Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
PROSPECTIVE EVALUATION OF CORIS INFLU-A&B RESPI-STRIP AND OF BINAXNOW INFLUENZA A&B ASSAY AGAINST VIRAL CULTURE AND REAL-TIME PCR ASSAY FOR DETECTION OF 2009 PANDEMIC INFLUENZA A/H1N1V IN BELGIAN PATIENTS

Abstract Purpose – Evaluation of the performance of two rapid (15’) antigen detection tests (RAT), BinaxNOW Influenza A&B and Coris Influ-A&B Respi-Strip for the detection of A(H1N1)v2009. Study design – Between July 2009 and November 2009, 4105 respiratory specimens from patients with influenza-like illness attending seven public hospitals in Brussels were prospectively examined by two immunochromatographic RAT, followed by viral culture and/or specific real-time RT-PCR. Results – Samples consisted predominantly of nasopharyngeal aspirates (NPA-41%), nasopharyngeal (NPS- 37%) and throat swabs (TS-14%). The sensitivity and specificity of Coris RAT and BinaxNOW RAT were 36.6% and 99.7%, and 47% and 98.7% respectively compared to culture; and 33.7% and 99.6%; and 46.5% and 98.8% compared to RT-PCR. Significant differences in sensitivity could be observed when splitting up the samples by sample type and patient’s age. NPA gave by far the highest sensitivities: 51.1- 62% for Coris compared to culture and 62.6-78.4% for BinaxNOW. Sensitivities in paediatric NPS varied less between different hospitals (34-41.9%) being still much higher than in adult NPS (11.4-20%). TS resulted in unsatisfactory results: 13% sensitivity in children and 10.5% in adults. Conclusions – Both RAT showed excellent specificities, but insufficient sensitivities. Consequently, negative results should be confirmed. NPA are clearly superior to NPS or TS, and they stay the sample of choice for viral diagnosis.
Smart MR Imaging Agents Relevant to Potential Neurologic Applications

SUMMARY: Molecular imaging is aimed at the noninvasive visualization of the expression and function of bioactive molecules that often represent specific molecular signatures in disease processes. Any molecular imaging procedure requires an imaging probe that is specific to a given molecular event, which puts an important emphasis on chemistry development. In MR imaging, the past years have witnessed significant advances in the design of molecular agents, though most of these efforts have not yet progressed to in vivo studies. In this review, we present some examples relevant to potential neurobiologic applications. Our aim was to show what chemistry can bring to the area of molecular MR imaging with a focus on the 2 main classes of imaging probes: Gd3+-based and PARACEST agents. We will discuss responsive probes for the detection of metal ions such as Ca, Zn, Fe, and Cu, pH, enzymatic activity, and oxygenation state.
Contract-based Negotiation via Argumentation (preliminary Report)

Negotiation is often described as the process by which agents come to a mutually acceptable agreement about some subject. This deenition is quite broad, as this process can be viewed from many diierent angles. Here we consider negotiation from the perspective of contracts. We present a general model of contract-based negotiation and propose a logic programming-based argumentation framework to capture and formalise this model.
Fluctuating fitness shapes the clone-size distribution of immune repertoires

Significance Receptors on the surface of lymphocytes specifically recognize foreign pathogens. The diversity of these receptors sets the range of infections that can be detected and fought off. Recent experiments show that, despite the many differences between these receptors in different cell types and species, their distribution of diversity is a strikingly reproducible power law. By introducing effective models of repertoire dynamics that include environmental and antigenic fluctuations affecting lymphocyte growth or “fitness,” we show that a temporally fluctuating fitness is responsible for the observed heavy tail distribution. These models are general and describe the dynamics of various cell types in different species. They allow for the classification of the functionally relevant repertoire dynamics from the features of the experimental distributions. The adaptive immune system relies on the diversity of receptors expressed on the surface of B- and T cells to protect the organism from a vast amount of pathogenic threats. The proliferation and degradation dynamics of different cell types (B cells, T cells, naive, memory) is governed by a variety of antigenic and environmental signals, yet the observed clone sizes follow a universal power-law distribution. Guided by this reproducibility we propose effective models of somatic evolution where cell fate depends on an effective fitness. This fitness is determined by growth factors acting either on clones of cells with the same receptor responding to specific antigens, or directly on single cells with no regard for clones. We identify fluctuations in the fitness acting specifically on clones as the essential ingredient leading to the observed distributions. Combining our models with experiments, we characterize the scale of fluctuations in antigenic environments and we provide tools to identify the relevant growth signals in different tissues and organisms. Our results generalize to any evolving population in a fluctuating environment.
The US11 gene product of herpes simplex virus has intercellular trafficking activity.

