Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Familial Evaluation in Catecholaminergic Polymorphic Ventricular Tachycardia: Disease Penetrance and Expression in Cardiac Ryanodine Receptor Mutation–Carrying Relatives

Background— Catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia (CPVT) is an inherited arrhythmia syndrome associated with mutations in the cardiac ryanodine receptor gene (Ryr2) in the majority of patients. Previous studies of CPVT patients mainly involved probands, so current insight into disease penetrance, expression, genotype-phenotype correlations, and arrhythmic event rates in relatives carrying the Ryr2 mutation is limited. Methods and Results— One-hundred sixteen relatives carrying the Ryr2 mutation from 15 families who were identified by cascade screening of the Ryr2 mutation causing CPVT in the proband were clinically characterized, including 61 relatives from 1 family. Fifty-four of 108 antiarrhythmic drug-free relatives (50%) had a CPVT phenotype at the first cardiological examination, including 27 (25%) with nonsustained ventricular tachycardia. Relatives carrying a Ryr2 mutation in the C-terminal channel-forming domain showed an increased odds of nonsustained ventricular tachycardia (odds ratio, 4.1; 95% CI, 1.5–11.5; P=0.007, compared with N-terminal domain) compared with N-terminal domain. Sinus bradycardia was observed in 19% of relatives, whereas other supraventricular dysrhythmias were present in 16%. Ninety-eight (most actively treated) relatives (84%) were followed up for a median of 4.7 years (range, 0.3–19.0 years). During follow-up, 2 asymptomatic relatives experienced exercise-induced syncope. One relative was not being treated, whereas the other was noncompliant. None of the 116 relatives died of CPVT during a 6.7-year follow-up (range, 1.4–20.9 years). Conclusions— Relatives carrying an Ryr2 mutation show a marked phenotypic diversity. The vast majority do not have signs of supraventricular disease manifestations. Mutation location may be associated with severity of the phenotype. The arrhythmic event rate during follow-up was low.
The CD85J/Leukocyte Inhibitory Receptor-1 Distinguishes between Conformed and β2-Microglobulin-Free HLA-G Molecules1

For a proper development of the placenta, maternal NK cells should not attack the fetal extravillous cytotrophoblast cells. This inhibition of maternal NK cells is partially mediated via the nonclassical MHC class I molecule HLA-G. Recently, we demonstrated that HLA-G forms disulfide-linked high molecular complexes on the surface of transfected cells. In the present study, we demonstrate that HLA-G must associate with β2m for its interaction with CD85J/leukocyte Ig-like receptor-1 (LIR-1). Although HLA-G free H chain complexes are expressed on the surface, they are not recognized and possibly interfere with CD85J/LIR-1 and HLA-G interaction. The formation of these complexes on the cell surface might represent a novel mechanism developed specifically by the HLA-G protein aimed to control the efficiency of the CD85J/LIR-1-mediated inhibition. We also show that endogenous HLA-G complexes are expressed on the cell surface. These findings provide novel insights into the delicate interaction between extravillous cytotrophoblast cells and NK cells in the decidua.
Multiple morphological clocks and total-evidence tip-dating in mammals

Morphological integration predicts that correlated characters will coevolve; thus, each distinct suite of correlated characters might be expected to evolve according to a separate clock or ‘pacemaker’. Characters in a large morphological dataset for mammals were found to be evolving according to seven separate clocks, each distinct from the molecular clock. Total-evidence tip-dating using these multiple clocks inflated divergence time estimates, but potentially improved topological inference. In particular, single-clock analyses placed several meridiungulates and condylarths in a heterodox position as stem placentals, but multi-clock analyses retrieved a more plausible and orthodox position within crown placentals. Several shortcomings (including uneven character sampling) currently impact upon the accuracy of total-evidence dating, but this study suggests that when sufficiently large and appropriately constructed phenotypic datasets become more commonplace, multi-clock approaches are feasible and can affect both divergence dates and phylogenetic relationships.
New polyester acrylate resins from palm oil for wood coating application

