Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Bronchial asthma and hypovitaminosis D in Saudi children

Background Asthma, a common lung disease in children, is caused by excessive immune responses to environmental antigens. Objective Given the immuno-modulatory properties of vitamin D, the aim of the current study was to investigate the relationship between vitamin D levels and markers of asthma severity. Methods This was investigated in a 70 Saudi children with and without asthma and were recruited from the King Abdul Aziz University Hospital, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, over the period of 11 months (May 2011-April 2012). Childhood asthma control test instrument was employed to assess the level of asthma control among asthmatic patients. Anthropometric measurements were taken and interviewer-administrated questionnaire was completed for all study participants. Pulmonary function test was performed by recording changes in the peak expiratory flow. Venous blood samples were withdrawn for measurements of vitamin D, bone profile, cytokines profile (interleukin-10, tumor necrosis factor-alpha, platelets derived growth factor), and atopy markers (IgE and eosinophil count). Results Hypovitaminosis D is highly prevalent among asthmatic children with highly significant increase in several markers of allergy and asthma severity as compared with healthy control children. Significant correlations between several inflammatory and immunological markers and vitamin D levels were also found. Finally, lower 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels were associated with a higher asthma prevalence in multivariable analysis. Conclusion Our study showed that hypovitaminosis D is highly prevalent in the whole population in addition to a highly significant increase in several markers of allergy and asthma severity among asthmatic children as compared with healthy control children.
Regulation of Factor Xla Activity by Platelets and a1-Protease Inhibitor

We have studied the complex interrelationships between platelets, Factor XIa, a1-protease inhibitor and Factor IX activation. Platelets were shown to secrete an inhibitor of Factor XMa, and to protect Factor XIa from inactivation in the presence of a1-protease inhibitor and the secreted platelet inhibitor. This protection of Factor Ma did not arise from the binding of Factor XIa to platelets, the presence of high molecular weight kininogen, or the inactivation of a1-protease inhibitor by platelets. The formation of a complex between a1-protease inhibitor and the active-site-containing light chain of Factor XMa was inhibited by activated platelets and by platelet releasates, but not by high molecular weight kininogen. These results support the hypothesis that platelets can regulate Factor XIa-cata-lyzed Factor IX activation by secreting an inhibitor of Factor XIa that may act primarily outside the platelet microenvironment and by protecting Factor XIa from inhibition, thereby localizing Factor IX activation to the platelet plug. 10 or 20 gl of the inhibitor-containing solution. The mixture was allowed to remain at room temperature. After 5 min, 20 Ml of N-suc-cinyl-trialanyl-p-nitroanilide (10 mg/ml) in dimethyl-formamide was added. The cuvette was placed in a spectrophotometer (model 2500, equipped with a recorder; Gilford Instrument Laboratories, Inc., Oberlin, OH) and the optical density at 405 nm was followed for 5-8 min. The elastase activity was calculated from the tangent ofthe slope of the increasing optical density. The inhibition was calculated from the decreased elastase activity in the presence of inhibitor. A standard curve for elastase was established by measuring the activity of different amounts of elastase. 1 U of elastase was defined as the amount that will solubilize 1 mg ofelastin in 20 min at pH 8.8 at 37°C.
Biofilm formation on intraocular lenses by a clinical strain encoding the ica locus: a scanning electron microscopy study.

