Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hepatitis C Virus (HCV)–Apolipoprotein Interactions and Immune Evasion and Their Impact on HCV Vaccine Design

With more than 71 million people chronically infected, hepatitis C virus (HCV) is one of the leading causes of liver disease and hepatocellular carcinoma. While efficient antiviral therapies have entered clinical standard of care, the development of a protective vaccine is still elusive. Recent studies have shown that the HCV life cycle is closely linked to lipid metabolism. HCV virions associate with hepatocyte-derived lipoproteins to form infectious hybrid particles that have been termed lipo-viro-particles. The close association with lipoproteins is not only critical for virus entry and assembly but also plays an important role during viral pathogenesis and for viral evasion from neutralizing antibodies. In this review, we summarize recent findings on the functional role of apolipoproteins for HCV entry and assembly. Furthermore, we highlight the impact of HCV–apolipoprotein interactions for evasion from neutralizing antibodies and discuss the consequences for antiviral therapy and vaccine design. Understanding these interactions offers novel strategies for the development of an urgently needed protective vaccine.
Nutrition, energy metabolism and body composition in the frail elderly

During aging a reduction of energy metabolism, energy intake and fat free mass can be seen. Some elderly patients experience more pronounced body weight loss that may lead to malnutrition states. The reasons for the unintentional body weight loss, that often accompanies chronic disease, are poorly understood. A combination of poor nutritional state and impaired physical function increases the risk for dependency in the daily living and further deterioration of health. Treatment needs to focus on the one hand of optimizing disease management and on the other on nutrition and physical function. The aim of this thesis was to study several nutrition related parameters in frail elderly people and try to gain a deeper understanding of the mechanisms contributing to the nutritional problems in elderly patients, also focusing on treatment and follow-up. This was done by analyzing energy intake, body composition and energy metabolism in both nursing home patients and free-living, frail elderly individuals. Individualized nutritional treatments were applied and analyzed longitudinally. In the free-living group a three-month randomized controlled trial (RCT) with four arms was performed (nutritional treatment, physical training, both combined or control). The results showed that energy intake was low (mean total intake below 1600 kcal/day, mean relative intake was 25-27 kcal/kg body weight/day). Individual nutritional intervention was difficult to manage and the effects difficult to analyze. Nutrient intake was low for about half of the nutrients analyzed. Nutrient density was also low, especially considering the low level of energy intake. Resting metabolic rate was related to fat free mass and was in accordance with previous studies. Mean body weight was stable. At an individual level there was no relation between changes in energy intake and body weight. In the RCT no evident treatment effects could be seen on any of the nutrition parameters analyzed. Of those in need of an increased energy intake, about one third managed to actually increase their intake, regardless of intervention. These individuals seemed to be protected against further weight loss. As energy metabolism was normal and the physical activity low in these as in previous studies in the literature, future research needs to focus on the reasons for the poor energy and nutrient intake in the frail elderly. The relative contribution of diseases and/or injuries, effects of medication, low physical activity, social deprivation and mechanisms related to ageing are unclear and should be considered. There is a strong need for more treatment trials regarding malnutrition and frailty states. There is a large variety between individuals and therefore attention to the needs of the individual should be emphasized. The importance of preventing frailty will increase, as the number of very elderly people grows in society.
Gaussian mixture spline trajectory: learning from a dataset, generating trajectories without one

Most optimization-based motion planners use a naive linear initialization, which does not use previous planning experience. We present an algorithm called ‘Gaussian mixture spline trajectory’ (GMST) that leverages motion datasets for generating trajectories for new planning problems. Unlike other trajectory prediction algorithms, our method does not retrieve trajectories from a dataset. Instead, it first uses a Gaussian mixture model (GMM) to modelize the likelihood of the trajectories to be inside the dataset and then uses the GMM's parameters to generate new trajectories. As the use of the dataset is restricted only to the learning phase it can take advantage of very large datasets. Using both abstract and robot system planning problems, we show that the GMST algorithm decreases the computation time and number of iterations of optimization-based planners while increasing their success rates as compared to that obtained with linear initialization. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT
Effects of Dietary Arachidonic Acid Levels on Growth Performance, Whole-Body Proximate Composition, Digestive Enzyme Activities and Gut Morphology of Juvenile Golden Pompano Trachinotus