The aim of this study is to investigate the potential use of palm oil and to prepare new UV (ultraviolet) radiation-curable acrylated polyester prepolymers, which could be used in the wood coating industry. Thus, palm oil-based acrylated polyester resins PEPP-1 (from refined, bleached, and deodorized palm oil) and PEPP-2 (from crude palm oil) were synthesized at the Advanced Oleochemical Technology Centre (AOTC) laboratory of Palm Oil Research Institute of Malaysia (PORIM). The performances of these resins with respect to their curing rate and physical-mechanical properties of cured products under UV radiation were studied. It can be concluded that newly synthesized UV radiation-curable polyester acrylated prepolymers (palm oil based), namely PEPP-1 and PEPP-2, can be used as radiation curable coating materials for wood coating applications. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 79: 2156–2163, 2001
Optical spatial modulation with transmitter-receiver alignments

Optical spatial modulation (OSM) is a pulsed modulation technique for indoor optical wireless (OW) communication systems, proposed recently in [1]. In this paper, the performance of OSM is significantly enhanced by proper geometrical alignment of transmit and receive units. In OSM, multiple transmit units are considered where only a single transmit unit is activated at a particular time instance and all others are turned off. The incoming bits are grouped in blocks with length equivalent to the base-two logarithm of the number of transmit units. A block of bits forms a spatial symbol, and the actual transmit units are considered as spatial constellation points. A 4×4 multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) model inside a room is considered to evaluate the performance of the proposed OSM system. It is shown that the proposed scheme is very efficient in terms of power and bandwidth as compared to on-off keying (OOK), pulse position modulation (PPM), and pulse amplitude modulation (PAM).
Building a new mythology

I the last three years, the coding boot camp [19,20] has truly established itself as a quick-fix aiming to plug the developer shortage emerging from a perceived gap between education and industry [17,18]. Software development companies have struggled to find suitable university graduates to fill their positions and have pointed the finger firmly at education [15]. With a growing gap between the number of graduates and positions available (Figure 1), the issue has become very public. The boot-camp concept, offering a viable alternative to the university degree route, has tapped into that potentially lucrative market, gaining promotion from the likes of former President Barack Obama in the US and ex-Prime Minister David Cameron in the UK [2,35]. The popularity of the coding boot-camp concept is twofold. Budding entrepreneurs with a decent business model provide a fresh stream of developers for industry, and keen developers can fast-track their careers, while avoiding cumbersome student debts. This article compares the coding boot-camp concept with the traditional university degree model, evaluating the impact on the sector. Do they deliver on their promises? Are they transparent enough? And, are they truly addressing the skills shortage in the sector?
A new coating method for semiconductor lithography : fluid layer overlap in extrusion-spin coating

Current methods of manufacturing microelectronic chips use microlithography to transfer a pattern from a photographic image of circuit geometry to the surface of a semiconductor wafer. An important step in this process is the deposition of a thin coating of photoresist from which the lithographic mask is made. The photoresist layer is typically 1 pm thick with a thickness variation of less than 25 A(within 3 a). In addition, coating defects greater than 0.2 microns must be kept to a minimum. Although the current coating method spin coating can achieve these demanding specifications, it wastes over 95% of the photoresist applied. Therefore, the semiconductor industry is looking for ways to reduce the amount of photoresist used. This thesis discusses extrusion-spin coating, a new coating method which has the potential to waste as little as 50% of the photoresist applied. Before extrusion-spin coating can be used effectively, however, solvent evaporation must be reduced and fluid deposition in the wafer center must be improved. Thesis Supervisor: Jung-Hoon Chun Title: Edgerton Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Modeling Path Capacity in Multi-hop IEEE 802.11 Networks for QoS Services

