Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Botulinum Toxin Injection in Epicardial Autonomic Ganglia Temporarily Suppresses Vagally Mediated Atrial Fibrillation

Background— Autonomic denervation may suppress atrial fibrillation (AF) vulnerability. This study was designed to assess the short- to mid-term effects of botulinum toxin, a cholinergic neurotransmission blocker, on AF inducibility. Methods and Results— A total of 23 mongrel dogs were studied. The sinus node and atrioventricular node epicardial fat pads were exposed through a right lateral thoracotomy. Botulinum toxin (Botox, 50 U per fat pad) or 0.9% normal saline (control) was injected into the center of each of the 2 fat pads. The electrophysiological effects were evaluated at 1, 2, and 3 weeks (7 to 8 animals at each time point) with and without cervical vagal stimulation. The vagal stimulation effects on the sinus and atrioventricular nodes were inhibited, and dispersion of atrial effective refractory period was lower at 1 week in the Botox group. Significant suppression of AF inducibility was observed at 1 week but disappeared at 2 and 3 weeks. These changes were not observed in the control group. Conclusions— Temporary suppression of vagally mediated AF, for at least 1 week, was achieved with botulinum toxin injection in this canine model. This effect might be associated with reduced dispersion of effective refractory period. A temporary autonomic block using botulinum toxin might be a novel therapeutic option for several clinical conditions such as post–cardiac surgery AF.
Time‐Variable Transit Time Distributions in the Hyporheic Zone of a Headwater Mountain Stream

Exchange of water between streams and their hyporheic zones is known to be dynamic in response to hydrologic forcing, variable in space, and to exist in a framework with nested flow cells. The expected result of heterogeneous geomorphic setting, hydrologic forcing, and between‐feature interaction is hyporheic transit times that are highly variable in both space and time. Transit time distributions (TTDs) are important as they reflect the potential for hyporheic processes to impact biogeochemical transformations and ecosystems. In this study we simulate time‐variable transit time distributions based on dynamic vertical exchange in a headwater mountain stream with observed, heterogeneous step‐pool morphology. Our simulations include hyporheic exchange over a 600 m river corridor reach driven by continuously observed, time‐variable hydrologic conditions for more than 1 year. We found that spatial variability at an instance in time is typically larger than temporal variation for the reach. Furthermore, we found reach‐scale TTDs were marginally variable under all but the most extreme hydrologic conditions, indicating that TTDs are highly transferable in time. Finally, we found that aggregation of annual variation in space and time into a “master TTD” reasonably represents most of the hydrologic dynamics simulated, suggesting that this aggregation approach may provide a relevant basis for scaling from features or short reaches to entire networks.
Performance of asynchronous channel assignment scheme in non-uniform and dynamic topology WLANs

Dense deployments of wireless local area networks (WLANs) are fast becoming a permanent feature of all developed cities around the world. While this increases capacity and coverage, the problem of increased interference, which is exacerbated by the limited number of channels available, can severely degrade the performance of WLANs if an effective channel assignment scheme is not employed. In an earlier work, an asynchronous, distributed and dynamic channel assignment scheme has been proposed that (1) is simple to implement, (2) does not require any knowledge of the throughput function, and (3) allows asynchronous channel switching by each access point (AP). In this paper, we present extensive performance evaluation of this scheme when it is deployed in the more practical non-uniform and dynamic topology scenarios. Specifically, we investigate its effectiveness (1) when APs are deployed in a nonuniform fashion resulting in some APs suffering from higher levels of interference than others and (2) when APs are effectively switched ‘on/off’ due to the availability/lack of traffic at different times, which creates a dynamically changing network topology. Simulation results based on actual WLAN topologies show that robust performance gains over other channel assignment schemes can still be achieved even in these realistic scenarios.
Aspartate Aminotransferase Level as a Prognostic Marker in Acute Zinc Phosphide Poisoning

