Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Upregulation of Matrix Metalloproteinases in the Metastatic Cascade of Breast Cancer to the Brain

Background: In patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), brain metastasis is a fatal consequence. Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), especially MMP-2 and MMP-9 as the major members of the MMP family, are involved in many different facets of breast cancer metastasis. Aims: In this study, we sought the MMPs expression in the metastatic cascade of TNBC. Methods and results: Primary breast cancer cells known as 4T1T were extracted from the tumor mass following the creation of an animal model of TNBC. The brain metastasis lesions of malignant mice were used to extract highly brain metastatic tumor cells known as 4T1B. Gelatinase zymography and real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) were used to examine the expression of MMPs at the proteomic and transcriptomic levels in 4T1T and 4T1B. Our results indicated; brain metastatic tumor cells greatly increased their expression of MMPs. In 4T1B, MMP-2 and MMP-9 gene expression were upregulated by 4 and 3.4 folds respectively. Zymographic analysis found MMP activity only in 4T1B. Conclusion: These results offer significant information about the massive alteration of MMPs expression in the brain metastasis of TNBC. By analyzing the molecular characteristics of brain metastatic tumor cells, we can understand the molecular and genetic features of brain metastasis and develop tailored therapeutic strategies to combat TNBC brain metastasis.
Study on the application of percutaneous closed pleural brushing combined with cell block technique in the diagnosis of malignant pleural effusion

Abstract Introduction This study was to investigate the diagnostic value of percutaneous closed pleural brushing (CPBR) followed by cell block technique for malignant pleural effusion (MPE) and the predictive efficacy of pleural fluid carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) for epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutations in lung adenocarcinoma patients with MPE. Methods All patients underwent closed pleural biopsy (CPB) and CPBR followed by cell block examination. MPE‐positive diagnostic rates between the two methods were compared. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to determine factors influencing the EGFR mutations. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to analyze the predictive efficacy of pleural fluid CEA for EGFR mutations. Results The cumulative positive diagnostic rates for MPE after single and twice CPBR followed by cell block examination were 80.5% and 89.0%, higher than CPB (45.7%, 54.3%) (P < 0.001). Univariate analysis showed that EGFR mutation was associated with pleural fluid and serum CEA (P < 0.05). Multivariate analysis showed that pleural fluid CEA was an independent risk factor for predicting EGFR mutation (P < 0.001). The area under the curve (AUC) of pleural fluid CEA for EGFR mutation prediction was 0.774, higher than serum CEA (P = 0.043), but no difference with the combined test (P > 0.05). Conclusion Compared with CPB, CPBR followed by the cell block technique can significantly increase the positive diagnostic rate of suspected MPE. CEA testing of pleural fluid after CPBR has a high predictive efficacy for EGFR mutation in lung adenocarcinoma patients with MPE, implying pleural fluid extracted for cell block after CPBR may be an ideal specimen for genetic testing.
The influence of cellphone usage of teenagers' social interactions within the community: A case of Ngummo Nairobi County

We live in a world where we are faced with rapid and dynamic changes in communication technologies. The cell phone is one o f the rapidly growing communication tools in the world. The number of mobile phone users in Kenya currently stands at 29.7million (Communications Commission of Kenya, 2012). Statistics show that 44% of teenagers aged between 15-19 years own a mobile phone while 85% of those aged between 12-19 years are cell phone users. These statistics provide an important background for undertaking a research on teenagers and cell phone. This study looked into the influence of cell phone usage among teenagers on social interactions in communities. There have been a number o f suggested theories and studies that have been contributed to the rising popularity and commonality of cell phones as to how they are affecting the way individuals are interacting in society. The advent of the mobile phone has denied people the opportunity to interact more socially including face to face interactions. People are spending more time on their phones communicating to those within their social circles and ignoring proximate others and adjacent surroundings. A disconnect however exists between the level of social investment in social interactions and cell phone usage occasioning to loss of social capital. This therefore led to the need of undertaking a study to establish and determine how the cell phone usage among teenagers has affected social interactions in communities with a view of coming up with recommendations on how to overcome them. Specifically the study established how independent variables like socialization, communication and entertainment through the phone, had an influence on the social interactions in communities, which is the dependent variable in Ngummo, Nairobi County. Descriptive survey design was used and a sample of 3 estates and 2 schools in Ngummo were selected through stratified sampling and simple random sampling methods. Teenagers including students, teachers, parents and community members of the sampled schools and estates formed the study respondents. Questionnaires with both closed and open ended questions were used to collect data as well as observation and interview methods. The findings from this study established that most of the cell phone usage among teenagers has a negative influence on social interactions within the community.
Stable Isotope Analysis of Human and Faunal Remains in the Western Loess Plateau, Approximately 2000 cal bc

