Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria: New discoveries about an old disease

Paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH, MarchiafacaMicheli syndrome) is a rare acquired hematological disease characterized by episodic intravascular complement-mediated hemolysis (1-14). The disease usually occurs in a setting of marrow hypoplasia, and arises from a somatic mutation in the hematopoietic stem cell leading to an abnormal glycolipid anchor in the cell membrane of blood cells. In PNH, clones of abnormal, complement-sensitive blood cells coexist with normal blood cells (chimerism) (15).
Growth factor relationships of soil microorganisms as affected by proximity to the plant root.

A comparison was made of the growth factor requirements and growth factor synthesizing capacity of bacteria from control soil, rhizosphere, and rhizoplane of wheat. Organisms for which growth factors were essential were proportionately much less abundant at or near the root than in more distant soil; this is ascribed chiefly to lower percentages of forms requiring thiamine, biotin, and vitamin B12. At the rhizoplane proportions of bacteria requiring growth factors were as low as, or lower than, in the rhizosphere. Bacteria capable of synthesizing growth-promoting substances were proportionately much more numerous in the root zone than in control soil. Somewhat greater capacity was shown by rhizoplane than by rhizosphere isolates. Fungi characteristic of the rhizoplane showed the highest capacity for vitamin production.The occurrence of growth-promoting substances at or near the root is attributable chiefly to microbial synthesis rather than to root excretion. This is the reverse of the situation believed .
Selective differences in vascular endothelial- vs. airway epithelial-T cell adhesion mechanisms.

The basis for T cell adhesion to airway epithelial and vascular endothelial cells was studied using a quantitative flow cytometry-based assay that avoids extensive leukocyte purification and labeling. Compared with standard cell-labeling methods, the flow cytometry-based assay yielded a lower level of constitutive T cell adhesion, despite a similar level of stimulated adhesion (after T cell activation with phorbol dibutyrate) using endothelial or epithelial cell monolayers. Endothelial T cell adhesion was further increased by monolayer treatment with tumor necrosis factor-alpha (less so with interleukin-1 beta and least with interferon-gamma), whereas epithelial T cell adhesion was most sensitive to interferon-gamma. Cytokine stimulation of adhesion was invariably concentration dependent and closely matched to the cellular levels of intracellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1). Accordingly, stimulated T cell adhesion was markedly inhibited by anti-ICAM-1 or anti-beta 2-integrin antibody (95-97% inhibition for epithelial cells and 57-67% inhibition for endothelial cells) directed against ICAM-1 interaction with lymphocyte function-associated antigen-1 (LFA-1; alpha L beta 2-integrin). Residual endothelial T cell adhesion that correlated with endothelial vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 (VCAM-1) levels was blocked by an anti-alpha 4-integrin antibody directed against VCAM-1 interaction with very late activation antigen-4 (VLA-4; alpha 4 beta 1-integrin). The results suggest that 1) peripheral blood T cells without exogenous activation exhibit little LFA-1- or VLA-4-dependent adherence except to endothelial or epithelial cells expressing high levels of ICAM-1 and/or VCAM-1; and 2) differences in endothelial vs. epithelial cell mechanisms to bind activated and unactivated T cells (e.g., dependence on a mixed- vs. a single-ligand system and distinct cytokine-responsiveness of ligand levels) may help to coordinate T cell traffic to epithelial barriers.
Segmentation of Bone Marrow Cell Images for Morphological Classification of Acute Leukemia

This paper presents a two-phase methodology to analyze the morphology of abnormal leukocytes images for the classification of acute leukemia subtypes using image processing and data mining techniques. In the first phase we propose a segmentation algorithm that uses color and texture information in order to extract leukocytes and their respective nucleus and cytoplasm from bone marrow images with heterogeneous staining. As usual, these images show a high-cell population, we suggest using conical shapes to separate overlapped blood elements. In the second phase we perform feature extraction to the regions segmented and use these attributes to classify the cells into leukemia subtypes. In our experiments we achieved an average accuracy of 95% in the evaluation of the segmentation process. An overall accuracy of 92% was reached in the supervised classification of acute leukemia types, 84% in lymphoblastic subtypes, and 92% in myeloblastic subtypes.
Definition of the HOSVD based canonical form of polytopic dynamic models