Aim: To identify whether hepatic enzyme levels can be used as a clinical predictor for mortality in patients presenting with acute zinc phosphide poisoning. Materials and Methods: A retrospective analysis of all acute zinc phosphide poisoning cases that had presented to our emergency medicine department within the past 5 years was performed. Statistical significance of the hepatic enzyme value to the outcome of poisoning was investigated. Results: The average age of the cases was 23.6 years. Overall, 53.3% were females, and 35.5% of the total cases were married. A total of 75% patients developed bleeding manifestations and 53.3% had encephalopathy during the course. Overall, 64.4% patients had hypotension and required inotropic support. Renal failure was seen in 48.8% cases. Within 72 h, 60% cases had high anion gap non-compensated metabolic acidosis. An AST cut-off value of 1061 units/L was identified using an ROC curve, and its association to outcome was calculated and was shown to be significant (p=0.001). The mean ALT level for outcome was calculated and was found to be significant (p=0.001). The mean ALT value at mortality was 982.19±85.2 units/L. Conclusion: Absence of an antidote and rapid onset of MODS causes high mortality rate in acute zinc phosphide poisoning. From our study, we can suggest that in patients with hepatic involvement due to acute zinc phosphide poisoning, an AST value greater than 1061 units/L on the fifth day post-ingestion of the compound is an independent predictor for mortality. (Eurasian J Emerg Med 2016; 15: 39-43)
Responsiveness and consistency tradeoffs in interactive groupware

Interactive (or Synchronous) groupware is increasingly be ing deployed in widely distributed environments. Users of such applications are accustomed to direct manipulation in terfaces that require fast response time. The state that enables interaction among distributed users can be replicate d to provide acceptable response time in the presence of high communication latencies. We describe and evaluate design choices for protocols that maintain consistency of such sta te. In particular, we develop workloads which model user actions, identify the metrics important from a user's viewpoi nt, and do detailed simulations of a number of protocols to evaluate how effective they are in meeting user requirements.
A simple and rapid high‐performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method for 5‐fluorouracil (5‐FU) assay in plasma and possible detection of patients with impaired dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase (DPD) activity

Background: Dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase (DPD) gene polymorphism may lead to severe toxicity with 5‐fluorouracil (5‐FU), a major anticancer drug extensively used in clinical oncology. Drug monitoring combined with early detection of patients at risk would enable timely dose adaptation so as to maintain drug concentrations within a therapeutic window. However, the best method to identify such patients remains to be determined.
Elevated Soluble CD163 in Gestational Diabetes Mellitus: Secretion from Human Placenta and Adipose Tissue

Recently soluble CD163 (sCD163), a cleaved form of the macrophage receptor CD163, was identified as a macrophage-specific risk-predictor for developing Type 2 Diabetes. Here, we investigate circulating levels of sCD163 in gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). Furthermore, given the role of the placenta in the pathogenesis of GDM, we assessed placental contribution to sCD163 secretion. Paired maternal (venous) and umbilical vein blood samples from GDM (n = 18) and Body Mass Index (BMI) matched control women (n = 20) delivered by caesarean section at 39–40 week gestation were assessed for circulating levels of sCD163, Tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) and Interleukin 6 (IL-6). Media from explant culture of maternal subcutaneous fat and corresponding placental tissues were assayed for these same molecules. CD163 positive cell numbers were determined in placental and adipose tissues of GDM and control women. We found significantly elevated circulating sCD163 levels in GDM mothers (688.4±46.9 ng/ml vs. 505.6±38.6 ng/ml) and their offspring (418.2±26.6 ng/ml vs. 336.3±24.4 ng/ml [p<0.05 for both]) as compared to controls, together with elevated circulating TNF-α and IL-6 levels. Moreover, both GDM placentae (268.1±10.8 ng/ml/mg vs. 187.6±20.6 ng/ml/mg) and adipose explants (41.1±2.7 ng/ml/mg vs. 26.6±2.4 ng/ml/mg) released significantly more sCD163 than controls. Lastly, significantly more CD163 positive cells were observed in GDM placentae (25.7±1.1 vs. 22.1±1.2) and adipose tissue (19.1±1.1 vs 12.7±0.9) compared to controls. We describe elevated sCD163 levels in GDM and identify human placenta as a novel source of sCD163 suggesting that placental tissues might contribute to the increased levels of circulating sCD163 in GDM pregnancies.
EFFECTS OF DIFFERENT ANIMAL MANURES ON YIELD QUALITY AND NUTRIENT UPTAKE BY MUSTARD CV. AGRANI

