Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Blockers of sodium and calcium entry protect axons from nitric oxide‐mediated degeneration

Axonal degeneration can be an important cause of permanent disability in neurological disorders in which inflammation is prominent, including multiple sclerosis and Guillain–Barré syndrome. The mechanisms responsible for the degeneration remain unclear, but it is likely that axons succumb to factors produced at the site of inflammation, such as nitric oxide (NO). We previously have shown that axons exposed to NO in vivo can undergo degeneration, especially if the axons are electrically active during NO exposure. The axons may degenerate because NO can inhibit mitochondrial respiration, leading to intraaxonal accumulation of Na+ and Ca2+ ions. Here, we show that axons can be protected from NO‐mediated damage using low concentrations of Na+ channel blockers, or an inhibitor of Na+/Ca2+ exchange. Our findings suggest a new strategy for axonal protection in an inflammatory environment, which may be effective in preventing the accumulation of permanent disability in patients with neuroinflammatory disorders. Ann Neurol 2003
Mutational analysis of a transmembrane segment in a bacterial chemoreceptor

Trg is a member of a family of receptors that mediates chemotaxis by Escherichia coli. Its transmembrane domain is a loose four-helix bundle consisting of two helices from each of the two identical subunits. This domain mediates transmembrane signaling through a conformational change in which the second transmembrane segment (TM2) is thought to move relative to TM1, but mutational analysis of TM2 by cysteine scanning had identified only a few positions at which substitutions perturbed function or induced signaling. Thus, we performed mutational analysis by random mutagenesis and screening. Among 42 single-residue substitutions in TM2 that detectably altered function, 16 had drastic effects on receptor activity. These substitutions defined a helical face of TM2. This functionally important surface was directed into the protein interior of the transmembrane domain, where TM2 faces the helices or the other subunit. The functionally perturbing substitutions did not appear to cause general disruption of receptor structure but rather had more specific effects, altering aspects of transmembrane signaling. An in vivo assay of signaling identified some substitutions that reduced and others that induced signaling. These two classes were distributed along adjacent helical faces in a pattern that strongly supports the notion that conformational signaling involves movement between TM2 and TM1 and that signaling is optimal when stable interactions are maintained across the interface between the homologous helices in the transmembrane domain. Our mutational analysis also revealed a striking tolerance of the chemoreceptor for substitutions, including charged residues, usually considered to be disruptive of transmembrane segments.
Design and Implementation of Traffic Safety Guardian System for Android Based on OpenCV

This paper design and implement a real-time object recognition system based on Android mobile devices to assist car drivers for safety driving. It can analyze driving conditions to remind the drivers with related warning notices. The system can identify roads from the camera, and make a warning of abnormal overtake in the limited distances. In addition, the system can identify and judge the wobble of cars when driving, and it could make a warning to the lethargic drivers. The experiments show that the proposed system can identify these abnormal driving behaviors on the road.
Multiagent reinforcement learning in extensive form games with complete information

Recent developments in multiagent reinforcement learning, mostly concentrate on normal form games or restrictive hierarchical form games. In this paper, we use the well known Q-learning in extensive form games which agents have a fixed priority in action selection. We also introduce a new concept called associative Q-values which not only can be used in action selection, leading to a subgame perfect equilibrium, but also can be used in update rule which is proved to be convergent. Associative Q-values are the expected utility of an agent in a game situation which is an estimate of the value of the subgame perfect equilibrium point.
On The Potential of Dynamic Nuclear Polarization Enhanced Diamonds in Solid-State and Dissolution (13) C NMR Spectroscopy.

Dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) is a versatile option to improve the sensitivity of NMR and MRI. This versatility has elicited interest for overcoming potential limitations of these techniques, including the achievement of solid-state polarization enhancement at ambient conditions, and the maximization of (13) C signal lifetimes for performing in vivo MRI scans. This study explores whether diamond's (13) C behavior in nano- and micro-particles could be used to achieve these ends. The characteristics of diamond's DNP enhancement were analyzed for different magnetic fields, grain sizes, and sample environments ranging from cryogenic to ambient temperatures, in both solution and solid-state experiments. It was found that (13) C NMR signals could be boosted by orders of magnitude in either low- or room-temperature solid-state DNP experiments by utilizing naturally occurring paramagnetic P1 substitutional nitrogen defects. We attribute this behavior to the unusually long electronic/nuclear spin-lattice relaxation times characteristic of diamond, coupled with a time-independent cross-effect-like polarization transfer mechanism facilitated by a matching of the nitrogen-related hyperfine coupling and the (13) C Zeeman splitting. The efficiency of this solid-state polarization process, however, is harder to exploit in dissolution DNP-enhanced MRI contexts. The prospects for utilizing polarized diamond approaching nanoscale dimensions for both solid and solution applications are briefly discussed.
The role of hypertension in the progression of atherosclerosis.

1. MCDOLUGALL, R. : Canad. Mll. A. J., 80: 18, 1959. 2. MURPHY, D. R. : Medical aspects of traffic accidents in children, In: Medical aspects of traffic accidents, Proceedings of the Montreal conference, edited by H. ELLIOTT, Traffic Accident Foundation for Medical Research, Montreal, 1955, p. 53. 3. METRAK-OS, J. AND METRAKOS, K. : Personal communication. 4. WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION: Accidents in childhoodfacts as a basis for prevention. Technical Report Series No. 118, 1957.
Histological improvement of long‐term antiviral therapy in chronic hepatitis B patients with persistently normal alanine aminotransferase levels

The aim of this study was to evaluate the histological outcomes of chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients with persistently normal alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels after long‐term antiviral therapy. Paired liver biopsies before and after lamivudine (LAM) treatment in CHB patients with normal and elevated ALT levels were compared. Histological response was defined as a 1‐point decrease according to the Scheuer scoring system, without worsening of fibrosis between pretreatment and posttreatment biopsies. Among the 48 patients who underwent paired liver biopsies, 17 had persistently normal baseline ALT level and 31 had elevated ALT level. The median age of the patients was 44 years and 72.9% of the patients were male. The median duration of antiviral treatment was 44.5 months (range 14–104). Long‐term follow‐up of liver biopsies revealed that 82.4% of patients in the normal ALT group and 61.3% in the elevated ALT group had a baseline fibrosis score of 4, which was reduced to 17.6% and 38.7% after long‐term therapy, respectively, indicating reversal of cirrhosis in a large proportion of both groups, especially in patients with normal baseline ALT levels. Long‐term antiviral treatment could achieve significant histological improvement in CHB patients with fibrosis or cirrhosis, regardless of ALT level.
Landrechte in Brasilien : zur Bedeutung institutioneller Regelungen für Verwundbarkeit und Überlebensstrategien kleinbäuerlicher Gruppen

Abstract. Verfugungsrechte uber Land haben fur Kleinbauern in Entwicklungslandern uberlebenswichtige Funktionen. Allerdings verfugen sie in der Regel uber einen quantitativ und qualitativ sehr eingeschrankten Zugang zu dieser Ressource. Auserdem bestehen selten gesicherte property rights in Form von formalisierten Eigentumsrechten. Die bestehenden Interessenkoalitionen der politischen und wirtschaftlichen Eliten sowie die institutionelle und finanzielle Schwache des Staates bilden weitere Unsicherheitsfaktoren fur die kleinbauerlichen Verfugungsrechte. In Brasilien ist die Landfrage seit jeher von besonders heftigen Konflikten gepragt, da durch die phasenhafte Erschliesung des Landesinneren und die Herausbildung von Pionierfronten heute zeitlich und raumlich unterschiedliche Bodenrechtstypen aufeinander treffen. Traditionelle Verfugungsrechte uber Land,die meist kollektive Elemente miteinbeziehen, stehen individuellen, staatlich verbrieften property rights gegenuber und werden haufig von informellen Individualrechten uberlagert. Wie sich diese Situation auf Verwundbarkeit und Uberlebensstrategien von Kleinbauern auswirkt, wird anhand von drei Fallbeispielen aus der Pantanalregion in Brasilien analysiert.
Factors contributing to decreased protein stability when aspartic acid residues are in β‐sheet regions

