Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Which is the best MRI marker of malignancy for atypical cirrhotic nodules: Hypointensity in hepatobiliary phase alone or combined with other features? Classification after Gd‐EOB‐DTPA administration

To investigate whether the malignancy of atypical nodules in cirrhosis can be identified at gadoxetic‐acid‐disodium(Gd‐EOB‐DTPA)‐MRI by their hypointensity in the hepatobiliary(HB)‐phase alone or combined with any other MR imaging features.
Psychometric Properties of the Chinese Translation of the Proactive Personality Scale

The purpose of the present study was to examine the psychometric properties of the Chinese translation of the Proactive Personality Scale. Four samples were surveyed. In Sample 1 and Sample 2, exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis results confirmed the unidimensional structure of the 10-item abbreviated version of the scale. In Sample 2, Proactive Personality scores were found to be positively correlated with the personality factors of Extraversion, Conscientiousness, Openness, and Agreeableness, and negatively correlated with Neuroticism. In Sample 3, Proactive Personality was found to be positively related to self-efficacy and political skill. In Sample 4, demographics controlled, Proactive Personality explained significant incremental variance in the employees' self-rated career satisfaction and job performance as rated by immediate supervisors.
Temperature multiscale entropy analysis: a promising marker for early prediction of mortality in septic patients

A few studies estimating temperature complexity have found decreased Shannon entropy, during severe stress. In this study, we measured both Shannon and Tsallis entropy of temperature signals in a cohort of critically ill patients and compared these measures with the sequential organ failure assessment (SOFA) score, in terms of intensive care unit (ICU) mortality. Skin temperature was recorded in 21 mechanically ventilated patients, who developed sepsis and septic shock during the first 24 h of an ICU-acquired infection. Shannon and Tsallis entropies were calculated in wavelet-based decompositions of the temperature signal. Statistically significant differences of entropy features were tested between survivors and non-survivors and classification models were built, for predicting final outcome. Significantly reduced Tsallis and Shannon entropies were found in non-survivors (seven patients, 33%) as compared to survivors. Wavelet measurements of both entropy metrics were found to predict ICU mortality better than SOFA, according to a combination of area under the curve, sensitivity and specificity values. Both entropies exhibited similar prognostic accuracy. Combination of SOFA and entropy presented improved the outcome of univariate models. We suggest that reduced wavelet Shannon and Tsallis entropies of temperature signals may complement SOFA in mortality prediction, during the first 24 h of an ICU-acquired infection.
Isolation of a Cellodextrinase from Bacteroides succinogenes

An enzyme which released the cellobiose group from p-nitrophenyl cellobioside was isolated from the periplasmic space of Bacteroides succinogenes grown on Avicel crystalline cellulose in a continuous cultivation system and separated from endoglucanases by column chromatography. The molecular weight of the enzyme was approximately 40,000, as estimated by gel filtration. The enzyme has an isoelectric point of 4.9. The enzyme exhibited low hydrolytic activity on acid-swollen cellulose and practically no activity on carboxymethyl cellulose, Avicel cellulose, and cellobiose, but it hydrolyzed p-nitrophenyl lactoside and released cellobiose from cellotriose and from higher cello-oligosaccharides. These data demonstrate that the enzyme is a cellodextrinase with an exotype of function.
Design of scalable decoders for sensor networks via Bayesian network learning

Minimum mean square error (MMSE) decoding in a large-scale sensor network which employs distributed quantization is considered. Given that the computational complexity of the optimal decoder is exponential in the network size, we present a framework based on Bayesian networks for designing a near-optimal decoder whose complexity is only linear in network size (hence scalable). In this approach, a complexity-constrained factor graph, which approximately represents the prior joint distribution of the sensor outputs, is obtained by constructing an equivalent Bayesian network using the maximum likelihood (ML) criterion. The decoder executes the sum-product algorithm on the simplified factor graph. Our simulation results have shown that the scalable decoders constructed using the proposed approach perform close to optimal, with both Gaussian and non-Gaussian sensor data.
ControVol Flex: Flexible Schema Evolution for NoSQL Application Development

