Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Decreased von Willebrand factor ristocetin cofactor activity and increased ADAMTS13 antigen increase postoperative drainage after coronary artery bypass grafting.

OBJECTIVES Routine coagulation tests and bleed-scores fail to identify patients at risk of excessive postoperative drainage following coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). We sought to investigate whether lower von Willebrand factor (VWF) and higher ADAMTS13 (a disintegrin and metalloproteinase with a thrombospondin type 1 motif, member 13) are associated with a high postoperative drainage after CABG. METHODS In the prospective cohort study, VWF antigen (VWF:Ag), VWF ristocetin cofactor (VWF:RCO), VWF collagen-binding (VWF:CB), ADAMTS13 antigen (ADAMTS13:Ag) and ADAMTS13 activity were measured on the day of elective on-pump CABG in 232 consecutive patients without a prior history of haemorrhagic diathesis, including von Willebrand disease (95% discontinued aspirin preoperatively). Postoperative drainage and blood product use were recorded. RESULTS A comparison of extreme drainage quartiles (n=56) showed that individuals with the highest drainage volumes have mean VWF:RCO lower by 19% (P<0.0001), median VWF:Ag lower by 19% (P<0.0001), ADAMTS13:Ag higher by 8% (P=0.0002), ADAMTS13 activity higher by 9% (P=0.01) and fibrinogen lower by 14% (P=0.03) than those with the lowest drainage. Linear regression analysis showed that preoperative VWF:RCO (b=-4.83, P=0.002) and fibrinogen (b=-61.52, P=0.04) are the only independent predictors of postoperative drainage. Multivariate logistic regression demonstrated that preoperative VWF:RCO in the lowest quartile and ADAMTS13:Ag levels in the highest quartile increased the risk of high (≥1000 ml) drainage (odds ratio [95% confidence interval]=4.88 [1.83-13.02], P=0.001 and 3.77 [1.49-9.52], P=0.005; respectively). CONCLUSIONS Patients undergoing elective CABG with lower preoperative VWF:RCO are at risk of having larger postoperative drainage, which suggests a novel contributor to increased perioperative bleeding in cardiac surgery.
The spatial and temporal expression patterns of netrin receptors, DCC and neogenin, in the developing mouse retina.

Recently it has been demonstrated that the guidance of retinal ganglion cell (rgc) axons through the optic disc is dependent on the DCC/netrin-1 axonal guidance system. To gain further insight into the function of the netrin receptors, DCC and Neogenin, in retinal development we have studied the expression patterns of these receptors in the embryonic mouse retina. Neogenin mRNA was restricted to a single neural cell type, the rgc. However, strong Neogenin mRNA expression was observed in the extending fiber cells of the developing lens suggesting a role for Neogenin in the migration events shaping the early lens. Our studies demonstrated that DCC mRNA was expressed at high levels in chains of closely opposed neurons as they migrated towards the emerging mantle layer in the early retina (E12.5-E13.5) suggesting a role for DCC in the migration of neurons out of the ventricular zone. DCC protein expression was high on rgc axons as they actively navigated through the optic disc into the optic nerve. At birth, when the majority of rgc axons had projected through the optic disc, DCC protein was no longer detectable on the distal axonal segments within the optic nerve despite significant DCC protein expression on the proximal axonal membranes in the nerve fiber layer. These observations suggest that a localized down-regulation of DCC protein occurs on projecting axonal membranes once the DCC guidance function is no longer required. We also demonstrated that DCC mRNA and protein were expressed by amacrine cells and Müller glial cells while DCC mRNA was detected in horizontal cells. Taken together, these expression patterns suggest a role for DCC in axon outgrowth and/or pathfinding for a variety of retinal neurons and in the migration of newly born neurons within the developing retina.
Hospital-based comprehensive care programs for children with special health care needs: a systematic review.

