Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Intracellular sodium affects ouabain interaction with the Na/K pump in cultured chick cardiac myocytes

Whether a given dose of ouabain will produce inotropic or toxic effects depends on factors that affect the apparent affinity (K0.5) of the Na/K pump for ouabain. To accurately resolve these factors, especially the effect of intracellular Na concentration (Nai), we have applied three complementary techniques for measuring the K0.5 for ouabain in cultured embryonic chick cardiac myocytes. Under control conditions with 5.4 mM Ko, the value of the K0.5 for ouabain was 20.6 +/- 1.2, 12.3 +/- 1.7, and 6.6 +/- 0.4 microM, measured by voltage-clamp, Na-selective microelectrode, and equilibrium [3H]ouabain-binding techniques, respectively. A significant difference in the three techniques was the time of exposure to ouabain (30 s-30 min). Since increased duration of exposure to ouabain would increase Nai, monensin was used to raise Nai to investigate what effect Nai might have on the apparent affinity of block by ouabain. Monensin enhanced the rise in Na content induced by 1 microM ouabain. In the presence of 1 microM [3H]ouabain, total binding was found to be a saturating function of Na content. Using the voltage- clamp method, we found that the value of the K0.5 for ouabain was lowered by nearly an order of magnitude in the presence of 3 microM monensin to 2.4 +/- 0.2 microM and the magnitude of the Na/K pump current was increased about threefold. Modeling the Na/K pump as a cyclic sequence of states with a single state having high affinity for ouabain shows that changes in Nai alone are sufficient to cause a 10- fold change in K0.5. These results suggest that Nai reduces the value of the apparent affinity of the Na/K pump for ouabain in 5.4 mM Ko by increasing its turnover rate, thus increasing the availability of the conformation of the Na/K pump that binds ouabain with high affinity.
Local Field Potential in Cortical Area MT: Stimulus Tuning and Behavioral Correlations

Low-frequency electrical signals like those that compose the local field potential (LFP) can be detected at substantial distances from their point of origin within the brain. It is thus unclear how useful the LFP might be for assessing local function, for example, on the spatial scale of cortical columns. We addressed this problem by comparing speed and direction tuning of LFPs obtained from middle temporal area MT with the tuning of multiunit (MU) activity recorded simultaneously. We found that the LFP can be well tuned for speed and direction and is highly correlated with that of MU activity, particularly for frequencies at and above the gamma band. LFP tuning is substantially poorer for lower frequencies, although tuning for direction extends to lower frequencies than does tuning for speed. Our data suggest that LFP signals at and above the gamma band reflect neural processing on the spatial scale of cortical columns, within a few hundred micrometers of the electrode tip. Consistent with this notion, we also found that frequencies at and above the gamma band measured during a speed discrimination task exhibit an effect known as “choice probability,” which reveals a particularly close relationship between neural activity and behavioral choices. In the LFP, this signature of the perceptual choice comprises a shift in relative power from low-frequency bands (α and β) to the gamma band. It remains to be determined how LFP choice probability, which is a temporal signature, is related to conventional choice probability effects observed in spike rates.
Factors and Models Associated with the amount of Hospital Care Services as Demanded by Hospitalized Patients: A Systematic Review

