Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
ORPHEUS: Reasoning and Prediction with Heterogeneous rEpresentations Using Simulation. (ORPHEUS: raisonnement et prédiction avec des représentations hétérogènes en utilisant la simulation)

Interactive virtual environments pose a wide variety of challenges for intelligent agents, especially to make decisions in order to reach their goals. The difficulty of decision making tasks rises quickly when introducing continuous space and real time. It also becomes increasingly harder to build intelligent agents that can meaningfully interpret and act in unknown situations. In this thesis, we take inspiration from cognitive science, specifically from how humans perform mental simulation to anticipate events in the world around them, with the aim of obtaining an autonomous agent that makes decisions and adapts itself to novel situations. The mental simulation paradigm enjoys significant interest from the cognitive science community, but computational approaches to mental simulation rely on specialised simulators for a given task and thus are limited to specific scenarios. Our contribution is a generic agent architecture (ORPHEUS) which supports decision-making based on the simulation of functional models of the world ahead of time, inspired from how humans imagine the outer world and the outcomes of their actions based on the state of the real environment. The novelty of our approach consists in its ability to integrate both physical and behavioural predictions into the same framework, based on heterogeneous mental models which are used to evolve internal, imaginary scenarios within the agent. We apply our generic architecture to different contexts, including artificial intelligence competitions, which require the agent using our approach to perform physical and behavioural anticipation in continuous space and time. We evaluate the applicability of our approach to realistic conditions such as noisy perception, decision time constraints and imperfect world models. Results demonstrate the genericness of our approach from one scenario to another without modifying the agent architecture, and highlight the possible uses of the proposed mental simulation framework.
Altered white matter microstructure in adolescents with major depression: a preliminary study.

OBJECTIVE Major depressive disorder (MDD) occurs frequently in adolescents, but the neurobiology of depression in youth is poorly understood. Structural neuroimaging studies in both adult and pediatric populations have implicated frontolimbic neural networks in the pathophysiology of MDD. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), which measures white matter (WM) microstructure, is a promising tool for examining neural connections and how they may be abnormal in MDD. METHOD We used two separate approaches to analyze DTI data in adolescents with MDD (n = 14) compared with healthy volunteers (n = 14). RESULTS The first, hypothesis-driven approach was to use probabilistic tractography to delineate tracts arising from the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Adolescents with MDD demonstrated lower fractional anisotropy (FA) in the WM tract connecting subgenual ACC to amygdala in the right hemisphere. The second, exploratory approach was to conduct a voxelwise comparison of FA. This analysis revealed 10 clusters where adolescents with MDD had significantly lower (uncorrected) FA than the healthy group within WM tracts including right and left uncinate and supragenual cingulum. CONCLUSIONS These preliminary data support the hypothesis that altered WM microstructure in frontolimbic neural pathways may contribute to the pathophysiology of MDD in adolescents.
Maturation of Thyroidal Dendritic Cells in Graves' Disease

Because thyroidal dendritic cells (t‐DC) may be implicated in the pathogenesis of Graves' disease (GD), we compared t‐DC in thyroid sections of patients with GD (n = 15) and control patients with toxic (TG; n = 12) or non‐toxic goitre (NG; n = 12). Goitres in GD, but not TG or NG, were populated with three discernible t‐DC phenotypes. (i) Immature t‐DC (major histocompatibility complex (MHC) II+/CD40–/CD80–) were located perifollicularly (95% of the patients with GD, but only 55% of TG and 51% of NG patients); numbers of such t‐DC were significantly elevated in GD (P < 0.001). (ii) Partially matured CD80+ t‐DC were present in connective tissue (73% of the patients) and focal interstitial clusters (40% of the patients). In 53% of the patients with GD, single as well as clustered interstitial t‐DC expressed CD40. (iii) However, phenotypically mature t‐DC (MHC II+/CD40+/CD80+/RFD1+) were only present in clusters and colocalized with activated CD4+/MHC class II+ T‐helper (Th) cells. Expression of CD54 and CD83 did not significantly differ among the groups. The phenotype of intrathyroidal DC in GD thus supports their role as potential (co)stimulators of thyroid autoimmunity.
Formal modeling of vulnerability

