Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mutation of SDHB is a Cause of Hypoxia-Related High-Altitude Paraganglioma

Purpose: Paragangliomas of the head and neck are neuroendocrine tumors and are associated with germ line mutations of the tricarboxylic acid cycle–related genes SDHB, SDHC, SDHD, and SDHAF2. Hypoxia is important in most solid tumors, and was directly implicated in tumorigenesis over 40 years ago when it was shown that dwelling at high altitudes increases the incidence of carotid body hyperplasia and paragangliomas. Although recent research has now elucidated several pathways of hypoxia in paragangliomas, nothing is currently known of the genetics or of gene-environment interactions in high-altitude paraganglioma. We postulated that SDH mutations might play a role in these tumors. Experimental Design: Patients from a Mexican family, originating and resident in Guadalajara, were tested for mutations of SDHD, and subsequently, for mutations of SDHB followed by immunohistochemical confirmation of SDHB loss. Results: Two patients, born and resident at altitudes of between 1,560 and 2,240 m, were found to have head and neck paragangliomas, including a remarkably aggressive recurrent tumor. Mutation analysis identified a pathogenic missense mutation in exon 7 of SDHB, c.689G>A, p.Arg230His, and loss of the SDHB protein was confirmed by immunohistochemistry. Conclusions: This is the first report of a SDH gene mutation in paraganglioma at high altitude. A rapidly recurrent head and neck paraganglioma is a very rare finding in an SDH mutation carrier, suggesting a gene-environment interaction. Neither patient showed evidence of sympathetic paraganglioma. Clin Cancer Res; 16(16); 4148–54. ©2010 AACR.
The SmartCAT: an m-health platform for ecological momentary intervention in child anxiety treatment.

INTRODUCTION Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for child anxiety, although efficacious, typically requires 16-20 weekly sessions with a therapist. Brief CBT (BCBT; eight sessions) for child anxiety is promising but may have less favorable outcomes owing to reduced session time. Mobile health (m-health) has the potential to improve BCBT efficacy by delivering ecological momentary intervention to engage youth in learning and practicing CBT skills in their everyday lives (in vivo). MATERIALS AND METHODS We developed an m-health platform entitled SmartCAT (Smartphone-enhanced Child Anxiety Treatment). SmartCAT consists of (1) a smartphone application (app) that cues youth to use the CBT skills taught in sessions, (2) an online portal that allows therapists to monitor skill use, to send cues and treatment-related materials, to engage youth in real-time via secure messages, and to manage rewards, and (3) a communication protocol that allows real-time bidirectional exchange between the app and the portal. A pilot study with nine youth (9-14 years old) examined the platform's feasibility as an adjunct to BCBT. RESULTS SmartCAT was found to be capable of supporting BCBT for child anxiety and received positive feedback from both therapists and youth patients. Patients rated the app as highly usable (mean=1.7 on a 1-7 scale, with 1="easy"). Patients completed 5.36 skills coach entries per session (standard deviation=1.95) and took an average of 3.14 min (standard deviation=0.98 min) to complete the entries. CONCLUSIONS A smartphone app is feasible within CBT for child anxiety. Users found SmartCAT both acceptable and easy to use. Integrating an m-health platform within BCBT for anxious children may facilitate involvement in treatment and dissemination of effective procedures.
GEOMETRIC FEATURE EXTRACTION FOR HAND GESTURE RECOGNITION

Computer applications have been spread ubiquitous due to its essential important that facilitate our daily life, gesture system is one of the most appealing applications that dependents mainly on exploiting the right features that can embody the entire gesture and give the correct meaning of that gesture. For constructing gesture recognition system a serial steps should be considered that are: segmentation the hand, hand gesture modeling, features extraction stage, and finally gestures classification. This work concerned with the representation of the extracted features, the important features should be extracted so that to introduce a full and correct portray of the gesture in the feature space to enable the classifier model to recognize the gesture correctly, and in this work two features are extracted. Experimental results show that the extracted features are effective, robust, and can cover the entire feature space of the selected gestures.
Defect in the maintenance of the apical ectodermal ridge in the Dactylaplasia mouse.

