Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Physiological Numbers of CD4+ T Cells Generate Weak Recall Responses Following Influenza Virus Challenge

Naive and recall CD4+ T cell responses were probed with recombinant influenza A viruses incorporating the OVA OT-II peptide. The extent of OT-II–specific CD4+ T cell expansion was greater following primary exposure, with secondary challenge achieving no significant increase in numbers, despite higher precursor frequencies. Adoptive transfer experiments with OT-II TCR-transgenic T cells established that the predominant memory set is CD62Lhi, whereas the CD62Llo precursors make little contribution to the recall response. Unlike the situation described by other investigators, in which the transfer of very large numbers of in vitro-activated CD4 effectors can modify the disease process, providing CD62Lhi or CD62Llo OT-II–specific T cells at physiological levels neither enhanced virus clearance nor altered clinical progression. Some confounding effects of the transgenic model were observed, with decreasing primary expansion efficiency correlating with greater numbers of transferred cells. This was associated with increased levels of mRNA for the proapoptotic molecule Bim in cells recovered following high-dose transfer. However, even with very low numbers of transferred cells, memory T cells did not expand significantly following secondary challenge. A similar result was recorded in mice primed and boosted to respond to an endogenous IAb-restricted epitope derived from the influenza virus hemagglutinin glycoprotein. Depletion of CD8+ T cells during secondary challenge generated an increased accumulation of OT-II–specific T cells but only at the site of infection. Taken together, significant expansion was not a feature of these secondary influenza-specific CD4 T cell responses and the recall of memory did not enhance recovery.
Sealed Implantation of Foldable Intraocular Lenses

Purpose To evaluate the safety and efficacy of sealed implantation, a simple technique for implanting foldable intraocular lenses (IOLs). Methods This was a retrospective study including consecutive patients who underwent phacoemulsification cataract using the sealed implantation technique. Sealed implantation is a technique in which a single-piece, foldable IOL is implanted without an intraocular ophthalmic viscosurgical device (OVD) or continuous infusion (hydroimplantation) of balanced saline solution (BSS). Forty consecutive patients who underwent clear corneal incision cataract surgery with IOL implantation using this technique were included. A 3-step 2.75-mm incision was performed approximately 0.5 mm anterior to the limbus with a 1.50 to 1.75 mm length as well as a 0.9 mm side port incision. Prior to the insertion of the IOL, the capsular bag and anterior chamber are filled with BSS. Hydroxypropyl methylcellulose 2% is applied external to the main corneal incision. The foldable IOL injector tip is introduced into the main incision in one quick jabbing motion and the IOL injected. The IOL is dialed with a standard irrigating Simcoe cannula. The main outcomes were intraoperative complications and postoperative hypotony. Results Of 50 charts reviewed, sealed implantation was attempted in 40 (80%), with success in all cases. The injection of the IOL was performed without anterior chamber loss in 92% of the cases (n = 36) and no complications were recorded. There were no events of postoperative hypotony or wound leakage. Conclusions Sealed implantation is a safe and efficient alternative to hydroimplantation without the need for OVDs in suitable cases.
Religiousness and Prostate Cancer Screening in African American Men

This study was designed to examine the relationship between religiousness (organized, nonorganized, and intrinsic) and religious problem solving (collaborative, deferring, and self-directing) in prostate cancer screening (PCS) attitudes and behavior. Men (N = 481) of African descent between the ages of 40 and 70 participated. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that religiousness and self-directed problem solving were associated with PCS attitudes. Intrinsic religiousness was associated with PCS attitudes after controlling for health and organized religiousness. Religiousness was not associated with PCS behavior. Intrinsic religiousness may be an important dimension of religiousness to be considered in tailoring cancer interventions for individuals from faith-based communities.
Design of the LRP airfoil series using 2D CFD