We demonstrate ControVol Flex, an Eclipse plugin for controlled schema evolution in Java applications backed by NoSQL document stores. The sweet spot of our tool are applications that are deployed continuously against the same production data store: Each new release may bring about schema changes that conflict with legacy data already stored in production. The type system internal to the predecessor tool ControVol is able to detect common schema conflicts, and enables developers to resolve them with the help of object-mapper annotations. Our new tool ControVol Flex lets developers choose their schema-migration strategy, whether all legacy data is to be migrated eagerly by means of NotaQL transformation scripts, or lazily, as declared by object-mapper annotations. Our tool is even capable of carrying out both strategies in combination, eagerly migrating data in the background, while lazily migrating data that is meanwhile accessed by the application. From the viewpoint of the application, it remains transparent how legacy data is migrated: Every read access yields an entity that matches the structure that the current application code expects. Our live demo shows how ControVol Flex gracefully solves a broad range of common schema-evolution tasks.
Learning Machine Translation from In-domain and Out-of-domain Data

The performance of Phrase-Based Statistical Machine Translation (PBSMT) systems mostly depends on training data. Many papers have investigated how to create new resources in order to increase the size of the training corpus in an attempt to improve PBSMT performance. In this work, we analyse and characterize the way in which the in-domain and outof-domain performance of PBSMT is impacted when the amount of training data increases. Two different PBSMT systems, Moses and Portage, two of the largest parallel corpora, Giga (French-English) and UN (Chinese-English) datasets and several in- and out-of-domain test sets were used to build high quality learning curves showing consistent logarithmic growth in performance. These results are stable across language pairs, PBSMT systems and domains. We also analyse the respective impact of additional training data for estimating the language and translation models. Our proposed model approximates learning curves very well and indicates the translation model contributes about 30% more to the performance gain than the language model.
Identification and quantification of neuropeptides in naïve mouse spinal cord using mass spectrometry reveals [des‐Ser1]‐cerebellin as a novel modulator of nociception

Neuropeptide transmitters involved in nociceptive processes are more likely to be expressed in the dorsal than the ventral horn of the spinal cord. This study was designed to examine the relative distribution of neuropeptides between the dorsal and ventral spinal cord in naïve mice using liquid chromatography, high‐resolution mass spectrometry. We identified and relatively quantified 36 well‐characterized full‐length neuropeptides and an additional 168 not previously characterized peptides. By extraction with organic solvents we identified seven additional full‐length neuropeptides. The peptide [des‐Ser1]‐cerebellin (desCER), originating from cerebellin precursor protein 1 (CBLN1), was predominantly expressed in the dorsal horn. Immunohistochemistry showed the presence of CBLN1 immunoreactivity with a punctate cytoplasmic pattern in neuronal cell bodies throughout the spinal gray matter. The signal was stronger in the dorsal compared to the ventral horn, with most CBLN1 positive cells present in outer laminae II/III, colocalizing with calbindin, a marker for excitatory interneurons. Intrathecal injection of desCER induced a dose‐dependent mechanical hypersensitivity but not heat or cold hypersensitivity. This study provides evidence for involvement of desCER in nociception and provides a platform for continued exploration of involvement of novel neuropeptides in the regulation of nociceptive transmission.
Travel trajectories analysis based on call detail record data

Compared with conventional travel data such as GPS data, detector data and float car data, call detail record data from the cell phone communication not only cost low but also has a large scale which demonstrate it is the best way to collect travel information for studying macroscopic travel activities. This paper presents a complete method to discover hot path and travel feature in a traffic network by clustering trajectory data which was acquired from cell phone signaling data. It is valuable for traffic planning, public transportation management, travel network monitoring.
Host Immune Reactivity and Antifungal Chemotherapy: The Power of Being Together

Abstract Fungal infections, particularly those in immunocompromised hosts, have been a major therapeutic challenge over recent decades. The difficulty in diagnosing invasive infections, together with the emergence of unusual opportunistic pathogens and a pathogen shift in the spectrum of the causative organisms, have greatly hampered the effectiveness of antifungal therapy. Knowledge of the immunoregulation of fungal infections may provide new insights for therapeutic interventions. The appreciation of the importance of T helper cells and cytokines in the overall coordination of the effector immune response to fungi has offered novel opportunities to manipulate these processes and to alter the outcome of fungal infections while improving the therapeutic efficacy of antifungal drugs. Cytokine and cytokine antagonists, alone or in combination with antifungals, have the potential to overcome the specific defects of host immune reactivity predisposing to fungal infections. The current challenge lies in translating much of the information obtained in experimental and preclinical studies into therapeutic strategies providing prospects for the ultimate treatment of fungal infections.
Functionalism and Reductionism

