 60 AIMS2). The number of respondents was 1,024 (mean age/disease duration 63.4/12.7 years, 78.7% female). RESULTS Pain was the preferred area for improvement in all subgroups of patients. Preference for improvement in pain was associated with lower age, higher levels of perceived pain, and lower scores for self efficacy related to pain. One-third of the patients with this preference did not report use of pain-relieving medication. CONCLUSION Pain is the area of health in which almost 70% of the patients would like to see improvement. This study suggests that more attention should be paid to the examination of patient preferences for improvement in health.
A Combined Gene Signature of Hypoxia and Notch Pathway in Human Glioblastoma and Its Prognostic Relevance

Hypoxia is a hallmark of solid tumors including glioblastoma (GBM). Its synergism with Notch signaling promotes progression in different cancers. However, Notch signaling exhibits pleiotropic roles and the existing literature lacks a comprehensive understanding of its perturbations under hypoxia in GBM with respect to all components of the pathway. We identified the key molecular cluster(s) characteristic of the Notch pathway response in hypoxic GBM tumors and gliomaspheres. Expression of Notch and hypoxia genes was evaluated in primary human GBM tissues by q-PCR. Clustering and statistical analyses were applied to identify the combination of hypoxia markers correlated with upregulated Notch pathway components. We found well-segregated tumor—clusters representing high and low HIF-1α/PGK1-expressors which accounted for differential expression of Notch signaling genes. In combination, a five-hypoxia marker set (HIF-1α/PGK1/VEGF/CA9/OPN) was determined as the best predictor for induction of Notch1/Dll1/Hes1/Hes6/Hey1/Hey2. Similar Notch-axis genes were activated in gliomaspheres, but not monolayer cultures, under moderate/severe hypoxia (2%/0.2% O2). Preliminary evidence suggested inverse correlation between patient survival and increased expression of constituents of the hypoxia-Notch gene signature. Together, our findings delineated the Notch-axis maximally associated with hypoxia in resected GBM, which might be prognostically relevant. Its upregulation in hypoxia-exposed gliomaspheres signify them as a better in-vitro model for studying hypoxia-Notch interactions than monolayer cultures.
Fault localization in software testing using soft computing approaches

Testing is the most important and critical task in software development life cycle. Whenever software testing execution fails its test scripts is analyzed so that the point where fault occurred can be detected and the expected result can be achieved. Detecting fault in software is called as fault localization. Manually fault localization can be a cumbersome job so providing automated technique to do the same without human intervention is the demand from long time. In this paper, a brief overview of some important fault localization technique using soft computing techniques is carried out. Based on the identified points, it is identified that better result may be generated using machine learning technique along with time reduction. Prime objective of this paper is to made and attempt for identifying the fault localization techniques in combination with soft computing approaches to minimize the time and space complexities, so that the better results may be achieved in context of usability and effectiveness.
The auditory/perceptual basis for speech segmentation

Language is temporal in two ways. Words and sentences occur in time, each utterance having a beginning and end. But, also the learner's experience of language occurs over time, the items that are crucial for defining linguistic structure are experienced over the course of years. These two observations are addressed in an exemplar model of phonological learning and word recognition. Major features of the model are described and its operation is illustrated in two simulations.