During vertebrate limb development the distal apex of the limb bud ectoderm is induced to form the apical ectodermal ridge (AER). The presence of the AER is required for the continued outgrowth of the limb bud. Classical embryological studies have led to the hypothesis that a secreted mesenchymal factor is required to maintain the AER. We have undertaken a detailed analysis of Dactylaplasia (Dac) mice, a semidominant mutant which displays missing central digits in the fore- and hindlimbs of heterozygous animals and monodactyly in homozygous animals. Our data show that Dac mice have a defect in the maintenance of the AER. At E10.5, the mutant AER is found to be morphologically normal. However, by E11.5 the central aspect of the AER degenerates leaving the anterior and posterior AER intact. In homozygous mice both the central and anterior AER degenerate, while the posterior extremity of the AER is unaffected. Analysis of BrdU incorporation reveals that degeneration of the AER is due to a lack of cell proliferation in the mutant AER. The loss of the AER leads to a reduction in cell proliferation in the subridge mesenchyme at E11.5. The data represent direct genetic evidence for the existence of an AER maintenance activity that is distinct from AER induction and differentiation. Moreover, the data suggest that the role of the AER maintenance factor is to promote cell proliferation in the ridge. Based on our findings, we propose a model for AER maintenance in the vertebrate limb.
MANAGING COMPLEXITY IN DESIGN: THE ROLE OF INTERACTIVE COMPUTER-SUPPORTED METHODS

This paper considers computer-supported design and planning methods in context and presents an evolving conceptual planning process (Structured Planning) as an example of how new methods can reveal structure among information elements previously not perceived as related, so that emerging concepts can be developed more innovatively, holistically and systemically. Since the source of values for decisions in design comes not only from the artifactual world (objective, quantitative data) but also from the world of culture (subjective, qualitative data), the processes discussed are interactive, collaborative methods integrating the best of human insight and cooperation with the best of computer power.
Efeitos da ingestão de água no padrão de reactivação vagal pós-esforço máximo dinâmico

Post-exercise cardiovagal reactivation has been well described in the existent literature. Despite this, it has not been determined whether water ingestion accelerates cardiovagal recovery post-maximal dynamical exercise. Thus, we aimed at determining the influence of drinking 500 mL of water on the cardiovagal reactivation after maximal exercise. Twenty healthy participants (10 men and 10 women, age: 20.6 ± 1.5 years) were included. R-R intervals and gas exchange data were recorded in both conditions at rest (pre- and post-ingestion) and during recovery. R-R intervals were spectrally decomposed using an autoregressive approach. The root mean square successive difference of the r-r interval (rMSSD) was quantified on the first 5 min of recovery and spectral analysis was performed on the reminding epochs of recovery (5-30º min). The effect of drinking 500 mL of water on decreasing resting HR approached significance compared to that seen post-50 mL (Post-50-mL: 64.5 ± 9.9; post-500-mL: 60.4 ± 8.1 bpm) (p = 0.06). MAP was increased post 500-mL of water, but not after 50-mL (p < 0.05). Time and frequency domain HRV were similar (p > 0.05) between conditions (50 vs. 500 mL) during recovery. In conclusion, 500 mL of water intake does not accelerate cardiac vagal reactivation after maximal exercise.
Fast online incremental approach of unseen place classification using disjoint-text attribute prediction

A new approach of unseen place classification in a commercial district is presented. It can classify input scenes into the correct place classes without the needs for sample images of places for training. The number of place classes and their definition are supervised by humans using text information only. A description of individual place classes is obtained from humans as a set of words that are regarded as the disjoint-text-attributes of the unseen place. During classification, our approach determines the number of text-attributes found in an image. Our approach runs in an online incremental manner in the sense that the description of place classes can be updated and a new place class can be added at any time. Our approach can be used, does not require any training dataset, and is available in multiple languages. The evaluation is done by a set of Google Street View images of a shopping area in Japan where both the Japanese and English languages are available. The result shows that the proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art methods of scene text recognition and standard pattern recognition. The computation is sufficiently fast for real-time application.
Secondary Maximum in the Near-Infrared Light Curves of Type Ia Supernovae

