Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Recent Advances and Applications of Pulsed Electric Fields (PEF) to Improve Polyphenol Extraction and Color Release during Red Winemaking

Pulsed electric fields (PEF) technology is an innovative food processing system and it has been introduced in relatively recent times as a pre-treatment of liquid and semi-solid food. Low cost-equipment and short processing time, coupled to the effectiveness in assisting the extraction of valuable compounds from vegetable tissues, makes PEF a challenging solution for the industrial red winemaking; a tailored PEF-assisted maceration was demonstrated to promote an increase in wine color quality and an improvement in the polyphenolic profile. Despite the application of PEF has been studied and the positive effects in selected wine varieties were demonstrated on batch and pilot-scale systems, there is a need for a more detailed characterization of the impact in different grapes, and for a better understanding of potential undesirable side-effects. This review aims to summarize the state of the art in view of a detailed feasibility study, to promote the introduction of PEF technology in the oenological industry.
TERT gene harbors multiple variants associated with pancreatic cancer susceptibility

A small number of common susceptibility loci have been identified for pancreatic cancer, one of which is marked by rs401681 in the TERT–CLPTM1L gene region on chromosome 5p15.33. Because this region is characterized by low linkage disequilibrium, we sought to identify whether additional single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) could be related to pancreatic cancer risk, independently of rs401681. We performed an in‐depth analysis of genetic variability of the telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) and the telomerase RNA component (TERC) genes, in 5,550 subjects with pancreatic cancer and 7,585 controls from the PANcreatic Disease ReseArch (PANDoRA) and the PanScan consortia. We identified a significant association between a variant in TERT and pancreatic cancer risk (rs2853677, odds ratio = 0.85; 95% confidence interval = 0.80–0.90, p = 8.3 × 10−8). Additional analysis adjusting rs2853677 for rs401681 indicated that the two SNPs are independently associated with pancreatic cancer risk, as suggested by the low linkage disequilibrium between them (r2 = 0.07, D′ = 0.28). Three additional SNPs in TERT reached statistical significance after correction for multiple testing: rs2736100 (p = 3.0 × 10−5), rs4583925 (p = 4.0 × 10−5) and rs2735948 (p = 5.0 × 10−5). In conclusion, we confirmed that the TERT locus is associated with pancreatic cancer risk, possibly through several independent variants.
VALVULAR AND STRUCTURAL HEART DISEASES Original Studies Trans-Subclavian Versus Transapical Access for Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation: A Multicenter Study

Objectives: To compare the outcomes of trans-subclavian (TS) and transapical (TA) access for transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI). Background: A considerable proportion of patients undergoing TAVI are not eligible for transfemoral approach. To date, there are few data to guide the choice between alternative vascular access routes. Methods: Among 874 consecutive patients who underwent TAVI, 202 procedures were performed through TA (n = 142, 70.3%) or TS (n = 60, 29.7%) access. Medtronic Corevalve (CV, Medtronic, Minneapolis, MN) was implanted in 17.3% of the patients, the EdwardsSapien (ES, Edwards Lifesciences Inc., Irvine, CA) in 81.2% and other prostheses in 0.1%. In-hospital and long-term outcome were assessed using the Valve Academic Research Consortium (VARC)-2 definitions. Results: Mean age was 82 6 6 years, STS score 9.3 6 7.9%. The 2 groups showed a relevant imbalance in baseline characteristics. In hospital mortality was 6.4% (1.7% TS vs. 8.4% TA, P = 0.06), stroke 2.0%, acute myocardial infarction 1.0%, acute kidney injury 39.4%, sepsis 4.0% with no significant differences between groups, while bleeding was more frequent in TA patients (53.5% vs. 11.7% TS, P < 0.001). Oneand 2-year survival was 85.2% and 73.2% in TS patients, and 83.9% and 74.9% in TA patients (P = ns for both). Access site was not an independent predictor of mortality at multivariable analysis. Conclusion: Transapical compared with transsubclavian access for TAVI was associated with a nonsignificant trend to increased periprocedural events. However, 1and 2-year survival appears similar. VC 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Strict intersection types for the Lambda Calculus

This article will show the usefulness and elegance of strict intersection types for the Lambda Calculus, that are strict in the sense that they are the representatives of equivalence classes of types in the BCD-system [Barendregt et al. 1983]. We will focus on the essential intersection type assignment; this system is almost syntax directed, and we will show that all major properties hold that are known to hold for other intersection systems, like the approximation theorem, the characterization of (head/strong) normalization, completeness of type assignment using filter semantics, strong normalization for cut-elimination and the principal pair property. In part, the proofs for these properties are new; we will briefly compare the essential system with other existing systems.
A Model-Driven Approach to Enable Adaptive QoS in DDS-Based Middleware

