Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Impact of changes in blood pressure during the treatment of acute decompensated heart failure on renal and clinical outcomes †

One of the primary determinants of blood flow in regional vascular beds is perfusion pressure. Our aim was to investigate if reduction in blood pressure during the treatment of decompensated heart failure would be associated with worsening renal function (WRF). Our secondary aim was to evaluate the prognostic significance of this potentially treatment‐induced form of WRF.
Sphingolipids and Plant Defense/Disease: The “Death” Connection and Beyond

Sphingolipids comprise a major class of structural materials and lipid signaling molecules in all eukaryotic cells. Over the past two decades, there has been a phenomenal growth in the study of sphingolipids (i.e., sphingobiology) at an average rate of ∼1000 research articles per year. Sphingolipid studies in plants, though accounting for only a small fraction (∼6%) of the total number of publications, have also enjoyed proportionally rapid growth in the past decade. Concomitant with the growth of sphingobiology, there has also been tremendous progress in our understanding of the molecular mechanisms of plant innate immunity. In this review, we (i) cross examine and analyze the major findings that establish and strengthen the intimate connections between sphingolipid metabolism and plant programmed cell death (PCD) associated with plant defense or disease; (ii) highlight and compare key bioactive sphingolipids involved in the regulation of plant PCD and possibly defense; (iii) discuss the potential role of sphingolipids in polarized membrane/protein trafficking and formation of lipid rafts as subdomains of cell membranes in relation to plant defense; and (iv) where possible, attempt to identify potential parallels for immunity-related mechanisms involving sphingolipids across kingdoms.
Assessing the degradation mechanisms and current limitation design rules of SiCr-based thin-film resistors in integrated circuits

The degradation of SiCr-based thin-film resistors under current and temperature stress and the Joule heating in the resistors are experimentally investigated to set current limitation design rules. Degradation mechanisms, the failure modes, and the impact of the stress test on Temperature Coefficient of Resistance (TCR), are studied with the use of various test structures stressed under different conditions (temperature, current density and direction), followed by optical inspections, Infra-Red imaging and SEM/TEM cross-sections. Electromigration (EM) is found to be the dominating degradation mechanism, but the EM process differs from that in commonly used interconnects. Current accelerating factor and the equivalent activation energy are determined for data extrapolation. To avoid errors in Joule-heating determination from TCR, integrated temperature sensors are employed. Current limitation design rules are deduced based on the EM and Joule heating results.
Background ozone over the United States in summer: Origin, trend, and contribution to pollution episodes

[1] Observations indicate that ozone (O3) concentrations in surface air over the United States in summer contain a 20–45 ppbv background contribution, presumably reflecting transport from outside the North American boundary layer. We use a three-dimensional global model of tropospheric chemistry driven by assimilated meteorological observations to investigate the origin of this background and to quantify its contribution to total surface O3 on both average and highly polluted summer days. The model simulation is evaluated with a suite of surface and aircraft observations over the United States from the summer of 1995. The model reproduces the principal features in the observed distributions of O3 and its precursors, including frequency distributions of O3 concentrations and the development of regional high-O3 episodes in the eastern United States. Comparison of simulations with 1995 versus 1980 global fossil fuel emissions indicates that the model captures the previously observed decrease in the high end of the O3 probability distribution in surface air over the United States (reflecting reduction of domestic hydrocarbon emissions) and the increase in the low end (reflecting, at least in the model, rising Asian emissions). In the model, background O3 produced outside of the North American boundary layer contributes an average 25–35 ppbv to afternoon O3 concentrations in surface air in the western United States. and 15–30 ppbv in the eastern United States during the summer of 1995. This background generally decays to below 15 ppbv during the stagnation conditions conducive to exceedances of the 8-hour 0.08 ppmv (80 ppbv) National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for O3. A high background contribution of 25–40 ppbv is found during 9% of these exceedances, reflecting convective mixing of free tropospheric O3 from aloft, followed by rapid production within the U.S. boundary layer. Anthropogenic emissions in Asia and Europe are found to increase afternoon O3 concentrations in surface air over the United States by typically 4–7 ppbv, under both average and highly polluted conditions. This enhancement is particularly large (up to 14 ppbv) for O3 concentrations in the 50–70 ppbv range, and would represent a major concern if the NAAQS were to be tightened.
Effect of composite coating with poly-dopamine/PCL on the corrosion resistance of magnesium