We undertake a theoretical study of the near-infrared (NIR) light curves of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia). In these bands, the light curves are distinguished by a secondary maximum occurring roughly 20-30 days after the initial one. Using time-dependent multigroup radiative transfer calculations, we calculate the UBVRIJHK-band light curves of model SN Ia ejecta structures. Our synthetic NIR light curves show distinct secondary maxima and provide favorable fits to observed SNe Ia. We offer a detailed explanation of the origin of the NIR secondary maximum, which is shown to relate directly to the ionization evolution of iron group elements in the ejecta. This understanding provides immediate insight into the dependence of the NIR light curves on the physical properties of the ejecta and in particular explains why brighter supernovae have a later and more prominent secondary maximum. We demonstrate the dependence of the NIR light curves on the mass of 56Ni, the degree of 56Ni mixing, the mass of electron capture elements, the progenitor metallicity, and the abundance of intermediate-mass elements (especially calcium). The secondary maximum is shown to be a valuable diagnostic of these important physical parameters. The models further confirm that SNe Ia should be excellent standard candles in the NIR, with a dispersion of ≲0.2 mag even when the physical properties of the ejecta are varied widely. This study emphasizes the consummate value of NIR observations in probing the structure of SNe Ia and in furthering their cosmological utility.
The homotopy and cohomology of spaces of locally convex curves in the sphere -- II

A smooth curve : [0,1] → S 2 is locally convex if its geodesic curvature is positive at every point. J. A. Little showed that the space of all locally positive curves with (0) = (1) = e1 and ′ (0) = ′ (1) = e2 has three connected components L−1,c, L+1, L−1,n. The space L−1,c is known to be contractible but the topology of the other two connected components is not well understood. We prove that all connected components of LI are simply connected, that H 2 (L+1; Z) = Z 2 and H 2 (L−1,n; Z) = Z.
Adventitious Presence: Volunteer Flax (Linum usitatissimum) in Herbicide-Resistant Canola (Brassica napus)

Abstract Flax is in the process of development as a crop for bio-industrial and nutraceutical products predicated on the use of genetic modification. Before genetically modified (GM) flax is commercially released, effective management practices should be developed to minimize adventitious presence (AP) of GM volunteer flax in subsequent crops. Field research was conducted at four locations during 2007 and 2008 in central Alberta to quantify and mitigate AP of volunteer flax in glufosinate-resistant (GR) and imidazolinone-resistant (IR) canola. A single preplant application of glyphosate at 1,250 g ae ha−1 in GR canola reduced volunteer flax density from 54 to 3 plants m−2 and seed production from 5,963 to 233 seeds m−2. Similarly, the recommended rate of POST glufosinate (600 g ai ha−1) alone effectively controlled volunteer flax and reduced flax seed viability to < 8% and AP to 0.2%. A combination of preplant (glyphosate) and POST (glufosinate) at recommended rates reduced volunteer flax seed production, yield, and AP to near zero in GR canola. Glyphosate applied preplant was equally effective in IR canola, reducing volunteer flax density from 56 to 2 plants m−2, and seed production from 5,571 to 472 seeds m−2. Imazamox + imazethapyr applied POST at all the rates poorly controlled volunteer flax and, even in combination with preplant glyphosate, cannot be recommended for control of flax volunteers in IR canola. Nomenclature: Glufosinate; glyphosate; imazamox; imazethapyr; Canola, Brassica napus L. ‘Invigor 5030’, ‘45H73-CL’; flax, Linum usitatissimum L. ‘CDC Bethune’.
Whole-genome sequencing identifies homozygous BRCA2 deletion guiding treatment in dedifferentiated prostate cancer

Whole-genome sequencing (WGS) has transformed the understanding of the genetic drivers of cancer and is increasingly being used in cancer medicine to identify personalized therapies. Here we describe a case in which the application of WGS identified a tumoral BRCA2 deletion in a patient with aggressive dedifferentiated prostate cancer that was repeat-biopsied after disease progression. This would not have been detected by standard BRCA testing, and it led to additional treatment with a maintenance poly ADP ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitor following platinum-based chemotherapy. This case demonstrates that repeat biopsy upon disease progression and application of WGS to tumor samples has meaningful clinical utility and the potential to transform outcomes in patients with cancer.
Handwritten Gregg Shorthand Recognition

