Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
PrivacyManager: An access control framework for mobile augmented reality applications

Smartphone-based augmented reality (AR) applications like the Pokémon Go game are increasingly popular. These applications make extensive use of the smartphone's camera, which may pose a privacy problem as the camera may capture sensitive images or audio information. In this paper, we present PrivacyManager, a framework that allows application developers and domain administrators to control potentially privacy-invading functionality of mobile AR applications when faced with undesirable environmental factors. Using contextual information about a user's environment, such as network signals, ambient light and sound, location, and other inputs, our framework is able to inform subscribing applications of conditions which violate a set of pre-configured constraints. This functionality is available to the subscribing applications with a minimum of processing overhead, including additional performance enhancements to streamline location-awareness with as little resource consumption as possible.
Comorbidity Assessments Based on Patient Report: Results From the Veterans Health Study

Abstract:The objective of the study was to develop a self-reported measure of patients' comorbid illnesses that could be readily administered in ambulatory care settings and that would improve assessment of their health-related quality of life and utilization of health services. Data were analyzed from the Veterans Health Study, an observational study of health outcomes in patients receiving Veterans Administration (VA) ambulatory care. Patients who received ambulatory care services in 4 VA outpatient clinics in the greater Boston area between August 1993 and March 1996 were eligible for inclusion. Among the 4137 patients recruited, 2425 participated in the Veterans Health Study, representing a response rate of 59%. Participants were mailed a health-related quality of life questionnaire, the Medical Outcomes Study Short Form Health Survey (SF-36). They were also scheduled for an in-person interview at which time they completed a medical history questionnaire. We developed a comorbidity index (CI) that included 30 self-reported medical conditions (physical CI) and 6 self-reported mental conditions (mental CI). The physical CI and the mental CI were significantly associated with all SF-36 scales and explained 24% and 36%, respectively, of the variance in the physical component summary and the mental component summary of the SF-36. Both indexes were also significant predictors of future outpatient visits and mortality. The CI is an independent predictor of health status, outpatient visits, and mortality. Its use appears to be a practical approach to case-mix adjustment to account for differences in comorbid illnesses in observational studies of the quality of healthcare. It can be administered to large patient populations at relatively low cost. This method may be particularly valuable for clinicians and researchers interested in population-based studies, case-mix adjustment, and clinical trials.
Improving a designed photocontrolled DNA-binding protein.

Photocontrolled transcription factors could be powerful tools for probing the roles of transcriptional processes in a variety of settings. Previously, we designed a photocontrolled DNA-binding protein based on a fusion between the bZIP region of GCN4 and photoactive yellow protein from Halorhodospira halophila [Morgan, S. A. , et al. (2010) J. Mol. Biol. 399, 94-112]. Here we report a structure-based attempt to improve the degree of photoswitching observed with this chimeric protein. Using computational design tools PoPMuSiC 2.0, Rosetta, Eris, and bCIPA, we identified a series of single- and multiple-point mutations that were expected to stabilize the folded dark state of the protein and thereby enhance the degree of photoswitching. While a number of these mutations, particularly those that introduced a hydrophobic residue at position 143, did significantly enhance dark-state protein stability as judged by urea denaturation studies, dark-state stability did not correlate directly with the degree of photoswitching. Instead, the influence of mutations on the degree of photoswitching was found to be related to their effects on the degree to which DNA binding slowed the pB to pG transition in the PYP photocycle. One mutant, K143F, caused an ∼10-fold slowing of the photocycle and also showed the largest difference in the apparent K(d) for DNA binding, 3.5-fold lower, upon irradiation. This change in the apparent K(d) causes a 12-fold enhancement in the fraction bound DNA upon irradiation due to the cooperativity of DNA binding by this family of proteins. The results highlight the strengths and weaknesses of current approaches to a practical problem in protein design and suggest strategies for further improvement of designed photocontrolled transcription factors.
On Affine Invariant Descent Directions Preprint , Aug . 14 , 2017

