Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Transfusion Triggers for Guiding RBC Transfusion for Cardiovascular Surgery: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis*

Objective:Restrictive red cell transfusion is recommended to minimize risk associated with exposure to allogeneic blood. However, perioperative anemia is an independent risk factor for adverse outcomes after cardiovascular surgery. The purpose of this systematic review and meta-analysis is to determine whether perioperative restrictive transfusion thresholds are associated with inferior clinical outcomes in randomized trials of cardiovascular surgery patients. Data Sources:The Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, MEDLINE, and EMBASE from inception to October 2013; reference lists of published guidelines, reviews, and associated articles, as well as conference proceedings. No language restrictions were applied. Study Selection:We included controlled trials in which adult patients undergoing cardiac or vascular surgery were randomized to different transfusion thresholds, described as a hemoglobin or hematocrit level below which RBCs were transfused. Data Extraction:Two authors independently extracted data from included trials. We pooled risk ratios of dichotomous outcomes and mean differences of continuous outcomes across trials using random-effects models. Data Synthesis:Seven studies (enrolling 1,262 participants) met inclusion criteria with restrictive and liberal transfusion thresholds most commonly differing by a hemoglobin of 1 g/dL or hematocrit of 6–7%, resulting in decreased transfusions by 0.71 units of RBCs (95% CI, 0.31–1.09, p = 0.0002) without an associated change in adverse events: mortality (risk ratio, 1.12; 95% CI, 0.65–1.95; p = 0.60), myocardial infarction (risk ratio, 0.94; 95% CI, 0.30–2.99; p = 0.92), stroke (risk ratio, 1.15; 95% CI, 0.57–2.32; p = 0.70), acute renal failure (risk ratio, 0.98; 95% CI, 0.64–1.49; p = 0.91), infections (risk ratio, 1.23; 95% CI, 0.85–1.78; p = 0.27), or length of stay. There was no between-trial heterogeneity for any pooled analysis. Including four pediatric trials (456 participants) and 10 trials utilizing only intraoperative acute normovolemic hemodilution (872 participants) did not substantially change the results except that unlike the transfusion threshold trials, the hemodilution trials did not reduce the proportion of patients transfused (interaction p = 0.01). Conclusions:Further randomized controlled trials are necessary to determine the optimal transfusion strategy for patients undergoing cardiovascular surgery.
Passive tracking exploiting local signal conservation: The white marker phenomenon

This article presents a novel approach to passive tracking of paramagnetic markers during endovascular interventions, exploiting positive contrast of the markers to their background, so‐called “white marker tracking. ” The positive contrast results from dephasing of the background signal with a slice gradient, while near the marker the signal is conserved because a dipole field induced by the marker compensates the dephasing gradient. Theoretical investigation shows that a local gradient induced by the local dipole field will nearly always cancel the dephasing gradient somewhere, regardless of marker composition, gradient strength, orientation, and acquisition parameters. The actual appearance of the white marker is determined by the marker strength, echo‐time, slice thickness, and gradient strength, as shown both theoretically and experimentally. The novel concept is demonstrated by tracking experiments in a flow phantom and in pig models and is shown to allow reliable and robust depiction of paramagnetic markers with positive contrast and significant suppression of the background signal. Magn Reson Med 50:784–790, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Liquid propellant rocket combustion instability

The solution of problems of combustion instability for more effective communication between the various workers in this field is considered. The extent of combustion instability problems in liquid propellant rocket engines and recommendations for their solution are discussed. The most significant developments, both theoretical and experimental, are presented, with emphasis on fundamental principles and relationships between alternative approaches.
On the broadcast of segmented messages in dynamic networks