The effects of dietary arachidonic acid (ARA) levels on growth performance, whole-body proximate composition, digestive enzyme activities, and gut morphology were studied in juvenile golden pompano Trachinotus ovatus. Six diets were formulated with six levels of ARA. Fish were fed twice daily to apparent satiation for 56 days (8 weeks). Weight gain (WG), specific growth rate (SGR), protein efficiency ratio (PER), feed conversion ratio (FCR), and viscerosomatic index (VSI) were significantly affected by dietary ARA levels (P < 0.05). WG, SGR and PER increased with the increasing levels of ARA (P < 0.05), and thereafter slightly declined (P > 0.05); they were highest in fish fed the diet with 0.51% ARA and the lowest in fish fed the diet containing 0.15% ARA. Linear regression analysis on SGR indicated that the recommended optimum dietary ARA level for optimal growth of juvenile golden pompano was 0.53%. Whole body protein significantly declined when dietary ARA levels increased from 0.15% to 0.88% (P < 0.05), and were lowest in fish fed the diet containing 0.88% ARA. The whole body lipid content showed an opposite trend compared with whole body protein. Pepsin activities showed no significant differences among treatments (P > 0.05), while lipase activities of fish were significantly influenced by dietary ARA levels (P < 0.05). The number of goblet cells and intestinal villus length increased with increasing levels of ARA from 0.15% to 0.51% (P < 0.05), and decreased thereafter. Goblet cells of fish fed diets with 0.36%, 0.51%, 0.71% ARA were higher than in the other groups (P < 0.05). The IJA appears exclusively as a peer-reviewed on-line open-access journal at http://www.siamb. org.il/. To read papers free of charge, please register online at registration form. Sale of IJA papers is strictly forbidden.
Project : Streaming PCA with Many Missing Entries

This paper considers the problem of matrix completion when some number of the columns are completely and arbitrarily corrupted, potentially by a malicious adversary. It is well-known that standard algorithms for matrix completion can return arbitrarily poor results, if even a single column is corrupted. One direct application comes from robust collaborative filtering. Here, some number of users are so-called manipulators who try to skew the predictions of the algorithm by calibrating their inputs to the system. In this paper, we develop an efficient algorithm for this problem based on a combination of a trimming procedure and a convex program that minimizes the nuclear norm and the `1,2 norm. Our theoretical results show that given a vanishing fraction of observed entries, it is nevertheless possible to complete the underlying matrix even when the number of corrupted columns grows. Significantly, our results hold without any assumptions on the locations or values of the observed entries of the manipulated columns. Moreover, we show by an information-theoretic argument that our guarantees are nearly optimal in terms of the fraction of sampled entries on the authentic columns, the fraction of corrupted columns, and the rank of the underlying matrix. Our results therefore sharply characterize the tradeoffs between sample, robustness and rank in matrix completion.
Underlying mechanisms and prospects of heart regeneration

Findings in the last decade suggest that there is a considerable amount of cardiomyocyte turnover in the human heart throughout life, albeit not sufficient for heart regeneration following myocardial infarctions. Only a few species are known to be remarkably efficient in cardiac regeneration. They restore lost cardiomyocytes via a process of cardiomyocyte dedifferentiation, which is followed by robust proliferation of cardiomyocytes and incorporation into the myocardium. Similarly, neonatal mice have been recently shown to regenerate their heart following myocardial injuries. Studies with a neonatal cardiac regeneration mouse model suggest that the major source of new cardiomyocytes is likely to be of cardiomyocyte origin, with the possibility of involvement of cardiac stem cells. To this end, numerous studies have been conducted on the induction of cardiac regeneration to shed light on the underlying mechanisms. This review covers studies on the renewal of cardiomyocytes, the utilization of stem cells in myocardial therapies, and their future applications.
Liver Metastases : Incidence and Clinicopathological Data