The US11 gene product of herpes simplex virus is an abundant virion structural protein with RNA-binding regulatory activity. Its carboxyl-terminal half consists of tandem tripeptide repeats of the sequence RXP. We demonstrate that the US11 protein has intercellular trafficking activity and accumulates in the nucleolus when singly expressed in cultured cells, and that the RXP repeats are responsible for this activity. These same properties were also observed in cells expressing a fusion protein linking US11 to the green fluorescent protein. Furthermore, exogenous US11 protein was internalized by cells at 4 degrees C, which suggests that US11 protein uptake occurs primarily through an energy-independent pathway.
Robo Brain : Massive Knowledge Base For Robots

The RoboBrain project is a collaborative effort to build a knowledge engine that learns and shares knowledge representations. These knowledge representations are learned from a variety of sources, including interactions that robots have while performing perception, planning and control, as well as natural language, semi-structured knowledge and visual data from the Internet. This representation needs to consider several modalities including symbols, natural language, visual or shape features, haptic properties, and so on. The knowledge that Robo-Brain accumulates is stored in a graph database. The structure lends well to a data visualization. Through the data visualization, we crowd-source comments on the graph to find problems with the data. This paper details an attempt to create a learning algorithm based off of those comments so that we can predict fault nodes in the graph and alert them to administrators.
Love or the Black Sun of Personal Relationships

Previous research about love, in the social-psychological literature, has focused on the antecedents, or causes, of love. Moreover, within the field of Personal Relationships, love is often regarded as implicitly present, and thus, is not treated directly. Here, we address the possibility of a reversal of this perspective, where love is no longer treated as a dependent variable but as an independent variable. We show that this change is necessary to promote the status of love to that of a reliable object of scientific enquiry. We discuss the differences between scientific and naive conceptions of love, and the necessity of distinguishingbetween an alleged reality of love and the consequences of the mere idea of love.
Development of a novel PCB-based voice coil actuator for opto-mechatronic applications

Voice-coil actuators are the simplest form of electric motor consisting of a non-commutated single coil or winding moving through a fixed magnetic field produced by stationary permanent magnets. From a system design point of view, however, it is generally the end user's responsibility to couple the voice-coil actuator with a linear bearing system, position feedback device, switch-mode or linear servo amplifier, and motion controller. The integration of multiple discrete components adversely affects system reliability and renders minimization and packaging difficult particularly when multiple actuators are required. In response to this demand, a novel, low-inertia voice coil actuator has been developed whereby the traditional moving coil is replaced with a printed circuit board (PCB) that incorporates the necessary windings as conductive traces on one or more layers of the board. The result is a compact, highly integrated, highly reliable design that is simple to mass-produce using conventional PCB manufacturing and assembly techniques.
Category Generation

People exhibit the ability to imagine new category instance s and new categories, with examples ranging from everyday activities like cooking to scientific discovery. This ability , which we callcategory generation , is not addressed by standard models of category learning, which focus on classifying instan ces rather than generating them. We develop a probabilistic account of category generation and evaluate it using two behav ioral experiments. Our results confirm that people find it nat ural to generate new category instances and suggest that our model accounts well for this ability.
Evolution of DNA Double-Strand Break Repair by Gene Conversion: Coevolution Between a Phage and a Restriction-Modification System

The necessity to repair genome damage has been considered to be an immediate factor responsible for the origin of sex. Indeed, attack by a cellular restriction enzyme of invading DNA from several bacteriophages initiates recombinational repair by gene conversion if there is homologous DNA. In this work, we modeled the interaction between a bacteriophage and a bacterium carrying a restriction enzyme as antagonistic coevolution. We assume a locus on the bacteriophage genome has either a restriction-sensitive or a restriction-resistant allele, and another locus determines whether it is recombination/repair proficient or defective. A restriction break can be repaired by a co-infecting phage genome if one of them is recombination/repair proficient. We define the fitness of phage (resistant/sensitive and repair-positive/-negative) genotypes and bacterial (restriction-positive/-negative) genotypes by assuming random encounter of the genotypes, with given probabilities of single and double infections, and the costs of resistance, repair, and restriction. Our results show the evolution of the repair allele depends on \batchmode \documentclass[fleqn,10pt,legalpaper]{article} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amsmath} \pagestyle{empty} \begin{document} \(b_{1}/b_{0},\) \end{document} the ratio of the burst size \batchmode \documentclass[fleqn,10pt,legalpaper]{article} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amsmath} \pagestyle{empty} \begin{document} \(b_{1}\) \end{document} under damage to host cell physiology induced by an unrepaired double-strand break to the default burst size \batchmode \documentclass[fleqn,10pt,legalpaper]{article} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amsmath} \pagestyle{empty} \begin{document} \(b_{0}.\) \end{document} It was not until this effect was taken into account that the evolutionary advantage of DNA repair became apparent.
The New WHO Classification of Brain Tumours