One concept underlies the entire realm of computer security — vulnerability. Without vulnerability, there is neither security nor the need for it. Surprisingly, the term vulnerability remains ill defined. We developed and adopted a working definition: A vulnerability is an unplanned system feature that an intruder may exploit, if he/she can establish certain preconditions, to achieve particular impacts on that system that violate its security policy. Our goal was to represent vulnerability in a formal sense and to learn from that representation. We set out to answer the question, “Is it possible to construct a formal model of the domain of computer security vulnerabilities that is sufficiently robust to uncover meaningful relationships among multiple vulnerabilities that were not already recognized? ” We model security-related facts in simple propositional logic, construct a graph of temporal dependencies among vulnerabilities, and analyze the resulting graph visualization.
Impact of patient communication problems on the risk of preventable adverse events in acute care settings

Background: Up to 50% of adverse events that occur in hospitals are preventable. Language barriers and disabilities that affect communication have been shown to decrease quality of care. We sought to assess whether communication problems are associated with an increased risk of preventable adverse events. Methods: We randomly selected 20 general hospitals in the province of Quebec with at least 1500 annual admissions. Of the 145 672 admissions to the selected hospitals in 2000/01, we randomly selected and reviewed 2355 charts of patients aged 18 years or older. Reviewers abstracted patient characteristics, including communication problems, and details of hospital admission, and assessed the cause and preventability of identified adverse events. The primary outcome was adverse events. Results: Of 217 adverse events, 63 (29%) were judged to be preventable, for an overall population rate of 2.7% (95% confidence interval [CI] 2.1%–3.4%). We found that patients with preventable adverse events were significantly more likely than those without such events to have a communication problem (odds ratio [OR] 3.00; 95% CI 1.43–6.27) or a psychiatric disorder (OR 2.35; 95% CI 1.09–5.05). Patients who were admitted urgently were significantly more likely than patients whose admissions were elective to experience an event (OR 1.64, 95% CI 1.07–2.52). Preventable adverse events were mainly due to drug errors (40%) or poor clinical management (32%). We found that patients with communication problems were more likely than patients without these problems to experience multiple preventable adverse events (46% v. 20%; p = 0.05). Interpretation: Patients with communication problems appeared to be at highest risk for preventable adverse events. Interventions to reduce the risk for these patients need to be developed and evaluated.
Expression of mRNA for DNA methyltransferases and methyl‐CpG–binding proteins and DNA methylation status on CpG islands and pericentromeric satellite regions during human hepatocarcinogenesis

To evaluate the significance of alterations in DNA methylation during human hepatocarcinogenesis, we examined levels of mRNA for DNA methyltransferases and methyl‐CpG‐binding proteins and the DNA methylation status in 67 hepatocellular carcinomas (HCCs). The average level of mRNA for DNMT1 and DNMT3a was significantly higher in noncancerous liver tissues showing chronic hepatitis or cirrhosis than in histologically normal liver tissues, and was even higher in HCCs. Significant overexpression of DNMT3b and reduced expression of DNMT2 were observed in HCCs compared with the corresponding noncancerous liver tissues. DNA hypermethylation on CpG islands of the p16 (8% and 66%) and hMLH1 (0% and 0%) genes and methylated in tumor (MINT) 1 (6% and 34%), 2 (24% and 58%), 12 (21% and 33%), 25 (0% and 5%), and 31 (0% and 23%) clones, and DNA hypomethylation on satellites 2 and 3 (18% and 67%), were detected in noncancerous liver tissues and HCCs, respectively. There was no significant correlation between the expression level of any DNA methyltransferase and DNA methylation status. Reduced expression of DNA repair protein, MBD4, was significantly correlated with poorer tumor differentiation and involvement of portal vein. Slightly reduced expression of MBD2 was detected in HCCs, and the expression of MeCP2 was particularly reduced in HCCs with portal vein involvement. These data suggest that overexpression of DNMT1 and DNMT3a, DNA hypermethylation on CpG islands, and DNA hypomethylation on pericentromeric satellite regions are early events during hepatocarcinogenesis, and that reduced expression of MBD4 may play a role in malignant progression of HCC.
Genomic structure of Candida stellatoidea: extra chromosomes and gene duplication

