Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Expression of the neonatal Fc receptor (FcRn) at the blood–brain barrier

The blood–brain barrier (BBB) restricts transport of immunoglobulin G (IgG) in the blood to brain direction. However, IgG undergoes rapid efflux in the brain to blood direction via reverse transcytosis across the BBB after direct intracerebral injection. This BBB IgG transport system has the characteristics of an Fc receptor (FcR), but there is no molecular information on the putative BBB FcR. The present study uses confocal microscopy and an antibody to the rat neonatal FcR (FcRn), and demonstrates the expression of the FcRn at the brain microvasculature and choroid plexus epithelium. Co‐localization with the Glut1 glucose transporter indicates the brain microvascular FcRn is expressed in the capillary endothelium. The capillary endothelial FcRn may mediate the ‘reverse transcytosis’ of IgG in the brain to blood direction.
Human Papillomavirus (HPV) virion induced cancer and subfertility, two sides of the same coin

Abstract In the natural history of HPV infections, the HPV virions can induce two different pathways, namely the infec- tious virion producing pathway and the clonal transforming pathway. An overview is given of the burden that is associated with HPV infections that can both lead to cervical cancer and/or temporal subfertility. That HPV infections cause serious global health burden due to HPV-associated cancers is common knowledge, but that it is also responsible for a substantial part of idiopathic subfertility is greatly underestimated. The bulk of the detected HPV DNA whether in men or women is however infectious from origin. Because the dissociation between HPV viruses and HPV virions or infection and disease remains difficult for clinicians as well as for HPV detection, we propose a review of the different effects caused by the two different HPV virion induced pathways, and highlight the mechanisms that are responsible for causing transient subfertility and cancer.
Endotoxin Mediated-iNOS Induction Causes Insulin Resistance via ONOO− Induced Tyrosine Nitration of IRS-1 in Skeletal Muscle

Background It is believed that the endotoxin lipopolysaccharide (LPS) is implicated in the metabolic perturbations associated with both sepsis and obesity (metabolic endotoxemia). Here we examined the role of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) in skeletal muscle insulin resistance using LPS challenge in rats and mice as in vivo models of endotoxemia. Methodology/Principal Findings Pharmacological (aminoguanidine) and genetic strategies (iNOS−/− mice) were used to counter iNOS induction in vivo. In vitro studies using peroxynitrite (ONOO−) or inhibitors of the iNOS pathway, 1400 W and EGCG were conducted in L6 myocytes to determine the mechanism by which iNOS mediates LPS-dependent insulin resistance. In vivo, both pharmacological and genetic invalidation of iNOS prevented LPS-induced muscle insulin resistance. Inhibition of iNOS also prevented insulin resistance in myocytes exposed to cytokine/LPS while exposure of myocytes to ONOO− fully reproduced the inhibitory effect of cytokine/LPS on both insulin-stimulated glucose uptake and PI3K activity. Importantly, LPS treatment in vivo and iNOS induction and ONOO− treatment in vitro promoted tyrosine nitration of IRS-1 and reduced insulin-dependent tyrosine phosphorylation. Conclusions/Significance Our work demonstrates that iNOS-mediated tyrosine nitration of IRS-1 is a key mechanism of skeletal muscle insulin resistance in endotoxemia, and presents nitrosative modification of insulin signaling proteins as a novel therapeutic target for combating muscle insulin resistance in inflammatory settings.
Quality improving techniques for free-viewpoint DIBR

Interactive free-viewpoint selection applied to a 3D multi-view signal is a possible attractive feature of the rapidly developing 3D TV media. This paper explores a new rendering algorithm that computes a free-viewpoint based on depth image warping between two reference views from existing cameras. We have developed three quality enhancing techniques that specifically aim at solving the major artifacts. First, resampling artifacts are filled in by a combination of median filtering and inverse warping. Second, contour artifacts are processed while omitting warping of edges at high discontinuities. Third, we employ a depth signal for more accurate disocclusion inpainting. We obtain an average PSNR gain of 3 dB and 4.5 dB for the 'Breakdancers' and 'Ballet' sequences, respectively, compared to recently published results. While experimenting with synthetic data, we observe that the rendering quality is highly dependent on the complexity of the scene. Moreover, experiments are performed using compressed video from surrounding cameras. The overall system quality is dominated by the rendering quality and not by coding.
Absolute and Convective Instabilities of Waves on Unbounded and Large Bounded Domains

