Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Desipramine Blocks Augmented Neurogenic Vasoconstrictor Responses to Epinephrine

The forearm vasoconstrictor response to lower body negative pressure (LBNP), a reflex stimulus to norepinephrine release, can be augmented by a prior brachial artery infusion of epinephrine. We wished to determine whether this sustained aftereffect of epinephrine could be replicated by systemic infusion and, if so, whether it could be prevented by prior uptake-1 blockade with desipramine. Eight normal men (mean age 30 years) were studied on two separate study days at least 1 week apart, 2.5 hours after taking, at random, either desipramine 125 mg p.o. ) or placebo. Forearm vascular resistance was measured at rest and at the end of 6 minutes of LBNP at ‐40 mm Hg. This was done both before and 30 minutes after a 60 -minute infusion of epinephrine (1.5 /ttg/min i.v.). From similar baselines, the forearm vasoconstrictor response to LBNP was significantly augmented 30 minutes after epinephrine on the placebo day (+17±4 vs. +12±3 resistance units, mean±SEM, p < 0.01) but not on the desipramine day (+14±2 vs. +16±3 resistance units). The heart rate response to LBNP was also greater after epinephrine on the placebo day (+20±3 vs. +16±2 beats/min, p < 0.05). Mean arterial pressure was higher after epinephrine infusion on the placebo (p < 0.01) but not on the desipramine day. Thus, transient increases in epinephrine, which has a plasma half-life of only minutes, can have sustained aftereffects, increasing mean arterial pressure and augmenting vasoconstrictor and chronotropic responses to a reflex stimulus to norepinephrine release 30 minutes after its infusion. These effects appear to be mediated through the uptake of epinephrine by sympathetic nerves and its corelease with norepinephrine on subsequent nerve stimulation. Epinephrine then could act on prejunctional /3-adrenergic receptors to facilitate norepinephrine release and augment neurogenic vasoconstriction. These observations provide further support for the concept that increases in plasma epinephrine concentration might contribute to the pathogenesis of essential hypertension by this mechanism.
DDL is in the details... and in the big themes

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. DDL is in the details. and in the big themes Alex Boulton
Risk Factors for Surgical Site Infection and Association With Infliximab Administration During Surgery for Crohn’s Disease

BACKGROUND: Preoperative infliximab treatment may influence postoperative infectious complications in patients with Crohn’s disease. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to identify predictors of surgical site infection after surgery for Crohn’s disease and evaluate the effects of preoperative infliximab administration. DESIGN: We performed a prospective surveillance and review of surgical site infections. SETTINGS: This study was conducted in the Surgical Department of Hyogo College of Medicine. PATIENTS: A total of 405 consecutive patients with Crohn’s disease who underwent abdominal surgery between January 2008 and December 2011 were included. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Infection was diagnosed by the infection control team. The possible risk factors were analyzed by using logistic regression analyses to determine their predictive significance. RESULTS: Within the patient population, 20% of patients received infliximab, and 60% had penetrating disease. The median duration from the last infliximab infusion to surgery was 43 days (range, 4–80). The overall incidence of surgical site infection was 27%. The incidence of incisional surgical site infection was 18%, and the organ/space surgical site infection rate was 8%. In the multivariate analysis, proctectomy was the highest risk factor for all surgical site infection (OR, 3.4–11.8; p < 0.01). The administration of preoperative infliximab was not a risk factor for surgical site infection. By contrast, there was a significantly reduced risk of incisional surgical site infection in patients with penetrating disease who received infliximab (OR, 0.1; p < 0.01). LIMITATIONS: This study was a cohort study and not a randomized trial. The data analyses were performed for surgical site infections but not for other infectious complications. CONCLUSIONS: Proctectomy was a high-risk factor for surgical site infection in patients with Crohn’s disease. The administration of preoperative infliximab was not a risk factor for surgical site infection.
Sex differences in presentation, severity, and management of stroke in a population-based study