This paper explores the existence of affine invariant descent directions for unconstrained minimization. While there may exist several affine invariant descent directions for smooth functions f at a given point, it is shown that for quadratic functions there exists exactly one invariant descent direction in the strictly convex case and generally none in the nondegenerate indefinite case. These results can be generalized to smooth nonlinear functions and have implications regarding the initialization of minimization algorithms. They stand in contrast to recent works on constrained convex and nonconvex optimization for which there may exist an affine invariant framework that depends on the feasible set.
Robust-PCA-based hierarchical plane extraction for application to geometric 3D indoor mapping

Purpose – The authors aim to propose a novel plane extraction algorithm for geometric 3D indoor mapping with range scan data. Design/methodology/approach – The proposed method utilizes a divide-and-conquer step to efficiently handle huge amounts of point clouds not in a whole group, but in forms of separate sub-groups with similar plane parameters. This method adopts robust principal component analysis to enhance estimation accuracy. Findings – Experimental results verify that the method not only shows enhanced performance in the plane extraction, but also broadens the domain of interest of the plane registration to an information-poor environment (such as simple indoor corridors), while the previous method only adequately works in an information-rich environment (such as a space with many features). Originality/value – The proposed algorithm has three advantages over the current state-of-the-art method in that it is fast, utilizes more inlier sensor data that does not become contaminated by severe sensor.
Cancer incidence trends in Urban Shanghai, 1972‐1989

Incidence data pertaining to more than 250,000 cancer cases diagnosed during the years 1972‐1989 among residents of urban Shanghai, China, were analyzed to determine the relative importance of the various malignancies and to discover changes over time. In the most recent 3‐year period, lung cancer was the most frequent cancer among men (57.0 per 100,000 person‐years, age‐adjusted world standard), followed by cancers of the stomach (50. 1), liver (29.6), esophagus (13.3), colon (11.2) and rectum (9.4). Among women, breast cancer leads (25.1), followed by cancers of the stomach (23.2), lung (18.8), liver (10.9), colon (10.2) and rectum (7.3). The most impressive increases in incidence rates from 1972‐74 to 1987‐89 were observed for cancers of the gallbladder (119% and 101% among men and women, respectively), colon (85% and 78%), and brain and other nervous system (71% and 60%). In addition, increases of 20‐50% occurred for cancers of the pancreas, male lung, female breast, corpus uteri, kidney, and for non‐Hodgkin's lymphoma. Rates declined notably for cancers of the esophagus (‐54% and ‐53%), cervix uteri (‐86%), and to a lesser extent (10‐20%) cancers of the male stomach and liver. These observed trends can be explained only partly by improvements in cancer diagnosis and completeness of the cancer registry, and most likely reflect changes in the prevalence of risk factors in this population.
Phosphodiesterase-5 Gln817 Is Critical for cGMP, Vardenafil, or Sildenafil Affinity

The side group of an invariant Gln in cGMP- and cAMP-specific phosphodiesterases (PDE) is held in different orientations by bonds with other amino acids and purportedly discriminates between guanine and adenine in cGMP and cAMP. In cGMP-specific PDE5, Gln775 constrains the orientation of the invariant Gln817 side chain, which forms bidentate bonds with 5′-GMP, vardenafil, sildenafil, and 3-isobutyl-1-methylxanthine (IBMX) (Sung, B. J., Hwang, K. Y., Jeon, Y. H., Lee, J. I., Heo, Y. S., Kim, J. H., Moon, J., Yoon, J. M., Hyun, Y. L., Kim, E., Eum, S. J., Park, S. Y., Lee, J. O., Lee, T. G., Ro, S., and Cho, J. M. (2003) Nature 425, 98–102; Huai, Q. , Liu, Y. , Francis, S. H. , Corbin, J. D. , and Ke, H. (2004) J. Biol. Chem. 279, 13095–13101; Zhang, K. Y. , Card, G. L. , Suzuki, Y. , Artis, D. R. , Fong, D. , Gillette, S. , Hsieh, D. , Neiman, J., West, B. L. , Zhang, C. , Milburn, M. V. , Kim, S. H. , Schlessinger, J., and Bollag, G. (2004) Mol. Cell 15, 279–286). PDE5Q817A and PDE5Q775A were generated to test the hypotheses that Gln817 is critical for cyclic nucleotide or inhibitor affinity and that Gln775 immobilizes the Gln817 side chain to provide cGMP/cAMP selectivity. Allosteric cGMP binding and the molecular mass of the mutant proteins were unchanged compared with PDE5WT. For PDE5Q817A, Km for cGMP or cAMP was weakened 60- or 2-fold, respectively. For PDE5Q775A, Km for cGMP was weakened ∼20-fold but was unchanged for cAMP. For PDE5Q817A, vardenafil, sildenafil, and IBMX inhibitory potencies were weakened 610-, 48-, and 60-fold, respectively, indicating that Gln817 is a major determinant of potency, especially for vardenafil, and that binding of vardenafil and sildenafil differs substantially. Sildenafil and vardenafil affinity were not significantly affected in PDE5Q775A. It is concluded that Gln817 is a positive determinant for PDE5 affinity for cGMP and several inhibitors; Gln775, which perhaps restricts rotation of Gln817 side chain, is critical for cGMP affinity but has no measurable effect on affinity for cAMP, sildenafil, or vardenafil.
Status of the ITER heating neutral beam system