Gregg shorthand is a form of stenography that was invented by John Robert Gregg in 1888. Like cursive longhand, it is completely based on elliptical figures and lines that bisect them. Gregg shorthand is the most popular form of pen stenography in the United States and its Spanish adaptation is fairly popular in Latin America. With the invention of dictation machines, shorthand machines, and the practice of executives writing their own letters on their personal computers, the use of shorthand has gradually declined in the business and reporting world. However, Gregg shorthand is still in use today. The need to process documents on paper by computer has led to an area of research that may be referred to as Document Image Understanding (DIU). The goal of DIU system is to convert a raster image representation of a document. For Example, A hand written Gregg shorthand character or word is converted into an appropriate Symbolic Character in a computer (It may be a scanned character or online written character). Thus it involves many disciplines of computer science including image processing, pattern recognition, natural language processing, artificial intelligence, neural networks and database system. The ultimate goal of this paper is to recognize hand written Gregg shorthand character and Gregg shorthand word.
Rapid Two‐Stage Arterial Switch Operation: Acquisition of Left Ventricular Mass After Pulmonary Artery Banding in Infants With Transposition of the Great Arteries

BackgroundBanding of the pulmonary artery (PAB) in preparation for arterial switch operation (ASO) in patients with transposition of the great arteries (TGA) represents a unique model of acute left ventricular pressure overload in humans. Methods and ResultsTo establish the rate, magnitude, and determinants of left ventricular hypertrophy and the acute effect on ventricular function, serial bidimensional echocardiographic evaluations were performed on 26 patients with TGA after PAB. Mass, volume, and ejection fraction of the left ventricle were measured. Cardiac catheterization data before PAB and again before ASO were reviewed. The mean interval between the PAB and ASO was 9±4 days. The left ventricular to right ventricular pressure ratio before PAB was 0.5 and increased to 1.0 before ASO. The mean percentage increase in left ventricular mass from PAB to ASO was 96%, 95% of which was achieved in the first 7 days. The average rate of left ventricular hypertrophy for the entire period was 0.06 g/h and was 0.19 g/h during the interval from PAB to attainment of maximum left ventricular mass. The most rapid rate of hypertrophy was seen by day 2, with an exponential fall in the growth rate thereafter approaching zero by day 7. Ejection fraction was significantly reduced at 12 hours after PAB, but mean values returned to pre-PAB levels by 3.5 days after banding. The absolute rate of left ventricular hypertrophy correlated directly with body surface area but not to other hemodynamic variables. ConclusionsDoubling of left ventricular mass can be achieved in 1 week after PAB. Function falls acutely due to afterload excess and/or depressed contractility but recovers rapidly as compensatory hypertrophy occurs.
Rule-based machine learning of spatial data concepts

Extensive work has been done on interfacing expert systems with spatial systems such as CAD (computer aided drafting) or GIS (geographic information systems). Likewise, much work has been done on the use of machine learning algorithms to mechanically build the rules which are input into expert systems. This paper explores one particular combination of these areas of research. The rule-based learning algorithm AQ15 was used to classify spatial data from a GIS. A variety of miscellaneous annotation features were classified and input into AQl5 as training data. In order to produce rules which would allow an expert system to reclassify the annotations, AQl5 would need to learn spatial concepts such as “parallel” or “close-to. ” The resulting knowledge base was used to validate existing geographic data.
Recognizing Human Activities Based on Wearable Inertial Measurements - Methods and Applications

On April 10 of 2015 Pekka Siirtola defended his PhD thesis, called �Recognizing Human Activities Based on Wearable Inertial Measurements - Methods and Applications� [1]. The thesis was supervised by Professor Juha Roning and preeximined by Associate Professors Ulf Johansson from University of Boras, Sweden, and Daniel Roggen from University of Sussex, United Kingdom. Pekka Siirtola successfully defended his thesis against his opponent Professor Barbara Hammer from University of Bielefeld, Germany. This publicly open defence was held in Auditorium TS101 at University of Oulu, Finland.
Intelligent Transcription System Based on Spontaneous Speech Processing

