Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sequestration and Tissue Accumulation of Human Malaria Parasites: Can We Learn Anything from Rodent Models of Malaria?

The sequestration of Plasmodium falciparum–infected red blood cells (irbcs) in the microvasculature of organs is associated with severe disease; correspondingly, the molecular basis of irbc adherence is an active area of study. In contrast to P. falciparum, much less is known about sequestration in other Plasmodium parasites, including those species that are used as models to study severe malaria. Here, we review the cytoadherence properties of irbcs of the rodent parasite Plasmodium berghei ANKA, where schizonts demonstrate a clear sequestration phenotype. Real-time in vivo imaging of transgenic P. berghei parasites in rodents has revealed a CD36-dependent sequestration in lungs and adipose tissue. In the absence of direct orthologs of the P. falciparum proteins that mediate binding to human CD36, the P. berghei proteins and/or mechanisms of rodent CD36 binding are as yet unknown. In addition to CD36-dependent schizont sequestration, irbcs accumulate during severe disease in different tissues, including the brain. The role of sequestration is discussed in the context of disease as are the general (dis)similarities of P. berghei and P. falciparum sequestration.
Formal swallowing evaluation and therapy after traumatic brain injury improves dysphagia outcomes.

BACKGROUND The incidence of swallowing dysfunction after brain injury is unknown. The efficacy of dysphagia therapy is also unknown. We reviewed our experience to define the incidence of swallowing dysfunction and efficacy of therapeutic intervention. METHODS Patients with brain injury sustained between January of 1996 and December of 1997 were reviewed. All were screened with trials of oral intake. Abnormal findings were confirmed with a videofluoroscopic swallow study. Standard therapies included diet, posture, and behavior modifications. RESULTS A total of 47 patients were evaluated. Bedside evaluations were normal in 14 patients, 2 patients had overt aspiration and underwent gastrostomy, and 31 patients were referred for a videofluoroscopic swallow study (66%). The videofluoroscopic swallow study was abnormal in 22 of 31 patients (71%). Of these, 4 additional patients required gastrostomy, 13 patients had laryngeal penetration or minor aspiration responsive to dysphagia therapy and were fed. Five other patients had silent aspiration and were fed by means of nasogastric tube; these five patients responded to dysphagia therapy and were able to resume oral intake. CONCLUSION Dysphagia is common after severe head injury. With formal swallowing service intervention, aspiration is avoided. Therapeutic interventions can be used to restore oral intake.
Using synthetic images to register real images with surface models

A number of image analysis tasks can benefit from registration of the image with a model of the surface being imaged. Automatic navigation using visible light or radar images requires exact alignment of such images with digital terrain models. In addition, automatic classification of terrain, using satellite imagery, requires such alignment to deal correctly with the effects of varying sun angle and surface slope. Even inspection techniques for certain industrial parts may be improved by this means. We achieve the required alignment by matching the real image with a synthetic image obtained from a surface model and known positions of the light sources. The synthetic image intensity is calculated using the reflectance map, a convenient way of describing surface reflection as a function of surface gradient. We illustrate the technique using LANDSAT images and digital terrain models.
Imaging of Transient Structures Using Nanosecond in Situ TEM

The microstructure and properties of a material depend on dynamic processes such as defect motion, nucleation and growth, and phase transitions. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) can spatially resolve these nanoscale phenomena but lacks the time resolution for direct observation. We used a photoemitted electron pulse to probe dynamic events with “snapshot” diffraction and imaging at 15-nanosecond resolution inside of a dynamic TEM. With the use of this capability, the moving reaction front of reactive nanolaminates is observed in situ. Time-resolved images and diffraction show a transient cellular morphology in a dynamically mixing, self-propagating reaction front, revealing brief phase separation during cooling, and thus provide insights into the mechanisms driving the self-propagating high-temperature synthesis.
UNIRATIONALITY OF CUBIC HYPERSURFACES

