Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Wharton's jelly in the umbilical cord. A study of its quantitative variations and clinical correlates.

A frozen segment was prepared from each of 398 consecutively collected umbilical cords after stripping them of blood. Three cross-sections were obtained from each cord, and dye imprints were made. Their surface area was measured by placing a transparency with a grid of squares over the imprint and counting the number of squares it occupied. An average of these three cross-sectional areas was taken to estimate the quantity of Wharton's jelly at any point along the umbilical cord. Of the 14 maternal and fetal variables studied, those that were found to be independently related to the estimated quantity of Wharton's jelly in the umbilical cord were male gender (P = < .01), weight of the fetus (P = .05) and maternal prepregnancy weight (P = < .01). These variables, however, explained only 7% of the observed variation in quantity. A further 3.3% was explained by measurement error, leaving 89.7% of the observed variation unexplained.
Problem-based learning using the online Medicare Part D Plan Finder tool.

OBJECTIVES To implement didactic and problem-based learning curricular innovations aimed at increasing students' knowledge of Medicare Part D, improving their ability to apply the online Medicare Prescription Drug Plan Finder tool to a patient case, and improving their attitudes toward patient advocacy for Medicare beneficiaries. METHODS A survey instrument and a case-based online Medicare Prescription Drug Plan Finder tool exercise were administered to a single group (n = 120) of second-year pharmacy graduate students prior to and following completion of a course on health policy. Three domains (knowledge, skill mastery and attitudes) were measured before and after two 90-minute lectures on Medicare Part D. RESULTS The online Medicare Prescription Drug Plan Finder exercise and Medicare Part D didactic lectures had positive effects on students' knowledge of Part D, attitudes toward patient advocacy, and ability to accurately use the Medicare Prescription Drug Plan Finder tool. CONCLUSIONS The success of these didactic and problem-based curricular innovations in improving pharmacy students' knowledge, skills, and attitudes regarding Part D warrants further evaluation to determine their portability to clinical settings and other pharmacy schools.
Long term effects of bosentan treatment in adult patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension related to congenital heart disease (Eisenmenger physiology): safety, tolerability, clinical, and haemodynamic effect

Background: Oral bosentan is an established treatment for pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). Objective: To evaluate safety, tolerability, and clinical and haemodynamic effects of bosentan in patients with PAH related to congenital heart disease (CHD). Patients: 22 patients with CHD related PAH (8 men, 14 women, mean (SD) age 38 (10) years) were treated with oral bosentan (62.5 mg×2/day for the first 4 weeks and then 125 mg×2/day). Main outcome measures: Clinical status, liver enzymes, World Health Organisation (WHO) functional class, resting oxygen saturations and 6-min walk test (6MWT) were assessed at baseline and at 1, 3, 6, and 12 months. Haemodynamic evaluation with cardiac catheterisation was performed at baseline and at 12 month follow-up. Results: 12 patients had ventricular septal defect, 5 atrioventricular canal, 4 single ventricle, and 1 atrial septal defect. All patients tolerated bosentan well. No major side effects were seen. After a year of treatment, an improvement was seen in WHO functional class (2.5 (0.7) v 3.1 (0.7); p<0.05), oxygen saturation at rest (87 (6%) v 81 (9); p<0.001), heart rate at rest (81 (10) v 87 (14) bpm; p<0.05), distance travelled in the 6MWT (394 (73) v 320 (108) m; p<0.001), oxygen saturation at the end of the 6MWT (71 (14) v 63 (17%); p<0.05), Borg index (5.3 (1.8) v 6.5 (1.3); p<0.001), pulmonary vascular resistances index (14 (9) v 22 (12) WU m2; p<0.001), systemic vascular resistances index (23 (11) v 27 (10) WU.m2; p<0.01), pulmonary vascular resistances index/systemic vascular resistances index (0.6 (0.5) v 0.9 (0.6); p<0.05); pulmonary (4.0 (1.3) v 2.8 (0.9) l/min/m2; p<0.001) and systemic cardiac output (4.2 (1.4) v 3.4 (1.1) l/min/m2; p<0.05). Conclusions: Bosentan was safe and well tolerated in adults with CHD related PAH during 12 months of treatment. Clinical status, exercise tolerance, and pulmonary haemodynamics improved considerably.
Entanglement cost of quantum channels

