Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Apoptotic debris accumulates on hematopoietic cells and promotes disease in murine and human SLE 1

Apoptotic debris, autoantibody, and IgG-immune complexes (ICs) have long been implicated in the inflammation associated with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE); however, it remains unclear whether they initiate immune-mediated events that promote disease. In this study, we show that peripheral blood mononuclear cells from SLE patients experiencing active disease, and hematopoietic cells from lupus-prone MRL/lpr and NZM2410 mice accumulate markedly elevated levels of surface-bound nuclear self-antigens. On dendritic cells (DCs) and macrophages (MFs), the self-antigens are part of IgG-ICs that promote FcγRI-mediated signal transduction. Accumulation of IgG-ICs is evident on ex vivo myeloid cells from MRL/lpr mice by 10 weeks of age, and steadily increases prior to lupus nephritis. IgG and FcγRI play a critical role in disease pathology. Passive transfer of pathogenic IgG into IgG-deficient MRL/lpr mice promotes the accumulation of IgG-ICs prior to significant B cell expansion, BAFF secretion, and lupus 1This work was supported by NIH R01AI070984, NIH R21AI105613, Alliance for Lupus Research, and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS; National Institutes of Health) through Grant Award Number 1UL1TR001111. A.J.M. was supported by 5T32AI07273-27. Corresponding author: Barbara Vilen Ph.D., Department of Microbiology and Immunology, CB# 7290, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, Phone: 919-966-5436, FAX: 919-962-8103, barb_vilen@med.unc. edu. 2To whom correspondence should be sent: 125 Mason Farm Road, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599-7290 Author Contributions: S-A. K. directed and performed experiments, analyzed data, and wrote the manuscript; A.J.M. performed experiments and analyzed data; J.L. R performed experiments and analyzed data; S.H. C analyzed data, C.J. and M.D. provided mice; T.K. T, J.L. R and J.S. provided patient samples; Y.F. analyzed kidney pathology; Y.K. T. performed statistical analysis; B.J.V. codirected experiments and wrote the manuscript. The authors declare no competing financial interests. HHS Public Access Author manuscript J Immunol. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2017 May 15. Published in final edited form as: J Immunol. 2016 May 15; 196(10): 4030–4039. doi:10.4049/jimmunol.1500418. A uhor M anscript
Segmentation of Periapical Dental X-Ray Images by applying Morphological Operations

Segmentation of Dental X-ray images is done using various image processing techniques which are useful in medical diagnosis, clinical purposes and real-time applications. These methods aim to define the segmentation of different tooth structures present in the Dental X-ray images which will be used for the early detection of caries, tooth fractures, root canal treatment and periodontal diseases etc. which plays a key role in the identification of diseases. Manual segmentation of Dental X rays images for the medical diagnosis, from the large databases in clinical routine, is very complex and time consuming process. In this paper, we propose a three-step procedure for the segmentation of each individual tooth, firstly preprocessing is done using a top hat and bottom hat filtering then Otsu’s thresholding with morphological operations are employed to separate the tooth structures from the Dental X-ray images. Performance evaluation is done using 10 periodical X-ray images and the accuracy of the method is measured as 97% approximately. Index Terms — Dental X ray images, Morphological operations, Top hat and Bottom hat filtering.
Smoking , Alcohol Drinking , and Risk for Prostate Cancer

Smoking, Alcohol Drinking, and Risk for Prostate Cancer By Yueqing Wang Background: Prostate cancer is the most common cancer among men in the United States. Smoking and alcohol drinking are considered as both the initiator and promoter of cancer carcinogenesis, however, their role in prostate cancer is unclear. In this study, we investigated whether smoking and alcohol drinking are associated with risk of incident prostate cancer overall and by tumor severity. Methods: The data were analyzed from a case-control study of incident prostate cancer (n=112) and communitybased controls (n=255) conducted in North Carolina between 1994 and 1996. A fourto five-hour study visit with multiple questionnaires was used to collect demographic, dietary, and lifestyle information from all participants. The cancer severity was categorized based on TNM stage. The assessment of smoking and alcohol drinking was based on both lifestyle and block food frequency questionnaire. Logistic regression analyses were conducted to calculate crude and multivariable adjusted odds ratio (ORs) and corresponding 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs). Results: There were no significant associations between smoking, alcohol drinking and overall incident prostate cancer. Compared with never smokers, current smokers had a statistically non-significant higher risk of prostate cancer (multivariable OR=1.54, 95% CI: 0.62-3.82), but not former smokers (multivariable OR=0.98, 95% CI: 0.56-1.73). Among former smokers, those who smoked for ≥ 25 years had a significantly lower risk of localized disease (multivariable ORlocalized=0.41, 95% CI: 0.17-0.96); however, the sample size was relatively small for this analysis. Compared with non-alcohol drinkers, former alcohol drinkers had a statistically non-significant higher risk for localized and advanced prostate cancer (multivariable ORlocalized=1.61, 95% CI: 0.75-3.47; multivariable ORadvanced=1.55, 95%CI: 0.54-4.47, respectively); while current alcohol drinkers had a statistically non-significant higher risk for advanced prostate cancer (multivariable ORadvanced=1.40, 95%CI: 0.53-3.71). Conclusion: Overall, tobacco smoking and alcohol consumption were not associated with risk for incident prostate cancer. Smoking, Alcohol Drinking, and Risk for Prostate Cancer
Data Plane Traffic Engineering in Multimedia Communications using Software-Defined Networking