We propose an analytical model for multi-hop IEEE 802.11 networks to calculate how much bandwidth can be utilized along a path without violating the QoS requirements of existing rate-controlled traffic flows. A notion, "free channel time", which is the time allowed for a wireless link to transmit data, is introduced to analyze the path capacity. To achieve the goal, the proposed model effectively characterizes the unsaturated traffic condition. It could also depict the interaction between the newly injected traffic and the hidden traffic that could have influence upon the new traffic. Simulation results demonstrate that our proposed analytical model can accurately predict the path capacity under various network conditions without breaking QoS demands of all existing traffic
Randomized Kaczmarz for rank aggregation from pairwise comparisons

We revisit the problem of inferring the overall ranking among entities in the framework of Bradley-Terry-Luce (BTL) model, based on available empirical data on pairwise preferences. By a simple transformation, we can cast the problem as that of solving a noisy linear system, for which a ready algorithm is available in the form of the randomized Kaczmarz method. This scheme is provably convergent and has excellent empirical performance. Convergence, convergence rate, and error analysis of the proposed algorithm are presented and several numerical experiments are conducted whose results validate our theoretical findings.
Patterns of ownership of child model sites: Profiling the profiteers and consumers of child exploitation material

Recent research has indicated that cybercrime thrives when a corrupt social, economic, and political environment emerges such that law enforcement impact is minimised and key elements of crime prevention are absent. In this paper, using a snowball methodology we analyse patterns of ownership of “child model” sites which generate profits from advertising and/or subscriptions. While the material may not be traditional “pornography” in content, it is arguably exploitative. An open question is how the material compares to “beauty pageant” and other highly stylised mainstream photography that depicts children in adult situations, and whether access to all such material should be restricted.
Elevated Circulating Levels of Monocyte Chemoattractant Protein-1 in Patients With Restenosis After Coronary Angioplasty

Abstract —Inflammation plays a pathogenic role in the development of restenosis after percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA). Monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) is a potent chemoattractant of monocytes; however, its role in the pathophysiology of restenosis is still unclear. We set out to investigate the role of MCP-1 in restenosis after PTCA. In addition, we tested the hypothesis that MCP-1 exerts its effect, at least in part, by inducing O2− generation in circulating monocytes. Plasma levels of MCP-1 were measured before and 1, 5, 15, and 180 days after PTCA in 50 patients (30 males and 20 females, aged 62±5 years) who underwent PTCA and who had repeated angiograms at 6-month follow-up. Restenosis occurred in 14 (28%) patients. The MCP-1 level was no different at baseline between patients with or without restenosis. However, after the procedure, restenotic patients, compared with nonrestenotic patients, had statistically significant (P <0.0001) elevated levels of MCP-1. In contrast, plasma levels of other chemokines, such as RANTES and interleukin-8, did not differ between the 2 groups after PTCA. Higher MCP-1 throughout the study was correlated with restenosis. Moreover, increased MCP-1 was significantly correlated with increased monocyte activity, as reflected by enhanced O2− generation. Finally, multivariate regression analysis showed that the MCP-1 plasma level measured 15 days after PTCA was the only statistically significant independent predictor of restenosis (&bgr;=0.688, P <0.0001). This study suggests that MCP-1 production and macrophage accumulation in the balloon-injured vessel may play a pivotal role in restenosis after PTCA. MCP-1 may induce luminal renarrowing, at least in part, by inducing O2− release in monocytes. Further understanding of the mechanism(s) by which MCP-1 is produced and acts after arterial injury may provide insight into therapies to limit the progression of atherosclerosis and restenosis after balloon angioplasty.
A Modified Framework for Image Compression Using Burrows-Wheeler Transform