A natural question in characterizing the information theoretic power of quantum channels is to ask at what rate entanglement is needed in order to asymptotically simulate a quantum channel in the presence of free classical communication. We call this the entanglement cost of a channel, and prove a formula describing it for all channels. We discuss two applications. Firstly, we are able to link the security in the noisy-storage model to a problem of sending quantum rather than classical information through the adversary's storage device. This not only greatly improves the range of parameters where security could be shown previously, but allows us to prove security for storage devices for which no non-trivial statements were known before. Secondly, our result has consequences for the study of the strong converse quantum capacity. Here, we show that any coding scheme that sends quantum information through a quantum channel at a rate larger than the entanglement cost of the channel has an exponentially small fidelity.
Nematodes in Hoplerytrinus unitaeniatus, Hoplias malabaricus and Pygocentrus nattereri (pisces characiformes) in Marajó Island, Brazil.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the tegument, musculature and mesentery of 102 specimens of Hoplerytrinus unitaeniatus, 104 of Hoplias malabaricus and 101 of Pygocentrus nattereri, from Arari Lake, Marajó Island, State of Pará, Brazil. Were identified the nematodes Contracaecum sp. , Eustrongylides sp. and Procamallanus sp. Contracaecum sp. was the most prevalent, with rates of 84.31% (H. unitaeniatus), 95.19% (H. malabaricus), and 89.11% (P. nattereri). The highest prevalences of Eustrongylides sp. occurred in H. unitaeniatus (56.86%) and H. malabaricus (53.84%). Procamallanus sp. was only collected in the mesentery. Specimens of Eustrongylides sp. collected from the musculature were 91.9% of its population. Among the nematodes found in the mesentery, 98.34% were Contracaecum sp. with a mean intensity (MI) of 7.92 ± 8.11 (H. unitaeniatus), 8.49 ± 8.34 (H. malabaricus) and 7 ± 6.40 (P. nattereri). Contracaecum sp. presented the highest MI (8.49 ± 8.34) and mean abundance (8.09 ± 8.34). The highest MI values were observed in the mesentery. Eustrongylides sp. presented MI of 2.65 ± 3.21 (H. unitaeniatus), 3.41 ± 3.27 (H. malabaricus) and 2.17 ± 1.18 (P. nattereri). Nematodes with zoonotic potential that were found with high prevalence, shows the importance of actions by the health authorities.
SAIS-OPT: On the characterization and optimization of the SA-IS algorithm for suffix array construction

The suffix array and Burrows-Wheeler Transform are critical index structures in next generation sequence analysis. The construction of such index structures for mammalian-sized genomes can take thousands of seconds (i.e. tens of minutes). Its construction is complicated by computational overheads that coming from irregular or complex memory-access patterns. This paper rigorously characterizes the execution profile of the SA-IS algorithm in order to guide its optimization. The resulting optimized SA-IS, which we refer to as sais-opt, outperforms previous implementations of SA-IS as well as “best in practice” algorithms, when applied to large DNA strings.
Semi-Supervised Morphosyntactic Classification of Old Icelandic

We present IceMorph, a semi-supervised morphosyntactic analyzer of Old Icelandic. In addition to machine-read corpora and dictionaries, it applies a small set of declension prototypes to map corpus words to dictionary entries. A web-based GUI allows expert users to modify and augment data through an online process. A machine learning module incorporates prototype data, edit-distance metrics, and expert feedback to continuously update part-of-speech and morphosyntactic classification. An advantage of the analyzer is its ability to achieve competitive classification accuracy with minimum training data.
A Collaborative Study of Stroke Incidence in Japan: 1975–1979