Instabilities of nonlinear waves on unbounded domains manifest themselves in different ways. An absolute instability occurs if the amplitude of localized wave packets grows in time at each fixed point in the domain. In contrast, convective instabilities are characterized by the fact that even though the overall norm of wave packets grows in time, perturbations decay locally at each given point in the unbounded domain: wave packets are convected towards infinity. In experiments as well as in numerical simulations, bounded domains are often more relevant. We are interested in the effects that the truncation of the unbounded to a large but bounded domain has on the aforementioned (in)stability properties of a wave. These effects depend upon the boundary conditions that are imposed on the bounded domain. We compare the spectra of the linearized evolution operators on unbounded and bounded domains for two classes of boundary conditions. It is proved that periodic boundary conditions reproduce the point and essential spectrum on the unbounded domain accurately. Spectra for separated boundary conditions behave in quite a different way: firstly, separated boundary conditions may generate additional isolated eigenvalues. Secondly, the essential spectrum on the unbounded domain is in general not approximated by the spectrum on the bounded domain. Instead, the so-called absolute spectrum is approximated that corresponds to the essential spectrum on the unbounded domain calculated with certain optimally chosen exponential weights. We interpret the difference between the absolute and the essential spectrum in terms of the convective behavior of the wave on the unbounded domain. In particular, it is demonstrated that the stability of the absolute spectrum implies convective instability of the wave, but that convectively unstable waves can destabilize under domain truncation. The theoretical predictions are compared with numerical computations.
Recommendations for standardization of clinical trials with Allergen Specific Immunotherapy for respiratory allergy. A statement of a World Allergy Organization (WAO) taskforce

Specific Immunotherapy for respiratory allergy is used since about one century and there is now solid documentation of its efficacy. Nevertheless, the methods and experimental designs used in clinical trials are quite heterogeneous and there is no unanimously accepted methodological standard. Many studies are planned with study designs that may not confirm the clinical value of SIT as an effective treatment to reduce disease severity. To ensure that patients are treated based on sound scientific evidence and to minimize the risk of misusing limited financial resources for scientific studies, the World Allergy Organization (WAO) convened a group of experts to provide guidelines for the methodology of future immunotherapy studies.
Work in Progress October 2003 Free Trade Area of the Americas : Some Implications for Jamaica

The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) will see the integration of 34 countries by 2005. This paper analyses the implications of its creation for the Jamaican economy. Since 1994, Jamaica has made steady progress in its preparation for the FTAA. However, further macroeconomic adjustments are required, particularly in the public sector. It is important that both monetary and fiscal policies be resolutely focused on attaining an inflation rate of 2 to 3 per cent by 2005. Jamaica’s exports are highly concentrated with certain sectors being vulnerable to competition. While there are new market opportunities in the FTAA, particularly in the area of cosmetics and beverages, some areas of the agricultural sector will be adversely affected by the increased competition.
Binary transmission codes with higher order spectral zeros at zero frequency

A method is presented for designing binary channel codes in such a way that both the power spectral density function and its low-order derivatives vanish at zero frequency. The performance of the new codes is compared with that of channel codes designed with a constraint on the unbalance Of the number of transmitted positive and negative pulses. Some remarks are made on the error-correcting capabilities of these codes.
Human adrenal cells in culture produce both ouabain-like and dihydroouabain-like factors.

