Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Patterns for flexible BPMN workflows

The agility in today's business processes leads to a need for flexible workflow management. It must be possible to deal with exceptions occurring during workflow execution or changes in the workflow context. To enable this, workflow flexibility has to be taken into account during design time as well as during runtime. This paper presents an approach based on a combination of BPMN workflow models, rules, events, and so called workflow adaptation patterns. Workflow adaptation patterns describe the adaptations available for a specific situation.
Intravascular Ultrasound Assessment of Lumen Size and Wall Morphology in Normal Subjects and Patients With Coronary Artery Disease

BackgroundNecropsy studies demonstrate that coronary artery disease (CAD) is frequently complex and eccentric. However, angiography provides only a silhouette of the vessel lumen. Intravascular ultrasound is a new tomographic imaging method for evaluation of coronary dimensions and wall morphology. Few data exist regarding intravascular ultrasound in patients with CAD, and no data exist for subjects with normal coronaries. Methods and ResultsWe used a multielement 5.5F, 20-MHz ultrasound catheter to examine eight normal subjects and 43 patients with CAD. We assessed the safety of coronary ultrasound and the effect of vessel eccentricity on comparison of minimum luminal diameter by angiography and ultrasound. Normal and atherosclerotic wall morphology and stenosis severity were also evaluated by intravascular ultrasound. The only untoward effect was transient coronary spasm in five patients. At 33 sites in normal subjects, the lumen was nearly circular, yielding a close correlation between angiographic and ultrasonic minimum diameter (r = 0.92). At 90 sites in patients with CAD, ultrasound demonstrated a concentric cross section; correlation was also close (r = 0.93). However, at 72 eccentric sites, correlation was not as close (r = 0.77). For 41 stenoses, correlation between angiography and ultrasound for area reduction was moderate (r = 0.63). In normal subjects, wall morphology revealed a thin (0.30 mm or less) intimal leading edge and subadjacent sonolucent zone (0.20 mm or less). Patients with CAD exhibited increased thickness and echogenicity of the leading edge, thickened sonolucent zones, and/or attenuation of ultrasound transmission. ConclusionsThese data establish that intravascular ultrasound is feasible and safe and yields luminal measurements that correlate generally with angiography. Differences between angiographic and ultrasonic measures of lumen size in eccentric vessels probably reflect the dissimilar perspectives of tomographic and silhouette imaging techniques. Intravascular ultrasound provides detailed images of normal and abnormal wall morphology not previously possible in vivo.
Motivated Reinforcement Learning

The standard reinforcement learning view of the involvement of neuromodulatory systems in instrumental conditioning includes a rather straightforward conception of motivation as prediction of sum future reward. Competition between actions is based on the motivating characteristics of their consequent states in this sense. Substantial, careful, experiments reviewed in Dickinson & Balleine,12,13 into the neurobiology and psychology of motivation shows that this view is incomplete. In many cases, animals are faced with the choice not between many different actions at a given state, but rather whether a single response is worth executing at all. Evidence suggests that the motivational process underlying this choice has different psychological and neural properties from that underlying action choice. We describe and model these motivational systems, and consider the way they interact.
Music listening for anxiety relief in children in the preoperative period: a randomized clinical trial

ABSTRACT Objective: to investigate the effects of music listening, for 15 minutes, on the preoperative anxiety levels in children undergoing elective surgery in comparison with conventional pediatric surgical care. Method: randomized controlled clinical trial pilot study with 52 children in the preoperative period, aged 3 to 12 years, undergoing elective surgery and randomly allocated in the experimental group (n = 26) and control group (n = 26). Anxiety was assessed in both groups by the application of the modified Yale Preoperative Anxiety Scale and measurement of the physiological variables, upon arrival and 15 minutes after the first measurement. Results: there was a statistically significant difference in preoperative anxiety between the two groups only in relation to the physiological variable, since the respiratory rate of preschool children in the experimental group reduced in the second measurement compared to the control group (p = 0.0453). The experimental group showed a statistically significant reduction in anxiety levels after 15 minutes of music listening (p = 0.0441), specifically with regard to the behavioral domains of activity, vocalization, emotional expression and apparent awakening state. Conclusion: music listening emerges as a potential nursing intervention for relief of preoperative anxiety in children undergoing surgical procedures. RBR-7mcr59.
Photochemical oxidation of phenol and chlorophenol by UV/H2O2/TiO2 process: A kinetic study