This paper describes the design and wind tunnel testing of a high-Reynolds number, high lift airfoil series designed for wind turbines. The airfoils were designed using direct gradient- based numerical multi-point optimization based on a Bezier parameterization of the shape, coupled to the 2D Navier-Stokes flow solver EllipSys2D. The resulting airfoils, the LRP2-30 and LRP2-36, achieve both higher operational lift coefficients and higher lift to drag ratios compared to the equivalent FFA-W3 airfoils.
The Linking Regions of EBNA1 Are Essential for Its Support of Replication and Transcription

ABSTRACT The ability of distant cis-acting DNA elements to interact functionally has been proposed to be mediated by the interaction of proteins associated site specifically with thosecis-acting elements. We have found that the DNA-linking regions of EBNA1 are essential for its contribution to both replication and transcription. The synthesis of plasmids containing the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) origin of plasmid replication (oriP) can be mediated entirely by the cellular machinery; however, the replicated molecules are lost rapidly from proliferating cells. When EBNA1 is provided in trans, plasmids containingoriP (oriP plasmids) are synthesized during repeated S phases, and the newly formed daughter molecules are precisely segregated to the daughter cells. The contribution(s) of EBNA1 to the stable replication of oriP plasmids is therefore likely to be postsynthetic. In latently infected cells, EBNA1 also regulates the expression of multiple EBV promoters located as many as 10 kbp away. EBNA1 supports replication and transcription through binding to oriP; both the ability of EBNA1 to bind to DNA and the integrity of its binding sites in oriP are required. However, DNA binding by EBNA1 is not sufficient to support replication or transcription, indicating that an additional activity (or activities) is required. EBNA1 links DNAs to which it binds and can form a loop between the two subelements of oriP, the family of repeats and the region of dyad symmetry, each of which contains multiple binding sites for EBNA1. We have constructed a set of derivatives of EBNA1 which contain both, one, or neither of its linking regions in various contexts. Analyses of these derivatives demonstrate that the linking regions of EBNA1 are essential for its support of replication and transcription and that the ability of derivatives of EBNA1 to link DNAs correlates strongly with their support of these activities in cells. These findings indicate that protein-protein associations of the linking regions of EBNA1 underlie its long-range contributions to replication and transcription.
UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) Automatic Selection of Web Contents Towards Automatic Authoring of a Video Biography

—In this paper, we propose a method for image selection using Web image search for automatic video biography authoring. In the proposed method, images are selected from the image search results considering their visual contents for inclusion in the video biography. Through evaluation, we con-ﬁrmed the effectiveness of the proposed image selection method compared to a baseline method which simply selects the top 1 search result.
Usability Study of Fingerprint and Palmvein Biometric Technologies at the ATM

The usability of four biometric ATM designs were assessed in comparison to an existing ATM. Participants (N=46) were observed using two biometric technologies (palmvein and fingerprint) at two positions (horizontal and vertical) on the ATM in a repeated measures design. Measures included a usability attitude questionnaire, a quality metric and data from interviews and observation. Usability scores for the ATMs with biometric sensors were comparable to scores for the existing ATM even though they added an extra step to the typical ATM process. No differences were found in usability scores between palmvein and fingerprint sensors on the ATMs, or for the different positions. The quality results were more emphatic with a definite preference for horizontal positioning of sensors on the ATM, which corresponded with observations and participant comments. The horizontally-mounted fingerprint sensor was rated significantly higher in comparison to the existing ATM. Participant preference also favoured the fingerprint sensor over the palmvein sensor. It is argued that the quality metric results picked up on issues of security, whereas the usability results did not. There was a clear divide in the rankings of the existing ATM with equal scores ranking it first and last. Nearly 20% of the participants said they would not register to use biometric technologies. It is not clear how much of this is due to usability issues or underlying negative attitudes towards biometrics. Observations and comments from the participants point to the importance of improving user feedback in future designs.
Protection Against Atherogenesis in Mice Mediated by Human Apolipoprotein A-IV