OBJECTIVE To examine the effectiveness of hospital-based comprehensive care programs in improving the quality of care for children with special health care needs. DATA SOURCES A systematic review was conducted using Ovid MEDLINE, CINAHL, EMBASE, PsycINFO, Sociological Abstracts SocioFile, and Web of Science. STUDY SELECTION Evaluations of comprehensive care programs for categorical (those with single disease) and noncategorical groups of children with special health care needs were included. Selected articles were reviewed independently by 2 raters. DATA EXTRACTION Models of care focused on comprehensive care based at least partially in a hospital setting. The main outcome measures were the proportions of studies demonstrating improvement in the Institute of Medicine's quality-of-care domains (effectiveness of care, efficiency of care, patient or family centeredness, patient safety, timeliness of care, and equity of care). DATA SYNTHESIS Thirty-three unique programs were included, 13 (39%) of which were randomized controlled trials. Improved outcomes most commonly reported were efficiency of care (64% [49 of 76 outcomes]), effectiveness of care (60% [57 of 95 outcomes]), and patient or family centeredness (53% [10 of 19 outcomes). Outcomes less commonly evaluated were patient safety (9% [3 of 33 programs]), timeliness of care (6% [2 of 33 programs]), and equity of care (0%). Randomized controlled trials occurred more frequently in studies evaluating categorical vs noncategorical disease populations (11 of 17 [65%] vs 2 of 16 [17%], P = .008). CONCLUSIONS Although positive, the evidence supporting comprehensive hospital-based programs for children with special health care needs is restricted primarily to nonexperimental studies of children with categorical diseases and is limited by inadequate outcome measures. Additional high-quality evidence with appropriate comparative groups and broad outcomes is necessary to justify continued development and growth of programs for broad groups of children with special health care needs.
Formal Aspects of Serializability in Database Concurrency Control

An arbitrary interleaved execution of transactions in a database system can lead to an inconsistent database state. A number of synchronization mechanisms have been proposed to prevent such spurious behavior. To gain insight into these mechanisms, we analyze them in a simple centralized system that permits one read operation and one write operation per transaction. We show why locking mechanisms lead to correct operation, we show that two proposed mechanisms for distributed environments are special cases of locking, and we present a new version of lockdng that alows more concurrency than past methods. We also examine conflict graph analysis, the method used in the SDD-1 distributed database system, we prove its correctness, and we show that it can be used to substantially improve the performance of almost any synchronization mechanisn.
A ug 2 00 7 The exact numerical treatment of inflationary models

The precision reached by the recent CMB measurements gives new insights into the shape of the primordial power spectra of the cosmological perturbations. In the context of inflationary cosmology, this implies that the CMB data are now sensitive to the form of the inflaton potential. Most of the current approaches devoted to the derivation of the inflationary primordial power spectra, or to the inflaton potential reconstruction problem, rely on approximate analytical treatments that may break down for exotic models. In this article, we numerically solve the inflationary evolution of both the background and all the perturbed quantities to extract the primordial power spectra exactly. Such a method solely relies on General Relativity and linear perturbation theory. More than providing a tool to test analytical approximations, one may consider, without complications, the treatment of non-standard inflationary models as those involving several fields, eventually nonminimally coupled to gravity. The usefulness of the exact numerical approach to deal with CMB data is illustrated by analysing the WMAP third year data in the context of single field models. For this purpose, we introduce a new inflationary related parameter encoding the basic properties of the reheating era. This reheating parameter has significant observable effects and provides a self-consistency test of inflationary models. As a working example, the marginalised probability distributions of the reheating and potential parameters associated with the small field models are presented.
Economic Geography , Jobs , and Regulations : The Value of Land and Housing

Analyses of the determinants of land prices in urban areas typically base inferences on housing transactions which combine payments for land and long-lived improvements. These inferences, in turn, are based upon assumptions about the production function for housing and the appropriate aggregation of non-land inputs. In contrast, we investigate directly the determinants of urban land prices. We assemble more than 7,000 land transactions in the San Francisco Bay Area during the 1990-2009 period, and we analyze the link between the physical access of sites, the topographical and demographic characteristics of their local environment, and the prices of vacant land on those sites. We investigate in detail the link between variations in the quality of public services and the value of developable land. Most importantly, our analysis documents the powerful link between variations in the regulatory environment within a metropolitan area and the prices commanded by raw land as an input to residential or commercial development. Finally, we relate these large variations in land prices to the prices paid by consumers for housing in the region.
Tri‐band Microstrip Bandpass Filter Using Dual‐Mode Stepped‐Impedance Resonator

