Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Clinical significance of framingham risk score, flow-mediated dilation and pulse wave velocity in patients with stable angina.

BACKGROUND To evaluate the age-adjusted Framingham risk score (AFRS), flow-mediated dilation (FMD) and brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity (baPWV) for the prediction of the coronary heart disease (CHD) in patients with stable angina. METHODS AND RESULTS In 138 consecutive patients with stable angina, the interrelationship and predictive power of CHD were compared between the study parameters. In total, 71 patients demonstrated CHD after scheduled coronary angiography. The AFRS showed significant correlation with FMD (r = -0.43, P < 0.01) and baPWV (r = 0.41, P < 0.01). Based on AFRS, FMD, baPWV and other risk factors of CHD, multivariate analysis showed that AFRS and FMD (odds ratio (OR) 20.098, 95% confidence interval (CI) 4.773-84.627, P < 0.01, and OR 0.865, 95%CI 0.752-0.995, P < 0.05, respectively) were independent predictors of CHD. The area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves for detecting CHD, AFRS, inverse FMD (iFMD) and baPWV were 0.863, 0.726 and 0.694, respectively (all P < 0.01). However, there was no difference of the area under the ROC curves between AFRS alone and combined complex parameters (AFRS plus iFMD, AFRS plus baPWV, and AFRS plus iFMD plus baPWV) for detecting CHD. CONCLUSIONS AFRS was a better predictor of CHD than either FMD or baPWV in patients with stable angina. This means that conventional risk factors for cardiovascular disease do not affect uniformly for atherosclerosis in coronary and peripheral arteries.
Analysis of Apoptosis of Memory T Cells and Dendritic Cells during the Early Stages of Viral Infection or Exposure to Toll-Like Receptor Agonists

ABSTRACT Profound type I interferon (IFN-I)-dependent attrition of memory CD8 and CD4 T cells occurs early during many infections. It is dramatic at 2 to 4 days following lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) infection of mice and can be elicited by the IFN-inducing Toll receptor agonist poly(I:C). We show that this attrition occurs in many organs, indicating that it is due to T cell loss rather than redistribution. This loss correlated with elevated intracellular staining of T cells ex vivo for activated caspases but with only low levels of ex vivo staining with annexin V, probably due to the rapid clearance of apoptotic cells in vivo. Instead, a high frequency of annexin V-reactive CD8α+ dendritic cells (DCs), which are known to be highly phagocytic, accumulated in the spleen as the memory T cell populations disappeared. After short in vitro incubation, memory phenotype T cells isolated from LCMV-infected mice (day 3) or mice treated with poly(I:C) (12 h) displayed substantial DNA fragmentation, as detected by terminal deoxynucleotidyltransferase-mediated dUTP-biotin nick end labeling (TUNEL) assay, compared to T cells isolated from uninfected mice, indicating a role for apoptosis in the memory T cell attrition. This apoptosis of memory CD8 T cells early during LCMV infection was reduced in mice lacking the proapoptotic molecule Bim. Evidence is presented showing that high levels of T cell attrition, as found in young mice, correlate with reduced immunodomination by cross-reactive memory cells.
Impaired Numerical Ability Affects Supra-Second Time Estimation