A Japan Collaborative Study of Stroke covering 20 regional and occupational population groups was conducted with the support of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. In this study 17,423 males and 16,856 females, aged 40 to 69, were followed up prospectively from 1975 to 1979. The average annual incidence of all types of stroke was 3.94 for men and 2.52 for women per 1,000 population. The incidence of cerebral hemorrhage for men and women stood at 1.26 and 0.59 and that of cerebral infarction at 1.87 and 1.10 respectively. The difference in incidence between the sexes was large particularly in the age range of 40-49. The incidence of all types of stroke, cerebral hemorrhage and cerebral infarction increased with age. The incidence of all strokes in Japan during the period 1975–1979 appears to have decreased in comparison with that in 1960–1969, but tended to be still higher than that in Western countries. Stroke Vol 15, No 1, 1984
Evolution of precipitation structures within mesoscale convective systems

EVOLUTION OF PRECIPITATION STRUCTURES WITHIN MESOSCALE CONVECTIVE SYSTEMS Responding to the lack of observational studies of mesoscale convective systems (MCSs), I use animations of Next Generation Radar reflectivity images to analyze the evolution of convective and stratiform regions of 13 MCSs. These systems occurred during May and June of 1995, had leading-linejtrailing-stratiformstructure, and evolved in Oklahoma and Texas. I provide statistical evidence that MCSs are nocturnal. The convective line and stratiform regions attain near maximum extent early during MCS evolution. The average line length is 400 km, and the average stratiform area for maturity is 40000 km2• Less than 50% of the MCSs have precipitation structures that fit all the cba~acteristics of symmetric or asymmetric systems as defined by Houze et ale (1990). Therefore, rather than assigning an overall MCS symmetry, I define symmetry for two· components of the MCS precipitation structure: (1) the symmetry for the convective line based on the along-line loca.tions of the most-intense convective cells (convective component), and (2) the symmetry for the stratiform region due to the relative positions of the convective line and stratiform region (stratiform component). In a composite sense, both convective and stratiform components are symmetric early and asymmetric late during MCS evolution.
Mechanism of killing by virus-induced cytotoxic T lymphocytes elicited in vivo

The mechanism of lysis by in vivo-induced cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) was examined with virus-specific CTL from mice infected with lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV). LCMV-induced T cells were shown to have greater than 10 times the serine esterase activity of T cells from normal mice, and high levels of serine esterase were located in the LCMV-induced CD8+ cell population. Serine esterase was also induced in purified T-cell preparations isolated from mice infected with other viruses (mouse hepatitis, Pichinde, and vaccinia). In contrast, the interferon inducer poly(I.C) only marginally enhanced serine esterase in T cells. Serine esterase activity was released from the LCMV-induced T cells upon incubation with syngeneic but not allogeneic LCMV-infected target cells. Both cytotoxicity and the release of serine esterase were calcium dependent. Serine esterase released from disrupted LCMV-induced T cells was in the form of the fast-sedimenting particles, suggesting its inclusion in granules. Competitive substrates for serine esterase blocked killing by LCMV-specific CTL, but serine esterase-containing granules isolated from LCMV-induced CTL, in contrast to granules isolated from a rat natural killer cell tumor line, did not display detectable hemolytic activity. Fragmentation of target cell DNA was observed during the lytic process mediated by LCMV-specific CTL, and the release of the DNA label [125I]iododeoxyuridine from target cells and the accompanying fragmentation of DNA also were calcium dependent. These data support the hypothesis that the mechanism of killing by in vivo-induced T cells involves a calcium-dependent secretion of serine esterase-containing granules and a target cell death by a process involving nuclear degradation and DNA fragmentation.
Designing and evaluating health systems level hypertension control interventions for African-Americans: lessons from a pooled analysis of three cluster randomized trials.

