Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Atherosclerosis, cholesterol, nutrition, and statins – a critical review

Atherosclerosis, which causes approximately half of all deaths of adults over age 60 in industrialized nations, is a pandemic among inappropriately nourished and/or physically hypoactive children, adolescents, and adults world wide. Although nowadays statins are widely prescribed to middle age and elderly adults with high blood lipid levels as pharmacological prevention for the late complications of atherosclerosis, from a critical point of view statins seem not to solve the problem, especially when compared with certain natural ingredients of our nutrition like micronutrients as alternative strategy. Statin ingestion is associated with lowering of serum cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein concentrations; some prospective studies have shown statistical associations with subsequent modest reduction of mortality from cardiovascular disease. However, specific biochemical pathways and pharmacological roles of statins in prevention of atherosclerosis, if any, are unknown. Moreover, there have been no systematic cost-benefit analyses of life-style prophylaxis versus statin prophylaxis versus combined life-style plus statin prophylaxis versus neither life-style nor statin prophylaxis for clinically significant complications of cardiovascular diseases in the elderly. Further, in the trials of effectiveness statins were not compared with management of nutrition, which is the most appropriate alternative intervention. Such studies seem to be important, as the ever increasing world population, especially in developing countries, now demand expensive statins, which may be unaffordable for mitigating the pandemic. Studies of this kind are necessary to identify more precisely those patients for whom cardiovascular benefits will outweigh the risks and costs of the statin treatment in comparison with nutritional interventions. Against the background of the current pathogenetic concept of atherogenesis some of its possible risk factors, particularly the roles of cholesterol and homocysteine, and the effects of statins versus nutritional (micronutrients) interventions in prevention and treatment of the disease are discussed. The prevailing opinion that serum cholesterol as a mediator of the disease is increased by eating saturated fats and decreased by eating polyunsaturated fats is being challenged. Evidently, the beneficial effects of statins in atherosclerosis are not mainly due to its cholesterol lowering effect, rather than to its “pleiotropic effects”. Other pathogenetic factors in atherosclerosis are involved, like inflammatory and immunologic processes, that can be modulated by statins as well as by other drugs or by the Mediterranean-style nutrition and by micronutrients (folate, B-vitamins).
The IBM 2016 Speaker Recognition System

In this paper we describe the recent advancements made in the IBM i-vector speaker recognition system for conversational speech. In particular, we identify key techniques that contribute to significant improvements in performance of our system, and quantify their contributions. The techniques include: 1) a nearest-neighbor discriminant analysis (NDA) approach that is formulated to alleviate some of the limitations associated with the conventional linear discriminant analysis (LDA) that assumes Gaussian class-conditional distributions, 2) the application of speaker- and channel-adapted features, which are derived from an automatic speech recognition (ASR) system, for speaker recognition, and 3) the use of a deep neural network (DNN) acoustic model with a large number of output units (~10k senones) to compute the frame-level soft alignments required in the i-vector estimation process. We evaluate these techniques on the NIST 2010 speaker recognition evaluation (SRE) extended core conditions involving telephone and microphone trials. Experimental results indicate that: 1) the NDA is more effective (up to 35% relative improvement in terms of EER) than the traditional parametric LDA for speaker recognition, 2) when compared to raw acoustic features (e.g., MFCCs), the ASR speaker-adapted features provide gains in speaker recognition performance, and 3) increasing the number of output units in the DNN acoustic model (i.e., increasing the senone set size from 2k to 10k) provides consistent improvements in performance (for example from 37% to 57% relative EER gains over our baseline GMM i-vector system). To our knowledge, results reported in this paper represent the best performances published to date on the NIST SRE 2010 extended core tasks.
Vulnerability of Xylem Vessels to Cavitation in Sugar Maple. Scaling from Individual Vessels to Whole Branches1

