Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Activation of Inflammatory and Pro-Thrombotic Pathways in Acute Stress Cardiomyopathy

Stress cardiomyopathy (SCM) is a unique cardiac disorder that more often occurs in women. SCM presents in a similar fashion as acute myocardial infarction (AMI), with chest pain, ECG changes, and congestive heart failure. The primary distinguishing feature is the absence of thrombotic coronary occlusion in SCM. How this reduction in cardiac function occurs in the absence of coronary occlusion remains unknown. Therefore, we tested the hypothesis that a targeted proteomic comparison of patients with acute SCM and AMI might identify relevant mechanistic differences. Blood was drawn in normal controls (n = 6), women with AMI (n = 12), or women with acute SCM (n = 15). Two-week follow-up samples were available in AMI (n = 4) and SCM patients (n = 11). Relative concentrations of 1,310 serum proteins were measured in each of the 48 samples using the SOMAscan assay. Women with AMI had greater myocyte necrosis, as reflected by a higher peak troponin I concentration (AMI 32.03 ± 29.46 vs. SCM 2.68 ± 2.6 ng/ml, p < 0.05). AMI and SCM patients had equivalent reductions in left ventricular ejection fraction [LVEF (%) 39 ± 12 vs. 37 ± 12, p = 0.479]. In follow-up, women with SCM had a greater improvement in cardiac function [LVEF (%) 60 ± 7 vs. 45 ± 13, p < 0.001]. No differentially expressed proteins were detected (absolute log2-fold change >1; q < 0.05) between AMI and SCM in the acute or recovery phase. However, when we compared normal controls to patients with AMI, there was differential expression of 35 proteins. When we compared normal controls to patients with SCM, 45 proteins were differentially expressed. In comparison to normal controls, biological processes such as complement, coagulation, and inflammation were activated in both AMI and SCM. There were four proteins that showed a non-significant trend to be increased in acute SCM vs. AMI (netrin-1, follistatin-like 3, kallikrein 7, kynureninase). Despite a lesser degree of myocardial necrosis than AMI, SCM is characterized by a similar activation of inflammatory, complement, and coagulation pathways. These findings may explain reported thromboembolic complications in the short term and elevated risk of mortality in the long term of SCM.
Molecular Mechanisms of Lymphocyte Homing to Peripheral Lymph Nodes

To characterize the adhesion cascade that directs lymphocyte homing to peripheral lymph nodes (PLNs), we investigated the molecular mechanisms of lymphocyte interactions with the microvasculature of subiliac lymph nodes. We found that endogenous white blood cells and adoptively transferred lymph node lymphocytes (LNCs) tethered and rolled in postcapillary high endothelial venules (HEVs) and to a lesser extent in collecting venules. Similarly, firm arrest occurred nearly exclusively in the paracortical HEVs. Endogenous polymorphonuclear (PMNs) and mononuclear leukocytes (MNLs) attached and rolled in HEVs at similar frequencies, but only MNLs arrested suggesting that the events downstream of primary rolling interactions critically determine the specificity of lymphocyte recruitment. Antibody inhibition studies revealed that L-selectin was responsible for attachment and rolling of LNCs, and that LFA-1 was essential for sticking. LFA-1–dependent arrest was also abolished by pertussis toxin, implicating a requirement for Gαi−-protein–linked signaling. α4 integrins, which play a critical role in lymphocyte homing to Peyer's Patches, made no significant contribution to attachment, rolling, or sticking in resting PLNs. Velocity analysis of interacting LNCs revealed no detectable contribution by LFA-1 to rolling. Taken together, our results suggest that lymphocyte– HEV interactions within PLNs are almost exclusively initiated by L-selectin followed by a G protein–coupled lymphocyte-specific activation event and activation-induced engagement of LFA-1. These events constitute a unique adhesion cascade that dictates the specificity of lymphocyte homing to PLNs.
Catching Metaphors