The main objective of the paper is to introduce how the concept of tensor HOSVD can be carried over to the TP (tensor product) dynamic models, namely, how we can define and generate the "HOSVD like" decomposition of linear parameter varying (LPV) dynamic models. We term this decomposition as HOSVD based canonical form of TP model or polytopic model form. The key idea and the basic concept of this decomposition was proposed with the TP model transformation based control design methodology. The novelty of this paper is to present the mathematical background of this concept. The paper shows convergency theorems how the TP model transformation is capable of reconstructing this HOSVD based canonical form numerically. The proofs of the theorems are lengthy, therefore they are omitted. The paper also presents numerical examples to show the applicability, efficiency and uniformity of the numerical reconstruction
A 3.7 MHz phased array probe using 0.91Pb(Zn/sub 1/3/Nb/sub 2/3/)O/sub 3/-0.09PbTiO/sub 3/

A novel 128-channel phased array probe for echocardiography with a center frequency of 3.7 MHz using 0.91Pb(Zn/sub 1/3/Nb/sub 2/3/)O/sub 3/-0.09PbTiO/sub 3/ (PZN-9%PT) single crystal has been fabricated to realize greater sensitivity and broader bandwidth properties. The echo amplitude of the PZN-9%PT single-crystal probe is about 5 dB higher than that of the conventional lead airconate titanate (PZT) ceramic probe, and the fractional bandwidth is about 25 percentage points broader. The quality of B mode images obtained by the PZN-9%PT probe satisfies the performance of the two types of conventional PZT ceramic probes that have center frequencies of 2.5 and 3.75 MHz. At the reference frequency of 3 MHz, the Doppler sensitivity of the PZN-9%PT probe is about 5 dB higher than that of the 3.75 MHz PZT probe; the blood flow of a pulmonary vein in a hard-to-image patient is much more clearly imaged than in the case of using the PZT probe. These superior images are attributable to the use of sufficiently large PZN-9%PT single crystals obtained by the self-flux method.
Operational competitiveness research of chinese high-tech international manufacturing company in global context

This paper presents a thorough case study and analysis aiming at studying operational competitiveness of Chinese high-tech international manufacturing company (CHTIMC). In this paper, some models are applied: (1)analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method is used to analyze questionnaires, which are got from the case CHTIMC, of multi-focused manufacturing strategies; (2)the analytical models, which can calculate the ranking of company¿s operational competitiveness in prospector, analyzer and defender groups, are used to find more competitive advantages of CHTIMC;(3) benchmarking between CHTIMC and top companies of prospector and defender is applied to determine the operational competitiveness of CHTIMC further. The analysis results show CHTIMC is more dominant in prospector group; and prove the analytical models of operational competitiveness are effective.
Tick Size, Spread, and Volume

The AMEX changed the tick size from $1/8 to $1/16 for low-price stocks on September 3, 1992. Consistent with the prediction of L. E. Harris (1994, Stock Price Clustering and Discreteness, Review of Financial Studies 7, 149-178), the change has reduced both quoted and effective spreads, although the magnitude of the reduction is much smaller than predicted. However, we fail to find evidence of a significant increase in trading volume. Our cross-sectional analysis shows that stocks with greater trading activity, lower prices and stronger competition from the regional exchanges experienced greater spread reductions.
Recommending Customizable Products: A Multiple Choice Knapsack Solution

Recommender systems have become very prominent over the past decade. Methods such as collaborative filtering and knowledge based recommender systems have been developed extensively for non-customizable products. However, as manufacturers today are moving towards customizable products to satisfy customers, the need of the hour is customizable product recommender systems. Such systems must be able to capture customer preferences and provide recommendations that are both diverse and novel. This paper proposes an approach to building a recommender system that can be adapted to customizable products such as desktop computers and home theater systems. The Customizable Product Recommendation problem is modeled as a special case of the Multiple Choice Knapsack Problem, and an algorithm is proposed to generate desirable product recommendations in real-time. The performance of the proposed system is then evaluated.
Diversity of Campylobacter species and its impact on patients infected with human immunodeficiency virus.

