Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of shock polarity reversal on defibrillation threshold in an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator.

BACKGROUND An increased defibrillation threshold (DFT) may limit the efficacy of an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) in termination of life-threatening ventricular arrhythmias. A search for methods of decreasing DFT has been ongoing since the introduction of ICD into clinical practice. AIM To assess the effects of various shock polarities on DFT. METHODS The study group consisted of 19 patients (8 females and 11 males, mean age 52+/-17 years) who received devices (Biotronik, Germany) with a single-coil defibrillation lead. In all patients the value of DFT was assessed using a normal shock polarity as well as using a reversed polarity shock, starting from the energy lower than that measured during normal DFT testing. The impedance of the defibrillation system using two different polarities was also measured. The effects of demographic and clinical parameters on defibrillation parameters were also examined. RESULTS When using normal shock polarity, the mean DFT value was 12+/-5 J (range 3.1-20 J) and impedance was 64+/-12 Omega. When shock polarity was reversed, the mean DFT value was 9.2+/-5.0 J (range 2-20 J) and impedance was 67+/-11 Omega. In 11 (58%) patients the polarity change caused a marked (by 37%) decrease in the mean DFT value - from 11.5+/-5.1 J to 7.2+/-3.8 J. In 5 patients DFT reduction was > or = 5 J. There was no relationship between demographic or clinical parameters and defibrillation efficacy using the two tested shock polarities. CONCLUSIONS The reversal of shock polarity reduces DFT in more than half of patients. In patients with a high DFT the use of reversed polarity of defibrillating impulse may reduce DFT, which widens the safety margin and makes implantation of additional leads unnecessary. Because clinical parameters have no value in predicting the effects of polarity changes on DFT, the efficacy of reversed polarity shock has to be assessed individually in each patient.
Contribution of Warsaw Logicians to Computational Logic

The newly emerging branch of research of Computer Science received encouragement from the successors of the Warsaw mathematical school: Kuratowski, Mazur, Mostowski, Grzegorczyk, and Rasiowa. Rasiowa realized very early that the spectrum of computer programs should be incorporated into the realm of mathematical logic in order to make a rigorous treatment of program correctness. This gave rise to the concept of algorithmic logic developed since the 1970s by Rasiowa, Salwicki, Mirkowska, and their followers. Together with Pratt’s dynamic logic, algorithmic logic evolved into a mainstream branch of research: logic of programs. In the late 1980s, Warsaw logicians Tiuryn and Urzyczyn categorized various logics of programs, depending on the class of programs involved. Quite unexpectedly, they discovered that some persistent open questions about the expressive power of logics are equivalent to famous open problems in complexity theory. This, along with parallel discoveries by Harel, Immerman and Vardi, contributed to the creation of an important area of theoretical computer science: descriptive complexity. By that time, the modal μ-calculus was recognized as a sort of a universal logic of programs. The mid 1990s saw a landmark result by Walukiewicz, who showed completeness of a natural axiomatization for the μ-calculus proposed by Kozen. The difficult proof of this result, based on automata theory, opened a path to further investigations. Later, Bojanczyk opened a new chapter by introducing an unboundedness quantifier, which allowed for expressing some quantitative properties of programs. Yet another topic, linking the past with the future, is the subject of automata founded in the Fraenkel-Mostowski set theory. The studies on intuitionism found their continuation in the studies of Curry-Howard isomorphism. ukasiewicz’s landmark idea of many-valued logic found its continuation in various approaches to incompleteness and uncertainty.
Effects of general and regional anesthesia on the neonate (a prospective, randomized trial).