ABSTRACT We report the use of poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL) and poly-dopamine (PD) as a protective coating that inhibits corrosion of the underlying magnesium metal. The PD coating layer also improved the adhesion of the PCL layer, which has been found to have a significant effect on corrosion behavior. In this study, electrochemical methods were employed to investigate the corrosion behavior of Mg after applying PCL composite coatings. Potentiodynamic polarization measurements determined that the PCL coating pretreated with PD effectively inhibited metal corrosion. In addition, the coating layer with improved adhesion has shown the possibility of inhibiting metal corrosion. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT
Polymorphisms of estrogen receptor-α gene in Brazilian women with high breast density after menopause

Abstract The association of genetic polymorphism in the estrogen receptor alpha (ERα) gene and risk for diseases including breast cancer (BC) has been the subject of great interest. Objective: Checking on women with high breast density after menopause, the frequency of the Pvull and Xbal polymorphisms of the ERα gene and the correlation between them and the known risk factors for breast cancer. Method: Observational study with 308 women between 45 and 65 years old with high breast density, without hormonal therapy, menstruation for a year or more, breast and ovarian cancer history. It was characterized in clinical history and physical examination: menarche, menopause, parity, family history of BC, smoking, alcohol intake and body mass index. Results: The allelic and genotypic frequencies for ERα-Pvull and Xbal: p = 43.99%; p = 56.01%; pp = 32.14%; Pp = 47.73% and PP = 20.13%; X = 41.56%; x = 58.44%; xx = 33.44%; Xx = 50.00% and XX = 16.56%, respectively. The most frequent risk factors for BC: menarche before 12 years old (35.38%), nulliparity or first child after 28 years old (41.66%), family history of BC (19.16%) and overweight/obesity (62.01%). Conclusion: Allelic and genotypic distribution similar to literature. The risk factors for BC were more prevalent in women with high breast density but without significant associations with these polymorphisms.
Surrogate-Assisted Cooperative Swarm Optimization of High-Dimensional Expensive Problems

Surrogate models have shown to be effective in assisting metaheuristic algorithms for solving computationally expensive complex optimization problems. The effectiveness of existing surrogate-assisted metaheuristic algorithms, however, has only been verified on low-dimensional optimization problems. In this paper, a surrogate-assisted cooperative swarm optimization algorithm is proposed, in which a surrogate-assisted particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm and a surrogate-assisted social learning-based PSO (SL-PSO) algorithm cooperatively search for the global optimum. The cooperation between the PSO and the SL-PSO consists of two aspects. First, they share promising solutions evaluated by the real fitness function. Second, the SL-PSO focuses on exploration while the PSO concentrates on local search. Empirical studies on six 50-D and six 100-D benchmark problems demonstrate that the proposed algorithm is able to find high-quality solutions for high-dimensional problems on a limited computational budget.
Internet‐Based Self‐Help Versus One‐Session Exposure in the Treatment of Spider Phobia: A Randomized Controlled Trial

