Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
C Imaging — A New Diagnostic Platform

The evolution of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been astounding since the early 1980s, and a broad range of applications has emerged. To date, clinical imaging of nuclei other than protons has been precluded for reasons of sensitivity. However, with the recent development of hyperpolarization techniques, the signal from a given number of nuclei can be increased as much as 100 000 times, sufficient to enable imaging of non-proton nuclei. Technically, imaging of hyperpolarized nuclei offers several unique properties, such as complete lack of background signal and possibility for local and permanent destruction of the signal by means of radio frequency (RF) pulses. These properties allow for improved as well as new techniques within several application areas. Diagnostically, the injected compounds can visualize information about flow, perfusion, excretory function, and metabolic status. In this review article, we explain the concept of hyperpolarization and the techniques to hyperpolarize C. An overview of results obtained within angiography, perfusion, and catheter tracking is given, together with a discussion of the particular advantages and limitations. Finally, possible future directions of hyperpolarized C MRI are pointed out.
RANK/RANKL Axis in Melanoma

Melanoma is considered to be one of the most aggressive forms of skin neoplasms. Despite aggressive researches towards finding treatments, no effective therapy exists to inhibit the metastatic spread of malignant melanoma. The 5-year survival rate of metastatic melanoma is still significantly low, and there has been an earnest need to develop more effective therapies with greater anti-melanoma activity. Through the accomplishment of over 100 distinguished and respected researchers from 19 different countries, this book covers a wide range of aspects from various standpoints and issues related to melanoma. These include the biology of melanoma, pigmentations, pathways, receptors and diagnosis, and the latest treatments and therapies to make potential new therapies. Not only will this be beneficial for readers, but it will also contribute to scientists making further breakthroughs in melanoma research.
Breast cancer association studies in a Han Chinese population using 10 European-ancestry-associated breast cancer susceptibility SNPs.

BACKGROUND Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified various genetic susceptibility loci for breast cancer based mainly on European-ancestry populations. Differing linkage disequilibrium patterns exist between European and Asian populations. METHODS Ten SNPs (rs2075555 in COL1A1, rs12652447 in FBXL17, rs10941679 in 5p12/MRPS30, rs11878583 in ZNF577, rs7166081 in SMAD3, rs16917302 in ZNF365, rs311499 in 20q13.3, rs1045485 in CASP8, rs12964873 in CDH1 and rs8170 in 19p13.1) were here genotyped in 1009 Chinese females (487 patients with breast cancer and 522 control subjects) using the Sequenom MassARRAY iPLEX platform. Association analysis based on unconditional logistic regression was carried out to determine the odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (95% CI) for each SNP. Stratification analyses were carried out based on the estrogen receptor (ER) and progesterone receptor (PR) status. RESULTS Among the 10 SNPs, rs10941679 showed significant association with breast cancer when differences between the case and control groups in this Han Chinese population were compared (30.09% GG, 45.4% GA and 23.7% AA; P = 0.012). Four SNPs (rs311499, rs1045485, rs12964873 and rs8170) showed no polymorphisms in our study. The remaining five SNPs showed no association with breast cancer in the present population. Immunohistochemical tests showed that rs2075555 was associated with ER status; the AA genotype showed greater association with ER negative than ER positive (OR = 0.54, 95% CI, 0.29-0.99; P = 0.046). AA of rs7166081 was also associated with ER status, but showed a greater association with ER positive than negative (OR = 1.59, 95% CI = 1.04-2.44; P = 0.031). However, no significant associations were found among the SNPs and PR status. CONCLUSION In this study using a Han Chinese population, rs10941679 was the only SNP associated with breast cancer risk, indicating a difference between European and Chinese populations in susceptibility loci. Therefore, confirmation studies are necessary before utilization of these loci in Chinese.
Pairwise discriminate analysis based minimax probability machine (PDA-MPM) approach for fault diagnosis

FauM diagnosis is crucial to maintain safe and efficient operations of industrial processes. In this paper, a minimax probability machine (MPM) approach based on the framework of probabilistic representations is put forward for diagnosing process faults, without imposing any assumptions on data distributions. Moreover, a technique of pairwise discriminate analysis is incorporated to handle the classification of multiple faulty datasets. In addition to the enhanced handling of imbalanced distribution of datasets, the proposed MPM-based approach can also bring the benefits for fault diagnosis, owning to the utilization of an objective function in the form of summation of the pairwise separation probabilities between each pair of faulty datasets. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated on the benchmark of Tennessee Eastman process.
Molecular Medicine: Promises, Promises?