Candida albicans and Candida stellatoidea are two closely related imperfect yeasts. Some isolates characterized as C. stellatoidea are in fact C. albicans, while others differ with respect to virulence and to karyotype, containing extra small chromosomes. Experiments in this study allowed us to infer that a typical C. stellatoidea isolate, Y2360, has 12 chromosomes rather than the 7 previously shown for C. albicans. The majority of cloned sequences tested hybridized to analogous chromosomes in C. albicans and in C. stellatoidea, although there were exceptions, and a repeated element isolated as specific for C. albicans hybridized to most of the chromosomes of C. stellatoidea. Several genes tested hybridized to one of the smaller, C. stellatoidea-specific chromosomes as well as to a larger one. The arrangement of restriction enzyme sites around the gene was the same in both the large and small chromosomes. For ADE2 and LYS2, the arrangements were identical to those of a typical C. albicans strain, FC18, suggesting a high degree of sequence conservation between the two species. Spheroplast fusion and segregation experiments showed that the ADE2 genes on both the large and small chromosomes of C. stellatoidea are active, implying that the organism is functionally at least triploid for this gene and probably for any others duplicated on the smaller chromosomes.
The Safety of Dedicated-Team Catheter-Based Diagnostic Cerebral Angiography in the Era of Advanced Noninvasive Imaging

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Given the current high quality and usefulness of noninvasive cerebrovascular imaging, invasive angiographic evaluation of the cerebrovascular system is justified if the procedural risk for a neurologic complication is far below the anticipated benefit. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the safety of diagnostic cerebral angiography provided by a dedicated neurointerventional team in a high-volume university hospital. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A consecutive cohort of 1715 patients undergoing diagnostic cerebral angiography at our institution from 2000 to 2008 was retrospectively assessed for incidence of stroke or TIA related to cerebral angiography. In the subgroup of patients (n = 40) who serendipitously underwent DWI within the first 30 days after cerebral angiography, the presence of new DWI hyperintensities found in territories explored during angiography was tabulated. Complications related to the catheter technique and sheath placement were also studied. RESULTS: No stroke or permanent neurologic deficit was seen in any of the 1715 patients undergoing diagnostic neuroangiography. One patient experienced a TIA. Nonneurologic complications without long-term sequelae occurred in 9 patients. Two patients had punctate areas of restricted diffusion in territories that had been angiographically explored. CONCLUSIONS: Within a high-volume neurointerventional practice, the risk for neurologic complications related to catheter-based diagnostic cerebral angiography can approach zero. As the absolute number of invasive diagnostic procedures diminishes with time, diagnostic cerebral angiography remains a useful tool while providing a foundation for neuroendovascular interventions, and should preferably be performed in institutions with high-volume operators also capable of managing unanticipated complicating adverse events.
Active and passive microwave signature catalog on bare soil (2-12 GHz)

The ground-based radiometer-scatterometer system of the University of Bern, RASAM, measures brightness temperatures and backscattering coefficients at frequencies between 2 and 12 GHz. Between 1984 and 1992 many campaigns were carried out on agricultural fields. Data from more than 70 bare agricultural soils have now been organized in a bare soil signature catalogue. In addition to the microwave data, detailed ground-truth information was collected including highly accurate surface roughness profiles. Information on the data base is given, together with short descriptions of the instruments and measurement procedures. >
Enhancing Document Clustering Using Condensing Cluster Terms and Fuzzy Association

Most document clustering methods are a challenging issue for improving clustering performance. Document clustering based on semantic features is highly efficient. However, the method sometimes did not successfully cluster some documents, such as highly articulated documents. In order to improve the clustering success of complex documents using semantic features, this paper proposes a document clustering method that uses terms of the condensing document clusters and fuzzy association to efficiently cluster specific documents into meaningful topics based on the document set. The proposed method improves the quality of document clustering because it can extract documents from the perspective of the terms of the cluster topics using semantic features and synonyms, which can also better represent the inherent structure of the document in connection with the document cluster topics. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method can achieve better document clustering performance than other methods.
Pilot Study on an Integrated Pilates and Yoga Program for Decreasing Postpartum Depression in Women