The authors compared guided Internet‐delivered self‐help with one session of live‐exposure treatment in a sample of spider‐phobic patients. A total of 30 patients were included following screening on the Internet and a structured clinical interview. The Internet treatment consisted of five weekly text modules, which were presented on a web page, a video in which exposure was modelled, and support provided via Internet. The live‐exposure treatment was delivered in a 3‐hr session following a brief orientation session. The main outcome measure was the behavioural approach test (BAT), and as secondary measures the authors used questionnaires measuring anxiety symptoms and depression. Results showed that the groups did not differ at posttreatment or follow‐up, with the exception of the proportion showing clinically significant change on the BAT. At posttreatment 46.2% of the Internet group and 85.7% in the live‐exposure group achieved this change. At follow‐up the corresponding figures were 66.7% for the Internet group and 72.7% for the live treatment. Within‐group effect sizes for the spider phobia questionnaire were large (d = 1.84 and 2.58 for the Internet and live‐exposure groups, respectively, at posttreatment). The authors conclude that guided Internet‐delivered exposure treatment is a promising new approach in the treatment of spider phobia.
Intrauterine exposure to high saturated fat diet elevates risk of adult-onset chronic diseases in C57BL/6 mice.

BACKGROUND The developmental environment is thought to determine, in part, lifelong metabolic parameters and risk of adult disease. Effects of maternal malnutrition on fetal growth have been studied extensively, and the role of poor prenatal diet in elevating lifelong risk of cardiovascular and metabolic disease has been well characterized (www.thebarkertheory.com). However, the contribution of gestational high saturated fat diet (HFD) to adult-onset metabolic disease and skeletal dysfunction has only recently been recognized, and as such is incompletely understood. METHODS The present study evaluates the pathophysiologic mechanisms linking gestational HFD (approximating the macronutrient content of fast food) and elevated oxidative stress (OS) to adult-onset skeletal, cardiovascular, and metabolic dysfunction. RESULTS Results of this study demonstrate that adult offspring of dams fed HFD during pregnancy exhibited adult hyperglycemia, insulin resistance, obesity, and hypertension, despite being fed healthy standard rodent chow throughout postnatal life. These offspring also showed significantly lower femoral epiphyseal average bone mineral density (ABMD) at 6 months of age, and dysregulation of distal femoral trabecular architecture at 12 months of age, characteristic of osteoporosis. Incidence of these adult-onset adverse skeletal and metabolic effects was reduced by supplementing the pregnant dam with the antioxidant (quercetin, Q) during pregnancy. CONCLUSIONS Collectively, these data suggest that offspring of dams who consume a diet rich in saturated fats during pregnancy are at increased risk of adult-onset chronic disease. Additionally, these chronic diseases were determined to be in-part OS-mediated, and preventable by increasing a prenatal dietary antioxidant; this knowledge offers both a putative mechanism of disease pathogenesis and suggests a potential preventive strategy.
Amyloid diseases of the heart: assessment, diagnosis, and referral

The amyloidoses are a group of diseases in which amyloid, a proteinaceous substance, deposits in one or more organs. As many as 23 different precursor proteins to the formation of amyloid have been described in man. These may deposit themselves in a fibrillar matrix within selected tissues. Fibrils are formed when normally soluble constituents undergo transformational change and misfold to become relatively insoluble. A variety of mechanisms promote these changes, which result in the final common pathway of the deposition of non-branching fibrils that can be visualised by electron microscopy and which are seen on light microscopy as a homogenous extracellular material (figure 1). Figure 1 Myocardial biopsy from a patient with congestive cardiac failure and echocardiographic appearances of amyloid deposition. The myocytes appear yellow with the amyloid staining turquoise (sulfated Alcian blue stain). Immunostaining subsequently confirmed transthyretin as the constituent protein. In the developed world, cardiologists predominantly encounter three main types of amyloidosis that affect the heart; light chain (AL) amyloidosis, senile systemic amyloidosis (SSA), and familial amyloidosis (FAP); the latter most commonly results from a mutation in transthyretin. In the developing world, secondary amyloid (AA) is more prevalent, due to chronic infections and inadequately treated inflammatory conditions. Occurring worldwide and later in life, a further amyloid type to affect the heart is isolated atrial amyloid (IAA). w1 w2 Finally, and much less common, are the non-transthyretin variants, including mutations of fibrinogen, apoprotein, and gelsolin. These rarer types can cause significant cardiac compromise. Cardiac involvement in amyloidosis is usually part of a systemic disease. The heart is frequently the predominant organ affected but, in some forms of the disease, isolated heart involvement can occur. In patients with a non-cardiac biopsy showing amyloid deposition, cardiac involvement has been defined—by a consensus opinion from the 10th International Symposium on Amyloidosis1—as …
Dose Expansion Cohorts in Phase I Trials