A pot experiment was carried out at the researcher’s net house of Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh from November 2003 to February 2004 to find out the effects of different animal manure on yield, quality and nutrient uptake by mustard cv. Agrani. The experiment comprised of two levels of cage system poultry manure, deep litter system poultry manure, cow dung and bio-gas slurry viz. 10 and 20 ton ha -1 , one control and one chemical fertilizer @ recommended dose. Cage system poultry manure @ 20 ton ha -1 significantly increased the seed and straw yield of mustard and cow dung showed lower performance. In straw and seed the highest uptake of N, P, K, Ca, Mg and S was obtained from cage system poultry manure @ 20 ton ha -1 . Protein and oil content was also found higher in this treatment. Seed yield was found to be significantly and positively correlated with branch and effective pod per plant. Protein and oil contents of mustard seeds were increased with increasing level of animal manures though their effects were not significant. A positive and significant correlation was observed between protein and oil contents of mustard cv. Agrani. The overall results suggest that cage system poultry manure @ 20 ton ha -1 gave best performance among the parameters studied.
Movement Segmentation and Recognition for Imitation Learning

In human movement learning, it is most common to teach constituent elements of complex movements in isolation, before chaining them into complex movements. Segmentation and recognition of observed movement could thus proceed out of this existing knowledge, which is directly compatible with movement generation. In this paper, we address exactly this scenario. We assume that a library of movement primitives has already been taught, and we wish to identify elements of the library in a complex motor act, where the individual elements have been smoothed together, and, occasionally, there might be a movement segment that is not in our library yet. We employ a flexible machine learning representation of movement primitives based on learnable nonlinear attractor system. For the purpose of movement segmentation and recognition, it is possible to reformulate this representation as a controlled linear dynamical system. An Expectation-Maximization algorithm can be developed to estimate the open parameters of a movement primitive from the library, using as input an observed trajectory piece. If no matching primitive from the library can be found, a new primitive is created. This process allows a straightforward sequential segmentation of observed movement into known and new primitives, which are suitable for robot imitation learning. We illustrate our approach with synthetic examples and data collected from human movement.
OLTP in wonderland: where do cache misses come from in major OLTP components?

For several decades, online transaction processing has been one of the main applications that drives innovations in the data management ecosystem, and in turn the database and computer architecture communities. Despite the novel approaches from industry and various research proposals from academia, recent studies emphasize that OLTP workloads still cannot exploit the full capability of modern processors. To better integrate OLTP and hardware in future systems, we perform a detailed analysis of instruction and data misses, the main causes of memory stalls. We demonstrate which operations and components of a typical storage manager cause the majority of different types of misses in each level of the memory hierarchy on a configuration that closely represents modern commodity hardware. We also observe the impact of data working set size on these misses. According to our experimental results, L1 instruction misses are an extensive cause of the overall stall time for OLTP even for data working set sizes as large as 100GB as long as the data fits in memory. Capacity misses coming from the index probe operation are the dominant cause of the instruction and data stalls when running typical OLTP workloads. During index probe (one of the most common operations in OLTP), the B-tree, lock, and buffer management components of a storage manager are responsible for more than half of the total misses.
Whole Blood Gene Expression Profiling in Preclinical and Clinical Cattle Infected with Atypical Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy

Prion diseases, such as bovine spongiform encephalopathies (BSE), are transmissible neurodegenerative disorders affecting humans and a wide variety of mammals. Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), a prion disease in humans, has been linked to exposure to BSE prions. This classical BSE (cBSE) is now rapidly disappearing as a result of appropriate measures to control animal feeding. Besides cBSE, two atypical forms (named H- and L-type BSE) have recently been described in Europe, Japan, and North America. Here we describe the first wide-spectrum microarray analysis in whole blood of atypical BSE-infected cattle. Transcriptome changes in infected animals were analyzed prior to and after the onset of clinical signs. The microarray analysis revealed gene expression changes in blood prior to the appearance of the clinical signs and during the progression of the disease. A set of 32 differentially expressed genes was found to be in common between clinical and preclinical stages and showed a very similar expression pattern in the two phases. A 22-gene signature showed an oscillating pattern of expression, being differentially expressed in the preclinical stage and then going back to control levels in the symptomatic phase. One gene, SEL1L3, was downregulated during the progression of the disease. Most of the studies performed up to date utilized various tissues, which are not suitable for a rapid analysis of infected animals and patients. Our findings suggest the intriguing possibility to take advantage of whole blood RNA transcriptional profiling for the preclinical identification of prion infection. Further, this study highlighted several pathways, such as immune response and metabolism that may play an important role in peripheral prion pathogenesis. Finally, the gene expression changes identified in the present study may be further investigated as a fingerprint for monitoring the progression of disease and for developing targeted therapeutic interventions.
Prevalence of anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies (ANCA) in juvenile chronic arthritis.

OBJECTIVE Sera from 66 children with active JCA of oligoarticular, polyarticular or systemic onset, 13 sera from patients in disease remission, 15 sera from patients with reactive arthritis, and 11 from Lyme arthritis patients were tested for the presence of anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies (ANCA) in order to evaluate their diagnostic significance in JCA. RESULTS ANCA were found in 21% (14/66) of the active JCA sera, all showing an atypical pANCA staining pattern using indirect immunofluorescence on ethanol fixed granulocytes. 71% of these sera also showed antinuclear antibodies (ANA) on HEp-2 cells. By additional staining on paraformaldehyde fixed granulocytes to exclude staining artefacts due to ethanol fixation, 2 of the pANCA positive sera showed cytoplasmic staining. In no case did we find nuclear fluorescence suggesting a true cytoplasmic localization of the involved antigens. All ANCA positive sera were negative for anti-MPO and anti-LF antibodies. ANCA prevalence in our study group did not correlate with the disease subgroup, disease duration or other clinical characteristics. However, we found ANCA only in active disease. CONCLUSION Our data suggest that the diagnostic importance of ANCA in JCA is restricted to only a few JCA patients. In these cases, however, ANCA positivity supports the diagnosis of JCA. Further studies are needed to substantiate this finding, as well as possible subgroup specificities. Standardized techniques of granulocyte fixation and antigen specific tests are needed to produce comparable results in different study groups.
The role of ARK in stress-induced apoptosis in Drosophila cells

The molecular mechanisms of apoptosis are highly conserved throughout evolution. The homologs of genes essential for apoptosis in Caenorhabditis elegans and Drosophila melanogaster have been shown to be important for apoptosis in mammalian systems. Although a homologue for CED-4/apoptotic protease-activating factor (Apaf)-1 has been described in Drosophila, its exact function and the role of the mitochondrial pathway in its activation remain unclear. Here, we used the technique of RNA interference to dissect apoptotic signaling pathways in Drosophila cells. Inhibition of the Drosophila CED-4/Apaf-1–related killer (ARK) homologue resulted in pronounced inhibition of stress-induced apoptosis, whereas loss of ARK did not protect the cells from Reaper- or Grim-induced cell death. Reduction of DIAP1 induced rapid apoptosis in these cells, whereas the inhibition of DIAP2 expression did not but resulted in increased sensitivity to stress-induced apoptosis; apoptosis in both cases was prevented by inhibition of ARK expression. Cells in which cytochrome c expression was decreased underwent apoptosis induced by stress stimuli, Reaper or Grim. These results demonstrate the central role of ARK in stress-induced apoptosis, which appears to act independently of cytochrome c. Apoptosis induced by Reaper or Grim can proceed via a distinct pathway, independent of ARK.
Is Pneumothorax Size on Chest X-Ray a Predictor of Neonatal Mortality?

