Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pulmonary thromboembolism during pregnancy in a woman with β-thalassaemia who had undergone splenectomy

b-thalassaemia are inherited blood disorders, which are characterised by reduced or no production of haemoglobin beta chains resulting in varied phenotypes, with affected individuals ranging from severely anaemic to clinically asymptomatic. Affected individuals have a risk of thromboembolic events, and the prevalence of thromboembolic events is particularly increased in splenectomized b-thalassaemia patients. However, the epidemiological data on the overall frequency of thromboembolic events during pregnancy in splenectomized women with b-thalassaemia are limited, and a case of pulmonary thromboembolism occurring during the pregnancy has not been fully described.
Generous congregations, generous givers: congregational contexts that stimulate individual giving

Les AA. ont utilise les donnees recueillies au milieu des annees 1970 parmi les congregations de l'Eglise du Christ Unifiee pour identifier une relation etroite entre les donations et les caracteres du doneur: revenu dont il dispose, engagement religieux, le desir de donner un sens a la vie. Plus encore, ils montrent que les individus donnent plus lorsqu'ils appartiennent a certaines congregations de l'Eglise du Christ. D'une maniere generale, les donateurs sont plus genereux lorsqu'ils appartiennent a de modestes congregations. Il semble que le niveau des dons n'augmente pas en reponse au declin de la frequentation des Eglises
HOTAIR: an oncogenic long non-coding RNA in different cancers

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) refer to a group of RNAs that are usually more than 200 nucleotides and are not involved in protein generation. Instead, lncRNAs are involved in different regulatory processes, such as regulation of gene expression. Different lncRNAs exist throughout the genome. LncRNAs are also known for their roles in different human diseases such as cancer. HOTAIR is an lncRNA that plays a role as an oncogenic molecule in different cancer cells, such as breast, gastric, colorectal, and cervical cancer cells. Therefore, HOTAIR expression level is a potential biomarker for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes in several cancers. This RNA takes part in epigenetic regulation of genes and plays an important role in different cellular pathways by interacting with Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 (PRC2). In this review, we describe the molecular function and regulation of HOTAIR and its role in different types of cancers.
Numerical Range Facets Partition: Evaluation Metric and Methods

Faceted browsing is a very useful interface component provided in many of today's search engines. It is especially useful when the user has an exploratory information need or have a clear preference for certain attribute values. Existing work has tried to optimize faceted browsing systems in many aspects, but little work has been done on optimizing the partitions of numerical facet ranges (e.g., price ranges of products). In this paper, we introduce the new problem of numerical facet range partition and formally frame it as an optimization problem. To enable quantitative evaluation and reuse of search log data, we propose an evaluation metric based on user's browsing cost when using the suggested ranges for navigation. We further propose and study multiple methods to computationally optimize the partition by leveraging search logs. Experimental results on a two-month search log from a major e-Commerce engine show that learning can significantly improve the performance over baseline.
Isolation and Reconstitution of Cytochrome P450ox and in Vitro Reconstitution of the Entire Biosynthetic Pathway of the Cyanogenic Glucoside Dhurrin from Sorghum

