Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sympathovagal Imbalance in Prehypertensive Offspring of Two Parents versus One Parent Hypertensive

Objective. Though prehypertension has strong familial predisposition, difference in pathophysiological mechanisms in its genesis in offspring of both parents and single parent hypertensive have not been elucidated. Methods. Body mass index (BMI), waist-hip ratio (WHR), basal heart rate (BHR), blood pressure (BP), HR and BP response to standing, deep breathing difference, BP response to handgrip and spectral indices of heart rate variability (HRV) were analyzed in normotensive offspring of two parents hypertensive (Group I), normotensive offspring of one parent hypertensive (Group II), prehypertensive offspring of two parents hypertensive (Group III) and prehypertensive offspring of one parent hypertensive (Group IV). Results. Sympathovagal imbalance (SVI) in prehypertensive offspring was observed due to increased sympathetic and decreased vagal activity. In group III, SVI was more prominent with greater contribution by vagal withdrawal. LF-HF ratio, the marker of SVI was correlated more with diastolic pressure, 30 : 15 ratio and E : I ratio in prehypertensives and the degree of correlation was more in group III prehypertensives. Conclusion. Vagal withdrawal plays a critical role in development of SVI in prehypertensive offspring of hypertensive parents. The intensity of SVI was more in offspring of two parents hypertensive compared to single parent hypertensive.
Elevated Levels of Inflammatory Cytokines Predict Survival in Idiopathic and Familial Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension

Background— Inflammation is a feature of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), and increased circulating levels of cytokines are reported in patients with PAH. However, to date, no information exists on the significance of elevated cytokines or their potential as biomarkers. We sought to determine the levels of a range of cytokines in PAH and to examine their impact on survival and relationship to hemodynamic indexes. Methods and Results— We measured levels of serum cytokines (tumor necrosis factor-&agr;, interferon-&ggr; and interleukin-1&bgr;, -2, -4, -5, -6, -8, -10, -12p70, and -13) using ELISAs in idiopathic and heritable PAH patients (n=60). Concurrent clinical data included hemodynamics, 6-minute walk distance, and survival time from sampling to death or transplantation. Healthy volunteers served as control subjects (n=21). PAH patients had significantly higher levels of interleukin-1&bgr;, -2, -4, -6, -8, -10, and -12p70 and tumor necrosis factor-&agr; compared with healthy control subjects. Kaplan-Meier analysis showed that levels of interleukin-6, 8, 10, and 12p70 predicted survival in patients. For example, 5-year survival with interleukin-6 levels of >9 pg/mL was 30% compared with 63% for patients with levels ≤9 pg/mL (P=0.008). In this PAH cohort, cytokine levels were superior to traditional markers of prognosis such as 6-minute walk distance and hemodynamics. Conclusions— This study illustrates dysregulation of a broad range of inflammatory mediators in idiopathic and familial PAH and demonstrates that cytokine levels have a previously unrecognized impact on patient survival. They may prove to be useful biomarkers and provide insight into the contribution of inflammation in PAH.
Investigation of Neutral Axis Shifting in Rotary Draw Bending Processes for Tubes

Rotary draw bending is one of the most important methods used for tube forming processes. During the process of tube bending, the neutral axis of the tube moves toward the inner arc. The wall thickness distribution changes for the tube's cross section. Thinning takes place in the outer arc of the tube, whereas thickening occurs in the inner arc of the tube. In this paper, a geometrical model is presented to calculate the neutral axis shifting for different bending angles. The finite element simulation is used to predict the results close to the geometrical model results. In addition, the effect of the different materials (Al alloy 6009 and stainless steel alloy 1.4301) on the rotary draw bending process is compared. Finally, the results of the distributions of the axial strain and wall thickness of the bend are obtained.
Participation of CD11c+ Leukocytes in Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Clearance from the Lung

