Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fluoride in Saliva and Oral Mucosa after Brushing with 1,450 or 5,000 ppm Fluoride Toothpaste

The aim was to measure and compare fluoride concentrations in oral mucosa and saliva following a single brushing with either 1,450 or 5,000 ppm fluoride toothpaste. Fourteen healthy participants provided saliva and oral mucosa samples in the morning before tooth brushing. Then participants brushed their teeth with 1,450 ppm fluoride toothpaste, and saliva and mucosa samples were collected after 1, 2, 4, and 6 h. The experiment was repeated 3–7 days later with 5,000 ppm fluoride toothpaste. All samples were analyzed for fluoride using an ion-selective electrode adapted for microanalysis. Pre-brushing fluoride concentrations were higher in mucosa (mean1,450 0.26 ppm and mean5,000 0.20 ppm) than in saliva (mean1,450 0.08 ppm and mean5,000 0.07 ppm). The mean fluoride concentrations increased in both mucosa and saliva following a single brushing with both 1,450 ppm (meanmuc1,450 (1 h) 1.15 ppm, meansal1,450 (1 h) 0.33 ppm) and 5,000 ppm fluoride toothpaste (meanmuc5,000 (1 h) 3.21 ppm and meansal5,000 (1 h) 0.90 ppm). At 6 h, the fluoride concentrations had returned to pre-brushing levels. Across the 6-h sampling period the fluoride concentration in saliva was statistically significantly 1.4 times higher following brushing with 5,000 ppm compared with 1,450 ppm fluoride toothpaste. For mucosa, this ratio was only 1.1 and not statistically significant. In conclusion, the fluoride level in oral buccal mucosa is higher than in saliva and follows the same fluoride clearance pattern as in saliva. Over the initial 6-h period following a single tooth brushing, the ratio of the fluoride concentration in mucosa to that in saliva is independent of the fluoride concentrations in the toothpastes used.
Targeting mitochondria through the use of mitocans as emerging anticancer agents.

Mitochondria are key players with a multi-functional role in many vital cellular processes, such as energy metabolism, redox regulation, calcium homeostasis, reactive oxygen species (ROS) as well as in cell signaling, survival and apoptosis. These functions are mainly regulated through important enzyme signaling cascades, which if altered may influence the outcome of cell viability and apoptosis. Therefor some of the key enzymes that are vital for these signaling pathways are emerging as important targets for new anticancer agents development. Mitocans are compounds aimed at targeting mitochondria in cancer cells by altering mitochondrial functions thus causing cell growth inhibition or apoptosis. This review summarizes the until present known classes of mitocans, their mechanism of action and potential therapeutic use in different forms of cancer.
Planning and enabling meaningful patient and public involvement in dementia research.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW To summarize the latest evidence on patient and public involvement (PPI) in dementia research. To identify methodologies used to deliver and evaluate co-production, potential barriers to involvement, and effective strategies to enable meaningful involvement of PPI representatives in dementia research. RECENT FINDINGS PPI expertise in dementia research has been utilized to increase the acceptability of new interventions to end users and to interpret research findings from a PPI perspective. Practical adaptations to materials and meetings, and building relationships and trust were important facilitators for engagement. PPI has included caregivers, people living with dementia or both, with few studies involving the public or professionals. Engaging people living with dementia and hard-to-reach groups in PPI is challenging, with most current PPI representatives recruited from dementia organisations. Few studies have assessed the impact of PPI on study outcomes. SUMMARY In this relatively new field, methods that allow meaningful engagement are being iteratively developed. Greater community and patient engagement will be a prerequisite for increasing diversity of PPI, to ensure voices of a broader range of stakeholders are heard. Documenting and publicizing the impact of this work and engaging existing PPI representatives to support PPI recruitment could help with this.
Establishment of a hepatocellular carcinoma patient‐derived xenograft platform and its application in biomarker identification