With the improvement of the speech recognition technology, semi-automatic generation of transcripts or document records of lectures and meetings has become one of its promising applications. For this purpose, we need to take into account post-processing that includes cleaning of verbatim transcripts and segmentation into sentence and paragraph units. This article presents a novel statistical framework for an intelligent transcription system. The recent progress of automatic speech recognition of lectures and meetings is also reported. Then, several approaches to sentence unit detection and disfluency detection are described, as they are significant in the post-processing of transcripts generated by the speech recognizer
Reflection Components Separation based on Chromaticity and Noise Analysis

Highlight reflected from inhomogeneous objects is the combination of diffuse and specular reflection components. The presence of highlight causes many algorithms in computer vision to produce erroneous results. To resolve this problem, a method to separate diffuse and specular reflection components is required. This paper presents such a method, particularly for objects with uniformly colored surface whose illumination color is known. The method is principally based on the distribution of specular and diffuse points in a two-dimensional chromaticity intensity space. We found that, by utilizing the space, the problem of reflection components separation can be simplified into the problem of identifying diffuse chromaticity. In our analysis, to identify the diffuse chromaticity correctly, an analysis on noise is required, since most real images suffer from it. Unlike existing methods, the proposed method is able to identify diffuse chromaticity robustly for any kind of surface roughness and light direction, without requiring diffuse-specular pixel segmentation. In addition, to enable us to obtain a pure-white specular component, we present a handy normalization technique that does not require approximated linear basis functions.
Superalgebras with Brane Charges

We consider the inclusion of brane charges in AdS5 superalgebras that contain the maximal central extension of the super-Poincaré algebra on ∂AdS5. For theories with N supersymmetries on the boundary, the maximal extension is OSp(1/8N), which contains the group Sp(8N, R) ⊃ U(2N, 2N) ⊃ SU(2, 2) × U(N) as extension of the conformal group. An “intermediate” extension to U(2N, 2N/1) is also discussed. BPS conditions on boundary states are studied in some details. CERN-TH/99-89 March 1999 e-mail: sergio.ferrara@cern.ch, massimo.porrati@nyu.edu Permanent Address
Sense discrimination for physics retrieval

Information Retrieval in technical domains like physics is characterised by long and precise queries, whose meaning is strongly influenced by term context and domain. We treat this as a disambiguation problem, and present initial findings of a retrieval model that posits a higher probability of relevance for documents matching disambiguated query terms. Preliminary evaluation on a real-life physics test collection shows promising performance improvement.
Enhanced cAMP Response Element-Binding Protein Activity Increases Neuronal Excitability, Hippocampal Long-Term Potentiation, and Classical Eyeblink Conditioning in Alert Behaving Mice

The activity-regulated transcription factor cAMP response element-binding protein (CREB) is an essential component of the molecular switch that controls the conversion of short-term into long-term forms of plasticity, including those underlying long-term memory. Previous research in acute brain slices of transgenic animals expressing constitutively active CREB variants has revealed that enhancing CREB activity increases the intrinsic excitability of neurons and facilitates the late phase of long-term potentiation (LTP) in the Schaffer collateral pathway. Here, we report similar changes in plasticity at the Schaffer collateral pathway in alert behaving mice. Forebrain expression of a strong constitutively active CREB variant, VP16–CREB, enhanced in vivo LTP evoked in the Schaffer collateral pathway and caused significant changes in the input/output curve and paired-pulse facilitation in CA3–CA1 synapses, which could be explained by the increased excitability of hippocampal pyramidal neurons. In addition, classical eyeblink conditioning in transgenic mice and control littermates showed larger conditioned responses in mutant mice that were associated to a transient increase in the acquisition rate and in the concomitant learning-dependent change in synaptic strength. The sustained chronic activation of CREB activity, however, impaired the performance in this task. Our experiments demonstrate that the sustained enhancement of CREB function alters the physiology and plasticity of hippocampal circuits in behaving animals and that these changes have important consequences in associative learning.