Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Neutrophils from Term and Preterm Newborn Infants Express the High Affinity Fcγ-Receptor I (CD64) During Bacterial Infections

The high affinity Fcγ-receptor I (FcγRI, CD64) is normally expressed only to a very low extent by neutrophils. During bacterial infections, however, neutrophils from adult patients significantly increase their expression of FcγRI. Stimulation through FcγRI is a highly effective way to improve various aspects of neutrophil function, including phagocytosis. In our study the expression of FcγRI on neutrophils from preterm (n = 9) and term (n = 3) newborn infants, children (n = 14), and adults (n = 6) during the early phase of an acute bacterial infection was investigated. Our results showed that neutrophils from newborn infants with bacterial infection expressed FcγRI to a significantly higher extent than both noninfected preterm (p < 0.001) and term (p < 0.001) newborn infants and that neutrophils from preterm neonates expressed FcγRI to the same extent as neutrophils from term neonates and older infants, children, and adults. No difference in the neutrophil cell surface expression of FcγRI during bacterial infections was found among newborn infants, children, and adults. Expression of FcγRI probably represents an important mechanism to improve neutrophil phagocytosis as well as other aspects of neutrophil function during bacterial infections, especially in preterm infants. Our study indicates that measurement of cell surface expression of FcγRI on neutrophils could be a useful indicator of severe bacterial infections in preterm and term neonates, as well as in older children and adults.
Glaucoma Patients' Trust in the Physician

Objectives. To describe glaucoma patients' trust in the physician and to test the hypothesis that increased interpersonal trust is associated with increased medication adherence. Methods. One hundred ninety-five subjects with open-angle glaucoma seen by multiple glaucoma subspecialists participated in a cross-sectional patient survey and concomitant chart review which included a test of health literacy and the Trust in Physician Scale (TPS), a scale from 1–100, with 100 indicating greatest trust. Charts were reviewed for visual acuity and visual field results. Subjects' pharmacies were contacted to ascertain medication refill rates over the preceding six months. Results. TPS scores ranged from 57.5 to 100, 78.7 ± 8.4 (mean ± SD,) median 75.0. When age, race, gender, baseline visual acuity and visual field status, education level, and literacy status were considered, only race was associated with TPS. Caucasians expressed slightly higher levels of trust (n = 108; TPS 80.1 ± 8.2) than non-Caucasians, (n = 87 (82 Africans Americans); TPS 77.1 ± 8.4; P = . 012). TPS score was not associated with refill rates (P = .190). Conclusions. Trust in physician is generally high in this group of glaucoma patients but varies slightly by race. Trust in physician was not associated with glaucoma medication adherence in this tertiary care population.
Effects of GPD 1 Overexpression in Saccharomyces cerevisiae Commercial Wine Yeast Strains Lacking ALD 6 Genes

The utilization of Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains overproducing glycerol and with a reduced ethanol yield is a potentially valuable strategy for producing wine with decreased ethanol content. However, glycerol overproduction is accompanied by acetate accumulation. In this study, we evaluated the effects of the overexpression of GPD1, coding for glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase, in three commercial wine yeast strains in which the two copies of ALD6 encoding the NADP -dependent Mg -activated cytosolic acetaldehyde dehydrogenase have been deleted. Under wine fermentation conditions, the engineered industrial strains exhibit fermentation performance and growth properties similar to those of the wild type. Acetate was produced at concentrations similar to that of the wild-type strains, whereas sugar was efficiently diverted to glycerol. The ethanol yield of the GPD1 ald6 industrial strains was 15 to 20% lower than that in the controls. However, these strains accumulated acetoin at considerable levels due to inefficient reduction to 2,3-butanediol. Due to the low taste and odor thresholds of acetoin and its negative sensorial impact on wine, novel engineering strategies will be required for a proper adjustment of the metabolites at the acetaldehyde branch point.
Efficient and Consistent Robust Time Series Analysis