Data Plane Traffic Engineering in Multimedia Communications using Software-Defined Networking Lilin Zhang Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering University of Toronto 2017 The quality of multimedia communications heavily relies on the condition of the end-to-end network. Sub-optimal resource allocation may deplete certain links sooner, making the network less resilient to link failures, traffic fluctuation or random traffic spikes. Regulating traffic can improve the media quality, but is not an easy operation to do in legacy IP networks. The maturing Software Defined Networking (SDN) technology provides the support for an unprecedented centralized solution in this regard: making it possible to deploy the optimal embedding of data flows via the central SDN controller. Thus the biggest challenge is to calculate such an optimal embedding for the data flows. This thesis presents our design of traffic engineering in multimedia communications which addresses to the resource allocation concerns in the data plane. Given the physical network, our objective is to allocate the network resource and embed the multimedia data flows in the way such that the total throughput is maximized. To achieve this, we introduce a Centralized Data Flow Routing Module into the control plane of the system. The Module employs a Two-Phase flow embedding procedure: Phase I is a global planning subroutine, periodically invoked. Given the traffic input of an extended time period, it produces and installs the optimal end-to-end tunnels between each pair of communication endpoints. Phase II is a Traffic Engineering (TE) subroutine, always active. It receives the individual data flow requests, and selects one of the pre-installed tunnels to embed the flow. For Phase II, first we propose a greedy-based TE algorithm. We investigate its performance and compare it with the performance if a Dijkstra-routing algorithm is employed. We show that the proposed heuristics outperform the Dijkstra’s in three different metrics: session accept rate, maximum/average physical link utilization, and network criticality. In a second attempt, we present an incremental TE algorithm for Phase II. We numerically evaluate it and compare it with (I) Dijkstra algorithm and (II) the greedy-based TE heuristics. We show that the incremental TE excels in all three metrics: session accept rate, throughput, and link utilizations, under a wide spectrum of various network conditions and traffic conditions.
Designing in research : characteristics and criteria Research method , questions and programme

This paper sketches the potential contribution of research-through-design approaches to research. Designing is characterized as situated and engaged. It is furthermore future-oriented. And it needs to reflect on its practice and outcomes. The paper considers what these characteristics mean for the benefits, quality and acceptance of research-through-design approaches. The consideration results in a preference for qualitative method, in research questions that address future knowledge, and in the notion of the programme as an overarching concept guiding the research process, and making room for design failure and learning. With the discussion and clarification of these issues it is intended to help increase the quality and acceptance of researchthrough-design approaches.
A formal research of older adults ’ physical and cognitive traits in movement and selection tasks for interface design

The number of older adults is rapidly growing worldwide and online, and they are identified as a distinct group in HCI. An experiment was undertaken with 28 participants of different ages, studying the degree of applicability of Fitts’ and Hick’s laws. Seniors’ predictable slower movement performance was supplemented by higher accuracy that was however revoked in selection tasks. Index of selection difficulty and selection throughput were proposed. Extended regression models for performance time and throughput, as well as suggestions regarding effect of interface elements size on seniors’ performance were provided to aid justified design decisions.
ANew Manipulative Approach to Scrolling with the Mouse Wheel

Scrolling plays an important and substantial role in today’s graphical user interfaces. In this study we introduce a new approach to scrolling acceleration –the dual-acceleration mode. This method combines wheel acceleration and cursor-position acceleration operations to allow instant scrolling speed control with an increase in overall efficiency. Twenty-two subjects were tested in a scrolling-based task efficiency experiment, using three types of control modes: the Level mode, the Wheel Acceleration mode and the Dual Acceleration mode. Research results show that our acceleration approach has considerable strength in increasing the task efficiency of aiming from the medium-far distance with no significant increase in the error rate. In contrast with existing acceleration models, our Dual-Acceleration approach allows (1) larger room for speed change and (2) users to adjust and adapt the appropriate scrolling speed for different conditions, such as slow-speed scrolling for precise reading and higher speeds to increase efficiency for long-distance page changes.
A Machine Learning Workflow for Hurricane Prediction