Objectives: Women may have poorer outcomes after stroke than men because of differences in their acute management. We examined sex differences in presentation, severity, in-hospital treatment, and early mortality in a cohort of first-ever-in-a-lifetime stroke patients. Methods: Data were collected from May 1, 1996, to April 30, 1999, in the North East Melbourne Stroke Incidence Study. Stroke symptoms, prestroke medical history, in-hospital investigations, admission and discharge medications, initial stroke severity, and 28-day mortality were recorded. Multivariable regression was used to estimate sex differences in treatment, investigations, and 28-day mortality. Results: A total of 1,316 patients were included. Women were older (mean age 76 ± 0.6 vs 72 ± 0.6, p < 0.01), had more severe strokes (median NIH Stroke Scale score 6 vs 5, p < 0.01), and more likely to experience loss of consciousness (31% vs 23%, p = 0.003) and incontinence (22% vs 11%, p = 0.01) than men. Women were less often on lipid-lowering therapy on admission. Echocardiography and carotid investigations were less frequently performed in women due to greater age and stroke severity. Women had greater 28-day mortality (32% vs 21%, p < 0.001) and stroke severity (44% vs 36%, p = 0.01) than men, but adjustment for age, comorbidities, and stroke severity (for mortality only) completely attenuated these associations. Conclusion: Sex differences seen in this study were mostly explained by women's older age, greater comorbidity, and stroke severity. The reasons for differences according to age may need further examination.
Programmed cell death 1 ligand 1 and tumor-infiltrating CD8+ T lymphocytes are prognostic factors of human ovarian cancer

The ligands for programmed cell death 1 (PD-1), an immunoinhibitory receptor belonging to CD28/cytotoxic T lymphocyte antigen 4 family, are PD-1 ligand 1 and 2 (PD-Ls). Recent reports suggest that the aberrant expression of PD-Ls on tumor cells impairs antitumor immunity, resulting in the immune evasion of the tumor cells. Although an inverse correlation between the expression level of PD-Ls and patients' prognosis has been reported for several malignant tumors, the follow-up period was limited because of the lack of the antibody (Ab) applicable to paraffin-embedded specimens. Here we generated a new Ab against PD-1 ligand 1 (PD-L1) and analyzed the expression level of PD-Ls in human ovarian cancer using paraffin-embedded specimens. Patients with higher expression of PD-L1 had a significantly poorer prognosis than patients with lower expression. Although patients with higher expression of PD-1 ligand 2 also had a poorer prognosis, the difference was not statistically significant. A significant inverse correlation was observed between PD-L1 expression and the intraepithelial CD8+ T lymphocyte count, suggesting that PD-L1 on tumor cells directly suppresses antitumor CD8+ T cells. Multivariate analysis showed the expression of PD-L1 on tumor cells and intraepithelial CD8+ T lymphocyte count are independent prognostic factors. The PD-1/PD-L pathway can be a good target for restoring antitumor immunity in ovarian cancer.
Double passive cavitation detection of Optison shell rupture

An improved understanding of ultrasound contrast agent (UCA) shell rupture is required to optimize therapeutic and diagnostic use. This experimental and theoretical study aims to explore the mechanism of UCA shell rupture by determining thresholds as a function of ultrasonic excitation parameters (driving frequency, pulse duration, and peak rarefactional pressure). The experimental setup is based on a passive cavitation detection system described in previous work. However, this system has been modified to allow simultaneous acquisition of the signals received with the 13-MHz passive receiver and the signals incident upon the lower frequency (0.9, 2.8 and 4.6 MHz) transmitting transducer functioning in the pulse-echo mode. Post-excitation signals were used to detect rupture thresholds. By allowing acquisition of the signals received by the insonifying transducer (pulse-echo during the excitation and passively at post-excitation) additional information is obtained within a frequency range and a transmission/reception configuration typical of ultrasonic diagnostic imaging. Data are analyzed to estimates the incident peak rarefactional pressure leading to 50% destruction. Comparison of experimental results with microbubble dynamics predicted using the Modified Herring equation was used to explore microbubble rupture indices based on radial expansion and peak velocity.
Balanced spatio-temporal compressive sensing for multi-hop wireless sensor networks