It has been suggested that the human ability to process number and time both rely on common magnitude mechanisms, yet for time this commonality has mainly been investigated in the sub-second rather than longer time ranges. Here we examined whether number processing is associated with timing in time ranges greater than a second. Specifically, we tested long duration estimation abilities in adults with a developmental impairment in numerical processing (dyscalculia), reasoning that any such timing impairment co-occurring with dyscalculia may be consistent with joint mechanisms for time estimation and number processing. Dyscalculics and age-matched controls were tested on supra-second temporal estimation (12 s), a difficulty-matched non-temporal control task, as well as mathematical abilities. Consistent with our hypothesis, dyscalculics were significantly impaired in supra-second duration estimation but not in the control task. Furthermore, supra-second timing ability positively correlated with mathematical proficiency. All participants reported that they used counting to estimate time, although no specific instructions were given with respect to counting. These results suggest that numerical processing and supra-second temporal estimation share common mechanisms. However, since this conclusion is also based on subjective observations, further work needs to be done to determine whether mathematical impairment co-occurs with supra-second time estimation impairment when counting is not involved in and is objectively controlled for during supra-second timing. We hypothesize that counting, that does not develop normally in dyscalculics, might underlie and adversely affect dyscalculics’ supra-second time estimation performance, rather than an impairment of a magnitude mechanism or the internal clock pacemaker.
Training , Competency , and Credentialing Standards for Diagnostic Cervicocerebral Angiography , Carotid Stenting , and Cerebrovascular Intervention : A Joint Statement from the American Academy of Neurology

2 From the American Society of Interventional and Therapeutic Neuroradiology (J.J.C.), Society of Interventional Radiology (D.S.), American Academy of Neurology (A.J.F.), American Association of Neurological Surgeons (W.R.S.), American Society of Neuroradiology (E.J.R.), AANS/CNS Cerebrovascular Section (P.E.S.), and Congress of Neurological Surgeons (M.H.). The complete list of authors and reviewers for the NeuroVascular Coalition Writing Group is in the Acknowledgments. Received July 30, 2004; accepted August 2. Address correspondence to J.J.C. , Baptist Hospital of Miami, 8900 N Kendall Ave, Miami, FL 33133 (e-mail: buddyc @baptisthealth.net). See also the Editorial by Sacks and Connors in this issue. Training, Competency, and Credentialing Standards for Diagnostic Cervicocerebral Angiography, Carotid Stenting, and Cerebrovascular Intervention: A Joint Statement from the American Academy of Neurology, American Association of Neurological Surgeons, American Society of Interventional and Therapeutic Radiology, American Society of Neuroradiology, Congress of Neurological Surgeons, AANS/CNS Cerebrovascular Section, and Society of Interventional Radiology
The HLA‐A, ‐B and ‐DRB1 polymorphism in a large dataset of South Brazil bone marrow donors from Rio Grande do Sul

Human leukocyte antigen (HLA) genes are very informative in population genetics studies and their variability has been widely used to reconstruct the history of geographic and/or demographic expansions of human populations. The characterization of HLA diversity at the population level is also fundamental in clinical studies, particularly for bone marrow transplantation programs. In this study, we investigated the HLA molecular variation in Rio Grande do Sul, South Brazil, in order to identify possible regional differences across this state. More than 97,000 bone marrow donors were typed at the HLA‐ A, ‐B and ‐DRB1 loci and analyzed by considering two kinds of subdivisions based on both self‐identified ethnicity and place of residence: (a) the official geographic subdivision defined by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics and (b) known information about the colonization history of the state. HLA allele and haplotype frequencies were estimated and compared among the defined subgroups. The results indicate a lack of correlation between genetic variation and geography and thus no clear HLA genetic structure based on geographic criteria. On the other hand, major differences were observed regarding ethnicity. In addition, local populations from Rio Grande do Sul were found to be genetically similar to their corresponding parental European populations from Germany, Italy and Portugal, as documented by historical data. Overall, this study provides a thorough characterization of the HLA genetic variation in Rio Grande do Sul and a better understanding of its demographic history, being most useful for the development of more efficient strategies in bone marrow donors' recruitment.
A monolithically integrated optical heterodyne receiver

We demonstrate a monolithically integrated optical heterodyne receiver consisting of an input fiber waveguide, a single frequency distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) laser, a multimode interferometer-based 3-dB coupler, and a pair of semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA)/p-i-n modules using a single epitaxial growth based on asymmetric twin-waveguide (ATG) technology. The input signal was coupled into a fiber waveguide and mixed with the DBR local oscillator laser through the 3-dB coupler, and then coupled into the SOA/p-i-n modules for detection. Using this monolithically integrated optical receiver with a wide-band rectifier narrow-band amplifier receiver, a 3-GHz frequency modulated coherent analog optical link is demonstrated.
Visual Response Properties of Striate Cortical Neurons Projecting to Area MT in Macaque Monkeys