During the second millennium bc, several significant changes were happening in prehistoric societies across Eurasia. For instance, shifts in subsistence practice occurred in north-western China, including the western Loess Plateau. However, the magnitude and nature of this dietary change are unclear and more detailed information and regional studies are needed in order to fully understand the reasons behind this change. In this study, palaeodiet is investigated at three sites (Xiahaishi, Buziping and Buzishan) in the western Loess Plateau, all dating to c.2000 cal bc, through stable isotope analysis of human and faunal remains, in order to explore the socio-economic conditions prior to the subsistence shift. In general, humans and omnivores (Canis and Sus) had diets dominated by millet. Compared to other sites in Gansu Province, the humans and omnivores in this study were more reliant upon millet-based agriculture, and millet-based agriculture was more important and productive in the western Loess Plateau around 2000 cal bc.
Is Increasing Inorganic Fertilizer Use in Sub-Saharan Africa a Profitable Proposition? Evidence from Nigeria

Inorganic fertilizer use across Sub-Saharan Africa is generally considered to be low. Yet, this belief is predicated on the assumption that it is profitable to use rates higher than currently observed. However, there is little rigorous empirical evidence to support this notion. Using a nationally representative panel data set, and with due recognition of the role of risk and uncertainty, this paper empirically estimates the profitability of fertilizer use for maize production in Nigeria. The analysis finds that inorganic fertilizer use in Nigeria is not as low as conventional wisdom suggests. Low marginal physical product and high transportation costs significantly reduce the profitability of fertilizer use. The paper finds evidence that strategies to reduce transportation costs are likely to have a much larger effect on the profitability of fertilizer use than fertilizer subsidies. Apart from reduced transportation costs, other constraints such as timely access to the product; availability of complementary inputs such as improved seeds, irrigation, and credit; as well as good management practices are also necessary for sustained agricultural productivity improvements.
Density-Guided Incremental Dominant Instance Exploration for Two-View Geometric Model Fitting

Existing two-view multi-model fitting methods typically follow a two-step manner, i.e., model generation and selection, without considering their interaction. Therefore, in the first step, these methods have to generate a considerable number of instances in order to cover all desired ones, which not only offers no guarantees, but also introduces unnecessary expensive calculations. To address this challenge, this study presents a new algorithm, termed as D2Fitting, that incrementally explores dominant instances. Particularly, rather than viewing model generation and selection as two disjoint parts, D2Fitting fully considers their interaction, and thus performs these two subroutines alternatively under a simple yet effective optimization framework. This design can avoid generating too many redundant instances, thus reducing computational overhead and allowing the proposed D2Fitting being real-time. Meanwhile, we further design a novel density-guided sampler to sample high-quality minimal subsets during the model generation process, so as to fully exploit the spatial distribution of the input data. Also, to mitigate the influence of noise on the subsets sampled by the proposed sampler, a global-residual optimization strategy is investigated for the minimal subset refinement. With all the ingredients mentioned above, the proposed D2Fitting can accurately estimate the number and parameters of geometric models and efficiently segment the input data simultaneously. Extensive experiments on several public datasets demonstrate the significant superiority of D2Fitting over several state-of-the-arts.
Utilization of a mobile laboratory for storm electricity measurements

Since 1978, we have been developing and using a mobile laboratory to make observations of storms. With our mobile lab, we record electric field, slow and fast electric field changes from lightning, optical transients, return stroke velocity, temperature, pressure, dew point, wind speed and direction, lab position, and video images of clouds and lightning. The mobile lab idea has been key in obtaining new information on several phenomena, e.g., field changes to compare with high-altitude airplane measurements, electrical aspects of tornadic storms, and positive ground flashes. Mobile lab data were critical in an evaluation of the two ground strike location networks that provide scientific and operational data in the United States. We have documented that storms often are more dominated by intracloud (IC) lightning than previously reported. Observations on two tornadic storms show the IC flashes averaged ≥80% and 95% of the total lightning, respectively. Mobile lab and polarization radar data of storms producing wet microbursts in Alabama suggest that high percentages of IC flashes (95%) occur when a larger percentage of the total storm mass is convected above the freezing level. With the recent addition of mobile balloon launch and tracking, we also make soundings of the electric field and meteorological parameters within storms.
Go Beyond RFID: Rethinking the Design of RFID Sensor Tags for Versatile Applications