Compressive Sampling (CS) is a powerful sampling technique that allows accurately reconstructing a compressible signal from a few random linear measurements. CS theory has applications in sensory systems where acquiring individual samples is either expensive or infeasible. A Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is a distributed sensory system comprised of resource-limited sensor nodes. Transferring all the recorded samples in a WSN can easily result in data traffic that can exceed the network capacity. There are ongoing attempts to devise efficient and accurate compression schemes for WSNs and CS has proved to be a key sampling method compared to many other existing techniques. In this paper, specifically targeting the dominant WSN deployments of multi-hop WSNs, we develop a novel CS-based concept of sampling window as an efficient spatio-temporal signal acquisition/compression technique. We show that much higher energy-efficient signal acquisition is possible, if composite temporal and spatial correlations are considered. Our model is also capable of abnormal event detection which is a crucial feature in WSNs. It guarantees balanced energy consumption by the sensor nodes in a multi-hop topology to prevent overloaded nodes and network partitioning.
Validation of visual analogue scale for anxiety (VAS-A) in preanesthesia evaluation.

BACKGROUND Anxiety is a relevant but still underscored perioperative problem. The Visual Analogue Scale for Anxiety (VAS-A) seems to be effective, fast and manageable, but has not been fully validated yet. The aim of this study is to validate VAS-A comparing it to, Corah's Dental Anxiety Scale (CDAS) Spielberger's State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) and Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). METHODS One hundred consecutive patients (38 males and 62 females, median age 49 years) submitted to oral surgery filled out the VAS-A, CDAS, STAI forms Y1 and Y2, and BDI at preoperative examination; the order of administration of tests was randomized. RESULTS VAS-A score was significantly correlated to CDAS (P<0.0001), STAI-Y1 (P<0.0001), STAI-Y2 (P<0.002) but not to BDI (P=0.18). ROC curve analysis suggested VAS-A equal to 46 mm as threshold for anxiety when using STAI Y1 equal to 40 as reference cutoff. CONCLUSION Our study confirms that VAS-A is a reliable indicator of preoperative anxiety and may detect patients with depressive symptoms also. Values of VAS-A around 50 mm are a reliable threshold for a clinically meaningful level of preoperative anxiety.
Factors affecting high school teachers’ knowledge-sharing behaviors

In this research the knowledge-sharing behaviors of high school teachers were explored. Using planned behavior theory based on a scientific literature review, several exogenous variables were identified, such as organizational climate and resource fit. Regression analysis was used to examine the hypotheses; all hypotheses were supported. Based on the results, all added exogenous variables have an identical effect on teachers’ knowledge-sharing behaviors.
Deficiency of CD3gamma, delta, epsilon, and zeta expression in T cells from AML patients

Abstract In order to elucidate the feature of T‐cell receptor (TCR) signal transduction in T‐cells from acute myeloid leukemia (AML), the expression levels of CD3gamma, delta, epsilon and zeta chain genes in CD3+ T cells were analyzed using real‐time PCR. CD3+ T cells sorted from peripheral blood of 10 AML patients and 10 healthy donors were used in the study. Significantly lower expression levels of all four CD3gamma, delta, epsilon, and zeta chain genes were found in the AML samples. The expression pattern of the four CD3 chains was epsilon>gamma>delta>zeta in CD3+ T cells from AML samples, which was different from the healthy control group. In conclusion, the results provide a global gene expression profile of CD3gamma, delta, epsilon, and zeta chains in AML patients. Deficiency of all four CD3 gene expression levels might represent the feature related to T‐cell immunodeficiency.
Carotid Artery Wall Hypertrophy With Age Is Related to Local Systolic Blood Pressure in Healthy Men