Using a method optimized in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), we established patient‐derived xenograft (PDX) models with an increased take rate (42.2%) and demonstrated that FBS +10% dimethyl sulfoxide exhibited the highest tumor take rate efficacy. Among 254 HCC patients, 103 stably transplantable xenograft lines that could be serially passaged, cryopreserved and revived were established. These lines maintained the diversity of HCC and the essential features of the original specimens at the histological, transcriptome, proteomic and genomic levels. Tumor engraftment was associated with lack of encapsulation, poor tumor differentiation, large size and overexpression of cancer stem cell biomarkers, and was an independent predictor for overall survival and tumor recurrence after resection. To confirm the preclinical value of the PDX model in HCC treatment, several antitumor agents were tested in 16 selected PDX models. The results revealed a high degree of pharmacologic heterogeneity in the cohort, as well as heterogeneity to different agents in the same individual. The sorafenib responses observed between HCC patients and the corresponding PDXs were also consistent. After molecular characterization of the PDX models, we explored the predictive markers for sorafenib response and found that mitogen‐activated protein kinase kinase kinase 1 (MAP3K1) might play an important role in sorafenib resistance and sorafenib response is impaired in patients with MAP3K1 downexpression. Our results indicated that PDX models could accurately reproduce patient tumors biology and could aid in the discovery of new treatments to advance in precision medicine.
Performance evaluation of the quorum consensus replication method

The goal of data replication in distributed database systems is to increase data availability in the presence of failures. Using the quorum consensus method, up to [(n+1)/2] site failures can be tolerated, in an n-site system without loss of data accessability. Quorum consensus can however be very expensive to use, especially in large-scale systems. This is because multiple sites in the system must be accessed to perform the read or write operations. This paper describes an actual implementation of the quorum consensus method and gives an experimental evaluation of its performance. The implementation was done in the context of the Purdue Raid, which is a LAN-based distributed database system with extensive experimentation infrastructure. We focus our description on the particularities of managing version numbers and choosing object weights and thresholds. We also present a performance evaluation study, where the message traffic overhead, throughput and response time, and availability of the quorum consensus method is studied and compared to the read-one-write-all method. <<ETX>>
The tva(A) Gene from Brachyspira hyodysenteriae Confers Decreased Susceptibility to Pleuromutilins and Streptogramin A in Escherichia coli

The tva(A) gene suspected to confer resistance to pleuromutilins in Brachyspira hyodysenteriae was tested for functionality in Escherichia coli AG100A and Staphylococcus aureus RN4220. Expression of the cloned tva(A) gene conferred decreased susceptibility to pleuromutilin (P) and streptogramin A (SA) antibiotics in E. coli and had a minor effect in S. aureus. The finding provides evidence of the direct association of tva(A) with the PSA resistance phenotype. ABSTRACT The tva(A) gene suspected to confer resistance to pleuromutilins in Brachyspira hyodysenteriae was tested for functionality in Escherichia coli AG100A and Staphylococcus aureus RN4220. Expression of the cloned tva(A) gene conferred decreased susceptibility to pleuromutilin (P) and streptogramin A (SA) antibiotics in E. coli and had a minor effect in S. aureus. The finding provides evidence of the direct association of tva(A) with the PSA resistance phenotype.
Online visual tracking based on updating with smoothing

Visual tracking is an important task in computer vision. Despite many researches have been done in this area, some problems remain. One of the problems is drifting. To handle the problem, a new appearance model update method based on a forward filtering backward smoothing particle filter is proposed in this paper. A smoothing of previous appearance model is performed by exploiting information of current frame instead of updating instantly in traditional tracking methods. It has been shown that smoothing based on future observations makes previous and current predictions more accurate, thus the appearance model update by our approach is more accurate. And at the same time, online tracking is achieved compared with some previous work in which the smoothing is done in an offline way. With the smoothing procedure, the tracker is more accurate and less likely to drift than traditional ones. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Efficiency of human olfactory ensheathing cell transplantation into spinal cysts to improve mobility of the hind limbs.

