Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Challenges in the Management of Short Stature

Human growth, from fetal life to adolescence, is dynamic and a good marker of health. Growth is a complex process influenced by genetic, hormonal, nutritional and environmental factors, both pre- and postnatally. To date, no international agreement regarding normal height has been established. Auxological parameters are fundamental to investigate potential short stature (SS), either with a known diagnosis, e.g. disproportionate or proportionate, prenatal and/or postnatal onset, or an unknown diagnosis, i.e. idiopathic SS. The incidence/prevalence of SS is difficult to establish. The measurement of choice in children aged <2 years is length, while in those >2 years of age it is height. A number of monogenic diseases that lead to proportionate SS due to either isolated growth hormone deficiency, multiple pituitary hormone deficiency, growth hormone insensitivity, primary acid-labile subunit deficiency, primary IGF-1 deficiency, IGF-1 resistance, primary IGF-2 deficiency or primary protease deficiency have been discovered in the last 30 years. In addition, the Nosology and Classification of Genetic Skeletal Disorders revised in 2015 includes 436 conditions, with a number of genes of 364. A practical algorithm for the evaluation of SS as well as therapeutic options are discussed.
A Sweet Talk: The Molecular Systems of Perineuronal Nets in Controlling Neuronal Communication

Perineuronal nets (PNNs) are mesh-like structures, composed of a hierarchical assembly of extracellular matrix molecules in the central nervous system (CNS), ensheathing neurons and regulating plasticity. The mechanism of interactions between PNNs and neurons remain uncharacterized. In this review, we pose the question: how do PNNs regulate communication to and from neurons? We provide an overview of the current knowledge on PNNs with a focus on the cellular interactions. PNNs ensheath a subset of the neuronal population with distinct molecular aspects in different areas of the CNS. PNNs control neuronal communication through molecular interactions involving specific components of the PNNs. This review proposes that the PNNs are an integral part of neurons, crucial for the regulation of plasticity in the CNS.
A Study of Reuse and Plagiarism in Speech and Natural Language Processing papers

The aim of this experiment is to present an easy way to compare fragments of texts in order to detect (supposed) results of copy & paste operations between articles in the domain of Natural Language Processing, including Speech Processing (NLP). The search space of the comparisons is a corpus labelled as NLP4NLP, which includes 34 different sources and gathers a large part of the publications in the NLP field over the past 50 years. This study considers the similarity between the papers of each individual source and the complete set of papers in the whole corpus, according to four different types of relationship (self - reuse, self - plagiarism, reuse and plagiarism) and in both directions: a source paper borrowing a fragment of text from another paper of the collection, or in the reverse direction, fragments of text from the source paper being borrowed and inserted in another paper of the collection.
Urinary Trivalent Methylated Arsenic Species in a Population Chronically Exposed to Inorganic Arsenic

Chronic exposure to inorganic arsenic (iAs) has been associated with increased risk of various forms of cancer and of noncancerous diseases. Metabolic conversions of iAs that yield highly toxic and genotoxic methylarsonite (MAsIII) and dimethylarsinite (DMAsIII) may play a significant role in determining the extent and character of toxic and cancer-promoting effects of iAs exposure. In this study we examined the relationship between urinary profiles of MAsIII and DMAsIII and skin lesion markers of iAs toxicity in individuals exposed to iAs in drinking water. The study subjects were recruited among the residents of an endemic region of central Mexico. Drinking-water reservoirs in this region are heavily contaminated with iAs. Previous studies carried out in the local populations have found an increased incidence of pathologies, primarily skin lesions, that are characteristic of arseniasis. The goal of this study was to investigate the urinary profiles for the trivalent and pentavalent As metabolites in both high- and low-iAs–exposed subjects. Notably, methylated trivalent arsenicals were detected in 98% of analyzed urine samples. On average, the major metabolite, DMAsIII, represented 49% of total urinary As, followed by DMAsV (23.7%), iAsV (8.6%), iAsIII (8.5%), MAsIII (7.4%), and MAsV (2.8%). More important, the average MAsIII concentration was significantly higher in the urine of exposed individuals with skin lesions compared with those who drank iAs-contaminated water but had no skin lesions. These data suggest that urinary levels of MAsIII, the most toxic species among identified metabolites of iAs, may serve as an indicator to identify individuals with increased susceptibility to toxic and cancer-promoting effects of arseniasis.
Model-based Testing: Where Does It Stand?

