Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hypertension and Left Ventricular Hypertrophy : the 4e Effects of Eplerenone, Enalapril, and Eplerenone/enalapril in Patients with Essential Effects of Eplerenone, Enalapril, and Eplerenone/enalapril in Patients with Essential Hypertension and Left Ventricular Hypertrophy the 4e–left Ventricular Hyp

Background—Elevated renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system activity correlates with left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) and cardiovascular risk, but the relative contributions of angiotensin II and aldosterone remain unclear. This study compared LVH regression during treatment with the selective aldosterone blocker eplerenone, enalapril, and their combination in patients with hypertension. Methods and Results—A 9-month, double-blind, randomized study was performed in 202 patients with LVH and hypertension who received eplerenone 200 mg daily, enalapril 40 mg daily, or eplerenone 200 mg and enalapril 10 mg daily. At week 8, hydrochlorothiazide 12.5 to 25 mg and/or amlodipine 10 mg was added if diastolic blood pressure was Ͼ90 mm Hg. Change in left ventricular (LV) mass as assessed by MRI was the primary end point. Change in blood pressure, renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system hormones, albuminuria, and safety were also assessed. Eplerenone significantly reduced LV mass from baseline (Ϫ14.5Ϯ3.36 g; nϭ50) similarly to enalapril (Ϫ19.7Ϯ3.20 g; nϭ54; Pϭ0.258), but eplerenone/enalapril (Ϫ27.2Ϯ3.39 g; nϭ49) was more effective than eplerenone alone (Pϭ0.007). All treatments reduced systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure from baseline (eplerenone, Ϫ23.8 and systolic blood pressure compared with eplerenone alone). Cough was more common with enalapril than with eplerenone (Pϭ0.033), and elevated potassium was more common with eplerenone. Conclusions—Eplerenone was as effective as enalapril in LVH regression and blood pressure control. The combination of eplerenone and enalapril was more effective in reducing LV mass and systolic blood pressure than eplerenone alone.
Sagging and Hogging Strengthening of Continuous Reinforced Concrete Beams Using CarbonFiber-Reinforced Polymer Sheets

The testing of 11 reinforced concrete 2-span beams strengthened in flexure with externally bonded carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) sheets is reported. The beams were classified into 2 groups according to the arrangement of the internal steel reinforcement. Each group included 1 unstrengthened control beam. The main parameters studied were the position, length, and number of CFRP layers. External strengthening using CFRP sheets was found to increase the beam load capacity. All strengthened beams exhibited less ductility compared with the unstrengthened control beams, however, and showed undesirable sudden failure modes. There was an optimum number of CFRP layers beyond which there was no further enhancement in the beam capacity. Extending the CFRP sheet length to cover the entire hogging/sagging zones did not prevent peeling failure of the CFRP sheets, which was the dominant factor mode of beams tested.
Two-dimensional ultrasound receive array using an angle-tuned Fabry-Perot polymer film sensor for transducer field characterization and transmission ultrasound imaging

A 2-D optical ultrasound receive array has been investigated. The transduction mechanism is based upon the detection of acoustically induced changes in the optical thickness of a thin polymer film acting as a Fabry-Perot sensing interferometer (FPI). By illuminating the sensor with a large-area laser beam and mechanically scanning a photodiode across the reflected output beam, while using a novel angle-tuned phase bias control system to optimally set the FPI working point, a notional 2-D ultrasound array was synthesized. To demonstrate the concept, 1-D and 2-D ultrasound field distributions produced by planar 3.5-MHz and focused 5-MHz PZT ultrasound transducers were mapped. The system was also evaluated by performing transmission ultrasound imaging of a spatially calibrated target. The "array" aperture, defined by the dimensions of the incident optical field, was elliptical, of dimensions 16 /spl times/ 12 mm and spatially sampled in steps of 0.1 mm or 0.2 mm. Element sizes, defined by the photodiode aperture, of 0.8, 0.4, and 0.2 mm were variously used for these experiments. Two types of sensor were evaluated. One was a discrete 75-/spl mu/m-thick polyethylene terephthalate FPI bonded to a polymer backing stub which had a wideband peak noise-equivalent pressure of 6.5 kPa and an acoustic bandwidth 12 MHz. The other was a 40-/spl mu/m Parylene film FPI which was directly vacuum-deposited onto a glass backing stub and had an NEP of 8 kPa and an acoustic bandwidth of 17.5 MHz. It is considered that this approach offers an alternative to piezoelectric ultrasound arrays for transducer field characterization, transmission medical and industrial ultrasound imaging, biomedical photoacoustic imaging, and ultrasonic nondestructive testing.
Tool-use: An open window into body representation and its plasticity

