Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
New laboratory methods to study tooth surface coverage and interproximal plaque control by dentifrice products.

OBJECTIVE To develop and test an in vitro tooth model for use in conjunction with laboratory methods to study interproximal effects and efficacy of dentifrices. The application of the model should offer visual evaluation of dentifrice coverage of the tooth surface, and measure dental plaque control at posterior interdental spaces with a dentifrice. METHODOLOGY The dentifrice products tested with the model were: Colgate Total 2 in 1 Toothpaste and Mouthwash (CTTM), Colgate Total dentifrice (CTD), and Colgate Regular dentifrice (CRD). Extracted human posterior teeth were disinfected, cleaned, aligned, and mounted in denture acrylic. In the area coverage method, tooth surface coverage and penetration of two different forms of dentifrice products (CTTM and CRD) were compared using digital photography. In the interproximal plaque control method, the teeth were coated with human saliva and incubated anaerobically with a mixture of representative oral bacteria for six hours at 37 degrees C. In vitro dental plaque was assessed after brushing the facial surface with one of the three dentifrice products using a clinical plaque scoring index. RESULTS The area coverage method demonstrated that both dentifrice products tested covered approximately 70% of the facial tooth surface; the CTTM dentifrice coverage on the lingual tooth surface was significantly higher than the coverage for the CRD dentifrice. With the interproximal plaque control method, in the presence of an active ingredient, the CTTM dentifrice had equivalent efficacy to the CTD dentifrice. Both CTTM and CTD were significantly superior to the CRD for interproximal dental plaque control. CONCLUSION Using the developed tooth model, two assessment methods have been shown to have the potential to demonstrate tooth surface coverage, and to assess the potential efficacy of a dentifrice for the control of interproximal dental plaque. This process can indicate potential clinical evaluation of an oral care product, and support clinical findings with controlled evidence.
Transcription-coupled DNA Repair Is Genomic Context-dependent*

DNA damage is preferentially repaired in the transcribed strand of many active genes. Although the concept of DNA repair coupled with transcription has been widely accepted, its mechanisms remain elusive. We recently reported that in Chinese hamster ovary cells while ultraviolet light-induced cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers (CPDs) are preferentially repaired in the transcribed strand of dihydrofolate reductase gene, CPDs are efficiently repaired in both strands of adenine phosphoribosyltransferase (APRT) locus, in either a transcribed or nontranscribed APRT gene (1). These results suggested that the transcription dependence of repair may depend on genomic context. To test this hypothesis, we constructed transfectant cell lines containing a single, actively transcribedAPRT gene, integrated at different genomic sites. Mapping of CPD repair in the integrated APRT genes in three transfectant cell lines revealed two distinct repair patterns, either preferential repair of CPDs in the transcribed strand or very poor repair in both strands. Similar kinetics of micrococcal nuclease digestion were seen for all three transfectant APRT gene domains and endogenous APRT locus. Our results suggest that both the efficiency and strand-specificity of repair of an actively transcribed gene are profoundly affected by genomic context but do not reflect changes in first order nucleosomal structure.
Sex differences in schizophrenia.

Sex differences in schizophrenia, including variation in clinical symptoms, onset age, risk factors, response to treatment, and putative biological risk markers, are widely recognized to exist, yet are hard to explain by any pathogenetic mechanism. 1,2 In his discussion of Olney and Farber's N -methyl-D-aspartate receptor hypothesis, Crow 3 compares various (eg, neurohumoral, anatomical, physiological) theories of the pathogenesis of schizophrenia. He further examines these theories for their ability to explain various known features of the disorder, eg, clinical symptoms, brain changes, and epidemiological characteristics. Among these epidemiological features, he includes the sex differences discussed earlier. He recognizes only 2 hypotheses, the corpus callosum change model and the abnormal language lateralization model, as being able to account successfully for sex differences in schizophrenia. Of the theories he compares, Crow expresses the opinion that the heteromodal association cortex model only "doubtfully explains" such sex differences. We be lieve that in fact
Task-Management Method Using R-Tree Spatial Cloaking for Large-Scale Crowdsourcing