Segre proved that a smooth cubic surface over $Q$ is unirational if and only if it has a rational point. We prove that the result also holds for cubic hypersurfaces over any field, including finite fields. AMS 2000 Mathematics subject classification: Primary 14G05; 14G15. Secondary 11G25; 11D25
Gender Inference using Statistical Name Characteristics in Twitter

Much attention has been given to the task of gender inference of Twitter users. Although names are strong gender indicators, the names of Twitter users are rarely used as a feature; probably due to the high number of ill-formed names, which cannot be found in any name dictionary. Instead of relying solely on a name database, we propose a novel name classifier. Our approach extracts characteristics from the user names and uses those in order to assign the names to a gender. This enables us to classify international first names as well as ill-formed names.
Counterfactual equivalence for POMDPs, and underlying deterministic environments

Partially Observable Markov Decision Processes (POMDPs) are rich environments often used in machine learning. But the issue of information and causal structures in POMDPs has been relatively little studied. This paper presents the concepts of equivalent and counterfactually equivalent POMDPs, where agents cannot distinguish which environment they are in though any observations and actions. It shows that any POMDP is counterfactually equivalent, for any finite number of turns, to a deterministic POMDP with all uncertainty concentrated into the initial state. This allows a better understanding of POMDP uncertainty, information, and learning.
Entre l’actif et le passif: se faire/fazer-se: syntaxe, sémantique et pragmatique comparées français-portugais

The French se faire construction presents numerous and varied usage possibilities while also raising a number of theoretical issues. Furthermore, it should be noticed that it is not always possible to establish a direct correspondence between French se faire and Portuguese fazer-se. The se faire construction. , however, has never before been at the core of a contrastive study of French and Portuguese. The connections established by the verb faire, on the one hand, and by the pronominalization, on the other hand, which involve linguistic phenomena such as active, passive and causative diathesis, are the same in French as in Portuguese. It is the purpose of the present study to shed light on the language-specific constraints, whether they be syntactic and/or semantic, which in some cases impede literal translation. The contrast between the two languages was based mainly on a literary and journalistic corpus, composed of identical texts, published both in Portuguese and French. A survey was carried out among native speakers of Portuguese in order to offer a sociological explanation for the differences found between various speakers and between the divergent versions of the same text by different translators. The most remarkable result of this contrastive study was that it underscored the role of intention in the Portuguese language along with that of agentivity and cause.
TRANSLATION OF ENERGY RATING FROM REFERENCE LABORATORY TO PRODUCTION LINE

The energy yield of photovoltaic (PV) modules depends not only on the module performance at standard test conditions (STC) but rather at a range of operating conditions with varying irradiances and temperatures. Methods for energy yield prediction have been successfully developed for c-Si. However, the determination of energy rating of a PV module is rather complex and therefore not easily applicable in a production environment. Here we examine the possibility to translate the energy rating measured by a reference laboratory on a PV module from a production run to each single module in that production run. It was found that the relative temperature coefficient for the maximum power does not depend on irradiance and is constant for modules from the same production batch. In fact it is nearly constant for c-Si. The irradiance dependence of the PV module performance could be measured within 1 minute, which is sufficiently fast for in-line operation. The energy yield was predicted for two locations and a comparison made between different modules from the same production.
Impact of liver steatosis on response to pegylated interferon therapy in patients with chronic hepatitis B.

AIM To evaluate the impact of liver steatosis upon response to given therapy in chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients. METHODS 84 consecutive CHB patients treated with 48-wk PEGylated interferon (PEG-IFN) therapy were enrolled. Baseline characteristics and sustained viral response (SVR) to PEG-IFN therapy were evaluated. RESULTS Mean body mass index (BMI) was 27.36 ± 4.4 kg/m². Six (7.1%) had hypertension and three (3.5%) had diabetes mellitus. Steatosis was present in 22.6% (19/84) of liver biopsy samples. Age, BMI, and triglyceride levels of the patients with hepatic steatosis were significantly higher than those without hepatic steatosis (P < 0.05). SVR to PEG-IFN therapy was 21.4% (18/84). Sixteen of these 18 CHB patients with SVR (88.9%) did not have any histopathologically determined steatosis. On the other hand, only two of the 19 CHB patients with hepatic steatosis had SVR (10.5%). Although the SVR rate observed in patients without steatosis (16/65, 24.6%) was higher compared to those with steatosis (2/19, 10.5%), the difference was not statistically significant (P > 0.05). CONCLUSION Occurrence of hepatic steatosis is significantly high in CHB patients and this association leads to a trend of decreased, but statistically insignificant, SVR rates to PEG-IFN treatment.
EVIDENCE FOR LOW EXTINCTION IN ACTIVELY STAR-FORMING GALAXIES AT z > 6.5