ABSTRACT Staphylococcus aureus causes especially severe pulmonary infection, associated with high morbidity and mortality. In addition to the effects of specific virulence factors, it appears that the intensity of the host proinflammatory response, particularly in the initial stages of infection, contributes substantially to pulmonary damage. We tested the hypothesis that the CD11c+ leukocytes are important in the host response to pulmonary infection with methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) USA300. Clodronate-induced depletion of the alveolar macrophage population resulted in increased numbers of dendritic cells (DCs) and CD4+ cells in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid and was associated with significantly increased mortality by 18 h following S. aureus inoculation but had no effect on bacterial load or polymorphonuclear leukocyte (PMN) numbers in the lung. These clodronate-treated mice also had increased expression of interleukin-17A/F (IL-17A/F) and CXCL10 but not of gamma interferon (IFN-γ) or tumor necrosis factor (TNF). Depletion of the dendritic cell population in mice expressing a CD11c-enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP)-diphtheria toxin receptor (DTR) transgene was associated with an increased bacterial load in the lung but not increased mortality. Both DCs and airway epithelial cells produced CXCL9, -10, and -11 in response to S. aureus. Pretreatment of mice with an anti-CXCR3 antibody prior to inoculation with MRSA substantially reduced CD4+ cells and decreased pulmonary inflammation at 18 h postinfection compared to pretreatment with an IgG control. The results of these experiments suggest that CD11c+ cells, the induction of CXCR3 ligand expression, and subsequent CD4+ cell recruitment have an important role in the pathogenesis of severe MRSA pulmonary infection.
Fermentation and utilization of grass silage.

The decision to utilize particular forages in support of dairy production should be based on a number of key factors, such as available land base, type of manure management, soil type and topography, climate, and availability of purchased forages and feeds. Because of the complexity and environmental concerns existing in the dairy industry today, decisions about forage and manure management should include whole farm analysis with the aid of computer software. The chemical composition and digestibility of grass are affected more by stage of maturity than by other management factors, such as species, DM, or type of harvest system. The decline in digestibility of nutrients in first growth forage is approximately . 55 to . 68%/d and is dependent on the method of estimation. The decline in digestible DMI in first growth is . 3 to . 5%/d. The use of silage additives has become an integral part of forage management, and improvements in DMI and milk production are documented. Particle size and type of harvest equipment significantly affect eating behavior and efficiency of milk production. Wilting of silage results in an increase in DMI and efficiency of microbial protein production.
On Hybrid Pilot for Channel Estimation in Massive MIMO Uplink

This paper introduces a hybrid pilot-aided channel estimation technique for mitigating the effect of pilot contamination for the uplink of multi-cell multiuser massive MIMO systems. The proposed hybrid pilot is designed such that it enjoys the complementary advantages between time-multiplexed (TM) pilot and time-superimposed (TS) pilot and, thereby, allows superior solution to the conventional pilot schemes. We mathematically characterize the impact of hybrid pilot on the massive MIMO uplink by deriving a closed-form approximation for the uplink achievable rate. In the large-number-of-antennas regime, we obtain the asymptotically optimal solution for the hybrid pilot by jointly designing the TM pilot and the TS pilot. It is shown that either TM pilot or TS pilot has the advantages for large frame-size and limited frame-size transmission, respectively, while the hybrid pilot scheme can offer a superior performance to that employing either TM pilot or TS pilot. Numerical results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed design.
Potential for control of detrusor smooth muscle spontaneous rhythmic contraction by cyclooxygenase products released by interstitial cells of Cajal

