Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Matrix Detachable Coils for the Endovascular Treatment of Intracranial Aneurysms: Analysis of Early Angiographic and Clinical Outcomes

Background and Purpose— Endovascular coil embolization has become an accepted alternative for the treatment of intracranial aneurysms. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the clinical safety and the angiographic stability of aneurysm occlusion with a new class of biologically active platinum coils after a 6-month period. Methods— Twenty-five patients with 25 intracranial aneurysms were treated by selective embolization with a new coated bioactive coil (Matrix; Boston Scientific Neurovascular). Matrix coils were used alone in 6 patients and in combination with Guglielmi detachable coils (GDCs; Boston Scientific Neurovascular) in 19. Angiographic results, procedure-related complications, and adverse neurological events during the follow-up period were recorded. Magnetic resonance angiography was performed at 6 months in all patients. Results— Initial angiographies demonstrated complete occlusion in 17 patients, residual neck in 7, and a persisting aneurysm in 1. The clinical follow-up showed stable results in all patients. The grade of aneurysm occlusion at 6 months improved in 4 patients, remained stable in 15, and deteriorated in 6. Three patients needed retreatment because of a major aneurysm recanalization. Angiographic recurrences in cases of aneurysms treated with a combination of Matrix coils and GDCs occurred within the expected range for bare platinum coils. Two of 3 patients needing retreatment had been treated with Matrix coils alone. Conclusion— Stable results were obtained predominantly when Matrix coils were combined with bare platinum coils. A prospective, randomized study is necessary to assess the potential benefit of Matrix coils for patients treated by endovascular techniques.
C596G mutation in FBN1 causes Marfan syndrome with exotropia in a Chinese family

Purpose To screen mutations in the fibrillin-1 (FBN1) gene in a Chinese family with autosomal dominant Marfan syndrome (MFS). Methods Patients and unaffected family members were given ophthalmic, cardiovascular, and physical examinations with a 5-year follow-up. Genomic DNA was extracted from the leukocytes of venous blood from all patients and their relatives. The entire coding region of the FBN1gene was screened with an ABI 9700 GeneAmp PCR System. The mutation identified was screened in 100 healthy and ethnically unrelated Chinese individuals. Results Mutation screening in FBN1 identified a T>G transition at position c.1786 in exon 14, leading to substitution of cysteine for glycine at codon 596 (C596G) in this four-generation Chinese family. The C596G mutation was associated with the disease phenotypes in all six patients but not found in 14 unaffected family members or the 100 ethnically unrelated and healthy controls. Conclusions A C596G mutation in FBN1 was identified in a Chinese family with MFS. Our results expand the spectrum of FBN1 mutations and contribute to the understanding of the role of FBN1 in the pathogenesis of Marfan syndrome.
Odours detected by rhinophores mediate orientation to flow in the nudibranch mollusc, Tritonia diomedea

SUMMARY Tritonia diomedea is a useful neuroethological model system that can contribute to our understanding of the neural control of navigation. Prior work on both sensory and locomotory systems is complemented by recent field experiments, which concluded that these animals primarily use a combination of odours and water flow as guidance cues. We corroborate these field results by showing similar navigation behaviours in a flow tank. Slugs crawled upstream towards both prey and conspecifics, and turned downstream after crawling into a section of the flow tank downstream of a predator. Controls without upstream odour sources crawled apparently randomly. We then tested whether these behaviours depend on odours detected by the rhinophores. Outflow from a header tank was used to generate prey, predator and unscented control odour plumes in the flow tank. Slugs with rhinophores crawled upstream towards a prey odour plume source, turned downstream in a predator odour plume, and showed no reaction to a control plume. Slugs without rhinophores behaved similarly to controls, regardless of odour plume type. Finally, we used extracellular recordings from the rhinophore nerve to demonstrate that isolated rhinophores are chemosensitive. Afferent activity increased significantly more after application of all three odour types than after unscented control applications. Responses were odour specific. We conclude that rhinophores mediate orientation to flow, and suggest that future work should focus on the integration of mechanosensation and chemosensation during navigation in T. diomedea.
Extraction of temporal facts and events from Wikipedia

