Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Secretory Phenotypes of Endothelial Cells in Culture Comparison of Aortic, Venous, Capillary, and Corneal Endothelium

Endothelial cells from different tissues display variations in morphology, intercellular Junctions, cell surface and growth properties, in production of basal lamina components, both In vivo and in vitro. We have investigated the spectra of extracellular proteins secreted by bovine endothelial cells cultured from large vessels, cornea, and capillaries. Aortic, venous, and corneal endothelial cells displayed highly similar patterns of protein synthesis as judged by analysis the culture medium; the major products were flbronectln, a glycoprotein similar or identical to platelet thrombospondln, and Type III procollagen. Ion-exchange chromatography, followed by peptide mapping, confirmed the presence of EC, a novel endothelial collagen previously described In bovine aortic endothelial cell cultures. Minor variations were found in the collagens of the cell layers: Type III, the predominant Interstitial collagen, was associated with the basement membrane Types IV and V and, in the case of corneal endothelium, with Type I. In contrast, capillary endothelial cells secreted significantly more collagen than did the aortic, venous, and corneal cells. Approximately 50% of the protein in culture medium was collagenous and consisted of Types I and III collagen In a ratio 2:3. These interstitial collagens were the only types detected in capillary cell layers as well. The pattern and overall rate of collagen synthesis by capillary endothelial cells in vitro contrasted significantly with that of the other endothelial cell types and closely resembled that described for cultures of sprouting endothelium. These alterations In secretory phenotype may reflect 1) a true difference In cell type between capillary and other types of endothelium, 2) differences resulting from cell Isolation and Initial culture conditions, or 3) a correlation between growth regulation and protein synthesis. (Arteriosclerosis 1:427-442, November/December 1981)
Multislice Computed Tomography–Urography: Intraindividual Comparison of Different Preparation Techniques for Optimized Depiction of the Upper Urinary Tract in an Animal Model

Objectives:We sought to evaluate intraindividually 3 different preparation protocols for achieving improved opacification and anatomic depiction of the upper urinary tract in multisclice computed tomography urography (MSCTU) using a porcine model. Material and Methods:MSCTU was performed in 8 healthy pigs. Each animal underwent 3 MSCT urographies using 3 different preparations before the injection of contrast material: A, intravenous (iv) saline (250 mL); B, iv low-dose furosemide (0.1 mg/kg); and C, iv saline (250 mL) plus iv low-dose furosemide (0.1 mg/kg). Image analysis was performed blinded to the applied protocols and included the evaluation of the opacification and anatomic depiction of the upper urinary tract by means of graded scales. Ureteral distension was determined and density was measured within the collecting system. Results:Furosemide significantly improved both mean opacification scores and mean scores of anatomic depiction compared with the exclusive infusion of saline for MSCTU. There was no significant difference between the application of furosemide and the combination of furosemide plus saline. A significant increase of 25–26% for ureteral distension was found when furosemide was applied. Significant lower mean attenuation values (Hounsfield units) and standard deviation were found within the opacified urine for diuretic-enhanced MSCTU. Conlusions:Low-dose furosemide injection is superior to saline infusion for achieving optimal enhancement in MSCTU. It is not necessary to combine furosemide and saline infusion. In MSCTU, low-dose furosemide is a simple add-on simplifying image acquisition timing and removing the need for abdominal compression devices.
Adenosine Receptor Stimulation by Polydeoxyribonucleotide Improves Tissue Repair and Symptomology in Experimental Colitis

