Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Leveraging Quality Metrics in Voting Model Based Thread Retrieval

Seeking and sharing knowledge on online forums have made them popular in recent years. Although online forums are valuable sources of information, due to variety of sources of messages, retrieving reliable threads with high quality content is an issue. Majority of the existing information retrieval systems ignore the quality of retrieved documents, particularly, in the field of thread retrieval. In this research, we present an approach that employs various quality features in order to investigate the quality of retrieved threads. Different aspects of content quality, including completeness, comprehensiveness, and politeness, are assessed using these features, which lead to finding not only textual, but also conceptual relevant threads for a user query within a forum. To analyse the influence of the features, we used an adopted version of voting model thread search as a retrieval system. We equipped it with each feature solely and also various combinations of features in turn during multiple runs. The results show that incorporating the quality features enhances the effectiveness of the utilised retrieval system significantly. Keywords—Content quality, Forum search, Thread retrieval, Voting techniques.
Simple and choice reaction time in patients with human immunodeficiency virus infection

The performance of 56 homosexual men infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) was compared to that of 23 HIV antibody‐seronegative controls on simple (SRT) and choice (CRT) reaction time tasks. Patients were classified into 3 groups according to Centers for Disease Control clinical criteria. There were 18 patients who had acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), 18 who had AIDS‐related complex (ARC), and 20 who were HIV antibody‐seropositive but otherwise asymptomatic (HIV‐Ab+). The SRT task consisted of 5 trials, each containing 10 target stimuli. The CRT task consisted of 10 trials, each containing 5 target stimuli randomly interspersed with 5 nontarget stimuli. The mean response latency of each of the patient groups on the SRT task was not significantly different from that of controls. However, the performance of patients with AIDS or ARC on the CRT task was significantly lower than that of controls, whereas that of HIV‐Ab+ patients was not. Analysis of the quality of RT task performance also indicated that the impairment of processing efficiency at higher levels of task difficulty reflected a disruption of processing prior to the response selection stage.
Genetic analysis of bacteriophage T4 transducing bacteriophages

Mutations in the genes for nuclear disruption (ndd), endonuclease IV (denB), and the D1 region of the T4 genome are essential for converting bacteriophage T4 into a generalized transducing phage. These mutations gave rise to a very low frequency of transduction, about 10(-8) per infected bacterium. The addition of an rII mutation raised the transduction frequency about 20-fold. An additional 100-fold increase in the transduction frequency was observed with mutations in genes 42, 56, and alc. High-frequency generalized transduction by T4 results from the cumulative effect of these mutations.
The biology of depression in cancer and the relationship between depression and cancer progression

Abstract The prevalence of depressive symptoms in patients with cancer exceeds that observed in the general population and depression is associated with a poorer prognosis in cancer patients. The increased prevalence is not solely explained by the psychosocial stress associated with the diagnosis. Pro-inflammatory cytokines, which induce sickness behaviour with symptoms overlapping those of clinical depression, are validated biomarkers of increased inflammation in patients with cancer. A growing literature reveals that chronic inflammatory processes associated with stress may also underlie depression symptoms in general, and in patients with cancer in particular. Therapeutic modalities, which are frequently poorly tolerated, are used in the treatment of cancer. These interventions are associated with inflammatory reactions, which may help to explain their toxicity. There is evidence that antidepressants can effectively treat symptoms of depression in cancer patients though the database is meager. Novel agents with anti-inflammatory properties may be effective alternatives for patients with treatment-resistant depression who exhibit evidence of increased inflammation.
A novel subspace LDA algorithm for recognition of face images with illumination and pose variations

This paper addresses two LDA problems in face recognition. The first one is small sample size (S3) problem while the second is illumination and pose variations. To overcome the S3 problem, this paper proposes a new method in subspace approach in determining the optimal projection for LDA. Also, an in-depth investigation is conducted on the influence of different illuminations and poses variations. Comparisons with existing LDA-based methods are performed using FERET and Yale Group B face databases. The experimental results show that the proposed method gives the best performance comparing with the existing LDA-based methods for both databases. Moreover, the computational cost of the proposed method is near the same as the existing fastest LDA-based method.
Messages from GRB 060218