The paper presents a modified framework for image compression using Burrow Wheeler Transform (BWT). The BWT is widely used in text compression but very few attempts have been made to BWT in image compression. Just like text compression it will not directly apply to an image. After performing some recorder arrangement it has been applied successively in an image compression framework. In the proposed approach it is applied before entropy coding and it has observed that a significant amount of improvement in terms of compression efficiency is achieved as compared to the JPEG and wavelet based JPEG2000 approach. The proposed scheme is simulated along with other standard image coding scheme. Performance comparisons have been made with respect to PSNR in (db), rate distortion performance in terms of bit rate (bpp) vs. PSNR and compression ratio. In general, it is obtained that the proposed scheme has a superior performance as compared to its competent schemes.
Brain Tumour Disease Pattern Identification from Metabolites in Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Graph using Data Mining Techniques

of the significant applications of image classification is the medical field in which the abnormal brain tumor images are categorized prior to treatment planning. Accurate identification of the type of the brain abnormality is highly essential since the treatment planning is different for all the brain abnormalities. Any false detection may lead to a wrong treatment which ultimately leads to fatal results. By employing the Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS) graph and thereby extracting the values of the metabolites from the graph one can classify the tumor based on the values of metabolites. The aim of this research is to identify brain tumour disease pattern from MRS images to perform differential diagnosis. The authors have employed the use of the Naive -Bayes and J48 classifier for identification of the disease pattern from the three metabolite ratios.
The Role of Vasopressin and the Sympathetic Nervous System in the Cardiovascular Response to Vagal Cold Block in the Conscious Dog

This study examined the role of arginine vasopressin in the pressor response to vagal cold block and evaluated a possible interaction between vasopressin and the sympathetic nervous system during vagal block in conscious dogs with (carotid sinus intact) and without (sinoaorric denervated) functional arterial baroreflexes. In both carotid sinus intact and sinoaortic denervated dogs, elimination of the arginine vasopressin pressor system by the specific vasopressin antagonist d(CH2)5Tyr(Me)AVP did not alter the response to vagal block, as evaluated by changes in arterial pressure. Subsequent removal of the sympathetic nervous system by ganglionic blockade abolished the response to vagal block. When ganglionic blockade was induced in the absence of the vasopressin antagonist, the pressor response to vagal block was reduced by only 60%. Arginine vasopressin antagonist after ganglionic blockade reduced the response to vagal block by an amount equivalent to 45% of the original increase in pressure. The effects of blockade of either vasopressin or the sympathetic nervous system on the pressor response to vagal block were significantly greater when the other system had previously been eliminated. Data suggest that both arginine vasopressin and the sympathetic nervous system contribute to the pressor response to vagal block. One interpretation of these results is that vasopressin also interacts centrally to inhibit sympathetic outflow and thus modulates the hemodynamic manifestation of interruption of vagal afferents.
Electroluminescence and space charge in polymeric insulation

The electroluminescence detection technique was used to determine the light emitted from cross-linked polyethylene (XLPE) cable insulation under high ac fields in high vacuum and pressurized nitrogen. It is shown that unlike the tests in pressurized gas, which always result in a light emission from inside XLPE specimen, the tests in vacuum can lead to light emission from the specimen surface, some distance away from the highest electric field inside the sample. Since the intensity of light emitted from the specimen surface can be significantly higher than the intensity of EL inside the specimen, care must be taken when selecting the experimental conditions for electroluminescence experiments and during interpretation of the test results.
Moral Disengagement in the Perpetration of Inhumanities

Moral agency is manifested in both the power to refrain from behaving inhumanely and the proactive power to behave humanely. Moral agency is embedded in a broader sociocognitive self theory encompassing self-organizing, proactive, self-reflective, and self-regulatory mechanisms rooted in personal standards linked to self-sanctions. The self-regulatory mechanisms governing moral conduct do not come into play unless they are activated, and there are many psychosocial maneuvers by which moral self-sanctions are selectively disengaged from inhumane conduct. The moral disengagement may center on the cognitive restructuring of inhumane conduct into a benign or worthy one by moral justification, sanitizing language, and advantageous comparison; disavowal of a sense of personal agency by diffusion or displacement of responsibility; disregarding or minimizing the injurious effects of one 's actions; and attribution of blame to, and dehumanization of those who are victimized. Many inhumanities operate through a supportive network of legitimate enterprises run by otherwise considerate people who contribute to destructive activities by disconnected subdivision of functions and diffusion of responsibility. Given the many mechanisms for disengaging moral control, civilized life requires, in addition to humane personal standards, safeguards built into social systems that uphold compassionate behavior and renounce cruelty.
Grappling with Technology: A Case of Supporting Malaysian "Smart School" Teachers' Professional Development