PURPOSE To determine whether the Staphylococcus epidermidis strain carries the intercellular adhesion (ica) locus, which encodes production of adhesins mediating adherence to biomaterials and to study, with scanning electron microscopy, the morphologic features of this coagulase-negative Staphylococcus strain that adheres to intraocular lenses (IOLs). METHODS Polymerase chain reaction amplification was used to investigate whether the isolate under study (S. epidermidis clinical strain N890074) carries the ica locus. Sterile intraocular lenses (IOLs) were incubated in bacterial suspension either for 5 minutes or 1 hour. IOLs were then examined by scanning electron microscopy. RESULTS Polymerase chain reaction amplification revealed that S. epidermidis N890074 contained the ica locus. The bacteria appeared to be anchored to the surface of the lenses by several different means-particularly by leglike appendages and a slime layer-which probably came into play step by step. CONCLUSIONS For the first time in ophthalmology, to the authors' knowledge, photographs showing leglike appendages involved in the first phase of adhesion have been obtained. They also clearly visualize the slime layer containing the embedded bacteria. This study provides information about the nature and the genesis of these attachment processes. Adherence is known to be greater when the bacterial DNA contain the ica locus. Full knowledge of the pathogenesis of bacterial adhesion is necessary to gain a better understanding of IOL infection and endophthalmitis.
Growth and physiology of Azotobacter chroococcum in continuous culture.

SUMMARY: Azotobacter chroococcum (ncib 8003) organisms, grown in continuous culture without fixed nitrogen, had chemical compositions at various dilution rates characteristic of nitrogen-limited populations. Fast-growing variants were selected for at high dilution rates; the efficiency of nitrogen fixation decreased with decreasing growth rate. In suitable media, carbon- and phosphate-limited populations were obtained and showed different compositions; they were very sensitive to inhibition by oxygen. Carbon-limited populations utilizing NH4 under argon were not oxygen sensitive; they formed nitrogenase when they were N-limited. The chemical compositions of the various populations corresponded to theory for the nutritional state considered. Nitrogen fixation entrained a maintenance coefficient of 1 -06 g. substrate/g. organism/hr compared with about 0.40 for ammonia assimilation. Assuming most of this maintenance was directed to respiratory protection of nitrogenase, an extrapolated maximum requirement of 4 moles ATP/mole N2 fixed was observed. Attempts to repeat reports of (1) dependence of cytochrome pattern on nitrogen fixation and (2) increased efficiency of fixation with ultraviolet-irradiated N2 were not successful with the strain of A. chroococcum used.
Big Data As A Service For Monitoring Cyber-Physical Production Systems

The introduction of Internet of Services technologies is promoting manufacturing servitization of Cyber Physical Production Systems for the most important Manufacturing 4.0 capabilities, namely self-awareness, self-configuration and selfrepairing. In addition, industrial data are emerging as a new industrial asset, creating new opportunities for operations improvement, and increase industrial value through the capitalisation of immaterial assets. These recent research trends also raised several challenges and, among them, Big Data acquisition and storage. In this paper, we describe a Data as a Service approach, designed to deal with the Big Data environment. The service is able to manage data volume and velocity during the data collection phase, accumulating and summarizing measures from the machine fleet, and to proper organize them in order to serve advanced Manufacturing 4.0 facilities. Experiments on service performances demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed service.
Atmospheric Rivers as Drought Busters on the U.S. West Coast

AbstractAtmospheric rivers (ARs) have, in recent years, been recognized as the cause of the large majority of major floods in rivers all along the U.S. West Coast and as the source of 30%–50% of all precipitation in the same region. The present study surveys the frequency with which ARs have played a critical role as a common cause of the end of droughts on the West Coast. This question was based on the observation that, in most cases, droughts end abruptly as a result of the arrival of an especially wet month or, more exactly, a few very large storms. This observation is documented using both Palmer Drought Severity Index and 6-month Standardized Precipitation Index measures of drought occurrence for climate divisions across the conterminous United States from 1895 to 2010. When the individual storm sequences that contributed most to the wet months that broke historical West Coast droughts from 1950 to 2010 were evaluated, 33%–74% of droughts were broken by the arrival of landfalling AR storms. In the Pa.
A Simple Two-Component Model of the Electrically Evoked Compound Action Potential in the Human Cochlea