We study the problem of robust time series analysis under the standard auto-regressive (AR) time series model in the presence of arbitrary outliers. We devise an efficient hard thresholding based algorithm which can obtain a consistent estimate of the optimal AR model despite a large fraction of the time series points being corrupted. Our algorithm alternately estimates the corrupted set of points and the model parameters, and is inspired by recent advances in robust regression and hard-thresholding methods. However, a direct application of existing techniques is hindered by a critical difference in the time-series domain: each point is correlated with all previous points rendering existing tools inapplicable directly. We show how to overcome this hurdle using novel proof techniques. Using our techniques, we are also able to provide the first efficient and provably consistent estimator for the robust regression problem where a standard linear observation model with white additive noise is corrupted arbitrarily. We illustrate our methods on synthetic datasets and show that our methods indeed are able to consistently recover the optimal parameters despite a large fraction of points being corrupted.
Treatment of bites by adders and exotic venomous snakes

Every year, hundreds of people and unknown numbers of dogs and other domestic animals in England, Wales, and Scotland are bitten by our only indigenous venomous snake, the adder ( Vipera berus ) (fig 1). UK poisons centres are consulted about an average of 100 human and a dozen veterinary cases each year. In about 70% of patients, envenoming is negligible or purely local, causing pain, swelling, and inflammation of the bitten digit. Only 14 fatalities have been reported since 1876,1 the last in a 5 year old child in 1975,w1 but adder bites should not be underestimated. On rare occasions, envenoming can be life threatening, especially in children, and many adults experience prolonged discomfort and disability after the bite. Fig 1 Adder or viper ( Vipera berus ) Apart from the exotic venomous snakes held legally by zoos, research establishments, and licensed private individuals, large numbers of dangerous snakes are kept surreptitiously as macho pets in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and other countries.2 3w2-w8 This “underground zoo”w9 reveals itself on average only five or six times each year in the UK when bitten owners are forced to seek medical help.4 I have based this review on personal experience in clinical research on snake bites and as an adviser to the National Poisons Centre since 1986 and to the Zoological Society of London and other UK zoos. Other sources were my personal archive of books, papers, and unpublished case reports; discussions and correspondence with other experts; and searches of Medline, PubMed, and Google. The adder or viper ( Vipera berus ) is common throughout mainland Britain and some of the islands off the west coast of Scotland. Bites occur from February to October, peaking in June to August. Half the patients are bitten on the hand while picking up the adder. …
Monitoring In Situ Dosimetry and Protoporphyrin IX Fluorescence Photobleaching in the Normal Rat Esophagus During 5‐Aminolevulinic Acid Photodynamic Therapy ¶

Experimental therapies for Barrett's esophagus, such as 5‐aminolevulinic acid (ALA)–based photodynamic therapy (PDT), aim to ablate the premalignant Barrett's epithelium. However, the reproducibility of the effects should be improved to optimize treatment. Accurate irradiation with light of a proper wavelength (633 nm), fluence and fluence rate has shown to be critical for successful ALA‐PDT. Here, we have used in situ light dosimetry to adjust the fluence rate measured within the esophagus for individual animals and monitored protoporphyrin IX (PpIX) fluorescence photobleaching simultaneously. Rats were administered 200 mg kg−1 ALA (n = 14) or served as control (n = 7). Animals were irradiated with an in situ measured fluence rate of 75 mW cm−2 and a fluence of 54 J cm−2. However, this more accurate method of light dosimetry did not decrease the variation in tissue response. Large differences were also observed in the dynamics of PpIX fluorescence photobleaching in animals that received the same measured illumination parameters. We found that higher PpIX fluorescence photobleaching rates corresponded with more epithelial damage, whereas lower rates corresponded with no response. A two‐phased decay in PpIX fluorescence could be identified in the response group, with a rapid initial phase followed by a slower rate of photobleaching. Nonresponders did not show the rapid initial decay and had a significantly lower rate of photobleaching during the second phase of the decay (P= 0.012).
A CMOS bandgap reference circuit for sub-1-V operation without using extra low-threshold-voltage device

