Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Blind Deconvolution with Re-weighted Sparsity Promotion

Blind deconvolution has made significant progress in the past decade. Most successful algorithms are classified either as Variational or Maximum a-Posteriori (MAP ). In spite of the superior theoretical justification of variational techniques, carefully constructed MAP algorithms have proven equally effective in practice. In this paper, we show that all successful MAP and variational algorithms share a common framework, relying on the following key principles: sparsity promotion in the gradient domain, l2 regularization for kernel estimation, and the use of convex (often quadratic) cost functions. Our observations lead to a unified understanding of the principles required for successful blind deconvolution. We incorporate these principles into a novel algorithm that improves significantly upon the state of the art.
Fast scanning two-photon microscopy

Fast scanning two-photon microscopy coupled with the use light activated ion channels provides the basis for fast imaging and stimulation in the characterization of in vivo neural networks. A two-photon microscope capable of fast scanning using acousto-optic deflectors was designed and implemented. The software controller was expanded so that random access scan in three dimensions could be handled, so that algorithms that can identify neurons from images acquired using the two-photon microscope can be developed. Finally the localization of optogenetic Channelrhodopsin-2 channel to the neuron cell body was tested using a ChR2-MBD construct. Thesis Supervisor: Edward Boyden Title: Benesse Career Development Professor, MIT Media Lab
The Mediating Effect of Teamwork toward Organizational Readiness for Business Intelligence (BI) Implementation

The growing adaptation to BI is attributed to many factors and its ability to combines corporate data with user-generated content to enhance decision making in improving business environment makes it wide open for future research. Despite some attempts made to address the peculiarities of the factors influencing BI implementation by the findings of many research, yet some controlling variables which influence the factors of successful implementation of BI were not neglected by the research communities. This paper uses the findings of some previous research which indicates that "Teamwork" is a factor which influence organizations' readiness toward BI systems implementation. We use the theory of readiness and investigate the mediating effect of the positive relationship between "Teamwork" and "organizations' readiness toward BI systems implementation". The study was undertaking by quantitative research approach, sample of 200 respondents participated in the study. The result indicates that "Likelihood of a victory" and "Growing optimism about success" had a positive mediating effect on the Teamwork towards organizations' readiness on Implementation of BI systems.
Effects of Depression and Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor Use on Adherence to Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy and on Clinical Outcomes in HIV-Infected Patients

Objectives:To determine the impact of depression on highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) adherence and clinical measures and investigate if selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) improve these measures. Design:Retrospective cohort study. Methods:In 2 large health maintenance organizations, we measured the effects of depression (with and without SSRI use) on adherence and changes in viral and immunologic control among HIV-infected patients starting a new HAART regimen. HAART adherence, HIV RNA levels, and changes in CD4 T-cell counts through 12 months were measured. Results:A total of 3359 patients were evaluated; 42% had a depression diagnosis, and 15% used SSRIs during HAART. Depression without SSRI use was associated with significantly decreased odds of achieving ≥90% adherence to HAART (odds ratio [OR] = 0.81, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.70 to 0.98; P = 0.03). Depression was associated with significantly lower odds of an HIV RNA level <500 copies/mL (OR = 0.77, 95% CI: 0.62 to 0.95; P = 0.02). Depressed patients compliant with SSRI medication (>80% adherence to SSRI) had HAART adherence and viral control statistically similar to nondepressed HIV-infected patients taking HAART. Comparing depressed with nondepressed HIV-infected patients, CD4 T-cell responses were statistically similar; among depressed patients, those compliant with SSRI had statistically greater increases in CD4 cell responses. Conclusions:Depression significantly worsens HAART adherence and HIV viral control. Compliant SSRI use is associated with improved HIV adherence and laboratory parameters.
The Scale Development Study on Class Teachers' Perceived Self-Efficacy in Creating an Effective Classroom Environment.