We have previously shown that some neurons in extrastriate area MT are capable of signaling the global motion of complex patterns; neurons randomly sampled from V1, on the other hand, respond only to the motion of individual oriented components. Because only a small fraction of V1 neurons projects to MT, we wished to establish the processing hierarchy more precisely by studying the properties of those neurons projecting to MT, identified by antidromic responses to electrical stimulation of MT. The neurons that project from V1 to MT were directionally selective and, like other V1 neurons, responded only to the motion of the components of complex patterns. The projection neurons were predominantly “special complex,” responsive to a broad range of spatial and temporal frequencies, and sensitive to very low stimulus contrasts. The projection neurons thus comprise a homogeneous and highly specialized subset of V1 neurons, consistent with the notion that V1 acts as clearing house of basic visual measurements, distributing information appropriately to higher cortical areas for specialized analysis.
The Effect of Electroconvulsive Therapy on CSF Amine Metabolites in Schizophrenic Patients

The effects of a series of six ECT treatments were observed on the CSF concentrations of HVA, MHPG, and 5-HIAA in 12 patients suffering from schizophrenia. Four patients were previously neuroleptic drug-free, and eight had received only oral neuroleptic drugs at the same dose for more than 4 weeks. A significant increase in the concentration of HVA was observed after the first ECT treatment but not after the final treatment. No significant changes were observed in the concentrations of MHPG and 5-HIAA. The patients improved clinically, and the results suggest that ECT has important effects on dopaminergic systems.
Multimodal representation: Kneser-ney smoothing/skip-gram based neural language model

For image retrieval and caption generation, this paper considers a multimodal representation that associates image with its text description (caption) by defining a neural language model as the conditional probability of the next word given both n past words in a caption and the image that the caption describes. To address the data sparsity problem, the use of the Kneser-Ney smoothing and skip-gram models is examined by integrating each into the multimodal neural language model. A language model (LM) known as Kneser-Ney smoothing is based on absolute-discounting interpolation while skip-gram LM is based on n-grams organized by allowing intermediate tokens to be “skipped”. The multimodal representation is evaluated on the IAPR TC-12 dataset. Using perplexity and BLEU-n measures, both Kneser-Ney smoothing and skip-gram models are demonstrated to be more effective as approaches to addressing the data sparsity problem than the generic n-gram model used in previous multimodal representations. The modality-biased log-bilinear (MLBL-B) model is set as the base model in the experiment.
Differential Expression and Properties of Starch Branching Enzyme Isoforms in Developing Wheat Endosperm

Three forms of starch branching enzyme (BE) from developing hexaploid wheat (Triticum aestivum) endosperm have been partially purified and characterized. Immunological cross-reactivities indicate that two forms (WBE-IAD, 88 kD, and WBE-IB, 87 kD) are related to the maize BE I class and that WBE-II (88 kD) is related to maize BE II. Comparison of the N-terminal sequences from WBE-IAD and WBE-II with maize and rice BEs confirms these relationships. Evidence is presented from the analysis of nullisomic-tetrasomic wheat lines demonstrating that WBE-IB is located on chromosome 7B and that the WBE-IAD fraction contains polypeptides that are encoded on chromosomes 7A and 7D. The wheat endosperm BE classes are differentially expressed during endosperm development. WBE-II is expressed at a constant level throughout mid and late endosperm development. In contrast, WBE-IAD and WBE-IB are preferentially expressed in late endosperm development. Differences are also observed in the kinetic characteristics of the enzymes. The WBE-I isoforms have a 2- to 5-fold higher affinity for amylose than does WBE-II, and the WBE-I isoforms are activated up to 5-fold by phosphorylated intermediates and inorganic phosphate, whereas WBE-II is activated only 50%. The potential implications of this activation of BE I for starch biosynthesis are discussed.
A Theory of Unconscious Thought