The pathological processes developing after spinal cord injuries often lead to the formation of cysts. Existing surgical and medical methods are insufficient for the treatment of posttraumatic spinal cord cysts. One of the emerging tools is cell therapy. The olfactory ensheathing cells are perspective cells for the cell therapy. Here, we demonstrated that the human olfactory ensheathing cell transplantation is effective in experimental spinal cysts. For our experiments, we selected animals only at the intermediate stage of recovery with scores from 8 to 13 according to the BBB scale. Cells were transplanted in different quantities (0.75 and 1.5 million) into the fully formed cysts and in the areas of injury without cysts. The improvement of the limb mobility after the human olfactory ensheathing cell transplantation into posttraumatic cysts was shown. In the group of rats with cysts, the time-dependent increase in BBB score was shown in subgroups treated with 0.75 and 1.5 million OEC with no statistically significant time-dependent dynamics of BBB values in control group. When all three subgroups (control and two OEC doses) were compared, the Kruskal-Wallis test showed presence of difference between subgroups after 1, 3 and 4 weeks of treatment with evidence of divergence increase. There was no statistically significant difference between the two doses of OEC treatment. The human olfactory ensheathing cells in the experiments without cysts were not effective. It was also shown that the PKH26-labeled human olfactory ensheathing cells survive throughout the experiment and migrate to nearby areas of the cyst. So it was found that it is effective to transplant the human olfactory ensheathing cells into the fully formed cysts. In the future, autologous olfactory ensheathing cells can be used to personalize the treatment of patients with spinal cysts.
Dose-Ranging and Cohort-Expansion Study of Monalizumab (IPH2201) in Patients with Advanced Gynecologic Malignancies: A Trial of the Canadian Cancer Trials Group (CCTG): IND221

Purpose: Monalizumab binds CD94/NKG2A, preventing HLA-E inhibition of tumor lymphocytes. A dose-ranging/cohort expansion trial of monalizumab for recurrent gynecologic malignancies was conducted to determine the recommended phase II dose (RP2D) and to explore clinical activity, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, safety, and immunogenicity. Patients and Methods: Participants (and part 2 expansion cohorts) included (i) platinum-sensitive ovarian, (ii) platinum-resistant ovarian, (iii) squamous cervical (CX), and (iv) epithelial endometrial (END) carcinomas. Part 1 assessed monalizumab at 1, 4, or 10 mg/kg every 2 weeks. In part 2, ≥4 patients/cohort underwent pre- and on-treatment tumor biopsies. Preset criteria determined cohort expansion. Results: A total of 58 participants were evaluable. The RP2D was 10 mg/kg i.v. every 2 weeks. Dose proportionality and 100% NKG2A saturation were observed. Related adverse events were mild: headache, abdominal pain, fatigue, nausea, and vomiting. Grade 3 related adverse events were nausea (1), vomiting (1), dehydration (1), fatigue (2), anorexia (1), dyspnea (1), and proctitis (1). Dose-limiting toxicities were not observed. Hematologic and biochemical changes were mild and not dose related. Best response was SD: part 1, 7 of 18 (39%) [3.4 months (1.4–5.5)], and part 2, 7 of 39 (18%) [1.7 months (CX) to 14.8 months (END)]. Neither a predictive biomarker for SD nor evidence of pharmacodynamic effects was identified. There was a trend to significance between a reduction in lymphocyte HLA-E total score and pharmacodynamics. Conclusions: Monalizumab 10 mg/kg i.v. every 2 week is well tolerated in patients with pretreated gynecologic cancers. Short-term disease stabilization was observed. Future studies should assess combinations with other agents, including immunotherapeutics.
Human Action Recognition Via Multi-modality Information