A cytochrome P450, designated P450ox, that catalyzes the conversion of (Z)-p-hydroxyphenylacetaldoxime (oxime) to p-hydroxymandelonitrile in the biosynthesis of the cyanogenic glucoside [beta]-D-glucopyranosyloxy-(S)-p-hydroxymandelonitrile (dhurrin), has been isolated from microsomes prepared from etiolated seedlings of sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L. Moench). P450ox was solubilized using nonionic detergents, and isolated by ion-exchange chromatography, Triton X-114 phase partitioning, and dye-column chromatography. P450ox has an apparent molecular mass of 55 kD, its N-terminal amino acid sequence is -ATTATPQLLGGSVP, and it contains the internal sequence MDRLVADLDRAAA. Reconstitution of P450ox with NADPH-P450 oxidoreductase in micelles of L-[alpha]-dilauroyl phosphatidylcholine identified P450ox as a multifunctional P450 catalyzing dehydration of (Z)-oxime to p-hydroxyphenylaceto-nitrile (nitrile) and C-hydroxylation of p-hydroxyphenylacetonitrile to nitrile. P450ox is extremely labile compared with the P450s previously isolated from sorghum. When P450ox is reconstituted in the presence of a soluble uridine diphosphate glucose glucosyltransferase, oxime is converted to dhurrin. In vitro reconstitution of the entire dhurrin biosynthetic pathway from tyrosine was accomplished by the insertion of CYP79 (tyrosine N-hydroxylase), P450ox, and NADPH-P450 oxidoreductase in lipid micelles in the presence of uridine diphosphate glucose glucosyltransferase. The catalysis of the conversion of Tyr into nitrile by two multifunctional P450s explains why all intermediates in this pathway except (Z)-oxime are channeled.
Code Compression for Embedded Systems Using Separated Dictionaries

Engineers must consider performance, power consumption, and cost when designing embedded digital systems; furthermore, memory is a key factor in such systems. Code compression is a technique used in embedded systems to reduce the memory usage. BitMask-based code compression is a modified version of dictionary-based code compression. The basic purpose of BitMask is to record mismatched values and their positions to compress a greater number of instructions; it can be used exclusively or incorporated with the reference instructions to decode the codewords. In this paper, we applied a small separated dictionary, and variable mask numbers were used with the BitMask algorithm to reduce the codeword length of high-frequency instructions. In addition, a novel dictionary selection algorithm was proposed to increase the instruction match rates. The fully separated dictionary method was used to improve the performance of the decompression engine without affecting the compression ratio (CR) (the compressed code size divided by original code size). Based on the experimental results, the proposed method can achieve a 7.5% improvement in the CR with nearly no hardware overhead.
Natural Sound Statistics and Divisive Normalization in the Auditory System

We explore the statistical properties of natural sound stimuli preprocessed with a bank of linear filters. The responses of such filters exhibit a striking form of statistical dependency, in which the response variance of each filter grows with the response amplitude of filters tuned for nearby frequencies. These dependencies may be substantially reduced using an operation known as divisive normalization, in which the response of each filter is divided by a weighted sum of the rectified responses of other filters. The weights may be chosen to maximize the independence of the normalized responses for an ensemble of natural sounds. We demonstrate that the resulting model accounts for nonlinearities in the response characteristics of the auditory nerve, by comparing model simulations to electrophysiological recordings. In previous work (NIPS, 1998) we demonstrated that an analogous model derived from the statistics of natural images accounts for non-linear properties of neurons in primary visual cortex. Thus, divisive normalization appears to be a generic mechanism for eliminating a type of statistical dependency that is prevalent in natural signals of different modalities.
Color Emotions in Large Scale Content Based Image Indexing

Traditional content based image indexing aims at developing algorithms that can analyze and index images based on their visual content. A typical approach is to measure image attributes, like colors or textures, and save the result in image descriptors, which then can be used in recognition and retrieval applications. Two topics within content based image indexing are addressed in this thesis: Emotion based image indexing, and font recognition. The main contribution is the inclusion of high-level semantics in indexing of multi-colored images. We focus on color emotions and color harmony, and introduce novel emotion and harmony based image descriptors, including global emotion histograms, a bag-of-emotions descriptor, an image harmony descriptor, and an indexing method based on Kobayashi's Color Image Scale. The first three are based on models from color science, analyzing emotional properties of single colors or color combinations. A majority of the descriptors are evaluated in psychophysical experiments. The results indicate that observers perceive color emotions and color harmony for multi-colored images in similar ways, and that observer judgments correlate with values obtained from the presented descriptors. The usefulness of the descriptors is illustrated in large scale image classification experiments involving emotion related image categories, where the presented descriptors are compared with global and local standard descriptors within this field of research. We also investigate if these descriptors can predict the popularity of images. Three image databases are used in the experiments, one obtained from an image provider, and two from a major image search service. The two from the search service were harvested from the Internet, containing image thumbnails together with keywords and user statistics. One of them is a traditional object database, whereas the other is a unique database focused on emotional image categories. A large part of the emotion database has been released to the research community. The second contribution is visual font recognition. We implemented a font search engine, capable of handling very large font databases. The input to the search engine is an image of a text line, and the output is the name of the font used when rendering the text. After pre-processing and segmentation of the input image, eigenimages are used, where features are calculated for individual characters. The performance of the search engine is illustrated with a database containing more than 2700 fonts. A system for visualizing the entire font database is also presented. Both the font search engine, and the descriptors that are related to emotions and harmony are implemented in publicly available search engines. The implementations are presented together with user statistics.
A Simple Model of Tax-Favored Retirement Accounts