Neural response telemetry (NRT) permits in situ intracochlear recordings of the electrically evoked compound action potential from the auditory nerves using scala tympani electrodes. The recorded NRT waveforms can generally be categorized under either single positive peak or double positive peak waveforms. This is similar to the observations from Stypulkowski and van den Honert, who suggested that the double peak complex arises from two components that could be axonal and dendritic in origin, respectively. Using a simple mathematical model which linearly combines two separate waveforms similar in shape but differing in amplitude and latencies, it was possible to simulate the various NRT waveform categories. The simulation results support the view that the two waveform components originate from dendritic or axonal processes and implies that the shape of the response waveform may provide information about the degree of neural survival in the stimulated cochlea. This information could be useful for determining optimal speech coding parameters for cochlear implant users on an individual basis.
A Framework for Cluster Ensemble Based on a Max Metric as Cluster Evaluator

new criterion for clusters validation is proposed in the paper and based on the new cluster validation criterion a clustering ensemble framework is proposed. The main idea behind the framework is to extract the most stable clusters in terms of the defined criteria. To combine a set of partitions into one consensus partition, hierarchical clustering algorithms can be employed where first the EAC method is applied over the output partitions to convert them into a co-association matrix and then considering it as a new data space bring a consensus partition out of them. But in proposed method due to having a set of clusters instead of a set of partitions, to extract the best representative consensus partition out of the set of chosen clusters the EAC method cannot be employed, and then we turn to a new EAC based method which is called Extended EAC, EEAC. EEAC is applied to construct the co-association matrix from the subset of clusters. Finally employing a simple hierarchical clustering algorithm as final consensus function the final representative partition is produced. Employing this new cluster validation criterion, the obtained ensemble is evaluated on some well-known and standard data sets. The empirical studies show promising results for the ensemble obtained using the proposed criterion comparing with the ensemble obtained using the standard clusters validation criterion.
Oxytocin can decrease germ cells apoptotic index in testis under acute ischemia reperfusion in a rat model

Background: Ischemia reperfusion (IR) is the main pathology of torsion of testis and it is a common urologic emergency. There is some evidence that shows oxytocin (OT) plays role in ischemia reperfusion. Objective: To evaluate this hypothesis that OT can decrease germ cell apoptotic index in testis under acute ischemia reperfusion in a rat model. Materials and Methods: 20 adult rats were randomly divided into four groups: Control, IR, OT and IR+ OT (OTA). Testicular ischemia was achieved by 720° torsion of the left testis for 2 hr. Then, torsion was removed and reperfusion was performed. Immediately after induction of reperfusion 0.03 µg/kg OT were administered intraperitoneally to the IR+ OT. Three hours after surgery left testis was removed and evaluations were made by Johnson’s score, ELISA, immunohistochemistry and histomorphometry for study of maturity of spermatogenesis, endocrine profiles, apoptosis and quantitative studies, respectively. Results: The results showed in addition tissue edema and congestion, a significant reduced in Johnson’s score were detected in IR group in comparison with controls (p=0.01), and apoptotic index increased significantly (p=0.001). Administration of OT in OT+IR group, increased Johnson’s score but it was not statistically significant. Germinal epithelium thickness was increased significantly (p=0.03), although apoptotic index decreased significantly in comparison with the IR group (p=0.04). However there was not significant difference in serum levels of testosterone, FSH and LH in none of groups (p=0.07). Conclusion: These results suggested that OT can decrease apoptotic index and improves complication of acute ischemic reperfusion in testis in a rat model.
Block and Group Regularized Sparse Modeling for Dictionary Learning

This paper proposes a dictionary learning framework that combines the proposed block/group (BGSC) or reconstructed block/group (R-BGSC) sparse coding schemes with the novel Intra-block Coherence Suppression Dictionary Learning algorithm. An important and distinguishing feature of the proposed framework is that all dictionary blocks are trained simultaneously with respect to each data group while the intra-block coherence being explicitly minimized as an important objective. We provide both empirical evidence and heuristic support for this feature that can be considered as a direct consequence of incorporating both the group structure for the input data and the block structure for the dictionary in the learning process. The optimization problems for both the dictionary learning and sparse coding can be solved efficiently using block-gradient descent, and the details of the optimization algorithms are presented. We evaluate the proposed methods using well-known datasets, and favorable comparisons with state-of-the-art dictionary learning methods demonstrate the viability and validity of the proposed framework.
Modeling Environment for Numerical Simulation of Applied Electric Fields on Biological Cells

