Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Membrane associated antigens of human malignant melanoma. III. Specificity of human sera reacting with cultured melanoma cells

Sera from melanoma patients, healthy donors, pregnant women and patients with types of tumors other than melanoma were tested on various melanoma lines as well as on a cultured brain tumor and adult skin fibroblasts, using a microimmune adherence test. Positive reactions against all cell lines were found in serum from each group of donors. The degree of reactivity was dependent on the cell line used. Sequential absorption with AB Rh+ and pooled platelets of more than 200 donors either reduced the titer of sera or rendered a great part of the sera negative, demonstrating that antibodies against HL‐A antigens and other tissue antigens were involved. The remaining positive sera were further absorbed with pooled cells from 6‐ to 8‐week‐old fetuses. This step abolished the reactivity of most sera, indicating the relatively high frequency of antibodies in males and females against fetal antigens expressed also on melanoma and other cells. In order to determine the specificity of the few remaining positive sera, absorptions with three different melanoma cell lines, a brain tumor and fibroblasts were carried out. The results showed only partial cross‐reactivity between different cell lines. No evidence was obtained from this study for the existence of a common cross‐reacting membrane‐associated antigen on human malignant melanoma. Antigens that could be readily detected seemed mostly to be tumor‐associated fetal antigens.
Hybrid Imperialist Competitive Algorithm with Simplex Approach: Application to Electric Motor Design

Imperialist competitive algorithm (ICA) is a population based metaheuristic inspired from imperialistic competition among empires. In order to improve its performances, we propose to hybridize ICA with the Nelder-Mead simplex method. The simplex algorithm is run if a stagnation criterion is satisfied, in order to help ICA escape local optima and to improve its intensification capabilities. The proposed hybrid ICA-simplex algorithm, called ICAS, is first analyzed and compared to the unmodified ICA and two well-known algorithms using the benchmark functions provided during the 2005 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation. The results show the efficiency of the proposed hybrid algorithm. Then, it is used to optimize the design of a permanent-magnet machine used to motorize an electric scooter. The solution found by ICAS is shown to be better than those of several well-known metaheuristics.
Data-Driven Disruption: The View from Silicon Valley

We live in an era where software is transforming industries, the sciences, and society as a whole. This exciting phenomenon has been described by the phrase "software is eating the world. " It is becoming increasingly apparent that data is the fuel powering software's conquests. Data is the new disruptor. It's hard to believe that the first decade of the Big Data era is already behind us. Silicon Valley has been at the forefront of developing and applying data-driven approaches to create disruption at many levels: infrastructure (e.g., Hadoop and Spark), capabilities (e.g., image recognition and machine translation), and killer apps (e.g., self-driving cars and messaging bots). In this talk, we first look back on the past decade and share learnings from the frontlines of data-driven disruption. Looking ahead, we then describe challenges and opportunities for the next decade. Since this has also been a personal journey, we will use examples drawn from personal experience to illustrate each point.
MARCO Is the Major Binding Receptor for Unopsonized Particles and Bacteria on Human Alveolar Macrophages1

Alveolar macrophages (AMs) avidly bind and ingest inhaled environmental particles and bacteria. To identify the particle binding receptor(s) on human AMs, we used functional screening of anti-human AM hybridomas and isolated a mAb, PLK-1, which inhibits AM binding of unopsonized particles (e.g., TiO2, latex beads; 63 ± 5 and 67 ± 4% inhibition, respectively, measured by flow cytometry; n = 11) and unopsonized bacteria (∼84 and 41% inhibition of Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus binding by mAb PLK-1, respectively). The PLK-1 Ag was identified as the human class A scavenger receptor (SR) MARCO (macrophage receptor with collagenous structure) by observing specific immunolabeling of COS cells transfected with human MARCO (but not SR-AI/II) cDNA and by immunoprecipitation by PLK-1 of a protein of appropriate molecular mass (∼70 kDa) from both normal human bronchoalveolar lavage cells (>90% AMs) and human MARCO-transfected COS cells. PLK-1 also specifically inhibited particle binding by COS cells, only after transfection with human MARCO cDNA. Immunostaining showed specific labeling of AMs within human lung tissue, bronchoalveolar lavage samples, as well as macrophages in other sites (e.g., lymph node and liver). Using COS transfectants with different truncated forms of MARCO, allowed epitope mapping for the PLK-1 Ab to MARCO domain V between amino acid residues 420 and 431. A panel of Abs to various SRs identified expression on AMs, but failed to inhibit TiO2 or S. aureus binding. The data support a dominant role for MARCO in the human AM defense against inhaled particles and pathogens.
The determination of the transistor dynamic I-V characteristic from large signal RF measurements