Within the past few months, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins, two of the three men who won a Nobel Prize for describing the structure of DNA, have died. Their obituaries revisited the famous 1953 Nature papers,1,2 recalling with relish the classic English understatement ‘It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material’. In reality, Crick, at least, was less subdued, bursting in to the Eagle tavern in Cambridge with James Watson and declaiming to the doubtless bemused clientele ‘we have found the secret of life’. 3,4
Simultaneous Suppression of Time-Delay Signature in Intensity and Phase of Dual-Channel Chaos Communication

In this paper, we propose a novel dual-channel optical chaos system with a time-delay (TD) feature simultaneously suppressed in all observables, i.e., in both intensity and phase. A hybrid optical and electro-optic feedback for a single vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) is verified to induce simultaneous TD suppression for the polarization-resolved components of the chaotic output. A comprehensive mathematical model is developed to incorporate the optical and electro-optic time delays into the rate equations of the VCSEL. The suppression of TD signature is then examined by means of autocorrelation function and delayed mutual information. The results show that the output chaotic signal has the TD feature well eliminated in both the intensity and phase over certain regions of parameter space identified using the peak signal to mean ratio technique. The independent evolution of the two orthogonal VCSEL modes renders the polarization-resolved output modes appropriate for the enhanced dual-channel chaos applications. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that a dual-channel chaos communication system is reported with simultaneous suppression of the TD feature in all the transmitted observables.
Présentation d'un modèle dédié à l’évaluation d’activités ludo-pédagogiques et retours d’expériences

Ce texte presente dans un premier temps l’elaboration du modele CEPAJe qui se destine a evaluer une activite ludo-pedagogique de maniere reflexive ou non. Cette elaboration, fondee sur une approche hypothetico-deductive, se base notamment sur l’enrichissement d’une grille proposee par Sara de Freitas et Martin Oliver en 2006, croisee avec les trois temps pedagogiques de Nicole Tremblay. En parallele, nous convoquons le systeme ESAR de Denise Garon datant de 1985. Dans un second temps, CEPAJe est decrit pour expliquer sa structure et ses differentes dimensions. Enfin, il est propose dans une troisieme partie de presenter comment CEPAJe a fait l’objet d’une utilisation concrete sur le terrain dans le cadre d’une formation operee par l’association ID6, sans concertation prealable avec les auteurs du modele CEPAJe. Ce retour d’experience sera l’occasion de sortir de la seule approche hypothetico-deductive en recensant une premiere instrumentalisation concrete du modele, de l’eprouver et d’ouvrir des perspectives d’amelioration.
ORTHOSTATIC HYPOTENSION AFTER THE FIRST ADMINISTRATION OF PRAZOSIN IN HYPERTENSIVE PATIENTS: ROLE OF THE PLASMA VOLUME

1. Prazosin (2 mg, p.o.) was administered to nine patients with essential hypertension while intra‐arterial pressure was recorded by an Oxford portable apparatus. In all patients, 30 min‐3 h after the administration, systolic and diastolic pressure fell on assuming the upright posture and four patients fainted. No correlation was found between the degree of fall in pressure and the plasma concentration of the drug. Acute expansion of the plasma volume by means of 6% Dextran infusion reduced the orthostatic blood pressure fall in all cases and a significant inverse correlation was found between plasma volume and orthostatic fall of pressure.
Management of Osteoporotic Vertebral Compression Fractures with Stentoplasty