To defend myopic workers against themselves, the government introduces a mandatory system but to help savers, it adds tax-favored retirement accounts. In a very simple model, where benefits are proportional to contributions, we compare three extreme systems: (i) the pure mandatory system, (ii) the asymmetric system, where only the savers participate in the voluntary system, (iii) the symmetric system, where both types participate proportionally to their wages. The symmetric voluntary system is welfare-superior to the asymmetric one as well as to the pure mandatory system, which in turn are equivalent to each other.
INTERPRETAÇÃO E USO CLÍNICO DA PESQUISA DE DISMORFISMO ERITROCITÁRIO NO SEDIMENTO URINÁRIO

RESUMO Introducao: O dismorfismo eritrocitario urinario foi descrito ha varios anos e tem sido usado para identificar os sangramentos glomerulares e para orientar a investigacao subsequente. Este estudo avalia a variabilidade na analise do dismorfismo eritrocitario por diferentes observadores, verificando a correlacao entre as observacoes e sua associacao com o diagnostico etiologico das hematurias. Metodos: Foram selecionadas 18 amostras de sedimento urinario de pacientes com hematuria glomerular e nao-glomerular, cujas imagens foram capturadas por um programa de analise de imagens e gravadas em meio magnetico. Essas imagens foram analisadas por doze observadores treinados na analise de dismorfismo eritrocitario que atuam em laboratorios de analises clinicas de Porto Alegre. Os observadores, cegos em relacao ao diagnostico etiologico da hematuria, classificaram as amostras pela presenca ou ausencia de dismorfismo e estimaram a porcentagem de hemacias dismorficas em relacao ao seu numero total. Resultados: Utilizando o ponto de corte de 75% de hemacias dismorficas como diagnostico de hematuria glomerular, o diagnostico correto foi obtido em 79% das observacoes. A sensibilidade foi de 76%, e a especificidade de 82%, com valores preditivos positivo e negativo de 80% e 78% respectivamente. A correlacao entre as observacoes foi calculada com o uso de coeficiente kappa, observando-se uma concordância moderada (kappa = 0,58). Conclusoes: Este estudo demonstrou que, a despeito da ausencia de criterios rigidos de avaliacao e classificacao do dismorfismo, sua realizacao por profissionais capacitados apresenta um nivel aceitavel de acuracia e concordância, justificando seu uso na avaliacao de pacientes com hematuria. Unitermos: Dismorfismo eritrocitario; hematuria; variabilidade interobservador
Noninvasive Neuromodulation in Poststroke Gait Disorders

