Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
CALL FOR PAPERS Intestinal Stem Cells in GI Physiology and Disease CD24 can be used to isolate Lgr5 putative colonic epithelial stem cells in mice

King JB, von Furstenberg RJ, Smith BJ, McNaughton KK, Galanko JA, Henning SJ. CD24 can be used to isolate Lgr5 putative colonic epithelial stem cells in mice. Am J Physiol Gastrointest Liver Physiol 303: G443–G452, 2012. First published June 21, 2012; doi:10.1152/ajpgi.00087. 2012. —A growing body of evidence has implicated CD24, a cell-surface protein, as a marker of colorectal cancer stem cells and target for antitumor therapy, although its presence in normal colonic epithelium has not been fully characterized. Previously, our group showed that CD24-based cell sorting can be used to isolate a fraction of murine small intestinal epithelial cells enriched in actively cycling stem cells. Similarly, we hypothesized that CD24-based isolation of colonic epithelial cells would generate a fraction enriched in actively cycling colonic epithelial stem cells (CESCs). Immunohistochemistry performed on mouse colonic tissue showed CD24 expression in the bottom half of proximal colon crypts and the crypt base in the distal colon. This pattern of distribution was similar to enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) expression in Lgr5-EGFP mice. Areas expressing CD24 contained actively proliferating cells as determined by ethynyl deoxyuridine (EdU) incorporation, with a distinct difference between the proximal colon, where EdU-labeled cells were most frequent in the midcrypt, and the distal colon, where they were primarily at the crypt base. Flow cytometric analyses of single epithelial cells, identified by epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EpCAM) positivity, from mouse colon revealed an actively cycling CD24 fraction that contained the majority of Lgr5-EGFP putative CESCs. Transcript analysis by quantitative RT-PCR confirmed enrichment of active CESC markers [leucine-rich-repeat-containing G protein-coupled receptor 5 (Lgr5), ephrin type B receptor 2 (EphB2), and CD166] in the CD24 EpCAM fraction but also showed enrichment of quiescent CESC markers [leucine-rich repeats and immunoglobin domains (Lrig), doublecortin and calmodulin kinase-like 1 (DCAMKL-1), and murine telomerase reverse transcriptase (mTert)]. We conclude that CD24-based sorting in wild-type mice isolates a colonic epithelial fraction highly enriched in actively cycling and quiescent putative CESCs. Furthermore, the presence of CD24 expression in normal colonic epithelium may have important implications for the use of anti-CD24-based colorectal cancer therapies.
Robotic vision: 3D object recognition and pose determination

A challenge in 3D computer vision is to automatically acquire 3D models of objects through a CCD camera and to use the acquired models to recognize objects and estimate their poses. The PAMI System works on images acquired from a single CCD camera. It first detects salient features from an image and then groups them according to their types as well as their spatial, geometrical and topological relations. The feature grouping types include: a) four corner points and triplets of lines forming corners; b) curve segments fitted into ellipses. The use of matching hypotheses generated based on feature groupings is usually more robust and effective than the combinatorial matching of point features.
Teaching Spatial Thinking from Interdisciplinary Perspective Workshop

The Teaching Spatial Thinking from Interdisciplinary Perspectives (TSTIP) workshop was held at COSIT 2015 in New Mexico, NM. The objective of the workshop was to bring together researchers from a diverse set of fields to address the issue of how to best promote teaching spatial thinking topics from interdisciplinary perspectives. The TSTIP workshop was one project that came out of the TSTIP Initiative, which seeks to promote teaching spatial thinking topics from interdisciplinary perspectives. This short paper introduces the TSTIP Initiative and its projects.
Seasonal Changes in Courtship Song and the Medial Preoptic Area in Male European Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris)