GRB 060218 is a watershed event. Statistically, its detection suggests that there is likely a distinct low-luminosity (LL) population of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) whose event rate is much higher than that of conventional high-luminosity GRBs. This LL population may give significant contribution to the diffuse neutrino background flux at energies higher than 1016 eV. The spectral lag of this burst is very long, and roughly follows the luminosity–lag relation of normal GRBs. This, along with the fact that it follows the Ep–Eiso relation as well, suggests that X-ray flashes (XRFs) are natural extension of GRBs in the softer regime and that GRBs and XRFs share the same radiation physics. We discuss how the broadband data pose strong constraints on possible models of the prompt emission of this GRB.
Adenosine and Prostaglandin E2 Cooperate in the Suppression of Immune Responses Mediated by Adaptive Regulatory T Cells*

Adaptive regulatory T cells (Tr1) are induced in the periphery upon encountering cognate antigens. In cancer, their frequency is increased; however, Tr1-mediated suppression mechanisms are not yet defined. Here, we evaluate the simultaneous involvement of ectonucleotidases (CD39/CD73) and cyclooxygenase 2 (COX-2) in Tr1-mediated suppression. Human Tr1 cells were generated from peripheral blood mononuclear cell-derived, sorted CD4+CD25− T cells and incubated with autologous immature dendritic cells, irradiated COX-2+ or COX-2− tumor cells, and IL-2, IL-10, and IL-15 (each at 10–15 IU/ml) for 10 days as described (Bergmann, C., Strauss, L., Zeidler, R., Lang, S., and Whiteside, T. L. (2007) Cancer Immunol. Immunother. 56, 1429–1442). Tr1 were phenotyped by multicolor flow cytometry, and suppression of proliferating responder cells was assessed in carboxyfluorescein diacetate succinimidyl ester-based assays. ATP hydrolysis was measured using a luciferase detection assay, and levels of adenosine or prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) in cell supernatants were analyzed by mass spectrometry or ELISA, respectively. Intracellular cAMP levels were measured by enzyme immunoassay. The COX-2+ tumor induced a greater number of Tr1 than COX-2− tumor (p < 0.05). Tr1 induced by COX-2+ tumor were more suppressive, hydrolyzed more exogenous ATP (p < 0.05), and produced higher levels of adenosine and PGE2 (p < 0.05) than Tr1 induced by COX-2− tumor. Inhibitors of ectonucleotidase activity, A2A and EP2 receptor antagonists, or an inhibitor of the PKA type I decreased Tr1-mediated suppression (p < 0.05), whereas rolipram, a PDE4 inhibitor, increased the intracellular cAMP level in responder cells and their susceptibility to Tr1-mediated suppression. Tr1 present in tumors or the peripheral blood of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma patients co-expressed COX-2, CD39, and CD73. A concomitant inhibition of PGE2 and adenosine via the common intracellular cAMP pathway might be a novel approach for improving results of immune therapies for cancer.
Survival of Igα-Deficient Mature B Cells Requires BAFF-R Function

Expression of a functional BCR is essential for the development of mature B cells and has been invoked in the control of their maintenance. To test this maintenance function in a new experimental setting, we used the tamoxifen-inducible mb1-CreERT2 mouse strain to delete or truncate either the mb-1 gene encoding the BCR signaling subunit Igα or the VDJ segment of the IgH (H chain [HC]). In this system, Cre-mediated deletion of the mb-1 gene is accompanied by expression of a GFP reporter. We found that, although the Igα-deficient mature B cells survive for >20 d in vivo, the HC-deficient or Igα tail-truncated B cell population is short-lived, with the HC-deficient cells displaying signs of an unfolded protein response. We also show that Igα-deficient B cells still respond to the prosurvival factor BAFF in culture and require BAFF-R signaling for their in vivo maintenance. These results suggest that, under certain conditions, the loss of the BCR can be tolerated by mature B cells for some time, whereas HC-deficient B cells, potentially generated by aberrant somatic mutations in the germinal center, are rapidly eliminated.
A soluble form of the HLA-G antigen is encoded by a messenger ribonucleic acid containing intron 4.

