Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Comparison of Active and Passive Virtual Reality Exposure Scenarios to Elicit Social Anxiety

Social phobia is an anxiety disorder that results in an excessive and unreasonable fear of social situations. As a safe and controlled tool, Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy (VRET) has been used to treat anxiety disorders and phobias . This paper aims to study whether VRET with active scenarios can challenge a person more than passive scenarios. By comparing participants who were exposed to active and passive scenarios in VRET, we show that active scenarios are more effective than passive scenarios to elicit social anxiety in healthy participants. We focus on eliciting social anxiety and creating the sense of presence as two parameters enhancing the efficacy of VRET scenarios.
Monitoring Intrathoracic Impedance in Heart Failure Patients: Implications for Inpatient Use

Monitoring of intrathoracic impedance to evaluate heart failure status has been used for some years in the outpatient setting. Recent technological advances in pacemaker and internal cardioverter-defibrillator design allow for easier access to that same information in the inpatient setting. This has implications for earlier and more precise recognition and treatment of heart failure in the hospitalized patient and for reducing hospital length of stay.
Origin of Plasmid-Mediated Quinolone Resistance Determinant QnrA

ABSTRACT Plasmid-mediated resistance to quinolones is increasingly reported in studies of Enterobacteriaceae. Using a PCR-based strategy, a series of gram-negative species were screened for qnrA-like genes. Shewanella algae, an environmental species from marine and fresh water, was identified as its reservoir. This is a one of the very few examples of progenitor identification of an acquired antibiotic resistance gene.
The network monitoring system based on Cacti for EAST

During the smooth running of EAST (Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak), a perfect network management system guaranteeing a robust network is important. In the present complex network infrastructure, it is a daunting task to manage all the devices manually in a network and make sure they are not only up and running but also performing optimally. Therefore, a web-based software system is developed to implement the real-time monitoring of the EAST experimental network in this paper. Written by the language of PHP, the system based on Cacti uses the RRDTool (Round-robin database tool) engine to store data, stores the systems configuration information by MySQL, and collects periodical data through Net-SNMP. It has realized data acquisition, network weathermap, fault alarm, user management and other modules. Compared with the previous management way, our system can dynamically monitor the network link state, bandwidth usage, the information of network devices load in real time, and give the real monitoring effect; it can also find the various faults and give alarm by sending text messages and emails respectively, so that we can take appropriate measures to resolve them in time. Compared to Email alarm, SMS (Short Message Service) based on the hardware of GSM Modem has the advantages of faster speed and more reliable communication signal. So far, the monitoring system has been successfully applied in the network of EAST and greatly improved the efficiency of network management.
A Two-Hop Multi-Relay Secure Transmission with Improved Suboptimal Relay Selection Scheme

—This work studies the use of relay selection in reducing the capability of a hidden eavesdropper to intercept the confidential message transmitted between information source and legitimate receiver. Specifically, an improved version of the suboptimal selection with jamming scheme (SSJ) is proposed. To achieve a secure transmission system, we propose the choice of best relay node that will forward the confidential message only when the link quality of the selected relay terminal meets some predefined thresholds and the signal is transmitted with low power. The simulation results show that our proposed scheme can significantly improve the system performance in term of average secrecy throughput and intercept probability.
Numerical analysis for directivity improvement of radome structure

A novel approach of analytically and numerically calculating the relationship of directivity with the spacing height of copper grid layer over the patch, termed as radome structure by the present team of authors is presented. Numerous designs and models of radome structure are conceptually solved and evaluated using finite element method (FEM) based High Frequency Structure Simulator (HFSS) software tool. Single copper grid layer over the patch antenna for achieving high directivity is described. Newton's divided difference method is applied on the radome structure for evaluating the performance parameters of the antenna. A global formula is developed to indicate the relationship of the directivity with the spacing height of the patch antenna by varying the distance of copper grid layer and observing its effect on the directivity of the patch using electromagnetic wave solver HFSS.
Posttranslational Processing of Methanococcus voltae Preflagellin by Preflagellin Peptidases of M. voltae and Other Methanogens