UNLABELLED Anesthetic methods used during cesarean section have advantages and disadvantages to both mothers and infants and may result in short and long term neonatal effects. OBJECTIVE To determine the effects of general and regional anesthesia on the infants, a prospective, randomized trial was performed in Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University. MATERIAL AND METHOD 341 uncomplicated pregnant women who were to be delivered at term by Cesarean section were recruited and randomized to receive general anesthesia, GA (103); epidural anesthesia, EA (120) and spinal anesthesia, SA (118). The immediate fetal and neonatal effects were assessed by cord blood gas analysis and the infant's Apgar scores. The Neurologic and Adaptive Capacity Scores (NACS) was performed within 4 hours after birth by two pediatricians who were blind to the anesthetic method. RESULT Maternal age, weight, height, duration of the operation and infants' birth weight were not different among the study groups. In the EA and SA group, maternal systolic blood pressure decreased more than 20 per cent from the baseline in more than half. The infants' Apgar scores at 1 and 5 minutes were 8.3 +/- 1.9; 8.2 +/- 1.6; 6.7 +/- 2.8, and 9.7 +/- 0.9; 9.8 +/- 0.7; 9.2 +/- 1.6 in EA, SA and GA group respectively. The adaptive capacity, active tone, passive tone, general assessment and primary reflexes of the NACS were not statistically different. CONCLUSION Apgar scores of the infants whose mothers received general anesthesia were lower than infants whose mothers received regional anesthesia but the NACS were not statistically different among the three study groups.
Attorneys interacting with legal information systems: Tools for mental model building and task integration

This paper reports (1) on the results of a user study and (2) search-history-based user interface tools developed based on the results of the study. The research described is part of a dissertation (Komlodi 2002) that examined the use of search histories in legal information seeking and derived interface design recommendations for information storage and re trieval systems. The study examined legal information seekers' use of their memory and externally recorded search histories in searching for and using information through qualitative research methods. The data collected was analyzed to identify potential task areas where search histories can support information seeking and use. The results show that many information-seeking tasks can take advantage of automatically and manually recorded history information, including mental model building of a topical area, the integration of searching for and using infrmation, and integrating these into larger tasks contexts, which are reported in this paper. These findings encouraged the design of user interface tools building on search history information: direct search history displays, history-enabled scratchpad facilities, and organized results collection tools.
Pattern of Adverse Drug Reactions in Children Attending the Department of Pediatrics in a Tertiary Care Center: A Prospective Observational Study

AIM To study the pattern of various adverse drug reactions (ADRs) occurring in children attending the Department of Pediatrics, SMGS Hospital, Jammu over 1 year. Subjects and Methods This was a prospective study, with study population of patients attending Department of Pediatrics over a period of 1 year. A structured format was used to enroll the participants. A pilot study was conducted to test the suitability of the format and feasibility of the study. The study was carried out to review various pattern of ADRs by using the Naranjo probability scale, and severity was assessed by using the Hartwig severity scale. ADRs were classified according to the classification used by the Adverse Drug Reaction Monitoring Center, Central Drugs Standard Control Organization, New Delhi, India. Results In the present study, 104 patients were found to have developed acute drug reactions. Among these, 83.6% were type B, 14.42% type A, and 1.92% were type U. Furthermore, 25.96% ADRs were due to anticonvulsants, followed by antibiotics (22.11%), antipyretics (11.53%), vaccination (8.65%), steroids (6.73%), decongestants (5.67%), snake antivenom and antiemetics (3.84%), and fluids, insulin, and antacids (1.92%). The patients’ dermatological system was involved in 67.30%, followed by the central nervous system (CNS) in 11.53% patients. Renal system was involved in 6.73% patients. Cardiac, musculoskeletal, metabolic, and other systems were involved in 4.80%, 3.84%, 2.88%, and 0.96%, respectively. According to the Hartwig severity scale of ADRs, 64.4% patients had moderate ADRs, 29.8% patients had severe ADRs, and 5.76% had mild ADRs. In the present study, 64.4% patients expressed moderate severity, whereas 29.8% expressed high severity and 5.76% expressed mild ADRs. Conclusion ADRs were seen in 71% of the patients between 1 and 5 years of age, 26% in the age group of 5–10 years, and 3% were more than 10 years old. Anticonvulsants (25.96%) and antibiotics (22.11%) were responsible for majority of ADRs. Rash (55.76%) was the most common presentation of ADR. Owing to the high number of ADRs, the present study points to the need for rigid adverse drug monitoring among pediatric patients to ensure the safety of drug therapy.
The Effects of a Calcium Antagonist (Nimodipine) on Basal Cerebral Blood Flow and Reactivity to Various Agonists