The aim of this study is to develop a five point likert scale called “Class teachers’ Perceived Self-efficacy in Creating an Effective Classroom Environment. ” Following this aim, a draft scale that included 44 items was developed and given to 248 class teachers working in Manisa and Usak cities of Turkey. The principal components analysis was used in factor analysis of the scale in order to to examine structural validity. As a result of the analysis, 12 items were excluded and remaining 32 items were grouped into 5 factors. The explained variance is 65,157% of the total variance. The Cronbach’s Alpha value that indicates the internal consistency of the scale is 0,85. The scale is accepted to be valid and reliable according to these findings. Besides, item-total and item-remaining correlations that were analyzed through Pearson are significant (p<,001) and item discrimination that was tested for each item by applying t-test to the bottom and top 27% is also significant. After exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis was carried out and goodness of fit indexes were seen to be acceptable (RMSEA=0,075; AGFI=0,75; SRMR=0,69; RMR=0,68; CFI=0,92; NFI=0,92). Keywords: class teachers, class environment, self-efficacy
EMVI-positive stage II rectal cancer has similar clinical outcomes as stage III disease following pre-operative chemoradiotherapy.

BACKGROUND Stage II rectal cancers comprise a heterogeneous group, and there is significant variability in practise with regards to adjuvant chemotherapy; the survival benefit of chemotherapy is perceived to be <4% in these patients. However, in recent years, the emergence of additional prognostic factors such as extramural venous invasion (EMVI) suggests that there may be sub-stratification of stage II tumours and, further, we may be under-estimating the benefit adjuvant chemotherapy provides in high-risk patients. This study examined the outcomes of patients with stage II and III rectal cancer to determine whether EMVI status influences disease-free survival (DFS). PATIENTS AND METHODS An analysis of a prospectively maintained database was conducted of patients presenting with rectal cancer between 2006 and 2012. All patients underwent curative surgery and had no evidence of metastases at presentation. Clinicopathological factors were compared between stage II and III disease. The primary end point was 3-year DFS; univariate and multivariate analysis was carried out using Cox proportional hazards regression models; hazard ratios (HR) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated. RESULTS Four hundred and seventy-eight patients were included: 233 stage II; 245 stage III. The prevalence of EMVI was 34.9%; 57 stage II patients (24.5%) and 110 stage III patients (44.9%). On multivariate analysis, only EMVI status was a significant factor for DFS. The adjusted HR for EMVI either alone or in combination with nodal involvement was 2.08 (95% CI 1.10-2.95) and 2.74 (95% CI 1.66-4.52), respectively. CONCLUSION EMVI is an independently poor prognostic factor for DFS for both stage II and stage III rectal cancer. These results demonstrate that there is risk-stratification within stage II tumours which affects prognosis. When discussing the use of adjuvant chemotherapy with patients that have EMVI-positive stage II tumours, these results provide evidence for a similarly increased risk of distant failure as stage III disease without venous invasion.
The Scavenger Receptor Class B Type I Adaptor Protein PDZK1 Maintains Endothelial Monolayer Integrity

Circulating levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol are inversely related to the risk of cardiovascular disease, and HDL and the HDL receptor scavenger receptor class B type I (SR-BI) initiate signaling in endothelium through src that promotes endothelial NO synthase activity and cell migration. Such signaling requires the C-terminal PDZ-interacting domain of SR-BI. Here we show that the PDZ domain-containing protein PDZK1 is expressed in endothelium and required for HDL activation of endothelial NO synthase and cell migration; in contrast, endothelial cell responses to other stimuli, including vascular endothelial growth factor, are PDZK1-independent. Coimmunoprecipitation experiments reveal that Src interacts with SR-BI, and this process is PDZK1-independent. PDZK1 also does not regulate SR-BI abundance or plasma membrane localization in endothelium or HDL binding or cholesterol efflux. Alternatively, PDZK1 is required for HDL/SR-BI to induce Src phosphorylation. Paralleling the in vitro findings, carotid artery reendothelialization following perivascular electric injury is absent in PDZK1−/− mice, and this phenotype persists in PDZK1−/− mice with genetic reconstitution of PDZK1 expression in liver, where PDZK1 modifies SR-BI abundance. Thus, PDZK1 is uniquely required for HDL/SR-BI signaling in endothelium, and through these mechanisms, it is critically involved in the maintenance of endothelial monolayer integrity.
Elimination of Preoperative Testing in Ambulatory Surgery

