Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Negative selection of the T‐cell repertoire: where and when does it occur?

Summary: Because of the use of somewhat artificial models for the elucidation of negative selection [superantigen, T‐cell receptor (TCR) transgenic mice], there is still considerable uncertainty at what stages of T‐cell development negative selection can occur and whether it becomes manifest as developmental arrest, lineage diversion, or induction of apoptotic cell death. Here, experimental evidence is reviewed that excludes developmental arrest and lineage diversion as the sole mechanisms of negative selection. The data emphasize that both CD4+CD8+ double‐positive cortical as well as semi‐mature, single‐positive, medullary thymocytes are targets of deletion in experimental models employing superantigen and TCR transgenic mice with premature as well as ‘timely’ onset of TCR expression.
Case Managers in Mass Casualty Incidents

Objective:To examine whether case managers affect patient evaluation/treatment/outcome and staffing requirements during Multiple Casualty Incidents (MCIs). Summary Background Data:Multiple patient relocations during MCIs may contribute to chaos. One hospital changed its MCI patient relocation policy during a wave of MCIs; rather than transfer patients from one medical team to another in each location, patients were assigned case-managers ± teams who accompanied them throughout the diagnostic/treatment cascade until definitive placement. Methods:MCI data (n = 17, 2001–2006) were taken from the hospital database which is updated by registrars in real-time. ISSs were calculated retrospectively. Matched events before (n = 5)/after (n = 3) the change yielded data on staff utilization. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 26 experienced staff members regarding the effect of the change on patient care. Results:Twelve events occurred before (n = 379 casualties) and 5 occurred after (n = 152 casualties) the change. Event extent/severity, manpower demands and patient mortality remained similar before/after the change. Reductions were observed in: the number of x-rays/patient/1st 24-hour (P < 0.001), time to performance of first chest x-ray (P = 0.015), time from first chest x-ray to arrival at the next diagnostic/treatment location (P = 0.016), time from ED arrival to surgery (P = 0.022) and hospital lengths of stay for critically injured casualties (37.1 ± 24.7 versus 12 ± 4.4 days, P = 0.016 for ISS ≥ 25). Most interviewees (62%, n = 16) noted improved patient care, communication and documentation. Conclusions:During an MCI, case managers increase surge capacity by improving efficacy (workup/treatment times and use of resources) and may improve patient care via increased personal accountability, continuity of care, and involvement in treatment decisions.
Face Recognition Using Gradient Derivative Local Binary Patterns

The emerging notion of the smart city has paying attention in the research field of urban development. One of the challenges of the smart city is how to understand the data collected by the sensor and make a decision. The face detection plays a key role in our social communication in turning over the identity and emotions. The human ability to recognize faces is notable but the face is a complex multidimensional visual model and for developing a computational model for face recognition is difficult. In this paper a new unique real time face recognition system is proposed by combining local orientation gradient XOR patterns and Local gradient XOR patterns. This new technique consists of three steps 1) local gradient XOR patterns are calculated 2) Local Oriented Gradient XOR patterns are calculated and 3) feature vector is constructed by concatenating the histograms of LGXORP and LOGXORP. This method tested on Standard databases and found that the recognized rate is very fruitful and accurate compared to Local Binary Pattern technique and its variants.
Cerebral hyperemia and impaired cerebral autoregulation associated with diabetic ketoacidosis in critically ill children*