In the present work, the photochemical oxidation of phenol and chlorophenol aqueous solutions in a batch recycle photochemical reactor using ultraviolet irradiation, hydrogen peroxide and TiO<inf>2</inf> (as photocatalyst) was studied. The study showed that the combined treatment process was the most effective process under acidic conditions and showed a higher rate of degradation of phenol and chlorophenol at a very short radiation time. The reaction was found to follow the first order kinetics and was influenced by the pH, the input concentration of H2O2 and the dosing amount of the TiO<inf>2</inf> photocatalyst. The results indicate maximum 74.6% and 79.8% degradation of phenol and chlorophenol respectively within 90 minutes of radiation time. The experimental results showed that the optimum conditions were obtained at a pH value of 4, with H<inf>2</inf>O<inf>2</inf> concentration ranging from 200–550 ml/L, and TiO<inf>2</inf> dosing ranging from 1–2 g/L for UV/H<inf>2</inf>O<inf>2</inf>/TiO<inf>2</inf> combined system. The reactions were accompanied by the reduction of COD and generation of Cl<sup>−</sup> ion, which reached its maximum value at a short reaction time. Finally a rough comparison of energy consumption shows that UV/H<inf>2</inf>O<inf>2</inf>/TiO<inf>2</inf> process reduced the energy consumption by 40–50% compared with the UV/H<inf>2</inf>O<inf>2</inf> and UV/TiO<inf>2</inf> processes.
An algorithm for the extraction of pulmonary fissures from low-dose multislice CT image

With the recent development of multislice CT, it is now possible to derive 3D cross-sectional images for the whole lung region with high accuracy in a short time. In particular, with the drastic improvement of resolution in the axial direction, it is expected that 3D image analysis will play a significant role. This paper discusses an algorithm that extracts the pulmonary fissures from multislice CT images. The fissure is a feature which is clinically important for the identification of lung sections. The fissures have a very thin film structure. The proposed method extracts the lung fissure by identification of the region containing the fissure and emphasis of the fissure. The lung blood vessels are classified for each lobe, and the region containing the fissure is identified on the basis of the 3D distance from the lung blood vessel. Then, region growing is applied on the basis of the normal vector of the emphasized sheet shadow, and the fissure is extracted. The proposed method is applied to clinical images of 20 cases, and its accuracy is evaluated, demonstrating the effectiveness of the method. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Syst Comp Jpn, 37(9): 63–76, 2006; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience. wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/scj.20167
Genetic Depletion of the Malin E3 Ubiquitin Ligase in Mice Leads to Lafora Bodies and the Accumulation of Insoluble Laforin*

Approximately 90% of cases of Lafora disease, a fatal teenage-onset progressive myoclonus epilepsy, are caused by mutations in either the EPM2A or the EPM2B genes that encode, respectively, a glycogen phosphatase called laforin and an E3 ubiquitin ligase called malin. Lafora disease is characterized by the formation of Lafora bodies, insoluble deposits containing poorly branched glycogen or polyglucosan, in many tissues including skeletal muscle, liver, and brain. Disruption of the Epm2b gene in mice resulted in viable animals that, by 3 months of age, accumulated Lafora bodies in the brain and to a lesser extent in heart and skeletal muscle. Analysis of muscle and brain of the Epm2b−/− mice by Western blotting indicated no effect on the levels of glycogen synthase, PTG (type 1 phosphatase-targeting subunit), or debranching enzyme, making it unlikely that these proteins are targeted for destruction by malin, as has been proposed. Total laforin protein was increased in the brain of Epm2b−/− mice and, most notably, was redistributed from the soluble, low speed supernatant to the insoluble low speed pellet, which now contained 90% of the total laforin. This result correlated with elevated insolubility of glycogen and glycogen synthase. Because up-regulation of laforin cannot explain Lafora body formation, we conclude that malin functions to maintain laforin associated with soluble glycogen and that its absence causes sequestration of laforin to an insoluble polysaccharide fraction where it is functionally inert.
Interleukin-8: a very important chemokine of the human airway epithelium.