A new sub-1-V CMOS bandgap voltage reference without using low threshold voltage device is presented in this paper. The new proposed sub-1-V bandgap reference with startup circuit has been successfully verified in a standard 0.25 /spl mu/m CMOS process. The experimental results show that, at the minimum supply voltage of 0.85 V, the output reference voltage is 238.2 mV with an effective temperature coefficient of 58.1 ppm//spl deg/C while DC current is 28 /spl mu/A. At 0.85 V supply voltage, the measured power noise rejection ratio is -33.2 dB at 10 KHz.
The Medical Necessity for Medicinal Cannabis: Prospective, Observational Study Evaluating the Treatment in Cancer Patients on Supportive or Palliative Care

Background. Cancer patients using cannabis report better influence from the plant extract than from synthetic products. However, almost all the research conducted to date has been performed with synthetic products. We followed patients with a medicinal cannabis license to evaluate the advantages and side effects of using cannabis by cancer patients. Methods. The study included two interviews based on questionnaires regarding symptoms and side effects, the first held on the day the license was issued and the second 6–8 weeks later. Cancer symptoms and cannabis side effects were documented on scales from 0 to 4 following the CTCAE. The distress thermometer was used also. Results. Of the 211 patients who had a first interview, only 131 had the second interview, 25 of whom stopped treatment after less than a week. All cancer or anticancer treatment-related symptoms showed significant improvement (P < 0.001). No significant side effects except for memory lessening in patients with prolonged cannabis use (P = 0.002) were noted. Conclusion. The positive effects of cannabis on various cancer-related symptoms are tempered by reliance on self-reporting for many of the variables. Although studies with a control group are missing, the improvement in symptoms should push the use of cannabis in palliative treatment of oncology patients.
Models for name-passing processes: interleaving and causal

We study syntax-free models for name-passing processes. For interleaving semantics, we identify the indexing structure required of an early labelled transition system to support the usual /spl pi/-calculus operations, defining indexed labelled transition systems. For non-interleaving causal semantics, we define indexed labelled asynchronous transition systems, smoothly generalizing both our interleaving model and the standard asynchronous transition systems model for CCS-like calculi. In each case we relate a denotational semantics to an operational view for bisimulation and causal bisimulation respectively. This is a first step towards a uniform understanding of the semantics and operations of name-passing calculi.
Acetylcholine Causes Coronary Vasodilation in Dogs and Baboons

Intracoronary administration of acetylcholine or efferent vagal stimulation causes coronary vasodilation in dogs. However, in baboons it has been reported that intracoronary acetylcholine results in a fall in coronary blood flow and that stimulation of the vagi is without effect. The dose response of intracoronary acetylcholine and the effect of efferent vagal stimulation on the coronary circulation were reinvestigated in closed-chest, anesthetized dogs and baboons. The left main coronary artery was cannulated and perfused at constant pressure. o-Adrenergic and 0-adrenergic receptors were pharmacologically blocked with phenoxybenzamine and propranolol. Heart rate was held constant by right ventricular pacing. In dogs, intracoronary infusion of acetylcholine (1-300 μg/min) elicited a dose-dependent increase in steady-state coronary blood flow and coronary sinus oxygen tension, without a change in myocardial oxygen consumption. Vagal stimulation caused a coronary vasodilation that was attenuated by a metabolically mediated decrease in flow. In baboons, acetylcholine increased steady-state coronary blood flow in the dose range of 1-10 μg/min, caused little change at 30 /tg/min, and decreased flow at 100-300 μg/min. Coronary sinus oxygen tension increased in a dosedependent manner up to 10 μg/min. Myocardial oxygen consumption was unchanged in the dose range of 1-10 μg/min and declined between 30 and 300 μg/min. Efferent stimulation of the vagi resulted in coronary dilation obscured by a metabolic reduction of flow. It is concluded that 1) low doses of acetylcholine elicit a primary coronary vasodilation in both species, but in baboons high doses of acetylcholine cause a reduction of both myocardial oxygen consumption and coronary blood flow below control values and 2) vagal stimulation causes a competition between coronary vasodilation and metabolic reduction of flow in dogs and baboons.
Design of power-rail ESD clamp circuit with adjustable holding voltage against mis-trigger or transient-induced latch-on events

