Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Overexpression of GTP Cyclohydrolase 1 Feedback Regulatory Protein Is Protective in a Murine Model of Septic Shock

ABSTRACT Overproduction of nitric oxide (NO) by inducible NO synthase contributes toward refractory hypotension, impaired microvascular perfusion, and end-organ damage in septic shock patients. Tetrahydrobiopterin (BH4) is an essential NOS cofactor. GTP cyclohydrolase 1 (GCH1) is the rate-limiting enzyme for BH4 biosynthesis. Under inflammatory conditions, GCH1 activity and hence BH4 levels are increased, supporting pathological NOS activity. GCH1 activity can be controlled through allosteric interactions with GCH1 feedback regulatory protein (GFRP). We investigated whether overexpression of GFRP can regulate BH4 and NO production and attenuate cardiovascular dysfunction in sepsis. Sepsis was induced in mice conditionally overexpressing GFRP and wild-type littermates by cecal ligation and puncture. Blood pressure was monitored by radiotelemetry, and mesenteric blood flow was quantified by laser speckle contrast imaging. Blood biochemistry data were obtained using an iSTAT analyzer, and BH4 levels were measured in plasma and tissues by high-performance liquid chromatography. Increased BH4 and NO production and hypotension were observed in all mice, but the extents of these pathophysiological changes were attenuated in GFRP OE mice. Perturbations in blood biochemistry were similarly attenuated in GFRP OE compared with wild-type controls. These results suggest that GFRP overexpression regulates GCH1 activity during septic shock, which in turn limits BH4 bioavailability for iNOS. We conclude that the GCH1-GFRP axis is a critical regulator of BH4 and NO production and the cardiovascular derangements that occur in septic shock.
The Story Gestalt: A Model of Knowledge-Intensive Processes in Text Comprehension

How are knowledge-intensive, text-comprehension processes computed? Specifically, how are (1) explicit propositions remembered correctly, (2) pronouns resolved, (3) coherence and prediction inferences drawn, (4) on-going interpretations revised as more information becomes available, and (5) information learned in specific contexts generalized to novel texts? A constraint satisfaction model is presented that offers a number of advantages over previous models: Each of the previous processes can be seen as examples of the same process of constraint satisfaction, constraints can have strengths to represent the degrees of correlation among information, and the independence of constraints provides insight into generalization. In the model, propositions describing a simple event, such as going to the beach or a restaurant, are sequentially presented to a recurrent PDP network. The model is trained through practice processing a large number of example texts and answering questions. Questions are predicates from propositions explicit or inferable from the text, and the model has to answer with the proposition that fits that predicate. The model learns to perform well, though some processes require substantial training. A second simulation shows how the combinatorics in the training corpus can increase generalization. This effect is explained by introducing the concept of identity and associative constraints that are learned from a corpus. Overall, the model provides a number of insights into how a graded constraint-satisfaction model can compute knowledge-intensive processes in text comprehension.
Analysis of vasculature for liver surgical planning

For liver surgical planning, the structure and morphology of the hepatic vessels and their relationship to tumors are of major interest. To achieve a fast and robust assistance with optimal quantitative and visual information, we present methods for a geometrical and structural analysis of vessel systems. Starting from the raw image data a sequence of image processing steps has to be carried out until a three-dimensional representation of the relevant anatomic and pathologic structures is generated. Based on computed tomography (CT) scans, the following steps are performed. 1) The volume data is preprocessed and the vessels are segmented. 2) The skeleton of the vessels is determined and transformed into a graph enabling a geometrical and structural shape analysis. Using this information the different intrahepatic vessel systems are identified automatically. 3) Based on the structural analysis of the branches of the portal vein, their vascular territories are approximated with different methods. These methods are compared and validated anatomically by means of corrosion casts of human livers. 4) Vessels are visualized with graphics primitives fitted to the skeleton to provide smooth visualizations without aliasing artifacts. The image analysis techniques have been evaluated in the clinical environment and have been used in more than 170 cases so far to plan interventions and transplantations.
Functional Associations among Human Posterior Extrastriate Brain Regions during Object and Spatial Vision

Primate extrastriate visual cortex is organized into an occipitotemporal pathway for object vision and an occipitoparietal pathway for spatial vision. Correlations between normalized regional cerebral blood flow values (regional divided by global flows), obtained using H215O and positron emission tomography, were used to examine functional associations among posterior brain regions for these two pathways in 17 young men during performance of a face matching task and a dot-location matching task. During face matching, there was a significant correlation in the right hemisphere between an extrastriate occipital region that was equally activated during both the face matching and dot-location matching tasks and a region in inferior occipitotemporal cortex that was activated more during the face matching task. The corresponding correlation in the left hemisphere was not significantly different from zero. Significant intrahemispheric correlations among posterior regions were observed more often for the right than for the left hemisphere. During dot-location matching, many significant correlations were found among posterior regions in both hemispheres, but significant correlations between specific regions in occipital and parietal cortex shown to be reliably activated during this spatial vision test were found only in the right cerebral hemisphere. These results suggest that (1) correlational analysis of normalized rCBF can detect functional interactions between components of proposed brain circuits, and (2) face and dot-location matching depend primarily on functional interactions between posterior cortical areas in the right cerebral hemisphere. At the same time, left hemisphere cerebral processing may contribute more to dot-location matching than to face matching.
Performance on the Test of Memory Malingering is predicted by the number of errors on its first 10 items on an inpatient epilepsy monitoring unit

