Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Survival after coronary artery bypass graft surgery and community socioeconomic status: clinical and research implications.

OBJECTIVES Epidemiologic studies have linked adverse health outcomes to lower socioeconomic status (SES). To our knowledge, none have associated post-operative coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery survival to this risk factor. To assess this, we compared post-operative survival among 771 CABG patients from different SES communities in a Southeastern state 36 months after surgery (mean follow-up = 30 months). All patients were admitted to the same tertiary care medical center for surgery in 1994 (mean age = 62; females = 214; African Americans = 13; person years of follow-up = 2,153; 36-month mortality = 8.8%). METHODS Data were extracted from the medical records of all CABG patients admitted in 1994 using the Society of Thoracic Surgeons' data-collection protocol. The study hypothesis was that patients from "disadvantaged" communities would have lower survival rates after surgery, controlling for the severity of the patient's medical condition. In this study, 181 patients were from an Appalachian county and 437 were from a medically under-served county. Post-discharge mortality was ascertained from state mortality files. Forward and backwards step-wise Cox proportional hazard regression models were used to select the most significant risk factors for mortality from 8 county-level community indicators and 32 clinical risk factor variables potentially associated with post-operative survival. RESULTS Controlling for traditional risk factors for post-operative CABG survival, patients from counties with the lowest housing values have a significant increased risk of death 36 months after CABG surgery (hazard ratio [HR] = 2.46, 95% CI = 1.26-4.78, P = 0.008). Being an African American also appeared to be a significant and independent risk factor for death 36 months after surgery, as well (HR = 4.55, 95% CI = 1.37-15.11, P = 0.013). CONCLUSION This study suggests that residence in a poor community and possibly African American status are significant and independent risk factors for mortality 36 months after CABG surgery, although the latter may have included too few cases (n = 13) to assess this effectively. Additional research is needed to determine why these associations exist and to develop specific interventions. In the mean time, closer surveillance is recommended for CABG patients admitted from lower SES communities and possibly for African American patients.
Exploring and predicting the architecture/optimising compiler co-design space

Embedded processor performance is dependent on both the underlying architecture and the compiler optimisations applied. However, designing both simultaneously is extremely difficult to achieve due to the time constraints designers must work under. Therefore, current methodology involves designing compiler and architecture in isolation, leading to sub-optimal performance of the final product. This paper develops a novel approach to this co-design space problem. For any microarchitectural configuration we automatically predict the performance that an optimising compiler would achieve without actually building it. Once trained, a single run of -O1 on the new architecture is enough to make a prediction with just a 1.6% error rate. This allows the designer to accurately choose an architectural configuration with knowledge of how an optimising compiler will perform on it. We use this to find the best optimising compiler/architectural configuration in our co-design space and demonstrate that it achieves an average 13% performance improvement and energy savings of 23% compared to the baseline, leading to an energy-delay (ED) value of 0.67.
Interaction of Carbon Monoxide and Adenosine in the Nucleus Tractus Solitarii of Rats

Abstract—Carbon monoxide has been identified as an endogenous biological messenger in the brain. Heme oxygenase catalyzes the metabolism of heme to carbon monoxide and biliverdin. Previously, we have shown the involvement of carbon monoxide in central cardiovascular regulation, baroreflex modulation, and glutamatergic neurotransmission in the nucleus tractus solitarii of rats. We also showed that adenosine increased the release of glutamate in the nucleus tractus solitarii. In this study, we investigated the possible interactions of carbon monoxide and adenosine in the nucleus tractus solitarii. Male Sprague-Dawley rats were anesthetized with urethane, and blood pressure were monitored intra-arterially. Unilateral microinjection of increasing doses of hemin (0.01 to 3.3 nmol), a heme molecule cleaved by heme oxygenase to yield carbon monoxide, produced a significant decrease in blood pressure and heart rate in a dose-dependent manner. In addition, similar cardiovascular effects were observed after injection of adenosine (2.3 nmol). These cardiovascular effects of hemin were attenuated by prior administration of the adenosine receptor antagonist 1,3-dipropyl-8-sulfophenylxanthine. Similarly, pretreatment of the heme oxygenase inhibitor zinc protoporphyrin IX or zinc deuteroporphyrin 2,4-bis glycol also attenuated the depressor and bradycardic effects of adenosine. These results indicate that the interaction between carbon monoxide and adenosine may contribute to the activation of heme oxygenase in central cardiovascular regulation.
Circulating level of the platelet-derived CXC chemokine platelet factor 4 in chronic urticaria patients with or without coexistent euthyroid Hashimoto's thyroiditis