Objective: This study evaluated the effectiveness of a 10-week exercise intervention in reducing depression and fatigue in women with postpartum depression. Design: A one-group pretest/ posttest quasi-experiment was conducted. Setting: A postpartum ward in a medical center in Taipei city was used. Participants: Nineteen women at 7 - 12 weeks postpartum with an Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale score ≥ 9 were recruited. Methods: The women participated in a postpartum exercise support program 1 hour per week for 10 weeks. The program was led by a professional coach; it integrated yoga, Pilates, elastic band exercise, low-intensity aerobics, and motherhood role experience sharing. Results: After the postpartum exercise support program intervention, depression scores decreased from 10.4 ± 3.29 to 7.80 ± 2.73 (t = 3.632, P = 0.003); fatigue scores decreased from 8.73 ± 5.02 to 5.40 ± 3.89 (t = 2.988, P = 0.010). Conclusion: PESP administered to women with postpartum depression appeared to benefit their psychological wellbeing.
T cell independence of macrophage and natural killer cell infiltration, cytokine production, and endothelial activation during delayed xenograft rejection.

Rejection of guinea pig cardiac grafts in rats depleted of complement takes place in 3-4 days and involves progressive mononuclear cell infiltration and cytokine expression, fibrin and antibody deposition, and endothelial cell up-regulation of adhesion and procoagulant molecules, a process termed delayed xenograft rejection (DXR). The relative contribution of each effector mechanism and the role of T cells in this complex process are unknown, although small numbers of interleukin (IL) 2 receptor-positive T cells are present at the time of rejection. We investigated the importance of T cells in DXR by comparing discordant xenograft responses of nude rats, which lack T cell receptor (TCR)-alpha/beta+ cells, with those of normal Lewis rats. Nude or Lewis rats receiving guinea pig cardiac grafts were assigned to one of three groups: no therapy, daily administration of cobra venom factor (CVF), or splenectomy plus daily CVF. All untreated rats rejected their xenografts within 10-15 min, whereas grafts in complement-depleted recipients survived a further 3-4 days; splenectomy had no significant additional effect upon graft survival. Immunohistologic analysis in CVF-treated nude recipients with or without splenectomy showed: (1) considerable leukocyte infiltration of xenografts (mean +/- SD, 76+/-14 and 71+/-16 leukocytes/field, respectively, at 72 hr, compared with 68+/-17 in Lewis rats), consisting largely of macrophages (>75% of total leukocytes) plus small numbers of natural killer cells (10-20%) with no detectable B or T cells (TCR-alpha/beta or TCR-gamma/delta); (2) at least 10-fold lower levels of intragraft IgM or IgG deposition than in corresponding Lewis recipients; and (3) considerable cytokine expression by intragraft macrophages (IL-12, tumor necrosis factor-alpha, monocyte chemoattractant protein-1, IL-1beta, IL-6, IL-7, IL-12) and natural killer cells (interferon-gamma), as well as up-regulation of tissue factor expression and dense fibrin deposition. Analysis of recipient sera of both control and nude rats by ELISA, for the binding of IgG or IgM to guinea pig platelets, showed a rapid rise after transplantation in the titers of IgM and IgG antibodies, which was abrogated by prior splenectomy; i.e., data from splenectomized xenograft recipients reflect the presence of only basal levels of IgM and IgG. Thus, our data in nude rats show rejection times and intragraft features of DXR comparable to those in immunocompetent Lewis recipients, despite a lack of detectable host T cells, and, in the case of splenectomized rats, only about one tenth of normal xenoreactive antibody levels. Our data document a new model in which to analyze the immunopathogenesis of DXR.
The Possible Emergence of Life and Differentiation of a Shallow Biosphere on Irradiated Icy Worlds: The Example of Europa

