Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
ICOS-dependent extrafollicular helper T cells elicit IgG production via IL-21 in systemic autoimmunity

The role of specialized follicular helper T (TFH) cells in the germinal center has become well recognized, but it is less clear how effector T cells govern the extrafollicular response, the dominant pathway of high-affinity, isotype-switched autoantibody production in the MRL/MpJ-Faslpr (MRLlpr) mouse model of lupus. MRLlpr mice lacking the Icos gene have impaired extrafollicular differentiation of immunoglobulin (Ig) G+ plasma cells accompanied by defects in CXC chemokine receptor (CXCR) 4 expression, interleukin (IL) 21 secretion, and B cell helper function in CD4 T cells. These phenotypes reflect the selective loss of a population of T cells marked by down-regulation of P-selectin glycoprotein ligand 1 (PSGL-1; also known as CD162). PSGL-1lo T cells from MRLlpr mice express CXCR4, localize to extrafollicular sites, and uniquely mediate IgG production through IL-21 and CD40L. In other autoimmune strains, PSGL-1lo T cells are also abundant but may exhibit either a follicular or extrafollicular phenotype. Our findings define an anatomically distinct extrafollicular population of cells that regulates plasma cell differentiation in chronic autoimmunity, indicating that specialized humoral effector T cells akin to TFH cells can occur outside the follicle.
Factors Associated With Hemorrhage in Cesarean Deliveries

A case-control study was performed to study risk factors for hemorrhage in cesarean deliveries. Hemorrhage was defined by a pre- to post-delivery hematocrit decrease of 10 points or more or by the need for red-cell transfusion. Patients with antenatal bleeding were excluded. Among 3052 cesarean deliveries, hemorrhage occurred in 196 cases (6.4%). Three controls were matched to each case and multiple logistic regression was used to control for covariance among predictor variables. Factors having a significant association with hemorrhage were: general anesthesia (adjusted odds ratio 2.94), amnionitis (odds ratio 2.69), preeclampsia (2.18), protracted active phase of labor (2.40), second-stage arrest (1.90), and Hispanic ethnicity (1.82). After adjustment for these variables, a classic uterine incision had a small but significant association (odds ratio 1.06) with hemorrhage. Previous cesarean, parity, gestational age, and several other factors had no association with hemorrhage. These data allow one to anticipate hemorrhage in patients at risk and may be useful in planning appropriate use of blood bank resources, including antepartum autologous blood donation.
Tuberculosis: 3. Epidemiology of the disease in Canada.

The case An 8-year-old grade 3 student comes to her family physician’s office with her mother because the school has asked that she be tested for tuberculosis. The testing will be done at the school, but the mother wants to know if it is really necessary. The child is well and has no symptoms of tuberculosis. She was born in the Philippines, and the family immigrated to Canada 2 years previously.
Emerging Treatment Options in Adult Acute Myelogenous Leukemia

Acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), although a relatively rare cancer, is the most common form of acute leukemia to occur in adults. The diagnosis and treatment of patients with AML has traditionally been based on cytogenetic prognostic markers. However, significant advancements in the discovery of the numerous molecular, cytogenetic, and biologic factors affecting this disease have revealed clear patient subgroups who respond uniquely to therapy. Achieving the best response to current and emerging therapies is dependent on understanding how each of these patient subgroups responds to each intervention. This monograph details the current and emerging treatment strategies available for adult patients with AML. Included are discussions of specific patient subgroups, as well as novel therapeutic agents under investigation in this disease. S u p p o r t e d t h r o u g h a n e d u c a t i o n a l g r a n t f r o m G e n z y m e C o r p o r a t i o n A CME Activity
Efficient similarity search: arbitrary similarity measures, arbitrary composition

Given a (large) set of objects and a query, similarity search aims to find all objects similar to the query. A frequent approach is to define a set of base similarity measures for the different aspects of the objects, and to build light-weight similarity indexes on these measures. To determine the overall similarity of two objects, the results of these base measures are composed, e.g., using simple aggregates or more involved machine learning techniques. We propose the first solution to this search problem that does not place any restrictions on the similarity measures, the composition technique, or the data set size. We define the query plan optimization problem to determine the best query plan using the similarity indexes. A query plan must choose which individual indexes to access and which thresholds to apply. The plan result should be as complete as possible within some cost threshold. We propose the approximative top neighborhood algorithm, which determines a near-optimal plan while significantly reducing the amount of candidate plans to be considered. An exact version of the algorithm determines the optimal solution. Evaluation on real-world data indicates that both versions clearly outperform a complete search of the query plan space.
Frequency difference limens for short-duration tones.