In vitro studies suggest that cerebrovascular contraction is more dependent on the influx of calcium to smooth muscle than general systemic arteries. The present study tested the in vivo effects of a calcium influx blocker (nimodipine) on cerebral blood flow and metabolism in 16 baboons. Thel33xenon clearance technique was used together with careful control of EEG and blood gases. With normal blood gases intravenous nimodipine infusion (1 /μg/kg/min) produced an 18% increase in cerebral blood flow with no alteration in cerebral oxidative metabolism or blood pressure. Higher doses (above 10 μ.g/kg/min) resulted in a decreased arterial blood pressure and a return to control cerebral flow. Infusion of the dose producing maximal increase in flow, decreased the cerebral reactivity to altered PCO2 (n = 5). These results suggest that nimodipine may be a relatively selective cerebrovascular dilator. Stroke Vol 15, No 3, 1984
Symmetry-breaking dynamics of the modulational instability spectrum

From a standard point of view Modulational Instability (MI) process leads to the formation of two symmetric spectral side lobes [1]. In optical fibers, it has been shown that working in low anomalous dispersion regions, the slope of the dispersion leads to a symmetry breaking of the spectrum and to the generation of dispersive waves (DW) [2]. In this work, we demonstrate both numerically and experimentally an a priori unexpected dynamics of this symmetry-breaking process that occurs in low dispersion optical fibers. We show in particular that the induced spectral asymmetry does not decrease monotonically with the dispersion value but exhibits extrema and a reversal of the asymmetry due to coherent interactions between DWs and MI side lobes.
Molecular Characterization of PDGFR-α/PDGF-A and c-KIT/SCF in Gliosarcomas

Gliosarcomas are rare and poorly characterized malignant brain tumors that exhibit a biphasic tissue pattern with areas of gliomatous and sarcomatous differentiation. These tumors are histological variants of glioblastoma, displaying a similar genetic profile and dismal prognosis. Up-regulation of PDGFR subfamily of tyrosine kinase members, PDGFR-α and c-Kit, and their intracellular effectors RAS/RAF/MAPK has a crucial role in the cancer development. In addition, signal transduction mediated by activating mutations of c-Kit and PDGFR can be effectively blocked by specific tyrosine kinase inhibitors, such as Imatinib mesylate. The aim of this study was to characterize the molecular alterations of PDGFR signaling in gliosarcomas. Six cases were analyzed by immunohistochemistry for the expression of PDGFR-α, c-Kit and their ligands PDGF-A and SCF, respectively. The cases were further evaluated for the presence of activating mutations of PDGFR-α (exons 12 and 18) and c-kit (exons 9, 11, 13, and 17), as well as B-RAF (exons 11 and 15). Expression of PDGF-A was found in all cases and co-expression of PDGFR-α was observed in three cases. Four cases showed expression of SCF, and c-Kit was observed only in one case that also expressed SCF. Generally, immunoreaction predominates in the glial component. The mutational analysis of PDGFR-α showed the presence of an IVS17-50insT intronic insertion in two cases, one of them also with a 2472C > T silent mutation; this silent mutation was also found in another case. Glioma cell line analysis of IVS17-50insT insertion showed no influence on PDGFR-α gene splicing. No mutations were detected in c-kit and B-RAF oncogenes. Our Results indicate that activating mutations of PDGFR-α, c-kit and B-RAF are absent in gliosarcomas. Nevertheless, the presence of a PDGFR-a/PDGFA and c-Kit/SCF autocrine/paracrine stimulation loop in a proportion of cases, supports the potential role of specific tyrosine kinase inhibitors in the treatment of gliosarcomas.
Privacy Settings on Facebook: Their Roles and Importance