In this work, a new design of the ESD-transient detection circuit with the n-channel metal-oxide-semiconductor (nMOS) transistor drawn in the layout style of big field-effect transistor (BigFET) has been proposed and verified in a 65nm 1.2V CMOS process. As compared to the traditional RC-based ESD-transient detection circuit, the layout area of the new ESD-transient detection circuit can be greatly reduced by more than 54%. From the experimental results, the new proposed ESD-transient detection circuit with adjustable holding voltage can achieve long turn-on duration under the ESD stress condition, as well as better immunity against mis-trigger or transient-induced latch-on event under the fast power-on and transient noise conditions.
Alternate raft pathways cooperate to mediate slow diffusion and efficient uptake of a sphingolipid tracer to degradative and recycling compartments

Several cholesterol-dependent cellular uptake pathways involving microdomain-resident sphingolipids have been characterized, but little is known about what controls the further intracellular trafficking routes of those domains. Here, we present evidence that the uptake and intracellular trafficking of a recently described sphingolipid-binding probe, the sphingolipid binding domain (SBD) peptide, is mediated by two parallel cooperating mechanisms requiring flotillin, dynamin and cdc42, which act in concert to direct a distinct surface behavior and trafficking itinerary. Diffusion measurements of SBD at the cell surface by fluorescence correlation spectroscopy suggest that cdc42- and flotillin-associated uptake sites both correspond to domains of intermediate mobility, but that they can cooperate to form low-mobility, efficiently internalized domains. Interestingly, we find that the choice of uptake mechanism affects subsequent trafficking of SBD, as does cholesterol content. Interference with one or other uptake pathway acts as a toggle switch for the trafficking of SBD to recycling endosomes or endolysosomes, whereas both of these pathways are bypassed if cholesterol is reduced. The data are in accordance with a scenario in which SBD mirrors the trafficking response of raft-borne lipids towards a degradative or recycling target. In summary, we suggest that both the surface behavior of a cargo and its subsequent trafficking are determined by a combination of endocytic accessory proteins and the cholesterol content of different membrane compartments.
CosTriage: A Cost-Aware Triage Algorithm for Bug Reporting Systems

"Who can fix this bug? " is an important question in bug triage to "accurately" assign developers to bug reports. To address this question, recent research treats it as a optimizing recommendation accuracy problem and proposes a solution that is essentially an instance of content-based recommendation (CBR). However, CBR is well-known to cause over-specialization, recommending only the types of bugs that each developer has solved before. This problem is critical in practice, as some experienced developers could be overloaded, and this would slow the bug fixing process. In this paper, we take two directions to address this problem: First,we reformulate the problem as an optimization problem of both accuracy and cost. Second, we adopt a content-boosted collaborative filtering (CBCF), combining an existing CBR with a collaborative filtering recommender (CF), which enhances the recommendationquality of either approach alone. However, unlike general recommendation scenarios, bug fix history is extremely sparse. Due to the nature of bug fixes, one bug is fixed by only one developer, which makes it challenging to pursue the above two directions. To address this challenge, we develop a topic-model to reduce the sparseness and enhance the quality of CBCF. Our experimental evaluation shows that our solution reduces the cost efficiently by 30% without seriously compromising accuracy.
Temporal Patterns in Long-Term Survival After Resuscitation From Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest

Background—During the past quarter century, advances in treatment of cardiovascular disease have occurred that might potentially benefit survivors of sudden cardiac arrest (SCA). Little is known, however, about the temporal patterns in long-term survival among persons resuscitated from SCA. We hypothesized that long-term survival would improve over time and that this temporal pattern would be most evident for cardiac causes of death. Methods and Results—The investigation was a retrospective cohort study of survival among persons who were discharged alive from the hospital after resuscitation from out-of-hospital SCA due to heart disease in King County, Wash, between May 1, 1976, and December 31, 2001 (n=2035). Calendar time was divided into four 5-year intervals: 1976 to 1980, 1981 to 1985, 1986 to 1990, and 1991 to 1995, and one 6-year interval, 1996 to 2001. Age-adjusted survival curves were constructed, and Cox proportional-hazards regression was used to compute hazard ratios (HRs) for the association between mortality and time period. During 11 201 person-years of follow-up, 1334 persons died. Compared with the initial time period, the HR for total mortality was 0.86 (95% confidence interval, 0.73 to 1.01) for 1981 to 1985, 0.82 (0.69 to 0.96) for 1986 to 1990, 0.66 (0.55 to 0.79) for 1991 to 1995, and 0.58 (0.47 to 0.71) for 1996 to 2001 (HR for trend=0.87 [0.84 to 0.91] for each successive time period). In analyses that assessed cardiac mortality, an even stronger temporal association was evident (HR for trend=0.79 [0.75 to 0.84]). Conclusions—Long-term survival after resuscitation from SCA improved steadily over time in this cohort. To continue this trend, future studies should identify circumstances in which proven treatments are underutilized as well as investigate new therapies that might benefit survivors of SCA.
Measuring Default Risk Premia from Default Swap Rates and EDFs

This paper estimates recent default risk premia for U.S. corporate debt, based on a close relationship between default probabilities, as estimated by Moody's KMV EDFs, and default swap (CDS) market rates. The default-swap data, obtained through CIBC from 22 banks and specialty dealers, allow us to establish a strong link between actual and risk-neutral default probabilities for the 69 firms in the three sectors that we analyze: broadcasting and entertainment, healthcare, and oil and gas. We find dramatic variation over time in risk premia, from peaks in the third quarter of 2002, dropping by roughly 50% to late 2003.
FAC Working Paper 69. The State and Performance of African Agriculture and the Impact of Structural Changes

(ODI) – for discussions at an early stage of this paper. Parts of the paper also draw on work undertaken by the Political Economy of Agricultural Policy in Africa (PEAPA) project within the Future Agricultures Consortium (www.future-agricultures.org/peapa). Ultimately, however, the interpretation in the paper is mine, as are all errors and omissions.
Novel Method for Detection of Butanolides in Streptomyces coelicolor Culture Broth, Using a His-Tagged Receptor (ScbR) and Mass Spectrometry

ABSTRACT γ-Butyrolactone derivative molecules in Streptomyces play a crucial role in cell density control, secondary metabolism, and cell differentiation. As their synthesis level in the cell is very low compared to those of similar N-acyl homoserine lactone molecules from gram-negative bacteria, it is very hard to analyze them even with several hundredfold concentration of the culture broth. We have developed a very quick and easy detection method using an affinity capture technique with His-tagged receptor proteins and electrospray tandem mass spectrometry. Using Streptomyces coelicolor as a model system, SCB1 was detected from only 100 ml of the culture broth after solvent extraction. This method can be further applied to detection and quantitative analysis of butanolides and inhibitor screening of the receptor molecules.
EHR BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT: FROM PROCESS MINING TO PROCESS IMPROVEMENT TO PROCESS USABILITY

Process mining of event log data from electronic health records (EHRs) promises new methods to systematically improve EHR-mediated patient care processes and workflow usability. Process mining is part of a larger front of process-aware business process management (BPM) technology diffusing into the healthcare information technology (HIT) industry. Process mining can discover evidence-based process models, or maps, from timestamped user and patient behavior; detect deviations from intended process models relevant to minimizing medical error and maximizing patient safety; and suggest ways to enhance healthcare process effectiveness, efficiency, and user and patient satisfaction. Process mining provides an “X-ray” of processes that can explain clinical business intelligence report and dashboard key performance indicators (KPI). Demand for better evidence-based process maps will drive demand for better EHR event logs, which in turn will drive demand for more process-aware BPM-based EHRs and HIT. Many complaints about EHR usability are about EHR workflow. Process mining techniques and process-aware EHR and HIT systems will increase EHR usability and increase EHR adoption. They are relevant to the central issues of healthcare reform: identification of best practices, coordination of care among clinical staff, consistency across patient care processes, and efficient use of healthcare resources.