Models which attempt to account for our ability to discriminate the pitch of pure tones are discussed. It is concluded that models based on a place (spectral) analysis should be subject to a limitation of the type Δf⋅d ⩾ constant, where Δf is the frequency difference limen (DL) for a tone pulse of duration d. The value of this constant will depend on the ability of the system to resolve small intensity differences. If a resolution of 1 dB is assumed, the value of the constant is about 0.24. In principle, a mechanism based on the measurement of time intervals could do considerably better than this. Frequency DLs were measured over a wide range of frequencies and durations. It was found that at short durations the product of Δf and d was about one order of magnitude smaller than the minimum predicted from the place model, except for frequencies above 5 kHz. A “kink” in the obtained functions was also observed at about 5 kHz. It is concluded that the evidence is consistent with the operation of a time‐measuring mechanism for frequencies below 5 kHz, and with a spectral or place mechanism for frequencies above this.
World Monthly Surface Station Climatology

This world monthly surface station climatology has data for over 4700 different stations (2600 in more recent years). Data for some stations goes as far back as the mid-1700s. See decadal coverage [http://rda.ucar. edu/datasets/ds570.0/#! docs/decadal.html] for more detail. Most of the data was obtained directly from the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), Asheville, North Carolina. However, much of the data prior to 1951 came from John Wolbach of Harvard College Observatory, who contracted to have this data key entered at NCDC. The first six months of 1961 were key entered at NCAR. Sharon Nicholson, Florida State University, provided African precipitation data to extend the records of over 250 stations. Dennis Shea, NCAR/CGD, has been a valuable source for data obtained directly from various countries.
Improvement in process of care and outcome after a multicenter severe sepsis educational program in Spain.

CONTEXT Concern exists that current guidelines for care of patients with severe sepsis and septic shock are followed variably, possibly due to a lack of adequate education. OBJECTIVE To determine whether a national educational program based on the Surviving Sepsis Campaign guidelines affected processes of care and hospital mortality for severe sepsis. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PATIENTS Before and after design in 59 medical-surgical intensive care units (ICUs) located throughout Spain. All ICU patients were screened daily and enrolled if they fulfilled severe sepsis or septic shock criteria. A total of 854 patients were enrolled in the preintervention period (November-December 2005), 1465 patients during the postintervention period (March-June 2006), and 247 patients during the long-term follow-up period 1 year later (November-December 2006) in a subset of 23 ICUs. INTERVENTION The educational program consisted of training physicians and nursing staff from the emergency department, wards, and ICU in the definition, recognition, and treatment of severe sepsis and septic shock as outlined in the guidelines. Treatment was organized in 2 bundles: a resuscitation bundle (6 tasks to begin immediately and be accomplished within 6 hours) and a management bundle (4 tasks to be completed within 24 hours). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Hospital mortality, differences in adherence to the bundles' process-of-care variables, ICU mortality, 28-day mortality, hospital length of stay, and ICU length of stay. RESULTS Patients included before and after the intervention were similar in terms of age, sex, and Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II score. At baseline, only 3 process-of-care measurements (blood cultures before antibiotics, early administration of broad-spectrum antibiotics, and mechanical ventilation with adequate inspiratory plateau pressure) we had compliance rates higher than 50%. Patients in the postintervention cohort had a lower risk of hospital mortality (44.0% vs 39.7%; P = .04). The compliance with process-of-care variables also improved after the intervention in the sepsis resuscitation bundle (5.3% [95% confidence interval [CI], 4%-7%] vs 10.0% [95% CI, 8%-12%]; P < .001) and in the sepsis management bundle (10.9% [95% CI, 9%-13%] vs 15.7% [95% CI, 14%-18%]; P = .001). Hospital length of stay and ICU length of stay did not change after the intervention. During long-term follow-up, compliance with the sepsis resuscitation bundle returned to baseline but compliance with the sepsis management bundle and mortality remained stable with respect to the postintervention period. CONCLUSIONS A national educational effort to promote bundles of care for severe sepsis and septic shock was associated with improved guideline compliance and lower hospital mortality. However, compliance rates were still low, and the improvement in the resuscitation bundle lapsed by 1 year.
Reproductive Factors, Heterogeneity, and Breast Tumor Subtypes in Women of Mexican Descent