This letter presents a compact dual‐mode tri‐band bandpass filter by using a short‐circuited stub‐loaded stepped‐impedance resonator (SIR) and a short‐circuited stub‐loaded uniform impedance resonator. Also, a hairpin SIR geometry is introduced to miniature the size of this filter while maintaining excellent performance. The use of a short‐circuited stub at the central point of the hairpin SIR can generate two resonant modes in two passbands. Its equivalent circuit structure is analyzed by using the even‐odd mode theory. For demonstration purposes, a tri‐band filter for the applications of the Global Positioning System at 1.57 GHz, Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access at 3.5 GHz, and wireless local area networks at 5.2 GHz is designed, fabricated, and measured.
An O(log N) Parallel Algorithm for Newton Step Computation in Model Predictive Control

The use of Model Predictive Control is steadily increasing in industry as more complicated problems can be addressed. Due to that online optimization is usually performed, the main bottleneck with Model Predictive Control is the relatively high computational complexity. Hence, much research has been performed to find efficient algorithms that solve the optimization problem. As parallel hardware is becoming more commonly available, the demand of efficient parallel solvers for Model Predictive Control has increased. In this paper, a tailored parallel algorithm that can adopt different levels of parallelism for solving the Newton step is presented. With sufficiently many processing units, it is capable of reducing the computational growth to logarithmic in the prediction horizon. Since the Newton step computation is where most computational effort is spent in both interior-point and active-set solvers, this new algorithm can significantly reduce the computational complexity of highly relevant solvers for Model Predictive Control.
Clinical efficacy of the classic laryngeal mask airway in elderly patients: a comparison with young adult patients

Background The elderly have been reported to show anatomical and physiologic changes in the upper airway, which might affect the supraglottic airway (SGA) performance in geriatric populations. This study aimed to evaluate the clinical efficacy of the classic laryngeal mask airway (LMA-C) in the elderly compared with young adult patients. Methods Fifty patients aged 65-85 years (elderly group) and 50 patients aged 20-40 years (young group) who were scheduled for surgery using the LMA-C for general anesthesia were enrolled in this prospective, non-randomized, comparative study. Manipulations required during insertion, success rate, insertion time, oropharyngeal leak pressure, gastric insufflation, and intraoperative inadequate ventilation with the LMA-C were assessed. Fiberoptic evaluation was used to determine the position of the LMA-C. Results In the elderly group, the insertion success rate on the first attempt was significantly lower than that in the young group (84 vs. 96%, P = 0.02). The insertion time in the elderly group was significantly longer than that in the young group (28.5 ± 19.6 vs. 22.2 ± 6.4 seconds, P = 0.001). However, there was no difference in oropharyngeal leak pressure or fiberoptic grade between the two groups after proper placement of the LMA-C. During the surgery, inadequate ventilation events occurred more frequently in the elderly group than in the young group (31.3 vs. 4.0%, P < 0.001). Conclusions The clinical efficacy of the LMA-C in elderly patients was inferior to that in young adult patients. Therefore, further studies are required to determine the type of SGA that can provide excellent clinical efficacy in the geriatric population.
Characterisation of the regulatory and expression context of an alternative oxidase gene provides insights into cyanide insensitive respiration during growth and development