An analysis technique has been developed that allows for the determination of the transistor dynamic I-V characteristics (RF l-V) directly from CW large signal RF measurements. A key feature of this technique is that it is performed under RF operation conditions similar to those found in power amplifiers under CW RF drive conditions. Investigations have shown that these dynamic RF I-V's are independent of initial DC bias conditons and RF drive level for the MODFET structures investigated in this paper. These dynamic RF I-V's can be directly compared with DC I-V's to allow for the investigation of phenomenas like dispersion, RF breakdown and thermal effects etc. To demonstrate their potential capability in the area of non-linear modelling these RF I-V's have been used for non-linear parameter extraction of a relatively simple large signal model. A good comparison between the simulated and measured large signal behaviour even for the higher harmonics has been achieved.
Unconstrained high-dimensional Bayesian optimization of an airfoil shape design via multi-ﬁdelity surrogate modeling

In engineering, science, and technology, predictions and design decisions can be made or informed by a variety of information sources that range from experimental data to computer models. These information sources typically encompass diﬀerent mathematical formulations, diﬀerent grid resolutions, diﬀerent physics, or diﬀerent modeling assumptions that simplify the problem. This leads to information sources with varying degrees of ﬁdelity, with varying associated accuracy and querying costs. In this paper we propose a novel and ﬂexible way to use multi-ﬁdelity information sources optimally in the context of airfoil shape optimization using both a Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) solver and a low ﬁdelity approximation based on a simpliﬁed physical formulation. The new developments based on Bayesian optimization and kriging metamodeling allow the aerodynamic optimization to be sped up and divide for example (on a 15-design-variable un-constrained optimization problem) the total cost by at least two compared to a single ﬁdelity optimization.
Bioengineering of dental stem cells in a PEGylated fibrin gel.

AIM Postnatal stem cells can generate tooth-specific structures after transplantation in vivo, which makes them a valuable tool for dental tissue engineering. Scaffold materials that are compatible with dental stem cells, injectable and tunable for targeted regeneration are needed. A candidate material is fibrin, a biopolymer critical to hemostasis and wound healing. Rapid degradation of fibrin can be decelerated by modification with polyethylene glycol (PEG), thus creating a hybrid material for cell delivery. The aim of this study was to evaluate the suitability of PEGylated fibrin as a scaffold for dental stem cells. METHODS A PEGylated fibrin hydrogel was combined with stem cells derived from dental pulp or periodontal ligament. Cell proliferation was assessed over a 4-week period, and alkaline phosphatase activity and expression levels of mineralization-associated genes after osteogenic induction were analyzed. Cell morphology, matrix degradation, collagen production and mineral deposition were evaluated by histology. Constructs of PEGylated fibrin with dental pulp stem cells in dentin disks were transplanted in immunocompromised mice for 5 weeks and examined for new tissue formation. RESULTS All cell types proliferated in PEGylated fibrin. After osteogenic induction, alkaline phosphatase activity was higher and osteoblast-specific genes were upregulated. Dentin-specific markers increased in pulp-derived stem cells. Histologic analysis revealed degradation of fibrin, production of a collagenous matrix and mineral deposition. In vivo transplantation rendered a vascularized soft connective tissue similar to dental pulp. CONCLUSION Fibrin allows for the growth and differentiation of dental stem cells, can be inserted into small defects and thus appears to be a promising biomaterial for tissue regeneration in the oral cavity.
Potential viral pathogenic mechanism for new variant inflammatory bowel disease

Aims: A new form of inflammatory bowel disease (ileocolonic lymphonodular hyperplasia) has been described in a cohort of children with developmental disorder. This study investigates the presence of persistent measles virus in the intestinal tissue of these patients (new variant inflammatory bowel disease) and a series of controls by molecular analysis. Methods: Formalin fixed, paraffin wax embedded and fresh frozen biopsies from the terminal ileum were examined from affected children and histological normal controls. The measles virus Fusion (F) and Haemagglutinin (H) genes were detected by TaqMan reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and the Nucleocapsid (N) gene by RT in situ PCR. Localisation of the mRNA signal was performed using a specific follicular dendritic cell antibody. Results: Seventy five of 91 patients with a histologically confirmed diagnosis of ileal lymphonodular hyperplasia and enterocolitis were positive for measles virus in their intestinal tissue compared with five of 70 control patients. Measles virus was identified within the follicular dendritic cells and some lymphocytes in foci of reactive follicular hyperplasia. The copy number of measles virus ranged from one to 300 000 copies/ng total RNA. Conclusions: The data confirm an association between the presence of measles virus and gut pathology in children with developmental disorder.
UPPERCARE: A community aware environment for post-surgical musculoskeletal recovery of elderly patients