Recently, large-scale knowledge bases have been constructed by automatically extracting relational facts from text. Unfortunately, most of the current knowledge bases focus on static facts and ignore the temporal dimension. However, the vast majority of facts are evolving with time or are valid only during a particular time period. Thus, time is a significant dimension that should be included in knowledge bases. In this paper, we introduce a complete information extraction framework that harvests temporal facts and events from semi-structured data and free text of Wikipedia articles to create a temporal ontology. First, we extend a temporal data representation model by making it aware of events. Second, we develop an information extraction method which harvests temporal facts and events from Wikipedia infoboxes, categories, lists, and article titles in order to build a temporal knowledge base. Third, we show how the system can use its extracted knowledge for further growing the knowledge base. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed methods through several experiments. We extracted more than one million temporal facts with precision over 90% for extraction from semi-structured data and almost 70% for extraction from text.
Increased Plasma Concentrations of Platelet Factor 4 in Coronary Artery Disease: A Measure of In Vivo Platelet Activation and Secretion

Previous studies have shown that there is both a significant shortening in platelet survival and a measured hyperactivity to platelet-aggregating agents in patients with documented coronary artery disease compared with control groups. We used a recently described radioimmunoassay for the platelet-secreted protein platelet factor 4 (PF4) to study 162 patients with documented coronary artery disease.There was a significant increase in plasma PF4 concentrations in patients with documented coronary artery disease compared with angiographically normal patients (8.7 vs 16 ng/ml, respectively, n = 121), but as in previous studies of platelet survival, we could not correlate elevated plasma PF4 concentration and the severity or site of the coronary artery disease. In addition, there was no correlation with left ventricular function, serum cholesterol or the type of angina. Patients with confirmed acute myocardial infarction had no significant difference in mean plasma PF4 concentrations compared with similar groups of coronary disease patients who had prolonged chest pain or chronic stable angina. Coronary artery bypass grafting in a subgroup of patients did not affect the mean plasma PF4 concentration during 1 year of follow-up after bypass surgery, but medical therapy for angina with increasing doses of propranolol and nitrates significantly reduced PF4 concentration in another subgroup of patients who were not considered to be candidates for surgical therapy.
Personal Perspectives on Vocational Rehabilitation in Singapore and Sweden

The aim of the study is to describe and analyse personal reflections on vocational rehabilitation in Singapore and Sweden as described by employees who have been on sick leave. Further, the study investigates what similarities and differences can be discerned from the accounts provided by the participants in the different countries. Interviews were conducted with five Singaporeans and five Swedes undergoing rehabilitation due to musculoskeletal problems. The most significant result is that more differences than similarities were identified; e.g. the Singaporeans had fewer days of sickness absence, they were diagnosed more swiftly, treatment and the rehabilitation process began earlier and there were no queues for treatment. The conclusion is that the Singaporean system seems to be more effective with respect to returning people to work. However, the Swedish system creates more security for all groups of people.
Submillimeter InP MMIC Low-Noise Amplifier Gain Stability Characterization