Objective:Cerebral edema associated with diabetic ketoacidosis is an uncommon but severe complication of insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus with unclear pathophysiology. We sought to determine whether cerebral edema in patients with diabetic ketoacidosis was related to changes in cerebral blood flow, autoregulation, regional cerebral saturation, or S100B. Design:Prospective case series. Setting:Pediatric intensive care unit of a tertiary children’s hospital. Patients:Six patients with diabetic ketoacidosis and altered mental status, requiring computed tomographic scan of the head. Interventions:Study evaluations included: 1) transcranial Doppler evaluations to determine middle cerebral artery flow velocities and cerebral autoregulation, defined by the autoregulatory index, at 6 and 36 hrs; 2) continuous monitoring of regional cerebral oxygenation on the left lateral forehead using near-infrared spectroscopy for the first 24 hrs of admission; 3) serial measurement of S100B as a marker of central nervous system injury; and 4) follow-up head computed tomographic scan. Results:Serial computed tomographic scans showed that four of six patients had changes in brain volume without overt cerebral edema. Initial scans showed narrowing of the third and lateral ventricles when compared with follow-up. There was no difference in middle cerebral artery flow velocities between admission and recovery at 36 hrs, despite Paco2 increasing during treatment. Cerebral flow was normal to increased, despite hypocapnia. Cerebral autoregulation was impaired in five of six patients at 6 hrs and normalized by 36 hrs. Mean regional cerebral oxygenation was measured in five of six patients and decreased linearly with time. Two patients showed maximal regional cerebral oxygenation before returning to baseline. There were no periods of low regional cerebral oxygenation in any patient at any time. No elevation in S100B was found. Conclusions:We found normal to increased cerebral blood flow, elevated regional cerebral oxygenation, impaired autoregulation, and changes in brain volume in clinically ill pediatric patients with diabetic ketoacidosis. We found no evidence of cerebral ischemia. These findings suggest that the pathophysiology of cerebral edema in diabetic ketoacidosis may involve a transient loss of cerebral autoregulation, allowing a paradoxic increase in cerebral blood flow and the development of vasogenic cerebral edema.
Rho kinase regulates tight junction function and is necessary for tight junction assembly in polarized intestinal epithelia.

BACKGROUND & AIMS Tight junctions are crucial determinants of barrier function in polarized intestinal epithelia and are regulated by Rho guanosine triphosphatase. Rho kinase (ROCK) is a downstream effector of Rho. METHODS A specific inhibitor of ROCK, Y-27632, was used to examine the role of ROCK in the regulation of tight junctions in model intestinal (T84) cells by electrophysiologic, biochemical, morphologic, and molecular biologic approaches. RESULTS ROCK inhibition induced reorganization of apical F-actin structures and enhanced paracellular permeability but did not alter the distribution or detergent solubility of tight junction proteins. Confocal microscopy showed colocalization of a subpool of ROCK with the tight junction protein zonula occludens 1. Inhibition of ROCK function by a dominant negative mutant of ROCK also produced reorganization of apical F-actin structures without disruption of tight junctions. ROCK inhibition in calcium switch assays showed that ROCK is necessary for the assembly of tight and adherens junctions. Upon calcium repletion, occludin, zonula occludens 1, and E-cadherin failed to redistribute to the intercellular junctions; assembly of the apical F-actin cytoskeleton was prevented; and barrier function failed to recover. CONCLUSIONS We suggest that ROCK regulates intact tight junctions via its effects on the F-actin cytoskeleton. ROCK is also critical for assembly of the apical junctional proteins and the F-actin cytoskeleton organization during junctional formation.
Evaluation of the FWD Moduli of a Flexible Pavement Using Finite Element Model

This study evaluates the back calculation of stiffness of a pavement section on Interstate 40 (I-40)in New Mexico through numerical analysis. Falling Weight Deflectometer (FWD) test has been conducted on a section on I-40. Layer stiffness of the pavement has been backcalculated by a backcalculation software, ELMOD, using the FWD test data. Commercial finite element software, ABAQUS, has been used to develop the Finite Element Model (FEM) of this pavement section. Geometry and layer thickness are collected from field coring. Input parameters i.e. stiffnesses of different layers of the pavement are used as the backcalculated ones. Resulting surface deflections at different radial distances from the FEM analysis are compared with field FWD deflection values. It shows close agreement between the FEM and FWD outputs. Therefore, the FWD test method can be considered to be a reliable test procedure for evaluating the in situ stiffness of pavement material. Keywords—Falling weight deflectometer test, Finite element model, Flexible pavement, moduli, surface deflection.
Bone-Anchored Hearing Aids in Unilateral Inner Ear Deafness: An Evaluation of Audiometric and Patient Outcome Measurements