Metaphors are ubiquitous in language and developing methods to identify and deal with metaphors is an open problem in Natural Language Processing (NLP). In this paper we describe results from using a maximum entropy (ME) classifier to identify metaphors. Using the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) corpus, we annotated all the verbal targets associated with a set of frames which includes frames of spatial motion, manipulation, and health. One surprising finding was that over 90% of annotated targets from these frames are used metaphorically, underscoring the importance of processing figurative language. We then used this labeled data and each verbal target's PropBank annotation to train a maximum entropy classifier to make this literal vs. metaphoric distinction. Using the classifier, we reduce the final error in the test set by 5% over the verb-specific majority class baseline and 31% over the corpus-wide majority class baseline.
Underutilization of A2 ABO incompatible kidney transplantation

Redfield RR, Parsons RF, Rodriguez E, Mustafa M, Cassuto J, Vivek K, Noorchashm H, Naji A, Levine MH, Abt PL. Underutilization of A2 ABO incompatible kidney transplantation. Clin Transplant 2011 DOI: 10.1111/j.1399‐0012.2011. 01543.x. © 2011 John Wiley & Sons A/S.
EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF AUTOIGNITION AND COMBUSTION GAS-AIR MIXTURES IN DUAL FUEL ENGINE

The paper shows a test results of single cylinder, direct injected, self ignited dual fuel engine. One has analysed a combustion parameters calculated on base of recorded indicator diagrams. The comparison included: the ignition delay period, the cylinder pressure, the rate of pressure rise, the average medium temperature, the heat release rate, the total combustion time and the indicated efficiency. The tests have proved that use of gas results in distinct increase of ignition delay connected with reduction of working medium temperature during compression. Indicated efficiency of the engine at maximal load was comparable to the efficiency of traditionally fed engine. At partial load, however, a loss of the efficiency connected with significant leaning of the gas-air mixture is present. Maximal output power of dual fuel engine is limited by a phenomenon of knocking combustion. In dual fuel engine there is a possibility of reduction of adverse phenomena present during combustion of gas. It needs, however, electronic control of the engine.
Comparison of accessing online databases between physicians and nurses in Taiwan

Online databases have been increasingly used as a key resource in the search for health information. The current study aims to compare the use patterns of online databases between physicians and nurses. A structured questionnaire was mailed to physicians and nurses of randomly selected regional hospitals in Taiwan. Valid questionnaires with complete answers were collected from 544 physicians and 1,573 nurses from November 2008 to February 2009. In general, physicians made more use of online databases than nurses (p < 0.001). They more often accessed English-language online databases (p < 0.001), including MEDLINE, MD Consult, UpToDate, Cochrane Library and ProQuest. On the other hand, nurses accessed Chinese-language online databases more frequently than physicians (p < 0.001). Using a multivariate logistic regression model to adjust the personal characteristics, we found that nurses more often accessed Chinese-language online databases than physicians. Physicians used online databases to locate health information the most for clinical practice (76.6%), followed by instruction preparation (63.3%), and research (57.0%). Nevertheless, nurses used such databases more often for class assignments (66.4%) and clinical practice (55.8%). In conclusion, the behavior and motivation of access to online databases varied between physicians and nurses. Our findings provide evidence in the strategies to enhance the accessing of online databases.
Insulin Resistance and Type 2 Diabetes

For well over half a century, the link between insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes has been recognized. Insulin resistance is important. Not only is it the most powerful predictor of future development of type 2 diabetes, it is also a therapeutic target once hyperglycemia is present. In this issue of Diabetes , Morino et al. (1) report a series of studies that provide evidence of a genetic mechanism linking expression of lipoprotein lipase (LPL) to peroxisome proliferator–activated receptor (PPAR)-δ expression and mitochondrial function. This is likely to contribute to the muscle insulin resistance that predisposes to type 2 diabetes. Observation of abnormal mitochondrial function in vitro in type 2 diabetes (2) was soon followed by in vivo demonstration of this abnormality in insulin-resistant, first-degree relatives of people with type 2 diabetes (3). Further reports of a modest defect in muscle mitochondrial function in type 2 diabetes were published shortly thereafter (4,5). These studies raised the question of whether type 2 diabetes could be a primary disorder of the mitochondria. However, the study of first-degree relatives tended to be misinterpreted as having shown a major defect in mitochondrial function in type 2 diabetes, although it had studied nondiabetic groups from the opposite ends of the insulin resistance–sensitivity spectrum. Indeed, other studies showed no defect in mitochondrial function in type 2 diabetes (6,7), which led to further confusion. Mitochondrial function was then shown to be acutely modifiable by changing fatty acid availability (8) and that it …
Improving the Download Time of BitTorrent-Like Systems