Study Design: A prospective study of clinical and radiographic results after vertebral body stenting (VBS) for treatment of osteoporotic vertebral compression fractures (VCFs). Objectives: To evaluate the effectiveness of stentoplasty as a new technique to treat symptomatic VCFs. Background Data: Conventional balloon kyphoplasty is a procedure meant to treat osteoporotic and/or cancer related VCFs. However, there is an inherent technical problem with the amount of reduction. When filling the balloons, an acceptable reduction is achieved. However, the resulting final reduction after cementing is approximately 25% lower due to partial collapse after balloon deflation. To address this issue, a newer technique—based on the principles of balloon kyphoplasty and vascular stenting—has been introduced. Methods: A total of 52 patients with 73 symptomatic VCFs were enrolled in our study of VBS. Clinical outcomes were measured preand postoperatively using the visual analogue scale (VAS), Oswestry Disability Index (ODI), and ambulatory status (AS). All outcomes were assessed before the procedure and at 1, 12, 24, and 36 weeks postoperatively. Results: The median VAS scores went from 10.0 preoperatively to 1.0 at last follow-up. The preoperative ODI score was 80 preoperatively, but improved to 18 at last follow-up. The ability to move independently and ease of ambulation significantly improved after the procedure (P ≤ 0.001). The median kyphosis angle was 15.0 degrees preoperatively and decreased by a median of 4.5 degrees postoperatively. Conclusion: Patients with symptomatic VCFs had significant improvements in back pain, function, and quality of life following VBS.
Indexation d'objets 3D par spectre de formes géodésiques 3D (SFG3D)

In this paper, we address the problem of 3D object retrieval based on 3D shape descriptors. The proposed approach builds a new descriptor intrinsically invariant to geometric transformations and robust to topology changes and remeshing. The 3D shape spectrum Descriptor (3D SSD), proposed in the MPEG-7 (Zaharia, 2001), is computed on an intrinsic interest point neighborhood. The neighborhood around each interest point is composed of a set of geodesic level curves and radial ones. The level curves correspond to the points at equal geodesic distances from the interest point. The experiments carried out on the SHREC'09 and SHREC'11 datasets show the performance of the proposed descriptor and compare it to further descriptors proposed in the literature (Lian, 2009;2011). MOTS-CLES : indexation 3D, descripteur de formes 3D, voisinage geodesique, mesure de similarite, distance hausdroff, point d'interet.
La autopsia clínica

Antencedentes: La autopsia clinica tiene unos 2000 anos de historia. Su periodo dorado, sin embargo, lo forman los ultimos 150 anos, en que ha contribuido de forma sustancial al avance de la Medicina en campos variados y fundamentales. En Espana, la autopsia no ha alcanzado nunca las tasas que otros paises han tenido o aun tienen, y solo en algunos grandes hospitales se han hecho en numero significativo. Estado actual: El peso especifico que EE.UU. tiene sobre la literatura medica hace que sus cambios, en detrimento del numero de autopsias, hayan sido muy comentados. Una restrictiva legislacion en muchos paises (entre nosotros, la Ley de Biobancos), hace mas complejo el proceso de autorizaciones, conservacion y utilizacion de las muestras. El numero de autopsias de muchos hospitales sigue siendo bajo, dificultando o impidiendo la docencia y el control de calidad que tales autopsias debieran tener. Proyecto de futuro: La autopsia no va a desaparecer a corto plazo. Pero las autopsias languidecen, perseguidas por la inercia y la competencia con otras tecnicas. Es preciso recordar los muchos beneficios que aportan, las causas de su declive (para atajar las que estan en nuestro mano) y, sobre todo, convertir la autopsia, mediante una mas completa correlacion clinico-patologica, la incorporacion de otros profesionales (TSAPC) y el auxilio de nuevas tecnicas o tecnologias, en la poderosa (y muy barata) herramienta asistencia, docentem investigadora, con funcion social y de auxilio a la justicia, que debe ser. Y con la proyeccion social y profesional que merece.
Protein post-translational modifications and the DNA damage response

Gene expression can be regulated in many ways at the level of transcription or translation. The quickest way is to modify the gene product or protein. Post-translational modifications (PTMs) of proteins can alter their activity, interaction partners, complex affiliation, subcellular localization, or stability in response to changes in the cellular environment. There is a well-established and diverse range of PTMs. Phosphorylation is best characterized due to its essential role in a wide range of cellular processes such as the DNA damage response (DDR).
Differential effects on T cell and NK cell development by tissue‐specific expression of H‐2Dd transgene