The relation between xylem vessel age and vulnerability to cavitation of sugar maple (Acer saccharum Marsh.) was quantified by measuring the pressure required to force air across bordered pit membranes separating individual xylem vessels. We found that the bordered pit membranes of vessels located in current year xylem could withstand greater applied gas pressures (3.8 MPa) compared with bordered pit membranes in vessels located in older annular rings (2.0 MPa). A longitudinal transect along 6-year-old branches indicated that the pressure required to push gas across bordered pit membranes of current year xylem did not vary with distance from the growing tip. To understand the contribution of age-related changes in vulnerability to the overall resistance to cavitation, we combined data on the pressure thresholds of individual xylem vessels with measurements of the relative flow rate through each annual ring. The annual ring of the current year contributed only 16% of the total flow measured on 10-cm-long segments cut from 6-year-old branches, but it contributed more than 70% of the total flow when measured through 6-year-old branches to the point of leaf attachment. The vulnerability curve calculated using relative flow rates measured on branch segments were similar to vulnerability curves measured on 6-year-old branches (pressure that reduces hydraulic conductance by 50% = 1.6–2.4 MPa), whereas the vulnerability curve calculated using relative flow rates measured on 6-year-old branches were similar to ones measured on the extension growth of the current year (pressure that reduces hydraulic conductance by 50% = 3.8 MPa). These data suggest that, in sugar maple, the xylem of the current year can withstand larger xylem tensions than older wood and dominates water delivery to leaves.
Effects of Layer Waviness on the Compression Strength of Thermoplastic Composite Laminates

Layer waviness was investigated in T300/P1700 carbon/polysulfone com posite laminates under static compression loading. A three-step procedure was used to fab ricate isolated layer waves into the central 0° layer of [902/02/902/02/902/ /02w]s laminates. Efforts were made to insure that this three-step procedure itself did not degrade the lami nate quality. Layer wave geometries up to 1.5 layer thicknesses in amplitude and as short as nine layer thicknesses in length were tested. The more severe wave geometries pro duced reductions in static strength as high as 36 % , although the wavy 0° layer accounted for only 20% of the load carrying capacity of the laminate. Specimen failures were sudden and catastrophic. Brooming failure, characterized by through-the-thickness splaying of the layers and numerous delaminations near the waviness, was the common failure mode.
A hybrid word / phoneme-based approach for improved vocabulary-independent search in spontaneous speech

For efficient organization of speech recordings – meetings, interviews, voice mails, and lectures – being able to search for spoken keywords is essential. Today, most spoken document retrieval systems use large-vocabulary recognition. For the above scenarios, such systems suffer from the unpredictable domain, out-ofvocabulary queries, and generally high word-error rate (WER). In [1], we presented a system for phonetic indexing and searching of spontaneous speech. It is vocabulary-independent and based on phoneme lattices. In the present paper, we propose to combine it with word-based search into a hybrid approach. We explore two methods of combination: posterior combination (merging search results of a word-based and a phoneme-based system) and prior combination (combining word and phoneme language models and vocabularies to form a hybrid recognizer). The search accuracy of our best purely phonetic baseline is 64% (Figure of Merit), and our purely word-based baselines are below 50%. The new hybrid approach achieves 73%, if the recognizer uses a language model that matches the test-set domain. With a mismatched language model, 71% is achieved. Our results show that the proposed hybrid model benefits from the best of two worlds: Word-level language context and robustness of phonetic search to unknown words and domain mismatch.
Molecular Signals Controlling the Inhibition of Nodulation by Nitrate in Medicago truncatula

The presence of nitrogen inhibits legume nodule formation, but the mechanism of this inhibition is poorly understood. We found that 2.5 mM nitrate and above significantly inhibited nodule initiation but not root hair curling in Medicago trunatula. We analyzed protein abundance in M. truncatula roots after treatment with either 0 or 2.5 mM nitrate in the presence or absence of its symbiont Sinorhizobium meliloti after 1, 2 and 5 days following inoculation. Two-dimensional gel electrophoresis combined with mass spectrometry was used to identify 106 differentially accumulated proteins responding to nitrate addition, inoculation or time point. While flavonoid-related proteins were less abundant in the presence of nitrate, addition of Nod gene-inducing flavonoids to the Sinorhizobium culture did not rescue nodulation. Accumulation of auxin in response to rhizobia, which is also controlled by flavonoids, still occurred in the presence of nitrate, but did not localize to a nodule initiation site. Several of the changes included defense- and redox-related proteins, and visualization of reactive oxygen species indicated that their induction in root hairs following Sinorhizobium inoculation was inhibited by nitrate. In summary, the presence of nitrate appears to inhibit nodulation via multiple pathways, including changes to flavonoid metabolism, defense responses and redox changes.
Transformer inrush current mitigation concept for hybrid transformers

