Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sorting and trafficking of proteins in oligodendrocytes during myelin membrane biogenesis

During myelin formation OLGs may utilize basic mechanisms of epithelial membrane trafficking, as described and summarized in the introductory chapter (Chapter 1). However, whether specific transport pathways, unique to myelin biogenesis are involved and how such pathways might be regulated in biogenesis and maintenance of the myelin sheath, is largely unexplored. Such insight is of major relevance for devising strategies for exogenous manipulation to stimulate and/or promote de novo biogenesis of the myelin sheath and its (re)assembly at pathological demyelinating conditions, as in the case of multiple sclerosis (MS). In addition, given the special nature of OLGs, consisting of a cell body, bounded by a plasma membrane, and myelin ‘protruding’ from that cell body, yet maintaining a highly specific and quite distinct membrane composition when compared to the plasma membrane, this kind of work will also contribute to solving fundamental questions of great interest to current cell biology. Accordingly, the main purpose of the work described in this thesis was to acquire insight into the sorting and trafficking of major myelin components such as PLP and MBP, and to reveal regulatory mechanisms, instrumental in promoting myelin sheath biogenesis. It is felt that this insight is a prerequisite for a prosperous advancement of therapeutic approaches in a disease as complex as MS. The trafficking and sorting of myelin constituents was primarily studied in vitro, using isolated OLG precursor cells from newborn rats. This approach also allowed us to study myelin biogenesis as a function of cellular development. In chapter 2, molecular parameters that govern the targeting and incorporation of myelin proteins and model proteins into myelin membranes are investigated to further clarify the polarized nature of oligodendrocytes. The purpose of these studies was to reveal the nature of sorting signals in myelin-directed trafficking and whether this pathway was regulated by protein kinase activity. Chapter 3 describes the distribution and functional role of syntaxins 3 and 4 in OLGs, since both proteins usually display a specific, polarized distribution in epithelial cells. We investigated how these syntaxins regulate the trafficking of myelin specific proteins, including PLP and MBP mRNA. Apart from intracellular factors, the role of the ECM was also examined, as described in experiments presented in chapter 4. OLGs were grown on different ECM substrates and their effect on the transport of the PLP and myelin assembly was determined. In chapter 5 the role of MAL in the regulation of sorting and transport of PLP was investigated, using a GFP-MAL construct that was (over)expressed in proliferating oligodendrocyte progenitor cells. The intracellular distribution of MAL was determined and its effect on myelin protein transport was studied as a function of OLG development. Finally, in chapter 6 major observations reported in this thesis are summarized and perspectives for future studies are discussed.
Helicobacter heilmannii infection: Clinical, endoscopic and histopathological features in Japanese patients

Gastric biopsy materials of 4074 consecutive Japanese patients undergoing esophagogastroduodenoscopy were reviewed, along with those of 15 patients with Helicobacter heilmannii infection (11, chronic gastritis; four, mucosa‐associated lymphoid tissue (MALT) lymphoma). In four patients with H. heilmannii infection, the materials were examined by transmission electronmicroscopy. Urea breath test (three patients) and antibody test (five patients) were performed in patients with H. heilmannii infection. In two patients with MALT lymphoma, H. heilmannii was eradicated. The prevalence of H. heilmannii was 0.1% in the consecutive series. In chronic gastritis, the gastric mucosa was endoscopically normal (13.3%), had erythema (33.3%), or had erosions (53.3%); histologically, it showed no epithelial change, mild mononuclear cell infiltration, and slight and focal neutrophil infiltration; Helicobacter heilmannii was positive with anti‐H. pylori antibody, and was detected in the mucous gel layer and in foveolae. In MALT lymphoma, the gastric mucosa was coarsely granular with enlarged mucosal folds without ulcers (two cases), with small ulcers (one case), or with multiple erosions (one case). Urea breath test and antibody test were both negative. Eradication of H. heilmannii resulted in remission of MALT lymphoma. Helicobacter heilmannii infection is therefore uncommon in Japanese adults, but is associated with chronic gastritis and gastric MALT lymphoma.
Effects of Ribose Supplementation on Repeated Sprint Performance in Men