The HLA-G primary transcript is alternatively spliced to yield mRNAs encoding three alternative membrane bound proteins. In addition to these forms, a soluble HLA-G protein has been described which is not encoded directly by any of the three alternative mRNAs. To explain the process which might lead to the expression of a soluble HLA-G Ag, we investigated the potential roles proteolytic processing and additional alternative splicing of HLA-G RNA might play. By generating transfected cells with HLA-G cDNA expression driven by a retroviral promoter, it was possible to rule out proteolytic processing of the membrane-bound HLA-G as a mechanism of generating soluble HLA-G, resulting in our focus on alternative splicing as an explanation. Analysis of PCR-amplified cDNA revealed a relatively abundant transcript present in all samples examined which consisted of the full length HLA-G mRNA sequence interrupted by intron 4 sequence. The open reading frame in this mRNA continues into intron 4 terminating 21 amino acids after the alpha 3 domain, thus excluding the transmembrane encoding region and yielding a protein with a highly charged carboxyl terminus. Transfection of the intron 4 containing cDNA, inserted into a retroviral expression vector, into LCL . 221 followed by comparison of the class I protein to native soluble G by two dimensional isoelectric focusing/SDS-PAGE analysis, demonstrated this message encoded the soluble HLA-G protein. In addition, a similar intron containing message derived from the HLA-G2 mRNA was found, suggesting the existence of a soluble form of this alternative HLA-G protein. These findings are discussed in relation to other soluble class I molecules and with regard to potential functions of the soluble HLA-G Ag.
Control Energy and controllability of multilayer Networks

The controllability of multilayer networks has become increasingly important in many areas of science and engineering. In this paper, we identify the general rules that determine the controllability and control energy cost of multilayer networks. First, we quantitatively estimate the control energy cost of multilayer networks and investigate the impacts of different coupling strength and coupling patterns on the control energy cost for multilayer networks. The results indicate that the average energy and the coupling strength have an approximately linear relationship in multilayer networks with two layers. Second, we study how the coupling strength and the connection patterns between different layers affect the controllability of multilayer networks from both theoretical and numerical aspects. The obtained piecewise functional relations between the controllability’s measure and coupling strength reveal the existence of an optimal coupling strength for the different interconnection strategies in multilayer networks. In particular, the numerical experiments demonstrate that there exists a tradeoff between the optimal controllability and optimal control energy for selecting interlayer connection patterns in multilayer networks. These results provide a comprehensive understanding of the impact of interlayer couplings on the controllability and control energy cost for multilayer networks and provide a methodology for selecting the control nodes and coupling strength to maximize the controllability and minimize the control energy cost.
Ibandronate: A Clinical Pharmacological and Pharmacokinetic Update

Ibandronate is a potent nitrogen‐containing bisphosphonate. It has a strong affinity for bone mineral and potently inhibits osteoclast‐mediated bone resorption. Ibandronate is effective for the treatment of hypercalcemia of malignancy, metastatic bone disease, postmenopausal osteoporosis, corticosteroid‐induced osteoporosis, and Paget's disease. Oral ibandronate is rapidly absorbed (tmax < 1 hour), with a low bioavailability (0.63%) that is further reduced (by up to 90%) in the presence of food. Ibandronate has a wide therapeutic index and is not metabolized and, therefore, has a low potential for drug interactions. Given its metabolic stability, ibandronate is eliminated from the blood by partitioning into bone (40%‐50%) and through renal clearance (CLR ∼60 mL/min). The CLR of ibandronate is linearly related to creatinine clearance. The sequestration of ibandronate in bone (VD > 90 L) results in a multiphasic elimination (t1/2 range ∼10–60 hours), characterized by the slow release of ibandronate from the bone compartment. The potency of ibandronate and its sequestration into bone allow ibandronate to be developed as oral and intravenous injection formulations that can be administered with convenient extended between‐dose intervals.
Trailing the Snail: SDN Controller Security Evolution