OBJECTIVES African-Americans (AAs) have a high prevalence of hypertension and their blood pressure (BP) control on treatment still lags behind other groups. In 2004, NHLBI funded five projects that aimed to evaluate clinically feasible interventions to effect changes in medical care delivery leading to an increased proportion of AA patients with controlled BP. Three of the groups performed a pooled analysis of trial results to determine: 1) the magnitude of the combined intervention effect; and 2) how the pooled results could inform the methodology for future health-system level BP interventions. METHODS Using a cluster randomized design, the trials enrolled AAs with uncontrolled hypertension to test interventions targeting a combination of patient and clinician behaviors. The 12-month Systolic BP (SBP) and Diastolic BP (DBP) effects of intervention or control cluster assignment were assessed using mixed effects longitudinal regression modeling. RESULTS 2,015 patients representing 352 clusters participated across the three trials. Pooled BP slopes followed a quadratic pattern, with an initial decline, followed by a rise toward baseline, and did not differ significantly between intervention and control clusters: SBP linear coefficient = -2.60±0.21 mmHg per month, p<0.001; quadratic coefficient = 0.167± 0.02 mmHg/month, p<0.001; group by time interaction group by time group x linear time coefficient=0.145 ± 0.293, p=0.622; group x quadratic time coefficient= -0.017 ± 0.026, p=0.525). RESULTS were similar for DBP. The individual sites did not have significant intervention effects when analyzed separately. CONCLUSION Investigators planning behavioral trials to improve BP control in health systems serving AAs should plan for small effect sizes and employ a "run-in" period in which BP can be expected to improve in both experimental and control clusters.
The effect of tea on iron and aluminium metabolism in the rat

Weanling male Wistar rats were fed for 28 d on a semi-synthetic diet containing normal (38 μg/g) or low (9 μg/g) levels of iron. They were given water or tea infusion (20 g leaves/I water) to drink. Two further groups were given a normal- or low-Fe diet containing added tea leaves (20 g/kg diet). At the end of the study period, all rats given the low-Fe diet were severely anaemic, as assessed by haemoglobin, packed cell volume and liver Fe. Those given tea or the diet with added tea leaves showed a greater degree of Fe depletion. The blood and liver aluminium levels were not increased as a result of consuming tea or tea leaves, despite the higher Al intakes. Fe deficiency per se had no effect on Al absorption or retention from tea. It was concluded that the Al in tea was very poorly absorbed but that tea, either in the form of an infusion or as tea leaves, had an adverse effect on Fe status
Flux-Balance Modeling of Plant Metabolism

Flux-balance modeling of plant metabolic networks provides an important complement to 13C-based metabolic flux analysis. Flux-balance modeling is a constraints-based approach in which steady-state fluxes in a metabolic network are predicted by using optimization algorithms within an experimentally bounded solution space. In the last 2 years several flux-balance models of plant metabolism have been published including genome-scale models of Arabidopsis metabolism. In this review we consider what has been learnt from these models. In addition, we consider the limitations of flux-balance modeling and identify the main challenges to generating improved and more detailed models of plant metabolism at tissue- and cell-specific scales. Finally we discuss the types of question that flux-balance modeling is well suited to address and its potential role in metabolic engineering and crop improvement.
Effects of Minor Elements in Cu Leadframe on Whisker Initiation From Electrodeposited Sn/Cu Coating

Drastically different tendencies of whisker initiation have been observed from the same Sn/Cu coating electrodeposited on two different Cu leadframe materials, CUFE and CUCR. After long-term storage at room temperature, no whisker initiation was observed on the coating on CUCR, whereas long whiskers with a maximum length of more than 200 mum were formed on the coating on CUFE. FE-STEM and FE-TEM microstructural observations of vertical sections of each Cu leadframe with the coating showed that the cross-sectional morphologies of Cu-Sn intermetallic compounds (IMCs) formed at the interface between the coating and the leadframe were as follows: a wedge-shaped structure for the Sn/Cu- CUFE sample and a comb-tooth structure for the Sn/Cu-CUCR sample. Energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) analysis results confirmed that the formation morphologies of the Cu-Sn IMC were affected by minor elements in the Cu leadframes. Fe particles with a large diameter of mainly 50-200 nm precipitated nonuniformly in the CUFE leadframe, which had Fe, Zn, and P as minor elements. Conversely, very small Cr-rich particles, 10-20 nm in diameter, were precipitated in the CUCR leadframe, which had Cr, Sn, and Zn as minor elements. The Fe particles suppressed the growth of the Cu-Sn IMC by acting as obstacles to IMC formation, whereas grain boundaries in the Sn/Cu coating acted as preferential IMC formation sites. The combination of these two effects is thought to produce the wedge-shaped cross-sectional structure of the IMC. On the other hand, the Cr-rich particles did not have such a prominent suppression effect on Cu-Sn IMC growth: only the grain boundaries in the Sn/Cu coating affected the IMC formation site. As a result, IMC with a comb-tooth structure was formed in the Sn/Cu- CUCR sample. The difference in whisker initiation tendency was inferred to be due to the difference in compressive stress on the basis of the Cu-Sn IMC formation morphology in the Sn/Cu coating. Therefore, the stresses were finally measured by X-ray diffraction to determine the correlation between whisker initiation tendency and the morphology of Cu-Sn IMC formation. Based on the results, a model for controlling whisker initiation in Sn/Cu-coated Cu leadframe systems is presented.
Adolescent Brain Development: A Period of Vulnerabilities and Opportunities. Keynote Address