You have probably heard about MBT (model-based testing), but like many software-engineering professionals who have not used MBT, you might be curious about others’ experience with this test-design method. From mid-June 2014 to early August 2014, we conducted a survey to learn how MBT users view its efficiency and effectiveness. The 2014 MBT User Survey, a follow-up to a similar 2012 survey, was open to all those who have evaluated or used any MBT approach. Its 32 questions included some from a survey distributed at the 2013 User Conference on Advanced Automated Testing. Some questions focused on the efficiency and effectiveness of MBT, providing the figures that managers are most interested in. Other questions were more technical and sought to validate a common MBT classification scheme. A common classification scheme could help users understand both the general diversity and specific approaches. The 2014 survey provides a realistic picture of the current state of MBT practice. This article presents some highlights of the survey findings.
Effect of daily chlorhexidine bathing on hospital-acquired infection.

BACKGROUND Results of previous single-center, observational studies suggest that daily bathing of patients with chlorhexidine may prevent hospital-acquired bloodstream infections and the acquisition of multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs). METHODS We conducted a multicenter, cluster-randomized, nonblinded crossover trial to evaluate the effect of daily bathing with chlorhexidine-impregnated washcloths on the acquisition of MDROs and the incidence of hospital-acquired bloodstream infections. Nine intensive care and bone marrow transplantation units in six hospitals were randomly assigned to bathe patients either with no-rinse 2% chlorhexidine-impregnated washcloths or with nonantimicrobial washcloths for a 6-month period, exchanged for the alternate product during the subsequent 6 months. The incidence rates of acquisition of MDROs and the rates of hospital-acquired bloodstream infections were compared between the two periods by means of Poisson regression analysis. RESULTS A total of 7727 patients were enrolled during the study. The overall rate of MDRO acquisition was 5.10 cases per 1000 patient-days with chlorhexidine bathing versus 6.60 cases per 1000 patient-days with nonantimicrobial washcloths (P=0.03), the equivalent of a 23% lower rate with chlorhexidine bathing. The overall rate of hospital-acquired bloodstream infections was 4.78 cases per 1000 patient-days with chlorhexidine bathing versus 6.60 cases per 1000 patient-days with nonantimicrobial washcloths (P=0.007), a 28% lower rate with chlorhexidine-impregnated washcloths. No serious skin reactions were noted during either study period. CONCLUSIONS Daily bathing with chlorhexidine-impregnated washcloths significantly reduced the risks of acquisition of MDROs and development of hospital-acquired bloodstream infections. (Funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Sage Products; ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00502476.).
Cyber Warfare: Worms’ Transmission Model

The major way of attack in cyber world is cyber war. Cyber war is a form of war which takes places on computers and the Internet, through electronic means rather than physical ones. With an increasing global reliance on technology for everything from managing national electrical grids to ordering supplies for troops the security of cyber world become an important issue worldwide. In this paper, an e-epidemic SEIR (susceptible-Exposed-Infectious-Recovered) model for the transmission of worms in a computer network is developed to have a better understanding of the reason for Cyber war. An analysis of the basic reproduction number has been made. We derive global stability of a worm-free state. Furthermore, initial simulation results show the positive impact of increasing security measures on worm propagation in computer network. Efficiency of antivirus software and crashing of the nodes due to worms attack is critically analyzed.
Cerebellar Control of Robot Arms

with other parts of the nervous system. Nevertheless, the application of computational cerebellar models to the control of robot dynamics remains in its infant state. To date, a few applications have been realized, but limited to the control of traditional robot structures which, strictly speaking, do not require adaptive control for the tasks that are performed since their dynamic structures are relatively simple. The currently emerging family of light-weight robots (Hirzinger, G. (1996) In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Advanced Robotics, Intelligent Automation, and Active Systems, Vienna, Austria ) poses a new challenge to robot control: owing to their complex dynamics, traditional methods, depending on a full analysis of the dynamics of the system, are no
Specification, Analyzing Challenges and Approaches for Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS)