in the last two and a half decades,there has been an explosion of interest in a group of chemotactic cytokines that have chemotactic activity for leukocytes, now known as chemokines. Indeed, there have been more than 16,000 publications related to chemokines since 1975. The human chemokine families
Hepatitis E Virus Seroprevalence among Blood Donors in Southwest Switzerland

Aim The aim of this study was to determine the seroprevalence of Hepatitis E virus (HEV) among blood donors in southwest Switzerland. Background HEV is recognized as a food-borne disease in industrialized countries, transmitted mainly through pork meat. Cases of transmission through blood transfusion have also been reported. Recent studies have revealed seroprevalence rates of 13.5%, 16.6% and 20.6% among blood donors in England, France and Denmark, respectively. Methods We analyzed 550 consecutive blood donor samples collected in the region of Lausanne, canton of Vaud, Switzerland, for the presence of anti-HEV IgG, using the MP Diagnostics HEV ELISA kit. For each donor, we documented age, sex and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) value. Results The study panel was composed of 332 men (60.4%) and 218 women (39.6%). Overall, anti-HEV IgG was found in 27 of 550 samples (4.9%). The seroprevalence was 5.4% (18/332) in men and 4.1% (9/218) in women. The presence of anti-HEV IgG was not correlated with age, gender or ALT values. However, we observed a peak in seroprevalence of 5.3% in individuals aged 51 to 70 years old. Conclusions Compared with other European countries, HEV seroprevalence among blood donors in southwest Switzerland is low. The low seroprevalence may be explained by the sensitivity of commercial tests used and/or the strict regulation of animal and meat imports. Data regarding HEV prevalence in Swiss livestock are lacking and merit exploration.
CoScale: Coordinating CPU and Memory System DVFS in Server Systems

Recent work has introduced memory system dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS), and has suggested that balanced scaling of both CPU and the memory system is the most promising approach for conserving energy in server systems. In this paper, we first demonstrate that CPU and memory system DVFS often conflict when performed independently by separate controllers. In response, we propose Co Scale, the first method for effectively coordinating these mechanisms under performance constraints. Co Scale relies on execution profiling of each core via (existing and new) performance counters, and models of core and memory performance and power consumption. Co Scale explores the set of possible frequency settings in such a way that it efficiently minimizes the full-system energy consumption within the performance bound. Our results demonstrate that, by effectively coordinating CPU and memory power management, Co Scale conserves a significant amount of system energy compared to existing approaches, while consistently remaining within the prescribed performance bounds. The results also show that Co Scale conserves almost as much system energy as an offline, idealized approach.
Latitudinal and Topographical Variabilities of Free Atmospheric Turbulence From High‐Resolution Radiosonde Data Sets

This study aims to determine the latitudinal and topographical dependencies of turbulent flow by applying Thorpe analysis to abundant high‐resolution radiosonde data sets. Results show that turbulent energy dissipation rates are lognormally distributed with average central values of 2.7 × 10−4 and 2.9 × 10−4 m2/s3 in the troposphere and stratosphere, respectively. Moreover, they exhibit similar vertical variations at different latitudes from the lower free troposphere up to the tropopause region. Dissipation rates are quantitatively comparable at all latitudes but do exhibit significant seasonal variability. Thus, these rates have apparent seasonal cycles at middle latitudes but weak cycles at low and high latitudes. The influence of terrain is an important feature of turbulent motions. Turbulent activities over mountainous topographies exhibit larger variances than those over flat terrains in the lower troposphere and more outstanding enhancements in the tropopause region. In general, these results are comparable with those of radars in terms of magnitude, and the differences between them can be related to different measurement principles.
Structural and Functional Variations in Human Apolipoprotein E3 and E4*