Aim: To investigate the clinicopathological features of liver metastases diagnosed in Mureș County, Romania. Material and method: We performed a retrospective study based on data collected from histopathological reports stored in the archives of the Pathology Laboratories of Emergency Mures County Hospital, Romania. We selected those patients’ data that were diagnosed with liver metastases during January 2004 – August 2011. The acquired data were collected and processed statistically by using the GraphPad InStat Demo 3 statistical software. Results: We identified 748 liver tumours out of which 484 were liver metastases. The liver metastases: primary liver tumours ratio was 1.833:1. In cases of liver metastases, the male:female ratio was 1.45:1. The mean age of male patients was 62.13 (±10.79 years) as for female patients it was 61.61 (±10.82 years). In most of the cases (34.71%) the primary tumor was colorectal carcinoma followed by pancreatic carcinomas (16.52%). Conclusions: Most cases of liver metastases are carcinomas, whereof the most frequent ones originate from the digestive area, respectively gastrointestinal tract and pancreas. Independently by the primary tumour, liver metastases occur more frequent in males, in their 7th decade of life.
Nanotechnology In Dentistry - What Does The Future Hold In Store?

The medical and dental field has seen several technological revolutions that have changed clinical practice. One concept which has and holds further promise in bringing about a paradigm shift in the field of diagnostics and management is nanotechnology. Nanotechnology has several applications in dentistry, from diagnosis of pathological conditions to local anaesthesia, orthodontic tooth movement and periodontics. Biomaterials science has also greatly benefited by this technology. This review provides a comprehensive discussion of the present and future of nanotechnology in dentistry.
Motion planning in high-dimensional spaces

Motion planning is a key tool that allows robots to navigate through an environment without collisions. The problem of robot motion planning has been studied in great detail over the last several decades, with researchers initially focusing on systems such as planar mobile robots and low degree-of-freedom (DOF) robotic arms. The increased use of high DOF robots that must perform tasks in real time in complex dynamic environments spurs the need for fast motion planning algorithms. In this overview, we discuss several types of strategies for motion planning in high dimensional spaces and dissect some of them, namely grid search based, sampling based and trajectory optimization based approaches. We compare them and outline their advantages and disadvantages, and finally, provide an insight into future research opportunities.
The Effect of Near-Infrared between 1100-1800 nm Together with a Water-filter and a Contact Cooling

Anaplastology ISSN: 2161-1173 Anaplastology, an open access journal Volume 2 • Issue 3 • 1000111 subcutaneous adipocytes, which may have an application for volume augmentation [1-3]. Further, NIR irradiation might be beneficial for regenerative medicine based on its stimulation of stem cells [1-3]. Due to cancer’s high sensitivity to NIR, cancer detection and imaging may gain from NIR. NIR is also able to induce non-thermal DNA damage of mitotic cells due to the absence of nuclear lamin protection, which may have a potential application in the treatment of cancer [1-3,7]. These new techniques using NIR may be beneficial in many medical fields, as the schedule reduces discomfort and side effects, deep subcutaneous tissues are accessible, and facilitates repeated irradiations.
Von toten Tanten und getauschten Grundstücken. Zur Bekämpfung der Regierungskorruption in Rumänien und der Rolle des Parlaments

Am 4. März 2009 beantragte das rumänische Parlament bei der Generalstaatsanwaltschaft des Landes die Eröff nung der Strafverfolgung gegen den früheren Premierminister Adrian Năstase. Mit diesem Beschluss fand ein mehr als zwei Jahre andauernder Konfl ikt über die Bekämpfung von Regierungskorruption sein vorübergehendes Ende. In diesem Konfl ikt hatte die überwiegende Mehrheit der politischen Elite mit allen Mitteln versucht zu verhindern, dass sich ehemalige und aktuelle Regierungsmitglieder vor Gericht in Strafverfahren verantworten müssen. Konkret waren acht Spitzenpolitiker von staatsanwaltschaftlichen Ermittlungen betroff en. Năstase, dem Korruptionsdelikte in Höhe von weit über einer Million Euro vorgeworfen werden, stilisierte sich angesichts der drohenden Anklage als unschuldiger, politisch verfolgter Kämpfer für die Beachtung von Recht und Gesetz:
Basking is affected by season and influences oxygen consumption in desert‐living striped mice