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) inte- grate computation with physical processes. By merg- ing computing and communication with physical pro- cesses CPS allows computer systems to monitor and interact with the physical world. However, today's computing and networking abstractions do not ade- quately reflect the properties of the physical world. This shortcoming necessitates the development of ef- fective methods and tools for analyzing and designing CPS. This paper analyzes the limitations of the cur- rent tools and methods by illustrating a motivating example of health care systems and proposes a uni- fied framework for designing, simulating, and verify- ing CPS.
Word2Vec vs DBnary: Augmenting METEOR using Vector Representations or Lexical Resources?

This paper presents an approach combining lexico-semantic resources and distributed representations of words applied to the evaluation in machine translation (MT). This study is made through the enrichment of a well-known MT evaluation metric: METEOR. METEOR enables an approximate match (synonymy or morphological similarity) between an automatic and a reference translation. Our experiments are made in the framework of the Metrics task of WMT 2014. We show that distributed representations are a good alternative to lexico-semanticresources for MT evaluation and they can even bring interesting additional information. The augmented versions of METEOR, using vector representations, are made available on our Github page.
A Survey of Two Signature Aggregation Techniques

We survey two recent signature constructions that support signature aggregation: Given n signatures on n distinct messages from n distinct users, it is possible to aggregate all these signatures into a single signature. Aggregate signatures are useful for reducing the size of certificate chains (by aggregating all signatures in the chain) and for reducing message size in secure routing protocols such as SBGP. II. On the Cost of Factoring RSA-1024 Adi Shamir and Eran Tromer
MiR-144 Inhibits Uveal Melanoma Cell Proliferation and Invasion by Regulating c-Met Expression

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a group endogenous small non-coding RNAs that inhibit protein translation through binding to specific target mRNAs. Recent studies have demonstrated that miRNAs are implicated in the development of cancer. However, the role of miR-144 in uveal melanoma metastasis remains largely unknown. MiR-144 was downregulated in both uveal melanoma cells and tissues. Transfection of miR-144 mimic into uveal melanoma cells led to a decrease in cell growth and invasion. After identification of two putative miR-144 binding sites within the 3' UTR of the human c-Met mRNA, miR-144 was proved to inhibit the luciferase activity inMUM-2B cells with a luciferase reporter construct containing the binding sites. In addition, the expression of c-Met protein was inhibited by miR-144. Furthermore, c-Met-mediated cell proliferation and invasion were inhibited by restoration of miR-144 in uveal melanoma cells. In conclusion, miR-144 acts as a tumor suppressor in uveal melanoma, through inhibiting cell proliferation and migration. miR-144 might serve as a potential therapeutic target in uveal melanoma patients.
Elevating circulation chemerin level is associated with endothelial dysfunction and early atherosclerotic changes in essential hypertensive patients

Objectives: Chemerin is a new adipokine elevated in states of obesity and metabolic syndromes. In this study, we investigated the association of increased chemerin on endothelial function, arterial stiffness and early atherosclerosis in essential hypertensive patients. Methods: Three hundred and sixty-seven newly diagnosed essential hypertensive patients were enrolled. Anthropometric measurements and plasma parameters were examined, including BMI, waist circumference, glucose, serum insulin, lipid profiles, chemerin, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, tumor necrosis factor-&agr;, and interleukin-4. Vascular health was assessed with brachial flow-mediated dilatation (FMD), brachial–ankle pulse wave velocity (baPWV), and carotid intima-media thickness (IMT). Results: In hypertensive patients, plasma chemerin levels were higher in women than in men (P < 0.05). In univariate analysis, the plasma chemerin level was positively correlated with baPWV (men: r = 0.58, P < 0.01; women: r = 0.51, P < 0.01) and carotid IMT (men: r = 0.17, P = 0.01; women: r = 0.20, P = 0.01), and inversely correlated with FMD (men: r = −0.54, P < 0.01; women: r = −0.44, P < 0.01). The associations for FMD and baPWV, but not IMT, remained significant in multivariable models adjusted for age, sex, glucose homeostasis, lipid profiles, inflammation markers and adipokines. More importantly, logistic regression analysis revealed that high chemerin level was an independent predictor of impaired endothelial function (FMD odds ratio 1.58, 95% confidence interval 1.28–3.30, P = 0.03) and increased arterial stiffness (baPWV odds ratio 3.75, 95% confidence interval 1.36–5.28, P < 0.01), even after adjustment for metabolic variables, inflammatory markers and adipokines. Conclusion: Chemerin levels were independently associated with the index of arterial function and early atherosclerosis in essential hypertension.
Brucella Evades Macrophage Killing via VirB-dependent Sustained Interactions with the Endoplasmic Reticulum