This paper makes a systematic attempt to understand the effect of message size on the speed and efficiency of message broadcast. It considers a realistic situation where a single message may be too large to be sent in over a single connection and hence might require to be transmitted in segments. In specific, we look into the push and pull message transfer techniques and investigate in details their effect on broadcast time as well as total number of redundant contacts incurred during the transmission of segmented messages. For such segmentation and a complete graph topology with n nodes, we observe that the time required for broadcast scales as nk-1/k (assuming there are k packets in one message segment) as opposed to log n in the single message epidemic case (k = 1). In order to improve broadcast time and reduce the number of useless contacts we propose different variants of the push and pull message transfer techniques. In this regard we introduce the concept of giveup, which allows a node to terminate broadcast on sensing its neighborhood has received the message. We further study the effect of message segmentation on various types of topologies like d-regular graph, random graph etc. and observe that even for simple push technique, there exists an optimal d for which the dynamics becomes fast. We also simulate our results on real traces and finally provide some suggestions for network designers which we believe will help in faster message dissemination and lesser wastage, especially in case of dynamic networks.
Long Chains or Stable Communities? The Role of Emotional Stability in Twitter Conversations

In this article, we address the issue of how emotional stability affects social relationships in Twitter. In particular, we focus our study on users’ communicative interactions, identified by the symbol “@. ” We collected a corpus of about 200,000 Twitter posts, and we annotated it with our personality recognition system. This system exploits linguistic features, such as punctuation and emoticons, and statistical features, such as follower count and retweeted posts. We tested the system on a data set annotated with personality models produced by human subjects and against a software for the analysis of Twitter data. Social network analysis shows that, whereas secure users have more mutual connections, neurotic users post more than secure ones and have the tendency to build longer chains of interacting users. Clustering coefficient analysis reveals that, whereas secure users tend to build stronger networks, neurotic users have difficulty in belonging to a stable community; hence, they seek for new contacts in online social networks.
A Siberian precursor to midwinter intraseasonal variability in the North Pacific storm track

An observational diagnostic analysis is performed to study variations in the behavior of upper tropospheric Rossby waves prior to intraseasonal variability in the North Pacific storm track. The research is motivated from considerations of the midwinter suppression of the North Pacific storm track. During midwinter strong upper tropospheric cyclone events in the North Pacific storm track are preceded 7 days by a large‐scale cyclonic circulation anomaly located over Siberia. The Siberian precursor anomaly is found to be strongly linked to one of the primary modes of upper tropospheric intraseasonal variability over Asia. More generally, this Asian mode is determined to provide a substantial modulation in the structure and amplitude of the North Pacific storm track at lead times of +5 to +8 days. This downstream influence is concentrated during midwinter and is likely related to intraseasonal variations in the East Asian winter monsoon.
X-ray properties in massive galaxy clusters: XMM-Newton observations of the REFLEX-DXL sample ⋆

We selected an unbiased, flux-limited and almost volume-com plete sample of 13 distant, X-ray luminous (DXL, z ∼ 0.3) clusters and one supplementary cluster at z = 0.2578 from the REFLEX Survey (the REFLEX-DXL sample). We performed a detailed study to explore their X-ray properties using XMM-Newton observations. Based on the precise radial distributions of the gas density and temperature, we obtained robust cluster masses and gas mass fractions. The average gas mass fraction of the REFLEX-DXL sample at r500, 0.116± 0.007, agrees with the previous cluster studies and the WMAP baryon fraction measurement. The scaled profiles of the surf ace brightness, temperature, entropy, gas mass and total mass are characterized by a self-similar behaviour at radii above 0. 2-0.3 r500. The REFLEX-DXL sample confirms the previous studies of the normalization of the scaling relations ( L-T , L-M, M-T and Mgas-T ) when the redshift evolution of the scaling relations is accounted for. We investigated the scatter of the scaling relations of the REFLEX-DXL sample. This gives the correlative scatter of (0.20,0.10) for variable of ( M,T ) of the M500-T relation, for example.
Cell-surface display of E7 antigen from human papillomavirus type-16 in Lactococcus lactis and in Lactobacillus plantarum using a new cell-wall anchor from lactobacilli