Apolipoproteins are protein constituents of plasma lipid transport particles. Human apolipoprotein A-IV (apoA-IV) was expressed in the liver of C57BL/6 mice and mice deficient in apoE, both of which are prone to atherosclerosis, to investigate whether apoA-IV protects against this disease. In transgenic C57BL/6 mice on an atherogenic diet, the serum concentration of high density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol increased by 35 percent, whereas the concentration of endogenous apoA-I decreased by 29 percent, relative to those in transgenic mice on a normal diet. Expression of human apoA-IV in apoE-deficient mice on a normal diet resulted in an even more severe atherogenic lipoprotein profile, without affecting the concentration of HDL cholesterol, than that in nontransgenic apoE-deficient mice. However, transgenic mice of both backgrounds showed a substantial reduction in the size of atherosclerotic lesions. Thus, apoA-IV appears to protect against atherosclerosis by a mechanism that does not involve an increase in HDL cholesterol concentration.
Redundant Robot Kinematics Control with HCMAC Neural Network Manipulability Enhancement

The kinematics problems of redundant robots have been investigated for many years. A plenty of different robot redundancy usages were successfully implemented. In practice, e.g. redundant robot manipulability improvement, and robot obstacle avoidance are commonly used. Conventional methods use the manipulability gradient computation to improve the end-effector manipulability. However, the computational effort of this approach brings about many difficulties in real-time control when used with plenty of constraints. Recently, neural networks have found wide application in robotics, because of their feature to learn any complicated system model. This paper deals with new numerically efficient procedures and an application of HCMAC (Hierarchical Cerebellar Model Arithmetic Controller) neural network for manipulability gradient computation and consecutive robot control improvement. The conventional CMAC can be viewed as a basis function network (BFN) with supervised learning well-performing in the terms of its fast learning speed and local generalization capability for approximating nonlinear functions. Nevertheless, due to the redundant robot high-dimensional function approximation the conventional CMAC is enormously memory-demanding. HCMAC indeed has low memory requirements and very good learning ability. Furthermore, it shows a better performance compared with the conventional approach and conventional CMAC.
West Nile virus: Success of public health response underlines failure of the system

The West Nile virus outbreak in 1999 demonstrated the country's capacity to meet an emerging public health threat. However, while the tracking and monitoring efforts that were put into place by 2000 were impressive, the response to the West Nile virus underscores a fundamental deficiency in the capacity of public health regarding the nation's environmental health efforts. Chronic diseases such as asthma, neurological diseases, and birth defects and their potential links to environmental factors are not being adequately tracked and monitored. New public health infrastructure resources are required.
Leptospirosis among patients with pyrexia of unknown origin in a hospital in Guwahati, Assam.

Leptospirosis is one of the important zoonoses of man and animals. In recent years, it has increasingly been reported from different parts of the world including India. Sera from 536 individuals with pyrexia of unknown origin (PUO) belonging to different age group, sex and occupation and having varying levels of exposure to animals, forest and flood were examined for the presence of antibodies to pathogenic Leptospira by commercially available kit. Overall 22.57% individuals with PUO were found to be positive for leptospirosis with 27.93% among male and 11.79% among female patients. This difference among.genders was statistically significant. The seropositivity was higher among patients in the age groups of 21-30 years followed by 31-40 and 41-50 years. Seropositivity was higher among individuals having contact with animals, working in forest and flood affected areas.
ICASE ON THE GIBBS PHENOMENON V : RECOVERING EXPONENTIAL ACCURACY FROM COLLOCATION POINT VALUES OF A PIECEWISE ANALYTIC FUNCTION a . DTIC

The paper presents a method to recover exponential accuracy at all points (including at the discontinuities themselves), from the knowledge of an approximation to the interpolation polynomial (or trigonometrical polynomial). We show that if we are given the collocation point wdues (or an highly accurate approximation) at the Gauss or Gauss-Lobatto points, we can reconstruct an uniform exponentially convergent approximation to the function f(x) in any sub-interval of analyticity. The proof covers the cases of Fourier, Chebyshev, Legendre, and more general Gegenbauer collocation methods. 'Research supported by AFOSR grant 93-0090, ARO grant DAAL03-91-G-0123 and DAAH04-94-G-0205, DARPA grant N00014-91-J-4016, NSF grant DMS-9211820, NASA grant NAGI-1145, and NASA contract NASI-19480 while the authors were in residence at the Institute for Computer Applications in Science and Engineering (ICASE), NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA 23681-0001. i ~
Relationship Between the Lactic Dehydrogenase-Elevating Virus and Transplantable Murine Tumors.∗