Background Hospitals are constantly being challenged to provide high-quality care despite ageing populations, diminishing resources, and budgetary restraints. While the costs of care depend on the patients' needs, it is not clear which patient characteristics are associated with the demand for care and inherent costs. The aim of this study was to ascertain which patient-related characteristics or models can predict the need for medical and nursing care in general hospital settings. Methods We systematically searched MEDLINE, Embase, Business Source Premier and CINAHL. Pre-defined eligibility criteria were used to detect studies that explored patient characteristics and health status parameters associated to the use of hospital care services for hospitalized patients. Two reviewers independently assessed study relevance, quality with the STROBE instrument, and performed data analysis. Results From 2,168 potentially relevant articles, 17 met our eligibility criteria. These showed a large variety of factors associated with the use of hospital care services; models were found in only three studies. Age, gender, medical and nursing diagnoses, severity of illness, patient acuity, comorbidity, and complications were the characteristics found the most. Patient acuity and medical and nursing diagnoses were the most influencing characteristics. Models including medical or nursing diagnoses and patient acuity explain the variance in the use of hospital care services for at least 56.2%, and up to 78.7% when organizational factors were added. Conclusions A larger variety of factors were found to be associated with the use of hospital care services. Models that explain the extent to which hospital care services are used should contain patient characteristics, including patient acuity, medical or nursing diagnoses, and organizational and staffing characteristics, e.g., hospital size, organization of care, and the size and skill mix of staff. This would enable healthcare managers at different levels to evaluate hospital care services and organize or reorganize patient care.
A Minorization–Maximization Algorithm for Maximizing the Secrecy Rate of the MIMOME Wiretap Channel

We consider physical layer security in a multi-input multi-output multi-eavesdropper wiretap channel and present an exact solution to the problem of secrecy rate maximization. A system model with multiple multi-antenna eavesdroppers and multiple multi-antenna full-duplex receivers is considered, which is general enough such that models existing in the literature may be considered as special cases. In particular, we perform joint beamforming and artificial noise optimization in an effort to maximize the achievable secrecy rate. The optimization is performed in the presence of artificial noise generated by both transmitter and legitimate receivers. The resulting optimization problem is non-convex and difficult to solve. We develop a minorization–maximization algorithm to solve the problem exactly and the results can therefore be used to benchmark existing methods. Numerical results are presented to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed approach.
Toward a Broad-coverage Bilingual Corpus for Speech Translation of Travel Conversations in the Real World

Abstract At ATR Spoken Language Translation Research Laboratories, we are building a broad-coverage bilingual corpus to study corpus-based speech translation technologies for the real world. There are three important points to consider in designing and constructing a corpus for future speech translation research. The first is to have a variety of speech samples, with a wide range of pronunciations and speakers. The second is to have data for a variety of situations. The third is to have a variety of expressions. This paper reports our trials and discusses the methodology. First, we introduce a bilingual travel conversation (TC) corpus of spoken languages and a broad-coverage bilingual basic expression (BE) corpus. TC and BE are designed to be complementary. TC is a collection of transcriptions of bilingual spoken dialogues, while BE is a collection of Japanese sentences and their English translations. Whereas TC covers a small domain, BE covers a wide variety of domains. We compare the characteristics of vocabulary and expressions between these two corpora and suggest that we need a much greater variety of expressions. One promising approach might be to collect paraphrases representing various different expressions generated by many people for similar concepts.
Kidney-Lung Crosstalk in the Critically Ill Patient

Despite advances in renal replacement therapy, the mortality of acute kidney injury (AKI) has remained high, especially when associated with distant organ dysfunction such as acute lung injury (ALI). Mortality rates for combined AKI/ALI reach 80% in critically ill patients. While the clinical presentation of AKI-associated ALI is characterized by increased pulmonary edema, a defining feature of the syndrome, the AKI-induced lung effects extend beyond simple volume overload. Furthermore, ALI and associated mechanical ventilation frequently lead to a decline in renal hemodynamics, structure and function. New experimental data have emerged in recent years focusing on the interactive effects of kidney and lung dysfunction, and these studies have highlighted the pathophysiological importance of proinflammatory and proapoptotic pathways as well as the complex nature of interorgan crosstalk. This review will examine our current understanding of the deleterious kidney-lung crosstalk in the critically ill.
The Prevalence of Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease and Relationship with Serum Uric Acid Level in Uyghur Population