This study used a randomized, placebo-controlled, crossover design to evaluate the effects of oral ribose supplementation on short-term anaerobic performance. After familiarization, subjects performed 2 bouts of repeated cycle sprint exercise (six 10-second sprints with 60-second rest periods between sprints) in a single day. After the second exercise, bout subjects ingested 32 g of ribose or cellulose (4 X 8-g doses) during the next 36 hours. After supplementation, subjects returned to the laboratory to perform a single bout of cycle sprinting (as described above). After a 5-day washout period, subjects repeated the protocol, receiving the opposite supplement treatment. Ribose supplementation lead to statistically significant increases in mean power and peak power in sprint 2 (10.9 and 6.6%, respectively) and higher (although not significant) absolute values in sprints 1, 3, and 4. In conclusion, ribose supplementation did not show reproducible increases in performance across all 6 sprints. Therefore, within the framework of this investigation, it appears that ribose supplementation does not have a consistent or substantial effect on anaerobic cycle sprinting.
Abnormal brain development in newborns with congenital heart disease.

BACKGROUND Congenital heart disease in newborns is associated with global impairment in development. We characterized brain metabolism and microstructure, as measures of brain maturation, in newborns with congenital heart disease before they underwent heart surgery. METHODS We studied 41 term newborns with congenital heart disease--29 who had transposition of the great arteries and 12 who had single-ventricle physiology--with the use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS), and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) before cardiac surgery. We calculated the ratio of N-acetylaspartate to choline (which increases with brain maturation), the ratio of lactate to choline (which decreases with maturation), average diffusivity (which decreases with maturation), and fractional anisotropy of white-matter tracts (which increases with maturation). We compared these findings with those in 16 control newborns of a similar gestational age. RESULTS As compared with control newborns, those with congenital heart disease had a decrease of 10% in the ratio of N-acetylaspartate to choline (P=0.003), an increase of 28% in the ratio of lactate to choline (P=0.08), an increase of 4% in average diffusivity (P<0.001), and a decrease of 12% in white-matter fractional anisotropy (P<0.001). Preoperative brain injury, as seen on MRI, was not significantly associated with findings on MRS or DTI. White-matter injury was observed in 13 newborns with congenital heart disease (32%) and in no control newborns. CONCLUSIONS Term newborns with congenital heart disease have widespread brain abnormalities before they undergo cardiac surgery. The imaging findings in such newborns are similar to those in premature newborns and may reflect abnormal brain development in utero.
Surgical resection and chemotherapy improve survival rate for patients with hepatoblastoma.

BACKGROUND The authors reviewed retrospectively their experience in 30 children with hepatoblastoma (HB). Despite an increased trend in the incidence of HB during the last 2 decades, an encouraging cure rate has been achieved with complete resection of the tumor and chemotherapy before or after surgery with cisplatin plus doxorubicin (Adriamycin) or cisplatin plus vincristine plus 5-Fluorouracil. RESULTS There were 10 female and 20 male patients. For the period from 1963 to 1980 there were 8 patients, and for the period from 1981 to 1998 there were 22 patients. Their mean age at surgery was 16 months (range, 3.5 months to 5.5 years). Tumors were localized to the right lobe in 10 (42%), to the left lobe in 7 (29%), and in both lobes in 7 (29%) of the resected patients. Tumors were greater than 10 cm in size in 16 (67%) of these patients. Twenty-four patients (80%), underwent liver resection before or after chemotherapy. One patient (3%) with an unresectable tumor received chemotherapy and a liver transplant. In 5 patients (17%) the hepatic involvement was too extensive for resection. The types of resection performed were right lobectomy in 7, left lobectomy in 6, right trisegmentectomy in 8, left trisegmentectomy in 2, and middle hepatectomy in 1. The overall survival rate for 35 years of the study was 60% (18 of 30). With the association of surgery and chemotherapy (1981 through 1998) survival rate is 82% (14 of 17). Overall median follow-up in our study is 8 years (range, 2.5 to 24 years). CONCLUSIONS There has been a dramatic improvement in the results of treatment of hepatoblastoma. Formerly, only 25% to 30% of patients were cured, whereas today, with combination of chemotherapy and surgery, 75% to 80% may be cured.
Dashboard systems: Pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic mediated dose optimization for monoclonal antibodies