Interstitial cells of Cajal (ICCs) have been identified as pacemaker cells in the upper urinary tract and urethra, but the role of ICCs in the bladder remains to be determined. We tested the hypotheses that ICCs express cyclooxygenase (COX), and that COX products (prostaglandins), are the cause of spontaneous rhythmic contraction (SRC) of isolated strips of rabbit bladder free of urothelium. SRC was abolished by 10 μM indomethacin and ibuprofen (non‐selective COX inhibitors). SRC was concentration‐dependently inhibited by selective COX‐1 (SC‐560 and FR‐122047) and COX‐2 inhibitors (NS‐398 and LM‐1685), and by SC‐51089, a selective antagonist for the PGE‐2 receptor (EP) and ICI‐192,605 and SQ‐29,548, selective antagonists for thromboxane receptors (TP). The partial agonist/antagonist of the PGF‐2α receptor (FP), AL‐8810, inhibited SRC by ∼50%. Maximum inhibition was ∼90% by SC‐51089, ∼80–85% by the COX inhibitors and ∼70% by TP receptor antagonists. In the presence of ibuprofen to abolish SRC, PGE‐2, sulprostone, misoprostol, PGF‐2α and U‐46619 (thromboxane mimetic) caused rhythmic contractions that mimicked SRC. Fluorescence immunohistochemistry coupled with confocal laser scanning microscopy revealed that c‐Kit and vimentin co‐localized to interstitial cells surrounding detrusor smooth muscle bundles, indicating the presence of extensive ICCs in rabbit bladder. Co‐localization of COX‐1 and vimentin, and COX‐2 and vimentin by ICCs supports the hypothesis that ICCs were the predominant cell type in rabbit bladder expressing both COX isoforms. These data together suggest that ICCs appear to be an important source of prostaglandins that likely play a role in regulation of SRC. Additional studies on prostaglandin‐dependent SRC may generate opportunities for the application of novel treatments for disorders leading to overactive bladder.
Incidence of cancer among UK Gulf war veterans: cohort study

Abstract Objectives To determine whether incidence rates of cancer are higher in UK service personnel who were deployed in the Gulf war than in those not deployed and whether any increased risk of cancer is related to self reported exposures to potentially hazardous material during the period of deployment. Design A cohort study with follow up from 1 April 1991 (the end of the Gulf war) to 31 July 2002. Participants 51 721 Gulf war veterans and 50 755 service personnel matched for age, sex, rank, service, and level of fitness who were not deployed in the Gulf (the Era cohort). Main outcome measures Incident cancers, identified on the NHS central register. Results There were 270 incident cancers among the Gulf cohort and 269 among the Era cohort (incidence rate ratio 0.99, 95% confidence interval 0.83 to 1.17). There was no excess in site specific cancers among the Gulf cohort. Adjustment for lifestyle factors (smoking and alcohol consumption) did not alter these results. In the Gulf cohort, risk of cancer was not related to multiple vaccinations or exposure to pesticides or depleted uranium during deployment. Conclusion There is no current excess risk of cancer overall nor of site specific cancers in Gulf war veterans. Specific exposures during deployment have not resulted in a subsequent increased risk of cancer. The long latent period for cancer, however, necessitates the continued follow up of these cohorts.
Cross-lingual Dependency Parsing of Related Languages with Rich Morphosyntactic Tagsets

This paper addresses cross-lingual dependency parsing using rich morphosyntactic tagsets. In our case study, we experiment with three related Slavic languages: Croatian, Serbian and Slovene. Four different dependency treebanks are used for monolingual parsing, direct cross-lingual parsing, and a recently introduced crosslingual parsing approach that utilizes statistical machine translation and annotation projection. We argue for the benefits of using rich morphosyntactic tagsets in cross-lingual parsing and empirically support the claim by showing large improvements over an impoverished common feature representation in form of a reduced part-of-speech tagset. In the process, we improve over the previous state-of-the-art scores in dependency parsing for all three languages.
Query-performance prediction: setting the expectations straight