BACKGROUND Ouabain-like factor (OLF) and its newly discovered reduced species, dihydroouabain-like factor (Dh-OLF), are mammalian cardenolides whose structural and functional characteristics are similar to the plant-derived compounds ouabain and dihydroouabain. These endogenous compounds are believed to be produced by the adrenals and to constitute part of an hormonal axis that may regulate the catalytic activity of the alpha-subunit of Na(+),K(+)-ATPase. We developed antibodies sufficiently specific to distinguish between OLF and Dh-OLF, and in this study demonstrate the selective secretion of OLF and Dh-OLF from human H295R-1 adrenocortical cells in culture. METHODS We used reversed-phase HPLC, inhibition of Na(+),K(+)-ATPase catalytic activity, and two enzyme immunoassays developed with antibodies specific to ouabain and dihydroouabain to purify and characterize the secretion of these two compounds by human adrenal cells in culture. Purified antisera had high titers (1 x 10(6) for ouabain and 8 x10(5) for dihydroouabain) and were specific to their corresponding antigens. RESULTS Human H295R-1 cells grown in serum-free medium secreted 0.18 +/- 0.03 pmol of OLF and 0.39 +/- 0.04 pmol of Dh-OLF per 10(6) cells in 24 h. Both OLF and Dh-OLF inhibited the ouabain-sensitive catalytic activity of the sodium pump (0.03 micro mol/L OLF inhibited 29% of the catalytic activity; 0.07 micro mol/L Dh-OLF inhibited 17%). Stimulation of the cell culture by dibutryl cAMP increased the secretion of Dh-OLF 50% over control (unstimulated), whereas the secretion of OLF did not increase significantly. CONCLUSIONS OLF and Dh-OLF are secreted by human adrenal cells, and antibodies specific to these two compounds can be developed, using the plant-derived counterparts as antigens. The secretion of Dh-OLF is responsive to a cAMP-dependent stimulation mechanism, whereas OLF is not. Our data suggest that either the secretory or biosynthetic pathways for production of these two compounds by human adrenal cells may have different control mechanisms or that they may be linked via a precursor-product relationship.
A Semantic-Based Search Engine for Traditional Medical Informatics

Current search engines can’t satisfy the requirements of informatics search in knowledge-intensive disciplines like medicine and biology. Before getting breakthrough in AI or NLP, we can use the Semantic Web techniques to solve the problem to some extent. TCMSearch is a semantic-based search engine for traditional medical informatics. In TCMSearch, We harness the semantic technique to improve informatics search experience in several aspects.
What are the Benefits of Continued Purchasing through the Internet? A Study of South Korean Consumers

Since keeping the customer purchasing a product/service is essential to maintaining the profitability of any business, the continuance of purchasing through the Internet is vital to online business. This study is one of the few attempts to investigate the perceived benefit factors affecting customers’ intention to continue purchasing through the Internet. Ac-cording to a multiple regression analysis of online questionnaires filled out by 998 online customers in South Korea, extrinsic benefits measured in terms of time and money savings as well as intrinsic benefits measured in terms of pleas-ure, novelty, and fashion involvement have strong effects on the repurchase intention. Our findings indicate that cus-tomer retention must be promoted in Internet shopping by guaranteeing not only extrinsic benefits but also intrinsic benefits. This study discusses the relevant techniques of providing those benefits to customers and guidelines for future research.
Platelet function testing in clinical diagnostics

Summary Although the utility of platelet function testing is still under debate, the necessity to inhibit platelets in patients suffering from cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease is undoubted and well proven. The wide variety of available platelet function tests often using different methodologies, the apparent lack of standardization, and finally the emerging evidence on the clinical value of platelet function testing are resulting in a considerable uncertainty in the clinical practice, how to deal with the issue of platelet function testing. Platelet function testing might not only yield clinical benefits for the patients but also economical advantages by identifying the right drug at the right dose for the right patient. This article intends to provide an overview of the current platelet function tests such as light transmittance aggregometry, whole blood impedance aggregometry, the PFA-1001 system, the VerifyNow2 system, flow cytometry, as well as other promising technologies like Plateletworks3, IMPACT-R4, PADA, thromboelastography, and the mean platelet component (MPC), briefly addressing strengths, weaknesses and clinical utility of these tests.
An automatic calibration between an omni-directional camera and a laser rangefinder for dynamic scenes reconstruction