In male starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) courtship song plays a critical role in mate attraction. During the breeding season courtship song occurs prior to copulation and appears to reflect male sexual arousal. Outside the breeding season starlings sing, but song appears unrelated to reproduction. The aromatization of testosterone (T), likely within the medial preoptic nucleus (POM), is critical for the expression of male sexual arousal. The present study was performed to determine whether seasonal changes in the POM might relate to seasonal changes in courtship singing behavior in male starlings. T concentrations, the volume of the POM, and aromatase within the POM were examined both during and outside of the breeding season in male starlings. Song was also recorded at these times both with and without a female present. The POM was largest and contained dense aromatase immunostaining only during the spring breeding season, when T concentrations were highest and males responded to a female with an increase in courtship song. Outside the breeding season the volume of the POM was small, T concentrations were low, and males displayed no changes in song expression in response to female conspecifics. Song bout length was positively related to POM volume, and males sang longer songs in spring. Only males with nestboxes in spring responded to a female, and the POM tended to be larger in these males, suggesting that nestbox possession might influence neuroplasticity within the POM. Overall, the findings suggest that T-dependent plasticity and aromatase activity within the POM might regulate courtship singing in a wild songbird.
Evaluation of navigation skill of elderly people using the cycling wheel chair in a virtual environment

A cycling wheel chair (CWC) is a pedal-driven wheelchair developed as a personal transportation device for patients with hemiplegia after cerebral stroke. The CWC enables the patient to travel much faster than an ordinary wheel chair and is effective for prevention of disuse syndrome in lower limbs. However, the patients often have impairment of cognitive function as well as motor function. It is dangerous for such patients to ride on the CWC on outdoor roads. To cope with this problem, a virtual reality system for the CWC named “Virtual CWC” was developed. The Virtual CWC can provide safe and space-saving training and test environment for the patients. In the present study, a new scenario of the Virtual CWC has been developed to test the patient's cognitive function with respect to navigation as well as driving skills. The normal subjects' “homing vectors” obtained after riding on the Virtual CWC in three kinds of routes were analyzed, and compared between a young group (26 normal subjects; age 23.9 ± 2.5) and an elderly group (14 normal subjects; age 69.9 ± 4.1). As a result, the effect of cooperation between pedaling and steering could be found in the angular error of homing vectors in the case of the elderly group.
Healthcare and support needs of women with suspected breast cancer.

AIM This paper is a report of a study to investigate changes in the healthcare and support needs during the diagnostic period, and factors that affect these needs in women with suspected breast cancer. BACKGROUND Although the needs of women with breast cancer are well recognized, few studies have examined the needs of women with suspected breast cancer during the diagnostic period. METHOD This longitudinal study used an investigator-developed, self-administered questionnaire to collect data from 127 women in Taiwan on three occasions: notification of need for breast biopsy, before biopsy and after diagnosis. The data were collected from November 2004 to April 2005. FINDINGS Participants had high need levels before and after diagnosis, with their top needs in the domains of healthcare services for diagnosis, follow-up and consultation, and information about the disease. They needed disease- and treatment-related information more than emotional support. Need levels were higher (P < 0.01) before diagnosis than after, highest before biopsy, and lowest after diagnosis. Furthermore, needs were higher (P < 0.01) before than after diagnosis for diagnostic services, disease information, and involvement of family and friends. Higher needs were found in married women with more education and no history of benign tumours. Need level did not differ statistically significantly by age, religious status, degree of social support, family history and breast symptoms. CONCLUSION Need levels of women with suspected breast cancer vary during the diagnostic period, are highest before breast biopsy, and related to personal characteristics and cultural context. Therefore, during this period, nursing staff should provide patients and families with culturally sensitive, individualized, supportive care.
Message From the Editors

The Middle East and North Africa Politics Section of the American Political Science Association (APSA) was established in 2018 to support, develop and publish research on the politics of the MENA region utilizing interdisciplinary methodological, theoretical and empirical tools. It seeks to fully integrate the rigorous study of the politics of the Middle East with the broader discipline of Political Science, to serve as an institutional home for the community of political scientists dedicated to the Middle East. This Newsletter is a forum for discussion of research and issues of interest to the community.
Fusion of intensity/coherent information using region covariance features for unsupervised classification of SAR imagery

Unsupervised classification of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery is an essential step in SAR image interpretation. There is a growing demand for an efficient way to fuse multi-information of SAR imagery. This paper presents an intensity/coherent information fusion algorithm by using region covariance features for unsupervised classification. More precisely, we firstly extract the intensity properties and coherent characteristics from each pixel of SAR imagery, then use the region covariance descriptor to fuse the intensity and coherent features, and finally exploit the K-means algorithm to obtain the final unsupervised classification map. Experimental results on SAR imagery demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed fusion scheme.
Humfeld and Grunert . — Temperature-dependent frequency preferences in treefrogs