Disability from musculoskeletal diseases and co-morbidities may lead to the worsening of social and economic well-being through a multitude of paths. Moreover since in European Union (EU) Member States it is projected that those aged 65 and over will become a much larger share (rising from 17% to 30% of the population), and those aged 80 and over (rising from 5% to 12%) will almost become as numerous as the young population in 2060, there is a great potential for Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) solutions for addressing the present and future living arrangements in older people. The UPPERCARE system is meant to affect positively both the intergenerational and partners care since it contributes to decrease usability barriers and promote collaborative environments for informal and self-care. UPPERCARE is a new approach for integrated care supported by ICT systems and services, focusing on post-operative rehabilitation of musculoskeletal pathologies, having as a case study the knee post-operative scenarios of prosthetic care. This paper presents the UPPERCARE system, that provides an integrated care solution, supported ICT, for empowering self-care and adherence to rehabilitation plans through natural interfaces, gamification and cross-modal paths for community care collaboration. The system addresses current barriers from technological, clinical, social and organisational perspectives in a multidisciplinary environment. Special attention is given to the patients' needs and behaviours entailing the participation of a wide care community, including clinical and non-clinical people, associations, institutions and authorities) through an user driven interaction within the system.
Medical Imaging Title : Benzidine Staining-Method to Detect Neutrophils in Whole Saliva of Patients with Renal Disease

Polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMNs) are present in even the healthiest mouth. These cells migrate predominantly through gingival crevices into the oral cavity. The number of PMNs in exudate reflects the degree of gingival inflammation. However, a substantial amount of PMNs are also found in the whole saliva of edentulous subjects demonstrating the migration of these cells through the oral mucosa from the circulation. Salivary PMNs can contribute to the oral defence against infection in two major ways: phagocytosis and the release of antimicrobial proteins (lysozyme, myeloperoxidase, lactoferrin, etc.) [1].
The development of emotion recognition from facial expressions and non-linguistic vocalizations during childhood.

Sensitivity to facial and vocal emotion is fundamental to children's social competence. Previous research has focused on children's facial emotion recognition, and few studies have investigated non-linguistic vocal emotion processing in childhood. We compared facial and vocal emotion recognition and processing biases in 4- to 11-year-olds and adults. Eighty-eight 4- to 11-year-olds and 21 adults participated. Participants viewed/listened to faces and voices (angry, happy, and sad) at three intensity levels (50%, 75%, and 100%). Non-linguistic tones were used. For each modality, participants completed an emotion identification task. Accuracy and bias for each emotion and modality were compared across 4- to 5-, 6- to 9- and 10- to 11-year-olds and adults. The results showed that children's emotion recognition improved with age; preschoolers were less accurate than other groups. Facial emotion recognition reached adult levels by 11 years, whereas vocal emotion recognition continued to develop in late childhood. Response bias decreased with age. For both modalities, sadness recognition was delayed across development relative to anger and happiness. The results demonstrate that developmental trajectories of emotion processing differ as a function of emotion type and stimulus modality. In addition, vocal emotion processing showed a more protracted developmental trajectory, compared to facial emotion processing. The results have important implications for programmes aiming to improve children's socio-emotional competence.
Quality Assurance in Wound Management in a Developing Country: How Satisfied Are Our Patients?

Background: Quality is important in every setting especially in the health service where the needs of patients should be an utmost priority. However, this is sometimes not the situation in most health care centres due to increasing stress because of inadequate resources and increasing demands for services. This present study seeks to assess quality assurance in the management of wounds. Method: A descriptive survey involving 280 participants; data was collected using structured questionnaire. The questionnaires included some quality indicators which were used to assess the quality of care patients received from the health facility. Results: Out of the 280 participants, females were 57.1% (n = 160) and males, 42.9% (n = 120). Ages of the participants ranged from 15 - 70+ years with a mean age of 35.8 ± 1.5; 28.6% (n = 80) of staff had an excellent attitude while 5.7% (n = 16) had a fair attitude. The condition of 112 did not require surgery (40.0%), however, out of the 168 who underwent surgery, 32 (19.0%) were not satisfied while 136 (81.0%) were satisfied. Also, 97.1% (n = 272) were accorded privacy, 51.4% (n = 144) were assured of confidentiality, 48.6% (n = 136) were educated on diagnoses and treatment, 91.4% (n = 256) understood pharmacy instruction, 57.1% (n = 160) were satisfied with time spent in the facility, 97.1% (n = 272) were not shun by nurses because of their wounds. Conclusion: Patient satisfaction should be the priority of all persons working in the health facility. In accessing quality service, patient satisfaction can be met if quality assurance measures are put in place. This quality assurance measures should include all units of the health delivery system since it would help to ensure judicious use of resources in order to meet the health needs of patients.
An Improved Mixture Gaussian Models to Detect Moving Object Under Real-Time Complex Background