An automatic approach for the calibration of an omni-directional camera with a laser rangefinder(LRF) on a mobile robot is presented. We improve the current calibration approach to make it adjust to the omni-directional camera with LRF. Then we focus on building the static-map for the dynamic scene using a mobile robot equipped our camera-LRF system. In this work, we propose a novel approach for updating 3D color map with a Guassian mixture model. Dynamic obstacles are detected combined with 3D and color feature using this model. In the experiment, on one hand, the robustness of our calibration approach is tested by the reconstruction of the omni-directional scenes with color and 3D feature. On the other hand, our map model for dynamic scenes was tested on our system and KITTI dataset, the result shows our approach can reconstruct static map and remove almost dynamic obstacles.
A survey of smart data pricing

Traditionally, network operators have used simple flat-rate broadband data plans for both wired and wireless network access. But today, with the popularity of mobile devices and exponential growth of apps, videos, and clouds, service providers are gradually moving toward more sophisticated pricing schemes. This decade will therefore likely witness a major change in the ways in which network resources are managed, and the role of economics in allocating these resources. This survey reviews some of the well-known past broadband pricing proposals (both static and dynamic), including their current realizations in various consumer data plans around the world, and discusses several research problems and open questions. By exploring the benefits and challenges of pricing data, this article attempts to facilitate both the industrial and the academic communities' efforts in understanding the existing literature, recognizing new trends, and shaping an appropriate and timely research agenda.
How Should Long Term Monetary Policy Be Determined

THESE COMMENTS ADDRESS THE QUESTION of monetary strategy as distinct from monetary tactics. They are not directed at the question of what monetary policy is appropriate at the present time, or of how monetary policy should be determined at any specific point as a function of prevailing conditions. Instead, the issue I take is one that has been of increasing interest to economists in recent years: What should be the long-terrn objectives of the monetary authority? Increased interest in this issue as opposed to the issue of fine-tuning the economy reflects the general intellectual consensus that has emerged on two points. First, what the monetary authority surely can control in the long run is the growth rate of nominal income. Second, issues of dynamic consistency and commitment are crucial to the design of appropriate monetary policies. Beyond its recognition of these points, my view is that most of what the academic economics community has had to say on the issue of long-run monetary strategy has been tangential at best, and I fear that many of the papers at this conference have not done much to improve the situation. I wish to advance four propositions about monetary policy and to discuss their implications. First, an optimal tax theory has little or nothing to do with sensible inflation policy. Second, positive rates of inflation are almost certainly desirable. Third, to an important extent, institutions do the work of rules, and monetary rules should be avoided; instead, institutions should be drafted to solve time-inconsistency problems. Fourth, H. J. Res. 409, the proposed zero-inflation amendment, is a good idea if it is not taken too seriously or too literally, but is instead viewed as a device for strengthening the independence of the Federal Reserve System. My first proposition is that the connection between optimal tax theory and infla-
Lower Blood Pressure in Floxed Angiotensinogen Mice After Adenoviral Delivery of Cre-Recombinase

Recent experimental evidence suggests a role for tissue renin-angiotensin systems in the development of hypertension. To test the importance of tissue renin-angiotensin systems in the development and maintenance of angiotensin II-dependent hypertension, we generated a transgenic model in which exon 2 of the human angiotensinogen gene is flanked by loxP sites (hAGTflox) so that this region of the gene can be deleted by the cre-recombinase. Double transgenic human renin and hAGTflox (R+/A+flox) mice of two independent lines exhibited elevated blood pressure. Acute administration of an adenovirus containing cre-recombinase (Adcre) lowered blood pressure by 30 mm Hg over a 4-day period as measured with fluid filled catheters. The chronic effect of Adcre administration on blood pressure was determined by radiotelemetry in a separate group of R+/A+flox mice. Blood pressure decreased by 25 mm Hg from baseline by day 8 post-Adcre, but increased on each day thereafter until it was 90% of baseline by day 21 post-Adcre. Expression analysis indicated the absence of detectable hAGT mRNA in the liver at day 5 post-Adcre, but reappeared at normal levels at days 14 to 21 post-Adcre. These studies suggest that Adcre is effective for acute, but not chronic, elimination of hepatic hAGT. Chronic elimination of hepatic hAGT will likely require the use of transgenic mice endogenously expressing cre-recombinase in the liver.
Experimental Comparison of Software Reliability Models Based on Code Coverage and on Time Domain