Designing ultra-low power RFID sensor tags is a major challenge, especially when incorporating a micro-controller (MCU) to operate sensors. While simplifying MCU functionality can reduce power consumption, it has limited effect as the fundamental information transformation is necessary for communication between the RFID reader and the sensor. Unfortunately, information transformation requires baseband sampling and processing, which consumes significant power on passive RFID tags. This paper proposes a novel approach that enables the reader to communicate directly with the sensor, eliminating the need for information transformation of MCU. We address the unique challenges posed by the physical and link layers of the EPC Gen2 protocol and introduce GoodID, a cross-layer design for next-generation RFID sensor tags featuring ultra-low power consumption. We prototype the GoodID tag for proof-of-concept and demonstrate significant power benefits through experimental results.
A Transformer-based Trajectory Prediction Method

The periodic trajectories of people provide an insightful and concise explanation over a long moving history, which helps to predict their future movements. In this paper, we present a Transformer based trajectory prediction method to predict the trajectories of people. First, we combine the spatial contexts of a trajectory with the sequential, temporal, and social contexts of a trajectory. Then, we predict the trajectories of people by applying Transformer based model where we multiply the length of query vector and the length of key vector with the scaling factor of the Transformer in order to make the training process more stable. As a result, our proposed Transformer based trajectory prediction model was effective.
Demonstrating Liability and Trust Metrics for Multi-Actor, Dynamic Edge and Cloud Microservices

Transitioning edge and cloud computing in 5G networks towards service-based architecture increases their complexity as they become even more dynamic and intertwine more actors or delegation levels. In this paper, we demonstrate the Liability-aware security manager Analysis Service (LAS), a framework that uses machine learning techniques to compute liability and trust indicators for service-based architectures such as cloud microservices. Based on the commitments of Service Providers (SPs) and real-time observations collected by a Root Cause Analysis (RCA) tool GRALAF, the LAS computes three categories of liability and trust indicators, specifically, a Commitment Trust Score, Financial Exposure, and Commitment Trends.
5G MEC Architecture for Vulnerable Road Users Management Through Smart City Data Fusion

Enhancing the safety of Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs) poses a significant research challenge in the context of connected mobility and a plethora of technological opportunities trying to balance efficiency and widespread applicability. This paper presents a demo focused on applying 5G Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC) to address this challenge through the combination of commercial mobile devices, public cellular networks, and data fusion between vehicle positioning and city camera infrastructure. The demo showcases the designed system and its experimental evaluation in the Modena Automotive Smart Area (MASA) through the 5G MEC infrastructure of Telecom Italia (TIM) with the aim to build a secure and efficient connected mobility environment.
Software-Defined Wireless Communication Systems for Heterogeneous Architectures

Future cellular networks will be programmable and increasingly software-defined with APIs to hook into the communication stack closer and closer to the physical layer. This allows operators, for example, to plug-in third-party machine learning algorithms to optimize performance. At the same time, this flexibility implies that compute resources cannot be provisioned statically but have to be distributed dynamically during runtime. While the hardware platforms for such systems are available, we lack suitable software frameworks that help to realize such systems. In this demonstration, we present two Open Source projects that fill this gap: FutureSDR, a portable real-time signal processing framework with native support for accelerators (like GPUs and FGPAs); and IPEC, which enables fully automatic composition of multi-accelerator FPGA designs. We believe that these tools - especially in combination with each other - can provide the base for building research prototypes and allow experimentation with software-defined wireless communication systems.
Microdroplet-enabled high-throughput cultivation of vaginal bacteria using cervicovaginal fluids

The human vaginal microbiome (HVM) is closely associated with the health of the host. In particular, bacterial vaginosis, a condition where vaginal lactobacilli are reduced dramatically by an overgrowth of various other bacteria, has been linked to increased risk of sexually transmitted infectious diseases, including HIV, and preterm birth. Recent culture-independent studies leveraging next-generation sequencing technology have revealed that the HVM composition differs between women and changes over time. However, questions remain as to the underlying mechanisms and culture-dependent studies are needed for further elucidation of the HVM’s genotype-phenotype relationships and system-level properties in vivo. In this work, we have adapted a previously developed microdroplet-based high-throughput cultivation platform for the investigation of vaginal bacteria using the cervicovaginal fluid (CVF) as cultivation medium. Using undiluted CVF collected with Softdiscs discs, we observed the growth of L. iners in microdroplets containing CVF pooled from samples with a high prevalence of L. crispatus. Although demonstrated with L. iners, this work establishes a new framework for culturing microorganisms under clinically-relevant conditions ex vivo using minute volumes of host fluids; it can be further extended and adapted for addressing numerous questions about the HVM and other complex microbiomes.
A multiplexed, single-cell sequencing screen identifies compounds that increase neurogenic reprogramming of murine Muller glia

