Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Non-invasive nuclear myocardial perfusion imaging improves the diagnostic yield of invasive coronary angiography.

AIMS Several studies reported on the moderate diagnostic yield of elective invasive coronary angiography (ICA) regarding the presence of coronary artery disease (CAD), but limited data are available on how prior testing for ischaemia may contribute to improve the diagnostic yield in an every-day clinical setting. This study aimed to assess the value and use of cardiac myocardial perfusion single photon emission computed tomography (MPS) in patient selection prior to elective ICA. METHODS AND RESULTS The rate of MPS within 90 days prior to elective ICA was assessed and the non-invasive test results were correlated with the presence of obstructive CAD on ICA (defined as stenosis of ≥50% of a major epicardial coronary vessel). Multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed to identify predictors of obstructive CAD. A total of 7530 consecutive patients were included. At catheterization, 3819 (50.7%) were diagnosed as having obstructive CAD. Patients with a positive result on MPS (performed in 23.5% of patients) were significantly more likely to have obstructive CAD as assessed by ICA than those who did not undergo non-invasive testing (74.4 vs. 45.6%, P < 0.001). Furthermore, a pathological MPS result was a strong, independent predictor for CAD findings among traditional risk factors and symptoms. CONCLUSION In an every-day clinical setting, the use of MPS substantially increases the diagnostic yield of elective ICA and provides incremental value over clinical risk factors and symptoms in predicting obstructive CAD, thus emphasizing its importance in the decision-making process leading to the use of diagnostic catheterization.
Asthma and pulmonary arterial hypertension: do they share a key mechanism of pathogenesis?

Although largely distinct and seemingly unrelated, asthma and pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) have important pathological features in common, including inflammation, smooth muscle contraction and remodelling. We hypothesised that these common features could be explained by one shared mechanism of pathogenesis: activation of the transcription factor NFAT (nuclear factor of activated T-cells). If this concept is validated, it could lead to the introduction of novel therapeutic strategies against both lung disorders. In several experimental models, airway remodelling is accompanied by remodelling of smaller pulmonary arteries, validating the hypothesis of their similar pathogenesis. In addition, lungs of vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) knockout mice express airway hyperresponsiveness with airway inflammation and PAH with vascular remodelling, with both sets of pathological findings being reversible with VIP treatment. Preliminary data suggest that absence of the VIP gene leads to activation of the calcineurin–NFAT pathway, and that VIP is probably a physiological inhibitor of this pathway. Enough evidence exists to support the views that asthma and PAH share important pathological features, probably related to NFAT activation, and that VIP may be a physiological modulator of this mechanism.
Removal of Trihalomethane Precursors by Nanofiltration in Low-SUVA Drinking Water

Trihalomethanes (THMs) are prevalent disinfection by-products. High THM formation is usually associated with natural organic matter with high molecular weight and aromatic characteristics, which is efficiently removed by nanofiltration (NF). In the Sea of Galilee and the Israeli National Water Carrier (NWC), water shows high THM formation potential, although it mainly contains low molecular weight and hydrophilic organic matter with low aromaticity. In the present study, NF removal abilities were tested on treated NWC water using three different spiral wound membranes (NF90, NF270, and DL). Rejections and fluxes were tested as a function of pressure, water recovery, and membrane type. Feed and permeate dissolved organic carbon (DOC), UVA254, total THM formation (THMF), and total THM formation potential (THMFP), as well as alkalinity, conductivity, hardness, Ca2+, Mg2+, and Cl− were measured to evaluate rejection and THM formation reduction. The results demonstrated that NF can efficiently remove natural organic matter (NOM) and reduce THM formation, even in this challenging type of water. At low water recovery, membranes showed average rejection of about 70–85% for THMFP and THM. Upon elevating recovery, average THM and THMFP rejection decreased to 55–70%, with THM content still well below regulation limits. Of the membranes tested, the higher permeability of NF270 appears to make it economically favorable for the applications tested in this work.
Germline Genetic Variants in TEK, ANGPT1, ANGPT2, MMP9, FGF2 and VEGFA Are Associated with Pathologic Complete Response to Bevacizumab in Breast Cancer Patients