ABSTRACT Over the last decades, scientists have questioned the origin of the exquisite human mastery of tools. Seminal studies in monkeys, healthy participants and brain-damaged patients have primarily focused on the plastic changes that tool-use induces on spatial representations. More recently, we focused on the modifications tool-use must exert on the sensorimotor system and highlighted plastic changes at the level of the body representation used by the brain to control our movements, i.e., the Body Schema. Evidence is emerging for tool-use to affect also more visually and conceptually based representations of the body, such as the Body Image. Here we offer a critical review of the way different tool-use paradigms have been, and should be, used to try disentangling the critical features that are responsible for tool incorporation into different body representations. We will conclude that tool-use may offer a very valuable means to investigate high-order body representations and their plasticity.
Warped Wilson line DBI inflation

We propose a novel inflationary scenario in string theory in which the inflaton field is a Wilson line degree of freedom in the worldvolume of a probe Dp-brane, in a warped flux compactification. Kinetic terms for Wilson line fields on the world volume of a D-brane take a nonstandard Dirac-Born-Infeld (DBI) form. Thus, we work in the framework of DBI inflation. This extends the original slow roll Wilson line inflationary scenario, where only the quadratic piece was considered. Warped DBI Wilson line inflation offers an attractive alternative to ordinary (position field) DBI inflation, inasmuch as observational and theoretical constraints get considerably relaxed. Besides the standard large non-Gaussianities in DBI scenarios, it is also possible to achieve an observable amount of gravitational waves.
Fingerprinting of polysaccharides attacked by hydroxyl radicals in vitro and in the cell walls of ripening pear fruit.

Hydroxyl radicals (*OH) may cause non-enzymic scission of polysaccharides in vivo, e.g. in plant cell walls and mammalian connective tissues. To provide a method for detecting the action of endogenous *OH in vivo, we investigated the products formed when polysaccharides were treated with *OH (generated in situ by ascorbate-H(2)O(2)-Cu(2+) mixtures) followed by NaB(3)H(4). Treatment with *OH increased the number of NaB(3)H(4)-reacting groups present in citrus pectin, homogalacturonan and tamarind xyloglucan. This increase is attributed partly to the formation of glycosulose and glycosulosuronic acid residues, which are then reduced back to the original (but radioactive) sugar residues and their epimers by NaB(3)H(4). The glycosulose and glycosulosuronic acid residues were stable for >16 h at 20 degrees C in ethanol or buffer (pH 4.7), but were destroyed in alkali. Driselase-digestion of the radiolabelled polysaccharides yielded characteristic patterns of (3)H-products, which included galactose and galacturonate from pectin, and isoprimeverose, galactose, glucose and arabinose from xyloglucan. Pectin yielded at least eight (3)H-labelled anionic products, separable by electrophoresis at pH 3.5. The patterns of radioactive products form useful 'fingerprints' by which *OH-attacked polysaccharides may be recognized. Applied to the cell walls of ripening pear (Pyrus communis) fruit, the method gave evidence for progressive *OH radical attack on polysaccharides during the softening process.
Tuberculosis: From an incurable scourge to a curable disease - journey over a millennium