ABSTRACT A rapidly increasing number of Phase I dose-finding studies, those based on the standard 3+3 design in particular, are being prolonged with the inclusion of dose expansion cohorts (DEC) to better characterize the toxicity profiles of experimental agents and to study disease-specific cohorts. These trials consist of two phases: the usual dose escalation phase that aims to establish the maximum tolerated dose (MTD), and the dose expansion phase that accrues additional patients, often with different eligibility criteria, and where additional information is collected. Currently, not all protocols specify whether and how the MTD will be updated in the light of new data accumulated from the DEC. Here, we propose methods that allow monitoring of safety in the DEC by reevaluating the MTD in light of additional information. Our working assumption is that, regardless of the design being used for dose escalation, during the DEC we are experimenting in the neighborhood of a target dose with an acceptable rate of toxicity. We refine our initial estimate of the MTD by continuing experimentation in the immediate vicinity of the initial estimate of the MTD. The auxiliary information provided by such an evaluation will include toxicity, pharmacokinetic, efficacy, and other endpoints. We consider approaches specifically focused on the aims of DEC that examine efficacy alone or simultaneously with safety. Simulations provide further insight into the behavior of the proposed tests. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.
Prevalence of osteoporosis and osteopenia in advanced chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients

Background: Reduction of bone mineral density (BMD) is a known and established phenomenon in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). However, there have been no data regarding osteoporosis/osteopenia in COPD patients in India. Aim: To look for the degree and frequency of osteoporosis/osteopenia in our OPD patients being diagnosed as COPD. Materials and Methods: Thirty-seven randomly selected patients with COPD were assessed for BMD with commercially available ultrasound bone densitometer (HOLOGIC SAHARA) in a pulmonary OPD. Some cofactors for reduced BMD were also noted. Results: Out of the 37 COPD (all belonging to the GOLD III/IV category) patients studied, the BMD was found to be normal in 10 (27%) patients, while 27 (73%) patients were found to have osteopenia/osteoporosis [19 (51.35%) and 8 (21.62%) patients having osteopenia and osteoporosis, respectively]. Conclusion: Frequency of osteoporosis and osteopenia was found to be very high (73%) in our population of advanced COPD. The data suggest a need for further in-depth study regarding the issue.
Lack of Genomic Instability in Bone Marrow Cells of SCID Mice Exposed Whole-Body to Low-Dose Radiation

It is clear that high-dose radiation is harmful. However, despite extensive research, assessment of potential health-risks associated with exposure to low-dose radiation (at doses below or equal to 0.1 Gy) is still challenging. Recently, we reported that 0.05 Gy of 137Cs gamma rays (the existing limit for radiation-exposure in the workplace) was incapable of inducing significant in vivo genomic instability (measured by the presence of late-occurring chromosomal damage at 6 months post-irradiation) in bone marrow (BM) cells of two mouse strains, one with constitutively high and one with intermediate levels of the repair enzyme DNA-dependent protein-kinase catalytic-subunit (DNA-PKcs). In this study, we present evidence for a lack of genomic instability in BM cells of the severely combined-immunodeficiency (SCID/J) mouse (which has an extremely low-level of DNA-PKcs activity) exposed whole-body to low-dose radiation (0.05 Gy). Together with our previous report, the data indicate that low-dose radiation (0.05 Gy) is incapable of inducing genomic instability in vivo (regardless of the levels of DNA-PKcs activity of the exposed mice), yet higher doses of radiation (0.1 and 1 Gy) do induce genomic instability in mice with intermediate and extremely low-levels of DNA-PKcs activity (indicating an important role of DNA-PKcs in DNA repair).
Is there evidence for more than two diffusion components in abdominal organs? – A magnetic resonance imaging study in healthy volunteers