Objective. To investigate the prevalence of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and the association of serum uric acid level with NAFLD in Uygur people, Xinjiang. Methods. A total of 2241 Uyghur persons (1214 males and 1027 females) were interviewed for physical checkups from 2011 to 2012. The clinical data of questionnaire survey, body mass index (BMI), abdominal circumference, blood pressure, blood sugar, blood lipid, and serum uric acid level were collected for analysis. Results. The prevalence rates of NAFLD determined by abdominal ultrasound examination and hyperuricemia were 43.9% and 8.4%, respectively. The persons with NAFLD had significantly higher serum uric acid levels than those without NAFLD (320 ± 88 versus 254 ± 80 μmol/L; P < 0.001). The prevalence rate of NAFLD was significantly higher in subjects with hyperuricemia than that in those without hyperuricemia (78.19% versus 40.83%; P < 0.001), and the prevalence rate increased with progressively higher serum uric acid levels (P < 0.001). Multiple regression analysis showed that hyperuricemia was associated with an increased risk of NAFLD (odds ratio (OR): 2.628, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.608–4.294, and P < 0.001). Conclusion. Serum uric acid level was significantly associated with NAFLD, and the prevalence rate of NAFLD increased with progressively higher serum uric acid levels.
Effective Connectivity between Ventral Occipito-Temporal and Ventral Inferior Frontal Cortex during Lexico-Semantic Processing. A Dynamic Causal Modeling Study

It has been suggested that dorsal and ventral pathways support distinct aspects of language processing. Yet, the full extent of their involvement and their inter-regional connectivity in visual word recognition is still unknown. Studies suggest that they might reflect the dual-route model of reading, with the dorsal pathway more involved in grapho-phonological conversion during phonological tasks, and the ventral pathway performing lexico-semantic access during semantic tasks. Furthermore, this subdivision is also suggested at the level of the inferior frontal cortex, involving ventral and dorsal parts for lexico-semantic and phonological processing, respectively. In the present study, we assessed inter-regional brain connectivity and task-induced modulations of brain activity during a phoneme detection and semantic categorization tasks, using fMRI in healthy subject. We used a dynamic causal modeling approach to assess inter-regional connectivity and task demand modulation within the dorsal and ventral pathways, including the following network components: the ventral occipito-temporal cortex (vOTC; dorsal and ventral), the superior temporal gyrus (STG; dorsal), the dorsal inferior frontal gyrus (dIFG; dorsal), and the ventral IFG (vIFG; ventral). We report three distinct inter-regional interactions supporting orthographic information transfer from vOTC to other language regions (vOTC -> STG, vOTC -> vIFG and vOTC -> dIFG) regardless of task demands. Moreover, we found that (a) during semantic processing (direct ventral pathway) the vOTC -> vIFG connection strength specifically increased and (b) a lack of modulation of the vOTC -> dIFG connection strength by the task that could suggest a more general involvement of the dorsal pathway during visual word recognition. Results are discussed in terms of anatomo-functional connectivity of visual word recognition network.
An Object-Based Approach to Map Human Hand Synergies onto Robotic Hands with Dissimilar Kinematics

—Robotic hands differ in kinematics, dynamics, programming, control and sensing frameworks. Borrowing the terminology from software engineering, there is a need for middleware solutions to control the robotic hands independently from their speciﬁc structure, and focusing only on the task. Results in neuroscience concerning the synergistic organization of the human hand, are the theoretical foundation of this work, which focuses on the problem of mapping human hand synergies on robotic hands with dissimilar kinematic structures. The proposed mapping is based on the use of a virtual ellipsoid and it is mediated by a model of an anthropomorphic robotic hand able to capture the idea of synergies in human hands. This approach has been tested in two different robotic hands with an anthropomorphic and non-anthropomorphic kinematic structure.
Digitalization and Innovative Design Routines : The Effect of Digital Intensity on Design Routine Variety *