The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1st to November causing massive destruction and loss of life. In 2017, 17 named storms hit the Atlantic causing destruction worth an estimated $316 million and at least 464 fatalities. Meteorologists, by studying previous weather data, predict the expected number of hurricanes in the season. These predictions help authorities prepare for disasters and over the years, better predictions have minimized loss of life and property. However, these predictions rely on human expertise and are often extremely complex due to the thousands of parameters involved and the chaotic nature of weather.
Off-policy Learning for Multiple Loggers

It is well known that the historical logs are used for evaluating and learning policies in interactive systems, e.g. recommendation, search, and online advertising. Since direct online policy learning usually harms user experiences, it is more crucial to apply off-policy learning in real-world applications instead. Though there have been some existing works, most are focusing on learning with one single historical policy. However, in practice, usually a number of parallel experiments, e.g. multiple AB tests, are performed simultaneously. To make full use of such historical data, learning policies from multiple loggers becomes necessary. Motivated by this, in this paper, we investigate off-policy learning when the training data coming from multiple historical policies. Specifically, policies, e.g. neural networks, can be learned directly from multi-logger data, with counterfactual estimators. In order to understand the generalization ability of such estimator better, we conduct generalization error analysis for the empirical risk minimization problem. We then introduce the generalization error bound as the new risk function, which can be reduced to a constrained optimization problem. Finally, we give the corresponding learning algorithm for the new constrained problem, where we can appeal to theminimax problems to control the constraints. Extensive experiments on benchmark datasets demonstrate that the proposed methods achieve better performances than the state-of-the-arts.
Physicochemical Profile of Milk from Oxytocin Injected Buffaloes

Received: Revised: Accepted: December 12, 2012 January 15, 2014 March 30, 2014 A study was conducted to evaluate the impact of continuous exogenous use of oxytocin in Nili Ravi breed of buffaloes on the physicochemical composition of milk. A group of animals (n=12) were injected with oxytocin (20IU) daily at morning and evening while the other group of buffaloes (n=12) were kept as control and injected with normal saline. Morning and evening milk samples were pooled for analysis. Analysis was made on fortnight basis starting from January to the end of June. Appropriate statistics was applied. Overall milk pH was lower (P≤0.05) while proteins, lactose and SNF of oxytocin injected buffaloes were significantly higher as compared to control animals. These differences were due to a significant lower pH during 8 and 9 fortnights, higher milk proteins during 9 fortnight, a higher (P≤0.05) lactose and SNF during 5 and 9 fortnights of oxytocin injected buffaloes during the experimental periods. Milk fat, proteins and sold not fat was significantly higher during the months of March and May. Milk pH was higher (P≤0.05) while milk fat was lower during January and February. During April and May, pH was lower (P≤0.05) and milk fat was higher (P≤0.05) in oxytocin treated buffaloes as compared to control animals. During winter season, milk fat concentration from oxytocin injected buffaloes was significantly lower, however during summer seasons fat concentration was higher (P≤0.05) than controls. In conclusion, long term use with a high dose of oxytocin significantly alters the composition of milk and these changes are also significant during different months and with different seasons. ©2014 PVJ. All rights reserved
A TRIPARTITE PARTITE KEY ASSIGNMENT SCHEME FOR SECURITY OF CLOUD DATACLASSES

Class based cloud data security is more prominent today. Data of all the classes may not be that frequently accessed by the owner or the users. Data of high prioritized class is frequently accessed and the cloud technology seeks much secured parameters to raise the security of the high prioritized data. More over many of the old cloud technologies needed with user re-authentications when he is simultaneously accessing high class and low class data. This paper presents a new key generation and Class authentication scheme to run the security specifications of the prioritized data. This paper also presents a tri-partite authentication scheme. This scheme has found efficient in reducing the number of user re-authentications.
User Need – A Fuzzy Link between Design and Use

This paper is a conceptual elaboration on the relationships between design and use, and the roles of artefacts and user needs as mediating concepts between them. It builds on prof. Kuutti’s approach to expose the inherent complexity of design through the double role of artefacts in design and use activities. This paper claims that in addition to the artefacts linking design and use, we can regard the idea of user need, having a corresponding kinds of multiple mediating roles. First, user need can be seen, as is the Maslowian tradition, as a characteristic of the subjects in the activity of use motivating their behaviour. Second, in the activity of design, the need can be seen in another role, closer to its moral philosophical interpretation, as an entity that designers apply to justify their behaviour. Third, the need can also become a part of the conceptual tool set designers apply during the design process.
Slicing for Java Program: A Preliminary Study