Abstract Objective: Performance validity testing is an increasingly vital component of neuropsychological evaluation, though administration of stand-alone performance validity tests (PVTs) can be time-consuming. As the Test of Memory Malingering (TOMM) is among the most commonly used and researched PVTs, much work has focused on creating abbreviated versions while preserving diagnostic accuracy. A recent addition to this effort, errors on the first 10 items of Trial 1 (TOMMe10), was analyzed for its utility in predicting TOMM performance. Method: Subjects were 180 veterans seen on a long-term epilepsy monitoring unit. TOMM learning trials, Word Memory Test (WMT), and WAIS-IV Digit Span (for Reliable Digit Span; RDS) were administered as part of a larger battery. Performance invalidity was classified using established cut scores. Diagnostic classification statistics were calculated predicting TOMM, WMT, and RDS performance, including sensitivity, specificity, receiver operating characteristics (ROC), and positive and negative predictive values for multiple TOMMe10 cut scores. Results: A cut score of ≥2 errors on TOMMe10 yielded the highest sensitivity (.88) while maintaining ≥. 90 specificity when predicting TOMM (also supported by ROC analysis). This cut score was also optimal when validated against combinations of PVTs (e.g. two of TOMM, WMT, and RDS; WMT and/or RDS). Conclusions: TOMMe10 shows great promise in predicting future TOMM performance. In settings where time with patients is at a premium, ≥2 errors on TOMMe10 may be used as an early TOMM discontinue criteria, allowing examiners to use their limited time more effectively. The use of TOMMe10 in settings with varying TOMM failure base rates was discussed.
Elementary School Counselors' Perceptions of Reality Play Counseling in Students' Relationship Building and Problem-Solving Skills.

In this qualitative study, eight school counselors participated in a series of reality play counseling trainings introducing techniques appropriate for counseling upper-grade elementary school students to enhance positive relationship building and problem solving skills. Participants were interviewed and their transcripts were analyzed using grounded theory methods which yielded four core categories: positive aspects of implementation, perceptions of the effectiveness of relationship building, perceptions of the effectiveness of developing problem solving skills, and concerns regarding implementation.
Qualitative and Quantitative Characteristics of Rotavirus-Specific CD8 T Cells Vary Depending on the Route of Infection

ABSTRACT CD8 T-cell response provides an important defense against rotavirus, which infects a variety of systemic locations in addition to the gut. Here we investigated the distribution, phenotype, and function of rotavirus-specific CD8 T cells in multiple organs after rotavirus infection initiated via the intranasal, oral, or intramuscular route. The highest level of virus-specific CD8 T cells was observed in the Peyer's patches of orally infected mice and in the lungs of intranasally infected animals. Very low levels of virus-specific CD8 T cells were detected in peripheral blood or spleen irrespective of the route of infection. Rotavirus-specific CD8 T cells from Peyer's patches of orally infected mice expressed high levels of CCR9, while CXCR6 and LFA-1 expression was associated with virus-specific CD8 T cells in lungs of intranasally infected mice. Oral infection induced the highest proportion of gamma interferon− CD107a/b+ CD8 T cells in Peyer's patches. When equal numbers of rotavirus-specific CD8 T cells were transferred into Rag-1 knockout mice chronically infected with rotavirus, the donor cells derived from Peyer's patches of orally infected mice were more efficient than those derived from lungs of intranasally infected animals in clearing intestinal infection. These results suggest that different routes of infection induce virus-specific CD8 T cells with distinct homing phenotypes and effector functions as well as variable abilities to clear infection.
PCR for bioaerosol monitoring: sensitivity and environmental interference