As design has become critical strategic activity, design routines have been transformed through constant digitalization. Yet, we know little about whether such increased digital intensity influences routine variation and in which direction. This paper focuses on the effects of increasing digitalization on the design routine’s configural variety. We define and operationalize a new endogenous construct of ‘digital intensity’ to capture the level of digitalization within routines. We further introduce ‘configural variety’ as the overall variation in the composition of activities, such as the types of activity, its use of tools, included affordances, location, etc., in a given routine. Drawing on these constructs, we advance a contingency theory of configural routine variety that draws upon theories of design control and environmental adaptation. The proposed theory predicts a generally inverse effect between digital intensity and configural variety, but this relationship is moderated by environmental volatility and decision control.
Identification of Treatment Response with Social Interactions

This paper develops a formal language for study of treatment response with social interactions, and uses it to obtain new findings on identification of potential outcome distributions. Defining a person's treatment response to be a function of the entire vector of treatments received by the population, I study identification when shape restrictions and distributional assumptions are placed on response functions. An early key result is that the traditional assumption of individualistic treatment response (ITR) is a polar case within the broad class of constant treatment response (CTR) assumptions, the other pole being unrestricted interactions. Important non-polar cases are interactions within reference groups and distributional interactions. I show that established findings on identification under assumption ITR extend to assumption CTR. These include identification with assumption CTR alone and when this shape restriction is strengthened to semi-monotone response. I next study distributional assumptions using instrumental variables. Findings obtained previously under assumption ITR extend when assumptions of statistical independence (SI) are posed in settings with social interactions. However, I find that random assignment of realized treatments generically has no identifying power when some persons are leaders who may affect outcomes throughout the population. Finally, I consider use of models of endogenous social interactions to derive restrictions on response functions. I emphasize that identification of potential outcome distributions differs from the longstanding econometric concern with identification of structural functions. This paper is a revised version of CWP01/10
Improving public spending efficiency in primary and secondary education

Influenced by the perceived link between higher levels of educational attainment and growth, the education sector has seen significant reform efforts in recent years in a number of countries. Public spending in this sector has increased on average by one-fifth in real terms over the past decade and growth in terms of spending per student has also been marked in many countries (Figure 1, upper panel); governments in the OECD area now spend on average around 3% of GDP on primary and secondary education. However, a close correspondence between the level of resources and educational outcomes is difficult to demonstrate empirically: cross-sectional evidence reveals only a weak correlation between national spending per student or teaching resources and mean pupil performance in standardised tests (Figure 1, lower panels). Extra resources devoted to education do not automatically lead to commensurate improvements in outcomes.
Abrasive water jet machining of glass fibre metal laminates

Abstract Glass fibre metal laminates (GFMLs) have been machined successfully with an abrasive water jet. The mechanism of material removal of the aluminium layer is by microcutting and plastic deformation similar to that observed in machining ductile materials. The glass fibres that are transverse to the direction of work travel are machined by microcutting and/or brittle fracture. The glass fibres that are parallel to the direction of work travel are removed in bulk by brittle feature. The fibres undergo substantial secondary erosion. No delamination has been observed except for the laminates with thinner aluminium layers. The quality parameters associated with kerf, the taper quality parameter, the amount of burr formation, the straightness of the edge at the exit side, etc., correlate quite well with the cutting ability parameter. A quantitative relation, irrespective of the structure and build-up of the laminates, has been attempted between the taper quality parameter and the cutting ability parameter.
A comparison of bandwidth smoothing techniques for the transmission of prerecorded compressed video

The transfer of prerecorded, compressed video requires multimedia services to support large fluctuations in bandwidth requirements on multiple time scales. Bandwidth smoothing techniques can reduce the burstiness of a variable-bit-rate stream by prefetching data at a series of fixed rates, simplifying the allocation of resources in video servers and the communication network. Given a fixed client-side prefetch buffer several bandwidth smoothing algorithms have been introduced that are provably optimal under certain constraints. This paper presents a collection of metrics for comparing these smoothing algorithms and evaluating their cost-performance trade-offs. Due to the scarcity of available trace data, we have constructed a video capture testbed and generated a collection of twenty full-length, motion-JPEG encoded video clips. Using these video traces and a range of client buffer sizes, we investigate the interplay between the performance metrics through simulation experiments. The results highlight the unique strengths and weaknesses of each algorithm.
Properties of enterotoxigenic S . aureus Isolated from mastitic cattle and buffaloes in Egypt