Abstract: This article introduces and summarizes the goals of the symposium. It also provides an overview of a conceptual framework for understanding adolescence, which emphasizes how the very nature of this developmental transition requires an interdisciplinary approach—one that focuses on brain/behavior/social‐context interactions during this important maturational period. More specifically it describes a set of neurobehavioral changes that appear to be linked to pubertal development, which appear to have a significant effect on motivation and emotion, and considers these puberty‐specific changes in affect in relation to a much larger set of developmental changes in adolescence. This framework is used to argue for the need for a transdisciplinary dialogue that brings together work in several areas of neuroscience (including animal models) and normal development with clinical and social policy research aimed at early intervention and prevention strategies.
Soil erosion magnitude of upland farming practices in Bataan

There are factors affecting erosion such as climate, soil type, vegetation and topography. Upland areas are denuding exponentially due to the fact that those people looking for livelihood had little concern and awareness on environmental sustainability and management. Upland farming practices that are easy like weeding, pest control and fertilization were often carried out without soil erosion control and water management. The result of the study revealed that an area with intercropped permanent crops has less amount of soil eroded or tolerable annual soil loss. But the areas with short duration crops (cash crops) and which adopted the same cropping pattern from the previous season resulted to severe soil erosion. Calculated annual soil erosion are 3.33, 4.57, 23.18, 0.31 tons and zero erosion for Site 1, Site 2, Site 3, Site 4, and Site 5, respectively. Key words: Intercrop, severe erosion, tolerable erosion, Bataan Philippines.
Short-Term Synaptic Plasticity Contributes to the Temporal Filtering of Electrosensory Information

Short-term synaptic depression and facilitation often are elicited by different temporal patterns of activity. Short-term plasticity may contribute, therefore, to temporal filtering by impeding synaptic transmission for some temporal patterns of activity and facilitating transmission for other patterns. We examined this hypothesis by investigating whether short-term plasticity contributes to the temporal filtering properties of midbrain electrosensory neurons. Postsynaptic potentials were recorded in response to sensory stimuli and to direct stimulation of afferents, in vivo. Stimulating afferents with pairs of pulses at a rate of 20 pairs/sec [“tetanus (20 Hz)”] induced PSP depression. This PSP depression was similar to that observed for electrosensory stimuli of the same temporal frequency. Analysis of PSPs elicited by a pair of pulses that preceded versus followed the tetanus revealed that PSP depression was caused by synaptic depression, not by a loss of facilitation. Behavioral studies indicate that fish can detect slow changes in signal amplitude (slow AM) in backgrounds of fast fluctuations. Correspondingly, midbrain neurons respond well to slow AM even in the presence of fast AM. In many neurons, facilitation enhanced responses to trains (8–10 pulses; 100 Hz) that represented activity patterns elicited by slow AM, despite induction of synaptic depression by a tetanus (20 Hz). The interplay between synaptic depression and facilitation, therefore, can act as a filter of temporal information. Some neurons that showed little facilitation nonetheless responded to low temporal-frequency information after induction of depression by fast information; this likely results from the convergence of inputs with different temporal filtering properties.