Campylobacter species are recognized as one of the most important causes of diarrheal disease worldwide. Campylobacters were first isolated from aborted sheep fetuses in 1909, and these and similar organisms were originally called Vibrio fetus. In 1957, Campylobacter jejuni, identified as a related vibrio, was found to be associated with human diarrhea; on the basis of this organism's biochemical characteristics and DNA content, a new genus, Campylobacter, was created [1]. There are now 18 species and subspecies within the genus Campylobacter; two of these species, C. jejuni and C. coli, have been recognized as major causes of diarrheal disease since the late 1970s [2]. In the United States, the annual incidence of laboratory-diagnosed cases of campylobacter enteritis is estimated to be 54 per 100,000 population, but this figure is an underestimate of the true number of campylobacter infections. Sampling rates during waterborne outbreaks of campylobacter enteritis have been ~1% (1,000 cases per 100,000 population per year), representing 2.1 million cases per year. In a survey of patients seeking treatment for acute diarrhea in the United Kingdom, investigators found a similar incidence of 1.1%, or 500,000 cases per year [3]. The incidence of campylobacter infections in developing countries is probably much higher, and travelers to these areas are at risk for developing campylobacter infection; isolation rates are as high as 39% among symptomatic individuals [4].
Interactive data Analysis: The Control Project

Data analysis is fundamentally an iterative process in which you issue a query, receive a response, formulate the next query based on the response, and repeat. You usually don't issue a single, perfectly chosen query and get the information you want from a database; indeed, the purpose of data analysis is to extract unknown information, and in most situations, there is no one perfect query. People naturally start by asking broad, big-picture questions and then continually refine their questions based on feedback and domain knowledge. In the Control (Continuous Output and Navigation Technology with Refinement Online) project at the University of California, Berkeley, the authors are working with collaborators at IBM, Informix, and elsewhere to explore ways to improve human-computer interaction during data analysis. The Control project's goal is to develop interactive, intuitive techniques for analyzing massive data sets.
Semi-Supervised Learning Based Social Image Semantic Mining Algorithm

As social image semantic mining is of great importance in social image retrieval, and it can also solve the problem of semantic gap. In this paper, a novel social image semantic mining algorithm based on semi-supervised learning is proposed. Firstly, labels which tagged the images in the test image dataset are extracted, and noisy semantic information are pruned. Secondly, the labels are propagated to construct an extended collection. Thirdly, image visual features are extracted from the unlabeled images by three steps, including watershed segmentation, region feature extraction and codebooks construction. Fourthly, vectors of image visual feature are obtained by dimension reduction. Fifthly, after the process of semi-supervised learning and classifier training, the confidence score of semantic terms for the unlabeled image are calculated by integrating different types of social image features, and then the heterogeneous feature spaces are divided into several disjoint groups. Finally, experiments are conducted to make performance evaluation. Compared with other existing methods, it can be seen than the proposed can effectively extract semantic information of social images
Creating an Integrated Clinical Enterprise at the University of Kentucky: The Emergence of UK HealthCare

If the medical system in the United States is to change, as has been recommended, academic medical centers must, in fact, lead this change process. To prepare for the future, the University of Kentucky decided to move aggressively toward developing an integrated clinical enterprise branded as UK HealthCare, where leadership of the various components of the academic medical center make strategic and financial decisions together to achieve common organizational goals. The authors discuss senior leadership's development of the vision for the enterprise and the governance structure that was established to engage board members and faculty of the institution. They examine the rigorous strategic, facilities, financial, and academic planning that ensued, and the early successes achieved. The authors introduce some of the lessons learned by the organization during the emergence of UK HealthCare and describe the corporate structure and senior management team that was established to support the quick and efficient implementation of the planning strategies. It was this corporate structure and senior management team which has proven to be an effective agent of change and a key to the successful development of a truly integrated clinical enterprise.
In vivo assessment of ductal carcinoma in situ grade: a model incorporating dynamic contrast-enhanced and diffusion-weighted breast MR imaging parameters.