The first OpenFlow Software-Defined Network (SDN) Controller, NOX, was developed by Nicira Networks and donated to the research community in 2008. Almost 10 years later, there are at least 29 open-source SDN Controllers and many more proprietary solutions. Two of the open-source SDN controllers stand out in terms of broad deployment and strong contributor base; Open Network Operating System (ONOS) and OpenDaylight (ODL). Both have been deployed in live networks. However, despite increasing adoption of SDN, the security of the SDN control plane has developed at a snail's pace. In this paper, the evolution of ONOS and ODL security is discussed. The reflection of this on secure SDN Controller design is analyzed.
Increased Expression of MicroRNA-221 in Gastric Cancer and Its Clinical Significance

OBJECTIVE: MicroRNA-221 (miR-221), which is located on chromosome X, is an oncogenic microRNA that is involved in several human malignancies. This study aimed to characterize the role of miR-221 in the initiation and malignant progression of gastric cancer. METHODS: The level of miR-221 expression in 92 pairs of primary gastric tumour tissue and adjacent nontumour tissue was quantified by real-time reverse transcription—polymerase chain reaction. The relationship between the miR-221 level and clinicopathological features was explored. RESULTS: MiR-221 was up-regulated in 88% (81/92) of gastric cancer tissue samples compared with their paired adjacent nontumour tissue samples. High expression of miR-221 showed a significant correlation with advanced tumour—node—metastasis stage, local invasion and lymphatic metastasis. Univariate and multivariate Cox proportional hazard regression analyses revealed that miR-221 overexpression was an unfavourable prognostic factor for overall survival in patients with gastric cancer. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that miR-221 is a novel prognostic indicator in gastric cancer and may be a potential target for diagnosis and gene therapy.
Abbreviated course of radiation therapy in older patients with glioblastoma multiforme: a prospective randomized clinical trial.

PURPOSE To prospectively compare standard radiation therapy (RT) with an abbreviated course of RT in older patients with glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). PATIENTS AND METHODS One hundred patients with GBM, age 60 years or older, were randomly assigned after surgery to receive either standard RT (60 Gy in 30 fractions over 6 weeks) or a shorter course of RT (40 Gy in 15 fractions over 3 weeks). The primary end point was overall survival. The secondary end points were proportionate survival at 6 months, health-related quality of life (HRQoL), and corticosteroid requirement. HRQoL was assessed using the Karnofsky performance status (KPS) and Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Brain (FACT-Br). RESULTS All patients had died at the time of analysis. Overall survival times measured from randomization were similar at 5.1 months for standard RT versus 5.6 months for the shorter course (log-rank test, P =.57). The survival probabilities at 6 months were also similar at 44.7% for standard RT versus 41.7% for the shorter course (lower-bound 95% CI, -13.7). KPS scores varied markedly but were not significantly different between the two groups (Wilcoxon test, P =.63). Low completion rates of the FACT-Br (45%) precluded meaningful comparisons between the two groups. Of patients completing RT as planned, 49% of patients (standard RT) versus 23% required an increase in posttreatment corticosteroid dosage (chi(2) test, P =. 02). CONCLUSION There is no difference in survival between patients receiving standard RT or short-course RT. In view of the similar KPS scores, decreased increment in corticosteroid requirement, and reduced treatment time, the abbreviated course of RT seems to be a reasonable treatment option for older patients with GBM.
Interactions of water stress and solar irradiance on the physiology and biochemistry of Ligustrum vulgare.