Retinal degeneration in mammals causes permanent loss of vision, due to an inability to regenerate naturally. Some non-mammalian vertebrates show robust regeneration, via Muller glia (MG). We have recently made significant progress in stimulating adult mouse MG to regenerate functional neurons by transgenic expression of the proneural transcription factor Ascl1. While these results showed that MG can serve as an endogenous source of neuronal replacement, the efficacy of this process is limited. With the goal of improving this in mammals, we designed a small molecule screen using sci-Plex, a method to multiplex up to thousands of single nucleus RNA-seq conditions into a single experiment. We used this technology to screen a library of 92 compounds, identified, and validated two that promote neurogenesis in vivo. Our results demonstrate that high-throughput single-cell molecular profiling can substantially improve the discovery process for molecules and pathways that can stimulate neural regeneration and further demonstrate the potential for this approach to restore vision in patients with retinal disease.
Polar ozone depletion : A three-dimensional chemical modeling study of its long-term global impact

The export of ozone-poor air from the polar region following the breakup of the southern hemisphere polar vortex is examined with a three-dimensional chemistry transport model. This volume of depleted ozone, the result of chemical processing during the southern wintertime and springtime, is long-lived in the lower stratosphere and can affect ozone concentrations at southern middle latitudes following its transport out of the polar region. Two 5-year simulations were performed utilizing the NASA Langley Research Center three-dimensional chemistry transport model. One simulation included only gas phase and sulfate aerosol chemistry, while the second simulation also included reactions occurring on polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs). The model-calculated seasonal variation of southern hemispheric O3, HNO3, and active chlorine as a result of PSC chemistry is in reasonable accord with satellite observations. The model reveals that ozone is transported equatorward following the breakup of the polar vortex to approximately 20°S latitude by the first southern summer following the activation of PSC chemistry. A residual column-integrated ozone depletion of 9% remained by the springtime of the second year. In subsequent years, the southern ozone hole itself increased in depth from a column-integrated depletion of 37% in the first year to 43% in the fifth year with respect to the baseline simulation with no PSC chemistry. The isopleths of column-integrated ozone loss showed a slow equatorward movement during the 5-year run. These model results, in general agreement with earlier model studies using parameterized chemistry, show that a potential exists for a long-term accumulation of ozone loss in the southern polar region and a gradual increase in the global impact of polar ozone depletion. Comparison with satellite and ground-based observations of ozone trends at midlatitudes suggests that ozone dilution may be a contributing factor. Experiments were performed to examine the sensitivity of the rate of local ozone recovery following the breakup of the vortex to the depth and spatial extent of the denitrification of polar air. These simulations revealed that deeper denitrification led to a more persistent column-integrated ozone loss and a slight increase in its equatorward progression.
FuSA2 Touch Display: A furry and scalable multi-touch display

We propose a furry and scalable multi-touch display called the “FuSA2 Touch Display. ” The furry type of tactile sensation of this surface affords various interactions such as stroking or clawing. The system utilizes plastic fiber optic bundles to realize a furry-type texture. The system can show visual feedback by projection and detects multi-touch input. We implemented a 24-inch display, and found that our implemented display encourages users to interact with it in various actions.
Channels with cost constraints: Strong converse and dispersion

This paper shows the strong converse and the dispersion of memoryless channels with cost constraints. The analysis is based on a new non-asymptotic converse bound expressed in terms of the distribution of a random variable termed the b-tilted information density, which plays a role similar to that of the information density in channel coding without cost constraints. We also analyze the fundamental limits of lossy joint-source-channel coding over channels with cost constraints.
Improved Copy-Move Forgery Detection Using Interest Point Detectors

: The main problem in the real world is to determine whether an image is forged or not. Any alteration in an original image in bad faith is called image forgery. Copy–Move (region duplication) is a common attack in which at least one part of an image is copied and pasted onto another area of the same image to add or remove an object. Detection methods use either block-based methods, or point-based methods. Here we propose a novel copy-move forgery detection scheme that can accurately localize the tampered regions. A new interest point detector is proposed in which the detected key points adaptively cover the entire image, even low contrast regions, based on the uniqueness metric. An adaptive matching is performed to find the similar key points. Moreover, a new filtering algorithm is utilized, which can effectively remove the falsely matched regions. Then the whole procedure is iterated regarding the prior information.
FPGA IMPLEMENTATIONS OF THE DES AND TRIPLE-DES MASKED AGAINST POWER ANALYSIS ATTACKS

This paper presents FPGA implementations of the DES and Triple-DES with improved security against power analysis attacks. The proposed designs use Boolean masking, a previously introduced technique to protect smart card implementations from these attacks. We demonstrate that recent reconfigurable devices offer excellent opportunities to implement a masked DES. In particular, we use the large embedded memories available in the Xilinx Virtex-II pror FPGAs to store precomputed and masked substitution tables. Compared to an unprotected DES design, our proposal only requires 45% more logic resources and 128 Kbit of memory and yields a throughput of about 1 Gbit/sec.