PURPOSE To develop a model incorporating dynamic contrast material-enhanced (DCE) and diffusion-weighted (DW) magnetic resonance (MR) imaging features to differentiate high-nuclear-grade (HNG) from non-HNG ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) in vivo. MATERIALS AND METHODS This HIPAA-compliant study was approved by the institutional review board and requirement for informed consent was waived. A total of 55 pure DCIS lesions (19 HNG, 36 non-HNG) in 52 women who underwent breast MR imaging at 1.5 T with both DCE and DW imaging (b = 0 and 600 sec/mm(2)) were retrospectively reviewed. The following lesion characteristics were recorded or measured: DCE morphology, DCE maximum lesion size, peak initial enhancement at 90 seconds, worst-curve delayed enhancement kinetics, apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC), contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) at DW imaging with b values of 0 and 600 sec/mm(2), and T2 signal effects (measured with CNR at b = 0 sec/mm(2)). Univariate and stepwise multivariate logistic regression modeling was performed to identify MR imaging features that optimally discriminated HNG from non-HNG DCIS. Discriminative abilities of models were compared by using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC). RESULTS HNG lesions exhibited larger mean maximum lesion size (P = .02) and lower mean CNR for images with b value of 600 sec/mm(2) (P = .004), allowing discrimination of HNG from non-HNG DCIS (AUC = 0.71 for maximum lesion size, AUC = 0.70 for CNR at b = 600 sec/mm(2)). Differences in CNR for images with b value of 0 sec/mm(2) (P = .025) without corresponding differences in ADC values were observed between HNG and non-HNG lesions. Peak initial enhancement was the only kinetic variable to approach significance (P = .05). No differences in lesion morphology (P = .11) or worst-curve delayed enhancement kinetics (P = .97) were observed. A multivariate model combining CNR for images with b value of 600 sec/mm(2) and maximum lesion size most significantly discriminated HNG from non-HNG (AUC = 0.81). CONCLUSION The preliminary findings suggest that DCE and DW MR imaging features may aid in identifying patients with high-risk DCIS. Further study may yield a model combining MR characteristics with histopathologic data to facilitate lesion-specific targeted therapies. © RSNA, 2012.
Understanding the Origin of Oscillatory Phenomena Observed Between Wind Farms and HVdc Systems

Field experience has shown that subsynchronous oscillation and harmonic resonance can occur between wind farms (WFs) and high voltage dc (HVdc) systems. The oscillations can appear in the presence of background harmonics due to the interaction between the wind energy conversion system’s (WECS’s) converter controller, HVdc converter controller, and the impact of the interconnection system impedance. However, the root causes of these oscillations observed in the field are not entirely understood and they can be attributed to various sources within the components and controllers of the interconnected system. This paper explores the possible causes of these oscillations by investigating the impact of controllers and components in the WF and in the voltage-source converter (VSC)-based HVdc transmission system. In order to understand this phenomenon, the impedance of both the WF and the HVdc from the offshore ac collection point is analytically derived to identify potential resonance points. The impedance frequency responses of the WF and the HVdc converter indicate the potential resonance at low frequency. The origin of these oscillations can be attributed to the propagation of the WECS resonance through the WECS full converter dc link and the interaction between the WECS and the HVdc system. Once the source and the load impedance are identified, an impedance-based stability method is adopted in order to determine the stability. In an attempt to improve the oscillatory phenomena, an active damping scheme is implemented on the offshore HVdc rectifier. An analysis and time-domain simulation results with its respective harmonic spectra show that the implemented active damping is very effective in eliminating the oscillations observed in the interconnected system. Moreover, this paper presents the role of the ratio between the bandwidths of the interconnected areas, as having an essential role in the root cause of the instability. The general rule is observed that when the bandwidth of the HVdc rectifier (which is the source) is faster than the bandwidth of the load (WFs inverter); the system operates stably.
A newem estimationof dynamic stream weights for coupled-HMM-based audio-visual ASR