The human papillomavirus type-16 (HPV-16) E7 protein is considered a major viral oncoprotein involved in cervical cancer (CxCa) and a potential candidate for the development of a vaccine against this neoplasia. Here, two lactic acid bacteria (the model one Lactococcus lactis and a probiotic one Lactobacillus plantarum) were engineered to deliver an E7 mutant protein (E7mm), which has a reduced transforming activity and consequently, could fit better to therapeutic use in humans than the native form of E7. An efficient cell-surface display of E7mm was obtained in L. lactis using an expression cassette encoding a precursor composed of (i) the signal peptide and the first 15 amino acids of the mature part of the lactococcal Usp45 protein; (ii) E7mm and (iii) the cell-wall anchor of the Streptococcus pyogenes M6 protein (CWAM6). This hybrid precursor was produced but not cell-wall anchored in Lb. plantarum. We thus replaced CWAM6 by the cell-wall anchor of a Lb. plantarum protein which allows an efficient cell-wall anchoring of E7mm in this bacterium. The E7mm production and cell-surface display in both L. lactis and a probiotic bacterium, Lb. plantarum, represent one more step towards the development of a safe and effective treatment against CxCa.
Directional synthetic aperture flow imaging

A method for flow estimation using synthetic aperture imaging and focusing along the flow direction is presented. The method can find the correct velocity magnitude For any flow angle, and full color flow images can be measured using only 32 to 128 pulse emissions. The approach uses spherical wave emissions with a number of defocused elements and a linear frequency-modulated pulse (chirp) to improve the signal-to-noise ratio. The received signals are dynamically focused along the flow direction and these signals are used in a cross-correlation estimator for finding the velocity magnitude. The flow angle is manually determined from the B-mode image. The approach can be used for both tissue and blood velocity determination. The approach was investigated using both simulations and a flow system with a laminar flow. The flow profile was measured with a commercial 7.5 MHz linear array transducer. A plastic tube with an internal diameter of 17 mm was used with an EcoWatt 1 pump generating a laminar, stationary flow. The velocity profile was measured for flow angles of 90 and 60 degrees. The RASMUS research scanner was used for acquiring radio frequency (RF) data from 128 elements of the array, using 8 emissions with 11 elements in each emission. A 20-/spl mu/s chirp was used during emission. The RF data were subsequently beamformed off-line and stationary echo canceling was performed. The 60-degree flow with a peak velocity of 0.15 m/s was determined using 16 groups of 8 emissions, and the relative standard deviation was 0.36% (0.65 mm/s). Using the same setup for purely transverse flow gave a standard deviation of 1.2% (2.1 mm/s). Variation of the different parameters revealed the sensitivity to number of lines, angle deviations, length of correlation interval, and sampling interval. An in vivo image of the carotid artery and jugular vein of a healthy 29-year-old volunteer was acquired. A full color flow image using only 128 emissions could be made with a high-velocity precision.
Chorionic gonadotropin alleviates thioglycollate‐induced peritonitis by affecting macrophage function

Human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG) is a hormone produced during pregnancy and present at the implantation site and in the maternal blood. Pregnancy has been proposed to represent a controlled state of inflammation at an early stage at the implantation site and later, systemically extended to the maternal circulation. Earlier, we reported that hCG can inhibit the development of diabetes in NOD mice and LPS‐induced septic shock in a murine model. We hypothesize that hCG can contribute to the reduction of inflammation by modifying Mϕ function. Here, the TG‐induced peritonitis model for inflammation was used to investigate the effect of hCG on cytokine production and cell recruitment in vivo. hCG pretreatment in TG‐induced peritonitis increased the number of peritoneal cells, especially PMN and monocytes, compared with mice injected with TG only. This increased cell number was partially explained by increased cell survival induced by hCG. Despite the cellular infiltrate, hCG pretreatment decreased i.p. TNF‐α, IL‐6, PTX3, CCL3, and CCL5 levels. By depleting peritoneal resident Mϕ using clodronate liposomes prior to the application of hCG and the TG trigger, we established that Mϕ are the main responsive cells to hCG, as the suppressed TNF‐α and IL‐6 production and increased PMN influx are abolished in their absence. Together, these data suggest that hCG contributes to the controlled inflammatory state of pregnancy by regulating Mϕ proinflammatory function.
Correcting Memory Improves Accuracy of Predicted Task Duration