Millimeter and submillimeter indium phosphide (InP) microwave monolithic integrated circuits (MMICs) are increasingly used in applications spanning Earth science, astrophysics, and defense. In this paper, we characterize direct detection and heterodyne gain fluctuations of 35-, 30-, and 25-nm gate-length InP MMIC low-noise amplifiers (LNAs) designed for the 200–670-GHz frequency range. Of the twelve MMIC LNAs, five pairs have also been measured in multistage or cascaded configuration. In direct detection mode, the MMICs room temperature (RT) 1/<italic>f</italic> noise spectrum and responsivity were measured. From these the power spectral density, the noise equivalent temperature difference (NETD), equivalent system noise temperature (T<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$^{DD}_{\rm sys}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>), and low-frequency normalized gain fluctuations (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\Delta$</tex-math></inline-formula><italic>G/G</italic>) are derived. On the same set of MMIC LNAs, using a heterodyne down conversion technique, the Allan variance method is applied to obtain the Allan stability time and normalized 4–8 GHz gain fluctuation noise at both RT and two cryogenic temperatures. We find in the case of 35-, 30-, and 25-nm gate-length InP MMIC LNAs that the derived direct detection and heterodyne gain stability is highly process dependent with only a secondary dependence on gate periphery, the number of gate fingers, and/or gain stages. This observation confirms the underlying solid-state physics understanding that gain fluctuation noise is the result of a temporal distribution of the generation and recombination of electron free carriers due to lattice defects and surface impurities. Upon cooling below <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\sim$</tex-math> </inline-formula>66 K, it is observed that on average gain fluctuations increase by <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\gtrsim$</tex-math></inline-formula>2.2<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\times$ </tex-math></inline-formula> and the Allan stability time decreases by <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX"> $\sim$</tex-math></inline-formula>2.5<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\times$</tex-math></inline-formula>. The presented measurement results compare favorably to the ALMA system gain specification of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\Delta$</tex-math></inline-formula><italic>G/G</italic> <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\le$</tex-math></inline-formula> 1.4E<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$-$ </tex-math></inline-formula>4 from 0.05<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$-$</tex-math></inline-formula> 100 s, and offers guidance for application of InP LNAs for RT and cryogenic direct detection and heterodyne systems.
Comparative study of human-induced pluripotent stem cells derived from bone marrow cells, hair keratinocytes, and skin fibroblasts.

AIMS Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) provide a unique opportunity for the generation of patient-specific cells for use in disease modelling, drug screening, and regenerative medicine. The aim of this study was to compare human-induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) derived from different somatic cell sources regarding their generation efficiency and cardiac differentiation potential, and functionalities of cardiomyocytes. METHODS AND RESULTS We generated hiPSCs from hair keratinocytes, bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), and skin fibroblasts by using two different virus systems. We show that MSCs and fibroblasts are more easily reprogrammed than keratinocytes. This corresponds to higher methylation levels of minimal promoter regions of the OCT4 and NANOG genes in keratinocytes than in MSCs and fibroblasts. The success rate and reprogramming efficiency was significantly higher by using the STEMCCA system than the OSNL system. All analysed hiPSCs are pluripotent and show phenotypical characteristics similar to human embryonic stem cells. We studied the cardiac differentiation efficiency of generated hiPSC lines (n = 24) and found that MSC-derived hiPSCs exhibited a significantly higher efficiency to spontaneously differentiate into beating cardiomyocytes when compared with keratinocyte-, and fibroblast-derived hiPSCs. There was no significant difference in the functionalities of the cardiomyocytes derived from hiPSCs with different origins, showing the presence of pacemaker-, atrial-, ventricular- and Purkinje-like cardiomyocytes, and exhibiting rhythmic Ca2+ transients and Ca2+ sparks in hiPSC-derived cardiomyocytes. Furthermore, spontaneously and synchronously beating and force-developing engineered heart tissues were generated. CONCLUSIONS Human-induced pluripotent stem cells can be reprogrammed from all three somatic cell types, but with different efficiency. All analysed iPSCs can differentiate into cardiomyocytes, and the functionalities of cardiomyocytes derived from different cell origins are similar. However, MSC-derived hiPSCs revealed a higher cardiac differentiation efficiency than keratinocyte- and fibroblast-derived hiPSCs.
The Hydroxylase Inhibitor Dimethyloxallyl Glycine Attenuates Endotoxic Shock Via Alternative Activation of Macrophages and IL-10 Production by B1 Cells