—Males of many animal species produce conspicuous signals to attract mates; male treefrogs produce loud and persistent acoustic signals called advertisement calls. Frogs face an interesting challenge in that temperature can differentially impact signal production and perception, leading to a mismatch between sender and receiver. For instance, female Green Treefrogs (Hyla cinerea) exhibit temperature-sensitive preferences for the frequency of the advertisement call, potentially resulting in interspecific hybridization at low temperatures. Considering climate predictions by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we investigated whether, and by how much, temperature modifies female preferences for natural variation in spectral properties of male advertisement calls. The mate-choice preferences of the Gray Treefrog (H. versicolor) have been extensively studied; females prefer calls with standard bimodal frequency peaks of 1100 and 2200 Hz over calls with higher and lower frequencies. These preferences were determined at 20° C, but the dominant frequency of calls is positively correlated with temperature. Using two-speaker choice experiments, we tested the hypothesis that acoustic preferences of female H. versicolor for the frequency of male advertisement calls vary based on ambient temperatures (15, 20 and 25° C). We found that female preferences based upon frequency are, at best, only moderately temperature dependent. We discuss the possible neurophysiological basis for the seeming lack of temperature coupling in this aspect of the Gray Treefrog communication system, and conclude that mate-choice decisions based on frequency will not be significantly impacted by modest (2° C) changes in environmental temperatures.
Simulando el análisis de hacinamiento sectorial en empresas colombianas

El objetivo de este trabajo es hacer una interpretacion de la herramienta “hacinamiento estrategico” la cual fue propuesta por el profesor Luis F. Restrepo P. y Hugo A. Rivera en el ano 2006 a traves del Centro de Estudios Empresariales para la Perdurabilidad. El analisis de hacinamiento es una herramienta que hace parte complementaria del Analisis Estructural de Sectores Estrategicos (AESE), la cual muestra la percepcion de imitacion que tiene una empresa sobre un sector estrategico determinado. En este trabajo se presenta una interpretacion formal de los planteamientos teoricos en los cuales se basa el hacinamiento; luego de la formalizacion se desarrolla una simulacion que muestra nuevas formas de observar la imitacion en un sector estrategico. Las tecnicas utilizadas para la nueva observacion son el analisis de discriminante, y la probabilidad condicional.
Factors Affecting the Competitiveness of the Food Industry By Using Porters Five Forces Model Case Study in Hamadan Province, Iran

Competitiveness can be defined as a firm? s success in comparison with other firms in the industry, national and international scene. According to the internationalization of markets, the loss of long distances and countries borders and simplify the entry of firms to international competition than in previous decades, In this study, the researcher will study factors affecting the competitiveness of the food industry by using Michael Porter? s competitive forces model includes five axes: competition among competitors, bargaining power of buyers, bargaining power of raw material suppliers, threat of entry of new competitors and the threat of the substitute products and Next, the researcher presents strategies to improve competitive situation of the food industry with primary data (such as the Internet, articles in the field, etc.) and open interviews with several experts in the food industry that can be concluded each Porter? s five forces play a role in improving competitiveness. But the competition between competitors is identified as the most important indicator for the industry that can be used to create opportunities for the firm and play a better performance than the competitors in the competition scene. In addition to Porter? s five competitive forces, we could also mention the most important factors in the success of firms such as: the quality and reasonable prices, modern technology, have strong management, rich investors and government support.
Usability und Smart Home: Aktuelle Herausforderungen und Implikationen

Smart Home wird immer mehr zu einem Mainstream-Thema. Während sich früher vor allem technikaffine Personen mit dem Thema auseinandergesetzt haben, wird heute auch in „normalen“ Haushalten für den Einsatz entsprechender Hardund Softwarelösungen geworben. Dies impliziert als nur eine von vielen Herausforderungen, dass die Lösungen einer breiten Nutzergruppe mit verschiedenen Eigenschaften zugänglich sein müssen. Im Rahmen des Usability-Engineering-Prozesses einer SmartHome-Anwendung haben wir durch verschiedene Evaluationen solche Herausforderungen und Fragestellungen identifiziert und diskutieren in diesem Paper mögliche Lösungsansätze.
Discretizations for the Incompressible Navier-Stokes Equations Based on the Lattice Boltzmann Method