BACKGROUND: Preoperative testing has been criticized as having little impact on perioperative outcomes. We conducted a randomized, single-blind, prospective, controlled pilot study to determine whether indicated preoperative testing can be eliminated without increasing the perioperative incidence of adverse events in selected patients undergoing ambulatory surgery. METHODS: One thousand sixty-one eligible patients were randomized either to have indicated preoperative testing or no preoperative testing. In the indicated testing group, patients received indicated preoperative testing: a complete blood count, electrolytes, blood glucose, creatinine, electrocardiogram, and chest radiograph according to the Ontario Preoperative Testing Grid as per current practice, whereas in the no testing group, no testing was ordered. The investigators, data collectors, and patient outcome reviewers were blinded to the group assignment. The primary outcome measures were the rate of perioperative adverse events and the rates of adverse events within 7 and 30 days after surgery. RESULTS: Patients’ age, gender, American Society of Anesthesiologists status, type of surgery, and anesthesia were similar between the two groups. There were no significant differences in the rates of perioperative adverse events and the rates of adverse events within 30 days after surgery between the no testing group and the indicated testing group. Hospital revisits ≤7 days were higher in the indicated testing group (P < 0.05). None of the adverse events were related to the indicated testing or no testing. CONCLUSIONS: This pilot study showed that there was no increase in the perioperative adverse events as a result of no preoperative testing in our study population. A larger study is needed to demonstrate that indicated testing may be safely eliminated in selected patients undergoing ambulatory surgery without increasing perioperative complications.
Brane-inspired orientifold field theories

In this paper we consider the gauge theory living on the world-volume of a stack of N D3-branes of type 0B/Ω'I6(−1)FL and of its orbifolds C2/2 and C3/(2 × 2). The gauge theories obtained in the three cases are a brane realization of ``orientifold field theories'' having the bosonic sector common with = 4,2,1 super Yang-Mills respectively. In these non-supersymmetric theories, we investigate the possibility of keeping the gauge/gravity correspondence that has revealed itself so successful in the case of supersymmetric theories. In the open string framework we compute the coefficient of the gauge kinetic term showing that the perturbative behaviour of the orientifold field theory can be obtained from the closed string channel in the large N limit, where the theory exhibits Bose-Fermi degeneracy.
Unifying Undergraduate Artificial Intelligence Robotics: Layers of Abstraction over Two Channels

From a computer science and artificial intelligence perspective, robotics often appears as a collection of disjoint, sometimes antagonistic subfields. The lack of a coherent and unified presentation of the field negatively affects teaching, especially to undergraduates. This article presents an alternative synthesis of the various subfields of AI robotics and shows how these traditional subfields fit into the whole. Finally, it presents a curriculum based on these ideas.
A New Automatic Categorization Algorithm for Web Services

With the development of network technology, Web services are becoming more and more popular. The categorization of Web services is significant in many applications, such as service publishing, discovery and semantic annotation, and all existing categorization algorithms have inherent limitations. Therefore, a new automatic categorization algorithm, called NACWS, is presented in this paper, which takes advantage of existing algorithms for Web service categorization. Our algorithm of NACWS starts with traditional text categorization technology, and takes into account both the structure features and semantics to categorize Web services. Extensive experiments demonstrate that NACWS performs with a higher precision and a better recall on the categorization of Web services in comparison with several state-of-the-art categorization algorithms for Web services.
Pre-Weaning Growth Hormone Treatment Reverses Hypertension and Endothelial Dysfunction in Adult Male Offspring of Mothers Undernourished during Pregnancy