Activation of the adenosine receptor pathway has been demonstrated to be effective in improving tissue remodeling and blunting the inflammatory response. Active colitis is characterized by an intense inflammatory reaction resulting in extensive tissue damage. Symptomatic improvement requires both control of the inflammatory process and repair and remodeling of damaged tissues. We investigated the ability of an A2A receptor agonist, polydeoxyribonucleotide (PDRN), to restore tissue structural integrity in two experimental colitis models using male Sprague-Dawley rats. In the first model, colitis was induced with a single intra-colonic instillation of dinitrobenzenesulfonic acid (DNBS), 25 mg diluted in 0.8 ml 50% ethanol. After 6 h, animals were randomized to receive either PDRN (8 mg/kg/i.p.), or PDRN + the A2A antagonist [3,7-dimethyl-1-propargylxanthine (DMPX); 10 mg/kg/i.p.], or vehicle (0.8 ml saline solution) daily. In the second model, dextran sulfate sodium (DSS) was dissolved in drinking water at a concentration of 8%. Control animals received standard drinking water. After 24 h animals were randomized to receive PDRN or PDRN+DMPX as described above. Rats were sacrificed 7 days after receiving DNBS or 5 days after DSS. In both experimental models of colitis, PDRN ameliorated the clinical symptoms and weight loss associated with disease as well as promoted the histological repair of damaged tissues. Moreover, PDRN reduced expression of inflammatory cytokines, myeloperoxidase activity, and malondialdehyde. All these effects were abolished by the concomitant administration of the A2A antagonist DMPX. Our study suggests that PDRN may represent a promising treatment for improving tissue repair during inflammatory bowel diseases.
Recent progress in CdTe and CdZnTe detectors

Cadmium telluride (CdTe) and cadmium zinc telluride (CdZnTe) have been regarded as promising semiconductor materials for hard X-ray and /spl gamma/-ray detection. The high atomic number of the materials (Z/sub Cd/=48, Z/sub Te/=52) gives a high quantum efficiency in comparison with Si. The large bandgap energy (Eg/spl sim/1.5 eV) allows us to operate the detector at room temperature. However, a considerable amount of charge loss in these detectors produces a reduced energy resolution. This problem arises due to the low mobility and short lifetime of holes. Recently, significant improvements have been achieved to improve the spectral properties based on the advances in the production of crystals and in the design of electrodes. In this paper we summarize 1) advantages and disadvantages of CdTe and CdZnTe semiconductor detectors and 2) the technique for improving energy resolution and photopeak efficiencies. Applications of these imaging detectors in future hard X-ray and /spl gamma/-ray astronomy missions are briefly discussed.
Safety and Efficacy of Dacomitinib in Korean Patients with KRAS Wild-Type Advanced Non–Small-Cell Lung Cancer Refractory to Chemotherapy and Erlotinib or Gefitinib: A Phase I/II Trial

Introduction: Dacomitinib (PF-00299804), an irreversible pan-human epidermal growth factor receptor ([HER]-1/EGFR, HER-2, and HER-4) tyrosine kinase inhibitor, demonstrated antitumor activity in Western patients with non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) at a dose of 45 mg once daily. We report data from a phase I/II, multicenter, open-label study of Korean patients with refractory KRAS wild-type adenocarcinoma NSCLC (defined as patients with evidence of disease progression during or within 6 months of treatment with chemotherapy and gefitinib or erlotinib). Methods: The phase I dose-finding portion identified the recommended phase II dose (RP2D) in Korean patients, evaluated safety, and characterized the pharmacokinetics of dacomitinib. In the phase II portion, patients received dacomitinib at the RP2D. The primary end point was progression-free survival at 4 months (PFS4m). Results: Twelve patients enrolled in phase I, and 43 patients enrolled in phase II at the RP2D of 45 mg once daily. In phase II, PFS4m was 47.2% (95% confidence interval [CI], 31.6–61.3; one-sided p-value = 0.0007). Median PFS was 15.4 weeks (95% CI, 9.7–17.6); median overall survival was 46.3 weeks (95% CI, 32.7–not reached); and the objective response rate was 17.1% (95% CI, 7.2–32.1). Common treatment-related adverse events were dermatitis acneiform, diarrhea, and paronychia; there were no treatment-related grade 4 or 5 adverse events. Pharmacokinetic parameters of dacomitinib in Korean patients were similar to those reported in Western patients. By patient report, NSCLC symptoms “cough” and “pain” showed improvement within 3 weeks of initiating treatment. Conclusions: Dacomitinib was well tolerated and had antitumor activity in Korean patients with NSCLC who had previously progressed on chemotherapy and an epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor.
Timing of Enzyme Synthesis During Outgrowth of Spores of Bacillus cereus II. Relationship Between Ordered Enzyme Synthesis and Deoxyribonucleic Acid Replication