The PCR technique has potential for use in detection of low concentrations of airborne microorganisms. In this study, the sensitivity of PCR and its susceptibility to environmental interference were assessed with Escherichia coli DH1 as the target organism. Air samples, containing environmental bioaerosols, were collected with AGI-30 samplers and seeded with E. coli DH1 cells. Parallel studies were performed with cells seeded into the sampler prior to collection of air samples to determine the effects of environmental inhibition and sampling stress on the PCR assay. Baseline studies were also performed without environmental challenge or sampling stress to compare two protocols for cell lysis, solid phase and freeze-thaw. Amplification of a plasmid target sequence resulted in a detection limit of a single bacterial cell by the freeze-thaw and solid-phase methods within 5 and 9 h, respectively. With a genomic target, the sensitivity of the solid-phase method was 10-fold lower than that of freeze-thaw. Samples which contained 10(3) to 10(4) CFU of environmental organisms per m3 inhibited amplification; however, a 1/10 dilution of these samples resulted in successful amplifications. No difference in sensitivity of the PCR assay was obtained as a result of sampling stress, although a 10-fold decrease in culturability was observed. A field validation of the protocol with genomic primers demonstrated the presence of airborne E. coli and/or Shigella spp. in outdoor samples. This study indicates that the PCR method for detection of airborne microorganisms is rapid and sensitive and can be used as an alternative method for air quality monitoring.
Nitrogen and potassium dynamics in fertigation systems

Water and nutrients are the two key inputs in agriculture but their use efficiency is low and their injudicious use leads to environmental degradation. Among the various techniques of water application, drip or trickle irrigation is the most efficient method of delivering water to the root zone. Applying fertilizers through irrigation water, particularly through the drip system, termed as fertigation, also provides the most effective way of supplying nutrients to the plant roots. In fact, the supply can be tailored to meet the precise requirement of the plant depending on its growth stage. A considerable amount of work has been done on drip irrigation and also on fertigation, but studies on the dynamics of nutrients in soil after their exit from the emitter are very few. In this paper, results of two separate experiments conducted to study the fate of nitrogen and potassium in soil applied through fertigation have been presented. In both the experiments, water-soluble fertilizer was applied through a drip system (T1). In the second treatment (T2), the fertilizer was applied on soil but water was applied through drip system while in the third treatment (T3) fertilizer was applied on the soil with conventional irrigation method (check basin/furrow). In the experiment in which nitrogen dynamics were studied, the crop was broccoli while potassium dynamics were studied in radish. In the experiment on nitrogen dynamics, it was observed that in the fertigation treatments, ammonium form of nitrogen dominated in the upper soil layers. Almost all the nitrogen applied remained confined to the root zone. In the conventional method of irrigation, the nitrate-nitrogen dominated and a significant amount was leached out. Leaching losses were also observed when the fertilizer was applied on soil and water through a drip system. In the second experiment, in which potassium dynamics were studied, it was observed that in fertigation treatments, potassium was confined to the root zone of the radish crop, while it moved in significant quantities beyond the root zone in the conventional method (furrow irrigation). Movement beyond the root zone was also observed in the soil-based fertilizer application with water through a drip system but to a lesser degree.
Identifying script on word-level with informational confidence

In this paper, we present a multiple classifier system for script identification. Applying a Gabor filter analysis of textures on word-level, our system identifies Latin and non-Latin words in bilingual printed documents. The classifier system comprises four different architectures based on nearest neighbors, weighted Euclidean distances, Gaussian mixture models, and support vector machines. We report results for Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, and Korean script. Moreover, we show that combining informational confidence values using sum-rule can consistently outperform the best single recognition rate.
A non-negative quadratic programming approach to minimize the generalized vector-valued total variation functional

We propose a simple but flexible method for solving the generalized vector-valued TV (VTV) functional with a non-negativity constraint. One of the main features of this recursive algorithm is that it is based on multiplicative updates only and can be used to solve the denoising and deconvolution problems for vector-valued (color) images. This algorithm is the vectorial extension of the IRN-NQP (Iteratively Reweighted Norm - Non-negative Quadratic Programming) algorithm [1] originally developed for scalar (grayscale) images, and to the best of our knowledge, it is the only algorithm that explicitly includes a non-negativity constraint for color images within the TV framework.
Matching 3D models with global geometric feature map

Measuring the similarity between 3D models is a fundamental task in 3D models retrieval. In this paper, we propose a new method based on global geometric feature map (GGFM) to represent arbitrary polygonal 3D models. Since 3D polygonal model can be expressed as a set of facets, the GGFM can fast constitute a spherical histogram about the normal orientation and area and position of every facet on the surface of the model. By computing the spherical correlation between the GGFMs of the matched models, similarity of two models can be obtained. Experimental results show that the proposed method performs well in 3D model similarity matching and is invariant to the translation and rotation and scaling of 3D model. Comparing to the existing methods, this method is fast and needs low computation and storage cost since each facet of the model needs to be computed only once in GGFM
Emotional and non-emotional memories are suppressible under direct suppression instructions