Program slicing is a technique that proposed to help in understanding the program code. After several decades, the technique has been derived into several other techniques and proposed to be applied in many fields such as debugging, program comprehension, software measurement, testing and maintenance. The application of program slicing sometimes specifies for certain programming language such as C and Java. This paper will discuss existing program slicing techniques that were proposed focusing on the Java programming language.
Epigenetic silencing of miR 137 in gastric cancer

The small non-coding RNAs termed microRNAs can induce post-transcriptional silencing of genes critical to the pathogenesis of multiple cancers. Such microRNAs are deregulated and play important roles in carcinogenesis. In this study, we explored the regulation and function of miR137 in gastric cancer. We found that miR137 was downregulated in a variety of gastric cancer cell lines and primary gastric carcinoma tissues. Its downregulation was resulted from DNA methylation of its promoter. Pharmaceutical demethylation restored its expression and its promoter was highly methylated in gastric cancer cells. FMNL2 (formin like 2) was found as a new target regulated by miR137. Both miR137 mimics and FMNL2 siRNA inhibited the growth of gastric cancer cells in vitro. Therefore, we concluded that promoter methylation-mediated downregulation of miR137 can stimulate FMNL2 expression to promote gastric carcinogenesis.
Evidence based medicine at medical school : a three week course on the basis of problem based learning EBM course based on PBL

Profound conceptual knowledge in evidence based medicine is required as basic competence for practising physicians. Therefore contents of courses in medical statistics have moved from mere biostatistical methods to practice oriented concepts like EbM. To train these competences a course for medical statistics was developed and implemented. In 2003 and 2004 a class of medical students (n=56) in a parallel problem based curriculum at Hamburg Medical School participated in their fifth semester at the three week problem based learning (PBL) course "The scientific approach". Course quality and learning objectives were evaluated by questionnaire and exams. Results show that students feel to have reached the learning objectives, feel enabled to understand and to critically appraise relevant literature, and feel well prepared for their own scientific work. Course contents were judged from satisfying to good. The following items were rated very positively: learning objectives, clinical orientation of the course, integration of subjects, positive learning climate, and content and organization of the course. Exam results were above average. Positive evaluation and exam results recommend this course as blueprint for teaching and learning evidence based biostatistics in medical education.
Towards a Robust Geometric Multigrid Scheme for Helmholtz Equation

We discuss an improvement of existing multigrid techniques for the solution of the time harmonic wave equation targeting application to seismic inversion and imaging, using non-traditional smoothing and coarse correction techniques, namely the CGMN and CRMN methods. We aim at developing a multigrid scheme to be used as a preconditioner for FGMRES showing less sensibility to changes in the discretization of the operator. We compare this multigrid scheme with recent developments in the multigrid field obtaining very satisfactory results. Our numerical experiments using SEG/EAGE Overthrust velocity model showing not only more robustness when switching from a basic 7 points stencil to a more compact 27 points stencil, but also a considerable reduction in the number of preconditioning steps required to attain convergence, a result encouraging further investigation. Main objectives : devise a more robust geometric multigrid technique for the solution of the time harmonic wave equation for the seismic inversion and imaging, showing less dependence on the discretization characteristics. New aspects covered : The use of more sophisticated and not yet investigated smoothers and coarse solvers, namely the CGMN and CRMN method, within a multigrid cycle, which in our experiments has brought significant improvements. Released to public domain under Creative Commons license type BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0). Copyright (c) 2015 SLIM group @ The University of British Columbia.
Long Tunnel Configurations for High Efficiency Thrusters

The principal characteristics and hydrodynamic principles of a new type of tunnel configuration designed to improve the efficiency of long tunnel thrusters are presented. The proposed tunnel configuration is composed of three sections: a mid-section, having a smaller diameter, where the impeller is running and two end-sections having a larger diameter and transition piece. The hydrodynamic advantages of the new technology are introduced by first principles and then verified by a series of CFD calculations, allowing detailed analysis of the flow field. According current practice, installations with tunnel length/diameter ratios greater than four are deliberately avoided, resulting in oversized impeller designs. For a given tunnel length, the new proposed configuration, allows to design a smaller impeller which can meet and overcome the efficiency of a larger impeller having the ideal length/diameter ratio of 2~3. A series of alternative configurations of the new proposed technology are modeled and predicted thrust and efficiency are discussed.