Critical and distributed systems need to be reliable and comply with the required performance at run-time. In this vein, data distribution service for real-time systems (DDS) provides developers with highly configurable middleware to control the end-to-end quality of service (QoS) of the applications through a wide range of attributes. However, dynamic and unpredictable environment pose a major challenge to these systems as their workload and resources may fluctuate significantly in time depending on the execution context. Developers usually find it difficult to choose and apply the right DDS QoS attributes, as once selected, they remain fixed during the whole execution of the system. They do not automatically change according to the execution context, e.g., to meet nonfunctional requirements related to performance or resource consumption. Moreover, changing the QoS attributes at run-time may lead to incompatibilities, since the configuration used by the different participants needs to be mutually consistent. In this paper, we propose a model-driven approach that enables the safe, automatic, and transparent adaptation of the QoS attributes in DDS-based middleware, providing the best performance possible within the available resources at run-time. An example in robotics is presented to demonstrate the feasibility and the benefits of our proposal.
Aortic stiffness and myocardial ischemia.

All too often, myocardial ischemia is considered synonymous with coronary artery disease, as if coronary atherosclerotic phenomena were the only responsible mechanism for myocardial ischemia. On the contrary, a more correct approach to ischemic heart disease would need to consider all the factors potentially responsible for an ischemic myocardial injury, besides atherosclerotic coronary stenosis. Among them, we should consider myocardial oxygen needs, myocardial (subendocardial) flow supply, and the arterial oxygen content. In order to better understand the link between arterial stiffness and myocardial ischemia, it is, thus, necessary to consider ischemic heart disease through a very broad perspective, namely, as the complex balance between subendocardial oxygen supply and demand.
Endometrial Intracrinology--generation of an estrogen-dominated microenvironment in the secretory phase of women.

CONTEXT The human endometrium is a complex multicellular tissue subject to cyclical fluctuations in ovarian-derived steroid hormones. Fertile cycles are characterized by differentiation (decidualization) of endometrial stromal cells (ESC). OBJECTIVE To determine the impact of human stromal cell decidualization on biosynthesis and secretion of estrogens. DESIGN Primary cell culture was used. Cells were decidualized in vitro. Some cultures were treated with an aromatase inhibitor. SETTING A University Research Institute. PATIENTS Primary ESC were derived from women with normal menstrual cycles (n = 12). None of the women were receiving hormonal therapy or suffering from endometriosis. MAIN OUTCOME MEASUREMENTS Expression of mRNA and protein encoded by the aromatase (CYP19A1) and 3-β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (HSD3B1) genes was assessed. Aromatase activity was measured using a tritiated water assay; steroid metabolism was determined using thin layer chromatography. Estrone (E1) and estradiol (E2) in cell culture media were measured by ELISA. RESULTS Decidualization induced a two-fold increase in aromatase mRNA. Aromatase protein was only detected in decidualized ESC. 3-β-Hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase protein was present in ESC both before and after decidualization; concentrations appeared unchanged. The existence of functional aromatase in decidualized ESC was confirmed; E1 and E2 were secreted into culture media in decidualized ESC and concentrations were reduced when cells were incubated with an aromatase inhibitor. Decidualization resulted in reduced metabolism of E2 and an increase in the ratio of E2:E1. CONCLUSIONS Decidualization is characterized by an increase in aromatase expression/activity favoring the generation of an E2-dominated estrogen microenvironment within the endometrial stroma.
Autotransplantation of culture-positive islet product: is dirty always bad?

BACKGROUND In selected patients, total pancreatectomy with islet autotransplantation (TPIAT) effectively relieves pain caused by chronic pancreatitis and ameliorates the brittle diabetes of the apancreatic state. Patients often undergo multiple endoscopic and surgical interventions prior to TPIAT, increasing the risk for pancreas colonization with enteric microorganisms. Little is known of the safety of transplanting islet cells with microbial contamination. METHODS A prospectively collected database of 80 patients submitted to TPIAT at the Medical University of South Carolina from March 2009 to February 2012 was retrospectively reviewed. Patient charts were reviewed for postoperative infectious complications and organisms identified were compared with those identified in pre-transplant islet cultures. RESULTS A total of 35 patients (43.8%) had a positive pre-transplant islet cell Gram stain or islet cell culture from the final islet preparation solution. Of these 35 patients, 33 (94.3%) were given antibiotics prophylactically post-transplant for a positive islet Gram stain or culture. Twenty patients (57.1%) receiving Gram stain- or culture-positive islets developed postoperative infectious complications, but only four patients (11.4%) developed infections that concorded with their pre-transplant islet product. CONCLUSIONS Islet transplant solutions are frequently culture-positive, presumably as a result of prior pancreas intervention. Microbial contamination of islet preparations should not preclude autotransplantation.
Placebo response in depression