ABSTRACT Methanococcus voltae is a mesophilic archaeon with flagella composed of flagellins that are initially made with 11- or 12-amino-acid leader peptides that are cleaved prior to incorporation of the flagellin into the growing filament. Preflagellin peptidase activity was demonstrated in immunoblotting experiments with flagellin antibody to detect unprocessed and processed flagellin subunits.Escherichia coli membranes containing the expressedM. voltae preflagellin (as the substrate) were combined in vitro with methanogen membranes (as the enzyme source). Correct processing of the preflagellin to the mature flagellin was also shown directly by comparison of the N-terminal sequences of the two flagellin species. M. voltae preflagellin peptidase activity was optimal at 37°C and pH 8.5 and in the presence of 0.4 M KCl with 0.25% (vol/vol) Triton X-100.
Nove metode u mukogingivalnoj kirurgiji

The mucogingival problem is anatomical – morphological discrepancy in the mucogingival complex formed by keratinized ginigiva, alveolar mucosa and mucogingival line. The causes of such discrepancy are often a combination of genetic and acquired factors, such as dehiscence and fenestration, high coronal attached frenulum, shallow vestibulum, poor oral hygiene and overly aggressive brushing. Due to impaired aesthetic and functional values, the mucogingival discrepancy, or gingival recession is most often treated by a surgical procedure of covering the root. There are many techniques which can be used to overcome the recession such as pedicle soft tissue grafts techniques, free soft tissue grafts techniques, guided tissue regeneration, enamel matrix derivatives and growth factors. The goal of these therapeutic procedures is to completely cover the exposed root and regenerate all the lost periodontal tissue teeth with gingival recession. As the regeneration of periodontal tissue is mostly achieved by applying the enamel matrix derivatives and growth factors, they are increasingly being explored and applied today. There is an Emdogain® product on the market containing the enamel matrix protein derivatives. These proteins are extracted from the toothpickets of young pig teeth. They make the regeneration of periodontal tissues by imitating the biological sequence of events during the periodontal development. In the therapy of gingival recessions there is a significant importance of recombinant human platelet-induced growth factor (rhPDGF), which stimulates proliferation and chemotaxis of cells for the development of periodontal tissue.
ERbB‐2 expression is rate‐limiting for epidermal growth factor–mediated stimulation of ovarian cancer cell proliferation

Over‐expression of the ErbB‐2 proto‐oncogene frequently coincides with an aggressive clinical course of certain human adenocarcinomas. The ErbB‐2 receptor is a member of the ErbB family of growth factor receptors, and within this complex signaling network, ErbB‐2‐containing heterodimers are preferentially formed. To assess whether ErbB‐2 is a critical component in epidermal growth factor (EGF)–mediated stimulation of tumor cell proliferation, we used as a model SK‐OV‐3 ovarian cancer cells, which over‐express EGF receptor (EGFR) and ErbB‐2 receptors. In these cells, we reduced ErbB‐2 mRNA and protein expression by transfection with ErbB‐2‐targeted hammerhead ribozymes and generated cell lines expressing different levels of ErbB‐2. In SK‐OV‐3 cells, ErbB‐2 expression conferred a growth advantage and soft agar experiments revealed that ErbB‐2 was rate‐limiting for anchorage‐independent growth. The induction of colony formation by EGF was completely abrogated in ErbB‐2‐depleted cells, despite unchanged expression levels and tyrosine phosphorylation of the EGFR. The duration of EGF‐mediated c‐Fos mRNA up‐regulation was decreased in parallel with loss of ErbB‐2 expression. Furthermore, the rate of spontaneous apoptosis was increased in ErbB‐2‐depleted cells. Our results demonstrate that in human ovarian cancer cells the EGFR–ErbB‐2 heterodimer, and not the EGFR homodimer, can be rate‐limiting for EGF‐mediated proliferation, thus suggesting that the oncogenic activity of ErbB‐2 in human tumors is due in part to its ability to increase the growth response to stroma‐derived EGF‐like growth factors. Int. J. Cancer 86:644–651, 2000. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Arbuscular mycorrhizae improves photosynthesis and water status of Zea mays L. under drought stress