People are often inaccurate in predicting task duration. The memory bias explanation holds that this error is due to people having incorrect memories of how long previous tasks have taken, and these biased memories cause biased predictions. Therefore, the authors examined the effect on increasing predictive accuracy of correcting memory through supplying feedback for actual task duration. For Experiments 1 (paper-counting task) and 2 (essay-writing task), college students were supplied with duration information about their previous performance on a similar task before predicting task duration. For Experiment 3, participants were recruited at various locations, such as fast food restaurants and video arcades, and supplied with average task duration for others before predicting how long the task would take. In all 3 experiments, supplying feedback increased predictive accuracy. Overall, results indicate that, when predicting duration, people do well when they rely not on memory of past task duration but instead on measures of actual duration, whether their own or that of others.
Indications and Outcomes of Medical Intensive Care Admissions in a Nigerian Tertiary Hospital

Background: The demand for intensive care is rising in many developing countries with specialties requiring specialized intensive care services. Medical conditions constitute a substantial proportion of demands for intensive care. Objectives: To determine the patients’ characteristics and outcomes of medical indications for intensive care unit (ICU) admissions in a Nigerian tertiary hospital. Methods: A retrospective descriptive study was conducted at the Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospitals Complex, Ile-Ife, Southwest Nigeria. The data of all patients aged 16 years and above managed from 2010 to 2019 were extracted from the general ICU admissions book. The age, sex, indication for admission, need for mechanical ventilation, length of stay in the ICU and outcome of care were retrieved for analysis. Results: There were 255 patients with medical conditions, constituting 12.6% of all (3,213) ICU admissions during the study period. The male-to-female ratio was 1.3:1.0 and the age range was 16 to 89 years. The most common indication for admission was neurological illnesses (56.7%). Stroke accounted for 40.4% of all medical ICU admissions. The mean length of ICU stay was 4.9±5.95 days. A larger proportion of patients (75.0%) who had mechanical ventilation died compared to 25.0% who survived (p = 0.001). Conclusion: Neurological disorders, especially stroke, were the most common indications for ICU admission. Many medical conditions had high mortality rates and outcomes were notably poor for mechanically ventilated patients.
An X-ray look at the Seyfert 1 Galaxy Mrk 590: XMM-Newton and Chandra reveal complexity in circumnuclear gas

Context. This paper reports on a partially simultaneous observation of the bright Seyfert 1 Galaxy Mrk 590, performed by XMM-Newton and Chandra. Aims. The long exposure (∼100 ks) allows us to investigate the Fe K complex at 6−7 keV and the presence of soft X-ray spectral features in great detail. Methods. We have analysed XMM-Newton data from the European Photon Imaging Camera (EPIC) in the 0.5−12 keV band and from the Reflection Grating Spectrometer (RGS) in the 0.35−2.5 keV band, and data from the High Energy Transmission Gratings (HETGs) onboard Chandra. UV and optical data from the Optical Monitor (OM) onboard XMM-Newton are also included in the analysis. Results. The broad band spectrum is well described by an unabsorbed power law and three unresolved Fe K lines in the 6− 7k eV range. The presence of a Compton reflection component and a narrow Fe K line at 6.4 keV is consistent with an origin via torus reflection. The ionised Fe lines at ∼6.7 and 7 keV are instead most likely originated by scattering on a warm and ionised gas. The soft X-ray spectrum appears to be almost featureless due to the very bright continuum emission, except for one emission line identified as OVIII Lyα detected at ∼19 A by both RGS and Chandra-MEG. The emerging picture consists of an active nucleus seen directly on a “clean” line of sight without intervening material, surrounded by photoionised circumnuclear gas at a high ionisation level. We also study three serendipitous sources in the field of view of Chandra and XMM-Newton. One of these sources may be identified with an ULX of L0.3−10 keV ∼ 4 × 10 40 erg/s.
Safety in automated trust negotiation