A discrete velocity model with spatial and velocity discretization based on a lattice Boltzmann method is considered in the low Mach number limit. A uniform numerical scheme for this model is investigated. In the limit, the scheme reduces to a finite difference scheme for the incompressible Navier--Stokes equation, which is a projection method with a second order spatial discretization on a regular grid. The discretization is analyzed and the method is compared to Chorin's original spatial discretization. Numerical results supporting the analytical statements are presented.
A robust deterministic annealing algorithm for data clustering

In this paper, a new robust deterministic annealing (RDA) clustering algorithm is proposed. This method takes advantages of conventional noise clustering (NC) and deterministic annealing (DA) algorithms in terms of independence of data initialization, ability to avoid poor local optima, better performance for unbalanced data, and robustness against noise. The superiority of the proposed RDA clustering algorithm is supported by simulation results.
The effect of in vitro culture on cleavage rates and morphology of the in vivo- developed embryos in mice

Background: Research studies on reproductive mechanism of laboratory animals are essential for further advancement of assisted reproductive techniques (ART). One of these studies includes the assessment of in-vitro development of pre-implantation embryos. The objective was to compare the cleavage rates and morphology of in-vivo formed 2 to 8 cell embryos and blastocysts with in-vitro culture of the same embryos for 24 h. Materials and Methods: 6-8 weeks old female NMRI mice were superovulated with 8IU pregnant mare's serum gonadotropin (PMSG, ip). Two superovulated animals were caged with one male mouse for mating. Mated mice were killed by cervical dislocation at different time intervals to collect a total of 200 (50/ each) 2, 4, 8, and blastocyst embryos from uterine tubes and horns. Following morphological evaluation and cleavage rates, all embryos were incubated in Whittingham's T6 media+5% BSA for 24 h. Following incubation at 37oC in 5% CO2, the cleavage rates as well as morphological feature of each embryo was re-evaluated and compared with the original embryos. Results: The best quality embryos collected from uterine tubes were at 2-cells stage, which were reduced when compared with in-vivo developed 4-8 cells embryos. 88% and 52% of 2 and 8 cells embryos were respectively at grade A stage. 28 embryos out of 50 eight-cell embryos were at grades C and D after incubation. Following in vitro culture, the development of 16%, 24%, 24%, and 40% of the 2, 4, 8 cells, and blastocysts were arrested, respectively. Also, only 2 blastocysts (8%) reached the hatching stage which in comparison with in-vivo blstocysts were increased (P>0.05). Conclusion: In-vitro culture of the in-vivo formed embryos reduced their cleavage rates and morphology, especially at more advanced stages. Therefore, it becomes necessary to improve the in-vitro culture condition and to transfer the embryos at early stage to consequently improve the implantation rates.
IFS: Intelligent flow sampling for network security–an adaptive approach

In order to cope with an increasing volume of network traffic, flow sampling methods are deployed to reduce the volume of log data stored for monitoring, attack detection and forensic purposes. Sampling frequently changes the statistical properties of the data and can reduce the effectiveness of subsequent analysis or processing. We propose two concepts that mitigate the negative impact of sampling on the data. Late sampling is based on a simple idea that the features used by the analytic algorithms can be extracted before the sampling and attached to the surviving flows. The surviving flows thus carry the representation of the original statistical distribution in these attached features. The second concept we introduce is that of adaptive sampling. Adaptive sampling deliberatively skews the distribution of the surviving data to over‐represent the rare flows or flows with rare feature values. This preserves the variability of the data and is critical for the analysis of malicious traffic, such as the detection of stealthy, hidden threats. Our approach has been extensively validated on standard NetFlow data, as well as on HTTP proxy logs that approximate the use‐case of enriched IPFIX for the network forensics. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Water as the Key to Proto-Aragonite Amorphous CaCO3.