Asp residues are significantly under represented in β‐sheet regions of proteins, especially in the middle of β‐strands, as found by a number of studies using statistical, modeling, or experimental methods. To further understand the reasons for this under representation of Asp, we prepared and analyzed mutants of a β‐domain. Two Gln residues of the immunoglobulin light‐chain variable domain (VL) of protein Len were replaced with Asp, and then the effects of these changes on protein stability and protein structure were studied. The replacement of Q38D, located at the end of a β‐strand, and that of Q89D, located in the middle of a β‐strand, reduced the stability of the parent immunoglobulin VL domain by 2.0 kcal/mol and 5.3 kcal/mol, respectively. Because the Q89D mutant of the wild‐type VL‐Len domain was too unstable to be expressed as a soluble protein, we prepared the Q89D mutant in a triple mutant background, VL‐Len M4L/Y27dD/T94H, which was 4.2 kcal/mol more stable than the wild‐type VL‐Len domain. The structures of mutants VL‐Len Q38D and VL‐Len Q89D/M4L/Y27dD/T94H were determined by X‐ray diffraction at 1.6 Å resolution. We found no major perturbances in the structures of these Q→D mutant proteins relative to structures of the parent proteins. The observed stability changes have to be accounted for by cumulative effects of the following several factors: (1) by changes in main‐chain dihedral angles and in side‐chain rotomers, (2) by close contacts between some atoms, and, most significantly, (3) by the unfavorable electrostatic interactions between the Asp side chain and the carbonyls of the main chain. We show that the Asn side chain, which is of similar size but neutral, is less destabilizing. The detrimental effect of Asp within a β‐sheet of an immunoglobulin‐type domain can have very serious consequences. A somatic mutation of a β‐strand residue to Asp could prevent the expression of the domain both in vitro and in vivo, or it could contribute to the pathogenic potential of the protein in vivo.
High expression of Twist is associated with tumor aggressiveness and poor prognosis in patients with renal cell carcinoma.

AIMS Twist has been reported to play crucial roles for malignant aggressiveness; however, detailed pathological significance of Twist in renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is not fully understood. The present study was to clarify clinical significance and molecular functions of Twist in patients with RCC. METHODS Twist expression was examined by immunohistochemical techniques in 156 formalin-fixed specimens. Cell proliferation, angiogenesis, and apoptosis were measured as the percentage of Ki-67-positive cells (proliferation index, PI), CD31-stained vessels (microvessel density, MVD), and TUNEL-positive cells (apoptotic index, AI). In addition, semi-quantification of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-2 was performed. Macrophages were identified with anti-CD68 antibody, and the tumor associated macrophage (TAM) density was calculated as CD68-positive cells per high-power field. RESULTS Twist expression was positively associated with grade, pT stage, and metastasis (p<0.001). We also noticed that its expression was considerably higher in cancer cells of sarcomatoid RCC and in those at the edge of the tumors. Twist expression was positively correlated with PI, MVD, MMP2 expression, and TAM density (P<0.001), but not with AI, and MMP-2 expression and TAM density were independently correlate by multi-variate analyses. Kaplan-Meir survival curves showed high Twist expression was a worse predictor for cause-specific survival (P<0.001). CONCLUSIONS Twist plays important roles in tumor growth, progression, and survival in patients with RCC patients. Such pathological mechanisms are significantly associated with increased cancer cell proliferation, angiogenesis, MMP2 expression, and macrophage recruitment. These findings are important information for discussion of treatment and observation strategies in these patients.
Effective diffusivity and mass flux across the sediment‐water interface in streams