In this paper, we propose pyramid appearance and global structure action descriptors on both RGB and depth motion history images and a model-free method for human action recognition. In proposed algorithm, we firstly construct motion history image for both RGB and depth channels, at the same time, depth information is employed to filter RGB information, after that, different action descriptors are extracted from depth and RGB MHIs to represent these actions, and then multimodality information collaborative representation and recognition model, in which multi-modality information are put into object function naturally, and information fusion and action recognition also be done together, is proposed to classify human actions. To demonstrate the superiority of the proposed method, we evaluate it on MSR Action3D and DHA datasets, the well-known dataset for human action recognition. Large scale experiment shows our descriptors are robust, stable and efficient, when comparing with the-state-of-the-art algorithms, the performances of our descriptors are better than that of them, further, the performance of combined descriptors is much better than just using sole descriptor. What is more, our proposed model outperforms the state-of-the-art methods on both MSR Action3D and DHA datasets.
Bounding the test sequence length of sequential circuits by the partial scan design

The selection of a minimal number of scan elements so that the necessary test sequence length can be kept below a given limit, thus bounding the test generation effort for the resulting sequential circuit, is addressed. The selection strategy is based on a calculus for the estimation of the maximum test sequence length, consisting of over 20 rules. Experimental results with the ISCAS-89 benchmark circuits show the efficiency of this approach. <<ETX>>
Low-Frequency Pitch Perception in Cochlear Implant Recipients With Normal Hearing in the Contralateral Ear.

Purpose Three experiments were carried out to evaluate the low-frequency pitch perception of adults with unilateral hearing loss who received a cochlear implant (CI). Method Participants were recruited from a cohort of CI users with unilateral hearing loss and normal hearing in the contralateral ear. First, low-frequency pitch perception was assessed for the 5 most apical electrodes at 1, 3, 6, and 12 months after CI activation using an adaptive pitch-matching task. Participants listened with a coding strategy that presents low-frequency temporal fine structure (TFS) and compared the pitch to that of an acoustic target presented to the normal hearing ear. Next, participants listened with an envelope-only, continuous interleaved sampling strategy. Pitch perception was compared between coding strategies to assess the influence of TFS cues on low-frequency pitch perception. Finally, participants completed a vocal pitch-matching task to corroborate the results obtained with the adaptive pitch-matching task. Results Pitch matches roughly corresponded to electrode center frequencies (CFs) in the CI map. Adaptive pitch matches exceeded the CF for the most apical electrode, an effect that was larger for continuous interleaved sampling than TFS. Vocal pitch matches were variable but correlated with the CF of the 3 most apical electrodes. There was no evidence that pitch matches changed between the 1- and 12-month intervals. Conclusions Relatively accurate and asymptotic pitch perception was observed at the 1-month interval, indicating either very rapid acclimatization or the provision of familiar place and rate cues. Early availability of appropriate pitch cues could have played a role in the early improvements in localization and masked speech recognition previously observed in this cohort.
Speech Coding

We analyze the performance of a one-bit digital matched i t e r (DMF) responding to binary signaling through a noisy multipath channel. The output signal-to-noise ratio (SNR,) plays a key role in the analysis. The S N b performance is fully studied for a two-path channel, both fading and non-fading. For the general N-path channel, results are obtained only for the fading case. All results are conditioned on the knowledge of the time delays of all paths, and are valid only for smaIl input signal-to-noise ratio (SNRi). Most of the results have been verified by computer simulations.
Energy Efficient Fully Associative Cache Model

Energy consumption in caches depends on the number of enabled sets/ways/blocks. The optimal energy consumption is the case of one set/one way/one block enabled. This paper proposes an algorithm to map cache line to one block in fully associative cache by XOR’ing the address with constant. Bit selection is applied to the result and the block accessed. Only one block is accessed in this mapping. The proposed model is simulated with SPEC2K benchmarks. The average memory access time is comparable with traditional fully associative cache with energy savings.
Soil Degradation Risk Prediction Integrating RUSLE with Geo-information Techniques, the Case of Northern Shaanxi Province in China