Localized tissue hypoxia is a feature of infection and inflammation, resulting in the upregulation of the transcription factors hypoxia-inducible factor 1&agr; and nuclear factor &kgr;B (NF-&kgr;B) via inhibition of oxygen sensing hydroxylase enzymes. Previous studies have demonstrated a beneficial role for the hydroxylase inhibitor dimethyloxallyl glycine (DMOG) in inflammatory conditions, including experimental colitis, by regulating the activity of hypoxia-inducible factor 1 and NF-&kgr;B. We have demonstrated in vivo that pretreatment with DMOG attenuates systemic LPS-induced activation of the NF-&kgr;B pathway. Furthermore, mice treated with DMOG had significantly increased survival in LPS-induced shock. Conversely, in models of polymicrobial sepsis, DMOG exacerbates disease severity. Dimethyloxallyl glycine treatment of mice promotes M2 polarization in macrophages within the peritoneal cavity, resulting in the downregulation of proinflammatory cytokines such as TNF-&agr;. In addition, in vivo DMOG treatment upregulates IL-10 expression, specifically in the peritoneal B1 cell population. This study demonstrates cell type-specific roles for hydroxylase inhibition in vivo and provides insight into the mechanism underlying the protection conveyed by DMOG in models of endotoxic shock.ABBREVIATIONS-MØ-macrophage; DMOG-dimethyloxallyl glycine
UBC‐Nepal expedition: acclimatization to high‐altitude increases spinal motoneurone excitability during fatigue in humans

Acute exposure and acclimatization to hypoxia are associated with an impairment and partial recovery, respectively, of the capability of the central nervous system to drive muscles during prolonged efforts. Motoneurones play a vital role in muscle contraction and in fatigue, although the effect of hypoxia on motoneurone excitability during exercise has not been assessed in humans. We studied the impact of fatigue on motoneurone excitability in normoxia, acute and chronic exposure (5050 m) to hypoxia. Performance was worse in acute hypoxia but recovered to the normoxic standard in chronic hypoxia, in parallel with an increased excitability of the motoneurones compared to acute exposure to hypoxia. These findings reveal that prolonged hypoxia causes a heightened motoneurone responsiveness during fatiguing exercise; such an adaptation might favour the restoration of performance where low pressures of oxygen are chronically present.
Copy Number Variation in Thai Population

Copy number variation (CNV) is a major genetic polymorphism contributing to genetic diversity and human evolution. Clinical application of CNVs for diagnostic purposes largely depends on sufficient population CNV data for accurate interpretation. CNVs from general population in currently available databases help classify CNVs of uncertain clinical significance, and benign CNVs. Earlier studies of CNV distribution in several populations worldwide showed that a significant fraction of CNVs are population specific. In this study, we characterized and analyzed CNVs in 3,017 unrelated Thai individuals genotyped with the Illumina Human610, Illumina HumanOmniexpress, or Illumina HapMap550v3 platform. We employed hidden Markov model and circular binary segmentation methods to identify CNVs, extracted 23,458 CNVs consistently identified by both algorithms, and cataloged these high confident CNVs into our publicly available Thai CNV database. Analysis of CNVs in the Thai population identified a median of eight autosomal CNVs per individual. Most CNVs (96.73%) did not overlap with any known chromosomal imbalance syndromes documented in the DECIPHER database. When compared with CNVs in the 11 HapMap3 populations, CNVs found in the Thai population shared several characteristics with CNVs characterized in HapMap3. Common CNVs in Thais had similar frequencies to those in the HapMap3 populations, and all high frequency CNVs (>20%) found in Thai individuals could also be identified in HapMap3. The majorities of CNVs discovered in the Thai population, however, were of low frequency, or uniquely identified in Thais. When performing hierarchical clustering using CNV frequencies, the CNV data were clustered into Africans, Europeans, and Asians, in line with the clustering performed with single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data. As CNV data are specific to origin of population, our population-specific reference database will serve as a valuable addition to the existing resources for the investigation of clinical significance of CNVs in Thais and related ethnicities.
The Berlin Brain-Computer Interface: Accurate performance from first-session in BCI-naive subjects