With the development of sensor technology and the popularization of the data-driven service paradigm, spatial crowdsourcing systems have become an important way of collecting map-based location data. However, large-scale task management and location privacy are important factors for participants in spatial crowdsourcing. In this paper, we propose the use of an R-tree spatial cloaking-based task-assignment method for large-scale spatial crowdsourcing. We use an estimated R-tree based on the requested crowdsourcing tasks to reduce the crowdsourcing server-side inserting cost and enable the scalability. By using Minimum Bounding Rectangle (MBR)-based spatial anonymous data without exact position data, this method preserves the location privacy of participants in a simple way. In our experiment, we showed that our proposed method is faster than the current method, and is very efficient when the scale is increased.
The Viterbi decoding complexity of linear block codes

A given linear block code can be represented by many different trellises. In this paper, we will show that if these trellises are scored according to the complexity of implementing the Viterbi decoding algorithm on them, there is a uniquely optimal one, viz. The "Wolf (1978)-Massey (1978)-Muder (1988)" trellis. We will also introduce "minimal-span" generator matrices, which permit easy construction of WMM trellises. <<ETX>>
Heart-reactive antibody associated with rheumatic fever: characterization and diagnostic significance.

The sera of patients with acute rheumatic fever, uncomplicated streptococcal infections and post-streptococcal glomerulonephritis contain a heart-reactive antibody which binds to the sarcolemmal membrane of myofibrils of heart muscle as well as to other mammalian muscle tissue. The sera of patients with acute rheumatic fever have about four times as much of this antibody as is found in sera of patients convalescent from uncomplicated streptococcal infections or acute post-streptococcal glomerulonephritis. This antibody is not present in a number of other diseases, including idiopathic myocardiopathies, lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple myeloma, and sarcoidosis. The titre of heart-reactive antibody declines slowly over a period of 2–3 years following acute rheumatic fever but reappears with subsequent rheumatic recrudescences. Following cardiotomy a heart-reactive antibody also is demonstrable in the serum but is differentiated from that antibody which follows acute rheumatic fever. While streptococcal-induced antibody is absorbed with streptococcal membrane, heart-reactive antibody following cardiotomy is absorbed only with cardiac tissue. The presence in the sera of patients with acute rheumatic fever of high titres of heart-reactive antibody, absorbable by streptococcal membrane, provides an additional laboratory tool for the differential diagnosis of rheumatic fever and may be of value in the long-term management of this disease.
Work n Progress : A Machine Learning Approach for Assessment and Prediction of Teamwork Effectiveness in Software Engineering Education

One of the challenges in effective software engineering (SE) education is the lack of objective assessment methods of how well student teams learn the critically needed teamwork practices, defined as the ability: (i) to learn and effectively apply SE processes in a teamwork setting, and (ii) to work as a team to develop satisfactory software (SW) products. In addition, there are no effective methods for predicting learning effectiveness in order to enable early intervention in the classroom. Most of the current approaches to assess achievement of SE teamwork skills rely solely on qualitative and subjective data taken as surveys at the end of the class and analyzed only with very rudimentary data analysis. In this paper we present a novel approach to address the assessment and prediction of student learning of teamwork effectiveness in software engineering education based on: a) extracting only objective and quantitative student team activity data during their team class project; b) pairing these data with related independent observations and grading of student team effectiveness in SE process and SE product components in order to create “training database”; and c) applying a machine learning (ML) approach, namely random forest classification (RF), to the above training database in order to create ML models, ranked factors and rules that can both explain (e.g. assess) as well as provide prediction of the student teamwork effectiveness. These student team activity data are being collected in joint and already established (since 2006) SE classes at San Francisco State University (SFSU), Florida Atlantic University (FAU) and Fulda University, Germany (Fulda), from approximately 80 students each year, working in about 15 teams, both local and global (with students from multiple schools). Keywords-assessment; software engineering teamwork; software engineering education; assessment; machine learning.
Down-regulation of SlCyp1 in the phloem reduces auxin response and photosynthetic rate in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) plants