The intracellular pathogen Brucella is the causative agent of brucellosis, a worldwide zoonosis that affects mammals, including humans. Essential to Brucella virulence is its ability to survive and replicate inside host macrophages, yet the underlying mechanisms and the nature of the replicative compartment remain unclear. Here we show in a model of Brucella abortus infection of murine bone marrow–derived macrophages that a fraction of the bacteria that survive an initial macrophage killing proceed to replicate in a compartment segregated from the endocytic pathway. The maturation of the Brucella-containing vacuole involves sustained interactions and fusion with the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), which creates a replicative compartment with ER-like properties. The acquisition of ER membranes by replicating Brucella is independent of ER-Golgi COPI-dependent vesicular transport. A mutant of the VirB type IV secretion system, which is necessary for intracellular survival, was unable to sustain interactions and fuse with the ER, and was killed via eventual fusion with lysosomes. Thus, we demonstrate that live intracellular Brucella evade macrophage killing through VirB-dependent sustained interactions with the ER. Moreover, we assign an intracellular function to the VirB system, as being required for late maturation events necessary for the biogenesis of an ER-derived replicative organelle.
Recommendations for revised response criteria for malignant lymphoma.

7507 Background: Standardized response criteria are needed to interpret and compare clinical trials, and for approval of new therapeutic agents by regulatory agencies. METHODS The International Working Group (IWG) criteria (Cheson et al, JCO 17:1244, 1999) were widely adopted but were reevaluated because of limitations identified, and recent advances, notably FDG-PET, immunohistochemistry (IHC) and flow cytometry. RESULTS We propose the following modifications for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) and Hodgkin lymphoma (HL). For predictably PET avid histologies (PA)(e.g., diffuse large B-cell NHL (DLBCL), HL, follicular (FL) and mantle cell lymphoma (MCL), PET pretreatment is strongly encouraged to define sites of disease, but not required. For histologies not predictably PET+ (NPA), PET should only be done if response is an endpoint. Although PET performed after ≥1 cycles of chemotherapy correlates with treatment efficacy, in the absence of data that altering therapy because of PET results improves outcome, mid-treatment PET should only be done in a clinical trial. PET is essential to assess response in DLBCL and HL, but only in FL and MCL if response is the endpoint. For NPA histologic subtypes, PET should only be used if PET+ prior to therapy and response is a major endpoint. Present data are inadequate to recommend PET for routine post-treatment surveillance. The new definition for CR includes: 1) no signs or symptoms of disease; 2) PET- in a PA lymphoma, or negative CT in NPA lymphoma. 3) Normal bone marrow by morphology, or if indeterminate, negative by IHC, flow and/or molecular genetic studies. CR unconfirmed (CRu) is no longer included. PR is defined as 1) ≥ 50% decrease in tumor size, but PET+ at prior PA sites, or 2) ≥ 50% decrease in tumor size, but CT+ and PET- if PET- prior to treatment. Bone marrow is irrelevant if positive pre-treatment. Stable disease is neither PR nor progressive disease, PET+ only at prior sites of disease. Progressive/ relapsed disease requires ≥ 50% increase in disease or new lesions that are PET+ if PA lymphoma. PET does not replace a biopsy before initiating new therapy. CONCLUSIONS We hope these revised recommendations will be adopted by study groups and regulatory agencies to facilitate the development of new and more effective therapies to improve patient outcome. No significant financial relationships to disclose.
Parametric Connectives in Disjunctive Logic Programming