Experiments were carried out to determine whether, during outgrowth of bacterial spores, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) replication provided the basis by which ordered transcription was controlled. During outgrowth, significant DNA synthesis does not occur until just prior to the onset of cell division. However, incorporation of radioactive DNA precursors into DNA is observed within 5 to 10 min after the initiation of germination. By employing a thymine-requiring auxotroph and 3H-bromodeoxyuridine, this incorporation appears to be a result of DNA replication and not repair synthesis. For the following reasons it was concluded that, during outgrowth, transcriptional processes were not ordered by DNA replication. (i) In a thymine auxotroph, thymine addition did not alter the periodicity of induced α-glucosidase and histidase synthesis during outgrowth. (ii) DNA synthesis was inhibited 80% by 5-fluoro-2′-deoxyuridine (FUdR), and, after a 5-min lag, completely by mitomycin C, but these inhibitors exerted a differential effect on induced histidase synthesis. Enzyme synthesis was insensitive to FUdR but was inhibited by mitomycin C, presumably as a result of cross-linking of the complementary DNA strands.
Gateway adaptive pacing for TCP across multihop wireless networks and the Internet

In this paper, we introduce an effective congestion control scheme for TCP over hybrid wireless/wired networks comprising a multihop wireless IEEE 802.11 network and the wired Internet. We propose an adaptive pacing scheme at the Internet gateway for wired-to-wireless TCP flows. Furthermore, we analyze the causes for the unfairness of oncoming TCP flows and propose a scheme to throttle aggressive wired-to-wireless TCP flows at the Internet gateway to achieve nearly optimal fairness. Thus, we denote the introduced congestion control scheme TCP with Gateway Adaptive Pacing (TCP-GAP). For wireless-to-wired flows, we propose an adaptive pacing scheme at the TCP sender. In contrast to previous work, TCP-GAP does not impose any control traffic overhead for achieving fairness among active TCP flows. Moreover, TCP-GAP can be incrementally deployed because it does not require any modifications of TCP in the wired part of the network and is fully TCP-compatible. Extensive simulations using ns-2 show that TCP-GAP is highly responsive to varying traffic conditions, provides nearly optimal fairness in all scenarios and achieves up to 42% more goodput than TCP NewReno.
Use of cardiac biomarker testing in the emergency department.

IMPORTANCE Cardiac biomarker testing is not routinely indicated in the emergency department (ED) because of low utility and potential downstream harms from false-positive results. However, current rates of testing are unknown. OBJECTIVE To determine the use of cardiac biomarker testing overall, as well as stratified by disposition status and selected characteristics. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Retrospective study of ED visits by adults (≥18 years old) selected from the 2009 and 2010 National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey, a probability sample of ED visits in the United States. EXPOSURES Selected patient, visit, and ED characteristics. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Receipt of cardiac biomarker testing during the ED visit. RESULTS Of 44,448 ED visits, cardiac biomarkers were tested in 16.9% of visits, representing 28.6 million visits. Biomarker testing occurred in 8.2% of visits in the absence of acute coronary syndrome (ACS)-related symptoms, representing 8.5 million visits, almost one-third of all visits with biomarker testing. Among individuals subsequently hospitalized, cardiac biomarkers were tested in 47.0% of all visits. In this group, biomarkers were tested in 35.4% of visits despite the absence of ACS-related symptoms. Among all ED visits, the number of other tests or services performed was the strongest predictor of biomarker testing independent of symptoms of ACS. Compared with 0 to 5 other tests or services performed, more than 10 other tests or services performed was associated with 59.55 (95% CI, 39.23-90.40) times the odds of biomarker testing. The adjusted probabilities of biomarker testing if 0 to 5, 6 to 10, or more than 10 other tests or services performed were 6.3%, 34.3%, and 62.3%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE Cardiac biomarker testing in the ED is common even among those without symptoms suggestive of ACS. Cardiac biomarker testing is also frequently used during visits with a high volume of other tests or services independent of the clinical presentation. More attention is needed to develop strategies for appropriate use of cardiac biomarkers.
Low Complexity Hybrid Precoding and Channel Estimation Based on Hierarchical Multi-Beam Search for Millimeter-Wave MIMO Systems