Abstract Irradiated ice-covered ocean worlds with rocky mafic mantles may provide the conditions needed to drive the emergence and maintenance of life. Alkaline hydrothermal springs—relieving the geophysical, thermal, and chemical disequilibria between oceans and tidally stressed crusts—could generate inorganic barriers to the otherwise uncontrolled and kinetically disfavored oxidation of hydrothermal hydrogen and methane. Ionic gradients imposed across these inorganic barriers, comprising iron oxyhydroxides and sulfides, could drive the hydrogenation of carbon dioxide and the oxidation of methane through thermodynamically favorable metabolic pathways leading to early life-forms. In such chemostatic environments, fuels may eventually outweigh oxidants. Ice-covered oceans are primarily heated from below, creating convection that could transport putative microbial cells and cellular cooperatives upward to congregate beneath an ice shell, potentially giving rise to a highly focused shallow biosphere. It is here where electron acceptors, ultimately derived from the irradiated surface, could be delivered to such life-forms through exchange with the icy surface. Such zones would act as “electron disposal units” for the biosphere, and occupants might be transferred toward the surface by buoyant diapirs and even entrained into plumes. Key Words: Biofilms—Europa—Extraterrestrial life—Hydrothermal systems. Astrobiology 17, 1265–1273.
Changes in central venous pressure and blood lactate concentration in response to acute blood loss in horses.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate selected hemodynamic, blood gas, and biochemical responses to mild to moderate acute blood loss in standing, awake horses. DESIGN Prospective study. ANIMALS 7 healthy mares. PROCEDURES Each horse was restrained in standing stocks, and its head was maintained in a neutral position; sedatives and tranquilizers were not administered. During a 1-hour period, blood was collected into collection bags by use of a suction pump. The rate of blood collection was approximately 16 mL/kg/h (7.3 mL/lb/h). Thirty minutes after blood collection, the blood was readministered at the same rate. Central venous pressure (CVP), central venous blood gas, blood lactate concentration, and heart rate were measured at baseline (after placement of catheters), after removal of blood, and after readministration of blood. RESULTS In response to blood loss, CVP decreased and blood lactate concentration increased significantly, compared with baseline values; heart rate and results of central venous blood gas analysis did not change significantly. After readministration of blood, CVP returned to baseline value and blood lactate concentration approached baseline value. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE Changes in CVP and blood lactate concentration appear to be early indicators of hypovolemia in horses, which may represent acute blood loss in trauma patients; these variables should be monitored to assess the potential need for blood transfusions. These variables can be used to monitor responses of horses to blood transfusions when whole blood is administered as the replacement fluid.
Power and empowerment in nursing: a fourth theoretical approach.

AIM This paper is a discussion of the use of poststructuralism as a means of exploring power and empowerment in nursing. BACKGROUND Power and empowerment are well-researched areas of nursing practice, but the issue of how to empower nurses and patients continues to cause debate. Power and empowerment are complex issues and other researchers have provided some clarity by proposing three theoretical approaches: critical social theory, organizational theory and social psychological theory. We support their work and propose an additional poststructural approach as a means of analyzing power and empowerment in nursing. DISCUSSION The concept of power in nursing may be critiqued by drawing on the work of Michel Foucault and paying particular attention to two areas: disciplinary power and knowledge/power relationships. Foucault's contention was that behaviour is standardized through disciplinary power and that power and knowledge are intertwined. Nurses who seek an understanding of empowerment must first grasp such workings as hierarchical observation, normalizing judgement, the examination, and power/knowledge relationships, and that cognizance of such issues can promote nursing practice that is empowering. They need to adopt a more critical stance to understanding power and empowerment in nursing, and one way of fostering such criticism is to view nursing practice through a poststructural lens. CONCLUSION A poststructural approach merits a place alongside other approaches to understanding power and empowerment in nursing.
Silencing the self: schizophrenia as a self-disturbance.

I have written this article from my personal experiences of schizophrenia as fundamentally a self-disturbance and not simply a biochemical imbalance. In the article, I attempt to use a theory of “existential permeability” to explain the various symptoms of the condition and how psychiatrists could help in recognizing the patient's self-disturbance.