The concept of autoimmune aetiology of some cases of chronic urticaria (CU) has been supported by several observation including wheal-and-flare reaction induced by intradermal injection of autologous serum as well as association with other autoimmune diseases, in particular Hashimoto's thyroiditis (HT). It is known that activated platelets may actively participate in immune-inflammatory processes. Therefore, we assessed whether autoimmune phenomenon associated with CU influence the systemic platelet activity measured by circulating level of platelet factor 4 (PF-4). Plasma level of PF-4 was analysed using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay in twelve women with strong positive response to autologous serum skin test (ASST) suffering from CU, twelve female patients with strong positive ASST suffering from both CU and untreated, HT as well as sixteen healthy women. All the subjects were clinically and biochemically euthyroid. There were no statistically significant differences between the CU patients with or without euthyroid HT and plasma PF-4 level in healthy controls. In patients with both CU and thyroiditis, plasma level of PF-4 did not correlate significantly with the level of antibodies against thyroperoxidase. It seems that circulating level of the platelet-derived chemokine is not increased in CU patients with positive response to ASST, regardless the occurrence of euthyroid HT.
Brucella Rough Mutant Induce Macrophage Death via Activating IRE1α Pathway of Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress by Enhanced T4SS Secretion

Brucella is a Gram-negative facultative intracellular pathogen that causes the worldwide zoonosis, known as brucellosis. Brucella virulence relies mostly on its ability to invade and replicate within phagocytic cells. The type IV secretion system (T4SS) and lipopolysaccharide are two major Brucella virulence factors. Brucella rough mutants reportedly induce the death of infected macrophages, which is T4SS dependent. However, the underlying molecular mechanism remains unclear. In this study, the T4SS secretion capacities of Brucella rough mutant and its smooth wild-type strain were comparatively investigated, by constructing the firefly luciferase fused T4SS effector, BPE123 and VceC. In addition, quantitative real-time PCR and western blotting were used to analyze the T4SS expression. The results showed that T4SS expression and secretion were enhanced significantly in the Brucella rough mutant. We also found that the activity of the T4SS virB operon promoter was notably increased in the Brucella rough mutant, which depends on quorum sensing-related regulators of VjbR upregulation. Cell infection and cell death assays revealed that deletion of vjbR in the Brucella rough mutant absolutely abolished cytotoxicity within macrophages by downregulating T4SS expression. This suggests that up-regulation of T4SS promoted by VjbR in rough mutant ΔrfbE contribute to macrophage death. In addition, we found that the Brucella rough mutant induce macrophage death via activating IRE1α pathway of endoplasmic reticulum stress. Taken together, our study provide evidence that in comparison to the Brucella smooth wild-type strain, VjbR upregulation in the Brucella rough mutant increases transcription of the virB operon, resulting in overexpression of the T4SS gene, accompanied by the over-secretion of effecter proteins, thereby causing the death of infected macrophages via activating IRE1α pathway of endoplasmic reticulum stress, suggesting novel insights into the molecular mechanisms associated with Brucella rough mutant-induced macrophage cytotoxicity.
Caring for women living with HIV: gaps in the evidence

In the management of HIV, women and men generally undergo the same treatment pathway, with gender differences being given limited consideration. This is in spite of accumulating evidence that there are a number of potential differences between women and men which may affect response to treatment, pharmacokinetics, toxicities and coping. There are also notable psychological, behavioural, social and structural factors that may have a unique impact on women living with HIV (WLWH). Despite our increasing knowledge of HIV and advances in treatment, there are significant gaps in the data relating specifically to women. One of the factors contributing to this situation is the under‐representation of women in all aspects of HIV clinical research. Furthermore, there are clinical issues unique to women, including gynaecologic and breast diseases, menopause‐related factors, contraception and other topics related to women's and sexual health.
Align or not to align? Resolving species complexes within the Caloplaca saxicola group as a case study