The effect of tissue‐specific expression of the MHC class I molecule H‐2Dd on T cell and NK cell specificity was studied in transgenic mice expressing the H‐2Dd gene under the control of the mouse metallothionein‐I promoter. MTD mice expressed high amounts of H‐2Dd in the liver, intestine and testis, but only minute amounts in the thymus, spleen and kidney. Zinc administration resulted in a 1.5‐ and 8.5‐fold increase in H‐2Dd expression in the liver and the intestine, respectively, but did not affect expression in the other organs tested. T cell tolerance developed towards H‐2Dd in MTD mice, even in the absence of zinc. In contrast, NK cell‐mediated natural resistance against lymphoma grafts was not seen in MTD mice, despite zinc administration. NK cells in MTD mice also failed to develop self tolerance to H‐2Dd. The lack of functional effects did not result from inability of NK cells in MTD mice to interact with H‐2Dd, as down‐regulation of Ly49A receptor expression was observed on liver NK cells in MTD mice. Our data reveal a difference between T cells and NK cells in their requirements for MHC class I molecules in specificity development.
Full digital control of common leg converter based on high efficiency switching method

This paper proposes a novel control method about high efficiency operation for common leg power converter. The proposed method gives modulation by using Golden Section Method (GSM), which is calculated by the voltage references, the dc-link voltage, the converter current, and the IGBT loss characteristics. The proposed method obtains high efficiency operation under any load conditions. The control system is constructed by using DSP. The proposed method applies to three-phase active filter and single-phase UPS. The high efficiency performance of the proposed method demonstrates through experimental tests. The proposed method improves converter efficiency more than 2[%].
Adoptive T-cell therapy for B-cell malignancies

The success of allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) for B-cell malignancies is evidence that these tumors can be eliminated by T lymphocytes. This has encouraged the development of specific adoptive T-cell therapy, both for augmenting the anti-tumor effect of HCT and for patients not undergoing HCT. T cells that are capable of recognizing antigens expressed on malignant B cells may be recruited from the endogenous repertoire or engineered to express tumor-targeting receptors. Critical insights into the qualities of T cells that enable their persistence and function in vivo have been derived, and obstacles to effective T-cell-mediated tumor eradication are being elucidated. These advances provide the tools to translate adoptive T-cell transfer into reliable clinical therapies.
GWAS Statistics Imputation Using Stacked Bidirectional LSTMs

Genome-wide association (GWA) studies offer new avenues for medical insights. By aggregating summary association statistics across many individuals, they are largely free of the security and logistical concerns that burden the use of individuallevel genome data, and provide a unique opportunity to uncover complex relationships between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and phenotypic traits. However, this practice is complicated by different sets of SNPs being included in each study, leading to missing SNP statistics when analyzing studies in aggregate. To address this problem, we propose stacked bidirectional LSTM autoencoders with a custom loss function as a robust statistics imputation method. In our experiment involving the imputation of missing p-values across approximately one million SNPs and 11 traits, our method reduces the mean-squared logarithmic error on imputed p-values by 22.5% when compared to traditional statistical imputation techniques.
Two New Algorithms for On-Line Modelling and Forecasting of the Load Demand of a Multinode Power System

Two on-line algorithms are proposed for modelling and forecasting short-term multiple load demand. First a multivariable time series model is presented with a systematic method for determining its order and estimating its parameters. Another model based on the state variable form is then considered. Two decoupled algorithms, recursive least-squares and adaptive Kalman filtering, are combined in a bootstrap manner to estimate the model parameters and states. The performance of the two methods is compared using data provided by the Ontario Hydro for four loading nodes.
MHD flow in porous medium with small internal heat generation under variable electrical conductivity

MHD convective flow of a viscous incompressible fluid of variable electrical conductivity along a vertical isothermal porous plate in presence of external transverse magnetic field and small internal heat generation (E. Pr  1) along the plate. While the heat generation decays exponentially, electrical conductivity of the fluid is considered to be the function of fluid temperature. Using similarity transformation techniques and considering fluid flow of low Prandlt Number, numerical solutions and results are obtained for different values of Darcy Number using Runge-Kutta and Shooting methods. The results are shown graphically for absent and present of internal heat generation within the fluid. Variation of Skin-friction and the Rate of heat transfer at the plate for various values of physical parameters are also shown. The results show significant effects of heat generation and external field on flow and heat transfer under consideration.
An Efficient Parallel Implementation Of The Ml-EM Algorithm For PET Image Reconstruction With A Multi-threaded Operating System