Background We previously reported improved pathologic complete response (pCR) in a prospective phase II study using neoadjuvant bevacizumab in combination with chemotherapy compared to chemotherapy alone in breast cancer patients (41% vs. 25%, p = 0.0291). In this study, we queried germline single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in angiogenesis-related genes for their impact on pCR and overall survival (OS). Methods DNA for genotyping was available from 34 subjects who received bevacizumab in addition to chemotherapy and 29 subjects who did not. Using Illumina® technology, we queried 504 SNPs with a minor allele frequency (MAF) of at least 5%, located in 10 angiogenesis-related genes, for their effect on pCR via logistic regression with an additive-inheritance model while adjusting for race and bevacizumab treatment. SNPs that showed significant associations with pCR were selected for additional characterization. Results After adjusting for race and tumor type, patients who had bevacizumab added to their neoadjuvant therapy were found to experience a significantly improved rate of pCR compared to patients who did not (adjusted OR 8.40, 95% CI 1.90–37.1). When patients were analyzed for SNP effects via logistic regression with race and bevacizumab treatment included as covariates, two SNPs in angiopoietin 1 (ANGPT1), six in ANGPT2, three in fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2), four in matrix metalloproteinase 9 (MMP9), three in tyrosine kinase, endothelial (TEK) and two in vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGFA) were associated with pCR (P<0.05). However, when overall survival was considered, there was no difference between treatment groups or between genotypes. Conclusion Genetic variability in TEK, ANGPT1, ANGPT2, FGF2, MMP9 and VEGFA is associated with pCR in bevacizumab-treated patients. Consistent with other studies, adding bevacizumab to standard chemotherapy did not impact OS, likely due to other factors and thus, while SNPs in TEK, ANGPT1, ANGPT2, FGF2, MMP9 and VEGFA were associated with pCR, they were not predictive of OS in this patient population. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00203502
Under what conditions is recognition spared relative to recall after selective hippocampal damage in humans?

The claim that recognition memory is spared relative to recall after focal hippocampal damage has been disputed in the literature. We examined this claim by investigating object and object–location recall and recognition memory in a patient, YR, who has adult‐onset selective hippocampal damage. Our aim was to identify the conditions under which recognition was spared relative to recall in this patient. She showed unimpaired forced‐choice object recognition but clearly impaired recall, even when her control subjects found the object recognition task to be numerically harder than the object recall task. However, on two other recognition tests, YR's performance was not relatively spared. First, she was clearly impaired at an equivalently difficult yes/no object recognition task, but only when targets and foils were very similar. Second, YR was clearly impaired at forced‐choice recognition of object–location associations. This impairment was also unrelated to difficulty because this task was no more difficult than the forced‐choice object recognition task for control subjects. The clear impairment of yes/no, but not of forced‐choice, object recognition after focal hippocampal damage, when targets and foils are very similar, is predicted by the neural network‐based Complementary Learning Systems model of recognition. This model postulates that recognition is mediated by hippocampally dependent recollection and cortically dependent familiarity; thus hippocampal damage should not impair item familiarity. The model postulates that familiarity is ineffective when very similar targets and foils are shown one at a time and subjects have to identify which items are old (yes/no recognition). In contrast, familiarity is effective in discriminating which of similar targets and foils, seen together, is old (forced‐choice recognition). Independent evidence from the remember/know procedure also indicates that YR's familiarity is normal. The Complementary Learning Systems model can also accommodate the clear impairment of forced‐choice object–location recognition memory if it incorporates the view that the most complete convergence of spatial and object information, represented in different cortical regions, occurs in the hippocampus. Hippocampus 2002;12:341–351. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Antimicrobial susceptibility of pathogenic Yersinia enterocolitica isolated in Canada from 1972 to 1990

Yersinia enterocolitica has emerged as an enteropathogen associated with several types of human infections that often require antimicrobial therapy, but little is known about the antimicrobial susceptibilities of pathogenic strains isolated from humans in Canada. To determine the present patterns of antimicrobial susceptibility, to identify changes in these patterns that occurred during the past two decades, and to investigate the relationships between O serotypes and patterns of susceptibility, we tested a total of 1,105 pathogenic Y. enterocolitica strains isolated during 1972 to 1976, 1980, 1985, and 1990 for their susceptibilities to 22 antimicrobial agents. Susceptibility testing was performed by using a single breakpoint concentration in agar procedure. The results showed that all strains were susceptible to ciprofloxacin and piperacillin, and 98% or more of the strains from each period were susceptible to trimethoprim, sulfamethoxazole, cotrimoxazole, tetracycline, chloramphenicol, cefamandole, cefotaxime, aztreonam, and four aminoglycosides. In contrast, all strains were nonsusceptible to erythromycin, furazolidone, and clindamycin and 90% or more of the strains from each period were nonsusceptible to ampicillin, carbenicillin, ticarcillin, and cephalothin. Strains belonging to serotypes O:3, O:5,27, and O:8 had different patterns of susceptibility to ampicillin, carbenicillin, ticarcillin, and amoxicillin-clavulanic acid. No major difference in susceptibility was observed between any of the groups of human or animal strains included in the study, but nonsusceptibility to tetracycline increased from 0.4% in 1985 to 2% in 1990 in human strains isolated in those years. Our results indicate that between 1972 and 1990 there was no marked decrease in susceptibility to agents commonly used for therapy among pathogenic Y. enterocolitica strains isolated in Canada.
Facial Asymmetry: A New Biometric

