Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of the Antiarrhythmic Drug Dofetilide on Transmural Dispersion of Repolarization in Ventriculum. A Computer Modeling Study

Dofetilide is a class-Ill drug that inhibits the rapid component of the delayed potassium current (IKr). Experimental studies have shown that the different layers of ventricular muscle present differences in action potential duration (APD) and different responses to class III agents. It has been suggested that it contributes to APD heterogeneity in the ventricles. However, in vivo studies suggest that the strong cellular coupling reduces APD dispersion in intact heart. The aim of this paper is to study the effect of dofetilide on the action potentials (APs) in isolated ventricular cells and on APD dispersion in a strand of ventricular tissue. A mathematical model of dofetilide effects on IKr has been developed and incorporated into the Luo-Rudy dynamic model of ventricular AP. Our results show that dofetilide induces in midmyocardium cells a faster time-course inhibition of IKr than in endocardial or epicardial cells, and periods of instability with beat-to-beat APs variability. This behavior could favor temporal dispersion of repolarization between the different cells. The results also indicate that although dofetilide increases, the transmural gradient of APD in the ventricular wall, early after depolarizations (EADs) did not appear even under strong uncoupling conditions. However, reduced repolarization reserve favors the induction of EADs, even under normal coupling conditions.
The Simulated Gambling Paradigm Applied to Young Adults: An Examination of University Students' Performance

Simulated gambling tasks have become popular as sensitive tools for identifying individuals with real-time impairment in decision making. Various clinical samples, especially patients with damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, perform poorly on these tasks. The patients typically persist in choosing risky (disadvantageous) card decks instead of switching to safer (advantageous) decks. In terms of Damasio's (1994) somatic marker hypothesis, the poor performance stems from defective integration of emotional and rational aspects of decision making. Less information is available about performance in healthy populations, particularly young adults. After administering a computerized gambling task to 141 university students, we found that individuals in this population also tend to prefer disadvantageous decks to advantageous decks. The results indicate that performance is governed primarily by the frequency of positive outcomes on a trial-by-trial basis rather than by the accumulation of winnings in the longer term. These findings are discussed in light of the cognitive literature pertaining to the simulated gambling paradigm.
Optimization of the Cutting Parameters for Drilling Magnesium Alloy AZ 91

Abstract In this study, machinability of AZ 91D magnesium alloy, which has been widely used in automotive and aircraft industries, was investigated by using HSS and carbide tools at dry cutting conditions. Taguchi's L18 (2**1 3**2) mixed model was used for the experiments. Drilling parameters such as feed rate, spindle speed and cutting tool were optimized according to the multiple responses (diametral error, circularity and surface roughness) by grey relational analysis. The effects of machining parameters and their interactions on the hole diameter, circularity and surface roughness were determined. The analysis of Taguchi and ANOVA indicated that the influence of drill material on the surface roughness of the drilled hole was high, but on the hole diameter and circularity it was low. Furthermore, the results of grey relational analysis revealed that optimal combination of the drilling parameters (0.3 mm/rev feed rate, carbide tool and 3000 rpm spindle speed) can be used to obtain the minimum diametral error, circularity error and surface roughness.
Modeling evolution of hydrogen bonding and stabilization of transition states in the process of cocaine hydrolysis catalyzed by human butyrylcholinesterase

Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical (QM/MM) calculations were performed on the prereactive enzyme‐substrate complex, transition states, intermediates, and product involved in the process of human butyrylcholinesterase (BChE)‐catalyzed hydrolysis of (−)‐cocaine. The computational results consistently reveal a unique role of the oxyanion hole (consisting of G116, G117, and A199) in BChE‐catalyzed hydrolysis of cocaine, compared to acetylcholinesterase (AChE)‐catalyzed hydrolysis of acetylcholine. During BChE‐catalyzed hydrolysis of cocaine, only G117 has a hydrogen bond with the carbonyl oxygen (O31) of the cocaine benzoyl ester in the prereactive BChE‐cocaine complex, and the NH groups of G117 and A199 are hydrogen‐bonded with O31 of cocaine in all of the transition states and intermediates. Surprisingly, the NH hydrogen of G116 forms an unexpected hydrogen bond with the carboxyl group of E197 side chain and, therefore, is not available to form a hydrogen bond with O31 of cocaine in the acylation. The NH hydrogen of G116 is only partially available to form a weak hydrogen bond with O31 of cocaine in some structures involved in the deacylation. The change of the estimated hydrogen‐bonding energy between the oxyanion hole and O31 of cocaine during the reaction process demonstrates how the protein environment can affect the energy barrier for each step of the BChE‐catalyzed hydrolysis of cocaine. These insights concerning the effects of the oxyanion hole on the energy barriers provide valuable clues on how to rationally design BChE mutants with a higher catalytic activity for the hydrolysis of (−)‐cocaine. Proteins 2006. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
The Human RVB Complex Is Required for Efficient Transcription of Type I Interferon-Stimulated Genes

ABSTRACT Type I interferons (IFNs) stimulate transcription through a latent heterotrimeric transcription factor composed of tyrosine-phosphorylated STAT1 and STAT2 and the DNA binding partner IRF9, with STAT2 contributing a critical transactivation domain. Human RVB1 and RVB2, which are highly conserved AAA+ ATP binding proteins contained in chromatin-remodeling complexes such as Ino80, SNF2-related CBP activator protein (SRCAP), and Tip60/NuA4, interacted with the transactivation domain of STAT2 in the nuclei of IFN-stimulated cells. RNA interference (RNAi) experiments demonstrated that RVB proteins were required for robust activation of IFN-α-stimulated genes (ISGs). The requirement for RVB proteins was specific to IFN-α/STAT2 signaling; transcription of tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α)- and IFN-γ-driven genes was not affected by RVB1 depletion. Using RNAi-based depletion, we assessed the involvement of catalytic subunits of the RVB-containing Tip60, BRD8, Ino80, SRCAP, and URI complexes. No component other than RVB1/2 was uniquely required for ISG induction, suggesting that RVB1/2 functions as part of an as yet unidentified complex. Chromatin immunoprecipitation assays indicated that RVB1/2 was required for recruitment of RNA polymerase II (Pol II) to ISG promoters but was dispensable for STAT2 recruitment to chromatin. We hypothesize that an RVB1/2 chromatin-remodeling complex is required for efficient Pol II recruitment and initiation at ISG promoters and is recruited through interaction with the STAT2 transactivation domain.
Feasibility of Minilaparotomy versus Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy for Day Surgery: A Prospective Randomised Study

Background and Aims: Minilaparotomy (MC) and laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC) are commonly applied surgical techniques in the management of symptomatic gallstone disease. Both techniques are used in day surgery patients, but to our knowledge MC and LC have not been compared in randomised trials as day surgery procedures. Material and Methods: In this randomised parallel group clinical trial we compared the success rate of day surgery of MC with that of LC in 60 consecutive patients with non-complicated symptomatic gallstones presented for elective surgery at the Kuusankoski District Hospital (n = 38) and the Kuopio University Hospital (n = 22). Twenty nine patients underwent MC and 31 LC. The patients' outcome was recorded up to four weeks after the operation. Results: The success rate as a day surgery for MC was 66% (19/29) and that for LC 55% (17/31) with no difference between the two groups. Chronic cholecystitis, postoperative nausea and vomiting were significant variables associated with failure in day surgery. There was no difference between the two groups in operation time, perioperative bleeding, conversion to conventional open cholecystectomy (one with MC and three with LC), length of hospital stay or sick leave. Three patients developed superficial infection (two with MC and one with LC). One patient with conversion in the LC-group developed a common bile duct stricture and was readmitted at the 10th postoperative day. Discussion: Both MC and LC are feasible surgical techniques for day surgery. However, appropriate prevention and prompt management of established postoperative nausea and vomiting and careful patient selection are important aspects for success of short-stay approach. If there is a sign of chronic cholecystitis preoperatively, it might be considered as a contraindication for day surgery.
Design of a semantic parser with support to ellipsis resolution in a Chinese spoken language dialogue system