Small mammals that inhabit arid and temporally unproductive environments use several methods to conserve energy. Here, we investigate the energetic role of sun basking in striped mice Rhabdomys pumilio from the Succulent Karoo desert in South Africa. We observed mice in front of their nests for 140 h and recorded the time they spent basking during the non-breeding (dry) and the breeding (wet) seasons. We measured temperature changes in model mice to provide an indication of the heat that can be absorbed from the sun. Finally, we measured the oxygen
Stochastic Nested Variance Reduction for Nonconvex Optimization

We study finite-sum nonconvex optimization problems, where the objective function is an average of $n$ nonconvex functions. We propose a new stochastic gradient descent algorithm based on nested variance reduction. Compared with conventional stochastic variance reduced gradient (SVRG) algorithm that uses two reference points to construct a semi-stochastic gradient with diminishing variance in each iteration, our algorithm uses $K+1$ nested reference points to build a semi-stochastic gradient to further reduce its variance in each iteration. For smooth nonconvex functions, the proposed algorithm converges to an $\epsilon$-approximate first-order stationary point (i.e., $\|\nabla F(\mathbf{x})\|_2\leq \epsilon$) within $\tilde O(n\land \epsilon^{-2}+\epsilon^{-3}\land n^{1/2}\epsilon^{-2})$ number of stochastic gradient evaluations. This improves the best known gradient complexity of SVRG $O(n+n^{2/3}\epsilon^{-2})$ and that of SCSG $O(n\land \epsilon^{-2}+\epsilon^{-10/3}\land n^{2/3}\epsilon^{-2})$. For gradient dominated functions, our algorithm also achieves better gradient complexity than the state-of-the-art algorithms. Thorough experimental results on different nonconvex optimization problems back up our theory.
To what extent can the age at sexual maturity of broiler breeders be reduced

Two trials were conducted to investigate the effects of growth manipulation and early photostimulation on age at sexual maturity and, in one trial, subsequent laying performance, in broiler breeders. In the first trial, the possibility of reducing the age at sexual maturity, using early photostimulation and increasing the growth rate to achieve 2100 g at 15 weeks, was assessed. Sexual maturity was advanced by 15 d and the total number of eggs laid to 60 weeks, on a hen.week basis, was reduced significantly, by six. Mean egg weight was unaffected, but the number of unsettable eggs was increased by 2.6. Using 12 h rather than 16-h daylengths during the laying period resulted in a significant increase (7) in number of eggs laid. In the second trial, birds were transferred from 8 to 16-h daylengths at 10, 11, 12, 14, 16 or 18 weeks to determine the age at which they were able to dissipate photorefractoriness, and become photosensitive. Short-day controls were maintained on 8-h daylengths throughout. Birds were grown to achieve 2100 g at either 15 or 20 weeks. No interaction occurred between age at photostimulation and body weight. Because broiler breeders exhibit photorefractoriness, the earliest age at which the pullets responded to photostimulation was 14 weeks, so no advantage would be gained in terms of advancing sexual maturity by photostimulating earlier than this age. However, whilst some further advance in sexual maturity may be achieved by rearing the birds on a faster growth curve this would only be profitable through the advantages of being able to use one rearing unit to service three, instead of two, laying farms.
The mind possessed : the cognition of spirit possession in an Afro-Brazilian religious tradition