The influences of arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungus on growth, gas exchange, chlorophyll concentration, chlo rophyll fluorescence and water status of maize ( Zea mays L.) plants were studied in pot culture under well-watered and drought stress conditions. The maize plants were grown in a sand and black soil mixture for 4 weeks, and then exposed to drought stress for 4 weeks. Drought stress significantly decreased AM colonization and total dry weight. AM symbioses notably enhanced net photosynthetic rate and transpiration rate, but decreased intercellular CO 2 concentration of maize plants regardless of water treatments. Mycorrhizal plants had higher stomatal conductance than non-mycorrhizal plants under drought stress. The concentrations of chlorophyll were higher in mycorrhizal than non-mycorrhizal plants under drought stress. AM colonization significantly increased maximal fluorescence, maximum quantum efficiency of PSII photochemistry and potential photochemical efficiency, but decreased prima ry fluorescence under well-watered and droughted conditions. Mycorrhizal maize plants had higher relative water content and water use efficiency under drought stress compared with non-mycorrhizal plants. The results indicated that AM symbiosis alleviates the toxic effect of drought stress via improving photosynthesis and water status of maize plants.
Factors Explaining the Consumers' Willingness-to-Pay for a "Typical" Food Product in Spain: Evidence from Experimental Auctions

A random nth price experimental auction is used to elicit the willingness to pay (WTP) a premium for the locally produced and high quality white bean "Mongeta Ganxet" (MG) (Catalonia - Spain). Moreover, we are interested in testing the effect on the WTP of providing different pieces of information to participants. Results indicate that the provision of information on organoleptic, nutritional and cooking characteristics of the MG as well as their tasting has increased participants' WTP. Also, providing reference prices of substitutive products (both conventional and alternative high quality white beans) positively stimulates the premium participants are willing to pay for the MG. Finally, the level of consumption, the degree of knowledge about the product and the participants' previous experience increase the purchasing intention of the MG.
Cardiolipin is not essential for the growth of Saccharomyces cerevisiae on fermentable or non‐fermentable carbon sources

Cardiolipin is a unique dimeric phospholipid, which is present throughout the eukaryotic kingdom and is specifically localized in mitochondrial membranes. It is widely believed that mitochondria possess an essential requirement for this phospholipid. To determine whether cardiolipin is essential for yeast growth, we generated a cardiolipin synthase null mutant by disrupting the CLS1 gene (open reading frame YDL142c on chromosome IV) of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Biochemical analysis of the mutant indicated that it had no cardiolipin synthase activity and no cardiolipin in its membranes. The enzyme phosphatidylglycerolphosphate synthase, which catalyses the committed step of the cardiolipin pathway, remained unaffected in the null mutant. Haploid cells containing the null allele are viable in media containing glucose, galactose or glycerol/ethanol as the sole carbon source, although growth in galactose or glycerol/ethanol is somewhat reduced in the mutant compared with the wild type. These results indicate that cardiolipin is not essential for the growth of S. cerevisiae in fermentable or non‐fermentable carbon sources.
Role of NK-1 and NK-2 tachykinin receptor antagonism on the growth of human breast carcinoma cell line MDA-MB-231