Human facial asymmetry has long been a critical factor for evaluations of attractiveness and expressions in psychology and anthropology, although most studies are carried out qualitatively. In this work, we investigate in depth the effect of statistical facial asymmetry measurement as a biometric under expression variations. Our findings demonstrate that the asymmetry of specific facial regions captures individual differences that are robust to variation in facial expression. More importantly, our experimental results show that facial asymmetry provides discriminating power orthogonal to conventional face identification methods. The synergy of combining facial asymmetry with conventional methods is evaluated. Our work appears to be the first to show quantitatively the power of facial asymmetry as a biometric.
DGLB: Distributed Stochastic Geographical Load Balancing over Cloud Networks

Contemporary cloud networks are being challenged by the rapid increase of user demands and growing concerns about global warming, due to their substantial energy consumption. This requires future data centers to be both energy efficient and sustainable, which calls for leveraging cutting-edge features and the flexibility provided by the modern smart grids. To fulfill those goals, this paper puts forward a systematic approach to designing energy-aware traffic-efficient geographical load balancing schemes for data-center networks that are not only optimal, but also computationally efficient and amenable to distributed implementation. Under this comprehensive approach, workload and power balancing schemes are designed jointly across the network, both delay-tolerant and interactive workloads are accommodated, novel smart-grid features such as energy storage units are incorporated to cope with renewables, and incentive pricing mechanisms are adopted in the design. To further account for the spatio-temporal variation of demands, energy prices and renewables, the task is formulated as a two-timescale stochastic optimization. Leveraging dual stochastic approximation and the fast iterative shrinkage-thresholding algorithm (FISTA), the proposed optimization is decomposed across time slots (first-stage) and data centers (second-stage). While the resultant online algorithm is strictly feasible and provably optimal under a Markovian assumption for the underlying random processes, extensive numerical tests further demonstrate that it also works well in real-data scenarios, where the underlying randomness is highly correlated across time.
Interference Cancelation Based Opportunistic Relaying with Multiple Decode-and-Forward Relays

In this paper, we propose an opportunistic relaying with multiple decode-and-forward (DF) relay nodes based on interference cancelation (IC). The relay that succeeds decoding data in the former phase performs IC to decode another data in the current phase without suffering from interference caused by the selected best relay that forwards the data of the former phase. It is shown that the proposed scheme compensates for the loss of spectral efficiency caused by half duplexing relay nodes when the number of relays is large or SNR is high. In a whole systemic view, the proposed system asymptotically works as a single full-duplex transceiver. Our analytical and numerical results confirm that the proposed scheme outperforms the opportunistic single selection relaying with DF in terms of outage capacity when the number of relays is large or SNR is high.
Correlation between mRNA expression of Th1/Th2 cytokines and their specific transcription factors in human helper T‐cell clones

The mechanisms that underlie Th1/Th2 differentiation of human T cells are incompletely defined. In the present study, a panel of human T‐cell clones was used to elucidate the relationship between Th1/Th2‐specific transcription factors and cytokine production in human helper T cells. The mRNA expression level of T‐bet, a Th1‐specific transcription factor, was higher in Th1 clones than in Th2 clones. In contrast, inducible expression of Th2‐specific transcription factors (GATA‐3 and c‐Maf) in Th2 clones was higher than that in Th1 clones. The expression level of T‐bet in various T‐cell clones was positively correlated with that of IFN‐γ and negatively correlated with that of Th2 cytokines, particularly IL‐4. Interestingly, the expression of IL‐3 and IL‐13, but not of other Th2 cytokines IL‐4 and IL‐5, was strongly correlated with GATA‐3 mRNA levels. A reduction of GATA‐3 using RNA interference technology suppressed, whereas overexpression of GATA‐3 enhanced, the expression of IL‐3 and IL‐13. In conclusion, the level of T‐bet expression is correlated with Th1/Th2 polarization status, whereas GATA‐3 is a crucial factor in determining the IL‐3 and IL‐13 producing capacity of human T cells.
ANALOGICAL REASONING AS A MECHANISM IN KNOWLEDGE ACQUISITION: A DEVELOPMENTAL PERSPECTIVE

Analogical reasoning involves the identification and transfer of an explanatory structure from a known system (the source) to a new and relatively unknown system (the target). Analogical reasoning can take place between two systems that belong to fundamentally different domains, or between two systems that belong to the same or similar domains. An analogy can be identified when the underlying structural similarity between two analogs is recognized. However, the productive use of an analogy, that is, the use of analogical reasoning to produce a new understanding of the explanatory structure of a target system, is often based on the recognition of some similarity in salient properties of the two systems, and not on similarity in their structure, because the explanatory structure of the target system is not known. It seems that adults as well as children are capable of identifying the structural similarity between two analogs when the similar underlying structure is part of their representation of the source and target systems. They can also use the similarity in salient properties between two systems as a vehicle for discovering similarities in their explanatory structure. What develops is not so much the analogical mechanism itself but rather the conceptual system upon which this mechanism is based.
Epidemiologic Study of Sleep Disorders in Kuwaiti Adolescents

