Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of FLT3 ligand on proliferation and survival of myeloid leukemia cells.

FLT3 ligand (FL) acting through its tyrosine kinase receptor FLT3 has pleiotropic and potent effects on hematopoietic cells. The well-described involvement of this ligand-receptor pair in physiological hematopoiesis raised the question whether FL and FLT3 also play a role in the pathobiology of leukemia. Following the early discovery of high receptor expression by myeloid leukemia cells, several investigators have focused their attention on these cells, both primary acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cells and continuous human myeloid leukemia cell lines. Regardless of the morphological FAB subtype, the vast majority of AML cases were FLT3-positive both at the mRNA and protein level; among the myeloid cell lines, predominantly the monocytic and myelocytic cell lines were FLT3-positive whereas the erythrocytic and megakaryocytic cell lines were FLT3-negative. Virtually all cell lines studied expressed FL transcripts; the finding that some cell lines displayed both ligand and receptor indicates the possibility of autocrine, intracrine or paracrine stimulatory loops. In vitro growth assays showed that FL caused a proliferative response in a high percentage of AML cases. Only constitutively growth factor-dependent myelocytic cell lines increased their proliferation upon incubation with FL whereas all growth factor-independent cell lines were refractory to FL stimulation. Combinations of FL with various cytokines (e.g. G-CSF, GM-CSF, IL-3, M-CSF, PIXY-321, SCF) had synergistic or additive mitogenic effects. Finally, FL had significant anti-apoptotic, survival-promoting effects on primary AML cells and myeloid cell lines under serum-free culture conditions. On the strength of the above findings, it can be concluded that the FL-FLT3 signaling system may play a certain, albeit probably not causal role in the development of human leukemias. Dissection of the exact molecular pathways that lead to proliferation and/or anti-apoptosis of myeloid leukemia cells as well as the detailed elucidation of the possible contribution of the FL-FLT3 genes to leukemogenesis remain future challenges.
Implementation Science Open Access Study Protocol the Preventing Recurrent Vascular Events and Neurological Worsening through Intensive Organized Case-management (prevention) Trial Protocol [clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: Nct00931788]

Background: Survivors of transient ischemic attack (TIA) or stroke are at high risk for recurrent vascular events and aggressive treatment of vascular risk factors can reduce this risk. However, vascular risk factors, especially hypertension and high cholesterol, are not managed optimally even in those patients seen in specialized clinics. This gap between the evidence for secondary prevention of stroke and the clinical reality leads to suboptimal patient outcomes. In this study, we will be testing a pharmacist case manager for delivery of stroke prevention services. We hypothesize this new structure will improve processes of care which in turn should lead to improved outcomes. Methods: We will conduct a prospective, randomized, controlled open-label with blinded ascertainment of outcomes (PROBE) trial. Treatment allocation will be concealed from the study personnel, and all outcomes will be collected in an independent and blinded manner by observers who have not been involved in the patient's clinical care or trial participation and who are masked to baseline measurements. Patients will be randomized to control or a pharmacist case manager treating vascular risk factors to guideline-recommended target levels. Eligible patients will include all adult patients seen at stroke prevention clinics in Edmonton, Alberta after an ischemic stroke or TIA who have uncontrolled hypertension (defined as systolic blood pressure (BP) > 140 mm Hg) or dyslipidemia (fasting LDL-cholesterol > 2.00 mmol/L) and who are not cognitively impaired or institutionalized. The primary outcome will be the proportion of subjects who attain 'optimal BP and lipid control'(defined as systolic BP < 140 mm Hg and fasting LDL cholesterol < 2.0 mmol/L) at six months compared to baseline; 12-month data will also be collected for analyses of sustainability of any effects. A variety of secondary outcomes related to vascular risk and health-related quality of life will also be collected. Conclusions: Nearly one-quarter of those who survive a TIA or minor stroke suffer another vascular event within a year. If our intervention improves the provision of secondary prevention therapies in these patients, the clinical (and financial) implications will be enormous. Background Epidemiological studies have shown that a number of common conditions increase the risk of stroke and other
A 10/20/30/40 MHz Feedforward FIR DAC Continuous-Time $\Delta\Sigma$ ADC With Robust Blocker Performance for Radio Receivers

The first feedforward continuous-time ΔΣ ADC with a finite impulse response (FIR) DAC is presented for consumer radio applications. It provides robust loop-delay compensation with no performance degradation in the presence of radio out-of-band blockers from either out-of-band gain peaking in the signal transfer function or blocker clock-jitter modulation. A half-clock-period-delay half-return-to-open FIR DAC minimizes intersymbol interference with 3 dB less noise. At 20/30/40 MHz operation, the figure-of-merit (FOM) is less than or equal to 36 fJ/conv. -step. At 10 MHz operation, the FOM is 50 fJ/conv. -step. The equivalent FOM for a 20 MHz-only design is 28 fJ/conv. -step. It occupies 0.0194 mm2 in 40 nm CMOS and is the smallest wideband ADC ever reported.
Pirus: A file storage service in cloud computing for educational use