Globally, tuberculosis (TB) still remains a major public health problem. India is a high TB burden country contributing to 26 per cent of global TB burden. During 1944-1980, TB became treatable and short-course chemotherapy emerged as the standard of care. When TB elimination seemed possible in the early 1980s, global human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) pandemic resulted in a resurgence of TB. Widespread occurrence of multidrug-resistant and extensively drug-resistant TB (M/XDR-TB) is threatening to destabilize TB control globally. Atypical clinical presentation still poses a challenge. Disseminated, miliary and cryptic TB are being increasingly recognized. Availability of newer imaging modalities has allowed more efficient localization of lesions and use of image guided procedures has facilitated definitive diagnosis of extrapulmonary TB. Introduction of liquid culture, rapid drug-susceptibility testing (DST), molecular diagnostic methods has helped in rapid detection, speciation and DST profiling of Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates. While treatment of TB and HIV-TB co-infection has become simpler, efforts are on to shorten the treatment duration. However, drug toxicities and drug-drug interactions still constitute a significant challenge. Recently, there has been better understanding of anti-TB drug-induced hepatotoxicity and its frequent confounding by viral hepatitis, especially, in resource-constrained settings; and immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome (IRIS) in HIV-TB. Quest for newer biomarkers for predicting a durable cure, relapse, discovery/repurposing of newer anti-TB drugs, development of newer vaccines continues to achieve the goal of eliminating TB altogether by 2050.
Which Doctor?: Determinants of Utilization of Formal and Informal Health Care in Postconflict Liberia

BackgroundLiberia is rebuilding its health system after a lengthy civil war in which traditional health care was the only reliable source of care. ObjectiveThis study explored individual, village, and health system factors related to the utilization of health clinics versus informal providers (eg, healers, medicine sellers) in Liberia. Research Design, Participants, and MeasuresThis was a cross-sectional population-representative survey of 1435 adults living in rural Nimba County, Liberia. Participants were asked about past year visits to traditional and formal health care providers and demographics, health, and trauma indicators. The association between formal and informal visits and potential determinants was estimated in separate models using generalized estimating equations to adjust for village-level clustering. ResultsThe median number of visits in the past year to formal and informal providers was 3 and 10, respectively. Clinic visits increased with younger age and female sex, past trauma exposure, the number of traditional healers, and the presence of a facility dispenser. Frequency of informal visits increased with poor self-reported mental and physical health, the presence of facility fees and decreased with literacy and wealth and satisfaction with the formal health system. ConclusionsRural Liberians use both formal and informal health care extensively and as complements rather than substitutes. The reliance on traditional medicine to address health needs is of concern in a country with a high disease burden. Health system investments that build public confidence in the health system may help shift demand from informal to formal health care.
Dibenzo[def,p]Chrysene (DBC) Suppresses Antibody Formation in Spleen Cells Following Oral Exposures of Mice

Dibenzo[def,p]chrysene (DBC) is a potent environmental carcinogen in rodents, fish, and human cells examined in culture. There are numerous similarities between the patterns of cytochrome P-450 (P450) activation of DBC and its covalent binding to DNA and proteins with another polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH), 7,12-dimethylbenz[a]anthracene (DMBA). Our lab has previously shown that DMBA produces immunosuppression in rodents and human cell systems. Therefore, the purpose of these studies was to examine the immunotoxicity of DBC in a rodent model that was found to be sensitive to the immunosuppressive effects of DMBA. Data showed that DBC had similar potency to DMBA in producing suppression of a T-dependent antibody response (TDAR) and altered spleen cell subsets in a similar manner as DMBA when DMBA was given by gavage for 5 d in corn oil to mice at doses of 1–100 mg/kg total cumulative doses. T-cell-independent antigen (TNP-Ficoll) responses were quantitatively less sensitive to DBC suppression. It was also found that as with DMBA, DBC produced a persistent immunosuppression, which lasted for at least 4 wk following dosing with a novel pill method for self-administration of DBC. In conclusion, DBC appears to possess many of the same characteristics of DMBA in terms of its immunotoxicity.
Localization and Expression of Hsp27 and αB-Crystallin in Rat Primary Myocardial Cells during Heat Stress In Vitro

