Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Adenocarcinoma of the Ampullary Glands of the Ductus Deferens in a Sprague-Dawley Rat

Spontaneously occurring proliferative lesions of the male accessory sex glands are infrequent in various strains of rats. In rodents, the ampullary glands are embedded in the prostate. Although 2 spontaneous cases of atypical hyperplastic lesions at the ampullary gland were previously described in Wistar rats, adenocarcinoma and/or adenoma in this gland have not been reported. This study describes adenocarcinomas in the bilateral ampullary glands in a 52-week-old intact male Sprague-Dawley rat housed as part of a control group in a toxicological experiment. At necropsy, the body weight (644.4 g) and the weight of the prostate with ampullary gland (2.75 g) were similar to others of the same control group, and it had a normal gross appearance. Histopathologically, both ampullary glands revealed microinvasive adenocarcinoma without vascular invasion. The morphological characteristics of the neoplasm varied in different regions of the gland. Other parts of the male accessory sex glands did not show proliferative lesions.
Does Mandatory Integration Matter? Effects of Civic Requirements on Immigrant Socio-economic and Political Outcomes

Several Western European countries have adopted policies of mandatory integration, requiring immigrants to acquire country knowledge, language and values as conditions for immigration, settlement and citizenship. The underlying concept is that—in promoting civic skills—immigrants are better equipped to politically, socially and economically integrate. However, the question of whether civic integration is designed to be a real solution to repair integration problems has gone untested. This paper presents results, across a wide range of outcomes, which finds much more support for a symbolic narrative than a functional one. Using a unique data-set to measure civic integration policy across six waves of the European Social Survey (2002–2012), we find little evidence that these requirements produce tangible, long-term integration change. This does not diminish their significance; instead, we find requirements serve a meaningful gate-keeping role, while simultaneously repositioning the state closer to immigrant lives.
Registration of MWIR-LWIR band hyperspectral images

Previously proposed hyperspectral image registration methods mostly focus on the registration of the images including overlapping bands in VNIR and SWIR range. In contrary to previous methods, we investigate the registration of hyperspectral images with no-overlapping bands in MWIR and LWIR range in this paper. The proposed approach achieves the image registration over 2D maps extracted from 3D hyperspectral data cubes. Considering that the main component of the captured signal in MWIR-LWIR range is thermal radiation, we first propose to use the brightness-temperature estimate of hyperspectral pixels to form the 2D image. In addition, hyperspectral pixel energy, average emissivity and the first three components of principal component analysis (PCA) transform are also utilized and tested for 3D-2D conversion. The performance of the methods are evaluated by the matching ratio of the interest points and by generating mosaic images from the given maps. The experimental results indicate that brightness-temperature estimate, pixel energy and first principal component gives comparable results for image matching. The emissivity maps and the remaining principal components are found to be not successful for image registration as these features do not form a common base for different band signals.
Representation and recognition of action in interactive spaces

This thesis presents new theory and technology for the representation and recognition of complex, context-sensitive human actions in interactive spaces. To represent action and interaction a symbolic framework has been developed based on Roger Schank’s conceptualizations, augmented by a mechanism to represent the temporal structure of the sub-actions based on Allen’s interval algebra networks. To overcome the exponential nature of temporal constraint propagation in such networks, we have developed the PNF propagation algorithm based on the projection of IA-networks into simplified, 3-valued (past, now, future) constraint networks called PNF-networks. The PNF propagation algorithm has been applied to an action recognition vision system that handles actions composed of multiple, parallel threads of sub-actions, in situations that can not be efficiently dealt by the commonly used temporal representation schemes such as finite-state machines and HMMs. The PNF propagation algorithm is also the basis of interval scripts, a scripting paradigm for interactive systems that represents interaction as a set of temporal constraints between the individual components of the interaction. Unlike previously proposed non-procedural scripting methods, we use a strong temporal representation (allowing, for example, mutually exclusive actions) and perform control by propagating the temporal constraints in real-time. These concepts have been tested in the context of four projects involving story-driven interactive spaces. The action representation framework has been used in the Intelligent Studio project to enhance the control of automatic cameras in a TV studio. Interval scripts have been extensively employed in the development of “SingSong”, a short interactive performance that introduced the idea of live interaction with computer graphics characters; in “It / I”, a full-length computer theater play; and in “It”, an interactive art installation based on the play “It / I” that realizes our concept of immersive stages, that is, interactive spaces that can be used both by performers and public.
Down‐regulation of the strawberry Bet v 1‐homologous allergen in concert with the flavonoid biosynthesis pathway in colorless strawberry mutant