This research integrated the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) with RS, GIS and GPS techniques to quantify soil erosion risk and the northern part of Shaanxi province in China was taken as a case. A system was established for rating soil erodibility, slope length/gradient, rainfall erosivity and conservation practices. The rating values served as inputs into a modified Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) to calculate the risk for soil degradation processes, namely, soil water erosion. Two Landsat TM senses in 1987 and 1999, respectively, were used to produce land use/ cover maps of the study area based on the maximum likelihood classification method. These maps were then used to generate the conservation practice factor in the RUSLE. ERmapper and Arc/Info software were used to manage and manipulate thematic data, to process satellite images and tabular data source. In term of statistic analysis 3985.9 km2 (33.12%) of land area had slight to moderate soil erosion risk, 1583.5 km2 (13.16%) had moderately high soil erosion risk, 2941.4 km2 (24.44%) had high soil erosion risk and 3522.1 km2 (29.27%) of the total land area was in a very high soil erosion risk. The study area, in general, is exposed to high risk of soil water erosion.
Synthesis of N-Substituted Benzamide Derivatives and their Evaluation as Antitumor Agents.

BACKGROUND Histone deacetylases inhibitors (HDACIs) with different chemical structures have been reported to play an important role in the treatment of cancer. OBJECTIVE The study aims to modify the structure of Entinostat (MS-275) to discover new compounds with improved anti-proliferative activities and perform SAR studies of this class of bioactive compounds. METHODS Fourteen N-substituted benzamide derivatives were synthesized and their anti-proliferative activities were tested with four cancer cell lines (MCF-7, A549, K562 and MDA-MB-231) by MTT assay. RESULTS Compared with MS-275, six compounds exhibited comparable or even better anti-proliferative activities against specific/certain cancer cell lines. CONCLUSION The preliminary SARs showed that (ⅰ) the 2-substituent of the penyl ring in the R group and heteroatoms of amide which can chelate with zinc ions is critical to the anti-proliferative activity and (ⅱ) chlorine atom or nitro-group on the same benzene ring will largely decrease their anti-proliferative activity. Molecular docking study illustrated the interaction (binding affinity) between the synthesized compounds and HDAC2 is similar to that of MS-275.
A 3-V, 1.47-mW, 120-MHz comparator for use in a pipeline ADC

A low-voltage and low-power comparator suitable for use in a pipeline analog-to-digital converter is implemented in CMOS 0.8 /spl mu/m technology. The maximum clock frequency with DC inputs is 160 MHz. With a 10 MHz input sine wave at v/sub i+/, DC at v/sub i-/, and a clock frequency of 120 MHz, the measured rise-time, fail-time, delay-time, and power consumption are 1.28 ns, 1.37 ns, 1.60 ns and 1.47 mW, respectively. The optimization issue of the comparator is discussed.
Object region extraction based on graph cut and application in image retrieval

This paper introduces the technique of graph cut into the extraction of object region and applies the corresponding result of object region extraction into the image retrieval based on object region. The main idea of image retrieval based on object region is to use the feature of object region instead of the feature of global image to participate in the image retrieval. In the field of graphics there is a technique called graph cut, which can be used to figure out the contour of object under the interaction of users. The graph cut algorithm can be used to verify the correctness of object region extraction, and the users' input about seeds can be simulated according to the initial object region extracted. The usage of graph cut can make the object region extracted more precisely and thus the performance of image retrieval based on object region can be improved. Experiments show that the object region extraction algorithm based on graph cut is valid and the subsequent image retrieval results accord with the human visual perception much more than the ones without the usage of graph cut.
PEGASUS: Designing a System for Supporting Group Activity.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present the design and first results of the integration of a web‐based system person‐centred group‐activity support system (PEGASUS) in university instruction, as a means for advancing person‐centred learning by supporting group activity. The PEGASUS is expected to help students and teachers in two distinct objectives: enhancing metacognition (students and teachers are supported to identify their learning and teaching preferences, which in turn is used as a framework for reflection), and group formation (the system suggests homogeneous or heterogeneous workgroups, supporting also teacher‐students negotiations of the final group synthesis). Design/methodology/approach – First, a theoretical framework is built to reflect the process of transforming the principles for learner‐centred learning into a pedagogical model which becomes the basis for defining the PEGASUS specifications. Then, qualitative field evidence is provided from the initial integration of the system .