It is here argued that functionalist constraints on psychology do not preclude the applicability of classic forms of reduction and, therefore, do not support claims to a principled, or de jure, autonomy of psychology. In Part I, after isolating one minimal restriction any functionalist theory must impose on its categories, it is shown that any functionalism imposing an additional constraint of de facto autonomy must also be committed to a pure functionalist--that is, a computationalist--model for psychology. Using an extended parallel to the reduction of Mendelian to molecular genetics, it is shown in Parts II and III that, contrary to the claims of Hilary Putnam and Jerry Fodor, there is no inconsistency between computational models and classical reductionism: neither plurality of physical realization nor plurality of function are inconsistent with reductionism as defended by Ernest Nagel. Employing the results of Part I, the conclusions of Parts II and III are generalized in Part IV to cover any version of functionalism whatsoever; thus, functionalism and reductionism are shown to be consistent. It is urged in conclusion that although a de facto form of autonomy is defensible, there are sound methodological grounds for unconditionally rejecting any principled version of the autonomy of psychology.
Ein Wissensnetz für die Hochschule: Das Projekt ToMaHS

Ein Ziel der Arbeitsgruppe Kunstliche Intelligenz am Fachbereich Wirtschaft der Hochschule Wismar ist die praktische Anwendung der Methoden und Techniken der Kunstlichen Intelligenz in der betriebswirtschaftlichen Praxis. Der Trend hin zum Einsatz von Wissen in entsprechenden IT-Losungen und somit zur Wissensverarbeitung im Unternehmen und Verwaltungen ist unverkennbar. Im TeamFH-Projekt "Data Mining Engineering" steht die Ableitung, die Extraktion von Wissen aus grosen Datenmengen, somit der Wissenserwerb im Mittelpunkt. Data-Mining-Analysen, wie diese im Projekt "Data Mining Engineering" durchgefuhrt werden, extrahieren Wissen und fuhren idealerweise zur expliziten Formulierung von Wissen, beispielsweise in Form von Regeln. Die Wissensbeschreibung und -verarbeitung mittels Regeln und deren Einsatz in betriebswirtschaftlicher Standard- Software ist andererseits Gegenstand des aktuellen Forschungsgebietes "Business Rules". Das Projekt ToMaHS - Topic Maps fur Hochschul-Strukturen - stellt die Arbeiten zur Wissensdarstellung verknupft mit einer semantischen Suche, als eine Komponente des Wissensmanagement, in den Mittelpunkt. Exemplarisch wird dabei die Hochschule insbesondere mit ihrer Verwaltungsstrukur in ein Wissensnetz mit einer Topic-Map-Darstellung uberfuhrt. Das Projekt ToMaHS wird im Rahmen einer hochschulinternen Forschungsforderung durch die Hochschule Wismar finanziell gefordert.
Telerobotic ground control of a space free-flyer

AERCam is a free-flying camera being developed by NASA to assist in Space Shuttle or Space Station operations. We have developed a system for controlling AERCam remotely from the ground when significant communication delays are involved and have simulated its use. Our telerobotic control system includes a predictive display that is based on a simulation of Shuttle and AERCam dynamics. For a number of physical and numeric reasons, the behavior of the remote AERCam system may drift from what is expected by the predictive simulation on the ground. To correct for this, we have developed a technique for periodically reestablishing correspondence of the ground system with AERCam based on data about AERCam's actual behavior. Our system also provides a basis for development of more advanced autonomous AERCam ground control systems in the future.
Sistema de detección de intrusos de red embebido en un sensor inteligente

