Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pirfenidone Prevents the Development of a Vulnerable Substrate for Atrial Fibrillation in a Canine Model of Heart Failure

Background— Atrial fibrosis is an important substrate in atrial fibrillation (AF), particularly in the setting of structural heart disease. In a canine model, congestive heart failure (CHF) produces significant atrial fibrosis and the substrate for sustained AF. This atrial remodeling is a potential therapeutic target. The objective of the present study is to evaluate the effects of the antifibrotic drug pirfenidone (PFD) on arrhythmogenic atrial remodeling in a canine CHF model. Methods and Results— We studied 15 canines, divided equally into 3 groups: control, CHF canines not treated with PFD, and CHF canines treated with PFD. CHF was induced by ventricular tachypacing (220 bpm for 3 weeks), and oral PFD was administered for the 3-week pacing period. We performed electrophysiology and AF vulnerability studies, atrial fibrosis measurements, and atrial cytokine expression studies. Only canines in the untreated CHF group developed sustained AF (>30 minutes, 4 of 5 canines; P<0.05). Treatment of CHF canines with PFD resulted in an attenuation of arrhythmogenic left atrial remodeling, with a significant reduction in left atrial conduction heterogeneity index (median [25% to 75% interquartile range] 4.96 [3.53 to 5.64] versus 2.52 [2.11 to 2.82], P<0.01; pacing cycle length 300 ms), left atrial fibrosis (16.0% [13.0% to 17.5%] versus 8.7% [5.7% to 10.6%], P<0.01), and AF duration (1800 [1020 to 1800] seconds versus 6 [5 to 22] seconds, P<0.01). Immunoblotting studies demonstrated the drug’s effects on multiple cytokines, including a reduction in transforming growth factor-&bgr;1 expression. Conclusions— Treatment of CHF canines with PFD results in significantly reduced arrhythmogenic atrial remodeling and AF vulnerability. Pharmacological therapy targeted at the fibrotic substrate itself may play an important role in the management of AF.
Design and Validation of Microstrip Gap Waveguides and Their Transitions to Rectangular Waveguide, for Millimeter-Wave Applications

The paper describes the design methodology, experimental validation, and practical considerations of two millimeter-wave wideband vertical transitions from two gap waveguide versions (inverted microstrip gap waveguide, and microstrip packaged by using gap waveguide) to standard WR-15 rectangular waveguide. The experimental results show S11 smaller than -10 dB over relative bandwidths larger than 25% and 26.6% when Rogers RO3003 and RO4003 materials are used, respectively. The vertical transition from standard microstrip line packaged by a lid of pins to WR-15 shows measured return loss better than 15 dB over 13.8% relative bandwidth. The new transitions can be used as interfaces between gap waveguide feed networks for 60-GHz antenna systems, testing equipment (like vector network analyzers), and components with WR-15 ports, such as transmitting-receiving amplifiers. Moreover, the paper documents the losses of different gap waveguide prototypes compared with unpackaged microstrip line and substrate integrated waveguide (SIW). This investigation shows that in V-band, the lowest losses are achieved with inverted microstrip gap waveguide.
Altered heart rate dynamics associated with antipsychotic-induced subjective restlessness in patients with schizophrenia

Background Antipsychotic-induced subjective inner restlessness is one of the common and distressing adverse effects associated with antipsychotics; however, its underlying neurobiological basis is not well understood. We examined the relationship between antipsychotic-induced subjective inner restlessness and autonomic neurocardiac function. Methods Twenty-two schizophrenia patients with antipsychotic-induced subjective restlessness, 28 schizophrenia patients without antipsychotic-induced subjective restlessness, and 28 matched healthy control subjects were evaluated. Assessments of the linear and nonlinear complexity measures of heart rate dynamics were performed. Multivariate analysis of variance and correlation analysis were conducted. Results The mean interbeat (RR) interval value was significantly higher in control subjects than in patients with and without antipsychotic-induced subjective restlessness (P < 0.05). The low frequency/high frequency ratio was significantly higher in patients with antipsychotic-induced subjective restlessness than in control subjects and in patients without antipsychotic-induced subjective restlessness (P < 0.05), while the approximate entropy value was significantly lower in patients with antipsychotic-induced subjective restlessness than in control subjects and in patients without antipsychotic-induced subjective restlessness (P < 0.05). Correlation analyses controlling for psychotic symptom severity showed that the degree of antipsychotic-induced restlessness had a significant negative correlation with the value of approximate entropy (P < 0.05). Conclusion The results indicate that antipsychotic-induced subjective restlessness is associated with altered heart rate dynamics parameters, particularly the nonlinear complexity measure, suggesting that it might adversely affect autonomic neurocardiac integrity. Further prospective research is necessary to elucidate the precise interrelationships and causality.
Ex vivo stimulation of cytomegalovirus (CMV)‐specific T cells using CMV pp65‐modified dendritic cells as stimulators

