Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Semantics-based legal citation network

We describe and discuss the use of semantics-based citation networks in a new legal research tool. Such networks are generated based on citation relations between cases found in legal corpora as well as legal issues being discussed with these citations. Unlike traditional tools, the System allows legal professionals to efficiently study legal issues without having to go through whole cases or tedious manual citation search. This shift of focus from cases to individual issues within cases would greatly reduce time required for attorneys and legal scholars who have specific research problems in mind. The Systems User Interface (UI) allows users to easily navigate in the citation networks and study how citations are interrelated and how legal issues have evolved in the past. Various forms of natural language processing (NLP) technologies are used in building the metadata behind the prototype. Formal evaluation confirmed the Systems capability of accurately identifying citations relevant to given legal issues.
Transient Modeling and Sensitivity Analysis of a Controlled R744 Swash Plate Compressor

The focus of this investigation is the development of an advanced transient model to describe the operation of a controlled swash plate compressor for an automotive air-conditioning system using the natural refrigerant R744. The over-all model consists of several partial models, that describe the thermodynamic laws in the control volumes of the cylinders, the suction and discharge chamber as well as the crankcase, the heat transfer, the dynamics and friction of the swash plate and the pistons, the valve behavior, the piston leakage and the control valve mass flows. Based on measured data from the literature a validation is carried out under stationary full load operation conditions. The main focus of this investigation and the achieved progress compared to the state-of-the-art are the simulative linkage of the sub models in one complete model: the dynamic modeling of pistons and swash plate taking into account the impact of each individual piston on each other. An extensive sensitivity analysis was carried out to achieve a better understanding of the over-all compressor model behavior. Based on this analysis, the model and geometric parameters with a significant impact on the main model's variables and efficiencies were identified in each sub model. A subsequent goal is the generation of a compressor characteristic to provide compressor efficiencies for cycle simulations.
Regulatory effects of IFN‐β on production of osteopontin and IL‐17 by CD4+ T Cells in MS

IFN‐β currently serves as one of the major treatments for MS. Its anti‐inflammatory mechanism has been reported as involving a shift in cytokine balance from Th1 to Th2 in the T‐cell response against elements of the myelin sheath. In addition to the Th1 and Th2 groups, two other important pro‐inflammatory cytokines, IL‐17 and osteopontin (OPN), are believed to play important roles in CNS inflammation in the pathogenesis of MS. In this study, we examined the potential effects of IFN‐β on the regulation of OPN and IL‐17 in MS patients. We found that IFN‐β used in vitro at 0.5–3 ng/mL significantly inhibited the production of OPN in primary T cells derived from PBMC. The inhibition of OPN was determined to occur at the CD4+ T‐cell level. In addition, IFN‐β inhibited the production of IL‐17 and IL‐21 in CD4+ T cells. It has been described that IFN‐β suppresses IL‐17 production through the inhibition of a monocytic cytokine, the intracellular translational isoform of OPN. Our further investigation demonstrated that IFN‐β also acted directly on the CD4+ T cells to regulate OPN and IL‐17 expression through the type I IFN receptor‐mediated activation of STAT1 and suppression of STAT3 activity. Administration of IFN‐β to EAE mice ameliorated the disease severity. Furthermore, spinal cord infiltration of OPN+ and IL‐17+ cells decreased in IFN‐β‐treated EAE mice along with decreases in serum levels of OPN and IL‐21. Importantly, decreased OPN production by IFN‐β treatment contributes to the reduced migratory activity of T cells. Taken together, the results from both in vitro and in vivo experiments indicate that IFN‐β treatment can down‐regulate the OPN and IL‐17 production in MS. This study provides new insights into the mechanism of action of IFN‐β in the treatment of MS.
Cis Interaction Between Semaphorin 6 A and Plexin-A 4 modulate the repulsive response to Sema 6 A

As you can see, the referees find the analysis interesting, well done and suitable for publication here. However, there are also some issues that need to be resolved before further consideration here. Some important controls are missing and some insight into the effects of the cis Sema6a/plexin-A4 interaction on plexinA4 downstream signaling is needed. Also the analysis concerning the domains involved in the cis and trans interaction needs to be improved. Should you be able to address the raised concerns, we would consider a revised manuscript. I should remind you that it is EMBO Journal policy to allow a single round of revision only and that, therefore, acceptance or rejection of the manuscript will depend on the completeness of your responses included in the next, final version of the manuscript. When preparing your letter of response to the referees' comments, please bear in mind that this will form part of the Review Process File, and will therefore be available online to the community. For more details on our Transparent Editorial Process initiative, please visit our website: http://www.nature. com/emboj/about/process.html
Etude de marqueurs biologiques prédictifs de la perte de réponse aux anti-TNF