Este articulo propone un Sistema de Deteccion de Intrusos (IDS) de Red embebido en un sensor inteligente, capaz de operar de forma independiente como IDS de anomalias o integrarse de forma transparente en una red de sensores inteligentes o en un Sistema de Deteccion Distribuida de Intrusos (DIDS) bajo el enfoque de Arquitecturas Orientadas a Servicios (SOA). La principal novedad de la propuesta se encuentra en el hecho de embeber el IDS en un sensor inteligente, aprovechando muchas de las ventajas que aporta la filosofia con la que estan disenados y, al mismo tiempo, ofrecer su funcionalidad como servicio. El objetivo fundamental del trabajo es minimizar el enorme volumen de tareas de gestion que este tipo de servicios de red llevan aparejadas en la actualidad, haciendo inviable su implantacion o su posterior mantenimiento asi como facilitar el diseno de DIDS escalables. En el trabajo tambien se aborda la construccion de un prototipo fisico de sensor con el que se han realizado las pruebas que han permitido validar la propuesta, arrojando unos ratios de deteccion y rendimiento similares a los IDS existentes pero con caracteristicas de mantenimiento-cero, robustez y escalabilidad muy superiores.
Extended inhibition of platelet aggregation with the orally active platelet inhibitor SC-54684A.

BACKGROUND Platelet aggregation is important in thrombotic events, and platelets play a major role in the etiology of several cardiovascular diseases. Platelet aggregation requires the binding of fibrinogen (fgn) to activated platelets. Synthetic peptides modeled after the RGD binding sequence on the fgn alpha-chain block the platelet glycoprotein (GP) IIb/IIIa receptor for fgn and effectively inhibit aggregation. SC-54684A (SCp, orally active prodrug of the active moiety SC-54701, SCa) is a mimetic of the RGD-containing peptide sequence that is recognized by the platelet GPIIb/IIIa receptor. SCa blocks the binding of fgn to the platelet and therefore prevents platelet aggregation in response to all agonists. METHODS AND RESULTS SCp was administered orally at 1.25, 2.5, 5.0, and 7.5 mg/kg in a single-dose, dose-ranging study. Blood samples were taken periodically for 24 hours, and platelet-rich plasma was prepared and tested for inhibition of ex vivo collagen-induced platelet aggregation. The plasma concentration of active moiety was determined by bioassay. The time, inhibition, and concentration data were used to predict two doses that would result in minimum daily inhibition levels of 30% and 70% when administered twice daily (0.6 and 2.4 mg/kg, respectively). SCp was administered orally to conscious dogs twice daily for 14 days (after dose adjustment). Blood samples were obtained at daily peak and trough plasma levels (predicted from dose-ranging study). Inhibition of ex vivo collagen-induced platelet aggregation and concentration of active moiety in the plasma were determined. Average inhibition of platelet aggregation and plasma concentration of active moiety amounted to approximately 21% and 14 ng/mL at 1.5 mg/kg BID and 75% and 24 ng/mL at 2.4 ng/kg BID at daily minimum plasma levels (trough) in steady state. Platelet counts in the 2.4-mg/kg group declined from 3.2 x 10(5)/microL to 2.5 x 10(5)/microL in the first 9 days of dosing, with no further decline despite continued administration of compound. No changes were observed in the animals receiving 1.5 mg/kg. CONCLUSIONS The results of the dose-ranging study show that oral administration of SCp results in dose-dependent inhibition of platelet aggregation. As shown in the 14-day administration, this dose-dependent inhibition can be maintained for an extended period while exhibiting no adverse effects. SCp is a leading candidate for development and is currently in clinical trials.
Coupling and uncoupling of activity‐dependent increases of neuronal activity and blood flow in rat somatosensory cortex

1 Electrical stimulation of the infraorbital nerve was used to examine the coupling between neuronal activity and cerebral blood flow (CBF) in rat somatosensory cortex by laser Doppler flowmetry and extracellular recordings of field potentials. 2 The relationship between field potential (FP) and CBF amplitudes was examined as a function of the stimulus intensity (0‐2.0 mA) at fixed frequency (3 Hz). FP amplitudes up to 2.0‐2.5 mV were unaccompanied by increases of CBF. Above this threshold, CBF and FP amplitudes increased proportionally. 3 At fixed stimulus intensity of 1.5 mA, CBF increases were highly correlated to FP amplitudes at low frequencies of stimulation (< 2 Hz), but uncoupling was observed at stimulation frequencies of 2‐5 Hz. The evoked responses were independent of stimulus duration (8‐32 s). 4 The first rise in CBF occurred within the first 0.2 s after onset of stimulation in the upper 0‐250 μm of the cortex. Latencies were longer (1.0‐1.2 s) in lower cortical layers in which CBF and FP amplitudes were larger. 5 Local AMPA receptor blockade attenuated CBF and FP amplitudes proportionally. 6 This study showed that activity‐dependent increases in neuronal activity and CBF were linearly coupled under defined conditions, but neuronal activity was well developed before CBF started to increase. Consequently, the absence of a rise in CBF does not exclude the presence of significant neuronal activity. The CBF increase in upper cortical layers preceded the rise in lower layers suggesting that vessels close to or at the brain surface are the first to react to neuronal activity. The activity‐dependent rise in CBF was explained by postsynaptic activity in glutamatergic neurons.
Folic acid-conjugated soybean protein-based nanoparticles mediate efficient antitumor ability in vitro