With its naturally fluctuating course, depression is a highly placebo-responsive condition: mean placebo response rates in antidepressant clinical trials are 30% to 40%. We review the history and terminology of placebo and the proposed mechanisms underlying the placebo response, including the physician-patient relationship and biological, sociocultural, and treatment situation factors. We identify the predictors and patterns of placebo response in depressed patients, both within and outside of the clinical trial context, and differentiate between true drug response and placebo pattern response. We discuss the strategies now being advanced to minimize the placebo response given the increased placebo drift reported in recent trials, and the ethical guidelines governing placebo administration. Potential areas for future research include the identification of biological markers of placebo response, such as functional neuroimaging and quantitative electroencephalography, the development and testing of more sophisticated, alternative research designs, and the design of valid biological tools to assess antidepressant efficacy.
Low-complexity joint channel estimation and decoding for pilot symbol-assisted modulation and multiple differential detection systems with correlated Rayleigh fading

Joint channel estimation and decoding in a time-varying Rayleigh fading channel is considered. Knowing that the optimal solution or even the truncated near-optimal solution using iterative processing has an exponential complexity which hinders the practicability, a reduced complexity approach is proposed. This approach keeps the existing channel estimation and decoding schemes almost intact, while applying iterative processing to effectively exchange information between them. Thus, the complexity is rendered linear, and estimator adaptability can be easily established. We apply this approach to pilot symbol-assisted modulation (PSAM) and differentially modulated systems. It turns out that the performance is improved and the robustness to fading parameters is enhanced. Through simulations, we also show that the proposed method performs almost as well as the near-optimal design.
Experiments with explicit for-loops in genetic programming

Evolving programs with explicit loops presents major difficulties, primarily due to the massive increase in the size of the search space. Fitness evaluation becomes computationally expensive and a method for dealing with infinite loops must be implemented. We have investigated ways of dealing with these problems by the evolution of for-loops of increasing semantic complexity. We have chosen two problems - a modified Santa Fe ant problem and a sorting problem - which have natural looping constructs in their solution and a solution without loops is not possible unless the tree depth is very large. We have shown that by controlling the complexity of the loop structures it is possible to evolve smaller and more understandable programs for these problems.
Simultaneous Estimation of Esomeprazole and Domperidone by UV Spectrophotometric Method

A novel, simple, sensitive and rapid spectrophotometric method has been developed for simultaneous estimation of esomeprazole and domperidone. The method involved solving simultaneous equations based on measurement of absorbance at two wavelengths, 301 nm and 284 nm, λ max of esomeprazole and domperidone respectively. Beer's law was obeyed in the concentration range of 5-20 μg/ml and 8-30 μg/ml for esomeprazole and domperidone respectively. The method was found to be precise, accurate, and specific. The proposed method was successfully applied to estimation of esomeprazole and domperidone in combined solid dosage form.
Width-Partitioned Load Value Predictors

Value prediction has been proposed for breaking data-dependencies and increasing instruction level parallelism. One of the drawbacks of many of the proposed techniques is that the value predictors require very large hardware structures which use up many transistors and can consume a large amount of energy. In this study, we use data-widths to partition the value prediction structures into multiple smaller structures, and then use data-width prediction to select from these tables. A width-partitioned value predictor requires less space because small bit-width values get allocated to smaller storage locations instead of using a full 64 bits. The total energy consumption of the predictor is also reduced because only a single smaller predictor table needs to be accessed. Width-partitioning provides a 25.7-46.5% reduction in energy consumption for last value predictors and finite context matching (FCM) predictors. For FCM predictors, width partitioning allows the total size of the second-level tables to be reduced by 75% while still maintaining the same prediction rates of a conventional FCM predictor. Our performance studies indicate that width partitioning does not degrade the geometric mean IPC on the SPEC2000 integer benchmarks, thus showing that width partitioning is an effective technique to reduce the size and energy requirements of value predictors.
Single camera pointing gesture recognition using spatial features and support vector machines

In this paper, a method for recognizing pointing gestures without markers is proposed. The video-based system uses one camera, which observes the user in front of a screen and identifies the points pointed by him on this screen, his arm being in the fully extended position towards the screen. A GVF-snake was used in order to find the silhouette of the user. From the silhouette features like position where the person is standing, the position of the fingertip, and the position of the shoulder are extracted, tracked and used to construct a feature vector for each video frame. This vector is fed to properly trained multi-class support vector machines (SVM) in order to obtain the 2D position of the target point on the screen. Two different camera setups with different feature vector configurations are proposed and tested. Experiments show very promising results for recognizing the pointing gestures by using a single camera.
New therapies for inflammatory bowel disease: from the bench to the bedside