L’utilisation d’agents anti-TNF a grandement ameliore la prise en charge de certaines maladies inflammatoires chroniques comme la polyarthrite rhumatoide (PR) ou les maladies inflammatoires chroniques de l’intestin (MICI). Cependant, le quart des patients environ ne vont pas repondre au traitement ou presenteront une perte de reponse secondaire. Des marqueurs predictifs de reponse sont necessaires afin limiter les effets secondaires et les couts inutiles en ciblant les patients qui pourraient etre ameliores par les anti-TNF. Ces travaux de recherche se sont dans un premier temps concentres sur l’importance de l’immunogenicite de ces traitements. Des anticorps anti-medicaments (ADAs) etaient bien associes a un taux bas d’anti-TNF avec des consequences cliniques en termes de perte de reponse clinique et d’absence de cicatrisation muqueuse dans les MICI. Des seuils cliniques d’interpretation des tests biologiques pour la detection du medicament et de ses anticorps ont pu etre definis et correspondent a 4.9 μg/ml pour l’infliximab et 200 ng/ml pour les ADAs. Ces resultats obtenus par ELISA sont bien correles avec les tests fonctionnels realises en parallele et confirment l’interet de cette technique dans ce depistage. Les ADAs etaient diminues par traitement immunosuppresseur concomitant. Ensuite, la persistance d’une infection chronique mise en evidence par des anticorps anti-bacteriens a ete evaluee en tant que marqueur predictif de reponse aux anti-TNF. Aucun resultat statistiquement significatif n’a pu etre releve sur ces premieres donnees, que ca soit pour les anticorps diriges contre la flore intestinale pour les MICI ou contre le microbiote oral dans la PR. Seul un taux eleve de MMP-3 a l’initiation de l’infliximab chez les patients PR predisait d’une bonne reponse clinique selon les criteres de l’EULAR par la suite
Novel Approach for Detection of Hepatitis E Virus Infection in German Blood Donors

ABSTRACT The risk of transfusion-transmitted hepatitis E virus (HEV) infections by contaminated blood products remains unknown. In the present study, we evaluated and compared different nucleic acid amplification technique (NAT) methods for the detection of HEV in blood components. Minipools of a total of 16,125 individual blood donors were screened for the presence of HEV RNA using the highly sensitive RealStar HEV RT-PCR kit, revealing a minimum detection limit of 4.66 IU/ml. Thirteen donors were HEV RNA positive (0.08%), and of these donors, only three already showed reactive IgM antibody titers. The detected HEV strains all belonged to genotype 3 and were most closely related to German HEV strains from wild boars and pigs as well as from human hepatitis E cases. Furthermore, HEV RNA and HEV-specific IgM and IgG titers were determined in 136 blood donors with elevated alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels and in 200 donors without pathological findings. HEV RNA was not detectable, but 8.08% (elevated ALT) and 0.5% (nonelevated ALT) of donors showed reactive HEV IgM titers. The overall seroprevalence rate of HEV IgG amounted to 5.94% (elevated ALT, 5.88%; nonelevated ALT, 6.0%). The clinical relevance of transfusion-associated hepatitis E infection still requires further investigation. However, in connection with raising concerns regarding blood safety, our NAT method provides a sensitive possibility for HEV testing.
ARROW@TU Dublin ARROW@TU Dublin 28 GHz 5G Radio over Fiber using UF-OFDM with Optical 28 GHz 5G Radio over Fiber using UF-OFDM with Optical Heterodyning Heterodyning

—A 5G millimeter-wave radio over ﬁbre optical fronthaul system based on optical heterodyning, utilising an exter- nally injected gain switched distributed feedback laser, is successfully demonstrated. Five bands of UF-OFDM are transmitted over 25 km of ﬁbre and a 28 GHz Vivaldi Antenna wireless link. Transmission performance below the 7% FEC limit is achieved with an aggregate total data rate of 4.56 Gb/s.
Hospital mortality rate and length of stay in patients admitted at night to the intensive care unit*

ObjectiveAlthough admission of patients to a medical ward after 5:00 pm has been associated with increased mortality rate and possibly shorter hospital stay, the association between timing of admission to the intensive care unit and outcome has not been studied. The objective of this study was to determine whether there are any associations between the timing of patient admission to a medical intensive care unit and hospital outcome. DesignA retrospective cohort study that used an Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation III database containing prospectively collected demographic, clinical, and outcome information for patients. Patients were divided according to the time of admission into daytime (from 7:00 am to 5:00 pm) and nighttime admissions. We further subdivided nighttime admissions into two groups (regular and heavy workload) according to the number of patients who were admitted during the same shift. SettingMedical intensive care unit (a 15-bed unit in an academic referral hospital). Patients6,034 patients consecutively admitted to our medical intensive care unit over a 5-yr period starting April 10, 1995. InterventionsNone. Measurements and Main ResultsThe patients admitted at night had a lower mortality rate (13.9 vs. 17.2%, p < .0001), adjusted for admission source and severity of illness. Their hospital stay was shorter, 11.0 days ± 13.5 (median 7) vs. 12.7 ± 14.8 (median 8;p < .0001), as was their intensive care unit stay, 3.5 ± 4.4 days (median 2) vs. 3.9 ± 4.7 (median 2;p < .0001), compared with the daytime admission group. The nighttime shifts that admitted three or more patients (heavy workload) had the same mortality rate (13.2%) as those with fewer admissions (14.5%;p = .5961). Hospital and intensive care unit stays were also similar in both workload groups. ConclusionsNighttime admission to our intensive care unit is not associated with a higher mortality rate or a longer hospital or intensive care unit stay compared with daytime admission.
An Empirical Research on the Effectiveness of Audit Committee - Evidence Based on Audit Fee of Chinese Listed Companies