The application of electric pulses in cells increases membrane permeability. This phenomenon is called electroporation. Current electroporation models do not explain all experimental findings: part of this problem is due to the limitations of numerical methods. The Equivalent Circuit Method (ECM) was developed in an attempt to solve electromagnetic problems in inhomogeneous and anisotropic media. ECM is based on modeling of the electrical transport properties of the medium by lumped circuit elements as capacitance, conductance, and current sources, representing the displacement, drift, and diffusion current, respectively. The purpose of the present study was to implement a 2-D cell Model Development Environment (MDE) of ionic transport process, local anisotropy around cell membranes, biological interfaces, and the dispersive behaviour of tissues. We present simulations of a single cell, skeletal muscle, and polygonal cell arrangement. Simulation of polygonal form indicates that the potential distribution depends on the geometrical form of cell. The results demonstrate the importance of the potential distributions in biological cells to provide strong evidences for the understanding of electroporation.
Cerebrospinal Fluid Findings in Neurological Diseases Associated with Sjögren's Syndrome

Background: Sjögren's syndrome is a chronic autoimmune-mediated disease that can cause a variety of neurological manifestations. Methods: This study investigated characteristics of clinical and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) features in patients with neurological diseases associated with Sjögren's syndrome. Eighty-two patients were examined separately according to the presence of Sjögren's syndrome alone or in combination with other autoimmune diseases. Results: In the 47 patients with primary Sjögren's syndrome, peripheral neuropathy (57%) was found most frequently, followed by the involvement of the central nervous system (CNS; 17%), cranial neuropathy (15%), and myalgia (11%). These patients did not display consistent signs of inflammation in the CSF. Slight pleocytosis of 8-107 cells/µL was found in patients with peripheral neuropathy (9%), cranial neuropathy (20%), and CNS involvement (25%). Oligoclonal bands indicating intrathecal IgG synthesis occurred in 26% of patients with peripheral neuropathy, 20% of patients with cranial neuropathy, and 25% of patients with CNS involvement. Conclusions: In patients with Sjögren's syndrome and neurological manifestations, inflammatory CSF changes were rarely found and did not show a characteristic pattern irrespective of peripheral or central genesis of neurological deficits. Analysis of the CSF presents therefore an important diagnostic procedure to exclude other autoimmune and infectious diseases.
An Efficient Ray Tracing Algorithm for Multiple Straight Wedge Diffraction

We present an efficient algorithm for the tracing of multiply edge diffracted rays. The algorithm assumes a given sequence of infinite edges and complete visibility among them. The ray tracing problem is formulated as the minimization of the ray total path length. Since such a cost function is strictly convex, except for coplanar edges in the plane-wave far-field regime, then the problem admits a unique global minimum and allows the use of a modified Newton search algorithm, which exhibits a very high converging rate. We also propose a convenient starting point to effectively initialize the minimization algorithm. The proposed algorithm is tested by some numerical examples that show its efficiency and effectiveness.
Diagnostic grammar and assessment: translating criteria into questions

Synopsis There has been concern about whether standardized psychiatric interviews make valid diagnoses. Agreements between the Diagnostic Interview Schedule (DIS), as an example of a standardized interview, with independent assessments by a clinician are reasonably high in most studies, but the clinical assessment is itself of uncertain validity. Using predictive ability is an alternative way of judging validity. Data are presented to show that the DIS is almost as good at prediction as a clinician's assessment, but here too there are problems. Because prediction is probabilistic (i.e. the same disorder can have multiple outcomes, and different disorders can share outcomes), it is not possible to say how good prediction has to be to demonstrate perfect validity. Across varied methods of validity assessment, some disorders are regularly found more validly diagnosed than others, suggesting that part of the source of invalidity lies in the diagnostic grammar of the systems whose criteria standardized interviews evaluate. Sources of invalidity inherent in the content and structure of a variety of diagnoses in DSM-III and its heir, DSM-III-R, are reviewed and illustrated, in part with results from the Epidemiological Catchment Area study. The relationship between diagnostic criteria and standardized interviews is symbiotic. While attempts to adhere closely to existing diagnostic criteria contribute to the diagnostic accuracy of standardized interviews, the exercise of translating official diagnostic criteria into standardized questions highlights problems in the system's diagnostic grammar, enabling standardized interviews to contribute to improvements in diagnostic nosology.
Solitons in Bragg gratings with saturable nonlinearities