Neonatal rat primary myocardial cells were subjected to heat stress in vitro, as a model for investigating the distribution and expression of Hsp27 and αB-crystallin. After exposure to heat stress at 42°C for different durations, the activities of enzymes expressed during cell damage increased in the supernatant of the heat-stressed myocardial cells from 10 min, and the pathological lesions were characterized by karyopyknosis and acute degeneration. Thus, cell damage was induced at the onset of heat stress. Immunofluorescence analysis showed stronger positive signals for both Hsp27 and αB-crystallin from 10 min to 240 min of exposure compared to the control cells. According to the Western blotting results, during the 480 min of heat stress, no significant variation was found in Hsp27 and αB-crystallin expression; however, significant differences were found in the induction of their corresponding mRNAs. The expression of these small heat shock proteins (sHsps) was probably delayed or overtaxed due to the rapid consumption of sHsps in myocardial cells at the onset of heat stress. Our findings indicate that Hsp27 and αB-crystallin do play a role in the response of cardiac cells to heat stress, but the details of their function remain to be investigated.
Case of Primary Aldosteronism With Discordant Hormonal and Computed Tomographic Findings

A nonsmoking 46-year-old male was referred to our hypertension excellence center at the Hospital Georges Pompidou in Paris because of hypertension associated with hypokalemia. His past medical history listed asthma treated by inhaled corticosteroid therapy, corneal transplant, and prostatic adenoma. He had neither been diagnosed with diabetes mellitus nor lipid disorder. His body mass index was 24.7 kg/m2. No family history of cardiovascular disease was known. Hypertension was diagnosed incidentally in 2011 at the age of 43 when he consulted his physician for a sport certification. Maximum systolic blood pressure was 190 mm Hg, blood test at that time revealed hypokalemia, with a minimum potassium level of 3 mmol/L. At the time of his first consultation at our department, the patient was already being treated with amlodipine and perindopril once a day. In addition, he received corticoid inhalation for asthma and an α-blocker (tamsulosin) for his prostate adenoma. The patient complained of headaches and dizziness. Diurnal ambulatory blood pressure was very high, 167/112 mm Hg. Blood potassium level was 2.9 mmol/L with inappropriate urinary excretion of potassium (93 mmol/d). Fasting plasma glucose was 5.7 mmol/L, and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol was 3.88 mmol/L. The patient was diagnosed with grade 3 hypertension and hypokalemia. Secondary causes of hypertension were explored, and treatment was modified accordingly. Amlodipine and perindopril administration was terminated, and urapidil was prescribed. Despite oral potassium supplements of 9 g/d, potassium levels remained at 3.0 mmol/L. Estimated glomerular filtration rate was 88 mL min−1 1.73 m−2, and urinary potassium excretion remained elevated (51 mmol/d). Renin and aldosterone …
Compressive sensing based differential channel feedback for massive MIMO

Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) is becoming a key technology for future 5G wireless communications. Channel feedback for massive MIMO is challenging due to the substantially increased dimension of MIMO channel matrix. In this letter, we propose a compressive sensing (CS) based differential channel feedback scheme to reduce the feedback overhead. Specifically, the temporal correlation of time-varying channels is exploited to generate the differential channel impulse response (CIR) between two CIRs in neighboring time slots, which enjoys a much stronger sparsity than the original sparse CIRs. Thus, the base station can recover the differential CIR from the highly compressed differential CIR under the framework of CS theory. Simulations show that the proposed scheme reduces the feedback overhead by about 20\% compared with the direct CS-based scheme.
Chemical recycling of mixed plastics of pyrolysis

Most plastics are produced from oil and have a high potential as hydrocarbon sources for the chemical industry. Pyrolysis is a practicable way to pyrolyze mixed plastics. The fluidized bed pyrolysis has turned out to be particularly advantageous. Twenty-five to 45% of product gas with a high heating value and 30–50% of an oil rich in aromatics could be recovered. The oil is comparable to that of a mixture of light benzene and bituminous coal tar. Up to 60% of ethene and propene are produced by using mixed polyolefins as feedstock. Under appropriate conditions the pyrolysis could be successful on the market. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Fine-Tuning Enhancer Models to Predict Transcriptional Targets across Multiple Genomes