This explorative study aims to gain insight about which privacy settings and features on the interfaces are commonly used by Facebook users. User data was collected using an online survey. Based on the survey data, a set of the commonly used privacy strategies on Facebook were identified. We found that these strategies were mainly used to manage three types of privacy concerns: 1) personal profile visibility, 2) personal networking boundary, and 3) personal privacy awareness. A point-biserial correlation analysis revealed that only networking privacy strategies were significantly correlated with the feeling of control users felt in mitigating hackers, blackmailers, stalkers as well as compromising relations and job positions. Hence, when the goal of the sites is to empower users for protecting their privacy, it is important to understand how users make decisions with the help of these privacy settings and features on user interfaces. Implications of these findings as well as suggestions for future research are discussed.
Comparison of Normalization Methods for Construction of Large, Multiplex Amplicon Pools for Next-Generation Sequencing

ABSTRACT Constructing mixtures of tagged or bar-coded DNAs for sequencing is an important requirement for the efficient use of next-generation sequencers in applications where limited sequence data are required per sample. There are many applications in which next-generation sequencing can be used effectively to sequence large mixed samples; an example is the characterization of microbial communities where ≤1,000 sequences per samples are adequate to address research questions. Thus, it is possible to examine hundreds to thousands of samples per run on massively parallel next-generation sequencers. However, the cost savings for efficient utilization of sequence capacity is realized only if the production and management costs associated with construction of multiplex pools are also scalable. One critical step in multiplex pool construction is the normalization process, whereby equimolar amounts of each amplicon are mixed. Here we compare three approaches (spectroscopy, size-restricted spectroscopy, and quantitative binding) for normalization of large, multiplex amplicon pools for performance and efficiency. We found that the quantitative binding approach was superior and represents an efficient scalable process for construction of very large, multiplex pools with hundreds and perhaps thousands of individual amplicons included. We demonstrate the increased sequence diversity identified with higher throughput. Massively parallel sequencing can dramatically accelerate microbial ecology studies by allowing appropriate replication of sequence acquisition to account for temporal and spatial variations. Further, population studies to examine genetic variation, which require even lower levels of sequencing, should be possible where thousands of individual bar-coded amplicons are examined in parallel.
Bone Marrow Transplantation Confers Modest Benefits in Mouse Models of Huntington's Disease

Huntington's disease (HD) is caused by an expanded polyglutamine tract in the protein huntingtin (htt). Although HD has historically been viewed as a brain-specific disease, htt is expressed ubiquitously, and recent studies indicate that mutant htt might cause changes to the immune system that could contribute to pathogenesis. Monocytes from HD patients and mouse models are hyperactive in response to stimulation, and increased levels of inflammatory cytokines and chemokines are found in pre-manifest patients that correlate with pathogenesis. In this study, wild-type (WT) bone marrow cells were transplanted into two lethally irradiated transgenic mouse models of HD that ubiquitously express full-length htt (YAC128 and BACHD mice). Bone marrow transplantation partially attenuated hypokinetic and motor deficits in HD mice. Increased levels of synapses in the cortex were found in HD mice that received bone marrow transplants. Importantly, serum levels of interleukin-6, interleukin-10, CXC chemokine ligand 1, and interferon-γ were significantly higher in HD than WT mice but were normalized in mice that received a bone marrow transplant. These results suggest that immune cell dysfunction might be an important modifier of pathogenesis in HD.
A Stylometry System for Authenticating Students Taking Online Tests

A Keystroke Biometric System measures the typing characteristics believed to be unique to an individual and difficult to duplicate. A Stylometry Biometric System measures the frequency of text file features such as: number of alphabetic characters/total number of characters, number of uppercase characters/number of alphabetic characters, etc. We captured keystroke and stylistic e-data from online test-takers with a modified feature extraction component of the keystroke application. We use a k-NN classifier to analyze the test and training files and measure the system performance, FRR (False Acceptance Rate), and FRR (False Rejection Rate). Results show a functional system and the usefulness of Stylometry for authenticating online test takers.
THE TREATMENT OF OBESITY BY ACUPUNCTURE