Taking Chinese A-share listed companies as sample and using the regression analysis method, this paper researches the corporate governance effect of audit committee by examining the relationships between the audit fees and relevant factors. Through analyzing the correlative data, the paper finds that the audit fees are significantly associated with board independence, the number of independent directors, the number of insider directors, and other some factors. It finds further that the relationships are related to the formation of audit committee. The findings support that audit committee improves company's internal control system and promotes external auditor independence, as well as supports the purchase of the higher-quality audit services. At the same time, some interesting results are found and discussed. At last, it points out the conclusion and limitation in this research, and offers a kind of idea and method for the similar research
Splenic abscess due to Staphylococcus lentus: A rare entity

Splenic abscess is an unusual condition, most often seen in immunocompromized patients. Splenic abscesses are due to aerobic and anaerobic bacteria, fungi and parasites, Staphylococcus aureus being the most common aetiological agent. We describe a case of splenic abscess in an alcoholic patient due to Staphylococcus lentus, a rare aetiology included in the microbiology of this disease.
Query Expansion based on Concept Clique for Markov Network Information Retrieval Model

Query expansion is a common technique used to improve retrieval effectiveness. In this paper, we propose a novel query expansion technique based on concept clique for Markov network information retrieval model. This technique strengthens the simple relationships between terms in the following two ways:(1) terms in a clique express a similar concept and will be added into query expansion, so that it is effective to expanded into some terms with low similar to query terms but highly related to query topic; (2) query term dependencies are used to select concept cliques as candidates. The selection of concept cliques based on a connected graph is effective to avoid topic drift during expanding polysemous query terms. Experiments on several collections show that new approach makes significant improvements and more effective on collections with polysemous terms.
Mycobacterium tuberculosis and the intimate discourse of a chronic infection

Summary: Mycobacterium tuberculosis is an extremely successful pathogen that demonstrates the capacity to modulate its host both at the cellular and tissue levels. At the cellular level, the bacterium enters its host macrophage and arrests phagosome maturation, thus avoiding many of the microbicidal responses associated with this phagocyte. Nonetheless, the intracellular environment places certain demands on the pathogen, which, in response, senses the environmental shifts and upregulates specific metabolic programs to allow access to nutrients, minimize the consequences of stress, and sustain infection. Despite its intracellular niche, Mycobacterium tuberculosis demonstrates a marked capacity to modulate the tissues surrounding infected cells through the release of potent, bioactive cell wall constituents. These cell wall lipids are released from the host cell by an exocytic process and induce physiological changes in neighboring phagocytes, which drives formation of a granuloma. This tissue response leads to the generation and accumulation of caseous debris and the progression of the human tuberculosis granuloma. Completion of the life cycle of tuberculosis requires damaging the host to release infectious bacteria into the airways to spread the infection. This damage reflects the pathogen’s ability to subvert the host’s innate and acquired immune responses to its own nefarious ends.
Phenotypic Characterization and Risk Factors of Nosocomial Staphylococcus aureus from Health Care Centers

Multidrug resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MDRS) is a serious threat to hospitalized patients globally and now represents a challenge for public health, as community-acquired infections appear to be on the increase in both adults and children. S. aureus colonization has been shown to be a risk factor for community-acquired and nosocomial infections. A total of 130 subjects from the community and 100 subjects from health care-related facilities were evaluated for the prevalence of Staphylococcus aureus colonization and to identify risk factors associated with methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin resistant S. aureus (VRSA) colonization. Among the community subjects, 35.38% had MRSA and 1.53% VRSA colonization. Subjects from health care-related facilities had a lower MRSA colonization rate (17%) than community subjects and the colonization VRSA has not been found. Age was a risk factor for S. aureus colonization, with subjects under age 20 years or between 60 and 80 years showing higher rates of colonization. In conclusion, a high prevalence of MRSA colonization was observed among people with relationship to the hospital setting. The high level of multiple-drug resistance among community MRSA strains in association with the previously reported excessive use of antibiotics highlights the importance of the problem of antibiotic selective pressure. Our results indicate that the spread of both MRSA and VRSA and the transmission of hospital isolates contribute to the high MRSA/VRSA burden in the community.
Design of a novel single-feed antenna for global positioning system