In this study, soy protein isolate was hydrolyzed by compound enzymes to give aqueous soy protein with low molecular weights. Folic acid modified and free soy protein nanoparticles were successfully prepared by a desolvation method as target-specific drug delivery, respectively. Ultraviolet spectrophotometry demonstrated that folic acid was successfully grafted onto soy protein. The shape and size of folic acid modified soy protein nanoparticles were detected by transmission electron microscopy, scanning electron microscope, and dynamic light scattering. In addition, a series of characteristics including kinetic stability, pH stability, and time stability were also performed. Doxorubicin was successfully loaded into folic acid modified soy protein nanoparticles, and the encapsulation and loading efficiencies were 96.7% and 23%, respectively. Doxorubicin-loaded folic acid modified soy protein nanoparticles exhibited faster drug release rate than soy protein nanoparticles in PBS solution (pH = 5). The tumor penetration and antitumor experiments were done using three-dimensional multicellular tumor spheroids as the in vitro model. The results proved that folic acid modified soy protein nanoparticles display higher penetration and accumulation than soy protein nanoparticles, therefore possessing efficient growth inhibitory ability against multicellular tumor spheroids.
Efficient Privacy-Preserving Publish Subscribe Middleware

We address the problem of privacy in publish-subscribe (pubsub) systems that typically expose some form of published content and subscriber interest, at least to the infrastructure responsible for subscription matching and content delivery, and possibly to other participants depending on the implementation. In our recent work, we proposed P3S, a pub-sub middleware designed to protect the privacy of subscriber interest and confidentiality of published content. P3S combined Ciphertext Policy Attribute Based Encryption (CP-ABE) with Predicate Based Encryption (PBE) in its novel system architecture to achieve the desired level of content (payload and metadata) confidentiality, and subscription privacy. In this work, we build upon P3S to achieve the strongest possible subscription privacy where cleartext subscription is visible only to the subscriber itself. Furthermore, we added support for subscription policy enforcement, improved the expressiveness of predicates by allowing disjunctions of conjunction, and improved the efficiency of the underlying cryptography through enhanced cryptographic construction and optimized implementation of cryptographic primitives. Finally, to the best of our knowledge, this paper presents the first comprehensive and practical implementation of a privacy preserving pub-sub system, demonstrated on a large-scale testbed featuring up to 90 subscribers with a robust, scalable and efficient performance. Our code and testbed specifications are freely available for research and experimentation purpose.
Award Number : DAMD 1703-1-0251 TITLE : Rational Inhibitors of DNA Base Excision Repair ( BER ) Enzymes : New Tools for Elucidating the Role of BER in Cancer Chemotherapy

The glycosidic bond hydrolysis reaction of the enzyme uracil DNA glycosylase (UDG) occurs by a two-step mechanism involving complete bond breakage to the uracil anion leaving group in the first step, formation of a discrete glycosyl cation-uracil anion intermediate, followed by water attack in a second transition-state leading to the enzyme-bound products of uracil and abasic DNA. We have synthesized and determined the binding affinities of unimolecular mimics of the substrate and first transition-state (TSl) in which the uracil base is covalently attached to the sugar, and in addition, bimolecular mimics of the second addition transition state (TS2) in which the base and sugar are detached. We find that the bipartite mimics of TS2 are superior to the TSl mimics. These results indicate that bipartite TS2 inhibitors could be useful for inhibition of glycosylases that proceed by stepwdse reaction mechanisms. © 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.