In this paper, a semantic parser with support to ellipsis resolution in a Chinese spoken language dialogue system is proposed. The grammar and parsing strategy of this parser is designed to address the characteristics of spoken language and to support the ellipsis resolution. Namely, it parses the user utterance with a domain-specific semantic grammar based on a template-filling approach. Syntactic constraints extracted by a Generalized LR parser are also used in the parsing process. With a paradigm of two-state bottom-up parsing and a scoring scheme, the ellipsis resolution module is integrated into the parser seamlessly. The parsing result is represented by a linked structure of semantic frames, which is convenient to both the parser and its successive components of the dialogue system.
Variable selection for semiparametric regression models with iterated penalisation

Semiparametric regression models with multiple covariates are commonly encountered. When there are covariates that are not associated with a response variable, variable selection may lead to sparser models, more lucid interpretations and more accurate estimation. In this study, we adopt a sieve approach for the estimation of nonparametric covariate effects in semiparametric regression models. We adopt a two-step iterated penalisation approach for variable selection. In the first step, a mixture of Lasso and group Lasso penalties are employed to conduct the first-round variable selection and obtain the initial estimate. In the second step, a mixture of weighted Lasso and weighted group Lasso penalties, with weights constructed using the initial estimate, are employed for variable selection. We show that the proposed iterated approach has the variable selection consistency property, even when the number of unknown parameters diverges with sample size. Numerical studies, including simulation and analysis of a diabetes data set, show satisfactory performance of the proposed approach.
Teenage pregnancy and social disadvantage: systematic review integrating controlled trials and qualitative studies

Objectives To determine the impact on teenage pregnancy of interventions that address the social disadvantage associated with early parenthood and to assess the appropriateness of such interventions for young people in the United Kingdom. Design Systematic review, including a statistical meta-analysis of controlled trials on interventions for early parenthood and a thematic synthesis of qualitative studies that investigated the views on early parenthood of young people living in the UK. Data sources 12 electronic bibliographic databases, five key journals, reference lists of relevant studies, study authors, and experts in the field. Review methods Two independent reviewers assessed the methodological quality of studies and abstracted data. Results Ten controlled trials and five qualitative studies were included. Controlled trials evaluated either early childhood interventions or youth development programmes. The overall pooled effect size showed that teenage pregnancy rates were 39% lower among individuals receiving an intervention than in those receiving standard practice or no intervention (relative risk 0.61; 95% confidence interval 0.48 to 0.77). Three main themes associated with early parenthood emerged from the qualitative studies: dislike of school; poor material circumstances and unhappy childhood; and low expectations for the future. Comparison of these factors related to teenage pregnancy with the content of the programmes used in the controlled trials indicated that both early childhood interventions and youth development programmes are appropriate strategies for reducing unintended teenage pregnancies. The programmes aim to promote engagement with school through learning support, ameliorate unhappy childhood through guidance and social support, and raise aspirations through career development and work experience. However, none of these approaches directly tackles all the societal, community, and family level factors that influence young people’s routes to early parenthood. Conclusions A small but reliable evidence base supports the effectiveness and appropriateness of early childhood interventions and youth development programmes for reducing unintended teenage pregnancy. Combining the findings from both controlled trials and qualitative studies provides a strong evidence base for informing effective public policy.
A 588-Gb/s LDPC Decoder Based on Finite-Alphabet Message Passing