Networks of regulatory relations between transcription factors (TF) and their target genes (TG)- implemented through TF binding sites (TFBS)- are key features of biology. An idealized approach to solving such networks consists of starting from a consensus TFBS or a position weight matrix (PWM) to generate a high accuracy list of candidate TGs for biological validation. Developing and evaluating such approaches remains a formidable challenge in regulatory bioinformatics. We perform a benchmark study on 34 Drosophila TFs to assess existing TFBS and cis-regulatory module (CRM) detection methods, with a strong focus on the use of multiple genomes. Particularly, for CRM-modelling we investigate the addition of orthologous sites to a known PWM to construct phyloPWMs and we assess the added value of phylogenentic footprinting to predict contextual motifs around known TFBSs. For CRM-prediction, we compare motif conservation with network-level conservation approaches across multiple genomes. Choosing the optimal training and scoring strategies strongly enhances the performance of TG prediction for more than half of the tested TFs. Finally, we analyse a 35th TF, namely Eyeless, and find a significant overlap between predicted TGs and candidate TGs identified by microarray expression studies. In summary we identify several ways to optimize TF-specific TG predictions, some of which can be applied to all TFs, and others that can be applied only to particular TFs. The ability to model known TF-TG relations, together with the use of multiple genomes, results in a significant step forward in solving the architecture of gene regulatory networks.
Paravertebral block as a promising analgesic modality for managing post-thoracotomy pain.

PURPOSE Analgesia following thoracotomy is routinely accomplished using epidural blockage performed by anesthesiologists. More effective pain control can be achieved with continuous paravertebral blockage performed by thoracic surgeons. We aimed to retrospectively analyze the efficacy of paravertebral blockage for managing post-thoracotomy pain. METHODS The study included 125 patients who underwent continuous paravertebral blockage for the following types of thoracic surgery: video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery(n = 87), anterior axillary thoracotomy (n = 21), posterolateral thoracotomy (n = 16), and median sternotomy with additional left thoracotomy (n = 1). We retrospectively evaluated the analgesic effects of continuous paravertebral blockage by assessing whether a good cough effort could be performed and whether an additional painkiller was given as a rescue medication. RESULTS About 115 patients could perform a good cough effort to expectorate sputum immediately after extubation in the operating room. Six patients tolerated postoperative pain well without any oral or rectal non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). For97 patients postoperative NSAIDs could control thoracotomy pain well. Twenty-two patients were given an additional painkiller stronger than NSAIDs. Three patients complained of nausea postoperatively. CONCLUSION Adequate post-thoracotomy pain control was accomplished by continuous paravertebral blockage, with few complications.
Mural inflammatory hyperenhancement in MRI of giant cell (temporal) arteritis resolves under corticosteroid treatment.

OBJECTIVE To determine the effect of corticosteroid treatment on mural inflammatory hyperenhancement in MRI in GCA. METHODS MRI of the superficial temporal artery with sub-millimetre in-plane spatial resolution (195 x 260 microm) was performed in 17 patients with proven GCA at the initiation of corticosteroid treatment and after 16 months of therapy. Visual MRI scores for mural inflammation were correlated with clinical and laboratory findings. RESULTS Intensity of inflammatory hyperenhancement decreased significantly under corticosteroid therapy (2.3 +/- 0.6 vs 0.5 +/- 0.6, P < 0.001, with MRI score >2 indicating vasculitis). This finding correlated with the clinical and serological remission in 15/17 patients. Of the two patients with active disease, one had persisting mural inflammation in MRI indicative of relapsing disease. The other patient presenting with signs of polymyalgia rheumatica had no inflammatory changes of the superficial temporal arteries on MRI scan at follow-up. CONCLUSIONS Mural contrast enhancement in high-resolution MRI is pronounced in active disease and decreases under corticosteroid treatment, correlating well with laboratory remission.
A taxonomy of broadcast indexing schemes for multi channel data dissemination in mobile databases

Data broadcasting strategy is known as a scalable way to disseminate information to mobile users. However, with a very large set of broadcast items, the query access time of mobile clients raise accordingly, due to high waiting time for mobile clients to find their data of interest. One possible solution is to split the database information into several broadcast channels. In this paper, we introduce taxonomy of index dissemination for multibroadcast channel based on B* tree structure. We consider three indexing schemes namely: (i) nonreplicated indexing scheme (NRI), (ii) partially-replicated indexing scheme (PRI), and (iii) fully-replicated indexing scheme (FRI). Simulation model is developed to find out the access time performance of each scheme.