Abstract—Carotid artery intima-media thickness (IMT) increases with advancing age in humans. The underlying mechanism of this increase is unknown, but data from animal studies suggest that a chronic increase in local distending pressure can act as a stimulus. To test this hypothesis, we studied a total of 129 healthy normotensive, nonobese, nonsmoking men aged 18 to 77 years. Brachial systolic blood pressure (SBP) was unchanged, but carotid SBP increased progressively with age (P <0.05). Carotid IMT and the ratio of carotid IMT to lumen (ultrasonography) increased progressively with age (P <0.05). Carotid IMT was ≈50% greater in the older compared with the young men. Carotid SBP was positively related to carotid IMT (r =0.55, P <0.001). After carotid SBP was taken into account (ANCOVA), the age-related difference in carotid IMT was no longer statistically significant (P =0.22). We conclude that carotid IMT increases with age in healthy men in the absence of elevations in peripheral SBP. Carotid SBP increases progressively with advancing age in this population and is significantly related to the corresponding carotid wall hypertrophy. These results support the hypothesis that chronic increases in local distending pressure may be an important mechanism in the wall thickening that occurs with human aging in central elastic arteries.
Examining Teachers’ Beliefs About the Role of Technology in the Elementary Classroom

AbstractAlthough teachers today recognize the importance of integrating technology into their curricula, successful implementation often is hampered by both external (first-order) and internal (second-order) barriers. This study was designed to examine the relationship between first- and second-order barriers to technology implementation by observing and interviewing several teachers within a single school who had achieved varying levels of integration. Although first-order barriers constrained all teachers’ efforts in this school, teachers responded differently to these constraints based at least in part on their beliefs about what constitutes effective classroom practice. Strategies for technology staff development are discussed.
Hematology, cytochemistry and ultrastructure of blood cells in fishing cat (Felis viverrina)

Hematological, cytochemical and ultrastructural features of blood cells in fishing cat (Felis viverrina) were evaluated using complete blood cell counts with routine and cytochemical blood stains, and scanning and transmission electron microscopy. No statistically significant difference was found in different genders of this animal. Unique features of blood cells in this animal were identified in hematological, cytochemical and ultrastructural studies. This study contributes to broaden hematological resources in wildlife animals and provides a guideline for identification of blood cells in the fishing cat.
Quantifying the limits of transition state theory in enzymatic catalysis

Significance Transition state theory (TST) is the most popular theory to calculate the rates of enzymatic reactions. However, in some cases TST could fail due to the violation of the nonrecrossing hypothesis at the transition state. In the present work we show that even for one of the most controversial enzymatic reactions—the hydride transfer catalyzed by dihydrofolate reductase—the error associated to TST represents only a minor correction to the reaction rate. Moreover, this error is actually larger for the reaction in solution than in the enzymatic active site. Based on this finding and on previous studies we propose an “enzymatic shielding” hypothesis which encompasses various aspects of the catalytic process. While being one of the most popular reaction rate theories, the applicability of transition state theory to the study of enzymatic reactions has been often challenged. The complex dynamic nature of the protein environment raised the question about the validity of the nonrecrossing hypothesis, a cornerstone in this theory. We present a computational strategy to quantify the error associated to transition state theory from the number of recrossings observed at the equicommittor, which is the best possible dividing surface. Application of a direct multidimensional transition state optimization to the hydride transfer step in human dihydrofolate reductase shows that both the participation of the protein degrees of freedom in the reaction coordinate and the error associated to the nonrecrossing hypothesis are small. Thus, the use of transition state theory, even with simplified reaction coordinates, provides a good theoretical framework for the study of enzymatic catalysis.
The USTC NELSLIP Systems for Trilingual Entity Detection and Linking Tasks at TAC KBP 2016