An ultrahigh throughput low-density parity-check (LDPC) decoder with an unrolled full-parallel architecture is proposed, which achieves the highest decoding throughput compared to previously reported LDPC decoders in the literature. The decoder benefits from a serial message-transfer approach between the decoding stages to alleviate the well-known routing congestion problem in parallel LDPC decoders. Furthermore, a finite-alphabet message passing algorithm is employed to replace the VN update rule of the standard min-sum (MS) decoder with lookup tables, which are designed in a way that maximizes the mutual information between decoding messages. The proposed algorithm results in an architecture with reduced bit-width messages, leading to a significantly higher decoding throughput and to a lower area compared to an MS decoder when serial message transfer is used. The architecture is placed and routed for the standard MS reference decoder and for the proposed finite-alphabet decoder using a custom pseudo-hierarchical backend design strategy to further alleviate routing congestions and to handle the large design. Postlayout results show that the finite-alphabet decoder with the serial message-transfer architecture achieves a throughput as large as 588 Gb/s with an area of 16.2 mm2 and dissipates an average power of 22.7 pJ per decoded bit in a 28-nm fully depleted silicon on isulator library. Compared to the reference MS decoder, this corresponds to 3.1 times smaller area and 2 times better energy efficiency.
How General Practitioners and Their Patients Adhere to Osteoporosis Management: A Follow-Up Survey among Czech General Practitioners

Introduction: General practitioners (GPs) are key participants in osteoporosis (OP) management. The aim was to evaluate their adherence to lege artis management of the disease, potential barriers, and to discuss differences observed in comparison with the baseline survey carried out in 2007; the focus was on secondary prevention. Methods: On behalf of two professional associations, 2-round postal survey among randomly selected GPs (>1/4 of all Czech GPs) was performed in 2014. The questionnaire covered areas concerning GP's role in the fight against OP, knowledge about OP, management of OP-related fractures, barriers to the management of OP, system- and patient-related in particular, and availability and use of information sources. Results: The overall questionnaire return rate was 37% (551 respondents); mean age of the respondents was 53 year (37% men). The GP's role in the treatment of OP was rated as essential in 28 and 37% of men and women, respectively (P = 0.012). The guideline for diagnosis and treatment of OP for GPs was considered accessible by 92% of respondents. As much as 60% of the respondents were adherent to the guideline, i.e., used it repeatedly. The knowledge of several risk factors was very good, however, recommended daily intake of calcium was stated correctly by only 41% of respondents, and daily intake of vitamin D by only 40%. Three quarters reported active steps after a fracture: referral to a specialist, life-style recommendations, prescription of calcium/vitamin D supplements. Half of the respondents focus on fall prevention. System-related barriers, such as lack of possibility to prescribe selected drugs (61%) and financial limits set by health insurance company (44%) were most frequently reported. Patient-related barriers were also common, patient's non-adherence (reported by 29%) and patient's reluctance to go to a specialist (18%). Conclusion: GPs adhered to OP management more than in 2007. Knowledge of risk factors and involvement in post-fracture care was relatively high. Compared to baseline survey, patient-related barriers, patient non-adherence in particular, were more common. Prescribing conditions are still an important issue. Among GPs, education should be focused on calcium and vitamin D intake, doses, sources, and supplements.
Selenium inclusion decreases oxidative stress indicators and muscle injuries in sea bass larvae fed high-DHA microdiets

The objective of the present study was to determine the effect of Se inclusion in high-DHA and vitamin E microdiets (5 g DHA/100 g dry weight and 300 mg vitamin E/100 g dry weight; 5 g DHA/100 g dry weight and 300 mg vitamin E/100 g dry weight supplemented with Se) in comparison with a control diet (1 g DHA/100 g dry weight and 150 mg vitamin E/100 g dry weight) on sea bass larval growth, survival, biochemical composition, malonaldehyde (MDA) content, muscle morphology and antioxidant enzymes (AOE), insulin-like growth factors (IGF) and myosin expression. For a given DHA and vitamin E dietary content, Se inclusion favoured larval total length and specific growth rate, and reduced the incidence of muscular lesions, MDA contents and AOE gene expression. In contrast, IGF gene expression was elevated in the 5/300 larvae, suggesting an increased muscle mitogenesis that was corroborated by the increase in mRNA copies of myosin heavy chain. The results of the present study denoted the beneficial effect of Se not only in preventing oxidative stress, as a glutathione peroxidase cofactor, but probably due to other as yet unknown physiological functions.
Semidefinite relaxations in optimal experiment design with application to substrate injection for hyperpolarized MRI