Background: Published data support the presence of etiologic heterogeneity by breast tumor subtype, but few studies have assessed this in Hispanic populations. Methods: We assessed tumor subtype prevalence and associations between reproductive factors and tumor subtypes in 1,041 women of Mexican descent enrolled in a case-only, binational breast cancer study. Multinomial logistic regression comparing HER2+ tumors and triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) to luminal A tumors was conducted. Results: Compared with women with luminal A tumors, those with a later age at first pregnancy were less likely to have TNBC [OR, 0.61; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.39–0.95], whereas those with three or more full-term pregnancies were more likely to have TNBC (OR, 1.68; 95% CI, 1.10–2.55). A lower odds of TNBC was shown for longer menstruation duration, whether before first pregnancy (OR, 0.78; 95% CI, 0.65–0.93 per 10 years) or menopause (OR, 0.79; 95% CI, 0.69–0.91 per 10 years). Patients who reported breastfeeding for more than 12 months were over twice as likely to have TNBC than luminal A tumors (OR, 2.14; 95% CI, 1.24–3.68). Associations comparing HER2+ with luminal A tumors were weak or nonexistent except for the interval between last full-term pregnancy and breast cancer diagnosis. Conclusions: Findings show etiologic heterogeneity by tumor subtype in a population of Hispanic women with unique reproductive profiles. Impact: Identification of etiologically distinct breast tumor subtypes can further improve our understanding of the disease and help provide personalized prevention and treatment regimens. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 22(10); 1853–61. ©2013 AACR.
Fighting against the wall: social media use by political activists in a Palestinian village

We analyze practices of political activists in a Palestinian village located in the West Bank. Activists organize weekly demonstrations against Israel's settlement policy and the separation wall. Over a period of 28 months, we conducted a field study consisting of eight days 'on the ground' observation and interviewing, and extensive monitoring of Internet communication. We describe the activists' background and their efforts to organize these demonstrations under conditions of military occupation. Over time, we observe the role both digital and material factors play in the organization of protest. Specifically, we analyze how Email and Facebook were appropriated to facilitate interaction 'on the ground'.
Lorentz Force Evaluation With Differential Evolution

In the framework of nondestructive testing and evaluation, Lorentz force evaluation (LFE) is a method for reconstructing defects in electrically conducting laminated composites. In this paper, we propose a new inverse calculation strategy for LFE based on a stochastic optimization, the differential evolution (DE) algorithm. We determined the optimal control parameters for the DE and assessed its performance based on simulated and measured data. The results show that the depth of the defect was estimated correctly for all of the data sets that we evaluated. The geometry was reconstructed with errors of less than 4% relative to the size of the defect. The proposed scheme was robust against noise and distortions in the data measurements. We conclude that the proposed reconstruction scheme is a promising method for solving the inverse problem in LFE.
Heat shock proteins (HSPs) in the homeostasis of regulatory T cells (Tregs)

Heat shock proteins (HSPs) belong to the family of conservative polypeptides with a high homology of the primary structure. The uniqueness of this family lies in their ability to interact with a large number of different proteins and provide protection from cellular and environmental stress factors as molecular chaperones to keep protein homeostasis. While intracellular HSPs play a mainly protective role, extracellular or membrane-bound HSPs mediate immunological functions and immunomodulatory activity. In immune system are subsets of cells including regulatory T cells (Tregs) with suppressive functions. HSPs are implicated in the function of innate and adaptive immune systems, stimulate T lymphocyte proliferation and immunomodulatory functions, increase the effectiveness of cross-presentation of antigens, and induce the secretion of cytokines. HSPs are also important in the induction, proliferation, suppressive function, and cytokine production of Tregs, which are a subset of CD4+ T cells maintaining peripheral tolerance. Together HSPs and Tregs are potential tools for future clinical interventions in autoimmune disease.
An all-digital DFT scheme for testing catastrophic faults in PLLs

Traditional functional testing of mixed-signal ICs is slow and requires costly, dedicated test equipment. The authors update the standard PLL architecture to allow simple digital testing. The all-digital strategy yields catastrophic fault coverage as high as that of the classical functional test, plus it is fast, extremely simple to implement, and requires only standard digital test equipment.
A flexible backhaul architecture for LTE-Advanced

The proliferation of data-hungry smart electronic devices, such as smartphones and intelligent vehicles, has driven the capacities of current mobile communication systems towards their limits. To tackle this formidable challenge, 3GPP Long Term Evolution has recognized network densification with low-power small cells (SCs) as a key paradigm in the upcoming 5G communication system. In this article, we introduce a novel wireless backhaul framework for small cell networks by introducing a new backhauling component, which is referred to as Type-A relay. This new entity is capable of communicating simultaneously with two macrocells by leveraging the downlink resource of one cell as well as the uplink resource of the other, which effectively operates in full-duplex mode without incurring additional costs to acquire carrier resources. The proposed approach offers increased architectural flexibility and substantial capacity enhancement over the current LTE relaying-based solutions. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the strong potential of the proposed approach in future 5G communication systems.
FOSHU: faster on-shelf high utility itemset mining -- with or without negative unit profit