We studied the interactive effects of water stress and solar irradiance on physiological and biochemical traits in Ligustrum vulgare L. , with special emphasis on antioxidant enzymes and flavonoids. Water relations, photosynthetic performance, plant growth, activities of antioxidant enzymes and of phenylalanine-ammonia-lyase, and concentrations of nonstructural carbohydrates and phenylpropanoids were measured in plants growing in 12% (shade) or 100% (sun) sunlight and supplied with 100 or 40% of daily evapotranspiration-demand over a 4-week period. The mild water stress treatment caused leaf water potential and relative water content to decline on average by -0.22 MPa and 4.5%, respectively. In response to the water stress treatment, photosynthetic rates decreased more in sun plants than in shade plants, likely because of declines in photosystem II photochemistry, apparent maximum rate of carboxylation and apparent maximum electron transport rate coupled with significant reductions in stomatal conductance. Antioxidant enzymatic activities, which were much greater in sun leaves than in shade leaves under well-watered conditions, increased (particularly the enzymatic activities associated with hydrogen peroxide removal) in response to water stress only in shade leaves. Antioxidant phenylpropanoids, particularly quercetin and luteolin derivatives, markedly increased in response to full sunlight irrespective of water treatment; however, antioxidant phenylpropanoid concentrations increased in response to water stress only in shade leaves. We suggest that: (1) assimilated carbon in sun plants was used largely to support an effective antioxidant system capable of countering water-stress-induced oxidative damage--an example of cross tolerance; and (2) in shade plants, carbon was also diverted from growth to counter oxidative damage driven by the mild water-stress treatment. Both findings are consistent with the nearly exclusive distribution of L. vulgare in well-watered, partially shaded Mediterranean areas.
Solving CEC 2015 multi-modal competition problems using neighborhood based speciation differential evolution

In this article, a recently proposed niching algorithm called neighborhood based speciation Differential Evolution (NSDE) is used to solve CEC 2015 multi-modal competition problems. Although DE algorithm is effective in solving single global optimal, the result is not acceptalbe when solving multi-optima problems. NSDE was proposed to enable DE with the ability of handling multi-modal optimization problems. In NSDE, the mutation is performed within each Euclidean neighborhood. During the evolution the population of NSDE will evolve toward the respective global/local optimum and the neighborhood mutation can maintain the multiple optima found. The performance of NSDE is compared with the original SDE. From the simulation results, we can observe that NSDE is effective in solving multi-modal optimization problems.
Transcriptional and epigenetic regulation of follicular T-helper cells and their role in autoimmunity

Abstract T-follicular helper (Tfh) cells are a specialized subset of T cells that provide help to B cells and promote the formation of germinal centers (GCs). Tfh cells transmit important signals to B cells that drive class switch recombination, somatic hyper-mutation, the generation of high-affinity antibodies, immunological memory and their differentiation into plasma cells or memory B cells in the GCs. Tfh-cell differentiation is regulated by the coordinated functions of distinct cytokines, including interleukin (IL)-6, IL-21, IL-12, IL-23, IL-2, IL-7 and transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β), as well as transcription factors, including B-cell lymphoma 6 protein (Bcl-6), Signal transducers and activators of transcription (STAT)1, STAT3, STAT4, B-cell activating transcription factor (Batf), interferon regulatory factor 4 (IRF4), v-maf avian musculoaponeurotic fibrosarcoma oncogene homolog (C-Maf), T-cell-specific transcription factor 1 (TCF-1) and Achaete-scute homolog 2 (Acl2), which have been shown to form a complex transcriptional network. In addition, increasing evidence indicates that epigenetic regulations, such as DNA methylation, histone modifications and non-coding RNA regulations, also coordinately control the differentiation and function of Tfh cells along with transcription factors. Furthermore, abnormalities in the regulation of Tfh cells have been associated with several autoimmune diseases, such as systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), multiple sclerosis (MS) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Herein, this review aims to summarize the coordinate regulation and interaction of transcription factors, cytokines and epigenetic modifications that control Tfh-cell differentiation as well as the mechanism of dysregulation of Tfh cells in pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases, which highlight potential therapeutic targets.