Research on retrieval suppression has produced varying results concerning whether negatively valenced memories are more or less suppressible than neutral memories. This variability may arise if, across studies, participants adopt different approaches to memory control. Cognitive and neurobiological research points to two mechanisms that achieve retrieval suppression: thought-substitution and direct suppression (Benoit & Anderson, 2012; Bergström, de Fockert, & Richardson-Klavehn, 2009). Using the Think/No-think paradigm, this study examined whether participants can inhibit neutral and negatively valenced memories, using a uniform direct suppression strategy. Importantly, when strategy was controlled, negative and neutral items were comparably inhibited. Participants reported high compliance with direct suppression instructions, and success at controlling awareness predicted forgetting. These findings provide the first evidence that direct suppression can impair negatively valenced events, and suggest that variability in forgetting negative memories in prior studies is unlikely to arise from difficulty using direct suppression to control emotionally negative experiences.
Tetrakis(4-aminopyridine-κN 1)dichloridocopper(II) monohydrate

The asymmetric unit of the title compound, [CuCl2(C5H6N2)4]·H2O, contains two crystallographically independent complex molecules and two water molecules. The CuII ion in each molecule is six-coordinated in an elongated octahedral geometry, with the equatorial plane defined by four pyridine N atoms of four aminopyridine ligands and the axial positions occupied by two Cl atoms. In the crystal structure, molecules are linked into a three-dimensional framework by C—H⋯Cl, O—H⋯Cl, N—H⋯O, N—H⋯Cl and N—H⋯N hydrogen bonds and C/N—H⋯π interactions involving the pyridine rings.
Homodyne detection and optical parametric amplification: a classical approach applied to proposed

Recent proposed ``loophole-free'' Bell tests are discussed in the light of classical models for the relevant features of optical parametric amplification and homodyne detection. The Bell tests themselves are uncontroversial: there are no obvious loopholes that might cause bias and hence, if the world does, after all, obey local realism, no violation of a Bell inequality will be observed. Interest centres around the question of whether or not the proposed criterion for ``non-classical'' light is valid. If it is not, then the experiments will fail in their initial concept, since both quantum theorists and local realists will agree that we are seeing a purely classical effect. The Bell test, though, is not the only criterion by which the quantum-mechanical and local realist models can be judged. It is suggested that the quantum-mechanical models given in the proposals will also fail in their detailed predictions. If the experiments are extended by including a range of parameter values and by analysing, in addition to the proposed digitised voltage differences, the raw voltages, the models can be compared in their overall performance and plausibility.
Once-Weekly Exenatide Versus Once- or Twice-Daily Insulin Detemir

OBJECTIVE This multicenter, open-label, parallel-arm study compared the efficacy and safety of exenatide once weekly (EQW) with titrated insulin detemir in patients with type 2 diabetes inadequately controlled with metformin (with or without sulfonylureas). RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Patients were randomized to EQW (2 mg) or detemir (once or twice daily, titrated to achieve fasting plasma glucose ≤5.5 mmol/L) for 26 weeks. The primary outcome was proportion of patients achieving A1C ≤7.0% and weight loss ≥1.0 kg at end point, analyzed by means of logistic regression. Secondary outcomes included measures of glycemic control, cardiovascular risk factors, and safety and tolerability. RESULTS Of 216 patients (intent-to-treat population), 111 received EQW and 105 received detemir. Overall, 44.1% (95% CI, 34.7–53.9) of EQW-treated patients compared with 11.4% (6.0–19.1) of detemir-treated patients achieved the primary outcome (P < 0.0001). Treatment with EQW resulted in significantly greater reductions than detemir in A1C (least-square mean ± SE, −1.30 ± 0.08% vs. −0.88 ± 0.08%; P < 0.0001) and weight (−2.7 ± 0.3 kg vs. +0.8 ± 0.4 kg; P < 0.0001). Gastrointestinal-related and injection site–related adverse events occurred more frequently with EQW than with detemir. There was no major hypoglycemia in either group. Five (6%) patients in the EQW group and six (7%) patients in the detemir group experienced minor hypoglycemia; only one event occurred without concomitant sulfonylureas (detemir group). CONCLUSIONS Treatment with EQW resulted in a significantly greater proportion of patients achieving target A1C and weight loss than treatment with detemir, with a low risk of hypoglycemia. These results suggest that EQW is a viable alternative to insulin detemir treatment in patients with type 2 diabetes with inadequate glycemic control using oral antidiabetes drugs.
Smart Decode-and-Forward Relaying with Polar Codes

Polar codes have recently been proven to be capacity achieving for the physically degraded relay channel and relevant coding schemes have been proposed in the literature. In this paper, we deal with the design of polar codes in decode-and-forward relaying and prove that the selective transmission of the relay to the destination, based on the decision of a detector of erroneous decoding - a method which we call "smart" relaying - can significantly improve the error probability performance. Furthermore, we propose a design for the aforementioned detector, that can be applied on the successive cancellation decoding of polar codes. Simulation results are presented to illustrate the efficiency of the proposed method.