There are three major apolipoprotein E (apoE) isoforms. Although APOE-ϵ3 is considered a longevity gene, APOE-ϵ4 is a dual risk factor to atherosclerosis and Alzheimer disease. We have expressed full-length and N- and C-terminal truncated apoE3 and apoE4 tailored to eliminate helix and domain interactions to unveil structural and functional disturbances. The N-terminal truncated apoE4-(72-299) and C-terminal truncated apoE4-(1-231) showed more complicated or aggregated species than those of the corresponding apoE3 counterparts. This isoformic structural variation did not exist in the presence of dihexanoylphosphatidylcholine. The C-terminal truncated apoE-(1-191) and apoE-(1-231) proteins greatly lost lipid binding ability as illustrated by the dimyristoylphosphatidylcholine turbidity clearance. The low density lipoprotein (LDL) receptor binding ability, determined by a competition binding assay of 3H-LDL to the LDL receptor of HepG2 cells, showed that apoE4 proteins with N-terminal (apoE4-(72-299)), C-terminal (apoE4-(1-231)), or complete C-terminal truncation (apoE4-(1-191)) maintained greater receptor binding abilities than their apoE3 counterparts. The cholesterol-lowering abilities of apoE3-(72-299) and apoE3-(1-231) in apoE-deficient mice were decreased significantly. The structural preference of apoE4 to remain functional in solution may explain the enhanced opportunity of apoE4 isoform to display its pathophysiologic functions in atherosclerosis and Alzheimer disease.
Putative genes of a variant-specific antigen gene transcription unit in Trypanosoma brucei

In a 7-kilobase (kb) sequence upstream from the 5' barren region, the Trypanosoma brucei AnTat 1.3A expression site carries two putative genes, named ESAG 2 and ESAG 3 for expression site-associated genes, as well as a copy of ESAG 1 (D.F. Cully, H.S. Ip, and G.A.M. Cross, Cell 42:173-182, 1985). At least 3 kb of this expression site exhibits a high degree of homology with the silent telomere carrying the AnTat 1.3A basic copy, whose ESAG 1 is interrupted by stop codons. Like the antigen gene, the region containing the ESAGs is transcribed only in the bloodstream forms, although transcription of 5' barren- and ESAG 2-related sequences also occurs in cultured procyclics. Analysis of steady-state and nascent transcripts suggests a continuous transcription of the whole expression site by an RNA polymerase resistant to alpha-amanitin, possibly initiating at a polymerase I-like promoter located about 17 kb upstream from the antigen gene. This polymerase seems prone to becoming inactivated upon incubation of the trypanosomes at low temperature. The putative protein encoded by ESAG 3 may carry a hydrophobic signal peptide, suggesting interaction with a membrane.
The Heat Shock Response Is Modulated by and Interferes with Toxic Effects of Scrapie Prion Protein and Amyloid β*

Background: The heat shock response (HSR) is a stress response pathway to counteract proteotoxic effects of aberrantly folded proteins. Results: The HSR is deregulated by PrPSc and Aβ and can protect against toxic effects of PrPSc, Aβ, and a neurotoxic PrP mutant. Conclusion: The toxicity of different pathogenic proteins is mediated via similar cellular pathways. Significance: Identifying cellular pathways activated by neurotoxic proteins will help to develop therapeutic strategies. The heat shock response (HSR) is an evolutionarily conserved pathway designed to maintain proteostasis and to ameliorate toxic effects of aberrant protein folding. We have studied the modulation of the HSR by the scrapie prion protein (PrPSc) and amyloid β peptide (Aβ) and investigated whether an activated HSR or the ectopic expression of individual chaperones can interfere with PrPSc- or Aβ-induced toxicity. First, we observed different effects on the HSR under acute or chronic exposure of cells to PrPSc or Aβ. In chronically exposed cells the threshold to mount a stress response was significantly increased, evidenced by a decreased expression of Hsp72 after stress, whereas an acute exposure lowered the threshold for stress-induced expression of Hsp72. Next, we employed models of PrPSc- and Aβ-induced toxicity to demonstrate that the induction of the HSR ameliorates the toxic effects of both PrPSc and Aβ. Similarly, the ectopic expression of cytosolic Hsp72 or the extracellular chaperone clusterin protected against PrPSc- or Aβ-induced toxicity. However, toxic signaling induced by a pathogenic PrP mutant located at the plasma membrane was prevented by an activated HSR or Hsp72 but not by clusterin, indicating a distinct mode of action of this extracellular chaperone. Our study supports the notion that different pathological protein conformers mediate toxic effects via similar cellular pathways and emphasizes the possibility to exploit the heat shock response therapeutically.
On the characteristics of landslide tsunamis