Large inrush currents can occur when power transformers are connected to the grid. In the past, a wide range of countermeasures has been developed whereof the application of power electronic converters recently received more attention. With hybrid transformers combining a conventional transformer with a power electronic converter, the elimination of inrush currents can be realized without considerable additional hardware effort. For such hybrid transformers, a novel mitigation procedure is proposed, which is based on the injection of a synchronous core flux before the transformer is connected to the grid. In addition, dedicated demagnetization strategies applicable for grid connected converters with filter elements are presented. The effectiveness of the proposed procedure is verified by comprehensive simulations and a comparison to a conventional method.
Characterization of the Gut-Associated Microbiome in Inflammatory Pouch Complications Following Ileal Pouch-Anal Anastomosis

Introduction Inflammatory complications following ileal pouch-anal anastomosis (IPAA) for ulcerative colitis (UC) are common and thought to arise through mechanisms similar to de novo onset inflammatory bowel disease. The aim of this study was to determine whether specific organisms in the tissue-associated microbiota are associated with inflammatory pouch complications. Methods Patients having previously undergone IPAA were recruited from Mount Sinai Hospital. Clinical and demographic information were collected and a pouchoscopy with biopsy of both the pouch and afferent limb was performed. Patients were classified based on post-surgical phenotype into four outcome groups: familial adenomatous polyposis controls (FAP), no pouchitis, pouchitis, and Crohn’s disease-like (CDL). Pyrosequencing of the 16S rRNA V1-V3 hypervariable region, and quantitative PCR for bacteria of interest, were used to identify organisms present in the afferent limb and pouch. Associations with outcomes were evaluated using exact and non-parametric tests of significance. Results Analysis at the phylum level indicated that Bacteroidetes were detected significantly less frequently (P<0.0001) in the inflammatory outcome groups (pouchitis and CDL) compared to both FAP and no pouchitis. Conversely, Proteobacteria were detected more frequently in the inflammatory groups (P=0.01). At the genus level, organisms associated with outcome were detected less frequently among the inflammatory groups compared to those without inflammation. Several of these organisms, including Bacteroides (P<0.0001), Parabacteroides (P≤2.2x10-3), Blautia (P≤3.0x10-3) and Sutterella (P≤2.5x10-3), were associated with outcome in both the pouch and afferent limb. These associations remained significant even following adjustment for antibiotic use, smoking, country of birth and gender. Individuals with quiescent disease receiving antibiotic therapy displayed similar reductions in these organisms as those with active pouch inflammation. Conclusions Specific genera are associated with inflammation of the ileal pouch, with a reduction of typically ubiquitous organisms characterizing the inflammatory phenotypes.
Mostly-Sleeping Wireless Sensor Networks: Connectivity, k-Coverage, and -Lifetime

In this paper, we explore the fundamental limits of a wireless sensor network’s lifetime under the guarantee of both connectivity and k-coverage. We consider a wireless sensor network with n sensors deployed independently and uniformly in a square region of unit area. Each sensor is active with probability p, independently from the others, and can sense a disk of radius rs when active. Two active sensors can communicate with each other if and only if the distance between them is less than communication radius rc. However, due to the variation of the environment and sensors’ characteristics, we model the sensing radius rs as a random variable with mean r0 and variance r 0σ 2 s . We first derive the sufficient and necessary condition on the sensing radius in order to maintain the k-coverage with probability one as the number of sensors goes to infinity. Then, we introduce a new definition of network’s lifetime, namely α-lifetime, from a probabilistic perspective, which is the expectation of the entire interval during which the probability of guaranteeing connectivity and k-coverage simultaneously is at least α. Finally, we propose a near-optimal scheduling algorithm to maximize the network’s α-lifetime, which is verified by simulation results.
How do patients want physicians to handle mistakes? A survey of internal medicine patients in an academic setting.