The Caloplaca saxicola group is the main group of saxicolous, lobed-effigurate species within genus Caloplaca (Teloschistaceae, lichen-forming Ascomycota). A recent monographic revision by the first author detected a wide range of morphological variation. To confront the phenotypically based circumscription of these taxa and to resolve their relationships morphological and ITS rDNA data were obtained for 56 individuals representing eight Caloplaca species belonging to the C. saxicola group. We tested the monophyly of these eight morphospecies by performing maximum parsimony, maximum likelihood and two different types of Bayesian analyses (with and without a priori alignments). Restricting phylogenetic analyses to unambiguously aligned portions of ITS was sufficient to resolve, with high bootstrap support, five of the eight previously recognized species within the C. saxicola group. However, phylogenetic resolution of all or most of the eight species currently included as two distinct subgroups within the C. saxicola group was possible only by combining morphological characters and signal from ambiguously aligned regions with the unambiguously aligned ITS sites or when the entire ITS1 and 2 regions were not aligned a priori and included as an integral component of a Bayesian analysis (BAli-Phy). The C. arnoldii subgroup includes C. arnoldii, comprising four subspecies, and the C. saxicola subgroup encompasses seven species. Contrary to the C. saxicola subgroup, monophyly of taxa included within the C. arnoldii subgroup and their relationships could not be resolved with combined ITS and morphological data. Unequivocal morphological synapomorphies for all species except C. arnoldii and C. pusilla are recognized and presented.
Detection Caching for Faster Object Detection

This paper investigates how the speed of an object detector can be rapidly increased through a caching framework when input sequences are quasi-repetitive. In the proposed framework, observed output states are discretized into a large number of classes. Each class induces its own discriminant subspace in the feature space, and is associated with a feature exemplar and a local metric. The feature exemplars and the local metrics are learned online using a novel piecewise linear discriminant analysis. The execution of the original object detector is skipped when the current image feature vector is similar to previously observed feature exemplars, and previously detected object states may simply be recalled. The exemplar recognition is carried via a 1-pass approximate nearest neighbor search in an index tree based on k-means clustering. Preliminary results show up to a 5-fold improvement when applied to the Viola & Jones [23] face detector, improving speeds from 10fps to 50fps. Experiments were done on the standard MPEG-4 testing sequences and real data.
Experimental and numerical investigation of creasing in corrugated paperboard

Creasing is a process which indents a section of corrugated board along fold lines to facilitate a neat fold. The most common failure site in a box made out of corrugated board is at the folds, where the stiffness is reduced by the creasing operation. Crease depth is an important parameter to be controlled. If the crease is too shallow, the section will crack during folding due to excessive strain on the outer liner. On the other hand, if the crease is too deep, the board may crack during the creasing operation itself or it may fail during handling due to excessive reduction in local strength along the fold line. A review of the literature reveals that only a limited amount of research has been carried out on experimental creasing of corrugated boards and comparison with numerical analyses. However, modelling of paper for corrugated board has been successfully done using Hill's plasticity model. In this work, experimental investigations on creasing of corrugated paperboard are carried out. These are complemented by finite element simulations of the creasing process. The simulations are found to be in good agreement with the experimental results. The findings of the work done are helpful in understanding the mechanics of creasing more clearly and in arriving at an appropriate crease depth in order to reduce cracking of corrugated board during the creasing process.
Robust Object Tracking Based on Tracking-Learning-Detection

Current state-of-the-art methods for object tracking perform adaptive tracking-by-detection, meaning that a detector predicts the position of an object and adapts its parameters to the object’s appearance at the same time. While suitable for cases when the object does not disappear from the scene, these methods tend to fail on occlusions. In this work, we build on a novel approach called Tracking-Learning-Detection (TLD) that overcomes this problem. In methods based on TLD, a detector is trained with examples found on the trajectory of a tracker that itself does not depend on the object detector. By decoupling object tracking and object detection we achieve high robustness and outperform existing adaptive tracking-by-detection methods. We show that by using simple features for object detection and by employing a cascaded approach a considerable reduction of computing time is achieved. We evaluate our approach both on existing standard single-camera datasets as well as on newly recorded sequences in multi-camera scenarios.
GRB 070714B—DISCOVERY OF THE HIGHEST SPECTROSCOPICALLY CONFIRMED SHORT BURST REDSHIFT