The ITER neutral beam (NB) injectors are the first injectors that will have to operate under conditions and constraints similar to those that will be encountered in a fusion reactor. These injectors will have to operate in a hostile radiation environment and they will become highly radioactive due to the neutron flux from ITER. The injectors will use a single large ion source and accelerator that will produce 40 A 1 MeV D− beams for pulse lengths of up to 3600 s. Significant design changes have been made to the ITER heating NB (HNB) injector over the past 4 years. The main changes are: Modifications to allow installation and maintenance of the beamline components with an overhead crane. The beam source vessel shape has been changed and the beam source moved to allow more space for the connections between the 1 MV bushing and the beam source. The RF driven negative ion source has replaced the filamented ion source as the reference design. The ion source and extractor power supplies will be located in an air insulated high voltage (−1 MV) deck located outside the tokamak building instead of inside an SF6 insulated HV deck located above the injector. Introduction of an all metal absolute valve to prevent any tritium in the machine to escape into the NB cell during maintenance. This paper describes the status of the design as of December 2008 including the above mentioned changes. Modifications to allow installation and maintenance of the beamline components with an overhead crane. The beam source vessel shape has been changed and the beam source moved to allow more space for the connections between the 1 MV bushing and the beam source. The RF driven negative ion source has replaced the filamented ion source as the reference design. The ion source and extractor power supplies will be located in an air insulated high voltage (−1 MV) deck located outside the tokamak building instead of inside an SF6 insulated HV deck located above the injector. Introduction of an all metal absolute valve to prevent any tritium in the machine to escape into the NB cell during maintenance. The very important power supply system of the neutral beam injectors is not described in any detail as that merits a paper beyond the competence of the present authors. The R&D required to realize the injectors described in this paper must be carried out on a dedicated neutral beam test facility, which is not described here.
The Ulcerative Colitis Endoscopic Index of Severity is Useful to Predict Medium- to Long-Term Prognosis in Ulcerative Colitis Patients with Clinical Remission.

BACKGROUND The ulcerative colitis endoscopic index of severity [UCEIS] is a validated scoring system. Nevertheless, few studies have investigated its usefulness in clinical settings. In this study, we aimed to predict the clinical prognosis of patients with ulcerative colitis [UC] in clinical remission using the UCEIS. METHODS A total of 285 UC patients who underwent a colonoscopy between April 2012 and March 2013 were enrolled. We reviewed clinical characteristics and endoscopic scores at the time of the colonoscopy and checked the clinical remission rate of the patients until September 2015. Clinical remission and recurrence were defined as a partial Mayo score of ≤1 and ≥3, respectively. RESULTS UCEIS was strongly correlated with the Mayo endoscopic score [r=0.93], moderately correlated with clinical severity [r=0.64] and mildly correlated with C-reactive protein [r=0.34]. The recurrence rate increased gradually as it became more endoscopically severe [5.0% for UCEIS=0, 22.4% for UCEIS=1, 27.0% for UCEIS=2, 35.7% for UCEIS=3 and 75.0% for UCEIS=4-5] in patients with clinical remission. UCEIS and the concomitant use of thiopurine were independent factors predicting clinical recurrence. A multivariate analysis indicated that the absence of bleeding [p≤0.001] and the absence of mucosal damage [p<0.001] in a colonoscopy were independent factors for prolongation of clinical remission. CONCLUSION The UCEIS is useful to predict the medium- to long-term outcomes of UC patients with clinical remission. The absence of bleeding or mucosal damage is important for maintaining clinical remission.
Topiramate treatment of women with borderline personality disorder, part II: an open 18-month follow-up.