Walking rehabilitation is one of the primary goals in stroke survivors because of its great potential for recovery and its functional relevance in daily living activities. Although 70% to 80% of people in the chronic poststroke phases are able to walk, impairment of gait often persists, involving speed, endurance, and stability. Walking involves several brain regions, such as the sensorimotor cortex, supplementary motor area, cerebellum, and brainstem, which are approachable by the application of noninvasive brain stimulation (NIBS). NIBS techniques, such as repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation and transcranial direct current stimulation, have been reported to modulate neural activity beyond the period of stimulation, facilitating neuroplasticity. NIBS methods have been largely applied for improving paretic hand motor function and stroke-associated cognitive deficits. Recent studies suggest a possible effectiveness of these techniques also in the recovery of poststroke gait disturbance. This article is a selective review about functional investigations addressing the mechanisms of lower-limb motor system reorganization after stroke and the application of NIBS for neurorehabilitation.
The effect of handedness on interhemispheric interaction in a simple reaction time task

An individual’s handedness was hypothesised to affect their reaction times when using them to measure interhemispheric interaction. 40 male and female participants filled out an Edinburgh Handedness Inventory and took part in a simple reaction time experiment on a computer. A crossed-uncrossed difference was calculated and a mixed analysis of variance was carried out. The study found a crossed-uncrossed difference of -3.8 milliseconds (ms), while right handers were found to react faster, -2.7ms, than left handers, -4.9ms. No main effect of handedness was found, 0.277 (p=> 0.05) and no interaction between hand and visual field was found, 0.241 (p=> 0.05). Implications and possible methodological limitations of the study are discussed along with alternative explanations for the results found.
Low Coordination Wakeup Algorithms for Multiple Connected-Covered Topologies in Sensornets ∗

It is likely that low cost energy constrained sensor devices will be prone to failure. This neccessitates that these devices must be deployed in higher densities than required. At a high level, the simplest strategy that can be exploited to prolong network lifetime is to activate only a subset of nodes at a time, while keeping the other nodes asleep, so that the topology formed by the active nodes is connected and provides coverage of the area of interest. Providing diversity in the connected sets of nodes also improves network lifetime significantly. We propose and evaluate techniques to maintain nodes as active or inactive (node activation) so that multiple, disjoint sets of nodes are created. We propose and evaluate different distributed, random and pattern-based wakeup policies for sensor nodes to construct connected-covered topologies. Through analysis and simulations we demonstrate that in dense sensor deployment scenarios, these policies can construct near-optimal topologies with minimal coordination between nodes, as long as location information is available at the individual sensor nodes. Based on these observations, we develop and evaluate a few simple distributed, wakeup based topology construction algorithms that can realize similar performance bounds in realistic sensor deployments, with varying node densities. These algorithms differ in terms of the required level of coordination and the use of sensor location information, and generate connected-covered topologies efficiently, with very low messageexchange overhead.
Vasopressin‐induced disruption of actin cytoskeletal organization and canalicular function in isolated rat hepatocyte couplets: Possible involvement of protein kinase C

The effect of vasopressin (VP) on canalicular function and hepatocellular morphology, with particular regard to actin cytoskeletal organization and the concomitant plasma membrane bleb formation, was studied in isolated rat hepatocyte couplets. VP induced the concentration‐dependent formation of multiple plasma membrane blebs as well as simultaneous impairment in both canalicular vacuolar accumulation (cVA) and retention (cVR) of the fluorescent bile acid, cholyl‐lysyl‐fluorescein (CLF), which evaluate couplet secretory function and tight‐junction integrity, respectively. These effects were mimicked by the protein kinase C (PKC) activator, phorbol dibutyrate (PDB), but not by the protein kinase A (PKA) activator, dibutyryl‐cAMP. VP‐induced bleb formation and canalicular dysfunction were fully prevented by the protein kinase inhibitor, H‐7, but not by the PKA inhibitor, KT5720, further suggesting a specific role of PKC. VP‐induced alterations were also prevented by pretreatment with the Ca2+‐buffering agent, BAPTA/AM, but not with the calmodulin‐dependent protein kinase II antagonist, calmidazolium. Neither the Ca2+‐activated neutral protease inhibitor, leupeptin, nor the antioxidants, α‐tocopherol or deferoxamine, were able to prevent either VP‐induced plasma membrane blebbing or canalicular dysfunction. The Ca2+‐ionophore, A23187, mimicked the VP‐induced alterations, but its harmful effects were completely prevented by H‐7. Bleb formation induced by VP and PDB was accompanied by an extensive redistribution of filamentous actin from the pericanalicular area to the cell body, and this effect was fully prevented by H‐7. These results suggest that VP‐induced canalicular and cytoskeletal dysfunction is mediated by PKC and that classical (Ca2+‐dependent) PKC appear to be involved because intracellular Ca2+ is required for VP to induce its harmful effects.
Long-pulse gastric electrical stimulation protects interstitial cells of Cajal in diabetic rats via IGF-1 signaling pathway.