This paper describes a file storage service for elearning platforms using object oriented logic in a cloud computing environment. The service can be used by an academic community giving users the ability to store remotely and access their personal files with no security compromises. The Learning Research Management (LRM) innovative system is introduced and a technological assessment of this system is proposed and implemented using a statistical evaluation process. The conducted process is based on the perceptions from using the system by the involved student population. This process leads to an iterative decision making phase to further improve the system.
Usability in Context: Improving Quality of Use

This paper considers the usability of information systems and IT products in terms of their quality of use for specific users seeking to achieve work goals in particular environments. It describes Usability Context Analysis (UCA), a practical cooperative method for identifying and recording contextual aspects of usability in system development or redesign, and for helping ensure that usability evaluations reflect the context of use and give data with acceptable ecological validity. It draws on experience of applying UCA in commercial settings, working cooperatively with people who have a stake in system development and procurement ‐ including users and managers ‐ to arrive at a clear, shared, documented view of the context of system use. UCA has been developed by the UK National Physical Laboratory (NPL) and HUSAT Research Institute as part of the MUSiC (Measuring Usability of Systems in Context) toolkit. The paper briefly outlines MUSiC methods and tools for quantitative usability evaluation, which complement UCA and support the measurement and improvement of usability. There is still a demand in many parts of Europe, especially in the field of software engineering, for a one-shot ('waterfall') development process for IT systems. Unfortunately, it is rarely possible to prespecify adequately the real-world needs of users and organisations. For users, the outcomes of one-shot development too often fail to deliver hoped for benefits. While the methods described in this paper can be used in enlightened one-shot information system production, the developers of the methods emphasise the value of an iterative, participative prototyping approach, which aims to shape systems to meet user needs. The broad view of usability as quality of use, which underlies the work reported here, stresses the importance of the contexts in which an IT system is used. It avoids the dangers of preoccupation with superficial features of a user interface. Sometimes it is suggested that simply adding a graphical interface, and providing a selection of widgets, will 'solve usability'. As many good designers appreciate, usability is deeper than that. What they may not fully recognise is that designing for usability means providing users with a manner of interaction which meets the needs of those users for achieving their task goals in their own work environments. Even where this is recognised, designers and evaluators may lack access to adequate information about the characteristics of users, tasks and environments. Viewing usability in terms of quality of use opens the way to evaluation which can inform design and redesign, to enable improvement for users in the workplace. It also makes it
The Cognitive Assignment Eclipse Plug-in

Concept assignment approaches assist software engineers to comprehend software by localising problem domain concepts to source code elements. This paper presents an implementation of a concept assignment approach we call cognitive assignment which combines cognitive mapping of expert software engineers and Bayesian classification to help engineers tasked with understanding unfamiliar systems to localise a concepts implementation in the systems source
Cathepsin D Expression in Colorectal Cancer: From Proteomic Discovery through Validation Using Western Blotting, Immunohistochemistry, and Tissue Microarrays

Despite recent advances in surgical techniques and therapeutic treatments, survival from colorectal cancer (CRC) remains disappointing with some 40–50% of newly diagnosed patients ultimately dying of metastatic disease. Current staging by light microscopy alone is not sufficiently predictive of prognosis and would benefit from additional support from biomarkers in order to stratify patients appropriately for adjuvant therapy. We have identified that cathepsin D expression was significantly greater in cells from invasive front (IF) area and liver metastasis (LM) than those from main tumour body (MTB). Cathepsin D expression was subsequently examined by immunohistochemistry in tissue microarrays from 119 patients with CRC. Strong expression in tumour cells at the IF did not correlate significantly with any clinico-pathological parameters examined or patient survival. However, cathepsin D expression in cells from the MTB was highly elevated in late stage CRC and showed significant correlation with subsequent distant metastasis and shorter cancer-specific survival. We also found that macrophages surrounding tumour cells stained strongly for cathepsin D but there was no significant correlation found between cathepsin D in macrophages at IF and MTB of CRC patient with the clinic-pathological parameters examined.
Building the South Side: Urban Space and Civic Culture in Chicago, 1890-1919