We demonstrate that neurokinin A (NKA) and substance P (SP) play a role in the proliferation of the estrogen receptor-negative (ER–) cell line MDA-MB-231, a human breast carcinoma expressing both NK-1 and NK-2 receptors. In vitro experiments showed that the specific receptor antagonists MEN 11467 (NK-1) and nepadutant (MEN 11420; NK-2) inhibited tumor cell proliferation, and blocked the stimulatory effect of SP and NKA. Anti-tumoral activity of NK-1 and NK-2 receptor antagonists was demonstrated in nude mice, measuring growth inhibition of MDA-MB-231 tumor cells xenografted s.c. and by using the hollow-fiber assay. In both systems a significant inhibition was found when compounds were administered at 5 mg/kg i.v. every day for 2 weeks. Results obtained from both these models suggest that the in vivo activity of NK-1 and NK-2 antagonists may be a result of a cytostatic effect rather than a cytotoxic effect. Our results suggest that the control of breast carcinoma (ER–) growth by tachykinin receptor antagonists may become a new form of targeted therapy for these human tumors.
Deep Speaker Feature Learning for Text-Independent Speaker Verification

Recently deep neural networks (DNNs) have been used to learn speaker features. However, the quality of the learned features is not sufficiently good, so a complex back-end model, either neural or probabilistic, has to be used to address the residual uncertainty when applied to speaker verification, just as with raw features. This paper presents a convolutional time-delay deep neural network structure (CT-DNN) for speaker feature learning. Our experimental results on the Fisher database demonstrated that this CT-DNN can produce high-quality speaker features: even with a single feature (0.3 seconds including the context), the EER can be as low as 7.68%. This effectively confirmed that the speaker trait is largely a deterministic short-time property rather than a long-time distributional pattern, and therefore can be extracted from just dozens of frames.
Transforming growth factor-beta protein and mRNA in glomeruli in normal and diseased human kidneys.

BACKGROUND Evidence indicates a key role for transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta) in the accumulation of pathologic extracellular matrix in experimental glomerular injury. The aim of this study was to elucidate the expression of TGF-beta and its role in human glomerulonephritis. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN Expression of TGF-beta 1 in normal and diseased human kidneys was examined by immunohistochemical staining with two antibodies (Ab1 and Ab2), and by in situ hybridization with an oligonucleotide probe. RESULTS Staining with Ab1, which mainly recognizes mature TGF-beta 1 and the latency-associated peptide (LAP) of natural TGF-beta 1, was linearly positive along the glomerular basement membrane (GBM) and weakly so in the mesangium of normal tissues and those of various glomerular diseases which were pretreated with acid-urea to unmask a hidden epitope. Ab2, which reacts mainly with TGF-beta-LAP, bound to the mesangium and sclerotic areas of the tissues untreated with acid-urea. Immunoelectron microscopy showed that Ab1 was localized to the GBM and the mesangial matrix, and that Ab2 was distributed in subepithelial, or mesangial/paramesangial electron-dense deposits. The presence of mature TGF-beta 1 and TGF-beta-LAP in normal kidneys was confirmed by immunoblotting using guanidine-extracted fractions of glomeruli and GBM isolated from normal human kidneys. Mesangial staining of TGF-beta 1 with Ab2 was significantly correlated with the mesangial matrix increase in mesangial proliferative types of nephritis. In situ hybridization revealed TGF-beta 1 mRNA expression in glomerular cells. Cells with positive mRNA signals were evident in glomeruli that were increased in both mesangial cells and TGF-beta 1 protein expression. The glomerular cells with positive signals were numerous, compared with the number of infiltrating monocyte-macrophages identified with a monoclonal antibody. CONCLUSIONS These results indicate that mature TGF-beta and TGF-beta-LAP are localized in association with the matrix components of GBM or mesangium, and with immune deposits in human glomeruli. Glomerular expression of TGF-beta is enhanced in human glomerular diseases, and may contribute to the mesangial matrix increase.
Suppressed Fin-LER Induced Variability in Negative Capacitance FinFETs

This letter investigates the impact of fin line-edge roughness (Fin-LER) on the intrinsic variation of negative capacitance FinFETs (NC-FinFETs) by TCAD atomistic simulation coupled with the Landau–Khalatnikov equation. We report a feedback mechanism stemming from the internal voltage amplification inherent in the negative capacitance FET. This feedback mechanism results in the superior immunity to Fin-LER-induced threshold-voltage and subthreshold-swing variations for NC-FinFETs as compared with the FinFET counterparts. This letter may provide insights for device/circuit designs using negative capacitance FETs.
The erythrocyte sedimentation rate and packed cell volume in the domestic fowl with respect to age and sex.