Objective: To evaluate the benefit of a bone-anchored hearing aid contralateral routing of sound hearing aid (BAHA CROS hearing aid) in 29 patients with unilateral inner ear deafness. Study Design: Prospective clinical follow-up study. Setting: Tertiary referral center. Patients: Thirty patients were recruited. There were 19 patients with a history of acoustic neuroma surgery and 11 patients with unilateral inner ear deafness due to other causes; 1 patient was excluded. The first 21 patients had also participated in a previous evaluation. Intervention: Audiometric measurements were taken before intervention, when fitted with a conventional CROS, and after BAHA implementation. Patients' subjective benefit was quantified with four different hearing aid-specific instruments: the Abbreviated Profile of Hearing Aid Benefit, the Glasgow Hearing Aid Benefit Profile, the International Outcome Inventory for Hearing Aids, and the Single-Sided Deafness questionnaire. Main Outcome Measures: The same instruments were used at a mean long-term follow-up of 1 year after BAHA implantation. Results: Sound localization in an audiologic test setting was no different from chance level. The main effect of the BAHA CROS that was found was the “lift the head shadow” effect in the speech-in-noise measurements. All instruments also showed positive results in favor of the BAHA CROS at long-term follow-up. Conclusions: The poor sound-localization results in an audiologic test setting illustrated the inability of patients with unilateral inner ear deafness to localize sounds. The speech-in-noise measurements demonstrated the efficacy of the BAHA CROS to lift the head shadow. Patients were still satisfied at 1-year follow-up, according to the four instruments.
Spatial response of symmetric and asymmetric planar SQUID gradiometers

First and second order symmetric gradiometers, and first order singly and doubly asymmetric gradiometers have been designed and fabricated using a standard niobium thin-film process. Here we present the results of our simulations of the effect of varying the gradiometer geometry, order and symmetry. In particular, we are interested in the spatial response of the gradiometer. We compare the simulations with experimental data.
Lighting‐invariant Adaptive Route Following Using Iterative Closest Point Matching

Topological/metric route following, also called teach and repeat (T&R), enables long‐range autonomous navigation even without globally consistent localization. In the teach pass, the robot is driven manually and builds up a topological/metric map of the environment, a graph of metric submaps connected by relative transformations. For repeating the route autonomously, the map only needs to be locally consistent; errors on the global level due to localization drift are irrelevant. This renders T&R ideal for applications in which a global positioning system may not be available, such as navigation through street canyons or forests in search and rescue, reconnaissance in underground structures, surveillance, or planetary exploration. We present a T&R system based on iterative closest point matching (ICP) using data from a spinning three‐dimensional (3D) laser scanner. Our algorithm is highly accurate, robust to dynamic scenes and extreme changes in the environment, and independent of ambient lighting. It enables autonomous navigation along a taught path in both structured and unstructured environments, including highly 3D terrain. Furthermore, our system is able to detect obstacles and avoid them by adapting its path using a local motion planner. It enables autonomous route following in nonstatic environments, which is not possible with classical T&R systems. We demonstrate our algorithm's performance in two long‐range driving experiments, one in a highly dynamic urban environment, the other in unstructured, rough, 3D terrain. In these experiments, our robot autonomously drove a distance of over 22 km in both day and night. We analyze the localization accuracy of our system and show that it is highly precise. Moreover, we compare our ICP‐based method to a state‐of‐the‐art stereo‐vision‐based technique and show that our approach has a greatly increased robustness to path deviations and is less dependent on environmental conditions.
Evolving Tale of Childhood Absence Epilepsy: Finally Better News?