This paper discusses the challenges faced by a group of Smart School teachers in a partnership model designed to help them develop professionally through the use of online tools. This model known as e-CPDelT: Model 2020 is loosely based on the successful, UK based Improving the Quality of Education For All (IQEA) project (Hopkins et al., 1996). The model was piloted on 20 teachers of English, mathematics and science from 5 Smart Schools around Kuala Lumpur. It features collaboration between these teachers in the hope that it would lead to the development of viable communities of practice. Teacher collaboration in this pilot was in the form of (a) sharing text based narratives of perceived good lessons through blogs and (b) sharing of video clips of good lessons through the ViP ( Virtual interactive Platform ) and (c) forum discussions of lessons. Data were obtained from teacher interviews and mentor reflections. Brinkerhoff's (2006) framework on technology adoption was used to identify the challenges faced by these teachers. The findings revealed that teachers faced resource, institutional, informational and attitudinal problems. The paper concludes with discussion of suggested measures to improve technology adoption by teachers.
Anonymous Camera for Privacy Protection

Privacy protection in the surveillance video data has received great attention. Although tremendous works have been proposed to provide effective privacy protection techniques, most of the algorithms are based on post-processing that deletes, obscures or encrypts the privacy information after privacy-included raw data are recorded. Consequently, they are vulnerable to raw data leak out, which may lead to unauthorized use. Therefore, it is imperative to develop a new privacy protection scheme which is capable of excluding any privacy information at the video recording phase. In this paper, we propose an anonymous camera aiming to protect the privacy of individuals at the video capturing phase by optical masking technique. It effectively reduces the risk of raw data leakage because no privacy information will be recorded by the camera. We implemented a prototype camera, which consists of an infrared camera, a RGB camera and a liquid crystal on silicon (LCoS) device. We introduce optical design and performance of the anonymous camera, the masking algorithm as well as the calibration methodology. Experimental results demonstrate that our prototype anonymous camera can perform accurate real time masking of the face for privacy protection.
Privacy Preserving Enforcement of Sensitive Policies in Outsourced and Distributed Environments

The enforcement of sensitive policies in untrusted environments is still an open challenge for policy-based systems. On the one hand, taking any appropriate security decision requires access to these policies. On the other hand, if such access is allowed in an untrusted environment then confidential information might be leaked by the policies. The key challenge is how to enforce sensitive policies and protect content in untrusted environments. In the context of untrusted environments, we mainly distinguish between outsourced and distributed environments. The most attractive paradigms concerning outsourced and distributed environments are cloud computing and opportunistic networks, respectively. In this dissertation, we present the design, technical and implementation details of our proposed policy-based access control mechanisms for untrusted environments. First of all, we provide full confidentiality of access policies in outsourced environments, where service providers do not learn private information about policies. We support expressive policies and take into account contextual information. The system entities do not share any encryption keys. For complex user management, we offer the full-fledged Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) policies. In opportunistic networks, we protect content by specifying expressive policies. In our proposed approach, brokers match subscriptions against policies associated with content without compromising privacy of subscribers. As a result, unauthorised brokers neither gain access to content nor learn policies and authorised nodes gain access only if they satisfy policies specified by publishers. Our proposed system provides scalable key management in which loosely-coupled publishers and subscribers communicate without any prior contact. Finally, we have developed a prototype of the system that runs on real smartphones and analysed its performance.