Summary. Cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection is a dangerous complication in immunosuppressed individuals such as allogeneic stem cell transplant patients. CMV disease can be prevented by the early post‐transplant transfer of donor‐derived, CMV‐directed, T cells. Fast and cost efficient methods to generate CMV‐specific T cells are, therefore, warranted. The current study utilized peptide‐pulsed and adenovirus‐transduced dendritic cells (DC) to generate CMV‐restricted T cells. After one stimulation with CMV pp65495−503 peptide‐pulsed DC and three re‐stimulations with peptide‐pulsed monocytes, virtually all T cells were CD8+, expressed the relevant T cell receptor and exhibited high peptide‐specific lytic activity. After only one stimulation, pp65495−503‐restricted T cells could be sorted to a purity of higher than 95% and expanded up to 1000‐fold in 2 weeks. This technique may prove useful for the rapid generation of large quantities of specific cytolytic T lymphocytes (CTL) for cell therapy. DC transduced with an adenoviral vector encoding the full‐length pp65 protein (Adpp65) were able to simultaneously expand CTL against multiple epitopes of pp65. In addition, they activated CMV‐specific CD4+ T‐helper cells. This approach would stimulate multiple‐epitope populations of pp65‐specific T cells and could be made available to patients of any human leucocyte antigen (HLA) haplotype. DC transduced with adenoviral vectors to express full‐length antigens may prove to be potent vaccines against viral pathogens and cancer.
Tachykinin Receptor Expression and Function in Human Esophageal Smooth Muscle

Tachykinins are present in enteric nerves of the gastrointestinal tract and cause contraction of esophageal smooth muscle; however, the mechanisms involved are not understood. Our aim was to characterize tachykinin signaling in human esophageal smooth muscle. We investigated functional effects of tachykinins on human esophageal smooth muscle using tension recordings and isolated cells, receptor expression with reverse transcription (RT)-polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and immunoblotting, intracellular Ca2+ responses using fluorescent indicator dyes, and membrane currents with patch-clamp electrophysiology. The mammalian tachykinins [substance P and neurokinin (NK) A and NKB] elicited concentration-dependent contractions of human esophageal smooth muscle. These responses were not affected by muscarinic receptor or neuronal blockade indicating a direct effect on smooth muscle cells (SMCs). Immunofluorescence and RT-PCR identified tachykinin receptors (NK1, NK2, and NK3) on SMCs. Contraction was mediated through a combination of Ca2+ release from intracellular stores and influx through L-type Ca2+ channels. NK2 receptor blockade inhibited the largest proportion of tachykinin-evoked responses. NKA evoked a nonselective cation current (INSC) with properties similar to that elicited by muscarinic stimulation. The following paradigm is suggested: tachykinin receptor binding to SMCs releases Ca2+ from stores along with activation of INSC, which in turn results in membrane depolarization, L-type Ca2+ channel opening, rise of Ca2+ concentration, and contraction. These studies reveal new aspects of tachykinin signaling in human esophageal SMCs. Excitatory tachykinin pathways may represent targets for pharmacological intervention in disorders of esophageal dysmotility.
Essential and Redundant Functions of Caudal Family Proteins in Activating Adult Intestinal Genes

ABSTRACT Transcription factors that potently induce cell fate often remain expressed in the induced organ throughout life, but their requirements in adults are uncertain and varied. Mechanistically, it is unclear if they activate only tissue-specific genes or also directly repress heterologous genes. We conditionally inactivated mouse Cdx2, a dominant regulator of intestinal development, and mapped its genome occupancy in adult intestinal villi. Although homeotic transformation, observed in Cdx2-null embryos, was absent in mutant adults, gene expression and cell morphology were vitally compromised. Lethality was significantly accelerated in mice lacking both Cdx2 and its homolog Cdx1, with particular exaggeration of defects in villus enterocyte differentiation. Importantly, Cdx2 occupancy correlated with hundreds of transcripts that fell but not with equal numbers that rose with Cdx loss, indicating a predominantly activating role at intestinal cis-regulatory regions. Integrated consideration of a transcription factor's mutant phenotype and cistrome hence reveals the continued and distinct requirement in adults of a critical developmental regulator that activates tissue-specific genes.
Infected Hepatic and Renal Cysts: Differential Impact on Outcome in Autosomal Dominant Polycystic Kidney Disease