To the Editors:Many agents have been researched in connection with borderline personality disorder (BPD). 1-5 Our previous 10-week, randomized, controlled, and blinded assessment of the anticonvulsant topiramate in 2004/2005 indicated that topiramate positively influences borderline psychopathology,
Expression and function of the metabotropic purinergic P2Y receptor family in experimental seizure models and patients with drug‐refractory epilepsy

ATP is released into the extracellular space during pathologic processes including increased neuronal firing. Once released, ATP acts on P2 receptors including ionotropic P2X and metabotropic P2Y receptors, resulting in changes to glial function and neuronal network excitability. Evidence suggests an involvement of P2Y receptors in the pathogenesis of epilepsy, but there has been no systematic effort to characterize the expression and function of the P2Y receptor family during seizures and in experimental and human epilepsy.
Actin isoform expression, cellular heterogeneity, and contractile function in smooth muscle.

Smooth muscles express four isoforms of actin: two smooth muscle specific and two cytoplasmic isoforms typically associated with the cytoskeleton of nonmuscle cells. The relative amounts of each isoform expressed and the total actin content vary with smooth muscle type, with development, in cell culture, pathologically, and potentially between cells within tissues. Our objective was to determine whether actin isoforms contribute to contractile diversity. Functional diversity may be the result of differences in the kinetics of the cross-bridge interaction with thin filaments consisting of different actin isoforms or of the fraction of cross-bridges developing force in series or in parallel resulting from thin filaments of different lengths. Our hypothesis was that functionally significant differences in actin isoform properties (i.e., myosin interactions or properties affecting thin filament lengths) would require isoform segregation into distinct populations of thin filaments within cellular domains (e.g., cytoskeletal and contractile) or in phenotypically different cells. We tested this hypothesis by determining the smooth muscle alpha- and gamma-actin and cytoplasmic beta-actin isoform composition of native thin filaments isolated from swine stomach using isoform-specific antibodies linked to colloidal gold beads with protein A (the cytoplasmic lambda-isoactin content was below the detection limit). The lengths of individual thin filaments were also estimated from electron micrographs. A statistically uniform population of thin filaments was observed consisting of randomly copolymerized isoactins in each filament with the same isoform proportions as the tissue. The average thin filament length was 1.35 +/- 0.06 (SEM) microns. These results, together with other studies, suggest that actin isoforms are functionally equivalent. The data imply that the high stress-generating and shortening capacities of smooth muscles are not primarily due to long thin filament to thick filament length ratios compared with striated muscles.
Breast cancer risk: protective effect of an early first full-term pregnancy versus increased risk of induced abortion.

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES To examine the question of whether an early first full-term pregnancy (FFTP) protects against breast cancer and whether interruption of the pregnancy with an induced abortion increases breast cancer risk. DATA SOURCES Published medical and epidemiology journal articles, books, scientific reports, news interviews of researchers, scientific journals. DATA SYNTHESIS Continually increasing breast cancer rates cannot be explained by the American Cancer Society risk factors, which account for only 25% of cases. Induced abortion is a newly recognized risk factor and has been prevalent in our society since it was legalized in 1973. CONCLUSIONS Early FFTP confers protection, while induced abortion confers risk. Most specific and controlled variables studies indicate 150% risk for abortions performed on women younger than 18 years of age. Studies have yet to discover the full impact of induced abortion because women who underwent legalized abortion in 1973 are just reaching ages of highest breast cancer incidence. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSES: Awareness of a controversial risk factor and its relevance to women allows nurses to include this information when educating and supporting patients. Specifically, nurses need to include questions on this reproductive risk when eliciting a patient's reproductive history. Nurses should further be aware of the emotional impact disclosure may have.
Acetazolamide‐associated aplastic anaemia