We present a search for the [C ii] 158 μm fine structure line (a main cooling line of the interstellar medium) and the underlying far-infrared (FIR) continuum in three high-redshift (6.6 < z < 8.2) star-forming galaxies using the IRAM Plateau de Bure Interferometer. We targeted two Lyα-selected galaxies (Lyα emitters, LAEs) with moderate UV-based star formation rates (SFRs ∼ 20 M☉ yr−1; Himiko at z = 6.6 and IOK-1 at z = 7.0) and a gamma-ray burst (GRB) host galaxy (GRB 090423 at z ∼ 8.2). Based on our 3σ rest-frame FIR continuum limits, previous (rest-frame) UV continuum measurements and spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting, we rule out SED shapes similar to highly obscured galaxies (e.g., Arp 220, M 82) and less extreme dust-rich nearby spiral galaxies (e.g., M 51) for the LAEs. Conservatively assuming an SED shape typical of local spiral galaxies we derive upper limits for the FIR-based star formation rates (SFRs) of ∼70 M☉ yr−1, ∼50 M☉ yr−1, and ∼40 M☉ yr−1 for Himiko, IOK-1, and GRB 090423, respectively. For the LAEs these limits are only a factor ∼3 higher than the published UV-based SFRs (uncorrected for extinction). This indicates that the dust obscuration in the z > 6 LAEs studied here is lower by a factor of a few than what has recently been found in some LAEs at lower redshift (2 < z < 3.5) with similar UV-based SFRs. A low obscuration in our z > 6 LAE sample is consistent with recent rest-frame UV studies of z ∼ 7 Lyman break galaxies.
Neutrophil chemotactic activity (NCA) in nasal secretions from atopic and nonatopic subjects

In order to elucidate the mechanism responsible for infiltration of nasal mucosa by granulocytes, we tested neutrophil chemotactic activity (NCA) in nasal lavages, by the modified Boyden chamber method, in 16 patients with perennial allergic rhinitis (AR), six ASA‐sensitive patients with chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS), and seven normal, nonatopic control subjects (NC). Nasal secretions from all three groups showed significant NCA (mean 157.1±54.0, 62.2±20.7, and 39.4 ± 11.4% of FMLP chemotactic activity for AR, CRS, and NC subjects, respectively). Nasal secretions from patients with AR expressed significantly higher NCA (P<0.02) than did secretions from NA patients.
Functional genomics of seed dormancy in wheat: advances and prospects

Seed dormancy is a mechanism underlying the inability of viable seeds to germinate under optimal environmental conditions. To achieve rapid and uniform germination, wheat and other cereal crops have been selected against dormancy. As a result, most of the modern commercial cultivars have low level of seed dormancy and are susceptible to preharvest sprouting when wet and moist conditions occur prior to harvest. As it causes substantial loss in grain yield and quality, preharvest sprouting is an ever-present major constraint to the production of wheat. The significance of the problem emphasizes the need to incorporate an intermediate level of dormancy into elite wheat cultivars, and this requires detailed dissection of the mechanisms underlying the regulation of seed dormancy and preharvest sprouting. Seed dormancy research in wheat often involves after-ripening, a period of dry storage during which seeds lose dormancy, or comparative analysis of seeds derived from dormant and non-dormant cultivars. The increasing development in wheat genomic resources along with the application of transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics approaches in studying wheat seed dormancy have extended our knowledge of the mechanisms acting at transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels. Recent progresses indicate that some of the molecular mechanisms are associated with hormonal pathways, epigenetic regulations, targeted oxidative modifications of seed mRNAs and proteins, redox regulation of seed protein thiols, and modulation of translational activities. Given that preharvest sprouting is closely associated with seed dormancy, these findings will significantly contribute to the designing of efficient strategies for breeding preharvest sprouting tolerant wheat.
Compact antenna for Radar-based breast cancer detection