This paper presents the design of a circularly polarized microstrip antenna for global positioning system (GPS). This single-feed and single-layer antenna works at the L1 (1559-1615MHZ) frequency band for civil use of GPS. There are two pairs of symmetric rectangular slots and circular slots in the diagonal directions respectively. The right-handed circular polarization (RHCP) is obtained by using the slight difference between the rectangular and circular slots. Four E-shaped shots are embedded on the ground plane to improve the antenna gain. The results show that the antenna gain has increased some 0.83dB. The -10dB impendence bandwidth is 39.3MHz and the 3dB axial ratio is 14.9MHz. It is obvious that this antenna can be used in GPS.
Agonist Regulation of Gene Expression of Adrenergic Receptors and G Proteins

Abstract: Study of transmembrane signaling via G proteins has focused to a large extent upon investigations of individual G protein‐linked receptor‐effector systems. Agonist‐induced desensitization and down‐regulation of β‐adrenergic receptors, for example, have been studied extensively and adopted as a general model for G protein‐linked receptor regulation. This review focuses not only on agonist regulation of adrenergic receptor gene expression, but also on how agonists regulate opposing adrenergic receptor‐mediated pathways. This important feature of G protein‐mediated pathways, i.e., cross‐regulation and integration of information among several pathways, will be discussed in the context of what has been learned in the adrenergic receptor‐coupled pathways.
Ondansetron, gender and antipredator defensive behaviour

The 5-HT3 receptor antagonist ondansetron has provided a somewhat equivocal profile in a number of animal models of anxiety. The present study assessed the effects of this compound in two ethological test batteries. The Fear/Defense Test Battery (F/DTB) and the Anxiety/Defense Test Battery (A/DTB) have been developed to investigate antipredator defensive reactions in rats. The F/DTB measures behavioural reactions of wild- trapped rats to human threat, while the A/DTB assesses behavioural responding in laboratory rats as a consequence of exposure to a domestic cat, and to cat odour per se. Ondansetron (0.001-0.10 mg/kg) failed to provide any reliable and consistent profile of anxiety/fear reduction in either test battery. In addition to the elucidation of drug effects, previous studies have provided clear evidence of gender differences with female rats showing higher levels of defensiveness than males in the A/DTB. Until now, no such differences have been observed with wild-trapped rats in the F/DTB. Thus, the present study indicated a clear gender difference with females exhibiting greater defensiveness. This finding is discussed with reference to the general decrease in defensiveness of the first generation animals compared with their wild-trapped parents.
SuperSpec: development towards a full-scale filter bank

SuperSpec is a new spectrometer-on-a-chip technology for submm/mm-wave spectroscopy. SuperSpec stands out from other direct-detection submm spectrometer technologies in that the detectors are coupled to a series of resonant filters along a single microwave feedline instead of using dispersive optics. SuperSpec makes use of kinetic inductance detectors (KIDs) to detect radiation in this filter bank. The small profile of this design makes SuperSpec a natural choice to produce a multi-object spectrometer for tomographic mapping or galaxy redshift surveys. We have recently fabricated a device that is a 50 channel subset of a full 280 channel filter bank, which would cover the 190 - 310 GHz range at R = 275. Analysis of the data from this device informs us of the potential design modifications to enable a high-yield background-limited SuperSpec spectrometer. The results indicate that this subset filter bank can scale up to a full filter bank with only a few collisions in readout space and less than 20% variation in responsivity for the detectors. Additionally, the characterization of this and other prototype devices suggests that the noise performance is limited by generation-recombination noise. Finally, we find that the detectors are sufficiently sensitive for ground-based spectroscopy at R = 100, appropriate for tomographic mapping experiments. Further modifications are required to reach the background limit for R = 400, ideal for spectroscopy of individual galaxies.
Antigenic Cross-Reaction Between Mouse Intestine and a Member of the Autochthonous Microflora

Antigenic cross-reaction has been demonstrated between homogenates of intestine taken from fetal mice and suspensions of a Bacteriodes species isolated from the large intestines of normal adult mice. This observation provides an explanation for the lack of immunological response observed in mice after antigenic stimulation with this member of the normal autochthonous intestinal flora of these animals.
rotocols onstruction and characterization of an infectious molecular clone of aedi-visna virus that expresses green fluorescent protein ólmfrídur

The construction of a molecular clone of maedi-visna virus (MVV) expressing the enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) is described. The egfp gene was inserted into the gene for dUTPase since it has been eceived in revised form 23 April 2010 ccepted 27 April 2010 vailable online 4 May 2010