High utility itemset (HUI) mining is a popular data mining task, which consists of discovering sets of items generating high profit in a transaction database. Recently, several efficient algorithms have been proposed for this task. But, most of them do not consider the on-shelf time periods of items, which thus lead to a bias toward items having more shelf time. Moreover, most algorithms cannot handle databases containing items with a negative unit profit, although this case is very common in real transaction databases. In this paper, we address both of these challenges by proposing a novel efficient algorithm named FOSHU (Faster On-Shelf High Utility itemset miner) to mine HUIs while considering on-shelf time periods of items, and items having positive and/or negative unit profit. An extensive experimental study with real-life datasets shows that the proposed algorithm can be up more than 1000 times faster and use up to 10 times less memory than the state-of-the-art algorithm TS-HOUN for this task. Moreover, experiments show that the proposed algorithm performs well on dense database and databases containing many time periods.
Strain Classification of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Isolates in Brazil Based on Genotypes Obtained by Spoligotyping, Mycobacterial Interspersed Repetitive Unit Typing and the Presence of Large Sequence and Single Nucleotide Polymorphism

Rio de Janeiro is endemic for tuberculosis (TB) and presents the second largest prevalence of the disease in Brazil. Here, we present the bacterial population structure of 218 isolates of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, derived from 186 patients that were diagnosed between January 2008 and December 2009. Genotypes were generated by means of spoligotyping, 24 MIRU-VNTR typing and presence of fbpC103, RDRio and RD174. The results confirmed earlier data that predominant genotypes in Rio de Janeiro are those of the Euro American Lineages (99%). However, we observed differences between the classification by spoligotyping when comparing to that of 24 MIRU-VNTR typing, being respectively 43.6% vs. 62.4% of LAM, 34.9% vs. 9.6% of T and 18.3% vs. 21.5% of Haarlem. Among isolates classified as LAM by MIRU typing, 28.0% did not present the characteristic spoligotype profile with absence of spacers 21 to 24 and 32 to 36 and we designated these conveniently as “LAM-like”, 79.3% of these presenting the LAM-specific SNP fbpC103. The frequency of RDRio and RD174 in the LAM strains, as defined both by spoligotyping and 24 MIRU-VNTR loci, were respectively 11% and 15.4%, demonstrating that RD174 is not always a marker for LAM/RDRio strains. We conclude that, although spoligotyping alone is a tool for classification of strains of the Euro-American lineage, when combined with MIRU-VNTRs, SNPs and RD typing, it leads to a much better understanding of the bacterial population structure and phylogenetic relationships among strains of M. tuberculosis in regions with high incidence of TB.
Efficient encoding of binary shapes using MPEG-4

MPEG-4 Visual, that part of the upcoming MPEG-4 standard describing the coding of natural and synthetic video signals, allows the encoding of video objects using motion, texture and shape information. The MPEG-4 context-based arithmetic encoder for encoding binary shape information is presented in the context of a new MPEG-4 video encoder architecture. The encoder architecture enables us to efficiently encode lossless and lossy shape, motion and texture of a moving video object. Several non-normative choices for efficient computation and bit efficient encoding of arbitrarily shaped video objects are investigated in order to enable real-time encoding.
Safety testing of indocyanine green and trypan blue using retinal pigment epithelium and glial cell cultures.

PURPOSE Indocyanine green (ICG) and trypan blue have been advocated as vital stains for use during macular surgery. The safety of these agents was tested using a cell culture model. METHODS Human retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) and Müller cell lines were exposed to ICG over a range of concentrations up to 0.5%, and trypan blue up to 0.2%. Cells were exposed to each dye for 5, 15, or 30 minutes, rinsed, and incubated 24 hours. Cell viability was measured using a mitochondrial dehydrogenase-assay and fluorescent live-dead probe. Experiments were repeated using 0.5% and 1% ICG and 0.06% and 0.12% trypan blue, with follow-up at 0, 1, 5, and 15 days. ICG experiments were repeated in the presence of illumination from a xenon light-source channeled through a surgical endolight, and using reduced osmolarity solutions of 0.1%, 0.5%, and 1% (185 vs. 275 mOsM). RESULTS There was no clear relationship between cell viability and the concentration of the agent or duration of follow-up, except in RPE cells exposed to 1% ICG. These showed a linear (R(2) 0.9952) decline in viability with time, with a significant reduction by day 15 (P = 0.016). RPE cells exposed to ICG and illumination were not significantly different from the negative control, but when illumination was combined with low osmolarity, viability was reduced (P = 0.0016). ICG and illumination reduced Müller cell viability (P < 0.0001 for both 185 and 275 mOsM). Müller cells incubated with 185 mOsM 1% ICG showed a significant reduction in viability (P < 0.0001) not seen with the 185 mOsM 0.5% or 0.1% solutions or in the low-osmolarity RPE groups. CONCLUSIONS The combination of exposure to 0.5% ICG and the newer endoillumination light-sources can damage cultured Müller cells. Although the preparations of ICG most commonly used clinically did not produce significant damage, relatively small changes in ICG osmolarity and concentration did. This suggests that safety margins are not large. Trypan blue is safe in a cell culture model.