Temperature and pH value can affect the short-range order of proto-structured and additive-free amorphous calcium carbonates (ACCs). Whereas a distinct change occurs in proto-vaterite (pv) ACC above 45 °C at pH 9.80, proto-calcite (pc) ACC (pH 8.75) is unaffected within the investigated range of temperatures (7-65 °C). IR and NMR spectroscopic studies together with EXAFS analysis showed that the temperature-induced change is related to the formation of proto-aragonite (pa) ACC. The data strongly suggest that the binding of water molecules induces dipole moments across the carbonate ions in pa-ACC as in aragonite, where the dipole moments are due to the symmetry of the crystal structure. Altogether, a (pseudo-)phase diagram of the CaCO3 polyamorphism in which water plays a key role can be formulated based on variables of state, such as the temperature, and solution parameters, such as the pH value.
Orta Derecede Yüksek Rakımda (185 m-Erzurum) Yaşayan Okul Çocuklarında Normal Elektrokardiyografi Standartları

ÖZET: Amaç: Elek tro kar di yog ra fi (EKG) kalp-da mar sis te mi nin de ğer len di ril me sin de önem li bir ta nı ara cı dır. De ği şik yaş grup la rın da EKG stan dart la rı yaş, cins, ağır lık, boy ve vü cut ala nı na gö re fark lı lık lar gös te re bi lir. Pe di at rik EKG pa ra met re le ri için nor mal sı nır la rı be lir le mek üze re ya pıl mış ça lış ma lar mevcut olmakla bir lik te bun la rın ço ğun lu ğun da ba zı ek sik lik ler bu lun mak ta dır. Ra kı mın nor mal EKG sı nır la rı üze ri ne olan et ki si araş tı rıl ma mış tır. Bu ça lış ma da ama cı mız; or ta de re cede yük sek ra kım da (1850 m-Er zu rum) ya şa yan ço cuk lar da nor mal EKG stan dart la rı nı be lir le mek tir. Ge reç ve Yön tem ler: Bu ça lış ma için Er zu rum şehir mer ke zin de ki il köğ re tim okul la rı na de vam eden 84.000 ço cuk ara sın dan kü me ör nek le me yön te miy le 3770 ço cuk sis te ma tik bir şekil de se çil di. Tüm ço cuk la rın fi zik mu a ye ne le ri ya pıl dı ve EKG ka yıt la rı alın dı. He def po pu las yo nu tem sil ede cek sa yı da (1822) ço cuk 3770 ço cuk ara sın dan se çil di ve ça lış ma ya dâhil edil di. Top lam 292 ço cu ğun EKG ’si; ro ma tiz mal kalp has ta lı ğı (n= 2), kon je ni tal kalp has ta lı ğı (n= 6), Wolf-Par kin son-Whi te Sen dro mu (n= 2), boy ve/ve ya ki lo per sen ti li <3 ve ya >97 (n= 64), gü rül tü ye bağ lı ye ter siz EKG kay dı (n= 218) ne de niy le ça lış ma dan çı ka rıl dı. Ge ri ye ka lan 1530 ço cu ğun EKG ’le ri ça lış ma ya dâhil edil di. Bul gu lar: Ça lış ma ya dâhil edi len ço cuk la rın 754’ü (%49.3) er kek olup, or ta la ma yaş 10.8±6.94 (6-16) yıl idi. Me di an, 2. ve 98. per sen til de ğer le ri kli nik ola rak iliş ki li pa ra met re ler için be lir len di. Da ha ön ce de niz se vi ye sin de ya pıl mış olan bir ça lış ma nın so nuç la rı ile kar şı laş tı rıl dı ğın da bi zim so nuç la rı mız da V3R’da yük sek R-dal ga gen li ği ve R/S ora nı ha riç, sağ ven tri kül yük len me si ni gös te ren bir bul gu yok tu. So nuç: Bu ça lış ma ile Er zu rum’da ya şa yan 6-8 yaş, 8-12 yaş, 12-16 yaş gru bu ço cuk lar için nor mal EKG stan dart la rı be lir len di. Ça lış ma so nuç la rı mız, or ta de re ce de yük sek ra kı mın ço cuk lar da nor mal EKG pa ra met re le ri üze ri ne önem li bir et ki si nin ol ma dı ğı nı gös ter di.