The content distribution techniques have recently started embracing peer-to-peer system as an alternative to the client-server architecture, such as BitTorrent system. BitTorrent system offers a scale mechanism for distributing a large volume of data to a set of peers over the Internet, but it is not designed for minimizing the time taken for all peers to receive the file. As a result, the peers of BitTorrent system may suffer a long download time, specifically the narrow-band peers. In this paper, in order to reduce the download time of BitTorrent, we propose a weighty piece selection strategy instead of the local rarest first strategy in BitTorrent. The proposed strategy is based on the greedy concept that a peer assigns each missing piece a weight according to total number of neighbor's downloaded pieces. The peer selects the missing piece with the highest priority for next download. This strategy can speed up the cooperation between heterogeneous peers while making the BitTorrent more efficient in terms of the average download time and the total elapsed time. The simulation results show that weighty piece selection strategy can improve more than 15% average download time and reduce in average 60% total elapsed time than the BitTorrent system.
Holocene Forcing of the Indian Monsoon Recorded in a Stalagmite from Southern Oman

A high-resolution oxygen-isotope record from a thorium-uranium–dated stalagmite from southern Oman reflects variations in the amount of monsoon precipitation for the periods from 10.3 to 2.7 and 1.4to 0.4thousand years before the present (ky B.P.). Between 10.3 and 8 ky B.P., decadal to centennial variations in monsoon precipitation are in phase with temperature fluctuations recorded in Greenland ice cores, indicating that early Holocene monsoon intensity is largely controlled by glacial boundary conditions. After ∼8 ky B.P., monsoon precipitation decreases gradually in response to changing Northern Hemisphere summer solar insolation, with decadal to multidecadal variations in monsoon precipitation being linked to solar activity.
Estimation of body fat mass using dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry, bioelectric impedance analysis, and anthropometry in HIV-positive male subjects receiving highly active antiretroviral therapy.

BACKGROUND The purpose of this pilot study was to compare estimates of percentage body fat mass (FM) by bioelectric impedance analysis (BIA) and skinfold measurements (SF) with estimates obtained from dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) in 47 HIV-infected male subjects receiving highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). As different patterns of abdominal fat accumulation might affect the body FM estimation, correlation and agreement of these methods were also compared in patients with waist to hip ratio (WHR) < or =0.9 and >0.9. METHODS Body FM was estimated by BIA and by measuring skinfold thickness at biceps, triceps, and subscapular area, and was compared with DEXA as the reference method using paired t-test. RESULTS Estimates by SF were significantly higher and by BIA were significantly lower compared with DEXA for all subjects. This relationship persisted only in those with WHR >0.9. Both BIA and SF correlated significantly with DEXA, but they did not agree. However, both techniques showed a small intermethod bias, and the precision was within the acceptable range. This relationship persisted in those with WHR >0.9. In comparison with measurement by BIA, SF showed poorer agreement (larger bias and error). CONCLUSION For population studies and perhaps to monitor changes over time for intervention studies, the bias for both BIA and SF methods is relatively small and errors and precisions are within the acceptable range when compared with DEXA, and thus all 3 techniques can be used for routine monitoring of total body FM in male subjects with HIV infection.
Adaptive Power Capture Control of Variable-Speed Wind Energy Conversion Systems With Guaranteed Transient and Steady-State Performance