We consider the problem of optimal input design for estimating uncertain parameters in a discrete-time linear state space model, subject to simultaneous amplitude and ℓ1/ℓ2-norm constraints on the admissible inputs. We formulate this problem as the maximization of a (non-concave) quadratic function over the space of inputs, and use semidefinite relaxation techniques to efficiently find the global solution or to provide an upper bound. This investigation is motivated by a problem in medical imaging, specifically designing a substrate injection profile for in vivo metabolic parameter mapping using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with hyperpolarized carbon-13 pyruvate. In the ℓ2-norm-constrained case, we show that the relaxation is tight, allowing us to efficiently compute a globally optimal injection profile. In the ℓ1-norm-constrained case the relaxation is no longer tight, but can be used to prove that the boxcar injection currently used in practice achieves at least 98.7% of the global optimum.
Physical understanding and optimization of resistive switching characteristics in oxide-RRAM

In this paper, the physical mechanism and models of oxide-based resistive-switching random access memory (RRAM) and the optimization of the devices and arrays are addressed and reviewed. The review focuses on our research achievements on the unified physical mechanism, physical-based models including switching and reliability behaviors, and the optimization design issues of the oxide-based RRAM.
The Effect of Reportable and Unreportable Hints on Anagram Solution and the Aha! Experience

Two experiments examine the effects of unreportable hints on anagram solving performance and on solvers' subjective experience of insight. In Experiment 1, after seeing a hint (unrelated, semantically related, or the solution) presented too briefly to identify, participants solved anagrams preceded by the solution fastest and solved anagrams preceded by unrelated hints slowest. Participants' "warmth" ratings for solution hints were more insight-like than those for unrelated hints. In Experiment 2 a hint, or no hint, was presented at one of three different exposure durations (undetectable, unreportable, or reportable). Participants benefited from solution-relevant hints that were either unreportable or reportable, but showed a cost only for unrelated hints that were reportable. Participants' ratings of their insight experiences showed that unreportable solution and semantically related hints produced more insight-like experiences than did unrelated hints. The results suggest that unreportable processing of solution-related information is important for the insight experience.
The Probabilities of Sex Offender Rearrest

BACKGROUND Estimates of the probabilities of re-arrest for sex offenders apprehended in Western Australia between April 1984 and December 1994 are reported. POPULATION AND METHOD Of the 116,151 distinct male persons arrested for the first time from 1984 94, 2785 were identified with at least one sex offence. Subjects on average were followed up for 5.7 years and assessed by criminal record, Aboriginality, bail status, age, occupation and penal intervention. Three criteria, rearrest for any, repeat sex or a violent offence are used to summarize the 'careers' of sex offenders. RESULTS Overall ultimate probabilities of rearrest for any offence were 0.61, for a repeat sex offence 0.33 and for a violent offence 0.51. Probabilities of re-arrest for non-Aboriginal offenders were lower for all definitions. Younger offenders, Aborigines and those with prior arrest for non-sex offences had higher probabilities for any or violent rearrest but older offenders tended to have higher probabilities of repeat sex offending. Community supervision and imprisonment significantly reduced the 'rate' or speed of re-arrest. DISCUSSION Actuarial risk assessments for low-probability high-consequence events such as dangerous recidivism are useful for identifying groups with a high probability of rearrest, assisting management of these groups and evaluating penal interventions.