The exchange of water between a stream and its hyporheic zone (defined as the sediment beneath and immediately adjacent to a stream) underpins many ecological and hydrological functions in turbulent streams. Hyporheic exchange can be parameterized in terms of an effective diffusion coefficient Deffand considerable effort has gone into developing process‐based models and empirical correlations for predicting the value of this transport parameter. In this paper we demonstrate previous laboratory estimates forDeffcan be biased by as much as a factor of 10, due to errors in the equations and/or ambiguities in the variables used to reduce data from transient tracer experiments in flow‐through and recirculating flumes. After correcting these problems, an analysis of 93 previously published flume experiments revealsDeffdepends on properties of the tracer (molecular diffusivity), flow field (shear velocity, kinematic viscosity), and sediment bed (permeability and depth). The shear velocity depends implicitly on the Darcy‐Weisbach friction factor, which captures the influence of bed roughness and bed forms on hyporheic exchange in both laboratory and field studies. The dependence ofDeffon sediment bed depth is consistent with the hypothesis that coherent turbulence in the water column drives mass transport across the sediment‐water interface. Furthermore, the dependence ofDeff on sediment bed depth raises the possibility that hyporheic exchange rates measured in the laboratory are not representative of hyporheic exchange rates in the field.
A National Descriptive Portrait of Adolescent Relationship Abuse

This article reports results from the National Survey on Teen Relationships and Intimate Violence (STRiV) for 12- to 18-year-old youth (n = 1,804). STRiV provides the first nationally representative household survey focused on adolescent relationship abuse (ARA), covering perpetration and victimization. Among respondents (37%) reporting current- or past-year dating, 69% reported lifetime ARA victimization (63% lifetime ARA perpetration). Although psychological abuse was most common for these youth (more than 60%), the rates of sexual abuse (18%) and physical abuse victimization (18%), as well as 12% reporting perpetrating physical abuse and/or sexual abuse (12%) were substantial as well. Other than differences by age and gender, ARA rates were consistent by race/ethnicity, geographic region, urbanicity, and household characteristics, highlighting the importance of universal prevention programs. Compared with youth aged 15 to 18, those 12 to 14 years old reported lower rates of psychological and sexual ARA victimization. Similarly, we found lower ARA perpetration rates for those 12 to 14. We found no gender differences for ARA victimization but found that girls perpetrated more physical ARA than boys. Girls aged 15 to 18 reported perpetrating moderate threats/physical violence at more than twice the rate of younger girls and 3 times the rate compared with boys aged 15 to 18; girls aged 15 to 18 reported perpetrating more than 4 times the rate of serious psychological abuse than boys 15 to 18. Finally, these data document the significant positive correlation between ARA victimization and perpetration. Findings suggest that when working with youth in prevention services, interventions should not be designed for monolithic groups of “victims” or “perpetrators. ”
Enhanced visual evaluation of feature extractors for image mining

Summary form only given. This paper introduces a novel approach to evaluate, timely and effectively, the suitability of new image feature extraction techniques concerning similarity queries using CBIR systems. The proposed approach is based on two measurements derived from spatial properties intuitively and naturally perceived in spatial domains, and that can also be verified in multidimensional spaces. To bear out our proposal, we show that the insights obtained by the proposed measurements comply with the well-known analysis methods based on the precision and recall approach.
Optimum space-time processors with dispersive interference: unified analysis and required filter span

We consider optimum space-time equalizers with unknown dispersive interference, consisting of a linear equalizer that both spatially and temporally whitens the interference and noise, followed by a decision-feedback equalizer or maximum-likelihood sequence estimator. We first present a unified analysis of the optimum space-time equalizer, and then show that, for typical fading channels with a given signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), near-optimum performance can be achieved with a finite-length equalizer. Expressions are given for the required filter span as a function of the dispersion length, number of cochannel interferers, number of antennas, and SNR, which are useful in the design of practical near-optimum space-time equalizers.
A parallel and scalable digital architecture for training support vector machines

To facilitate the application of support vector machines (SVMs) in embedded systems, we propose and test a parallel and scalable digital architecture based on the sequential minimal optimization (SMO) algorithm for training SVMs. By taking advantage of the mature and popular SMO algorithm, the numerical instability issues that may exist in traditional numerical algorithms are avoided. The error cache updating task, which dominates the computation time of the algorithm, is mapped into multiple processing units working in parallel. Experiment results show that using the proposed architecture, SVM training problems can be solved effectively with inexpensive fixed-point arithmetic and good scalability can be achieved. This architecture overcomes the drawbacks of the previously proposed SVM hardware that lacks the necessary flexibility for embedded applications, and thus is more suitable for embedded use, where scalability is an important concern.
A 930 MHz CMOS DC-offset-free direct-conversion 4-FSK receiver