We detect the optical afterglow and host galaxy of GRB 070714B. Our observations of the afterglow show an initial plateau in the light curve for approximately the first 5–25 minutes, and then steepening to a power-law decay with index α = 0.86 ± 0.10 for the period between 1 and 24 hr postburst. This is consistent with the X-ray light curve which shows an initial plateau followed by a similar subsequent decay. At late time, we detect a host galaxy at the location of the optical transient. Gemini Nod & Shuffle spectroscopic observations of the host show a single emission line at 7167 Å which, based on a griz JHK photometric redshift, we conclude is the 3727 Å [O ii] line. We therefore find a redshift of z = 0.923. This redshift, as well as a subsequent probable spectroscopic redshift determination of GRB 070429B at z = 0.904 by two other groups significantly exceeds the previous highest spectroscopically confirmed short burst redshift of z = 0.546 for GRB 051221. This dramatically moves back the time at which we know short bursts were being formed and suggests that the present evidence for an old progenitor population may be observationally biased.
400 G Transmission of Super-Nyquist-Filtered Signal Based on Single-Carrier 110-GBaud PDM QPSK With 100-GHz Grid

We experimentally demonstrate a coherent transmission system with a high symbol rate using up to 110-GBaud PDM-QPSK signals. Super-Nyquist-filtering technology is used to narrow down the bandwidth of a single channel on a 100-GHz grid. The performance of the high baud rate electronic time division multiplexed-based super-Nyquist-filtered signal is also studied under the aggressive optical filtering elements in multiple reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexers (ROADMs) nodes during transmission. We successfully transmit 100-GHz-grid, 20 channel single-carrier 440-Gb/s super-Nyquist 9-QAM-like signal over 3600-km ultralarge effective-area fiber (ULAF) at a high net SE of 4 b/s/Hz (after excluding the 7% hard-decision FEC overhead). The highly filtering tolerant performance of the 9-QAM liked super-Nyquist signal is also experimentally demonstrated. Using this scheme, we then successfully transmit ten channel 440-Gb/s signal over 3000-km ULAF and ten cascaded 100-GHz-grid ROADMs based on the 110-GBaud QPSK. Such signal is coherently detected and processed after a real-time oscilloscope at 160-GSa/s sampling rate with 65-GHz bandwidth.
Inapproximability of H-Transversal/Packing

Given an undirected graph $G = (V_G, E_G)$ and a fixed “pattern” graph $H = (V_H, E_H)$ with $k$ vertices, we consider the $H$-Transversal and $H$-Packing problems. The former asks to find the smallest $S \subseteq V_G$ such that the subgraph induced by $V_G \setminus S$ does not have $H$ as a subgraph, and the latter asks to find the maximum number of pairwise disjoint $k$-subsets $S_1, \ldots, S_m \subseteq V_G$ such that the subgraph induced by each $S_i$ has $H$ as a subgraph. We prove that if $H$ is 2-connected, $H$-Transversal and $H$-Packing are almost as hard to approximate as general $k$-Hypergraph Vertex Cover and $k$-Set Packing, so it is NP-hard to approximate them within a factor of $\Omega (k)$ and $\widetilde \Omega (k)$, respectively. We also show that there is a 1-connected $H$ where $H$-Transversal admits an $O(\log k)$-approximation algorithm, so that the connectivity requirement cannot be relaxed from 2 to 1. For a special case of $H$-Transversal where $H$ is a (family of) cycles, we m.
A Retrospective Examination of Sleep Disturbance across the Course of Bipolar Disorder