Synopsis In both sexes erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and erythrocyte volume (EV) fluctuated with age. The relationship between ESR and EV remained constant for both cocks and non‐laying hens over the whole age‐range. With the onset of sexual maturity in hens the ESR was found to be raised above the levels for non‐laying hens and another relationship between ESR and EV was established. The increased ESR at sexual maturity was related to the increase of lipophospho‐protein in the blood plasma.
Résolution des coréférences dans des comptes rendus cliniques. Une expérimentation issue du défi i2b2/VA 2011

Nous presentons les experimentations realisees en matiere de resolution des coreferences medicales lors de notre participation au defi international i2b2/VA 2011. Nous avons utilise a la fois des approches a base de regles et par apprentissage. Nous avons d'abord teste un modele par apprentissage qui detecte les singletons, concepts qui n'occurrent dans aucune chaine de coreference. Nous avons ensuite etabli trois methodes a base de regles pour detecter les paires de coreferences. Les methodes a base de regles ont permis l'obtention des meilleurs resultats sur les corpus d'entrainement comme sur les corpus de l'evaluation officielle, selon une F-mesure moyenne calculee via B³, MUC, BLANC et CEAF. Notre meilleur systeme s'est ainsi classe 4e sur 8 participants sur le corpus ODIE (F = 0,802) et 9e sur 20 participants sur le corpus i2b2/VA (F = 0,856)
On Weyuker's Axioms For Software Complexity Measures

Properties for software complexity measures are discussed. It is shown that a collection of nine properties suggested by E.J. Weyuker is inadequate for determining the quality of a software complexity measure. (see ibid., vol.14, p.1357-65, 1988). A complexity measure which satisfies all nine of the properties, but which has absolutely no practical utility in measuring the complexity of a program is presented. It is concluded that satisfying all of the nine properties is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for a good complexity measure. >
Exploring the relationship between body mass index and health-related quality of life: A pilot study of the impact of weight self-stigma and experiential avoidance

Health-related quality of life (HRQL) has been shown to deteriorate as body mass index (BMI) increases. Recent research suggests weight stigma and experiential avoidance may partially account for the relationship between BMI and HRQL. Eighty-seven adults recruited from a weight-loss clinic completed an intake assessment, which consisted of physical measurement taking and completion of self-report measures. Experiential avoidance and weight self-stigma were significant predictors of HRQL and mediated the relationship between BMI and HRQL. Results provide preliminary support for targeting weight stigma and experiential avoidance in order to produce changes in HRQL with or without concurrent weight loss.
Concise Review: Adipose‐Derived Stromal Vascular Fraction Cells and Platelet‐Rich Plasma: Basic and Clinical Implications for Tissue Engineering Therapies in Regenerative Surgery

Cell‐based therapy and regenerative medicine offer a paradigm shift in regard to various diseases causing loss of substance or volume and tissue or organ damage. Recently, many authors have focused their attention on mesenchymal stem cells for their capacity to differentiate into many cell lineages. The most widely studied types are bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells and adipose‐derived stem cells (ADSCs), which display similar results. Based on the literature, we believe that the ADSCs offer advantages because of lower morbidity during the harvesting procedure. Additionally, platelet‐rich plasma can be used in this field for its ability to stimulate tissue regeneration. The aims of this article are to describe ADSC preparation and isolation procedures, preparation of platelet‐rich plasma, and the application of ADSCs in regenerative plastic surgery. We also discuss the mechanisms and future role of ADSCs in cell‐based therapy and tissue engineering.