The query-performance prediction task has been described as estimating retrieval effectiveness in the absence of relevance judgments. The expectations throughout the years were that improved prediction techniques would translate to improved retrieval approaches. However, this has not yet happened. Herein we provide an in-depth analysis of why this is the case. To this end, we formalize the prediction task in the most general probabilistic terms. Using this formalism we draw novel connections between tasks --- and methods used to address these tasks --- in federated search, fusion-based retrieval, and query-performance prediction. Furthermore, using formal arguments we show that the ability to estimate the probability of effective retrieval with no relevance judgments (i.e., to predict performance) implies knowledge of how to perform effective retrieval. We also explain why the expectation that using previously proposed query-performance predictors would help to improve retrieval effectiveness was not realized. This is due to a misalignment with the actual goal for which these predictors were devised: ranking queries based on the presumed effectiveness of using them for retrieval over a corpus with a specific retrieval method. Focusing on this specific prediction task, namely query ranking by presumed effectiveness, we present a novel learning-to-rank-based approach that uses Markov Random Fields. The resultant prediction quality substantially transcends that of state-of-the-art predictors.
TSLP regulates intestinal immunity and inflammation in mouse models of helminth infection and colitis

Intestinal epithelial cells (IECs) produce thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP); however, the in vivo influence of TSLP–TSLP receptor (TSLPR) interactions on immunity and inflammation in the intestine remains unclear. We show that TSLP–TSLPR interactions are critical for immunity to the intestinal pathogen Trichuris. Monoclonal antibody–mediated neutralization of TSLP or deletion of the TSLPR in normally resistant mice resulted in defective expression of Th2 cytokines and persistent infection. Susceptibility was accompanied by elevated expression of interleukin (IL) 12/23p40, interferon (IFN) γ, and IL-17A, and development of severe intestinal inflammation. Critically, neutralization of IFN-γ in Trichuris-infected TSLPR−/− mice restored Th2 cytokine responses and resulted in worm expulsion, providing the first demonstration of TSLPR-independent pathways for Th2 cytokine production. Additionally, TSLPR−/− mice displayed elevated production of IL-12/23p40 and IFN-γ, and developed heightened intestinal inflammation upon exposure to dextran sodium sulfate, demonstrating a previously unrecognized immunoregulatory role for TSLP in a mouse model of inflammatory bowel disease.
Role of ascorbic acid in the inhibition of polyphenol oxidase and the prevention of browning in different browning-sensitive Lactuca sativa var. capitata (L.) and Eruca sativa (Mill.) stored as fresh-cut produce.

BACKGROUND Polyphenol oxidase (PPO) and, to a minor extent, peroxidase (POD) represent the key enzymes involved in enzymatic browning, a negative process induced by cutting fresh-cut produce such as lettuce (Lactuca sativa) and rocket salad (Eruca sativa). Although ascorbic acid is frequently utilised as an anti-browning agent, its mechanism in the prevention of the browning phenomenon is not clearly understood. RESULTS The activity of PPO and POD and their isoforms in lettuce (a high-browning and low-ascorbic acid species) and rocket salad (a low-browning and high-ascorbic species) was characterised. The kinetic parameters of PPO and in vitro ascorbic acid-PPO inhibition were also investigated. In rocket salad, PPO activity was much lower than that in lettuce and cutting induced an increase in PPO activity only in lettuce. Exogenous ascorbic acid (5 mmol L(-1)) reduced PPO activity by about 90% in lettuce. POD did not appear to be closely related to browning in lettuce. CONCLUSION PPO is the main enzyme involved in the browning phenomenon; POD appears to play a minor role. The concentration of endogenous ascorbic acid in rocket salad was related to its low-browning sensitivity after cutting. In lettuce, the addition of ascorbic acid directly inhibited PPO activity. The results suggest that the high ascorbic acid content found in rocket salad plays an effective role in reducing PPO activity.
Author's Personal Copy Biological Psychology a Functional Mri Investigation of the Association between Childhood Aerobic Fitness and Neurocognitive Control