ABSTRACT The tomato dgt mutant, containing a single mutation in the Cyclophilin1 (SlCyp1) gene, is auxin insensitive and exhibits a pleotropic phenotype that includes lack of lateral roots, malformed xylem structure and reduced root-to-shoot ratio. Recently, we found that the SlCyp1 protein is phloem-mobile and traffic from shoot to root to induce lateral root formation. These processes are achieved through activation of auxin-mediated developmental programs. Inhibition of the trafficked SlCyp1 activity at the target site resulted in inhibition of the auxin response, supporting the hypothesis that this protein is indeed a mobile signal. Here, we show that partial silencing of SlCyp1 in the phloem only resulted in perturbed auxin response in the roots and reduced photosynthetic and transpiration rates. The presented data suggests that expression of SlCyp1 in the phloem is essential for proper auxin response at the whole plant level. We, therefore, propose that this protein acts as a long-distance signaling molecule acting as coordinator between roots and shoot activities.
Update on Congenital Nasolacrimal Duct Obstruction

Congenital nasolacrimal duct obstruction is the most common disorder of the nasolacrimal duct system in children. Although this is a common disorder, there is debate among ophthalmologists about the best approach to treatment, regarding both treatment and timing of that treatment. Recent studies have helped to shed some light on these debates and provide the ophthalmologist with reliable data, which he/ she can use when considering their own practice patterns.
Secreted protein kinases regulate cyst burden during chronic toxoplasmosis

Toxoplasma gondii is an apicomplexan parasite that secretes a large number of protein kinases and pseudokinases from its rhoptry organelles. Although some rhoptry kinases (ROPKs) act as virulence factors, many remain uncharacterized. In this study, predicted ROPKs were assessed for bradyzoite expression then prioritized for a reverse genetic analysis in the type II strain Pru that is amenable to targeted disruption. Using CRISPR/Cas9, we engineered C‐terminally epitope tagged ROP21 and ROP27 and demonstrated their localization to the parasitophorous vacuole and cyst matrix. ROP21 and ROP27 were not secreted from microneme, rhoptry, or dense granule organelles, but rather were located in small vesicles consistent with a constitutive pathway. Using CRISPR/Cas9, the genes for ROP21, ROP27, ROP28, and ROP30 were deleted individually and in combination, and the mutant parasites were assessed for growth and their ability to form tissue cysts in mice. All knockouts lines were normal for in vitro growth and bradyzoite differentiation, but a combined ∆rop21/∆rop17 knockout led to a 50% reduction in cyst burden in vivo. Our findings question the existing annotation of ROPKs based solely on bioinformatic techniques and yet highlight the importance of secreted kinases in determining the severity of chronic toxoplasmosis.
Pedestrian segmentation using deformable triangulation and kernel density estimation

This paper proposes a novel kernel-based and technique to segment pedestrians from a single image. An important concept introduced in this paper is “detection before segmentation” for extracting pedestrians' boundaries more precisely no matter what cameras (mobile, PTZ, or stationary) are used or how does the background include various lighting changes. First of all, the Adaboost-based detector is trained for detecting all possible pedestrians from still images. Then, we adopt the Watershed algorithm to over-segment each frame as a rough segmentation. Since two homogenous regions will still connect together, a triangulation-based scheme is then used to divide them into different tinier regions using their edge features. Then, we propose a novel kernel density analysis to estimate the probability of each tinier region to be foreground or background. With the kernel modeling, an optimal segmentation of pedestrian can be found by maximizing a posteriori probability for maintaining the visual and spatial consistencies between each segmented regions. Then, each desired pedestrian can be more accurately extracted for content analysis even though it is occluded with other objects or captured by a mobile camera. Experimental results have shown the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method in pedestrian segmentation.
Aurora-A Abrogation of p53 DNA Binding and Transactivation Activity by Phosphorylation of Serine 215*