The alternative oxidase is encoded in small multi-gene families in plants. Functional analysis of the promoter, an AOX gene not induced by oxidative stress, indicated that regulation of expression was complex, with the upstream promoter region containing positive and negative response regions. Comparison to the promoter region of soybean alternative oxidase 2b (Gm AOX2b ) , another AOX gene not induced by oxidative stress, revealed that they contained seven sequence elements in common. All elements were active in the promoter region of At AOX1c in suspension cells, and in leaf tissue from Col-0 and mutant plants, where a mitochondrial protein import receptor was inactivated. Analysis of co-expressed and putatively co-regulated genes, the latter defined as containing 5 or more sequence elements functional in At AOX1c , indicated that At AOX1c was co-regulated with components involved with cell division and growth. Consistent with this analysis, we demonstrated that site II elements, previously shown to regulate the proliferating cell nuclear antigen, are present in the upstream promoter region of At AOX1c and were strong negative regulators of At AOX1c expression. It was demonstrated that NDB4 , a gene encoding an external NAD(P)H dehydrogenase, displayed strong co-expression with At AOX1c . Overall these results indicate that At AOX1c is regulated by growth and developmental signals.
Endothelial EphrinB2 Is Controlled by Microenvironmental Determinants and Associates Context-Dependently With CD31

Objective—The EphB ligand ephrinB2 has been identified as a critical determinant of arterial endothelial differentiation and as a positive regulator of invading endothelial cells during angiogenesis. This study was aimed at identifying determinants of endothelial cell ephrinB2 expression. Methods and Results—Arteriovenous asymmetrical endothelial cell ephrinB2 expression in vivo is lost on transfer into culture with aortic endothelial cells becoming partially ephrinB2-negative and saphenous vein endothelial cells becoming partially ephrinB2-positive. Contact with smooth muscle cells and angiogenic stimulation by vascular endothelial growth factor lead to an increased endothelial cell ephrinB2 expression. Quiescent, smooth muscle-contacting endothelial cells express ephrinB2 uniformly on their luminal surface. In contrast, monolayer endothelial cells translocate ephrinB2 to interendothelial cell junctions, which is strongly enhanced by EphB4-Fc-mediated receptor body activation. Junctional ephrinB2 colocalizes and coimmunoprecipitates with CD31. Conclusions—This study identifies distinct regulatory mechanisms of endothelial ephrinB2 expression and cellular distribution in quiescent and activated endothelial cells. The data demonstrate that endothelial cell ephrinB2 expression is controlled by microenvironmental determinants rather than being an intrinsic endothelial cell differentiation marker.
The effects of goal setting on the arithmetic performance of brain-damaged patients.

A goal-setting approach was used to examine the ways in which different goals influence the performance of 69 brain-damaged (BD) patients in an arithmetic task. Patients were equally assigned to two conditions: one in which a specific, high goal was set, and one with a "do your best" goal. Statistical analyses indicated that patients with a specific, high goal performed significantly better than patients with a "do your best" goal. No clinical or neuropsychological variables (e.g., time since onset of illness and memory function) were found to have a moderating influence on the effect of goal setting. These results indicate that even BD patients with cognitive and executive dysfunctions can efficiently self-regulate their behavior after the assignment of a high, specific goal in an easy laboratory task.
Banana Lectin: A Brief Review

Lectins are a group of proteins of non-immune origin that recognize and bind to carbohydrates without modifying them. Banana is the common name for both herbaceous plants of the genus Musa and for the fruit they produce. They are indeed a promising source for many medicinal applications. Banana lectins have the potential for inhibiting HIV-1 reverse transcriptase activity, suppressing cancer cell proliferation and stimulating macrophage activities. Nevertheless, compared to other plant lectins, there is relatively little information in the literature on banana lectins, particularly with respect to their structure and biological functions. Herein we focus our review on the structure, functions and exploitable properties of banana lectins.
A Model for Population Firing in Neuronal Networks with Planar Lattice Topology