Summary The following murine tumors were propagated serially in vitro: Sarcoma 180, Hauschka-Klein ascites tumor, and hepa-tomas 129 and 134. The lactic dehydrogenase-elevating virus initially associated with all of these tumors in vivo did not multiply in cell cultures and by serial propagation in vitro the tumors were freed from the virus. The results indicate that the relationship between the lactic dehydrogenase-elevating virus and transplantable mouse tumors is that of a common contaminant. The “virus-free” tumor cells produced tumors when implanted into mice. The growth rate and transplant-ability of these tumors was the same in normal mice and in mice infected intentionally with the virus.
Fuzzy Membership, Possibility, Probability and Negation in Biometrics

This paper proposes a new formalization of the classical probability-possibility relation, which is further confirmed as a much complex, but natural provability - reachability - possibility - probability - fuzzy membership - integrability interconnection. Searching for the right context in which this relation can be consistently expressed for the particular case of experimentally obtained iris recognition results brought us to a natural (canonic) and universal fuzzification procedure available for an entire class of continuous distributions, to a confluence point of statistics, classical logic, modal logic, fuzzy logic, system theory, measure theory and topology. The applications - initially intended for iris recognition scenarios - can be easily extrapolated anywhere else where there is a need of expressing the relation possibility - probability - fuzzy membership without weakening the σ -additivity condition within the definition of probability, condition that is considered here as the actual principle of possibility-probability consistency.
At-risk drinkers are at higher risk to acquire a bacterial infection during an intensive care unit stay than abstinent or moderate drinkers*

Objectives:To determine whether excessive alcohol consumption increases the risk for intensive care unit (ICU)-acquired bacterial infection, especially ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), in nontrauma patients. Design:Prospective observational cohort study. Setting:A 21-bed polyvalent ICU in a university hospital. Patients:A total of 358 adult patients admitted over a 1-yr period who had an ICU stay ≥3 days and in whom alcohol consumption could be assessed. Interventions:None. Measurements and Mean Results:Thirty-one percent of the patients (111 of 358) were identified as at-risk drinkers according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism criteria. Among these, 61 had a daily intake of five or more drinks per day and 73 had Simplified Michigan Alcohol Short Test scores ≥3. ICU-acquired bacterial infections were diagnosed in 88 patients, and 69 patients had one or more VAPs. Forty (36%) at-risk drinkers acquired bacterial infections vs. 48 (19%) not-at-risk drinkers (p < .001). Among at-risk drinkers, the proportion of patients who developed bacterial infection was higher in at-risk drinkers consuming five or more drinks per day compared with at-risk drinkers consuming fewer than five drinks per day (p = .048). After adjustment for age, gender, Simplified Acute Physiology Score II, length of hospital stay before ICU admission, prior antibiotic administration within 24 hrs before ICU admission, type of admission, immunosuppression, duration of mechanical ventilation, and central venous and urinary catheter exposure, at-risk drinking remained significantly associated with the acquisition of bacterial infection at any site (hazard ratio 1.92; 95% confidence interval, 1.17–3.14; p = .009) and of VAP (hazard ratio 1.76; 95% confidence interval, 1.05–3.06; p = .04). Conclusions:At-risk drinking was a significant risk factor for acquisition of ICU-acquired bacterial infection.
ADJUSTMENT OF CORPORATE STRATEGY OF A MANUFACTURING COMPANY UNDER STRATEGIC UNEXPECTEDNESS