Exchange of attribute credentials is a means to establish mutual trust between strangers wishing to share resources or conduct business transactions. Automated Trust Negotiation (ATN) is an approach to regulate the exchange of sensitive information during this process. It treats credentials as potentially sensitive resources, access to which is under policy control. Negotiations that correctly enforce policies have been called safe in the literature. Prior work on ATN lacks an adequate definition of this safety notion. In large part, this is because fundamental questions such as what needs to be protected in ATN? and what are the security requirements? are not adequately answered. As a result, many prior methods of ATN have serious security holes. We introduce a formal framework for ATN in which we give precise, usable, and intuitive definitions of correct enforcement of policies in ATN. We argue that our chief safety notion captures intuitive security goals under both possibilistic and probabilistic analysis. We give precise comparisons of this notion with two alternative safety notions that may seem intuitive, but that are seen to be inadequate under closer inspection. We prove that an approach to ATN from the literature meets the requirements set forth in the preferred safety definition, thus validating the safety of that approach, as well as the usability of the definition.
Fine mapping of the GLC1K juvenile primary open-angle glaucoma locus and exclusion of candidate genes

Purpose Primary open-angle glaucoma is a leading cause of blindness worldwide. We previously identified a region on chromosome 20p12 associated with juvenile-onset primary open-angle glaucoma (JOAG) that was designated GLC1K. The aim of this study is to refine the boundaries of the GLC1K region and to screen selected candidate genes located within the refined region for biologically significant mutations. Methods Four JOAG families (44 individuals) with linkage to GLC1K were used for this study. Informative single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers located throughout the previously defined region were used for haplotype analysis. Four candidate genes within the refined region were screened for biologically significant mutations using direct genomic sequencing: bone morphogenetic protein 2 (BMP2); phospholipase C beta 1 (PLCB1); phospholipase C beta 4 (PLCB4); and BTB POZ domain containing 3 (BTBD3). Results Haplotype analysis identified a new critical interval of 12.7 Mb using a combination of SNPs and microsatellite markers. This analysis extended the region of GLC1K from D20S846 to rs6081603 in affected individuals, and the region was further reduced to 9 Mb if unaffected recombinant individuals were included in the analysis. Biologically significant DNA sequence variants were not identified in the BMP2, PLCB1, PLCB4, or BTBD3 genes in these families. Conclusions Using recombinant breakpoint mapping and haplotypes based on a combination of SNP and microsatellite markers, the GLC1K region has been reduced to a maximum of 12.7 Mb and a minimum of 9 Mb. Four genes that are located within the refined region with attractive ocular expression and function have been excluded as causative genes for JOAG.
Delayed response of excavations in structured clays

In this paper, the behaviour of an idealized excavation carried out in a clay sensitive to destructuration is studied through a series of finite element analyses, employing an advanced bounding surface model developed for structured clays. Several cases are examined to investigate the influence of factors including the velocity of destructuration, damage to the soil–wall contact produced by the wall construction, and width-to-height ratio of the excavation. The case of a soil deposit insensitive to microstructural damage is also studied for comparison. Results of the numerical analyses show that the progressive dissipation of excess pore-water pressures generated during the excavation stage can damage the clay microstructure severely enough to trigger an instability phenomenon. If the clay structure deteriorates rapidly, the instability is concurrent with the dissipation of excess pore-water pressures. However, for a clay less sensitive to microstructural damage, the instability can occur towards the end of the consolidation process, or even be preceded by a deceptively stable time interval, during which small redistributions of pore-water pressure can trigger an important destructuration and collapse of the excavation. In a final part of the paper, results of the numerical analyses are used to provide indications about the most appropriate quantities to monitor to provide an effective early warning of the instability phenomenon.