Proteomic screening of strawberry (Fragaria ananassa) yielded a 58% success rate in protein identification in spite of the fact that no genomic sequence is available for this species. This was achieved by a combination of MALDI‐MS/MS de novo sequencing of double‐derivatized peptides and indel‐tolerant searching against local protein databases built on both EST and full‐length nucleotide sequences. The amino acid sequence of a strawberry allergen, homologous to the well‐known major birch pollen allergen Bet v 1, was partially determined. This strawberry allergen, named Fra a 1 according to the nomenclature for allergen proteins, showed sequence identity of 54 and 77%, respectively, with corresponding allergens from birch and apple. Differential expression, as evaluated by 2‐D DIGE, occurred in 10% of protein spots when red strawberries were compared to a colorless (white) strawberry mutant. White strawberries, known to be tolerated by individuals affected by allergy, were found to be virtually free from the strawberry allergen. Also several enzymes in the pathway for biosynthesis of flavonoids, to which the red color pelargonidin belongs, were down‐regulated. This approach to assess differential protein expression without access to genomic sequence information can also be applied to other crop plants and phenotypic traits.
Over-expression of MEK-MAPK in hepatocellular carcinoma : Its role in tumour progression and apoptosis

Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignancies in South East Asia. Although activation of the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) kinase (MEK)-MAPK is often associated with cellular growth, its role in growth and survival of hepatocarcinoma cells has not been established. Methods: Immuno-histochemistry was used to localize phosphorylated MAPK and MEK1/2 in the tissues. 3-(4,5-Dimethylthiazol-2-y1)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay and ELISA were used to determine cell viability and cell proliferation. Deoxynucleotidyl transferasemediated dUTP nick-end labelling (TUNEL) assay was used to detect apoptotic cells. Western blots analysis was performed to determine the levels of proteins involved in the MEK-MAPK and apoptotic pathways. Transfection study was performed to assess the role of MEK-MAPK pathway in growth and survival of liver cancer cells. Results: We report that phosphorylation of MEK1/2 at Ser217/221 was detected by immunohistochemistry in 100% (46 of 46) of HCCs examined. A positive signal was localized in the nuclei of hepatocarcinoma cells but not in dysplastic hepatocytes or stromal cells. Overexpression and phosphorylation of MAPK was also detected in 91% (42 of 46) and 69% (32 of 46) of HCCs examined, respectively. The percentage of cells showing positivity for phosphorylated MEK1/2 increased with advancing tumor stage. In vitro, treatment of human HepG2 and Hep3B cells with MEK1/2 specific inhibitor U0126 led to growth inhibition and apoptosis. U0126 induced the release of cytochrome c and increased the cleavage of caspase-3, caspase-7, and poly ADP-ribose polymerase (PARP). Inhibition of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI-3K) activity caused only a mild apoptosis in HepG2 and Hep3B cells. Activated MEK1transfected cells were more resistant to U0126-induced apoptosis in vitro and formed larger tumors in SCID mice than mock-transfectant cells. Conclusion: Our results demonstrated that MEK and MAPK were over-expressed in HCCs. Activation of MEK-MAPK pathway plays an important role in tumor growth in vivo and survival of liver cancer cells. Our data suggest that blocking MEK-MAPK activity may represent an alternative approach for the treatment of liver cancer.
Tat , a novel regulator of HIV transcription and latency