In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of the article (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website or institutional repository. Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier's archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit: a b s t r a c t We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine brain activity of higher fit and lower fit children during early and late task blocks of a cognitive control flanker paradigm. For congruent trials, all children showed increased recruitment of frontal and parietal regions during the early block when the task was unfamiliar, followed by a decrease in activity in the later block. No within-group changes in congruent accuracy were reported across task blocks, despite a decline in performance across all participants, likely due to fatigue. During incongruent trials, only higher fit children maintained accuracy across blocks, coupled with increased prefrontal and parietal recruitment in the early task block and reduced activity in the later block. Lower fit children showed a decline in incongruent accuracy across blocks, and no changes in activation. We suggest that higher fit children are better at activating and adapting neural processes involved in cognitive control to meet and maintain task goals.
Multiple ion species fluid modeling of sprite halos

Sprite halos are brief descending glows appearing at the lower ionosphere boundary, which follow strong cloud-to-ground lightning discharges [e.g., Barrington-Leigh et al., JGR, 106, 1741, 2001; Pasko, JGR, 115, A00E35, 2010]. They last for a few milliseconds and extend about tens of kilometers radially. According to global survey of occurrence rates of transient luminous events by the ISUAL instruments on the FORMOSAT-2 satellite, on average sprite halos occur once every minute on Earth [Chen et al., JGR, 113, A08306, 2008]. It has been established that sprite halos are caused by electron heating and molecule excitation and ionization in the lower ionosphere due to lightning quasi-electrostatic field [e.g., Barrington-Leigh et al., 2001; Pasko, 2010]. They modify the atmospheric conductivity, which may cause perturbations in the propagation of very low frequency electromagnetic waves in the Earth-ionosphere waveguide [e.g., Moore et al., JGR, 108, 1363, 2003]. Past modeling work on sprite halos was conducted by using either a zero dimensional model of multiple ion species or a two dimensional (2D) model of at most three charged species. In this talk, we report a modeling study of sprite halos by using a recently developed 2D fluid model of multiple ion species. The model species include electrons, light positive and negative ions, and positive and negative cluster ions. This ion species set was used by Lehtinen and Inan [GRL, 34, L08804, 2007] to study upper atmospheric ion chemistry. In addition, another charged species, O−, is added to this species set, because electron detachment of O− can proceed very fast under certain conditions [Rayment and Moruzzi, Int. J. Mass Spectrom. , 26, 321, 1978], requiring a separate treatment from the other light negative ions. We present modeling results of time variations of ion densities due to strong cloud-to-ground lightning discharges and show the resulting dynamics of atmospheric conductivity profile. We also discuss the effects of the electron detachment of O− on electron density change in sprite halos.
Decreasing Inappropriate Use of Antibiotics in Primary Care in Four Countries in South America—Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial

High antibiotic prescribing and antimicrobial resistance in patients attending primary care have been reported in South America. Very few interventions targeting general practitioners (GPs) to decrease inappropriate antibiotic prescribing have been investigated in this region. This study assessed the effectiveness of online feedback on reducing antibiotic prescribing in patients with suspected respiratory tract infections (RTIs) attending primary care. The aim was to reduce antibiotic prescribing in patients with acute bronchitis and acute otitis media. Both are RTIs for which antibiotics have a very limited effect. A cluster randomized two-arm control trial was implemented. Healthcare centres from Bolivia, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay participating in the quality improvement program HAPPY AUDIT were randomly allocated to either intervention or control group. During ten consecutive weeks, GPs in the intervention group received evidence-based online feedback on the management of suspected RTIs. In patients with acute bronchitis, the intervention reduced the antibiotic prescribing rate from 71.6% to 56% (control group from 61.2% to 52%). In patients with acute otitis media, the intervention reduced the antibiotic prescribing from 94.8% to 86.2% (no change in the control group). In all RTIs, the intervention reduced antibiotic prescribing rate from 37.4% to 28.1% (control group from 29% to 27.2%). Online evidence-based feedback is effective for reducing antibiotic prescribing in patients with RTIs attending primary care in South America.