The new edition of the World Health Organization (WHO) book on ‘Histological Typing of Tumours of the Central Nervous System’ reflects the progress in brain tumour classification which has been achieved since publication of the first edition in 1979. Several new tumour entities have been added, including the pleomorphic xanthoastrocytoma, central neurocytoma, the infantile desmoplastic astrocytoma/ganglioglioma, and the dysembryoplastic neuroepithelial tumour. The list of histological variants has also been expanded. In line with recent morphological and molecular data on glioma progression, the glioblastoma is now grouped together with astrocytic tumours. The classification of childhood tumours has been largely retained, the diagnosis primitive neuroectodermal tumour (PNET) only being recommended as a generic term for cerebellar meduiloblastomas and neoplasms that are histologically indistinguishable from medulloblastoma but located in the CNS at sites other than the cerebellum. The WHO grading scheme was revised and adapted to new entities but its use, as before, remains optional.
Spiritual Well-being May Reduce the Negative Impacts of Cancer Symptoms on the Quality of Life and the Desire for Hastened Death in Terminally Ill Cancer Patients

Background: Spirituality is a central component of the well-being of terminally ill cancer patients. Objective: The aim of this study was to examine the mediating or moderating role of spiritual well-being in reducing the impact of cancer-related symptoms on quality of life and the desire for hastened death in terminally ill cancer patients. Methods: Eighty-five terminally ill cancer patients were assessed using the Taiwanese version of the M. D. Anderson Symptom Inventory, the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy–General, the Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy–Spiritual Well-being, the Beck Hopelessness Scale, and the Schedule of Attitudes Toward Hastened Death. Results: Spiritual well-being was significantly negatively correlated with symptom severity (r = −0.46, P < .01). Symptom severity negatively correlated with quality of life (r = −0.54) and positively correlated with hopelessness (r = 0.51, P < .01) and the desire for hastened death (r = 0.61, P < .01). Spiritual well-being was a partial mediator and moderator between symptom severity and quality of life. Spiritual well-being was a partial mediator between symptom severity and the desire for hastened death. The meaning subscale of spiritual well-being was a more significant predictor of the desire for hastened death and quality of life than the faith subscale was. Conclusion: Spiritual well-being may reduce the negative impacts of cancer on quality of life and the desire for hastened death. Implications for Practice: Appropriate spiritual care may reduce the negative impact of severe cancer symptoms on quality of life and the desire for hastened death in terminally ill cancer patients.
Auxiliary Sensory Cues Improve Automatic Postural Responses in Individuals With Diabetic Neuropathy

Background. A loss of sensation in the lower limbs, observed in individuals with diabetes as well as elderly individuals, contributes to postural instability, altered gait patterns, increased risk of falling, and decreased quality of life. Objective. To determine if somatosensory cues delivered to sensate areas of the lower limbs above the ankle joints enhance the control of posture in individuals with peripheral neuropathy. Methods. Twelve subjects with sensory neuropathy due to diabetes participated in static and dynamic balance tests with and without auxiliary sensory cues provided to the lower limbs without stabilizing the ankle joints. During the tests the subjects were required to stand on a fixed or moving computer-controlled platform with their eyes open or closed. Equilibrium scores and response latency were obtained. Results. For all tests, equilibrium scores were significantly larger in experiments with auxiliary sensory cues in comparison with conditions without cues (P < .05). Smaller latency scores were recorded in conditions with auxiliary sensory information. The results indicate that auxiliary sensory cues improved automatic postural responses. Conclusions. The observed enhancement of automatic postural responses has clinical implications that aid in the understanding of postural control in individuals with peripheral neuropathy. Future controlled trials could examine whether devices that provide auxiliary sensory cues can improve balance, mobility, and the performance of daily activities.
An E!cient Heuristic for the Tree Alignment Problem

Phylogeny and alignment estimation are two important and closely related biological prob- lems. One approach to the alignment question is known in combinatorial optimization as the Tree Alignment Problem (TAP). A number of heuristic solutions exist, with the most competitive algo- rithms using iterative methods to find solutions. However, these methods are either non-scalable, the bound is too loose, or the time and memory complexity are di! cult to predict. For the simplest dis- tance functions, a widely used quick heuristic to find a solution to an instance of the problem is Direct Optimization (DO). Unfortunately, this algorithm has not been formally described, and it is currently unable to find correct solutions under an edition distance function called a! ne indel cost , of great im- portance for biologists analyzing DNA sequences. In this paper, we describe DO formally, and present a new algorithm, A! ne-DO, which heuristically bounds an instance of the TAP under the a! ne indel cost. A! ne-DO shows superior results with real biological sequences, a point that we illustrate using a published data set example.
Angiogenesis imaging by spatiotemporal analysis of ultrasound contrast agent dispersion kinetics