Immediately after HIV infects a cell, the virion RNA is copied into DNA and the proviral genome is transported to the nucleus and integrated into the host cell genome. Once integrated into the host chromosome, the HIV becomes subject to regulation by cellular transcription factors, as well as its own regulatory proteins. HIV transcription is controlled primarily by the trans-activator protein (Tat). Tat provides the first example of the regulation of viral gene expression through control of elongation by RNA polymerase II. In the absence of Tat, initiation from the LTR is efficient but transcription is impaired because the promoter engages poorly processive polymerases that disengage from the DNA template prematurely.
Distributed power control in the SINR model

The power control problem for wireless networks in the SINR model requires determining the optimal power assignment for a set of communication requests such that the SINR threshold is met for all receivers. If the network topology is known to all participants, then it is possible to compute an optimal power assignment in polynomial time. In realistic environments, however, such global knowledge is usually not available to every node. In addition, protocols that are based on global computation cannot support mobility and hardly adapt when participants dynamically join or leave the system. In this paper we present and analyze a fully distributed power control protocol that is based on local information. For a set of communication pairs, each consisting of a sender node and a designated receiver node, the algorithm enables the nodes to converge to the optimal power assignment (if there is one under the given constraints) quickly with high probability. Two types of bounded resources are considered, namely, the maximal transmission energy and the maximum distance between any sender and receiver. It is shown that the restriction to local computation increases the convergence rate by only a multiplicative factor of O(log n + log log Ψmax), where Ψmax is the maximal power constraint of the network. If the diameter of the network is bounded by Lmax then the increase in convergence rate is given by O(log n + log log Lmax).
A phase II study of adjuvant gemcitabine plus docetaxel followed by concurrent chemoradation in resected pancreaticobiliary carcinoma.

OBJECTIVES Adjuvant gemcitabine with or without chemoradiation is a standard therapeutic option for patients with resected pancreatic cancer. The feasibility and toxicity of gemcitabine with docetaxel before and after 5-fluorouracil (5FU)-based chemoradiation in the adjuvant pancreatic and biliary cancer setting were investigated. METHODS After a curative-intent resection, eligible patients with pancreaticobiliary cancers were treated with two cycles of gemcitabine and docetaxel followed by 5FU-based chemoradiation. Four weeks after completing chemoradiation, two cycles of gemcitabine and docetaxel were administered. The primary endpoint was the incidence of severe toxicities. Secondary endpoints included disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS). RESULTS Fifty patients with pancreaticobiliary cancers were enrolled. Twenty-nine patients had pancreatic cancer whereas 21 patients had biliary tract or ampullary cancers. There was one death as a result of pneumonia, and 15% of patients experienced grade 3 or greater non-haematological toxicities. The median DFS and OS for patients with pancreatic cancer were 9.6 and 17 months, respectively, and for those with resected biliary tract cancer were 12 and 23 months, respectively. CONCLUSIONS This combination of gemcitabine and docetaxel with chemoradiation is feasible and tolerable in the adjuvant setting. Future studies utilizing a different gemcitabine/taxane combination and schedule may be appropriate in the adjuvant treatment of both pancreatic cancer and biliary tumours.
Intracerebroventricular Leptin Regulates Hepatic but Not Peripheral Glucose Fluxes*