Although direct-conversion has potential for high integration and low cost, it is plagued by issues ranging from DC offset to flicker noise. While most recent integrated single-chip direct conversion receivers concentrate on wideband applications where flicker noise and DC offset can be filtered out without affecting performance, focus here is on a narrow-band application using CMOS technologies. This effort is to fully integrate RF and baseband circuitry for a narrow-band application such as a high-speed pager, which uses a 4-FSK modulation scheme. The receiver overcomes the problem using a harmonic mixing and a DC-offset cancellation.
Dielectric and Conductor Roughness Models Identification for Successful PCB and Packaging Interconnect Design up to 50 GHz

Meaningful interconnect design and compliance analysis must start with the identification of broadband dielectric and conductor roughness models. Such models are not available from manufacturers and the model identification is the most important element of successful interconnect design for link paths with 10-50 Gbps and higher data rates. Electromagnetic analysis of interconnects without such models may be simply not accurate. Overview of broadband dielectric and conductor roughness models for PCB and packaging interconnect problems is provided in the paper. Theory of model identification with generalized modal S-parameters and separation of dielectric and conductor dispersion and loss effects is described. Practical examples of successful dielectric and conductor roughness model identification up to 50 GHz are also provided.
Information retrieval from biological databases.

(C) 2002 SNU CSE Biointelligence Lab (BI) # a kind of networking community like a city # high-throughput (HTS, shotgun, DNA chip, database, etc.) # modular biology Says Leroy Hood of the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, Washington, "the future will be the study of the genes and proteins of organisms in the context of their informational pathways and networks". # cDNA microarray Now that the human genome is mapped, it is time, says Eric Lander of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, "to take global views of biological processes: simultaneous readouts of all components".
Spectral Feature Probabilistic Coding for Hyperspectral Signatures

Spectral signature coding (SSC) is generally performed by encoding spectral values of a signature across its spectral coverage followed by the Hamming distance to measure signature similarity. The effectiveness of such an SSC largely relies on how well the Hamming distance can capture spectral variations that characterize a signature. Unfortunately, in most cases, this Hamming-distance-based SSC does not provide sufficient discriminatory information for signature analysis because the Hamming distance does not take into account the band-to-band variation, in which case the Hamming distance can be considered as a memoryless distance. This paper extends the Hamming-distance-based SSC to an approach, referred to as spectral feature probabilistic coding (SFPC), which introduces a new concept into SSC that uses a criterion with memory to measure spectral similarity. It implements the well-known arithmetic coding (AC) in two ways to encode a signature in a probabilistic manner, called circular SFPC and split SFPC. The values resulting from the AC is then used to measure the distance between two spectral signatures. In order to demonstrate advantages of using AC-based SSC in signature analysis, a comparative analysis is also conducted against spectral binary coding.
A time-frequency domain formant frequency estimation scheme for noisy speech signals

Formant frequency is a one of the most important speech feature, which has widespread applications in speech recognition, synthesis, and compression. In this paper, a new time-frequency domain scheme for the estimation of formant frequencies from noise-corrupted speech signals is presented. In order to overcome the adverse effect of noise, instead of conventional autocorrelation function (ACF), a repeated ACF (RACF) of the noisy speech is employed. Exploiting the characteristics of the zero lag, a set of equations containing the lower lags of the RACF of the noisy speech is used to estimate the formant frequencies. In order to avoid estimation errors that may occur in the case of weak formants, a frequency-domain algorithm is introduced utilizing the RACF of the observed speech. Formant frequency estimation accuracy is measured for different natural and synthetic vowels in noisy environments and even at low levels of signal-to-noise ratio, a better performance is obtained by the proposed scheme in comparison to some of the existing methods.