Pettis, Charity A. M.S.E.C. E. , Purdue University, August 2008. A Model for Population Firing in Neuronal Networks with Planar Lattice Topology. Major Professors: Venkataramanan Balakrishnan and Cheng-Kok Koh. The creation, modulation, propagation, and termination of seizures are of great interest to neuroscientists as understanding the dynamics of these responses may aid the prevention of seizures. Three major factors affecting epileptiform activity are intrinsic neuronal properties, synaptic properties and network connectivity. The computation required for the full scale simulation of neuronal networks is prohibitively expensive. To address this issue, we develop a simpler model for networks with planar lattice topology and “small world” characteristics. Using this model, one may examine the effects of connectivity and intrinsic neuronal properties on population firing, a measure of network activity, quickly. To verify that the model is acceptable, the population firing produced by this simplified model is compared with population firing obtained from simulations of full-scale networks of model neurons for various connectivity parameters. To check that the behaviors exhibited by the networks are not unique to networks of a specific neuron model, the network is simulated using two neuron models: the Hodgkin-Huxley model and the leaky integrate-and-fire model. With reasonable assumptions required to account for the differing levels of detail between the various models, it was observed that the network simulations and the simplified model exhibit similar behaviors.
Mixed Respiratory Viral Infections in Children with Adenoviral Infections

Human adenoviruses are a common cause of diseases. While epidemic diseases caused by adenoviruses were observed throughout the first half of the 20th century, the viruses were first noted in explant cultures of human adenoidal surgical specimens in 1953; this finding, plus the observation of their apparent general affinity for lymphatic tissue, led to naming designation [1,2].
Using sampled information: is it enough for the sparse matrix–vector product locality optimization?

One of the main factors that affect the performance of the sparse matrix–vector product (SpMV) is the low data reuse caused by the irregular and indirect memory access patterns. Different strategies to deal with this problem such as data reordering techniques have been proposed. The computational cost of these techniques is typically high because they consider all the nonzeros of the sparse matrix in order to find an appropriate permutation of rows and columns that improves the SpMV performance. In this paper, we analyze the possibility of increasing the locality of the SpMV using incomplete information in the reordering process. This partial information comes as a consequence of considering only a subset of the nonzero elements of the matrix. These nonzeros are obtained from the original matrix through a sampling process. In particular, two different sampling methods have been considered: a random sampling and an event‐based sampling using hardware counters. We have detected that a small number of samples is enough to obtain quality reorderings. As a consequence, using sampling‐based reorderings leads to noticeable performance improvements with respect to the non‐reordered matrices, reaching speedup values up to 2.1 × . In addition, an important reduction in the computational time required by the reordering technique has been observed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Risk factors of delayed extubation, prolonged length of stay in the intensive care unit, and mortality in patients undergoing coronary artery bypass graft with fast-track cardiac anesthesia: a new cardiac risk score.

BACKGROUND Risk factors of delayed extubation, prolonged intensive care unit (ICU) length of stay (LOS), and mortality have not been studied for patients administered fast-track cardiac anesthesia (FTCA). The authors' goals were to determine risk factors of outcomes and cardiac risk scores (CRS) for CABG patients undergoing FTCA. METHODS Consecutive CABG patients undergoing FTCA were prospectively studied. Outcome variables were delayed extubation > 10 h, prolonged ICU LOS > 48 h, and mortality. Univariate analyses were performed followed by multiple logistic regression to derive risk factors of the three outcomes. Simplified integer-based CRS were derived from logistic models. Bootstrap validation was performed to assess and compare the predictive abilities of CRS and logistic models for the three outcomes. RESULTS The authors studied 885 patients. Twenty-five percent had delayed extubation, 17% had prolonged ICU LOS, and 2.6% died. Risk factors of delayed extubation were increased age, female gender, postoperative use of intraaortic balloon pump, inotropes, bleeding, and atrial arrhythmia. Risk factors of prolonged ICU LOS were those of delayed extubation plus preoperative myocardial infarction and postoperative renal insufficiency. Risk factors of mortality were female gender, emergency surgery, and poor left ventricular function. CRSs were modeled for the three outcomes. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve for the CRS-logistic models was not significantly different: 0.707/0.702 for delayed extubation, 0.851/0.855 for prolonged ICU LOS, and 0.657/0.699 for mortality. CONCLUSION In CABG patients undergoing FTCA, the authors derived and validated risk factors of delayed extubation, prolonged ICU LOS, and mortality. Furthermore, they developed a simplified CRS system with similar predictive abilities as the logistic models.