Acute intravenous infusions of leptin markedly alter hepatic glucose fluxes (Rossetti, L., Massillon, D., Barzilai, N., Vuguin, P., Chen, W., Hawkins, M., Wu, J., and Wang, J. (1997)J. Biol. Chem. 272, 27758–22763). Here we examine whether intracerebroventricular (ICV) leptin administration regulates peripheral and hepatic insulin action. Recombinant mouse leptin (n = 14; 0.02 or 1 μg/kg·h) or vehicle (n = 9) were administered ICV for 6 h to conscious rats, and insulin action was determined by insulin (3 milliunits/kg·min) clamp and tracer dilution techniques. During physiologic hyperinsulinemia (∼65 microunits/ml), the rates of glucose uptake (R d , 20.1 ± 0.6 and 23.1 ± 0.7 versus 21.7 ± 0.6 mg/kg·min;p = NS), glycolysis and glycogen synthesis were similar in rats receiving low- and high-dose leptin versusvehicle. ICV leptin resulted in a 2–3-fold increase in hepatic phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase mRNA levels. Glycogenolysis and PEP-gluconeogenesis (2.1 ± 0.3 mg/kg·min) contributed similarly to endogenous glucose production (GP) in the vehicle-infused group. However, gluconeogenesis accounted for ∼80% of GP in both groups receiving ICV leptin, while hepatic glycogenolysis was markedly suppressed (0.7 ± 0.3 and 1.2 ± 0.3 versus2.2 ± 0.4 mg/kg·min, in rats receiving low- and high-dose leptin versus vehicle, respectively; p < 0.01). In summary, short-term ICV leptin administration: 1) failed to affect peripheral insulin action, but 2) induced a striking re-distribution of intrahepatic glucose fluxes. The latter effect largely reproduced that of leptin given systemically at much higher doses. Thus, the regulation of hepatic glucose fluxes by leptin is largely mediated via its central receptors.
Spatio-Temporal Denoising for Depth Map Sequences

This paper proposes a novel strategy for depth video denoising in RGBD camera systems. Depth map sequences obtained by state-of-the-art Time-of-Flight sensors suffer from high temporal noise. Hence, all high-level RGB video renderings based on the accompanied depth maps' 3D geometry like augmented reality applications will have severe temporal flickering artifacts. The authors approached this limitation by decoupling depth map upscaling from the temporal denoising step. Thereby, denoising is processed on raw pixels including uncorrelated pixel-wise noise distributions. The authors' denoising methodology utilizes joint sparse 3D transform-domain collaborative filtering. Therein, they extract RGB texture information to yield a more stable and accurate highly sparse 3D depth block representation for the consecutive shrinkage operation. They show the effectiveness of our method on real RGBD camera data and on a publicly available synthetic data set. The evaluation reveals that the authors' method is superior to state-of-the-art methods. Their method delivers flicker-free depth video streams for future applications.
Corrections to "Adaptive Snakes Using the EM Algorithm"

There is a typographical error in a sentence following (20) in [1, p.1681], in which an extra parenthesis appears. The corrected sentence is as follows. Therefore, p(v) is a Gibbs distribution p(v) = 1=Vintexp E . Also, the authors’ photographs and biographies did not appear in [1], and they now appear below. In addition, some of the information in references [9], [24], and [28] has changed. These updated references appear here as [2], [3], and [4], respectively.
Thrombophilic families with inheritably associated high levels of coagulation factors VIII, IX and XI

Summary. We describe six families in which associated high levels of coagulation factors (F) XI, FIX and FVIII (each with a plasma concentration higher than the 95th percentile found in a control group of 500 asymptomatic individuals: respectively, 135, 145 and 155 IU dL−1) were inherited as a dominant autosomic genetic traits. In these six families, this syndrome is associated with venous thromboembolic events (Odds ratio 41 [4.9–353], P = 0.0006). It seems to predispose to idiopathic events and, as age increases, is often associated with recurrence. First thrombotic episodes occur in young patients (50% of the carriers are symptomatic at the age of 32 years) and in women, can be unmasked by hormonal treatments, mainly oral contraceptives. The association of high levels of coagulation FXI, FIX and FVIII is thus a new rare high‐risk inherited thrombophilia syndrome.
Assessing the Impact of Media Guidelines for Reporting on Suicides in Austria: Interrupted time Series Analysis