The present study is an investigation of the results of the studies on the effects of acupuncture application therapy on obesity. It has been reported that acupuncture application in obesity treatment is effective in procuring weight loss. It can affect appetite, intestinal motility, and metabolism, as well as emotional factors such as stress. Increases in neural activity in the ventromedial nuclei of the hypothalamus, in tone in the smooth muscle of the stomach and in levels of enkephalin, beta endorphin, and serotonin in plasma and brain tissue have also been observed with the application of acupuncture. It has been observed that acupuncture application to obese people increases excitability of the satiety center in the ventromedial nuclei of the hypothalamus. Acupuncture stimulates the auricular branch of the vagal nerve and raises serotonin levels. Both of these activities have been shown to increase tone in the smooth muscle of the stomach, thus suppressing appetite. Among other things, serotonin enhances intestinal motility. It also controls stress and depression via endorphin and dopamine production. In addition to these effects, it is thought that the increase in plasma levels of beta endorphin after acupuncture application can contribute to the body weight loss in obese people by mobilizing the body energy depots through lipolithic effect.
Lagrangian multiforms and multidimensional consistency

We show that well-chosen Lagrangians for a class of two-dimensional integrable lattice equations obey a closure relation when embedded in a higher dimensional lattice. On the basis of this property we formulate a Lagrangian description for such systems in terms of Lagrangian multiforms. We discuss the connection of this formalism with the notion of multidimensional consistency, and the role of the lattice from the point of view of the relevant variational principle.
Use of breath hydrogen (H2) to quantitate small bowel transit time following partial gastrectomy.

The relation between small intestinal transit time and postgastrectomy diarrhea was investigated with a technique which employs the measurement of pulmonary H2 excretion after ingestion of the nonabsorbable sugar, lactulose. Ten postgastrectomy patients with persistent diarrhea had an average small bowel transit time of 35.2 +/- 3 min (S.E.M.), which was significantly (p less than 0.05) shorter than either that of 10 patients without diarrhea (74.6 +/- 5 min) or 40 healthy controls (72.6 +/- 5 min). These decreased transit times appeared to be due to rapid gastric emptying rather than to a primary intestinal abnormality, since the transit of lactulose instilled directly into the jejunum was equally rapid in patients and controls. All postgastrectomy patients with diarrhea failed to absorb a portion of a 100 gm dose of glucose (quantitated by pulmonary H2 measurements), but all patients without diarrhea and 10 healthy control subjects absorbed the entire dose. Constant perfusion studies of the terminal ileum in two patients indicated that glucose absorption was least efficient from the most rapidly moving front of the ingested bolus of glucose. These studies suggest that the diarrhea observed in some postgastrectomy patients is, in part, the result of malabsorption of carbohydrate due to excessively rapid small bowel transit which is secondary to rapid gastric emptying.
The interaction of architecture and operating system design

Today’s high-performance RISC microprocessors have been highly tuned for integer and floating point application performance. These architectures have paid less attention to operating system requirements. At the same time, new operating system designs often have overlooked modern architectural trends which may unavoidably change the relative cost of certain primitive operations. The result is that operating system performance is well below application code performance on contemporary RISCS. This paper examines recent directions in computer architecture and operating systems, and the implications of changes in each domain for the other. The requirements of three components of operating system design are discussed in detail: interprocess communication, virt ual memory, and thread management. For each component, we relate operating system functional and performance needs to the mechanisms available on commercial RISC architectures such as the MIPS R2000 and R3000, Sun SPARC, IBM RS6000, Motorola 88000, and Intel i860. Our analysis reveals a number of specific reasons why the performance of operating system primitives on RISCS has not scaled with integer performance. In addition, we identify areas in which architectures could better (and cost-effectively) accommodate operating system needs, and areas in which operating system design could accommodate certain necessary characteristics of cost-effective highperformance microprocessors. This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grants No. CCR-8703049, CCR-8619663, and CCR-8907666, by the Washington Technology Center, by the Digital Equipment Corporation Systems Research Center and External Research Program, and by IBM and AT&T Fellowships. Bershad is now with the School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University. Permission to copy without fee all or part of this material is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for direct commercial advantage, the ACM copyright notice and the title of the publication and its date appear, and notice is given that copying is by permission of the Association for Computing Machinery. To copy otherwise, or to republish, requires a fee and/or specific permission. 01991 ACM 0-89791 -380 -9/91 /0003 -0108 . $1 . 50