Commentary Childhood absence epilepsy (CAE) is the most common type of childhood-onset epilepsy syndrome. CAE was often considered a “benign” syndrome because of the perception of normal cognition in affected children, excellent remission with treatment, and the high rate of outgrowing epilepsy later in life. However, one issue of concern was the often quoted 30 to 50 percent risk of generalized tonic-clonic seizures (GTCs) based on retrospective series (1–4). In 2016, the news is exactly the opposite. CAE is not really as benign a syndrome as we thought. And, the risk of GTCs is quite lower than what we believed. It all began in 2010 when a randomized clinical trial (RCT) studied a cohort of 446 children with CAE to compare ethosuximide (ESM), lamotrigine (LTG), and valproate (VPA) for initial therapy (5). After 16 weeks of treatment, only 53% of children on ESM, 58% on VPA, and 29% on LTG were seizure free, much lower than previously expected (5). After 12 months of follow-up, seizure-freedom rates were even more sobering. Only 37% of CAE patients were seizure free at the 12-month visit. Forty-five percent of children on ESM, 44% of those on VPA, and a meager 21% of the LTG cohort were seizure free (6). Children with CAE were also found to be at risk of academic failure, as there was a high rate of pretreatment attentional deficits that persisted despite seizure freedom (7). The RCT identified ESM to have superior efficacy compared with LTG and similar efficacy but fewer cognitive side effects compared with VPA. This finding led to the recommendation of ESM being the drug of choice for CAE (8). However, concerns were then raised for a higher risk of GTCs, as ESM is not considered to be effective against GTCs. The current study clarifies the incidence of GTCs after a long-term follow-up of the RCT cohort and attempts to find early predictors of GTCs in CAE. The most important finding of this study is the low incidence of GTCs in CAE. At a median follow-up of 7 years, only 12% (53 of 446) of children with CAE were reported to have had a GTC, a significantly lower incidence compared with what was previously thought. The only demographic risk factor for the occurrence of GTCs in CAE was older age at the time of randomization (study entry). Five years after randomization, the highest cumulative risk of GTCs was 19% in children aged 9 years and above compared with the lowest risk of 6% in children 6 years or under at the time of study entry. Regression analysis showed that the onset of GTCs was typically late into the course of CAE regardless of the age of onset, but older children developed GTCs after a shorter period of time from the onset compared with younger children. The median age of first GTC in the CAE cohort was 13.1 years. One confounding factor Long-Term Outcomes of Generalized Tonic-Clonic Seizures in a Childhood Absence Epilepsy Trial.
Vosaroxin: a new valuable tool with the potential to replace anthracyclines in the treatment of AML?

Introduction: Despite significant advances in diagnosis and supportive care, the majority of patients diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) ultimately die of their disease. Standard intensive induction treatment continues to comprise cytarabine and a topoisomerase II (topo II) poison, usually an anthracycline. Vosaroxin, a novel first-in-class quinolone derivative has been developed for use in the treatment of AML as a new-generation topo II inhibitor. It has shown promising activity as a monotherapy and also in combination with intermediate dose cytarabine (IDAC) in relapsed and refractory patient cohorts with minimal toxicity and good tolerability. Areas covered: The authors discuss the mechanism of action of vosaroxin, the pharmacokinetics, safety and tolerability, preclinical and clinical trial results available as well as areas of ongoing research. Expert opinion: Vosaroxin has shown efficacy as a novel cytotoxic agent, and despite a similar mechanism of action has significant advantages over anthracyclines. It evades common resistance pathways of p53 and P-glycoprotein (P- gp) and does not appear to generate significant reactive oxygen species (ROS) associated with these agents. Should future investigation confirm its efficacy and advantageous safety profile, vosaroxin could potentially replace older generation topoisomerase poisons in the treatment of AML and other malignant conditions.
Angiotensin II Activates the Smad Pathway in Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells by a Transforming Growth Factor-β–Independent Mechanism