A sample of 2,574 volunteer Kuwaiti boys (n = 1,309) and girls (n = 1,265) in secondary schools were recruited. Their ages ranged from 14 to 18 years. 13 items were used to assess prevalence of insomnia, hypersomnia, nightmares, sleepwalking, sleep terror, and narcolepsy. Participants were requested to respond according to the past month on a 5-point scale. The summation of responses in the last two options, i.e., “Much” and “Very much” was considered as the point prevalence rates. Girls had significantly higher mean ratings than boys on the following items: difficulty initiating sleep, fitful and disturbed sleep, waking up several times, nightmares, and sleep terror, while boys had significantly higher mean ratings on sleepwalking and “watching TV causes naps or sleep. ” The point prevalence on all the items for boys ranged from 4.6% to 35.2%, and that for girls ranged between 1.0% and 37.5%. One should keep in mind that the present sample was not a clinical one.
Optimal Nonlinear Prediction of Random Fields on Networks

It is increasingly common to encounter time-varying random fields on networks (metabolic networks, sensor arrays, distributed computing, etc.). This paper considers the problem of optimal, nonlinear prediction of these fields, showing from an information-theoretic perspective that it is formally identical to the problem of finding minimal local sufficient statistics.I derive general properties of these statistics, show that they can be composed into global predictors, and explore their recursive estimation properties.For the special case of discrete-valued fields, I describe a convergent algorithm to identify the local predictors from empirical data, with minimal prior information about the field, and no distributional assumptions.
Effluent Quality of a Carbonated Soft Drink (CSD) Company in Owerri, Imo State, Nigeria and the Receiving Water Body

ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 7 Number 10 (2018) Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas. com The effluent quality of a carbonated soft drink (CSD) company in Owerri and the receiving water body (Nworie River) were determined using standard microbiological and physicochemical methods. Microbial loads showed that total heterotrophic count (THC) ranged from 1.0 × 10 2 ±0.14 to 3.7 × 10 5 ±0.53 CFU/ml, total coliform count (TCC) ranged from 0.2 × 10 1 ±0.19 to 2.9 × 10 5 ±0.50 CFU/ml and yeast and mould count (Y&MC) ranged from 1.1 × 10 2 ±0.1 to 2.1 × 10 4 ±0.93 CFU/ml (p<0.05). Six (6) bacterial isolates were identified to include Pseudomonas species, Bacillus species, Staphylococcus species, Escherichia coli, Flavobacterium species, and Azotobacter species, while six (6) fungal isolates were identified to include Aspergillus species, Penicillium species, Acremonium species, Rhodotorula species, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and Candida species. Physicochemical results obtained in this study showed a pattern (p<0.05) with higher values recorded in the influent and least values in the effluent samples, while in the receiving water body, higher values were recorded in the discharge point, followed by downstream and least values in the upstream samples. However, it was discovered that discharges into the same tunnel from neighborhood companies around the industrial site increased the pollution level of the discharged effluent into the river, leaving potential effects on the downstream. Having considered the need for a sustainable water economy with looming water scarcity globally, and associated health hazards with untreated wastewater, there is need for proper monitoring by concerned agencies in ensuring wastewater from industries are treated to meet minimum permissible quality standards to avoid midstream contamination. K e y w o r d s Effluent, Receiving water body, Microbiological, Physicochemical, Pollution level Accepted: 12 September 2018 Available Online: 10 October 2018 Article Info Int.J.Curr.Microbiol. App.Sci (2018) 7(10): 1670-1677
Improved sparse approximation over quasiincoherent dictionaries

This paper discusses a new greedy algorithm for solving the sparse approximation problem over quasiincoherent dictionaries. These dictionaries consist of waveforms that are uncorrelated "on average," and they provide a natural generalization of incoherent dictionaries. The algorithm provides strong guarantees on the quality of the approximations it produces, unlike most other methods for sparse approximation. Moreover, very efficient implementations are possible via approximate nearest-neighbor data structures.
Injectivity radius of representations of triangle groups and planar width of regular hypermaps

We develop a rigorous algebraic background for representations of triangle groups in linear groups over algebras arising from factor rings of multivariate polynomial rings. This is then used to substantially improve the existing upper bounds on the order of epimorphic images of triangle groups with a given injectivity radius and, analogously, the size of the associated hypermaps of a given type with a given planar width.