We present a theory about human thought named the unconscious-thought theory (UTT). The theory is applicable to decision making, impression formation, attitude formation and change, problem solving, and creativity. It distinguishes between two modes of thought: unconscious and conscious. Unconscious thought and conscious thought have different characteristics, and these different characteristics make each mode preferable under different circumstances. For instance, contrary to popular belief, decisions about simple issues can be better tackled by conscious thought, whereas decisions about complex matters can be better approached with unconscious thought. The relations between the theory and decision strategies, and between the theory and intuition, are discussed. We end by discussing caveats and future directions.
Building Semantic Networks from Plain Text and Wikipedia with Application to Semantic Relatedness and Noun Compound Paraphrasing

The construction of suitable and scalable representations of semantic knowledge is a core challenge in Semantic Computing. Manually created resources such as WordNet have been shown to be useful for many AI and NLP tasks, but they are inherently restricted in their coverage and scalability. In addition, they have been challenged by simple distributional models on very large corpora, questioning the advantage of structured knowledge representations. We present a framework for building large-scale semantic networks automatically from plain text and Wikipedia articles using only linguistic analysis tools. Our constructed resources cover up to 2 million concepts and were built in less than 6 days. Using the task of measuring semantic relatedness, we show that we achieve results comparable to the best WordNet based methods as well as the best distributional methods while using a corpus of a size several magnitudes smaller. In addition, we show that we can outperform both types of methods by combining the results of our two network variants. Initial experiments on noun compound paraphrasing show similar results, underlining the quality as well as the flexibility of our constructed resources.
Induction of human B cell proliferation and differentiation by the combination of phorbol ester and ionomycin

Phorbol esters and Ca2+ ionophores are known to mimic intracellular messengers involved in cell activation. We studied the effects of 12‐O‐tetradecanoylphorbol 13‐acetate (TPA) and ionomycin on tonsil and peripheral blood‐derived B lymphocytes. We show that TPA and ionomycin are co‐mitogenic and induce B lymphocyte differentiation. Although TPA in high concentrations is mitogenic to B lymphocytes by itself, submitogenic concentrations of TPA in combination with ionomycin trigger 50% of B lymphocytes to synthesize DNA. Stimulation of B lymphocytes with TPA plus ionomycin resulted in increased magnitude and a shift in the kinetics of c‐fos and c‐myc expression compared with either agent used alone. Activation markers such as the transferrin and interleukin 2 (IL 2) receptors were markedly increased after 24 h incubation with TPA and ionomycin. In parallel to the rapid proliferative burst, we observed evidence for B lymphocyte differentiation with an increase in the number of cells expressing cytoplasmic immunoglobulin (Ig) and the disappearance of the B1 surface marker. Since the cells remained surface Ig+ and secreted only small quantities of Ig, our results suggest that the combination of TPA and ionomycin is a potent inducer of B cell proliferation and early differentiation; terminal differentiation to an Ig‐secreting state, however, is not achieved.
Public space: A rights-based approach

This paper seeks to examine the legality of young people being moved on from spaces that are a mix of private and public. Every day, young people, youth workers and security guards grapple with this issue; this is hardly surprising as the legal position is complex and unclear. It is an area that engages both civil and criminal law, but with little indication where one might end and the other start. It is also an area of law that struggles with the differences between public and private property, with little or no acknowledgment that these particular spaces may have the characteristics of both.
Hydraulic disruption and passive migration by a bacterial pathogen in oak tree xylem