The most commonly applied model for the description of diffusion‐weighted imaging (DWI) data in perfused organs is bicompartmental intravoxel incoherent motion (IVIM) analysis. In this study, we assessed the ground truth of underlying diffusion components in healthy abdominal organs using an extensive DWI protocol and subsequent computation of apparent diffusion coefficient ‘spectra’, similar to the computation of previously described T2 relaxation spectra. Diffusion datasets of eight healthy subjects were acquired in a 3‐T magnetic resonance scanner using 68 different b values during free breathing (equidistantly placed in the range 0–1005 s/mm2). Signal intensity curves as a function of the b value were analyzed in liver, spleen and kidneys using non‐negative least‐squares fitting to a distribution of decaying exponential functions with minimum amplitude energy regularization. In all assessed organs, the typical slow‐ and fast‐diffusing components of the IVIM model were detected [liver: true diffusion D = (1.26 ± 0.01) × 10–3 mm2/s, pseudodiffusion D* = (270 ± 44) × 10–3 mm2/s; kidney cortex: D = (2.26 ± 0.07) × 10–3 mm2/s, D* = (264 ± 78) × 10–3 mm2/s; kidney medulla: D = (1.57 ± 0.28) × 10–3 mm2/s, D* = (168 ± 18) × 10–3 mm2/s; spleen: D = (0.91 ± 0.01) × 10–3 mm2/s, D* = (69.8 ± 0.50) × 10–3 mm2/s]. However, in the liver and kidney, a third component between D and D* was found [liver: D′ = (43.8 ± 5.9) × 10–3 mm2/s; kidney cortex: D′ = (23.8 ± 11.5) × 10–3 mm2/s; kidney medulla: D′ = (5.23 ± 0.93) × 10–3 mm2/s], whereas no third component was detected in the spleen. Fitting with a diffusion kurtosis model did not lead to a better fit of the resulting curves to the acquired data compared with apparent diffusion coefficient spectrum analysis. For a most accurate description of diffusion properties in the liver and the kidneys, a more sophisticated model seems to be required including three diffusion components.
Building a HighLevel Dataflow System on top of MapReduce: The Pig Experience

Increasingly, organizations capture, transform and analyze enormous data sets. Prominent examples include internet companies and e-science. The Map-Reduce scalable dataflow paradigm has become popular for these applications. Its simple, explicit dataflow programming model is favored by some over the traditional high-level declarative approach: SQL. On the other hand, the extreme simplicity of Map-Reduce leads to much low-level hacking to deal with the many-step, branching dataflows that arise in practice. Moreover, users must repeatedly code standard operations such as join by hand. These practices waste time, introduce bugs, harm readability, and impede optimizations. Pig is a high-level dataflow system that aims at a sweet spot between SQL and Map-Reduce. Pig offers SQL-style high-level data manipulation constructs, which can be assembled in an explicit dataflow and interleaved with custom Map- and Reduce-style functions or executables. Pig programs are compiled into sequences of Map-Reduce jobs, and executed in the Hadoop Map-Reduce environment. Both Pig and Hadoop are open-source projects administered by the Apache Software Foundation. This paper describes the challenges we faced in developing Pig, and reports performance comparisons between Pig execution and raw Map-Reduce execution.
Part surface roughness on laser sintering and milling of maraging steel 300

The additive manufacturing of metal parts provides new opportunities to freely design of molds with conformal cooling channels, which enhances the productivity of injected plastic parts. In contrast to this manufacturing process, the surface quality of laser sintering parts is limiting the application of such technology on mold manufacturing. This work intends to investigate the surface roughness of maraging steel 300 samples produced by direct metal laser sintering (DMLS) and post-processed with end milling. Based on a set of experiments, combining different laser sintering build directions and milling process the measurement of the resulting surface roughness expresses how these process parameters impact on the final surface quality.