BACKGROUND Mistakes are an inevitable part of the practice of medicine. While the frequency and severity of medical errors are documented, little is known about patients' attitudes toward physician mistakes. OBJECTIVE To examine patient attitudes about physician errors. DESIGN A survey instrument assessed attitudes to 3 levels of physician mistakes (minor, moderate, and severe) and 2 fundamental physician responses: disclosure or nondisclosure. One hundred forty-nine study subjects were randomly selected from an academic general internal medicine outpatient clinic. RESULTS Virtually all patients (98%) desired some acknowledgment of even minor errors. Patient's desire for referral to another physician ranged from 14% following a minor mistake to 65% following a severe mistake. For both moderate and severe mistakes, patients were significantly more likely to consider litigation if the physician did not disclose the error. In the moderate mistake scenario, 12% of patients would sue if informed by the physician vs 20% if the physician failed to disclose the error and they discovered it by some other means (P < .001). CONCLUSIONS Patients desire an acknowledgment from their physicians of even minor errors, and doing so may actually reduce the risk of punitive actions. These findings reinforce the importance of open communication between patients and physicians.
Indications, complications, and surgical techniques for pediatric tracheostomies--an update.

BACKGROUND With the decrease of life-threatening obstructive upper airway infections and the ongoing improvement of intensive care medicine, the role of tracheostomy in children has been changing considerably, until now. The aim of this study was to establish data regarding indications, complications, and techniques of pediatric tracheostomy, which would reflect the current state of science. METHODS The authors analyzed the international literature as well as their own experience with 25 children less than 6 years of age who were operated on between 1980 and 1996. RESULTS Literature proved to be very heterogeneous in terms of terminology, patient groups, operation techniques, indications, and complications. Within the past decades, long-term intubation and congenital anomalies of the upper respiratory tract have become increasingly prevalent, whereas inflammatory diseases were less and less an indication for tracheostomy. Endotracheal intubation as an alternative has resulted in less frequent tracheostomies in general. Today, children can be ventilated for months without considerable complications. However, individual, clinical, and fiberoptical controls are necessary. Tracheostomy-related complications have not changed significantly. Fatalities are mostly caused by the underlying disease. The most frequent causes of tracheostomy-related death are cannula obstruction and accidental decannulation. The most frequent early complications are pneumomediastinum, pneumothorax, wound complications, and bleedings. Subsequent complications most often are granulations and tracheal stenosis. CONCLUSIONS The authors' research agreed widely with that in the literature. However, no tracheostomy-related death occurred. Possibly, this was because of their operative technique. In the opinion of the authors, establishing a cartilage window facilitates cannula exchange and reduces the risk of a fatal accidental decannulation.
Effects of Acutely Induced Ischemic Heart Failure on Myocardial High Energy Phosphate Stores

Summary The effects of acutely induced ischemic heart failure on myocardial high energy phosphate stores were studied in dogs following an abrupt reduction (avg. 40%) of left main coronary arterial flow. Left ventricular biopsies were obtained before and during the onset of heart failure. Myocardial ATP stores were unchanged (control, 6.65 μmoles/g; ischemia, 6.66 μmoles/g) at a time when left ventricular end-diastolic pressure had risen from 3.9 to 11.3 mm Hg and left ventricular stroke work had fallen from 7.9 to 4.9 g-m. The average myocardial creatine phosphate (CP) stores fell from 13.2 μmoles/g to 7.9 μmoles/g. These results indicate that acute ischemic heart failure is not initiated by a detectable depression in total myocardial ATP stores. The able technical assistance of Shirley C. Sea-gren, Richard McGill, and James Ellison is gate-fully acknowledged.
COUPLING OUTER-BODY AIRFLOW AND INNER-BODY THERMOREGULATION MODELS TO PREDICT THERMAL COMFORT IN NON- UNIFORM ENVIRONMENTS