This paper deals with the power capture control of variable-speed wind energy conversion systems. The control objective is to optimize the capture of wind energy by tracking the desired power output. Arbitrary steady-state performance is achieved in the sense that the tracking error is guaranteed to converge to any predefined small set. In addition, to maximize the wind energy capture, transient performance is enhanced such that the convergence rate can be larger than an arbitrary value, which further limits the maximum overshoot. First, an adaptive controller is designed for the case where known aerodynamic torque is assumed. Then, by utilizing an online approximator to estimate the uncertain aerodynamics, the need for the exact knowledge of the aerodynamic torque is waived to imitate the practical experience. With the aid of a novel output error transformation technique, both of the proposed controllers are capable of shaping the system performance arbitrarily on transient and steady-state stages. Meanwhile, it is also proved that all the signals in the closed-loop system are bounded via Lyapunov synthesis. Finally, the feasibility of the proposed controllers is demonstrated on an 1.5-MW three-blade wind turbine using the FAST (Fatigue, Aerodynamics, Structures, and Turbulence) code developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
Genomics of local adaptation with gene flow

Gene flow is a fundamental evolutionary force in adaptation that is especially important to understand as humans are rapidly changing both the natural environment and natural levels of gene flow. Theory proposes a multifaceted role for gene flow in adaptation, but it focuses mainly on the disruptive effect that gene flow has on adaptation when selection is not strong enough to prevent the loss of locally adapted alleles. The role of gene flow in adaptation is now better understood due to the recent development of both genomic models of adaptive evolution and genomic techniques, which both point to the importance of genetic architecture in the origin and maintenance of adaptation with gene flow. In this review, we discuss three main topics on the genomics of adaptation with gene flow. First, we investigate selection on migration and gene flow. Second, we discuss the three potential sources of adaptive variation in relation to the role of gene flow in the origin of adaptation. Third, we explain how local adaptation is maintained despite gene flow: we provide a synthesis of recent genomic models of adaptation, discuss the genomic mechanisms and review empirical studies on the genomics of adaptation with gene flow. Despite predictions on the disruptive effect of gene flow in adaptation, an increasing number of studies show that gene flow can promote adaptation, that local adaptations can be maintained despite high gene flow, and that genetic architecture plays a fundamental role in the origin and maintenance of local adaptation with gene flow.
Effects of a 1 per cent hydrocortisone conditioner on the prevention of immediate and late-phase reactions in canine skin

Ten laboratory beagles were used to determine whether a 1 per cent hydrocortisone conditioner applied topically for three consecutive days would inhibit IgE-mediated immediate and late-phase reactions induced in their skin. The trial was blinded, controlled with the product's vehicle and designed with a crossover. It consisted of three phases: one period without treatment (control phase) and two periods of treatment with either the active ingredient or the vehicle. Immediate and late-phase reactions were induced by the intradermal injection of rabbit anti-canine IgE polyclonal antibodies. Twenty minutes after the intradermal challenge, the diameter of the wheal, but not the erythematous flares, were significantly reduced after the application of the active product. In contrast, IgE-mediated cutaneous late-phase reactions, evaluated by measurements of dermal thickness and eosinophil counts six hours after challenge and the numbers of dermal CD3-positive T lymphocytes after 24 hours, were not reduced by its application.
Mobile phones carry the personal microbiome of their owners

Most people on the planet own mobile phones, and these devices are increasingly being utilized to gather data relevant to our personal health, behavior, and environment. During an educational workshop, we investigated the utility of mobile phones to gather data about the personal microbiome — the collection of microorganisms associated with the personal effects of an individual. We characterized microbial communities on smartphone touchscreens to determine whether there was significant overlap with the skin microbiome sampled directly from their owners. We found that about 22% of the bacterial taxa on participants’ fingers were also present on their own phones, as compared to 17% they shared on average with other people’s phones. When considered as a group, bacterial communities on men’s phones were significantly different from those on their fingers, while women’s were not. Yet when considered on an individual level, men and women both shared significantly more of their bacterial communities with their own phones than with anyone else’s. In fact, 82% of the OTUs were shared between a person’s index and phone when considering the dominant taxa (OTUs with more than 0.1% of the sequences in an individual’s dataset). Our results suggest that mobile phones hold untapped potential as personal microbiome sensors.
Time and Space in Tzeltal: Is the Future Uphill?