The paper discusses the method of adjustment of a corporate strategy of a manufacturing company, which unexpectedly finds itself in a crisis situation. The essence of the concept of this method is a constructive change of objectivesetting preconditi oned by a new objective, i.e. overcoming the crisis. To achieve this tasks, its structuring should be made via stating and solving optimization tasks at each step of structuring. Solving the whole complex of these objectives after completion of the structuring process allows decide on the best alternative of crisis bailout. A complex of measures constituting this alternative can be obtained more promptly and in a more reliable manner than the measures chosen on the basis of intuition or expert evaluations. Keywords: objective-setting, structuring of objective, objective task, objectives and objective tasks free, global objective, criterion of effectiveness, objective model, strategic unexpectedness, forcing connections, corporate strategy, problematic situation. In a rapidly evolving market, any manufacturing company is exposed to various external influences, among which there often are those that jeopardize the very existence of the company. These include both changes in the general environment (change in taxation, raised bank interest rates on loans, drop in personal incomes, increased turnover of goods manufacturing technologies) and the operational environment (changes in the structure of consumer demand, competitors' attacks, reduction of quality of resources supplied, emergence of aggressive and unreliable suppliers, lowering of personnel qualification).
Conception d'une base de données capteurs à l'aide de contraintes spatio-temporelles

De nos jours on a de plus en plus de capteurs qui ont tendance a apporter confort et facilite dans notre vie quotidienne. Ces capteurs sont faciles a deployer et a integrer dans une variete d'applications (monitoring de bâtiments intelligents, aide a la personne,. .). Ces milliers (voire millions) de capteurs sont de plus en plus envahissants et generent sans arret des masses enormes de donnees qu'on doit stocker et gerer pour le bon fonctionnement des applications qui en dependent. A chaque fois qu'un capteur genere une donnee, deux dimensions sont d'un interet particulier : la dimension temporelle et la dimension spatiale. Ces deux dimensions permettent d'identifier l'instant de reception et la source emettrice de chaque donnee. Chaque dimension peut se voir associee a une hierarchie de granularites qui peut varier selon le contexte d'application. Dans notre travail on se focalise sur les capteurs dans le cadre des bâtiments intelligents et les applications qui requierent le stockage a long terme des flux de donnees issues de ces capteurs. Notre objectif est de mettre en oeuvre une approche qui vise a controler la stockage des donnees capteurs en ne gardant que les donnees jugees pertinentes selon la specification des granularites spatio-temporelles representatives des besoins applicatifs. Nous empruntons l'approche declarative developpee dans les annees soixante-dix pour la conception de bases de donnees et on l'etend au flux de don-nees des capteurs. Nous pensons que des contraintes temporelles augmentees avec la dimension spatiale sont necessaires dans notre contexte pour saisir les contraintes sousjacentes. Ayant un ensemble de capteurs emettant des flux de don-nees, notre problematique est : Comment construire une base de donnees capteurs pour des applications qui requierent le stockage a long terme ?
Lateralized motor responses in anuran amphibians — an overview of methods and perspectives of studies

Anuran amphibians represent the most usual subjects for experimental biological research and a divergent group of extant vertebrates comprising species adapted to a variety of environments from aquatic to arboreal. Thus, they become excellent models in research of motor lateralization due to their different phylogenetic position and their anatomical and ecological diversity throughout their evolutionary history, as well as variety of locomotive habits and a diversity of limb use during walking, swimming, feeding and other activities. From the first works in mid-1990’s to the present day, a noticeable progress, a noticeable progress in the study of motor lateralization in anurans is made favored by a set of methodological approaches and their application to various species and life stages. Together, these advances foretell a plethora of interesting developments in the world of laterality research with the anuran amphibian model. Here, the discovery of right-pawedness in toads through the development of a set of different techniques to assess motor lateralization in anuran amphibians, and, as a consequence — important results revealing behavioral and morphological correlates are reviewed and discussed in evolutionary and eco-morpho-logical perspective.
Broadband THz CMOS on-chip antenna using stacked resonators

In this paper, we present a broadband THz CMOS on-chip antenna. The bandwidth of the on-chip antenna is improved by stacking four resonators on the top of a standard patch antenna. The proposed antenna was fabricated using 65-nm CMOS process, and the performance was verified by simulation and measurement. The simulation and measurement results show that the antenna can exhibit the fractional bandwidth for 10-dB return loss greater than 10%, and radiation efficiency greater than 15% at 300 GHz.