The key role of angiogenesis in cancer growth has motivated extensive research with the goal of noninvasive cancer detection by blood perfusion imaging. However, the results are still limited and the diagnosis of major forms of cancer, such as prostate cancer, are currently based on systematic biopsies. The difficulty in the detection of angiogenesis partly resides in a complex relationship between angiogenesis and perfusion. This may be overcome by analysis of the dispersion kinetics of ultrasound contrast agents. Determined by multipath trajectories through the microvasculature, dispersion permits a better characterization of the microvascular architecture and, therefore, more accurate detection of angiogenesis. In this paper, a novel dispersion analysis method is proposed for prostate cancer localization. An ultrasound contrast agent bolus is injected intravenously. Spatiotemporal analysis of the concentration evolution measured at different pixels in the prostate is used to assess the local dispersion kinetics of the injected agent. In particular, based on simulations of the convective diffusion equation, the similarity between the concentration evolutions at neighbor pixels is the adopted dispersion measure. Six measurements in patients, compared with the histology, provided a receiver operating characteristic curve integral equal to 0.87. This result was superior to that obtained by the previous approaches reported in the literature.
Evaluation of Forward Collision Avoidance system using driver's hazard perception

Evaluating the performance of Forward Collision Avoidance Technologies (FCATs) is essential in the early stage of the system testing. Drivers are the key interaction parts between the FCATs and vehicles, which play an important role in the performance evaluation. This paper proposes a practical method to evaluate the performance of FCATs by using a novel driver hazard perception measure, namely driver's risk response time. This measure describes the driver's awareness of potential collision risk, which is defined based on the Time-to-collision (TTC) and driver's brake response in a near-crash scenario. A two-month naturalistic driving experiment has been conducted using a vehicle equipped with one FCAT, i.e., Collision Mitigation Brake System (CMBS). An interval-based cumulative frequency data pretreatment method is used to extract near-crashes. Then, the hazard perception measure is computed in near-crashes with CMBS on and off, which can show the effectiveness of CMBS. The results demonstrate that CMBS is highly-positive in improving driver's hazard perception, especially in speed range between 45 km/h and 60 km/h. This fact is consistent with the expected effect of CMBS, which shows the proposed measure for hazard perception is capable of describing drivers' awareness of collision risk. In addition, this measure is applicable to assess the performance of FCATs during the function designing stage.
Encoder rate control for transform domain Wyner-Ziv Video Coding

In Distributed Video Coding (DVC) the encoder compresses frames at source rates that rely on the statistical dependency involving the Wyner-Ziv (WZ) and side information frames. A significant issue that individuals address in this paper provides the encoder with a mechanism to spot the origin rate to be found in encoding a WZ frame. One possible solution is to check out a feedback approach; the encoder starts by sending a tiny amount of data (low source rate). Just in case the decoder fails to recuperate the compressed frame, it offers the encoder with a feedback requesting more bits. This solution results in using source rates which can be ideal in the sense that they're the minimal rates that cause successful decoding. Nevertheless, this solution mightn't be practical for visual sensor networks as it can exhaust limited bandwidth and energy resources. To fix these problems, we propose a book encoder rate control (ERC) algorithm for Transform-domain distributed video (TDDV) coder without feedback channel at the price of slightly increased encoder complexity. The experiment results reveal that the performance obtained using our ERC algorithm can be compared to that obtained utilizing the decoder rate control (DRC) algorithm.
Modelling evolutionary processes in small populations: not as ideal as you think

Evolutionary processes are routinely modelled using ‘ideal’ Wright–Fisher populations of constant size N in which each individual has an equal expectation of reproductive success. In a hypothetical ideal population, variance in reproductive success (Vk) is binomial and effective population size (Ne) = N. However, in any actual implementation of the Wright–Fisher model (e.g., in a computer), Vk is a random variable and its realized value in any given replicate generation () only rarely equals the binomial variance. Realized effective size () thus also varies randomly in modelled ideal populations, and the consequences of this have not been adequately explored in the literature. Analytical and numerical results show that random variation in and can seriously distort analyses that evaluate precision or otherwise depend on the assumption that is constant. We derive analytical expressions for Var(Vk) [4(2N – 1)(N – 1)/N3] and Var(Ne) [N(N – 1)/(2N – 1) ≈ N/2] in modelled ideal populations and show that, for a genetic metric G = f(Ne), Var(Ĝ) has two components: VarGene (due to variance across replicate samples of genes, given a specific ) and VarDemo (due to variance in ). Var(Ĝ) is higher than it would be with constant Ne = N, as implicitly assumed by many standard models. We illustrate this with empirical examples based on F (standardized variance of allele frequency) and r2 (a measure of linkage disequilibrium). Results demonstrate that in computer models that track multilocus genotypes, methods of replication and data analysis can strongly affect consequences of variation in . These effects are more important when sampling error is small (large numbers of individuals, loci and alleles) and with relatively small populations (frequently modelled by those interested in conservation).