Building the South Side: Urban Space and Civic Culture in Chicago, 1890-1919. By Robin F. Bachin. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. Pp. Ix, 434. Illus., notes, index. Cloth, $35.00). In turn-of-the-century Chicago, a wide array of political actors-industrialists, machine politicians, labor leaders, female reformers, commercial entrepreneurs-believed in the physical environment's ability to foster social cohesion and therefore struggled to leave their imprint on the urban landscape. Robin F. Bachin recounts their efforts and shares in their belief that public spaces-even those seemingly beyond the political arena-are vital sites of civic life. Like her subjects, she explores "the reforming capacity of the urban landscape. "(8) She sees the ability to shape public space as evidence of political and social clout and also the means of acquiring such authority. Specifically, Bachin considers Chicago's South Side with its ethnic, racial, and class mix as a microcosm in which to study broader efforts to forge a unified civic culture and create social harmony. In Bachin's hands, the design of a university campus, the placement of a public park, even the layout of a baseball field provide insight into Chicago's public life and reveal the shifting nature of urban political power. By focusing on these "politics of urban space," she reinterprets Progressive Era politics and places competing notions of urban citizenship at their center. Bachin's study is divided into three parts, each examining a different type of spatial politics. Part one, "The University and the City," considers the University of Chicago and its politics of centralization. According to Bachin the University's values-its twinned emphases on science rather than commercialism and "control rather than collaboration" (24)-were reflected in the campus' Gothic towers and geographic isolation from its Hyde Park neighbors. Despite these values and their powerful embodiment in the built environment, other spatial politics found a way to thrive in the spaces of the University. Bachin spends considerable time laying out John Dewey's vision of public participation and community engagement and underscores that the segregation of female students permitted the development of alternative political models, especially the settlement movement. In Part two, "Parks as Public Space," Bachin turns her attention to debates over leisure pursuits and their complex relationship to civic unity. She argues that, despite the almost universal appeal of urban parks, they proved a source of division. Some, like Daniel Burnham, viewed parks as public pleasure grounds, sites of natural beauty carefully designed to bring the classes together and impart elite notions of civic virtue. …
Reliability and Energy Efficiency in Multi-hop IEEE 802 . 15 . 4 / ZigBee Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are a very appealing solution for many practical applications. Recently, WSNs have also been deployed in industrial scenarios, even for critical applications. Two major requirements are needed for an effective deployment of WSNs in such scenarios. The first is energy efficiency, as a network lifetime in the order of months or years it is usually required. The other is reliability, since an even moderate message loss cannot be tolerated in critical applications. Evaluate the performance of the IEEE 802.15. 4 standard in multi-hop WSNs where sleep/wakeup scheduling protocols are used for energy conservation. It was stated and found that through extensive simulation results that the MAC parameter settings significantly impact on the performance. The demonstration showed, how an appropriate tuning of the MAC parameters can improve the reliability of communications, resulting in a very high delivery ratio. In addition, the solution also obtains low energy expenditure.
Correlating interactions with gene expressions to detect protein complexes in protein interaction networks

In protein-protein interaction networks, proteins combine into macromolecular complexes to execute essential functions in the cells, such as replication, transcription, protein transport. Considering the certain rate of false positive and false negative interactions, we take a confidence probability on interactions and correlate interactions and gene expression data to assign weights to edges in PPI networks. Then we propose the CIGE algorithm to detecting protein complexes from protein interaction networks. Our algorithm takes a maximal full-connected sub-graph as core graph of a seed node, and decides whether a node belongs to a protein complex through judging in-module weight and out-module weight between core graph and nodes out of core graph. Experiment results show that our algorithm has an excellent performance in both accuracy and hit rate.
Superficial antigens of Campylobacter (Vibrio) fetus: characterization of antiphagocytic component

A glycoprotein responsible for the antiphagocytic properties of Campylobacter fetus has been identified by comparing cells of a wild-type strain with those of a mutant lacking this substance. The antiphagocytic component is demonstrable through electron microscopy as a discrete, negatively charged structure on the periphery of the cell. CLT is readily removed from the cell by mild extraction procedures and contributes to the inagglutinability in O antiserum normally displayed by C. fetus. Cells possessing this antigen are refractory to ingestion by macrophages except in the presence of specific antiserum. In its absence maximum phagocytosis occurs without a requirement for opsonins. It is concluded that the antiphagocytic component comprises a critical virulence factor of the bacterium.
Scalability for Social Network Analysis Algorithms