Maternal undernutrition results in elevated blood pressure (BP) and endothelial dysfunction in adult offspring. However, few studies have investigated interventions during early life to ameliorate the programming of hypertension and vascular disorders. We have utilised a model of maternal undernutrition to examine the effects of pre-weaning growth hormone (GH) treatment on BP and vascular function in adulthood. Female Sprague-Dawley rats were fed either a standard control diet (CON) or 50% of CON intake throughout pregnancy (UN). From neonatal day 3 until weaning (day 21), CON and UN pups received either saline (CON-S, UN-S) or GH (2.5 ug/g/day)(CON-GH, UN-GH). All dams were fed ad libitum throughout lactation. Male offspring were fed a standard diet until the end of the study. Systolic blood pressure (SBP) was measured at day 150 by tail cuff plethysmography. At day 160, intact mesenteric vessels mounted on a pressure myograph. Responses to pressure, agonist-induced constriction and endothelium-dependent vasodilators were investigated to determine vascular function. SBP was increased in UN-S groups and normalised in UN-GH groups (CON-S 121±2 mmHg, CON-GH 115±3, UN-S 146±3, UN-GH 127±2). Pressure mediated dilation was reduced in UN-S offspring and normalised in UN-GH groups. Vessels from UN-S offspring demonstrated a reduced constrictor response to phenylephrine and reduced vasodilator response to acetylcholine (ACh). Furthermore, UN-S offspring vessels displayed a reduced vasodilator response in the presence of L-NG-Nitroarginine Methyl Ester (L-NAME), carbenoxolone (CBX), L-NAME and CBX, Tram-34 and Apamin. UN-GH vessels showed little difference in responses when compared to CON and significantly increased vasodilator responses when compared to UN-S offspring. Pre-weaning GH treatment reverses the negative effects of maternal UN on SBP and vasomotor function in adult offspring. These data suggest that developmental cardiovascular programming is potentially reversible by early life GH treatment and that GH can reverse the vascular adaptations resulting from maternal undernutrition.
Academic Identity: A Longitudinal Investigation of African American Adolescents’ Academic Persistence

Adolescence is a vulnerable period for the development of academic identification and academic persistence, particularly among African American adolescents. The present study investigated how cultural assets (i.e., private regard and racial centrality) and academic assets (i.e., academic curiosity and academic self-esteem) influence African American adolescent boys’ (n = 109) and girls’ (n = 153) academic persistence over time. Additionally, we explored whether oppositional academic identity mediated the relationships between academic and cultural assets and academic persistence. Data were drawn from a cross-sectional longitudinal study. Results indicated significant direct effects of academic assets on academic persistence at Times 1 and 2 for boys and at Times 1, 2, and 3 for girls. Furthermore, oppositional academic identity mediated the relationship between boys’, but not girls’, cultural assets and academic persistence at Time 1. These findings have implications for understanding the role of assets in the lives of African American youth.
New-feature learning: How common is it?

The fixed-feature viewpoint Schyns et al. are opposing is not a widely held theoretical position but rather a working assumption of cognitive psychologists – and thus a straw man. We accept their demonstration of new-feature acquisition, but question its ubiquity in category learning. We suggest that new-feature learning (at least in adults) is rarer and more difficult than the authors suggest.
Brain Signaling in Psychiatric Disorders: What Can They Tell Us in the Absence of Behavioral Differences?

This is a commentary on the often-observed phenomenon of observing task-based brain signaling differences between clinical populations and healthy control participants in the absence of any behavioral decrements in the clinical group. We offer several explanations for why brain-based differences amid normative performance may be of interest to researchers and clinicians. First, neural processing in the clinical group may not be as efficient as that in the control group. Second, differences in activation could reveal important differences in the cognition behind the (normative) behavior. Third, differences in activation may be prognostic biomarkers of injury or decline. In addition, we contend that similar behavior between groups is important in properly interpreting brain data. Finally, we offer caveats and future directions to further clarify brain mechanisms underlying behavior in clinical populations.
The Mycobacterium tuberculosis phagosome interacts with early endosomes and is accessible to exogenously administered transferrin