Many marketed drugs exhibit high variability in exposure and response. While these drugs are efficacious in their approved indications, finding appropriate dose regimens for individual patients is not straightforward. Similar dose adjustment problems are also seen with drugs that have a complex relationship between exposure and response and/or a narrow therapeutic window. This is particularly true for monoclonal antibodies, where prolonged dosing at a sub‐therapeutic dose can also elicit anti‐drug antibodies which will further compromise safety and efficacy. Thus, finding appropriate doses quickly would represent a substantial improvement in healthcare. Dashboard systems, which are decision‐support tools, offer an improved, convenient means of tailoring treatment for individual patients. This article reviews the clinical need for this approach, particularly with monoclonal antibodies, the design, development, and testing of such systems, and the likely benefits of dashboard systems in clinical practice. We focus on infliximab for reference.
Is the current prevention strategy based on vaccination coverage and epidemiological surveillance sufficient to achieve measles and rubella elimination in Europe?

Elimination of measles and rubella in Europe is a feasible objective, but it requires achieving a maintaining a high prevalence of protected individuals in order to prevent cases and outbreaks from imported cases. The epidemiology of measles and rubella in Europe in the period 2003–2013 suggests that we are far away from the elimination target for measles, while the situation is better for rubella. In this situation, a new preventive strategy based on serological surveillance systems should be developed in Europe in order to identify and immunise individuals in population groups without sufficient herd immunity against measles and rubella.
Locus of Control and Anxiety in Emotionally Disturbed Children

2 measures of locus of control and two measures of anxiety were administered to 50 emotionally disturbed children. Whether locus of control was significantly related to anxiety was dependent on the measure of anxiety employed. The Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale correlated significantly with both measures of locus of control. However, neither the A-state not the A-trait portion of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children was correlated significantly with locus of control. All measures of anxiety intercorrelated significantly. The magnitude of the correlation between measures of locus of control was small if both assessed the same construct.
∼ N ( 0 , 1 ) Video Generator Video Discriminator Real ? Fake ?

Generating videos from text has proven to be a significant challenge for existing generative models. We tackle this problem by training a conditional generative model to extract both static and dynamic information from text. This is manifested in a hybrid framework, employing a Variational Autoencoder (VAE) and a Generative Adversarial Network (GAN). The static features, called “gist,” are used to sketch text-conditioned background color and object layout structure. Dynamic features are considered by transforming input text into an image filter. To obtain a large amount of data for training the deep-learning model, we develop a method to automatically create a matched text-video corpus from publicly available online videos. Experimental results show that the proposed framework generates plausible and diverse short-duration smooth videos, while accurately reflecting the input text information. It significantly outperforms baseline models that directly adapt text-to-image generation procedures to produce videos. Performance is evaluated both visually and by adapting the inception score used to evaluate image generation in GANs.
Targeted alpha therapy with 227Th-trastuzumab of intraperitoneal ovarian cancer in nude mice.