This paper describes the USTC_NELSLIP systems submitted to the Trilingual Entity Detection and Linking (EDL) track in 2016 TAC Knowledge Base Population (KBP) contests. We have built two systems for entity discovery and mention detection (MD): one uses the conditional RNNLM and the other one uses the attention-based encoder-decoder framework. The entity linking (EL) system consists of two modules: a rule based candidate generation and a neural networks probability ranking model. Moreover, some simple string matching rules are used for NIL clustering. At the end, our best system has achieved an F1 score of 0.624 in the end-to-end typed mention ceaf plus metric.
Mild developmental dyslexia in university students: diagnosis and performance features in L1, L2, and L3

Avhandling visar att lindrig dyslexi paverkar las- och skrivprestationer hos hogpresterare. Sardrag trader tydligast fram i frammande sprak och vid hantering av sprakljud i kravande testuppgifter. Aven om dyslexirelaterade problem vanligtvis ar lindriga hos universitetsstudenter, ar det centralt att dessa identifieras, eftersom de ses paverka akademiska prestationer. Avhandlingen lagger fram det forsta finlandssvenska dyslexitestet normerat for universitetsniva (FS-DUVAN) och ger verktyg for utredning av las- och skrivsvarigheter hos unga vuxna i Svenskfinland. Avhandlingen utforskar ocksa sprakspecifika sardrag av dyslexi hos hogpresterande finlandssvenska universitetsstudenter i las- och skrivuppgifter i svenska, finska och engelska. Detaljerade felanalyser visar att studenter med dyslexi speciellt har problem med kopplingar mellan sprakljud och bokstav i det frammande spraket engelska, som ocksa i detta avseende ar komplext. Resultat i komplexa kognitiva testuppgifter som forutsatter hantering av sprakljud pekar pa svikt i fonologisk processering, som betecknas som den huvudsakliga underliggande kognitiva nedsattningen vid utvecklingsbetingad dyslexi.
Prognostic significance of late ventricular potentials after acute myocardial infarction.

The prognostic significance of late ventricular potentials recorded from the body surface using high-gain amplification and signal averaging was assessed prospectively in 160 patients (mean age 56±8.3 years) after recent acute myocardial infarction (median day of study 25.5). Late potentials were recorded in 81 out of 160 patients (50.6%); a duration of less than 20 ms was observed in 33 patients (20.6%), whereas late potentials of 20 ms duration or more were present in 48 patients (30%). The mean duration of late potentials was 27 ± 16.5 ms. There was no significant correlation with the frequency and type of spontaneous ventricular arrhythmias during 10–24 h Holter monitoring. The follow-up period was 7.5±3.2 months (mean ±s.D.; maximum 15.8 months). In 136 patients (85%) the course after discharge was uneventful. Sudden cardiac death occurred in seven patients (4.4%) after 3.7± 3.4 months (range 0.7–8.3 months). Sustained ventricular tachycardia was documented in four cases 2.9± 1.3 months after myocardial infarction, all having late potentials. The overall incidence of ventricular tachycardia in patients with late potentials of 20 ms duration and more was four out of 48 patients (8.3%) increasing to 16.6% (three out of 18 patients) if only patients with late potentials greater than 40 ms were considered. Sudden cardiac death occurred in three of 79 patients (3.8%) without late potentials. In patients with late potentials less than 40 ms duration, the incidence of sudden death was 3.2% (two out of 63 patients), but it increased to 11.1% (two out of 18 patients) with late potentials of 40 ms duration or more. Ventricular tachycardia or sudden death occurred in 21.7% of patients with late potentials and anterior wall infarction compared to 5.4% in patients with late potentials and inferior wall infarction (P<0.05). Only one of 79 patients (1.3%) without late potentials died non-suddenly from a cardiac cause (reinfarction) compared to three of 81 patients (3.7%) with late potentials irrespective of duration. Thus, this prospective multicentre pilot study suggests that averaging might be a promising non- invasive technique for the identification of patients prone to ventricular tachycardia or possibly even sudden death after recent acute myocardial infarction.