Previous studies have demonstrated that the Mycobacterium tuberculosis phagosome in human monocyte-derived macrophages acquires markers of early and late endosomes, but direct evidence of interaction of the M. tuberculosis phagosome with the endosomal compartment has been lacking. Using the cryosection immunogold technique, we have found that the M. tuberculosis phagosome acquires exogenously added transferrin in a time- dependent fashion. Near-maximal acquisition of transferrin occurs within 15 min, kinetics of acquisition consistent with interaction of the M. tuberculosis phagosome with early endosomes. Transferrin is chased out of the M. tuberculosis phagosome by incubation of the infected macrophages in culture medium lacking human transferrin. Phagosomes containing latex beads or heat-killed M. tuberculosis, on the other hand, do not acquire staining for transferrin. These and other findings demonstrate that M. tuberculosis arrests the maturation of its phagosome at a stage at which the phagosome interacts with early and late endosomes, but not with lysosomes. The transferrin endocytic pathway potentially provides a novel route for targeting antimicrobials to the M. tuberculosis phagosome.
Cyclooxygenases: new forms, new inhibitors, and lessons from the clinic

The beneficial actions of nonsteroidal anti‐inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) have been linked to their ability to inhibit inducible COX‐2 at sites of inflammation, and their side effects (e.g., gastric damage) to inhibition of constitutive COX‐1. Selective inhibitors of COX‐2, such as celecoxib, etoricoxib, lumiracoxib, rofecoxib, and valdecoxib have been developed and the greatest recent growth in our knowledge in this area has been come from the clinical use of these compounds. Although clinical data indicate that COX‐2 selectivity is associated with a reduction in severe gastrointestinal events, they also reveal there are roles for constitutive COX‐2 within tissues such as the brain, kidney, pancreas, intestine, and blood vessels. We now better understand the roles of COX‐1 and COX‐2 in functions as disparate as the perception of pain and the progression of cancers. Clinical use of COX‐2‐selective compounds has ignited strong debates regarding potential side effects, most notably those within the cardiovascular system such as myocardial infarctions, strokes, and elevation in blood pressure. This review will discuss how the latest studies help us understand the roles of COX‐1 and COX‐2 and what clinically proven benefits the newer generation of COX‐2‐selective inhibitors offer. —Warner, T. D. , Mitchell, J. A. Cyclooxygenases: new forms, new inhibitors, and lessons from the clinic. FASEB J. 18, 790–804 (2004)
CHARACTERISATION OF CRACKS IN CONCRETE BY SHEARWAVE REFLECTION TECHNIQUE

The characterisation of cracks has stepped forward from a laborious investigation of small areas or lengths of a crack found by visual inspection to a technique which even can make use of automated scanning methods and which produces images of cracked and deteriorated areas in the volume of the structure under investigation. This progress is based on the application of novel transducers and novel interpretation strategies. Nevertheless a good understanding of the material, the construction and the relevant loading mechanisms is needed for the proper interpretation of results and the planning of eventual repair work.
Genotypic distribution of hepatitis C virus in different regions of Thailand

The genotypic distribution of hepatitis C virus (HCV) isolated from blood donors from four major regions of Thailand was studied by reverse hybridization assays. PCR-amplified products from the 5' noncoding and core regions of the viral genome were hybridized to genotype- and subtype-specific probes which were immobilized on the nitrocellulose membrane. Of 332 anti-HCV-positive plasma samples studied, 71% contained HCV RNA. HCV genotype 3a was the most prevalent genotype (39%), followed by genotype 1b (20%) and genotype 6 group variants (18%). HCV genotype 1a was identified among 9% of all isolates. Other genotypes (genotype 1 which was neither 1a nor 1b, genotype 3b, and an unclassified genotype) were uncommon. There was no difference in the mean age of the donors infected with different HCV genotypes. The genotypic distribution pattern of HCV was similar among HCV isolates from different regions of Thailand.