Xylella fastidiosa (Xf) is a xylem-limited bacterial pathogen that causes leaf scorch symptoms in numerous plant species in urban, agricultural, and natural ecosystems worldwide. The exact mechanism of hydraulic disruption and systemic colonization of xylem by Xf remains elusive across all host plants. To understand both processes better, the functional and structural characteristics of xylem in different organs of both healthy and Xf-infected trees of several Quercus species were studied. Hydraulic conductivity (Ks) in Xf-infected petioles of Q. palustris and Q. rubra decreased significantly compared with healthy trees as the season progressed and plummeted to zero with the onset of scorch symptoms. Prior to the onset of symptoms, embolism was as much as 3.7 times higher in Xf-infected petioles compared with healthy controls and preceded significant reductions in Ks. Embolism likely resulted from pit membrane degradation during colonization of new petiole xylem and triggered the process that eventually led to vessel occlusion. Pit membrane porosity was studied using the following four methods to determine if a pathway exists in the xylem network of woody stems that allows for passive Xf migration: (i) calculations based on vulnerability to cavitation data, (ii) scanning electron micrographs, (iii) microsphere injections, and (iv) air seeding thresholds on individual vessels. All four methods consistently demonstrated that large pit membrane pores (i.e. greater than the diameter of individual Xf) occur frequently throughout the secondary stem xylem in several Quercus species. These large pores probably facilitate systemic colonization of the secondary xylem network and contribute to the high susceptibility to bacterial leaf scorch exhibited among these species.
Extratropical Atmospheric Response to Equatorial Atlantic Cold Tongue Anomalies

Abstract The extratropical atmospheric response to the equatorial cold tongue mode in the Atlantic Ocean has been investigated with the coupled ocean–atmosphere model, Speedy Ocean (SPEEDO). Similar to the observations, the model simulates a lagged covariability between the equatorial cold tongue mode during late boreal summer and the east Atlantic pattern a few months later in early winter. The equatorial cold tongue mode attains its maximum amplitude during late boreal summer. However, only a few months later, when the ITCZ has moved southward, it is able to induce a significant upper-tropospheric divergence that is able to force a Rossby wave response. The lagged covariability is therefore the result of the persistence of the cold tongue anomaly and a favorable tropical atmospheric circulation a few months later. The Rossby wave energy is trapped in the South Asian subtropical jet and propagates circumglobally before it reaches the North Atlantic. Due to the local increase of the Hadley circulation, fo.
Cyclooxygenase-1 Overexpression Decreases Basal Airway Responsiveness but Not Allergic Inflammation1

Pharmacological inhibition or genetic disruption of cyclooxygenase (COX)-1 or COX-2 exacerbates the inflammatory and functional responses of the lung to environmentally relevant stimuli. To further examine the contribution of COX-derived eicosanoids to basal lung function and to allergic lung inflammation, transgenic (Tr) mice were generated in which overexpression of human COX-1 was targeted to airway epithelium. Although no differences in basal respiratory or lung mechanical parameters were observed, COX-1 Tr mice had increased bronchoalveolar lavage fluid PGE2 content compared with wild-type littermates (23.0 ± 3.6 vs 8.4 ± 1.4 pg/ml; p < 0.05) and exhibited decreased airway responsiveness to inhaled methacholine. In an OVA-induced allergic airway inflammation model, comparable up-regulation of COX-2 protein was observed in the lungs of allergic wild-type and COX-1 Tr mice. Furthermore, no genotype differences were observed in allergic mice in total cell number, eosinophil content (70 vs 76% of total cells, respectively), and inflammatory cytokine content of bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, or in airway responsiveness to inhaled methacholine (p > 0.05). To eliminate the presumed confounding effects of COX-2 up-regulation, COX-1 Tr mice were bred into a COX-2 null background. In these mice, the presence of the COX-1 transgene did not alter allergen-induced inflammation but significantly attenuated allergen-induced airway hyperresponsiveness, coincident with reduced airway leukotriene levels. Collectively, these data indicate that COX-1 overexpression attenuates airway responsiveness under basal conditions but does not influence allergic airway inflammation.