Objective Pneumothorax in newborns may result in a significant mortality and morbidity. To predict who will survive or die is of great importance in the clinical management. The aim of this study is to address whether assessment of pneumothorax size on chest X-ray may be a predictor of prognosis in newborns presenting with pneumothorax. Methods Of 5929 infants admitted to our neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) from January 2007 to April 2011, 60 (1.0%) newborns presenting with pneumothorax were included in the present study. Pneumothorax size was calculated by measuring the widest transverse diameter of pneumothorax area in the posteroanterior view and dividing it by the widest transverse diameter of thoracic cavity above the diaphragm. Clinical data were collected from the patients’ records. Findings Overall mortality rate was 30% (18 patients). Pneumothorax size was significantly higher in nonsurvivors (31.1±2.8 vs 16.4±1.4, P < 0.001). The cut-off point of pneumothorax size for predicting survival was determined as 20%. The sensitivity was 72% whereas the specificity 83%. Preterm birth, low birth weight, resuscitation at birth, need for mechanical ventilation and chest tube insertion were of great significance in predicting mortality. However, of overall significant parameters, only pneumothorax size was the independent prognostic factor by regression analysis (P = 0.02) Conclusion We conclude that the calculation of pneumothorax size in the newborns is a predictor of prognosis with high sensitivity and specificity. Furthermore newborns with pneumothorax size greater than 20% are likely to have worse prognosis.
ACPA-Negative RA Consists of Two Genetically Distinct Subsets Based on RF Positivity in Japanese

HLA-DRB1, especially the shared epitope (SE), is strongly associated with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). However, recent studies have shown that SE is at most weakly associated with RA without anti-citrullinated peptide/protein antibody (ACPA). We have recently reported that ACPA-negative RA is associated with specific HLA-DRB1 alleles and diplotypes. Here, we attempted to detect genetically different subsets of ACPA-negative RA by classifying ACPA-negative RA patients into two groups based on their positivity for rheumatoid factor (RF). HLA-DRB1 genotyping data for totally 954 ACPA-negative RA patients and 2,008 healthy individuals in two independent sets were used. HLA-DRB1 allele and diplotype frequencies were compared among the ACPA-negative RF-positive RA patients, ACPA-negative RF-negative RA patients, and controls in each set. Combined results were also analyzed. A similar analysis was performed in 685 ACPA-positive RA patients classified according to their RF positivity. As a result, HLA-DRB1*04:05 and *09:01 showed strong associations with ACPA-negative RF-positive RA in the combined analysis (p = 8.8×10−6 and 0.0011, OR: 1.57 (1.28–1.91) and 1.37 (1.13–1.65), respectively). We also found that HLA-DR14 and the HLA-DR8 homozygote were associated with ACPA-negative RF-negative RA (p = 0.00022 and 0.00013, OR: 1.52 (1.21–1.89) and 3.08 (1.68–5.64), respectively). These association tendencies were found in each set. On the contrary, we could not detect any significant differences between ACPA-positive RA subsets. As a conclusion, ACPA-negative RA includes two genetically distinct subsets according to RF positivity in Japan, which display different associations with HLA-DRB1. ACPA-negative RF-positive RA is strongly associated with HLA-DRB1*04:05 and *09:01. ACPA-negative RF-negative RA is associated with DR14 and the HLA-DR8 homozygote.
Iterative Hessian Sketch: Fast and Accurate Solution Approximation for Constrained Least-Squares

We study randomized sketching methods for approximately solving least-squares problem with a general convex constraint. The quality of a least-squares approximation can be assessed in different ways: either in terms of the value of the quadratic objective function (cost approximation), or in terms of some distance measure between the approximate minimizer and the true minimizer (solution approximation). Focusing on the latter criterion, our first main result provides a general lower bound on any randomized method that sketches both the data matrix and vector in a least-squares problem; as a surprising consequence, the most widely used least-squares sketch is sub-optimal for solution approximation. We then present a new method known as the iterative Hessian sketch, and show that it can be used to obtain approximations to the original least-squares problem using a projection dimension proportional to the statistical complexity of the least-squares minimizer, and a logarithmic number of iterations. We illustrate our general theory with simulations for both unconstrained and constrained versions of least-squares, including $\ell_1$-regularization and nuclear norm constraints. We also numerically demonstrate the practicality of our approach in a real face expression classification experiment.