Enterotoxigenic S. aureus in milk posses a potential health hazard to consumers. In this paper 106 S. aureus isolated from cow and buffalo milk samples were investigated for production of enterotoxins. RPLA results showed high incidence of type C enterotoxin followed by type A and type B with incidence of 34 (32.1%), 19 (17.9%) and 15 (14.2%) respectively. Toxigenic S. aureus isolates produced golden yellow, creamy and white colonies on agar in percent of 69.11%, 27.94% and 2.94% respectively. Regarding to hemolytic activity on sheep blood agar, 92.65% of toxigenic S. aureus isolated from bovine milk samples were hemolytic. A correlation exists between toxigenic isolates and coagulase and DNase production. On crystal violet agar medium. 23.53% of the S. aureus isolates yielded yellow colonies, 64.71% yielded violet colonies, while 11.76% yielded white colonies from the toxigenic S. aureus isolates. It is clear that most of bovine isolates yielded violet colonies on the medium. Out of 68 isolates of toxigenic S. aureus isolates 51 (75%) showed SpA by agglutination test positive. Results obtained showed 100% agreement between RPLA and PCR techniques. [Journal of American Science. 2010;6(11):170-178]. (ISSN: 1545-1003).
Effect of central nicotinic activation on drinking behavior

Intracerebroventricular injections of angiotensin II (ANG) and nicotine activate the subfornical organ (SFO), an essential central nucleus for ANG-induced drinking. Nicotine has been, however, reported to induce little drinking behavior. To clarify this paradox, we investigated effects of nicotine and ANG on activity of SFO neurons and drinking behavior. In extracellular recordings many SFO neurons (57%) were excited by the both drugs. The nicotine-induced excitation was transient, whereas the ANG-induced was long-lasting. After intracerebroventricular injection of nicotine, the latency to drinking was dose-dependently shortened, but the drinking volumes were much smaller than those by ANG. These suggest that central nicotinic activation contributes to induction of drinking behavior while drinking volume is small because effects of nicotine on neurons are short-lasting.
Tooth surface treatment strategies for adhesive cementation

PURPOSE The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of tooth surface pre-treatment steps on shear bond strength, which is essential for understanding the adhesive cementation process. MATERIALS AND METHODS Shear bond strengths of different cements with various tooth surface treatments (none, etching, priming, or etching and priming) on enamel and dentin of human teeth were measured using the Swiss shear test design. Three adhesives (Permaflo DC, Panavia F 2.0, and Panavia V5) and one self-adhesive cement (Panavia SA plus) were included in this study. The interface of the cement and the tooth surface with the different pre-treatments was analyzed using SEM. pH values of the cements and primers were measured. RESULTS The highest bond strength values for all cements were achieved with etching and primer on enamel (25.6 ± 5.3 - 32.3 ± 10.4 MPa). On dentin, etching and priming produced the highest bond strength values for all cements (8.6 ± 2.9 - 11.7 ± 3.5 MPa) except for Panavia V5, which achieved significantly higher bond strengths when pre-treated with primer only (15.3 ± 4.1 MPa). Shear bond strength values were correlated with the micro-retentive surface topography of enamel and the tag length on dentin except for Panavia V5, which revealed the highest bond strength with primer application only without etching, resulting in short but sturdy tags. CONCLUSION The highest bond strength can be achieved for Panavia F 2.0, Permaflo DC, and Panavia SA plus when the tooth substrate is previously etched and the respective primer is applied. The new cement Panavia V5 displayed low technique-sensitivity and attained significantly higher adhesion of all tested cements to dentin when only primer was applied.