Abstract. Eleven cases of acetazolamide‐associated aplastic anaemia were reported in Sweden during a 17‐year period. There were six women and five men with a median age of 71 years (range 63‐85 years). The median dose of acetazolamide was 500 mg, and the median duration of treatment was 3 months (range 2‐71 months). Ten of the eleven patients died, all within 8 weeks after detection of their aplastic anaemia. The relative risk of developing aplastic anaemia when taking acetazolamide was 13.3 (95% confidence limits (CL); 6.8‐25.3). The estimated incidence of reported acetazolamide‐associated aplastic anaemia is approximately one in 18000 patient years. The results strongly indicate that acetazolamide treatment is associated with a substantial increase in the risk of developing aplastic anaemia.
Spatial distribution and abundance of the giant tiger prawn, Penaeus monodon (Fabricius, 1798), in the Gulf of Urabá (Caribbean), Colombia, South America

The spatial distribution and abundance of the non-native giant tiger prawn Penaeus monodon (Fabricius, 1798) in the Gulf of Uraba, Colombian Caribbean, was examined using catch records made by trained fishermen. From 1 April to 30 November 2011, 397 individuals were recorded in 20 fishing localities in the Gulf. Individual weights ranged between 50 and 500 g (average 232 g). According to local fishermen, however, the giant tiger prawn has been present in the Gulf since 2007, possibly earlier. This non-native species was commonly captured along with the native white shrimp Litopenaeus schmitti (Burkenroad, 1936) in river mouths and mangrove habitat. The highest catches were from two sites near the Atrato river mouth (Boca del Roto, Boca del Leoncito) and one other site near the Turbo river mouth (Punta Yarumal). The effects of the giant tiger prawn, if it has become established, on the environment and the economy of the region areas is as yet unknown.
Effects of food deprivation and satiation on sensitivity to the discriminative‐stimulus effects of pentobarbital in pigeons and morphine in rats

Food deprivation can produce a substantial increase in the self-administration of drugs of abuse, suggesting that food deprivation increases their reinforcing properties. This finding has been replicated with a wide variety of reinforcing drugs. The present experiments examined the effects of food deprivation and satiation on the discriminative stimulus properties of drugs, to determine whether food deprivation affects the discriminative-stimulus effects of drugs in a similar manner. Using pigeons that were trained to discriminate 5 mg/kg i.m. pentobarbital from saline, dose-effect curves were determined under both food-deprivation conditions (80% free-feeding body weight) and partial food-satiation conditions (25% and 50% of the amount of full satiation). It was found that generalization curves for both pentobarbital and saline were similar at all levels of food deprivation. In a second set of experiments, rats were trained to discriminate 10 mg/kg i.p. morphine from saline, and the discriminative properties of morphine were then tested when the animals were either food-deprived or after a 15 min supplemental feeding. The ED50 value for the food-deprived condition was comparable to that the food-satiated condition (3.6 vs. 4.8 mg/kg, respectively). Thus, in both pigeons and rats, there was little evidence that food deprivation increased sensitivity to the discriminative stimulus properties of drugs. Thus, food deprivation must increase drug self-administration by a mechanism other than by increasing the discriminative stimulus properties of self-administered drugs.
Birkhoff-von Neumann switch with deflection based load balancing

Load balanced Birkhoff-von Neumann (BvN) switches are very popular due to low hardware complexity and high performance. But, for some traffic scenarios, the achieved throughput can be severely decreased. We propose a novel load balanced BvN based switch that is non-blocking (achieves 100% throughput) for any admissible traffic scenario. The proposed switch implements only one switch stage because the deflection mechanism is used. The delay and buffer bounds are analyzed using the network calculus theory.