Mutually deploying visual and acoustical information in automatic speech recognition systems increases their robustness against acoustical environmental effects like additive noise and reverberation. Optimal fusion of the audio and video streams requires dynamic adaptation of the relative contribution of each modality. This can be achieved by weighting each stream according to its reliability by an appropriate stream weight. In this paper we propose a new expectation maximization algorithm that estimates oracle frame-dependent stream weights for coupled-HMM-based audio-visual speech recognition. Moreover, we introduce a greedy optimization approach that reasonably initializes this algorithm. The proposed approach is evaluated on the Grid audio-visual database and results in an average relative word error rate reduction of 38% and 58% compared to grid search and Bayes fusion, respectively. The estimated oracle stream weights can be used instead of the conventional global fixed stream weights to improve the supervised training of stream weight estimators.
Structural, optical and magnetic properties of Co-doped ZnO nanorods with hidden secondary phases

Co-doped ZnO nanorods (composition: Zn0.955Co0.045O) were grown by a simple surfactant-assisted hydrothermal technique. The morphological, structural, optical and magnetic properties of the as-prepared nanorods were investigated by means of scanning electron microscopy, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, x-ray diffraction, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, micro-Raman spectroscopy, micro-cathodoluminescence, and vibrating sample magnetometry (VSM). The results showed that the sample had rod-like morphology and that the preferential growth direction was along the c axis. While Co was successfully doped into the ZnO wurtzite lattice structure as revealed by several characterization techniques, hidden secondary phases of ZnyCo3−yO4 (0≤y≤1) were also clearly detected by the micro-Raman spectroscopic technique. We propose that the predominant diffusion-limited Ostwald ripening crystal growth mechanism under the hydrothermal coarsening yielded such phase segregation. VSM results showed that the nanorods displayed relatively weak room-temperature ferromagnetism. We suggest that the origin of the ferromagnetism is probably due to the presence of the mixed cation valence of Co via a d–d double-exchange mechanism rather than the real doping effect. It is essential to control the crystal growth mechanism and defect states associated with the ferromagnetism in order to realize the intrinsic diluted magnetic semiconductors.
An automatic algorithm for the segmentation and morphological analysis of microvessels in immunostained histological tumour sections

A fully automatic segmentation and morphological analysis algorithm for the analysis of microvessels from CD31 immunostained histological tumour sections is presented. Development of the algorithm exploited the distinctive hues of stained vascular endothelial cells, cell nuclei and background, to provide the seeds for a ‘region‐growing’ method for object segmentation in the 3D hue, saturation, value (HSV) colour model. The segmented objects, identified as microvessels by CD31 immunostaining, were post‐processed with three morphological tasks: joining separate objects that were likely to belong to a single vessel, closing objects that had a narrow gap around their periphery, and splitting objects with multiple lumina into individual vessels. The automatic segmentation was validated against a hand‐segmented set of 44 images from three different SW1222 human colorectal carcinomas xenografted into mice. 96.3 ± 0.9% of pixels were found to be correctly classified. Automated segmentation was carried out on a further 53 images from three histologically distinct mouse fibrosarcomas (MFs) for morphological comparison with the SW1222 tumours. Four morphometric measurements were calculated for each segmented vessel: vascular area (VA), ratio of lumen area to vascular area (lu/VA), eccentricity (e), and roundness (ro). In addition, the total vascular area relative to tumour tissue area (rVA) was calculated. lu/VA, e and ro were found to be significantly smaller in MF tumours than in SW1222 tumours (p < 0.05; unpaired t‐test). The algorithm is available through the website http://www.caiman. org.uk where images can be uploaded, processed and sent back to users. The output from CAIMAN consists of the original image with boundaries of segmented vessels overlaid, the calculated parameters and a Matlab file, which contains the segmentation that the user can use to derive further results.