This review presents modelling techniques and processes that govern landslide tsunami generation, with emphasis on tsunamis induced by fully submerged landslides. The analysis focuses on a set of representative examples in simplified geometries demonstrating the main kinematic landslide parameters influencing initial tsunami amplitudes and wavelengths. Scaling relations from laboratory experiments for subaerial landslide tsunamis are also briefly reviewed. It is found that the landslide acceleration determines the initial tsunami elevation for translational landslides, while the landslide velocity is more important for impulsive events such as rapid slumps and subaerial landslides. Retrogressive effects stretch the tsunami, and in certain cases produce enlarged amplitudes due to positive interference. In an example involving a deformable landslide, it is found that the landslide deformation has only a weak influence on tsunamigenesis. However, more research is needed to determine how landslide flow processes that involve strong deformation and long run-out determine tsunami generation.
Newer Therapies for Management of Stable Ischemic Heart Disease With Focus on Refractory Angina

Ischemic heart disease remains a major public health problem nationally and internationally. Stable ischemic heart disease (SIHD) is one of the clinical manifestations of ischemic heart disease and is generally characterized by episodes of reversible myocardial demand/supply mismatch, related to ischemia or hypoxia, which are usually inducible by exercise, emotion, or other stress and reproducible—but which may also be occurring spontaneously. Improvements in the treatment of acute coronary syndromes along with increasing prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors, including diabetes and obesity, have led to increasing population of patients with SIHD. A significant number of these continue to have severe angina despite medical management and revascularization procedures performed and may progress to refractory angina. This article reviews the newer therapies in the treatment of SIHD with special focus in treating patients with refractory angina.
Pravastatin Counteracts Angiotensin II-Induced Upregulation and Activation of NADPH Oxidase at Plasma Membrane of Human Endothelial Cells

Endothelial dysfunction has been linked to reactive oxygen species (ROS) production by nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate reduced (NADPH) oxidase. Angiotensin II (ANG), which levels are elevated in some cardiovascular diseases, can stimulate this enzyme, whereas statins have been demonstrated pleiotropic effects related with the restoration of endothelial function. Therefore, our purpose was to study the mechanism of the possible beneficial effects of pravastatin on ANG-activated human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC). ANG induced an increase in the extracellular superoxide anion produced by NADPH oxidase but had no effect in the intracellular ROS production. Pravastatin, which alone did not have any effect on ROS production, totally blocked the stimulating effects of ANG when combined with it. These effects were not due to a direct action of ANG or pravastatin on the activity of NADPH oxidase measured in HUVEC lisates. On the contrary, the results correlated well with other effects of ANG: a Nox4 and p22phox upregulated expression and an enhanced Nox4 translocation to the cell membrane. All these effects were inhibited by pravastatin, which had no effect when incubated alone. These data reveal for the first time that pravastatin interrupts the signaling pathway activated by ANG that leads to an enhanced NADPH oxidase activity at the cell membrane of HUVEC. For that, pravastatin inhibits ANG-induced upregulation of catalytic NADPH oxidase subunits and blocks the migration of them to the endothelial cell membrane.