In this study, we developed a numerical thermal manikin (NTM) with inner-body thermoregulation functions to investigate the local and overall thermal comfort in non-uniform thermal environments. The effect of interaction between human body and his/her environment was modeled by transferring air condition data from computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation into a thermoregulation model, feeding back the body surface temperatures from the inner-body model as boundary conditions to CFD, and then iterating until convergence. Application of this approach in the evaluation of two kinds of personalized ventilation systems was demonstrated. Comparison with some of the experimental results showed that it was able to predict the thermal comfort level with reasonable accuracy.
Cerebral clearance of human amyloid‐β peptide (1–40) across the blood–brain barrier is reduced by self‐aggregation and formation of low‐density lipoprotein receptor‐related protein‐1 ligand complexes

Soluble amyloid‐β peptide (Aβ) exists in the form of monomers and oligomers, and as complexes with Aβ‐binding molecules, such as low‐density lipoprotein receptor‐related protein‐1 (LRP‐1) ligands. The present study investigated the effect of self‐aggregation and LRP‐1 ligands on the elimination of human Aβ(1–40) [hAβ(1–40)] from the rat brain across the blood–brain barrier. Incubation of [125I]hAβ(1–40) monomer resulted in time‐dependent and temperature‐dependent dimer formation, and the apparent elimination rate of [125I]hAβ(1–40) dimer was significantly decreased by 92.7% compared with that of [125I]hAβ(1–40) monomer. Pre‐incubation with LRP‐1 ligands, such as activated α2‐macroglobulin (α2M), apolipoprotein E2 (apoE2), apoE3, apoE4, and lactoferrin, reduced the elimination of [125I]hAβ(1–40). By contrast, pre‐administration of the same concentration of these molecules in the rat brain did not significantly inhibit [125I]hAβ(1–40) monomer elimination. Purified [125I]hAβ(1–40)/activated α2M complex and [125I]activated α2M were not significantly eliminated from the rat brain up to 60 min. MEF‐1 cells, which have LRP‐1‐mediated endocytosis, exhibited uptake of [125I]activated α2M, and enhancement of [125I]hAβ(1–40) uptake upon pre‐incubation with apoE, suggesting that [125I]activated α2M and [125I]hAβ(1–40)/apoE complex function as LRP‐1 ligands. These findings indicate that dimerization and LRP‐1‐ligand complex formation prevent the elimination of hAβ(1–40) from the brain across the blood–brain barrier.
Tissue-specific splicing of an Ndufs6 gene-trap insertion generates a mitochondrial complex I deficiency-specific cardiomyopathy

Mitochondrial complex I (CI) deficiency is the most common mitochondrial enzyme defect in humans. Treatment of mitochondrial disorders is currently inadequate, emphasizing the need for experimental models. In humans, mutations in the NDUFS6 gene, encoding a CI subunit, cause severe CI deficiency and neonatal death. In this study, we generated a CI-deficient mouse model by knockdown of the Ndufs6 gene using a gene-trap embryonic stem cell line. Ndufs6gt/gt mice have essentially complete knockout of the Ndufs6 subunit in heart, resulting in marked CI deficiency. Small amounts of wild-type Ndufs6 mRNA are present in other tissues, apparently due to tissue-specific mRNA splicing, resulting in milder CI defects. Ndufs6gt/gt mice are born healthy, attain normal weight and maturity, and are fertile. However, after 4 mo in males and 8 mo in females, Ndufs6gt/gt mice are at increased risk of cardiac failure and death. Before overt heart failure, Ndufs6gt/gt hearts show decreased ATP synthesis, accumulation of hydroxyacylcarnitine, but not reactive oxygen species (ROS). Ndufs6gt/gt mice develop biventricular enlargement by 1 mo, most pronounced in males, with scattered fibrosis and abnormal mitochondrial but normal myofibrillar ultrastructure. Ndufs6gt/gt isolated working heart preparations show markedly reduced left ventricular systolic function, cardiac output, and functional work capacity. This reduced energetic and functional capacity is consistent with a known susceptibility of individuals with mitochondrial cardiomyopathy to metabolic crises precipitated by stresses. This model of CI deficiency will facilitate studies of pathogenesis, modifier genes, and testing of therapeutic approaches.