Background: Infected cysts are a frequent and serious complication of autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease. Such infections are classified into those affecting hepatic cysts and those affecting renal cysts. The purpose of this study was to compare the clinical course of infected hepatic cysts with that of infected renal cysts in patients with autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease. Methods: We analyzed 43 patients referred to us for additional treatment of severely infected cysts between January 2004 and December 2006. All patients who required further treatment in addition to antibiotic therapy were included. Results: Aspiration was performed in all 28 patients with infected hepatic cysts. As a result, 17 patients were cured, 4 remain under treatment, and 6 died. One patient was cured by partial hepatectomy. Among the 15 patients with renal cysts, aspiration was performed in 4 with identifiable infected cysts, while renal transcatheter arterial embolization after appropriate antibiotic therapy was performed in 11 without identifiable infected cysts. No patient developed recurrence. Conclusion: In patients with infected renal cysts, aspiration or renal transcatheter arterial embolization after appropriate antibiotic therapy was effective. Although aspiration was often effective in patients with infected hepatic cysts, a good outcome was less likely than in those with renal cysts.
Multisensory determinants of orientation perception: task‐specific sex differences

Females have been reported to be more ‘visually dependent’ than males. When aligning a rod in a tilted frame to vertical, females are more influenced by the frame than are males, who align the rod closer to gravity. Do females rely more on visual information at the cost of other sensory information? We compared the subjective visual vertical and the perceptual upright in 29 females and 24 males. The orientation of visual cues presented on a shrouded laptop screen and of the observer’s posture were varied. When upright, females’ subjective visual vertical was more influenced by visual cues and their responses were more variable than were males’. However, there were no differences between the sexes in the perceptual upright task. Individual variance in subjective visual vertical judgments and in the perceptual upright predicted the level of visual dependence across both sexes. When lying right‐side down, there were no reliable differences between the sexes in either measure. We conclude that heightened ‘visual dependence’ in females does not generalize to all aspects of spatial processing but is probably attributable to task‐specific differences in the mechanisms of sensory processing in the brains of females and males. The higher variability and lower accuracy in females for some spatial tasks is not due to their having qualitatively worse access to information concerning either the gravity axis or corporeal representation: it is only when gravity and the long body axis align that females have a performance disadvantage.
The relationship between executive functions and fluid intelligence in Parkinson's disease

Background We recently demonstrated that decline in fluid intelligence is a substantial contributor to frontal deficits. For some classical ‘executive’ tasks, such as the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) and Verbal Fluency, frontal deficits were entirely explained by fluid intelligence. However, on a second set of frontal tasks, deficits remained even after statistically controlling for this factor. These tasks included tests of theory of mind and multitasking. As frontal dysfunction is the most frequent cognitive deficit observed in early Parkinson's disease (PD), the present study aimed to determine the role of fluid intelligence in such deficits. Method We assessed patients with PD (n=32) and control subjects (n=22) with the aforementioned frontal tests and with a test of fluid intelligence. Group performance was compared and fluid intelligence was introduced as a covariate to determine its role in frontal deficits shown by PD patients. Results In line with our previous results, scores on the WCST and Verbal Fluency were closely linked to fluid intelligence. Significant patient–control differences were eliminated or at least substantially reduced once fluid intelligence was introduced as a covariate. However, for tasks of theory of mind and multitasking, deficits remained even after fluid intelligence was statistically controlled. Conclusions The present results suggest that clinical assessment of neuropsychological deficits in PD should include tests of fluid intelligence, together with one or more specific tasks that allow for the assessment of residual frontal deficits associated with theory of mind and multitasking.
Throughput Scaling Laws for Wireless Networks With Fading Channels

A network of n communication links, operating over a shared wireless channel, is considered. Fading is assumed to be the dominant factor affecting the strength of the channels between transmitter and receiver terminals. It is assumed that each link can be active and transmit with a constant power P or remain silent. The objective is to maximize the throughput over the selection of active links. By deriving an upper bound and a lower bound, it is shown that in the case of Rayleigh fading: (i) the maximum throughput scales like log n; (ii) the maximum throughput is achievable in a distributed fashion. The upper bound is obtained using probabilistic methods, where the key point is to upper bound the throughput of any random set of active links by a chi-squared random variable. To obtain the lower bound, a decentralized link activation strategy is proposed and analyzed.
Dispersal, landscape and travelling waves in cyclic vole populations.