With video inspecting applied, many research efforts have focused on subtracting the moving object. In this paper, we propose an improved Mixture Gaussian Model to subtract the real-time complex background. The experimental results have testified the proposed method can greatly extract the background model from the actual scene through the real-time monitor, extract the moving vessels automatically, filtrate the video abnormal incidents occurred, and achieve the monitoring the dock at no duty of intelligent monitoring.
Multiple-part based Pedestrian Detection using Interfering Object Detection

We propose an improved pedestrian detection framework based on Viola's Adaboost cascade framework, and its improvements focus on the three aspects: First we use edgelet features in addition to the haar-like features to capture more information about the pedestrian contours. Second we design a fast algorithm to combine the multiple-part detectors. Third we introduce the concept of "interfering object detection " to depress the false alarms. Experiment results show that our improved framework enhances the overall detecting performance by successfully detecting pedestrians with more informative features and effectively depressing the false alarms.
¿Cómo funciona Prospera?: Mejores prácticas en la implementación de Programas de Transferencias Monetarias Condicionadas en América Latina y el Caribe

El Programa de Inclusion Social PROSPERA es el programa de transferencias monetarias condicionadas (PTMC) de Mexico, que comenzo en 2014 a partir de sus predecesores: el Programa de Desarrollo Humano Oportunidades y el Programa de Educacion, Salud y Alimentacion (Progresa), programas que funcionaron de manera sucesiva desde 2002 y 1997, respectivamente. Para que los hogares puedan ser elegibles, se utiliza una prueba aproximada de medios (proxy means test) con base en la informacion recogida a traves de la Encuesta de Caracteristicas Socioeconomicas y Demograficas de los Hogares (ENCASEH), la cual un responsable debe responder. Una vez que las familias estan dentro del programa deben cumplir con las corresponsabilidades en los componentes de educacion y salud, cuyo cumplimiento es verificado bimestralmente. Para llevar a cabo sus acciones, la Coordinacion Nacional de Prospera (CN) -institucion encargada de administrar el programa-, y las Secretarias de Educacion Publica (SEP) y de Salud (SS) permiten certificar el cumplimiento de acciones en educacion y salud y entregar los apoyos de forma bimestral a traves de instituciones liquidadoras. Al cierre de 2014, 6.129. 125 hogares recibian apoyos del programa. Este documento es parte de una serie de estudios realizados en varios paises de America Latina y el Caribe que tiene el objetivo de sistematizar el conocimiento sobre la operacion de los PTMC. El resto de casos esta disponible en la pagina web de Proteccion Social del BID.
Clinical patterns of hepatocellular carcinoma in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease: A multicenter prospective study

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) represents the hepatic manifestation of metabolic syndrome and may evolve into hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Only scanty clinical information is available on HCC in NAFLD. The aim of this multicenter observational prospective study was to assess the clinical features of patients with NAFLD‐related HCC (NAFLD‐HCC) and to compare them to those of hepatitis C virus (HCV)‐related HCC. A total of 756 patients with either NAFLD (145) or HCV‐related chronic liver disease (611) were enrolled in secondary care Italian centers. Survival was modeled according to clinical parameters, lead‐time bias, and propensity analysis. Compared to HCV, HCC in NAFLD patients had a larger volume, showed more often an infiltrative pattern, and was detected outside specific surveillance. Cirrhosis was present in only about 50% of NAFLD‐HCC patients, in contrast to the near totality of HCV‐HCC. Regardless of tumor stage, survival was significantly shorter (P = 0.017) in patients with NAFLD‐HCC, 25.5 months (95% confidence interval 21.9‐29.1), than in those with HCV‐HCC, 33.7 months (95% confidence interval 31.9‐35.4). To eliminate possible confounders, a propensity score analysis was performed, which showed no more significant difference between the two groups. Additionally, analysis of patients within Milan criteria submitted to curative treatments did not show any difference in survival between NAFLD‐HCC and HCV‐HCC (respectively, 38.6 versus 41.0 months, P = nonsignificant) Conclusions: NAFLD‐HCC is more often detected at a later tumor stage and could arise also in the absence of cirrhosis, but after patient matching, it has a similar survival rate compared to HCV infection; a future challenge will be to identify patients with NAFLD who require more stringent surveillance in order to offer the most timely and effective treatment. (Hepatology 2016;63:827–838)
Detection of Atmospheric Composition Based on Lidar

A summary overview about the types of lidar and their own applications on atmosphere detection is presented. Measurement of atmospheric aerosols by Mie lidar and Raman lidar is focused. The vertical profiles of aerosols in the atmosphere are retrieved. And at the same time, through analyzing aerosol vertical content distribution, the atmosphere boundary layer and the cloud are also observed. All the results show that the lidar has good performance on detecting the atmospheric composition.