Background—Angiotensin II (Ang II) participates in vascular fibrosis. Transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) is considered the most important fibrotic factor, and Smad proteins are essential components of the TGF-β signaling system. Our aim was to investigate whether Ang II activates the Smad pathway in vascular cells and its potential role in fibrosis, evaluating connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) and extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins. Methods and Results—Systemic infusion of Ang II into Wistar rats increased aortic Smad2, phosphorylated-Smad2, and Smad4 expression, associated with CTGF upregulation. In growth-arrested vascular smooth muscle cells, Ang II treatment for 20 minutes caused Smad2 phosphorylation, nuclear translocation of phosphorylated-Smad2 and Smad4, and increased Smad DNA-binding activity. Ang II also caused Smad overexpression and Smad-dependent gene transcription. The AT1 antagonist losartan diminished Ang II–induced Smad activation. The blockade of endogenous TGF-β did not modify the activation of Smad caused by Ang II. The p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) inhibitor SB203580 diminished Ang II–induced Smad2 phosphorylation. These data show that Ang II activates the Smad pathway via AT1 receptors and MAPK activation independently of TGF-β. Transient transfection with Smad7, which interferes with receptor-mediated activation of Smad2, diminished Ang II–induced CTGF promoter activation, gene and protein expression, and fibronectin and type-1 procollagen overexpression, showing that Smad activation is involved in Ang II–induced fibrosis. Conclusions—Our results show that Ang II activates the Smad signaling system in vascular cells in vivo and in vitro. Smad proteins are involved in Ang II–induced CTGF and ECM overexpression independently of TGF-β. This novel finding suggests that Smad activation could be involved in the profibrogenic effects of Ang II in vascular diseases.
MOLECULAR PHYLOGENY OF THE OTHER TISSUE COCCIDIA: LANKESTERELLA AND CARYOSPORA

Nearly complete sequences were obtained from the 18S rDNA genes of Eimeria falciformis (the type species of the genus), Caryospora bigenetica, and Lankesterella minima. Two clones of the rDNA gene from C. bigenetica varied slightly in primary structure. Parsimony-based and maximum likelihood phylogenetic reconstructions with a number of other apicomplexan taxa support 2 major clades within the Eucoccidiorida, i.e., the isosporoid coccidia (consisting of Toxoplasma, Neospora, Isospora [in part], and Sarcocystis spp.) and a second clade containing Lankesterella and Caryospora spp. , as well as the eimeriid coccidia (Cyclospora, Isospora [in part], and Eimeria spp.). Our observations suggest that Caryospora spp. may not belong in the family Eimeriidae but rather may be allied with the family Lankesterellidae with which they share molecular and life history similarities. This may be a third lineage of coccidian parasites that has independently evolved a unique heteroxenous transmission strategy.
Combining Beam forming and BSS to improveSource Separation Performance

Beam forming (BF) and Blind Source Separation (BSS) are always two interesting methodologies to witness in order to separate two sources. BSS in frequency domain have been facing a serious issue of permutation ambiguity while performing source separation using Independent Component Analysis (ICA). Permutation Ambiguity is a problem of mismatch of any frequency lines between the sources, so the separation in the time domain cannot exhibit a perfect separation due to the frequency components of other sources present in the time signal of one source. Various methods have been adopted all through the years of research to get rid of this critical issue and no perfect results are produced so far. The proposed method of combining BF to BSS seems to be a good approach as BF mainly depends on time difference of arrival information (delay) between the reference microphone to the consecutive microphones. The original delay information is compared to the estimated delays for each frequency lines in order to realign the frequency lines if they see a permutation by ICA. So, there is no possibility of frequency mismatch still existing when the delay information is operated as a major concern. The performance is measured using Signal to Interference Ratio measurement where Beamforming approach seems to have an improved performance compared to other existing methods. Simulation results show performance comparison. The algorithm is tested using two speech sources in a free field environment. We use Short Time Fourier Transform (STFT) for frequency domain transformation
Cooperative Target Localization and Tracking with Incomplete Measurements

This study investigates a problem on target localization and tracking for two cases where either the slant range information of dual stations is lost or the slant range information of one station and the pitch angle information of the other one are missing. The models of cooperative localization with incomplete measurements are presented and the Kalman filtering algorithm is applied for target tracking. For improving tracking precision, a strategy of observers path planning based on the gradient of circular error probability (CEP) is integrated into the Kalman filtering algorithm. Several numerical examples are used to illustrate the tracking performance of the proposed algorithm with the corresponding root mean square error (RMSE) and Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB). The Monte Carlo simulation results validate the effectiveness of the presented algorithm.