The cognitive science of religion has made a persuasive case for the view that a number of different psychological systems are involved in the construction and transmission of notions of extranatural agency such as deities and spirits. Until now this work has been based largely on findings in experimental psychology, illustrated mainly with hypothetical or anecdotal examples. In The Mind Possessed, Emma Cohen considers how the psychological systems undergirding spirit concepts are activated in real-world settings Spirit possession practices have long had a magnetizing effect on academic researchers but there have been few, if any, satisfactory theoretical treatments of spirit possession that attempt to account for its emergence and spread globally. Drawing on ethnographic data collected during eighteen months of fieldwork in Belem, nothern Brazil, Cohen combines fine-grained descriptions and analyses of mediumistic activities in an Afro-Brazilian cult house with a scientifically-grounded explanation for the emergence and spread of ideas about spirits, possession and healing. Cohen shows why spirit possession and its associated activities are inherently attention-grabbing. Making a radical departure from traditional anthropological, medicalist and sociological analyses, she argues that a cognitive approach offers more precise and testable hypotheses concerning the spread and appeal of spirit concepts and possession activities.
CPSC 524-Geometric Modeling-Course Project Report Subspace Mesh Deformation with Constrained Nonlinear Least Squares Energy

Our project aims at implementing a basic version of subspace mesh deformation method with constrained nonlinear least squares energy following [Huang et al. 2006]. This report will cover the key points in [Huang et al. 2006] with many untouched mathematical derivations and implementation details, which could be served as a supplemental material to the original paper for potential readers. Besides, some experiments will be conducted and the results with comparison and analysis will be demonstrated.
Transcriptional regulation of human amelotin gene by interleukin‐1β

One of the major causes of tooth loss is chronic inflammation of the periodontium, the tissues surrounding the tooth. Amelotin (AMTN) is a tooth enamel protein which is expressed in maturation‐stage ameloblasts and also in the internal basal lamina of junctional epithelium, a unique epithelial structure attached to the tooth surface which protects against the constant microbiological challenge to the periodontium. Localization of AMTN suggests that its function could be involved in the dentogingival attachment. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of interleukin‐1β (IL‐1β) on AMTN gene transcription in human gingival epithelial Ca9‐22 cells. IL‐1β increased AMTN mRNA and protein levels at 3 h, and the levels reached maximum at 6 and 12 h. IL‐1β induced luciferase activities of human AMTN gene promoter constructs (−211, −353, −501, −769, and −950AMTN), but these activities were partially inhibited in −353AMTN constructs that included 3‐bp mutations in CCAAT/enhancer binding protein 1 (C/EBP1), C/EBP2, and Ying Yang 1 (YY1) elements. Transcriptional activities induced by IL‐1β were abrogated by protein kinase A (PKA), tyrosine kinase, mitogen‐activated protein kinase kinase (MEK1/2), and phosphatidylinositol 3‐kinase (PI3K) inhibitors. Gel shift and ChIP assays showed that IL‐1β increased C/EBPβ binding to C/EBP1 and C/EBP2, and YY1 binding to YY1 elements after 3 h, and that these DNA–protein interactions were inhibited by PKA, tyrosine kinase, MEK1/2, and PI3K inhibitors. These results demonstrated that IL‐1β increases AMTN gene transcription in human gingival epithelial cells mediated through C/EBP1, C/EBP2, and YY1 elements in the human AMTN gene promoter.
Reinforcement Learning using Augmented Neural Networks

Neural networks allow Q-learning reinforcement learning agents such as deep Q-networks (DQN) to approximate complex mappings from state spaces to value functions. However, this also brings drawbacks when compared to other function approximators such as tile coding or their generalisations, radial basis functions (RBF) because they introduce instability due to the side effect of globalised updates present in neural networks. This instability does not even vanish in neural networks that do not have any hidden layers. In this paper, we show that simple modifications to the structure of the neural network can improve stability of DQN learning when a multi-layer perceptron is used for function approximation.
Ribonucleic acid in situ hybridization ( RNAscope ) is a more sensitive method than immunohistochemistry in detection of TTF-1 and napsin A expression in lung adenocarcinomas

Preliminary data suggest that RNAscope is superior to immunohistochemistry in detecting TTF-1 and napsin A expression in primary lung adenocarcinomas. Therefore, performing an RNAscope assay may be considered for both TTF-1and napsin A-negative cases with a clinical suspicion of lung adenocarcinoma. TTF-1 results should be interpreted with caution since a small percentage of squamous cell carcinomas can be focally positive by either assay.