A bs t reict Multi-threaded operating systems were introduced in the quest to reduce the overhead caused by task manipulation and synchronization. An example is the recently introduced Solaris 2.1 multi-threaded operating system. In this paper, a parallel application in the domain of image processing is presented for which a successful use of the multi-threaded approach has led to an implementation with a nearly linear speedup.
Effect of dynein inhibitor on mouse oocyte in vitro maturation and its cyclin B1 mRNA level.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the effect of dynein inhibitor on mouse oocyte in vitro maturation and its cyclin B1 transcription level. METHODS Immature mouse oocytes were cultured in vitro with a known dynein ATPase activity inhibitor-sodium orthovanadate (SOV) to detect the changes of maturation rate, and semi-quantitative RT-PCR and single cell RT-PCR were performed to detect the changes of cyclin B1 mRNA level. RESULTS In dose-dependent experiments, the maturation rates of oocytes were significantly different between 5 micromol/L SOV and control groups (P < 0.05), and decreased with SOV increasing doses. However, the elevation of cyclin B1 mRNA level of immatured oocytes cultured for 12 h depended on SOV concentrations ranging from 50 to 500 micromol/L. In incontinuity exposed SOV experiments, the maturation rates of oocytes markedly reduced after the first incubation with 400 micromol/L SOV at least for 1 h and were first cultured in SOV-free medium for 4 h or 8 h before exposure to SOV (P < 0.05). In time-course experiment, the opposite changes of cyclin B1 mRNA level in oocytes between SOV and control groups were observed. CONCLUSION Dynein inhibitor might delay oocytes meiosis process, and cause ectopic expression of cyclin B1 in oocytes. Most Oocytes incubated with SOV blocked at germinal vesicles (GV) stage or M I to anaphase transition due to dynein dysfunction and ectopic transcription level of cyclin B1.
Depletion interactions in two-dimensional colloid–polymer mixtures: molecular dynamics simulations

The depletion interactions acting between two hard colloids immersed in a bath of polymers, in which the interaction potentials include the soft repulsion/attraction, are extensively studied by using the molecular dynamics simulations. The collision frequencies and collision angle distributions for both incidental and reflection conditions are computed to study the dynamic properties of the colloidal mixtures. The depletion effect induced by the polymer–polymer and colloid–polymer interactions are investigated as well as the size ratio of the colloid and polymer. The simulated results show that the strong depletion interaction between two hard colloids appears for the highly asymmetric hard-disc mixtures. The attractive depletion force at contact becomes deeper and the repulsive barrier becomes wider as the asymmetry in size ratio increases. The strong polymer–polymer attraction leads to the purely attractive depletion interaction between two hard colloids, whereas the purely repulsive depletion interaction is induced by the strong colloid–polymer attraction.
Solitary fibrous tumor of the spinal nerve rootlet: Case report and literature survey

Solitary fibrous tumor (SFT) is a rare tumor that arises most commonly in the pleura. Recent evidence indicated that it is a tumor that originates from mesenchymal, probably fibroblastic, cells and is not restricted to the pleura. This report presents a case of primary SFT occurring as a dumbbell‐shaped tumor of the cervical spine (C4/5) in a 46‐year‐old Japanese female, probably originating from the spinal rootlet. The tumor was predominantly extradural, loosely attached to the dura mater, with a small intradural extramedullary part attached to the C5 anterior and posterior rootlets. Histologically, the tumor was predominantly composed of a haphazard proliferation of spindle cells separated by abundant collagen. Immunohistochemically, the cells were strongly positive for CD34, bcl‐2 and vimentin, but were negative for S‐100 protein, neuron specific enolase, cytokeratin and epithelial membrane antigen. The present case and review of the literature strongly suggest that SFT is an entity that should be considered in the differential diagnosis of tumors of the cerebrospinal region.