The Berlin brain-computer interface (BBCI) project develops a noninvasive BCI system whose key features are: 1) the use of well-established motor competences as control paradigms; 2) high-dimensional features from multichannel EEG; and 3) advanced machine-learning techniques. Spatio-spectral changes of sensorimotor rhythms are used to discriminate imagined movements (left hand, right hand, and foot). A previous feedback study [M. Krauledat, K. -R. Muller, and G. Curio. (2007) The non-invasive Berlin brain-computer Interface: Fast acquisition of effective performance in untrained subjects. NeuroImage. [Online]. 37(2), pp. 539--550. Available: http://dx.doi. org/10.1016/j.neuroimage. 2007.01. 051] with ten subjects provided preliminary evidence that the BBCI system can be operated at high accuracy for subjects with less than five prior BCI exposures. Here, we demonstrate in a group of 14 fully BCI-naive subjects that 8 out of 14 BCI novices can perform at >84% accuracy in their very first BCI session, and a further four subjects at >70%. Thus, 12 out of 14 BCI-novices had significant above-chance level performances without any subject training even in the first session, as based on an optimized EEG analysis by advanced machine-learning algorithms.
Laminar Shear Stress Upregulates Integrin Expression: Role in Endothelial Cell Adhesion and Apoptosis

Laminar shear stress exerts important effects on endothelial cell (EC) function and inhibits apoptosis of ECs induced by various stimuli. The mechanism by which hemodynamic forces, such as shear stress, are transduced into cellular signaling is still not known. Located at the cell surface, integrins, which are required for cell adhesion and cell survival, are potential mechanotransducers. Therefore, we investigated the effect of shear stress on integrin expression in ECs. Shear stress time-dependently increased the mRNA expression of the fibronectin receptor subunits &agr;5 and &bgr;1 with a maximum at 6 hours (283±41% and 215±27% of control, respectively). In addition, the protein levels of the fibronectin receptor subunits &agr;5 and &bgr;1 were enhanced with a maximum at 12 hours of shear stress exposure (343±53% and 212±38% of control, respectively). The shear stress–induced upregulation of integrins is independent of nitric oxide. Furthermore, we confirmed the enhanced functional activity of &agr;5&bgr;1 integrin expression by FACS analysis. As a functional consequence, human umbilical vein ECs, which were preexposed to shear stress, revealed a significantly increased attachment (178±10% of static controls) and a more pronounced extracellular signal–regulated kinase 1 and 2 activation in response to cell attachment. Finally, we demonstrated that shear stress requires RGD-sensitive integrins to mediate its antiapoptotic effect. Taken together, these results define a novel mechanism by which shear stress may exert its atheroprotective effects via upregulation of integrins to support EC adhesion and survival.
Activated protein C action in inflammation

Activated protein C (APC) is a natural anticoagulant that plays an important role in coagulation homeostasis by inactivating the procoagulation factor Va and VIIIa. In addition to its anticoagulation functions, APC also has cytoprotective effects such as anti‐inflammatory, anti‐apoptotic, and endothelial barrier protection. Recently, a recombinant form of human APC (rhAPC or drotrecogin alfa activated; known commercially as ‘Xigris’) was approved by the US Federal Drug Administration for treatment of severe sepsis associated with a high risk of mortality. Sepsis, also known as systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) resulting from infection, is a serious medical condition in critical care patients. In sepsis, hyperactive and dysregulated inflammatory responses lead to secretion of pro‐ and anti‐inflammatory cytokines, activation and migration of leucocytes, activation of coagulation, inhibition of fibrinolysis, and increased apoptosis. Although initial hypotheses focused on antithrombotic and profibrinolytic functions of APC in sepsis, other agents with more potent anticoagulation functions were not effective in treating severe sepsis. Furthermore, APC therapy is also associated with the risk of severe bleeding in treated patients. Therefore, the cytoprotective effects, rather than the anticoagulant effect of APC are postulated to be responsible for the therapeutic benefit of APC in the treatment of severe sepsis.