In millimeter-wave (mmWave) MIMO systems, while a hybrid digital/analog precoding structure offers the potential to increase the achievable rate, it also faces the challenge of the need of a low-complexity design. In specific, the hybrid precoding may require matrix operations with a scale of antenna size, which is generally large in mmWave communication. Moreover, the channel estimation is also rather time consuming due to the large number of antennas at both Tx/Rx sides. In this paper, a low-complexity hybrid precoding and channel estimation approach is proposed. In the channel estimation phase, a hierarchical multi-beam search scheme is proposed to fast acquire $N_{\rm{S}}$ (the number of streams) multipath components (MPCs)/clusters with the highest powers. In the hybrid precoding phase, the analog and digital precodings are decoupled. The analog precoding is designed to steer along the $N_{\rm{S}}$ acquired MPCs/clusters at both Tx/Rx sides, shaping an equivalent $N_{\rm{S}}\times N_{\rm{S}}$ baseband channel, while the digital precoding performs operations in the baseband with the reduced-scale channel. Performance evaluations show that, compared with a state-of-the-art scheme, while achieving a close or even better performance when the number of radio-frequency (RF) chains or streams is small, both the computational complexity of the hybrid precoding and the time complexity of the channel estimation are greatly reduced.
Influence of cytokine gene polymorphisms on erythropoetin dose requirements in chronic haemodialysis patients.

BACKGROUND Chronic inflammation influences renal anaemia and reduce erythropoetin effectiveness. Chronic kidney disease and haemodialysis (HD) induce elevated cytokine and C-reactive protein (CRP) levels at an inter-individually variable extent. These differences are in part due to polymorphisms within cytokine genes, e.g. for pro-inflammatory interleukin-6 (IL-6) and anti-inflammatory interleukin-10 (IL-10). We hypothesized that these polymorphisms influence erythropoetin effectiveness. METHODS Genotyping for polymorphisms of IL-6 (-174G/C) and IL-10 (-1082G/A) genes was done in 460 prevalent HD patients. Erythropoetin requirements were determined after three months of stable dosing of erythropoesis stimulating proteins (ESP). The effect of the cytokine genotypes was evaluated by multiple regression analysis. RESULTS The presence of the IL-6 -174G allele (found to be related with higher secretion of IL-6) was associated with a 26% higher ESP dose compared with individuals without the G allele (P = 0.008). The IL-10 -1082 G/A polymorphism was not associated with ESP needs. Multivariate analysis detected a predictive value for ESP dose of the IL-6 polymorphism (P = 0.022), the haemoglobin level and the dose of i.v. iron, but not of age, gender, dialysis vintage, ferritin or the CRP value. CONCLUSIONS Presence of the IL-6 allele -174G is related to higher ESP doses in chronic HD patients. The polymorphism of the anti-inflammatory IL-10 does not influence ESP dose, probably due to the fact that this cytokine has directly inhibitory effects on haematopoiesis in addition to its beneficial effects on inflammation.
Arterial media calcification in end-stage renal disease: impact on all-cause and cardiovascular mortality.

BACKGROUND Cross-sectional and follow-up studies on end-stage renal disease patients showed that arterial calcifications are associated with cardiovascular (CV) morbidity and are an independent predictor of all-cause and CV mortality. However, these studies did not examine the impact on prognosis according to the type of calcification, i.e. intimal vs medial. Arterial media calcification (AMC), a non-occlusive condition, affects haemodynamics differently from arterial intima calcification (AIC), which occurs in atherosclerotic plaques. The aim of this study was to investigate the prognostic value of AMC in relationship to all-cause or CV mortality for stable haemodialysis (HD) patients. METHODS We included 202 such patients in the present study. At baseline, soft-tissue native radiograms of the pelvis and the thigh were analysed for the presence and type (AMC vs AIC) of arterial calcifications. All patients underwent B-mode ultrasonography of the common carotid artery to determine the presence of atherosclerotic calcified plaques, measurement of aortic pulse wave velocity and echocardiography. RESULTS AIC was usually observed in older patients with a clinical history of atherosclerosis before starting HD treatment and typical risk factors associated with atherosclerotic disease. AMC was observed in young and middle-aged patients without conventional atherosclerotic risk factors. AMC was closely associated with the duration of HD and calcium-phosphate disorders, including the oral dose of elemental calcium prescribed as phosphate binder (CaCO(3)). Compared to patients with AIC, patients with AMC had a longer survival, but in turn their survival was significantly shorter than that of patients without calcifications. CONCLUSIONS AMC is a strong prognostic marker of all-cause and CV mortality in HD patients, independently of classical atherogenic factors. The principal effect of AMC on arterial function is increased arterial stiffness.
Evaluating quorum systems over the Internet