The tumor suppressor p53 is important in the decision to either arrest cell cycle progression or induce apoptosis in response to a variety of stimuli. p53 posttranslational modifications and association with other proteins have been implicated in the regulation of its stability and transactivation activity. Here we show that p53 is phosphorylated by the mitotic kinase Aurora-A at serine 215. Unlike most identified phosphorylation sites of p53 that positively associate with p53 function (Brooks, C. L., and Gu, W. (2003) Curr. Opin. Cell Biol. 15, 164–171), the phosphorylation of p53 by Aurora-A at Ser-215 abrogates p53 DNA binding and transactivation activity. Downstream target genes of p53, such as p21Cip/WAF1 and PTEN, were inhibited by Aurora-A in a Ser-215 phosphorylation-dependent manner (i.e. phosphomimic p53-S215D lost and non-phosphorylatable p53-S215A retained normal p53 function). As a result, Aurora-A overrides the apoptosis and cell cycle arrest induced by cisplatin and γ-irradiation, respectively. However, the effect of Aurora-A on p53 DNA binding and transactivation activity was not affected by phosphorylation of Ser-315, a recently identified Aurora-A phosphorylation site of p53 (Katayama, H., Sasai, K., Kawai, H., Yuan, Z. M., Bondaruk, J., Suzuki, F., Fujii, S., Arlinghaus, R. B., Czerniak, B. A., and Sen, S. (2004) Nat. Genet. 36, 55–62). Our data indicate that phosphorylation of p53 at Ser-215 by Aurora-A is a major mechanism to inactivate p53 and can provide a molecular insight for Aurora-A function.
Matrix Multiplication, a Little Faster

Strassen's algorithm (1969) was the first sub-cubic matrix multiplication algorithm. Winograd (1971) improved its complexity by a constant factor. Many asymptotic improvements followed. Unfortunately, most of them have done so at the cost of very large, often gigantic, hidden constants. Consequently, Strassen-Winograd's O(nlog27) algorithm often outperforms other matrix multiplication algorithms for all feasible matrix dimensions. The leading coefficient of Strassen-Winograd's algorithm was believed to be optimal for matrix multiplication algorithms with 2x2 base case, due to a lower bound of Probert (1976). Surprisingly, we obtain a faster matrix multiplication algorithm, with the same base case size and asymptotic complexity as Strassen-Winograd's algorithm, but with the coefficient reduced from 6 to 5. To this end, we extend Bodrato's (2010) method for matrix squaring, and transform matrices to an alternative basis. We prove a generalization of Probert's lower bound that holds under change of basis, showing that for matrix multiplication algorithms with a 2x2 base case, the leading coefficient of our algorithm cannot be further reduced, hence optimal. We apply our technique to other Strassen-like algorithms, improving their arithmetic and communication costs by significant constant factors.
Linear-Time Approximation Algorithms for the Max Cut Problem

Let G be a connected graph with n vertices and m edges (multiple edges allowed), and let k ≥ 2 be an integer. There is an algorithm with (optimal) running time of O(m) that finds (i) a bipartite subgraph of G with ≥ m/2 + (n − 1)/4 edges, (ii) a bipartite subgraph of G with ≥ m/2 + 3(n−1)/8 edges if G is triangle-free, (iii) a k-colourable subgraph of G with ≥ m − m/k + (n−1)/k + (k − 3)/2 edges if k ≥ 3 and G is not k-colorable. Infinite families of graphs show that each of those lower bounds on the worst-case performance are best possible (for every algorithm). Moreover, even if short cycles are excluded, the general lower bound of m − m/k cannot be replaced by m − m/k + εm for any fixed ε > 0; and it is NP-complete to decide whether a graph with m edges contains a k-colorable subgraph with more than m − m/k + εm edges, for any k ≥ 2 and ε> 0, ε < 1/k.
Carcinoma micropapilar infiltrante de mama. Variable histológica de factor pronóstico