Microwave imaging for breast cancer detection is based on the contrast in electrical properties of healthy fatty breast tissues and malignant tumors. This inherent contrast causes microwave reflections from tumors embedded in normal tissues. Radar-based breast imaging detects tumors by observing variations in microwave signals reflected from the tumors as the antenna location changes. The topics of this paper are the development of a compact antenna for the detection of cross-polarized reflections and the application of this antenna to radar-based breast cancer detection. The antenna is designed, simulated, constructed and measured. The capabilities and limitations of the antenna for detecting tumor models are investigated through simulation and experiments, demonstrating the potential of this method for the detection of tumors in the breast.
A Self-Paced Category-Aware Approach for Unsupervised Adaptation Networks

The success of deep neural networks usually relies on a large number of labeled training samples, which unfortunately are not easy to obtain in practice. Unsupervised domain adaptation focuses on the problem where there is no labeled data in the target domain. In this paper, we propose a novel deep unsupervised domain adaptation method that learns transferable features. Different from most existing methods, it attempts to learn a better domain-invariant feature representation by performing a category-wise adaptation to match the conditional distributions of samples with respect to each category. A self-paced learning strategy is used to bring the awareness of label information gradually, which makes the category-wise adaptation feasible even if the labels are unavailable in target domain. Then, we give detailed theoretical analysis to explain how the better performance is obtained. The experimental results show that our method outperforms the current state of the arts on standard domain adaptation datasets.
Use of anytime control algorithms in the area of small turbojet engines

The article deals with basics of modeling of our small experimental turbojet engine MPM 20 and the following design of a complex situational control system with elements of anytime control algorithms bound with a developed analytical model of the engine. By use of advanced algorithms using methods of artificial intelligence in a robust framework to achieve the aims of reliability and high efficiency, we are trying demonstrate their usability and proficiency in the area of turbojet engines. All the tests and data come from measurements on a real object of our experimental small turbojet engine and are therefore a good step to be used on normal sized engines.
SobTrA: a software-based trust anchor for ARM cortex application processors

In this paper, we present SobTrA, a Software-based Trust Anchor for ARM Cortex-A processors to protect systems against software-based attacks. SobTrA enables the implementation of a software-based secure boot controlled by a third party independent from the manufacturer. Compared to hardware-based trust anchors, our concept provides some other advantages like being updateable and also usable on legacy hardware. The presented software-based trust anchor involves a trusted third party device, the verifier, locally connected to the untrusted device, e.g., via the microSD card slot of a smartphone. The verifier is verifying the integrity of the untrusted device by making sure that a piece of code is executed untampered on it using a timing-based approach. This code can then act as an anchor for a chain of trust similar to a hardware-based secure boot. Tests on our prototype showed that tampered and untampered execution of SobTrA can be clearly and reliably distinguished.
Effects of adalimumab therapy on incidence of hospitalization and surgery in Crohn's disease: results from the CHARM study.