Background Sleep disturbance is a prevalent and clinically significant feature of bipolar disorder. However, there are aspects of sleep and bipolar disorder that have been minimally characterized. This study aims to fill several gaps in the literature by examining the prevalence, coexistence, and persistence of sleep disturbance retrospectively across a five-year period in bipolar disorder. Methods Fifty-one people with bipolar disorder I and comorbid insomnia who were currently inter-episode completed the NIMH Retrospective Life-Charting Methodology (the life chart). The life chart was used to document the prevalence, coexistence, and persistence of insomnia, hypersomnia, delayed sleep phase, reduced sleep need, and irregular sleep patterns across the course of five years. Results Across the five year period, manic months were primarily characterized by reduced sleep need (62.8%) and insomnia (38.1%), depressive months by hypersomnia (56.0%) and insomnia (51.9%), mixed months by all five types of sleep disturbance, and inter-episode months by insomnia (67.4%). There was coexistence in the types of sleep disturbance experienced. Further, each type of sleep disturbance demonstrated persistence across the five years, with persistence rates being the highest for insomnia (49.0–58.8%). Conclusions Sleep disturbance is a prevalent and complex feature across mood episodes and inter-episode periods of bipolar disorder. Further, there is variation in the types of sleep disturbance experienced.
High-Resolution Optical Rotation Curves of Low-Luminosity Spiral Galaxies

We present optical long-slit spectroscopic observations of 21 low-luminosity, extreme late-type spiral galaxies. Our sample is comprised of Sc-Sm Local Supercluster spirals with moderate-to-low optical surface brightnesses and with luminosities at the low end for spiral disk galaxies (MV ≥ -18.8). For each galaxy we have measured high spatial resolution position-velocity (P-V) curves using the Hα emission line, and for 15 of the galaxies we also derive major-axis rotation curves. In ∼50% of our sample, the P-V curves show significant asymmetries in shape, extent, and/or amplitude on the approaching and receding sides of the disk. A number of the P-V curves are still rising to the last measured point or reach a clear turnover on only one side. In most instances we find good agreement between the kinematic centers of extreme late-type spirals as defined by the global H I emission profile and by their optical continuum, although in a few cases we see evidence of possible real offsets. In spite of their shallow central gravitational potentials, at least six of the galaxies in our sample possess semi-stellar nuclei that appear to be compact nuclear star clusters; in five of these cases we see kinematic signatures in the P-V curves at the location of the nucleus. Finally, we find that like giant spirals, our sample galaxies have higher specific angular momenta than predicted by current cold dark matter models.
Intrathecal Substance P-Saporin in the Dog: Distribution, Safety, and Spinal Neurokinin-1 Receptor Ablation

Background: Neurokinin-1 receptors (NK1-rs) located on superficial dorsal horn neurons are essential for integration of nociceptive input. Intrathecal injection of substance P-saporin (SP-SAP) leads to local loss of spinal NK1-r (+) neurons suggesting its potential as a therapeutic agent for chronic pain. The authors determined, in a canine model, effects of lumbar intrathecal SP-SAP. Methods: Distribution of SP-SAP and Saporin was determined in plasma, lumbar cerebrospinal fluid, and tissue. Safety of intrathecal SP-SAP was determined in four groups (six dogs each) administered 0 (0.9% saline), 1.5, 15, or 150 µg SP-SAP through lumbar intrathecal catheters. Behavioral, physiologic, and biochemical variables were assessed. Spinal tissues were collected at 7 and approximately 90 days, or earlier if significant morbidity developed, and analyzed for NK1-r (+) neuron loss and histopathology. Results: SP-SAP and Saporin were detectable in lumbar cerebrospinal fluid for up to 4 and 24 h, respectively. Animals receiving intrathecal saline, 1.5, or 15 µg of SP-SAP showed no persistent neurologic deficits. Three animals receiving 150 µg of SP-SAP developed pelvic limb paraparesis and were euthanized prematurely. Immunohistochemistry and in situ hybridization cell counts confirmed a significant reduction in NK1-r (+) in superficial dorsal horn neurons from lumbar spinal cord after intrathecal administration of 15 and 150 µg of SP-SAP. A significant loss of NK1-r neurons in the lumbar ventral horn occurred only with 150-µg SP-SAP. Conclusion: Intrathecal 15-µg SP-SAP reduced dorsal, but not ventral, NK1-r (+) neurons at the spinal level of delivery with minimal side effects, whereas 150-µg SP-SAP resulted in motor neuron toxicity.