El cancer de mama es una enfermedad heterogenea sobre la que se han realizados grandes esfuerzos para conocer su biologia. El objetivo es poder identificar subtipos de tumores agresivos y pacientes con alto riesgo de recidivas y metastasis; los cuales se verian beneficiados de nuevos regimenes terapeuticos mas apropiados. El aumento en la clasificacion de variantes histologicas del cancer de mama, ha hecho que disminuya la prevalencia del subgrupo clasico "carcinoma ductal infiltrante convencional". Muchos estudios han demostrado la correlacion de determinadas estirpes histologicas con su desarrollo biologico; asi, algunos fenotipos se han identificado como mas agresivos y relacionados con mayor porcentaje de recidivas (116,117). La evaluacion de los datos recogidos en nuestro estudio pretende demostrar los objetivos expuestos al principio: 1. Determinar las caracteristicas epidemiologicas de las mujeres que presentan una neoplasia mamaria con este patron: micropapilar infiltrante. 2. Estudiar el comportamiento del Carcinoma Micropapilar Infiltrante puro y mixto, respecto a una serie de variables pronosticas, con el fin de redefinir criterios diagnosticos del mismo. 3. Definir los aspectos clinicos, el patron de diagnostico por imagen mas caracteristico y la actitud terapeutica del carcinoma micropapilar infiltrante. 4. Comparar el comportamiento de este grupo con los subgrupos de carcinoma ductal infiltrante (G-I y G-III). 5. Analizar el intervalo de supervivencia libre de enfermedad y tasa de mortalidad, para valorar alguna modificacion en la conducta terapeutica a seguir en estas pacientes.
Modeling and Design of Robust LQI Controller for DC-DC Buck Converter

This paper presents the linear quadratic regulator with integral (LQI) action applied to design controller for a DC_ DC buck converter to get desired dynamic response. For design a controller in continuous mode by using LQI small signal average state space model is obtained and for digital controller design discrete modelling is obtained. This mathematical state space models reproduce the converters dynamic behavior. After modelling with the aim to obtain the optimal control law that minimizes the predefined cost function, the compensator design is performed using MATLAB. The controlling validated through simulation in SIMULINK.
Nonlinear Thomson scattering of intense laser pulses from beams and plasmas.

A comprehensive theory is developed to describe the nonlinear Thomson scattering of intense laser fields from beams and plasmas. This theory is valid for linearly or circularly polarized incident laser fields of arbitrary intensities and for electrons of arbitrary energies. Explicit expressions for the intensity distributions of the scattered radiation are calculated and numerically evaluated. The space-charge electrostatic potential, which is important in high-density plasmas and prevents the axial drift of electrons, is included self-consistently. Various properties of the scattered radiation are examined, including the linewidth, angular distribution, and the behavior of the radiation spectra at ultrahigh intensities. Nonideal effects, such as electron-energy spread and beam emittance, are discussed. A laser synchrotron source (LSS), based on nonlinear Thomson scattering, may provide a practical method for generating tunable, near-monochromatic, well-collimated, short-pulse x rays in a compact, relatively inexpensive source. Two examples of possible LSS configurations are presented: an electron-beam LSS generating hard (30-keV, 0.4-\AA{}) x rays and a plasma LSS generating soft (0.3-keV, 40-\AA{}) x rays. These LSS configurations are capable of generating ultrashort (\ensuremath{\sim}1-ps) x-ray pulses with high peak flux (\ensuremath{\gtrsim}${10}^{21}$ photons/s) and brightness [\ensuremath{\gtrsim}${10}^{19}$ photons /(s ${\mathrm{mm}}^{2}$ ${\mathrm{mrad}}^{2}$), 0.1% bandwidth].
Investigating the balance between virtuality and reality in mobile mixed reality UI design: user perception of an augmented city

Examples of mixed reality mobile applications and research combining virtual and real world data in the same view have emerged during recent years. However, currently there is little knowledge of users' perceptions comparing the role of virtual and real world representations in mobile user interfaces (UIs). In this paper, we investigate the initial user perceptions when comparing augmented reality and augmented virtuality UIs in a mobile application. To chart this, we conducted a field study with 35 participants, where they interacted with a simulated mobile mixed reality (MMR) application with two alternative UI designs, and an online survey completed by over a hundred people. Our findings reveal perceived differences e.g. in immersion, recognition, clarity and overall pleasantness, and provide insight to user interface design and methodological challenges of research in the area of mobile mixed reality.