We introduce two different systems of coupled-mode equations to describe the interaction of two waves coupled by the Bragg reflection in the presence of saturable nonlinearity. The basic model assumes the ordinary linear coupling between the modes. It may be realized as a photorefractive waveguide, with a Bragg lattice permanently written in its cladding. We demonstrate the presence of a cutoff point in the system's bandgap, with gap solitons existing only on one side of it. Close to this point, the soliton's norm diverges with power −3/2. The soliton family between the cutoff point and the edge of the bandgap is stable. In this model, stationary bound states of two in-phase solitons are found too, but they are unstable, transforming themselves into breathers. Another model assumes a photoinduced longitudinal bulk grating, with the corresponding intermode coupling subject to saturation along with the nonlinearity. In that model, another cutoff point is found, with the soliton's norm diverging near it with power −2. Solitons are stable in this model too (while it does not give rise to two-soliton bound states). Collisions between moving solitons are always quasi-elastic, in either model.
Vitamin C is taken up by human T cells via sodium-dependent vitamin C transporter 2 (SVCT2) and exerts inhibitory effects on the activation of these cells in vitro

Vitamin C is an essential micronutrient that affects immune responses. T cells are one of the main players in acquired immunity and have been reported to be influenced by in vivo vitamin C supplementation. Yet, the way by which T cells uptake vitamin C and what direct effects vitamin C exerts on the cells are not known. To elucidate, we isolated human peripheral blood T cells and analyzed the expression of sodium-dependent vitamin C transporters (SVCT). T cells were activated in vitro in the absence or presence of vitamin C, before or after activation. As results, human T cells expressed SVCT2, but not SVCT1, and the expression level increased following activation. Vitamin C added in the culture media generally did not affect T-cell behaviors following activation, such as proliferation, apoptosis, expression of CD25 and CD69, and interleukin 2 secretion, regardless whether it was added before or after activation. However, exceptionally, high concentration vitamin C, when it was added before activation, but not after activation, did exert toxic effects on cell activation with respect to the above-mentioned parameters. In conclusion, we showed the expression of SVCT2 in human T cells for the first time. Vitamin C exerted toxic effects, at least in vitro, when the concentration was high and when it was given before activation. These toxic effects are not thought to be via anti-oxidant effects of vitamin C.
Improving Practical Sensitivity of Energy Optimized Wake-Up Receivers: Proof of Concept in 65-nm CMOS

We present a high-performance low-power digital baseband architecture, specially designed for an energy optimized duty-cycled wake-up receiver scheme. Based on a careful wake-up beacon design, a structured wake-up beacon detection technique leads to an architecture that compensates for the implementation loss of a low-power wake-up receiver front-end at low energy and area costs. Design parameters are selected by energy optimization and the architecture is easily scalable to support various network sizes. Fabricated in 65-nm CMOS, the digital baseband consumes 0.9 μW (VDD = 0.37 V) in sub-threshold operation at 250 kbps, with appropriate 97% wake-up beacon detection and 0.04% false alarm probabilities. The circuit is fully functional at a minimum VDD of 0.23 V at fmax = 5 kHz and 0.018 μW power consumption. Based on these results, we show that our digital baseband can be used as a companion to compensate for front-end implementation losses resulting from the limited wake-up receiver power budget at a negligible cost. This implies an improvement of the practical sensitivity of the wake-up receiver, compared with what is traditionally reported.