Disjunctive Logic Programming (DLP) is an advanced formalism for Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KRR). DLP is very expressive in a precise mathematical sense: it allows to express every property of finite structures that is decidable in the complexity class Σ P 2 (NP NP). Importantly, the DLP encodings are often simple and natural.In this paper, we single out some limitations of DLP for KRR, which cannot naturally express problems where the size of the disjunction is not known “a priori” (like N-Coloring), but it is part of the input. To overcome these limitations, we further enhance the knowledge modelling abilities of DLP, by extending this language by Parametric Connectives (OR and AND). These connectives allow us to represent compactly the disjunction/conjunction of a set of atoms having a given property. We formally define the semantics of the new language, named DLP ∨,∧ and we show the usefulness of the new constructs on relevant knowledge-based problems. We address implementation issues and discuss related works.
Reduction of UDP-N-acetylglucosamine 2-Epimerase/N-Acetylmannosamine Kinase Activity and Sialylation in Distal Myopathy with Rimmed Vacuoles*

Distal myopathy with rimmed vacuoles is an autosomal recessive muscle disease with preferential involvement of the tibialis anterior that spares the quadriceps muscles in young adulthood. In a Japanese patient with distal myopathy with rimmed vacuoles, we identified pathogenic mutations in the gene encoding the bifunctional enzyme UDP-GlcNAc 2-epimerase/ManNAc kinase, which catalyzes the initial two steps in the biosynthesis of sialic acid. In this study, we demonstrated the relationship between the genetic mutations and enzymatic activities using an in vitro expression assay system. Furthermore, we also showed that the levels of sialic acid in muscle and primary cultured cells from DMRV patients were reduced to 60–75% of control. The reactivities to lectins were also variable in some myofibers, suggesting that hyposialylation and abnormal glycosylation in muscles may contribute to the focal accumulations of autophagic vacuoles, amyloid deposits, or both in patient muscle tissue. The addition of ManNAc and NeuAc to primary cultured cells normalized sialylation levels, thus demonstrating the therapeutic potential of these compounds for this disease.
Combined Power Allocation in Cognitive Radio-Based Relay-Assisted Networks

The primary-secondary user combined power allocation problem is considered in this paper. The problem is addressed in cognitive radio-based relay-assisted networks, where the primary user and the secondary user coexist and influent on each other, and the relays are expected to undertake partial tasks of collecting channel information, computing the optimal power allocation strategy, and informing the users about the obtained transmit power results. The power allocation for primary and secondary user is modeled as a noncooperative game. The existence of the Nash equilibrium of the game is established, as well as its uniqueness. A relay-assisted iterative algorithm, which can be performed through the cooperation of the base station and the relays, is proposed to efficiently reach the Nash equilibrium. Numerical results demonstrate the convergence of the proposed iterative algorithm, and also the performance improvement of the power allocation.
Exposure to PM2.5 in urban area and respiratory health symptoms among urban workers in Klang Valley

Urban workers are susceptible to traffic-related air pollution (TRAP) exposure that can increase the prevalence of respiratory health symptoms among them. PM2.5 was the main pollutants emitted from vehicle emission during fossil fuel combustion. This will influence TRAP level in an urban environment. This study was a cross-sectional comparative study that conducted among traffic policemen (n = 160) and office workers (n = 149) in Klang Valley. The respondents’ information and respiratory health symptoms were gathered using a set of questionnaire that adapted from American Thoracic Society (ATS). The air samples for personal exposure and workplace exposure were collected during working hours. The average PM2.5 levels for traffic policemen was 87µg/m3 (personal) and 86µg/m3 (workplace). The average PM2.5 levels for office workers was 28µg/m3 (personal) and 26µg/m3 (workplace). The statistical results of PM2.5 levels between both groups are significant difference for personal exposure (z = −15.685, p < 0.001) and workplace exposure (z = −14.519, p <0.001). The Chi-Square test result indicates that there is a significant difference in cough episode between both groups. This study concludes that exposure to high levels of PM2.5 from TRAP would increase the prevalence of respiratory health symptoms among urban workers.