Linguistic expressions of time often draw on spatial language, which raises the question of whether cultural specificity in spatial language and cognition is reflected in thinking about time. In the Mayan language Tzeltal, spatial language relies heavily on an absolute frame of reference utilizing the overall slope of the land, distinguishing an “uphill/downhill” axis oriented from south to north, and an orthogonal “crossways” axis (sunrise-set) on the basis of which objects at all scales are located. Does this absolute system for calculating spatial relations carry over into construals of temporal relations? This question was explored in a study where Tzeltal consultants produced temporal expressions and performed two different non-linguistic temporal ordering tasks. The results show that at least five distinct schemata for conceptualizing time underlie Tzeltal linguistic expressions: (i) deictic ego-centered time, (ii) time as an ordered sequence (e.g., “first”/“later”), (iii) cyclic time (times of the day, seasons), (iv) time as spatial extension or location (e.g., “entering/exiting July”), and (v) a time vector extending uphillwards into the future. The non-linguistic task results showed that the “time moves uphillwards” metaphor, based on the absolute frame of reference prevalent in Tzeltal spatial language and thinking and important as well in the linguistic expressions for time, is not strongly reflected in responses on these tasks. It is argued that systematic and consistent use of spatial language in an absolute frame of reference does not necessarily transfer to consistent absolute time conceptualization in non-linguistic tasks; time appears to be more open to alternative construals.
Monitoring Gastric Mucosal Carbon Dioxide Pressure Using Gas Tonometry: In Vitro and in Vivo Validation Studies

Background Saline gastric tonometry of carbon dioxide has been proposed as a means to assess the adequacy of splanchnic perfusion. However, this technique has several disadvantages, including the long time interval needed for gases to reach equilibrium in saline milieu. Thus the authors evaluated a system that uses a gas-filled instead of a saline-filled gastric balloon. Methods In vitro, we simultaneously placed two tonometry catheters in an equilibration water bath maintained at a predetermined and constant pressure of carbon dioxide (PCO2). The first catheter's balloon was filled with air and the second with saline. The performance of gas tonometry was tested by comparing the PCO2 measurements of the bath obtained via gas tonometry (PgCO2) to the PCO2 measurements of direct bath samples (PbathCO2). These results were also compared with the PCO2 measurements obtained simultaneously by saline tonometry (PsCO2). The response time of gas versus saline tonometry was also studied. In vivo, the performance of gas tonometry was tested comparing the measurements of gastric intramucosal PCO2 obtained by gas tonometry (PgCO2) at different equilibration times with those obtained by saline tonometry (PsCO2) using an equilibration time of 30 min. Two nasogastric tonometry catheters were placed simultaneously in seven stable patients in the intensive care unit. The first balloon was filled with air and the second with saline. Results In vitro, there was a close correlation between PgCO sub 2 and PbathCO2, for each level of PbathCO2, and for each different gas equilibration time. For an equilibration time of 10 min at a PbathCO2 level of approximately 40 mmHg, the bias of the gas device defined as the mean of the differences between Pbath sub CO2 and PgCO2, and its precision defined as the standard deviation of the bias, were -0.3 mmHg and 0.7 mmHg, respectively. Using the same definitions, the bias and precision of saline tonometry were 11.2 mmHg and 1.4 mmHg, respectively. If the equilibration time-dependent correction factor provided by the catheter manufacturer for saline tonometry was applied, the bias and precision were -6.9 mmHg and 2.9 mmHg, respectively. In vivo, using an equilibration time of 10 min for gas and 30 min for saline tonometry, there was a close correlation between the two techniques (r2 = 0.986). A Bland and Altman analysis revealed a bias (+/- 2 SD) of 0.1 +/- 6.8 mmHg. The correlation between the two methods was not improved if we prolonged the equilibration time of the gas tonometer. Conclusions Gas tonometry is comparable to saline tonometry for measuring gastric intramucosal PCO2. Because gas tonometry is easier to automate, it may offer advantages over saline tonometry.