BACKGROUND & AIMS We determined the effects of adalimumab maintenance treatment on the risks of hospitalization and surgery in Crohn's disease (CD). METHODS A total of 778 patients with CD were randomized to placebo, adalimumab 40 mg every other week or adalimumab 40 mg weekly, all after an 80-mg/40-mg adalimumab induction regimen. All-cause and CD-related hospitalizations and major CD-related surgeries were compared between the placebo and adalimumab groups (every other week, weekly, and both combined) using Kaplan-Meier analysis and Cox proportional hazard models. RESULTS Both 3- and 12-month hospitalization risks were significantly lower for patients who received adalimumab. Hazard ratios for all-cause hospitalization were 0.45, 0.36, and 0.40 for the adalimumab every other week, weekly, and combined groups, respectively (all P < .01 vs placebo). Hazard ratios for CD-related hospitalization were 0.50, 0.34, and 0.42, respectively (all P < .05). Cox model estimates demonstrated adalimumab every other week and weekly maintenance therapies were associated with 52% and 60% relative reductions in 12-month, all-cause hospitalization risk, and 48% and 64% reductions in 12-month risk of CD-related hospitalization. The combined adalimumab group was associated with 56% reductions in both all-cause and CD-related hospitalization risks. Fewer CD-related surgeries occurred in the adalimumab every other week, weekly, and combined groups compared with placebo (0.4, 0.8, and 0.6 vs 3.8 per 100 patients; all P < .05). CONCLUSIONS Patients with moderate-to-severe CD treated with adalimumab had lower 1-year risks of hospitalization and surgery than placebo patients.
A Case of Congenital Word-Blindness

There has been no homogeneity to the technique of diagnosis nor methods of teaching. For the most part diagnosis is dependent upon the subjective judgment of the examiner as to the purity of the defect and the degree of disability. Many that are so diagnosed have a very simple reading vocabulary, others recognize no words. Objective data have rarely been reported to show the purity of the defect. The condition is rare and yet Wallin reports that he found 4.1 per cent who could be so diagnosed out of 2,774 children examined who were not making satisfactory school progress. This is the highest estimate of its incidence we have found in the literature, but any who are familiar with school clinic examinations know that reading defects account for a sizeable number of retardates. Despite the fact that the condition is well known and found rather regularly in school clinics the school implications have not been the subject matter of any of the articles. Three main ideas
Evaluation and Management of Adnexal Masses

Committee on Practice Bulletins—Gynecology in collaboration with Ramez Eskander, MD; Michael Berman, MD; and Lisa Keder, MD, MPH. The information is designed to aid practitioners in making decisions about appropriate obstetric and gynecologic care. These guidelines should not be construed as dictating an exclusive course of treatment or procedure. Variations in practice may be warranted based on the needs of the individual patient, resources, and limitations unique to the institution or type of practice. Background Differential Diagnosis A pelvic mass can have gynecologic or nongynecologic origins (Box 1). Consideration of the location of a pelvic mass in conjunction with patient age and reproductive status can help narrow the differential diagnosis. Adnexal masses of gynecologic origin may be benign or malignant ovarian lesions; tubal or paratubal processes such as hydrosalpinges or ectopic pregnancy; and uterine abnormalities such as leiomyomas or müllerian abnormalities. Nongynecologic causes of pelvic masses are less common and may be related to a variety of other organ systems, including gastrointestinal and urologic sources. Cases of metastatic cancer, especially those from the breast, colon, or stomach, may first present as adnexal masses.
Random telegraph noise: Measurement, data analysis, and interpretation

In this paper, we delve into one of the most relevant defects-related phenomena causing failures in the operation of modern nanoscale electron devices, namely Random Telegraph Noise (RTN). Due to its detrimental impact on devices and circuits performances, RTN mechanism must be thoroughly understood, which requires establishing a self-consistent framework encompassing automated measurement techniques, data analysis algorithms, and physics-based modeling. This platform is not only required to understand the physics of RTN-related failures, but also to enable RTN analysis as a tool to investigate device reliability. Starting from the analysis of RTN signal statistical properties, we propose a set of guidelines to perform correct RTN measurements and data analysis, in order to get reliable results that are needed for an unbiased physical interpretation. This is achieved by combining automated experiments with sophisticated data analysis, consistency check, and comprehensive physics-based simulations. RTN analysis is then applied to two different devices for logic and memory applications, respectively: FinFETs and RRAMs. Particularly, the analysis of the statistical properties of RTN simultaneously measured on the drain and on the gate current of FinFETs allows understanding the details of the defects generation during stress. The analysis of RTN measured during the read operation in RRAM devices allows understanding the physical origin of RTN in these devices and identifying the defects species involved in this phenomenon.