UNLABELLED The aim of the current study was to investigate the therapeutic effect of 227Th-radioimmunotherapy on intraperitoneally growing human bioluminescent HER2 positive ovarian cancer cells. METHODS In vitro toxicity of 227Th-trastuzumab in bioluminescent SKOV3-luc-D3 ovarian cancer cells was assessed in a growth assay. The biodistribution of intraperitoneally administrated 227Th-trastuzumab in athymic nude mice without tumor cells was determined. For in vivo therapy, seventy female athymic nude mice were intraperitoneally inoculated with tumor cells 17 days prior to injection of single 227Th-trastuzumab doses of 1000 kBq/kg, 600 kBq/kg or 400 kBq/kg, or three injections with 400 kBq/kg 227Th-trastuzumab separated by 4 weeks. Two control groups were given either 20 µg unlabeled trastuzumab or 0.9% NaCl. In vivo bioluminescence imaging was performed weekly before and after onset of therapy. Tumor growth, survival and toxicity were compared. RESULTS There was a statistically significant therapeutic effect of the 227Th-trastuzumab treatment both with respect to survival and tumor growth. The maximum tolerated dosage was 600 kBq/kg 227Th-trastuzumab. In the in vitro study, two hours incubation with 20 kBq/ml of 227Th-trastuzumab, followed by washing, and subsequent culture of the cells resulted in an average absorbed radiation dose of 6 Gy after 11 days and complete growth inhibition. CONCLUSION Targeted alpha therapy with 227Th-trastuzumab of human SKOV3-luc-D3 cells growing intraperitoneally in nude mice was clearly superior to unlabeled trastuzumab therapy. The results warrant further studies of 227Th-radioimmunotherapy used as adjuvant treatment and for metastatic cancer.
Stabilizing and retaining a quality nursing work force through the use of the Married State Preceptorship Model.

BACKGROUND The nursing shortage requires new graduate registered nurses (RNs) to work at the bedside, often leading to a shortened orientation period and increased stress. In the Married State Preceptorship Model (MSPM), the preceptor and the preceptee work together as the new graduate RN transitions to the bedside while maintaining safety and quality. This study explored first-year turnover rates of new graduate RNs and new graduate RNs' and preceptors' perceptions of the MSPM in transitioning new graduate RNs to practice. METHODS Focus groups and surveys were used with 108 new graduate RNs and 100 preceptors. RESULTS Four themes emerged for new graduate RNs: partnership, critical thinking, learning, and transition. A statistically significant decrease in turnover rates was seen with MSPM versus traditional precepting. Survey data found that new graduate RNs and preceptors perceived the MSPM as promoting safety and reducing anxiety. CONCLUSION The MSPM allows organizations to retain a quality nursing work force focused on safety patient care by transitioning new graduate RNs into the practice setting.
A Review of Fully Automated Techniques for Brain Tumor Detection From MR Images

Radiologists use medical images to diagnose diseases precisely. However, identification of brain tumor from medical images is still a critical and complicated job for a radiologist. Brain tumor identification form magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) consists of several stages. Segmentation is known to be an essential step in medical imaging classification and analysis. Performing the brain MR images segmentation manually is a difficult task as there are several challenges associated with it. Radiologist and medical experts spend plenty of time for manually segmenting brain MR images, and this is a non- repeatable task. In view of this, an automatic segmentation of brain MR images is needed to correctly segment White Matter (WM), Gray Matter (GM) and Cerebrospinal Fluid (CSF) tissues of brain in a shorter span of time. The accurate segmentation is crucial as otherwise the wrong identification of disease can lead to severe consequences. Taking into account the aforesaid challenges, this research is focused towards highlighting the strengths and limitations of the earlier proposed segmentation techniques discussed in the contemporary literature. Besides summarizing the literature, the paper also provides a critical evaluation of the surveyed literature which reveals new facets of research. However, articulating a new technique is beyond the scope of this paper.
Sélection contextuelle de services continus pour la robotique ambiante. (Contextual selection of continuous services applied to ambient robotics)