AIM To investigate the effects of different parameters of gastric electrical stimulation (GES) on interstitial cells of Cajal (ICCs) and changes in the insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) signal pathway in streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats. METHODS Male rats were randomized into control, diabetic (DM), diabetic with sham GES (DM + SGES), diabetic with GES1 (5.5 cpm, 100 ms, 4 mA) (DM + GES1), diabetic with GES2 (5.5 cpm, 300 ms, 4 mA) (DM + GES2) and diabetic with GES3 (5.5 cpm, 550 ms, 2 mA) (DM + GES3) groups. The expression levels of c-kit, M-SCF and IGF-1 receptors were evaluated in the gastric antrum using Western blot analysis. The distribution of ICCs was observed using immunolabeling for c-kit, while smooth muscle cells and IGF-1 receptors were identified using α-SMA and IGF-1R antibodies. Serum level of IGF-1 was tested using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. RESULTS Gastric emptying was delayed in the DM group but improved in all GES groups, especially in the GES2 group. The expression levels of c-kit, M-SCF and IGF-1R were decreased in the DM group but increased in all GES groups. More ICCs (c-kit(+)) and smooth muscle cells (α-SMA(+)/IGF-1R(+)) were observed in all GES groups than in the DM group. The average level of IGF-1 in the DM group was markedly decreased, but it was up-regulated in all GES groups, especially in the GES2 group. CONCLUSION The results suggest that long-pulse GES promotes the regeneration of ICCs. The IGF-1 signaling pathway might be involved in the mechanism underlying this process, which results in improved gastric emptying.
Somatostatin receptor 2A expression in choroidal neovascularization secondary to age-related macular degeneration.

PURPOSE The growth of ocular neovascularization is regulated by a balance between stimulating and inhibiting growth factors. Somatostatin affects angiogenesis by inhibiting the growth hormone-insulin-like growth factor axis and also has a direct antiproliferative effect on human retinal endothelial cells. The purpose of our study is to investigate the expression of somatostatin receptor (sst) subtypes and particularly sst subtype 2A (sst2A) in normal human macula, and to study sst2A in different stages of age-related maculopathy (ARM), because of the potential anti-angiogenic effect of somatostatin analogues. METHODS Sixteen eyes (10 enucleated eyes, 4 donor eyes, and 2 surgically removed choroidal neovascular [CNV] membranes) of 15 patients with eyes at different stages of ARM were used for immunohistochemistry. Formaldehyde-fixed paraffin-embedded slides were incubated with a polyclonal anti-human sst2A antibody. mRNA expression of five ssts and somatostatin was determined in the posterior pole of three normal human eyes by reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction. RESULTS The immunohistochemical expression of sstA in newly formed endothelial cells and fibroblast-like cells was strong in fibrovascular CNV membranes. mRNA of sst subtypes 1, 2A, and 3, as well as somatostatin, was present in the normal posterior pole; sst subtypes 4 and 5 were not detectable. CONCLUSIONS Most early-formed CNV in ARM express sst2A. The presence of mRNA of sst subtype 2A was observed in normal human macula, and subtypes 1 and 3 and somatostatin are also present. sst2A receptors bind potential anti-angiogenic somatostatin analogues such as octreotide. Therefore, somatostatin analogues may be an effective therapy in early stages of CNV in ARM.