The mechanisms underlying the chronic intestinal inflammation that is a hallmark of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) are complex. Components of the pathological response include the adaptive and innate immune systems, as well as the intestinal epithelium and endothelium. Advances in the understanding of the roles of each of these components have resulted in the development of multiple biological agents that all represent an alternative to the use of current therapies in patients with refractory Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis. This study systematically reviews the mechanisms of action, efficacy and safety of new and emerging therapies that are currently in clinical trials and discusses future directions in the treatment of IBD.
In vitro erythrocyte membrane stabilization properties of Carica papaya L. leaf extracts

Background: Carica papaya L. fruit juice and leaf extracts are known to have many beneficial medical properties. Recent reports have claimed possible beneficial effects of C. papaya L. leaf juice in treating patients with dengue viral infections. This study aims to evaluate the membrane stabilization potential of C. papaya L. leaf extracts using an in vitro hemolytic assay. Materials and Methods: The study was conducted in between June and August 2010. Two milliliters of blood from healthy volunteers and patients with serologically confirmed current dengue infection were freshly collected and used in the assays. Fresh papaya leaves at three different maturity stages (immature, partly matured, and matured) were cleaned with distilled water, crushed, and the juice was extracted with 10 ml of cold distilled water. Freshly prepared cold water extracts of papaya leaves (1 ml containing 30 μl of papaya leaf extracts, 20 μl from 40% erythrocytes suspension, and 950 μl of phosphate buffered saline) were used in the heat-induced and hypotonic-induced hemolytic assays. In dose response experiments, six different concentrations (9.375, 18.75, 37.5, 75, 150, and 300 μg/ml) of freeze dried extracts of the partly matured leaves were used. Membrane stabilization properties were investigated with heat-induced and hypotonicity-induced hemolysis assays. Results: Extracts of papaya leaves of all three maturity levels showed a significant reduction in heat-induced hemolysis compared to controls (P < 0.05). Papaya leaf extracts of all three maturity levels showed more than 25% inhibition at a concentration of 37.5 μg/ml. The highest inhibition of heat-induced hemolysis was observed at 37.5 μg/ml. Inhibition activity of different maturity levels was not significantly (P < 0.05) different from one another. Heat-induced hemolysis inhibition activity did not demonstrate a linear dose response relationship. At 37.5 μg/ml concentration of the extract, a marked inhibition of hypotonicity-induced hemolysis was observed. Conclusion: C. papaya L. leaf extracts showed a significant inhibition of hemolysis in vitro and could have a potential therapeutic effect on disease processes causing destabilization of biological membranes.
Current concepts and novel targets in advanced pancreatic cancer

Pancreatic cancer remains one of the most aggressive tumours with a 5-year survival rate of less than 5%. The dismal prognosis of this tumour entity that is associated with a high degree of drug resistance has not changed over the past decades. Since 1997, gemcitabine-based regimens have been the therapy of choice for advanced pancreatic cancer. Recently, however, new combination chemotherapy regimens achieved a significant survival benefit compared to gemcitabine-based therapies. In addition, novel approaches to improve drug delivery are currently being developed, and new drugs targeting signalling pathways both within the tumour cells and the tumour microenvironment are undergoing preclinical and clinical validation. Furthermore, efforts are being made to identify predictive markers for individualised treatment approaches based on molecular tumour characteristics. This review provides an overview on current and emerging concepts as well as novel targets for systemic treatment of advanced pancreatic cancer. Combination therapies incorporating drugs directed against these new targets may open new avenues for improving the efficacy of current treatment approaches and overcoming the devastating prognosis of pancreatic cancer patients.
Optimality and Rate-Compatibility for Erasure-Coded Packet Transmissions when Fading Channel Diversity Increases with Packet Length

A message composed of packets is transmitted using erasure and channel coding over a fading channel with no feedback. For this scenario, the paper explores the trade-off between the redundancies allocated to the packet-level erasure code and the channel code, along with an objective of a low probability of failure to recover the message. To this end, we consider a fading model that we term proportional-diversity block fading (PD block fading). For a fixed overall code rate and transmit power, we formulate an optimization problem to numerically find the optimal channel-coding rate (and thus the optimal erasure-coding rate) that minimizes the probability of failure for various approximations of the problem. Furthermore, an interpretation of the results from an incremental redundancy point of view shows how rate-compatibility affects the possible trajectories of the failure probability as a function of the overall code rate. Our numerical results suggest that an optimal, rateless, hybrid coding scheme for a single-user wireless system over the PD block-fading channel should have the rate of the erasure code approach one.