La robotique ambiante s'interesse a l'introduction de robots mobiles au sein d'environnements actifs ou ces derniers fournissent des fonctionnalites alternatives ou complementaires a celles embarquees par les robots mobiles. Cette these etudie la mise en concurrence des fonctionnalites internes et externes aux robots, qu'elle pose comme un probleme de selection de services logiciels. La selection de services consiste a choisir un service ou une combinaison de services parmi un ensemble de candidats capables de realiser une tâche requise. Pour cela, elle doit predire et evaluer la performance des candidats. Ces performances reposent sur des criteres non-fonctionnels comme la duree d'execution, le cout ou le bruit. Ce domaine applicatif a pour particularite de necessiter une coordination etroite entre certaines de ses fonctionnalites. Cette coordination se traduit par l'echange de flots de donnees entre les fonctionnalites durant leurs executions. Les fonctionnalites productrices de ces flots sont modelisees comme des services continus. Cette nouvelle categorie de services logiciels impose que les compositions de services soient hierarchiques et introduit des contraintes supplementaires pour la selection de services. Cette these met en evidence la presence d'un important couplage non-fonctionnel entre les performances des instances de services de differents niveaux, meme lorsque les flots de donnees sont unidirectionnels. L'approche proposee se concentre sur la prediction de la performance d'une instance de haut-niveau sachant son organigramme a l'issue de la selection. Un organigramme regroupe l'ensemble des instances de services sollicitees pour realiser une tâche de haut-niveau. L'etude s'appuie sur un scenario impliquant la selection d'un service de positionnement en vue de permettre le deplacement d'un robot vers une destination requise. Pour un organigramme considere, la prediction de performance d'une instance de haut-niveau de ce scenario introduit les exigences suivantes : elle doit (i)etre contextuelle en tenant compte, par exemple, du chemin suivi pour atteindre la destination requise, (ii) prendre en charge le remplacement d'une instance de sous-service suite a un echec ou, par extension, de facon opportuniste. En consequence, cette selection de services est posee comme un probleme de prise de decision sequentielle formalise a l'aide de processus de decision markoviens a horizon fini. La dimensionnalite importante du contexte en comparaison a la frequence des deplacements du robot rend inadaptees les methodes consistant a apprendre directement une fonction de valeur ou une fonction de transition. L'approche proposee repose sur des modeles de dynamique locaux et exploite le chemin de deplacement calcule par un sous-service pour estimer en ligne les valeurs des organigrammes disponibles dans l'etat courant. Cette estimation est effectuee par l'intermediaire d'une methode de fouille stochastique d'arbre, Upper Confidence bounds applied to Trees
Ternary NiCo2Px Nanowires as pH‐Universal Electrocatalysts for Highly Efficient Hydrogen Evolution Reaction

A bimetallic-structured ternary phosphide (NiCo2 Px ) as a novel pH-universal electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction is presented. It exhibits both high activity and long-term stability in all the tested alkaline, neutral, and acidic media. The excellent catalytic performance endows it with a bright future in the large-scale electrochemical water splitting industry.
A Low-power 4-T SAM Design for OFDM Demodulators in DVB Receiversers

This paper describes the design and implementation of a sequential access memory (SAM) in the OFDM demodulator of DVB-T receivers. The SAM decoder is based upon a ring counter to reduce the transistor count as well as the number of transitions per memory access. The SAM cell takes advantage of a negative word-line scheme to minimize the leakage current of the cell access transistors. The power consumption of memory access is then reduced. A 2-Kb SAM is carried out by 0.18 mum 1P6M CMOS process to verify the proposed design. The average power dissipation of the address decoder is 41.97 muW, while the average power dissipation of the overall SAM is 4.11 mW given a 20 MHz clock rate
Shootball: the tangible ball sport in ubiquitous computing

Shootball is a new sport in ubiquitous computing. This game is playing with tangible ball that could control movies displayed in surrounding screens. This game is team sport played between two teams of 3 players each. The object of the game is to score by displaying movies of own team by throwing the ball at surrounding screens.
REM latency and core temperature relationships in primary depression

ABSTRACT REM latency and rectal and ear canal temperature were studied simultaneously in 11 controls and nine depressed patients; seven of the patients were studied when recovered. REM latency was shorter in the depressed group compared with controls and lengthened with recovery. The nocturnal and ear canal temperatures were higher in the depressed group compared with controls and decreased with recovery. REM latency and the nocturnal rectal temperature were negatively correlated when all the nights of the depressed patients were analyzed (r = ‐0.44) and when all the nights of the subjects were analyzed (r = ‐0.44). REM latency and nocturnal ear canal temperatures were negatively correlated when all the nights of the control group were analyzed (r = ‐0.34). The timing of the temperature rhythm did not appear to be correlated with the REM latency.