Travelling waves (TW) are among the most striking ecological phenomena emerging in oscillating populations. Despite much theory, understanding how real-world TW arise remains a challenge for ecology. Herein, we analyse 16-year time series of cyclic vole populations collected at 314 localities covering 2500 km² in France. We found evidence for a linear front TW spreading at a speed of 7.4 km year(-1) along a north-west/south-east direction and radiating away from a major landscape discontinuity as predicted by recent theory. The spatial signature of vole dispersal was assessed using genetic data collected at 14 localities. Both data sets were handled using similar autocorrelation approaches. Our results revealed a remarkable congruence of the spatial extent and direction of anisotropy of both demographic and genetic structures. Our results constitute the first empirical evidence that effective dispersal is limited in the direction of TW while most of the individual exchanges occur along the wave front.
Methyl Esterification of Cell Wall Constituents under the Influence of Auxin.

It has been shown in an earlier communication (11) that auxin increases the amount of incorporation of carbon-14 derived from methyl labeled methionine into a fraction of the cell wall of Avena coleoptile sections which possesses the properties classically associated with pectin. Incorporation into this material represents but a small part of the total, the main part being into the protopectin fraction. Such incorporation is not significantly affected by the presence of auxin. The auxin effect on incorporation into the pectin fraction persists in solutions which contain sufficient mannitol to prevent elongation during the course of the experiment. C14 from glucose was also found to be incorporated into pectin more rapidly under the influence of auxin. Bennet-Clark (1) and others have also suggested that auxin causes an increase in the methyl content of pectic substances of cell walls of elongating tissue. The hypothesis may be formulated that methylation of the carboxyl groups of adjacent pectin molecules under the influence of auxin may be involved in the splitting of anhydride or calcium bridges which contribute to the mechanical properties of the cell wall. The present investigation was undertaken to determine to what extent general metabolic inhibitors interfere with the incorporation of methionine methyl into the pectin fraction and to answer definitively the question of whether methyl carbon incorporation accompanies only net pectin synthesis or whether such incorporation occurs at a more rapid rate than net synthesis and is therefore to be regarded as methyl ester turnover. It will also be shown below that esterification of pectin by methyl derived carbon is an auxin controlled reaction.
Design of Adaptive Exponential Functional Link Network-Based Nonlinear Filters

A novel nonlinear filter, which incorporates the concept of exponential sinusoidal models into nonlinear filters based on functional link networks (FLNs) has been developed in this paper. The proposed filter is designed to provide improved convergence characteristics over traditional FLN filters. The conventional trigonometric FLN may be considered as a special case of the proposed adaptive exponential FLN (AEFLN). An adaptive exponential least mean square (AELMS) algorithm has been derived and the same has been successfully applied for identification of a couple of nonlinear plants. The AEFLN-based nonlinear active noise control (ANC) system has also been designed and an adaptive exponential filtered-s least mean square (AEFsLMS) algorithm has been developed to update the weights as well as the exponential factor. Simulation study has revealed the improved noise mitigation offered by the AEFLN-based nonlinear ANC system.
Radar Studies of Height‐Dependent Equatorial F region Vertical and Zonal Plasma Drifts

We present the results of an analysis of long‐term measurements of ionospheric F region E × B plasma drifts in the American/Peruvian sector. The analysis used observations made between 1986 and 2017 by the incoherent scatter radar of the Jicamarca Radio Observatory. Unlike previous studies, we analyzed both vertical and zonal components of the plasma drifts to derive the geomagnetically quiet time climatological variation of the drifts as a function of height and local time. We determine the average behavior of the height profiles of the drifts for different seasons and distinct solar flux conditions. Our results show good agreement with previous height‐averaged climatological results of vertical and zonal plasma drifts, despite that they are obtained from different sets of measurements. More importantly, our results quantify average height variations in the drifts. The results show, for example, the solar flux control over the height variation of the vertical drifts. The results also show the weak dependence of the daytime zonal drift profiles on solar and seasonal variations. We quantify the effects of seasonal and solar flux variations on the morphology of the vertical shear in the zonal plasma drifts associated with the evening plasma vortex. Assuming interchangeability between local time and longitude, we tested the curl‐free condition for the F region electric fields with very good results for all seasons and solar flux conditions. We envision the use of our results to aid numerical modeling of ionospheric electrodynamics and structuring and to assist with the interpretation of satellite observations of low‐latitude plasma drifts.
BPMN 2.0 Serialization - Standard Compliance Issues and Evaluation of Modeling Tools

Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) 2.0 process models are used more and more, both in practice as in academia. Although academic research mainly focuses on sophisticated semantic checks and extensions there still exist problems in the basic usage of BPMN. This paper investigates issues in BPMN model serializations which arise as a result of the complexity and inconsistency of the standard document. We present a set of serialization constraints as a starting point for sophisticated compliance checks on serialized BPMN models. Furthermore, these constraints are used to perform an evaluation of current modeling tools. This evaluation reveals that the creation of standard compliant models is still a non-trivial endeavor.