A Social network is a social structure made up of individuals called “nodes” which are tied by “edges”. One example of a source for social network analysis is traffic in a mobile telephony network where the subscribers are ‘nodes’ and the ‘edges’ are derived from the telecom traffic in the mobile telephony network. Mobile networks and other social networks of today contain millions of subscribers and the growth is expected to continue for the foreseeable future. Many of the social network analysis algorithms are considered to be computationally expensive to execute. In this paper we describe the analysis and conclusions from our studies related to scalability for social network analysis algorithms. For some algorithms scalability is improved by introducing approximations in the existing algorithms. Many social network algorithms perform the analysis globally on the complete network. By performing the analysis for the closest neighbors to the target node, the ego network, the scalability is improved. Solutions for parallelized execution of the algorithms are also described. The most challenging part was to efficiently partition the network in smaller segments to prepare for parallel execution of the algorithms. A novel idea for handling pre-partitioning based on geographic location of the subscribers in a mobile network is described. As a proof of concept a prototype was implemented. Evaluation of our prototype implementation and ideas for further improvements are also described. Performance tests to compare the original with the improved social network algorithms and the parallelized solutions shows considerable improvements related to scalability. The trade off between capacity and quality of the results for these solutions and algorithms is also evaluated.
Multi-resolution channel codes

In this paper, we present a new approach for channel coding on unknown or time-varying channels. Given a family of possible channel characteristics, we define a multi-resolution channel code as a single channel coding codebook from which a collection of codes of increasing rates are extracted by choosing larger and larger nested subsets of the original set of codewords. We give an achievable rate region and a tight converse.
Locally Adaptive Techniques for Pattern Classification

Pattern classification faces a difficult challenge in finite settings and high dimensional spaces due to the curse of dimensionality. Nearest neighbor methods are especially sensitive to this problem. The need for large neighborhoods in high dimensional spaces is the cause of highly biased estimates. Due to the local nature of feature relevance, any chosen fixed metric violates the assumption of locally constant class posterior probabilities, and therefore fails in making correct predictions in different regions of the input space. In order to achieve accurate predictions, it becomes crucial to be able to estimate the different degrees of relevance that input features may have in various locations of the feature space. This dissertation introduces novel approaches to computing local feature relevance for nearest neighbor methods that overcome limitations of previous techniques. It makes four specific contributions: (1) ADAMENN algorithm: A novel approach to computing local feature relevance for pattern classification. It uses the Chi-squared distance to design a flexible metric that approximates the theoretical infinite sample risk at the query point. No assumption is made on the probability distribution of data. It is formally shown that the measure of feature relevance derived by ADAMENN reduces the overall mean-squared estimation error. (2) LFM-SVM algorithm : A new local flexible metric technique based on support vector machines. This method overcomes the limitations of lazy learning approaches concerned with scalability and efficiency issues. It is shown that the weighting scheme performed by the LFM-SVM algorithm increases the margin of the solution provided in input by the SVM. (3) GenProClus algorithm: A novel algorithm that computes intra-cluster adaptive metrics for clustering. This algorithm represents an attempt to dodge the curse of dimensionality for clustering, and provides information to what features are relevant for each partition. It is shown that the algorithm converges to a local minimum of the associated error function. (4) AdaBand algorithm: A new locally adaptive technique to set the bandwidth parameters for kernel density estimation. This approach can serve as an efficient approximation of nearest neighbor methods. It is shown how this algorithm can be used to efficiently solve classification, clustering, and range query approximation problems. The efficacy of the techniques presented is demonstrated through extensive experimental evaluations, using a variety of simulated and real world problems, such as texture recognition in images and letter classification.
Geo-linguistic fingerprint and the evolution of languages in twitter

Having access to content of messages sent by some given group of subscribers of a social network may be used to identify (and quantify) some features of that group. The feature can stand for the level of interest in some event or product, or for the popularity of some idea, or a musical hit or of a political figure. The feature can also stand for the way the written language is used and transformed, the way words are spelled and the way new grammatical rules appear. This paper has two goals. First, we identify features of groups of subscribers that have their geographic location and their language in common. We develop a methodology that allows one to perform such a study using freely available statistical tools which makes use of a part of all tweets which Twitter makes available for free over the Internet. The methodology is based on the fact that one can differentiate among some geographic areas according to the activity pattern of tweets during the time of the day. The second objective is to present our findings on the way spelling and new words have are used in Twitter. We analyze differences in appearance of new spellings among communities that are characterized by different locations but have a common language.
Low voltage network monitoring in RTDS environment

Remotely readable smart meters installed for customers and smart measurement devices developed for secondary distribution substation can be utilized to improve LV network monitoring and management. Today the real-time information about the distribution network state is mainly gathered from the MV network. The paper discusses the extension of the network monitoring and management to the LV level by utilizing the concept proposed by the FP7 European project INTEGRIS. In INTEGRIS concept the smart meters and secondary substation measurement device were connected as part of the LV network. This paper presents the testing of the INTEGRIS concept in RTDS (Real Time Digital Simulator) environment, as well as the testing results to demonstrate how well the LV network monitoring and management could be done by utilizing measurement devices in the secondary substation and in the customer's end.