Quorum systems serve as a basic tool providing a uniform and reliable way to achieve coordination in a distributed system. They are useful for distributed and replicated databases, name servers, mutual exclusion, and distributed access control and signatures. Traditionally, two basic methods have been used to evaluate quorum systems: the analytical approach, and simulation. We propose a third, empirical approach. We collected 6 months' worth of connectivity and operability data of a system consisting of 14 real computers using a wide area group communication protocol. The system spanned two geographic sites and three different Internet segments. We developed a mechanism that merges the local views into a unified history of the events that took place, ordered according to an imaginary global clock. We then developed a tool called the Generic Quorum-system Evaluator (GQE), which evaluates the behavior of any given quorum system over the unified, real-life history. We compared fourteen dynamic and static quorum systems. We discovered that as predicted, dynamic quorum systems behave better than static systems. However we found that many assumptions taken by the traditional approaches are unjustified: crashes are strongly correlated, network partitions do occur even within a single Internet segment, and we even detected a brief simultaneous crash of all the participating computers.
Probing many-body states of ultracold atoms via noise correlations (4 pages)

We propose to utilize density-density correlations in the image of an expanding gas cloud to probe complex many-body states of trapped ultracold atoms. In particular, we show how this technique can be used to detect superfluidity of fermionic gases and to study spin correlations of multicomponent atoms in optical lattices. The feasibility of the method is investigated by analysis of the relevant signal to noise ratio including experimental imperfections.
Chronic bronchitis among French adults: high prevalence and underdiagnosis

The aims of this survey were to determine the prevalence of symptoms indicative of chronic bronchitis (CB) in the French adult population, to identify the role of risk factors for CB, and to assess rates of CB diagnosis and pulmonary function testing (PFT) in the presence of CB. A representative sample of 14,076 individuals aged ≥25 yrs completed a self-administered questionnaire on symptoms, comorbidities, smoking history, sociodemographical data, and diagnosis and care by physicians. The prevalence of CB was 4.1% and the prevalence of chronic cough and/or expectoration was 11.7%. In individuals with comorbidity, these figures were 10.4% and 24.4%, respectively. Smoking was associated with an increased frequency of CB. In subjects with CB, 44.6% had PFT (spirometry or peak expiratory flow measurement), 24% were diagnosed as having CB, and 7.2% received care. Rates of diagnosis, PFT, and follow-up were lower in young individuals and in those without comorbidity. PFT and follow-up were less common in current smokers. Prevalence of chronic bronchitis in French adults is high and similar in magnitude to that of other industrialised countries. Comorbidities and tobacco smoking increase the frequency of chronic bronchitis symptoms. Chronic bronchitis is too infrequently diagnosed, investigated and cared for.
The taming of the shrew: mitigating low-rate TCP-targeted attack

A Shrew attack, which uses a low-rate burst carefully designed to exploit TCP's retransmission timeout mechanism, can throttle the bandwidth of a TCP flow in a stealthy manner. While such an attack can significantly degrade the performance of all TCP-based protocols and services including Internet routing (e.g., BGP), no existing scheme clearly solves the problem in real network scenarios. In this paper, we propose a simple protection mechanism, called SAP (Shrew Attack Protection), for defending against a Shrew attack. Rather than attempting to track and isolate Shrew attackers, SAP identifies TCP victims by monitoring their drop rates and preferentially admits those packets from the victims with high drop rates to the output queue. This is to ensure that well-behaved TCP sessions can retain their bandwidth shares. Our simulation results indicate that under a Shrew attack, SAP can prevent TCP sessions from closing, and effectively enable TCP flows to maintain high throughput. SAP is a destination-port-based mechanism and requires only a small number of counters to find potential victims, which makes SAP readily implementable on top of existing router mechanisms.
Robust convergence of low-data rate-distributed controllers

This note is focused on control systems in which the observer is not co-located with the controller and the communication channel between them is of limited bandwidth. Due to the low data rate requirement, the control law must be of simple form. As a result, a tristate distributed controller is examined. The control algorithm is proven to be convergent if the system structure satisfies certain technical conditions. The convergence is robust in the sense that the system parameters and even the structure of the underlying system dynamics need not to be completely known.