The study of software reliability has its origin in 1967 when the first experiments were performed. Since then, diverse models that use as parameter the time of execution of software or the time between failures have been considered. Another approach indicates that the use of code coverage, instead of execution time, yields better estimates of the reliability of the software. This paper presents the results observed in an experiment carried out to compare the software reliability models Binomial Model based on Coverage (BMBC) and Infinite Failure Software Reliability Model Based on Code Coverage (IFMBC) with the following models based on time domain: Geometric (GEO), Littlewood-Linear Verral (LAV-L), Littlewood-Quadratic Verral (LAVQ), Musa Basic (MS-B), Musa Logarithmic (MS-L) and Non-Homogeneous Poisson Model (NHP). These models, in addition to being much quoted in the literature, are implemented by SMERFS^3, used to calculate its parameters and to estimate reliability. As a result, it has been observed that traditional models do not provide robustness when the profile was changed. On the other hand, code coverage-based models have produced good results for all operational profiles. In addition to the good fit, coverage-based models have generated better estimates of software reliability, as shown by the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test.
Armchair authentication

Alphanumeric authentication, by means of a secret, is not only a powerful mechanism, in theory, but prevails over all its competitors in practice. However, it is clearly inadequate in a world where increasing numbers of systems and services require people to authenticate in a shared space, while being actively observed. This new reality places pressure on a password mechanism never intended for use in such a context. Asterisks may obfuscate alphanumeric characters on entry but popular systems, e.g. Apple iPhone and Nintendo Wii, regularly require users to use an on-screen keyboard for character input. This may not be a real concern within the context of secluded space but inadvertly reveals a secret within shared space. Such a secret has an economic cost in terms of replacement, recall and revenue, all of which affect the financial return of the offending systems and services. In this paper, we present and evaluate a graphical authentication mechanism, Tetrad, which appears to have the potential to address these specific concerns.
Introduction: understanding adaptation in the context of social theory

The past two decades have witnessed significant evolution of the adaptation research enterprise (Preston et al. 2013; Preston et al. 2015). This is evidenced by the expanded treatment of adaptation in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (IPCC 2014), a development that was enabled by rapid growth in the volume of adaptation literature following the Fourth Assessment Report (IPCC 2009). A similar expansion of adaptation has also been witnessed in adaptation policy and practice. Although once viewed as a taboo topic (Pielke Jr 1998; Pielke et al. 2007), adaptation is now being institutionalized at a range of geopolitical scales. Adaptation, and particularly adaptation finance, is a major subject of debate within international negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and various funding mechanisms have been developed to support adaptation in developing nations (Grasso 2009; Hulme et al. 2011; Petherick 2012; Schipper and Burton 2009). National governments of developed nations have also initiated strategic thinking regarding adaptation as represented by the United Kingdom’s Climate Change Act (UK Stationery Office 2008) the European Union’s Adaptation Strategy (EU 2013) and Australia’s National Climate Resilience and Adaptation Strategy (Commonwealth of Australia 2015). Such top-down approaches to adaptation are complemented by a broad range of bottom-up efforts represented by local/municipal, and state/district adaptation planning (Lindseth 2005; Measham et al. 2011; Preston and Kay 2010; Saavedra and Budd 2009). Given these developments, one might assume that substantive progress is being made in adaptation policy and practice and, moreover, that some of that progress can be attributed to the ability of adaptation scholarship to help support adaptation decision-making while also shedding light on the complexities of adaptation processes. Yet, rather than accept these assumptions at face value, this Research Handbook on Climate Change Adaptation Policy endeavors to view them through a critical lens. To that