Objective: Media guidelines for reporting on suicides are a widely used means of preventing imitative suicides, but scientific accounts of their impact on suicide numbers are sparse. This report provides an evaluation of the Austrian guidelines that were introduced in 1987 as a natural experiment. Methods: The impact of the guidelines was tested by applying an autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model and a linear regression model. In addition to a nationwide evaluation, Austria was divided into three areas according to regional differences in coverage rates of the collaborating newspapers and the impact of the intervention was tested for each area separately. Main outcome measures were the overall annual suicide numbers, and the numbers of Viennese subway suicides that were exceptionally newsworthy for the mass media. In order to test intermediate impacts, also quantitative and qualitative changes in media reporting after the introduction of the guidelines were analysed. Results: There was some evidence of a nationwide impact of the guidelines, calculated as a significant reduction of 81 suicides (95% confidence interval: −149 to −13; t = −2.32, df = 54, p <0.024) annually. This effect was particularly due to a significant reduction in the area with the highest coverage rates of the collaborating newspapers. Viennese subway suicides showed a highly significant level shift (t = −4.44, df = 19, p <0.001) and a highly significant trend change (t = −4.20, df = 19, p <0.001) after the introduction of the guidelines. These effects corresponded to significant changes in the quality and quantity of media reporting. Conclusions: The present results clearly support the hypothesis that the media guidelines have had an impact on the quality of reporting as well as on suicidal behaviour in Austria, and stress the importance of collaborating with nationwide, but also with regional media to achieve efficacy. Further research is needed to provide an international insight into this public health issue.
Utility of a Rapid Fecal Latex Agglutination Test Detecting the Neutrophil Protein, Lactoferrin, for Diagnosing Inflammatory Causes of Chronic Diarrhea

Objective:The utility of tests for fecal neutrophils in the setting of chronic diarrhea has not been established. The purpose of this study was to determine the causes of chronic diarrhea associated with fecal neutrophils.Methods:One fecal specimen from each of 10 normal subjects, 26 patients with known microscopic colitis, 13 with celiac sprue, eight with Crohn's disease, four with ulcerative colitis, and 103 with chronic diarrhea of unknown origin, as well as 10 fecal specimens from a patient with chronic nongranulomatous enterocolitis were analyzed blindly for the presence of a neutrophil granule protein called lactoferrin using a commercial latex agglutination kit. Diagnostic evaluation of the 103 patients with chronic diarrhea was carried out to determine the diagnostic accuracy of this test for chronic inflammatory bowel disease.Results:None of the normal control subjects, three of 39 patients with microscopic colitis or celiac sprue, all 10 specimens from the patient with enterocolitis, and all 12 control patients with ulcerative colitis or Crohn's disease had a positive fecal lactoferrin test. Eleven of 103 patients with chronic diarrhea presenting without a diagnosis had a positive test, and all were diagnosed with an inflammatory condition of the colon (five-, ulcerative colitis; four-, Crohn's disease; one-, ischemic colitis; and one-, microscopic colitis). Only one patient with inflammatory bowel disease had a negative lactoferrin test. The sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values of the fecal lactoferrin test for ulcerative or Crohn's colitis were 90%, 98%, 82%, and 99%, respectively.Conclusion:The major cause of fecal neutrophils in patients with chronic diarrhea is chronic inflammatory bowel disease of the colon. The latex agglutination test for fecal lactoferrin offers a highly sensitive, specific, and simple means for detection of fecal neutrophils in these patients.
Using paper chart based clinical reminders to improve guideline adherence to lipid management.

RATIONALE, AIMS AND OBJECTIVES The objective of this study was to apply a paper-based clinical reminder to improve the adherence to lipid guidelines. METHODS Patients with coronary heart disease (CHD) without lipid-lowering therapy (LLT) were recruited, and medical records were reviewed. Eligible subjects were randomized; a clinical reminder stating current standards and local insurance policy was stamped on the paper chart in the study group but not in the control. The primary outcome was new LLT subscription in the 6-month follow-up period, and the secondary end point was the composite result of LLT or lipid profile check-up. RESULTS Ninety-two patients were assigned to the study group and 102 to the control group. The primary outcome showed no difference at the end of 6 months (OR: 1.70, P = 0.248, 95% CI: 0.69-4.19). The secondary end point was significantly higher in the reminder group (OR: 2.81, P = 0.001, 95% CI: 1.57-5.04). CONCLUSION A paper chart based clinical reminder providing update clinical recommendations could modify the doctor's behaviour and improve the attention to lipid levels. However, its effect cannot be transformed into an increase in LLT or a decrease in low-density lipoprotein level owing to local policy constraint.