Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Local and External Moisture Sources for the Arctic Warming over the Barents–Kara Seas

AbstractWater vapor is critical to Arctic sea-ice loss and surface air warming, particularly in winter. Whether the local process or poleward transport from lower latitudes can explain the Arctic warming is still a controversial issue. In this work, a hydrological tool, dynamical recycling model (DRM) based on time-backward Lagrangian moisture tracking, is applied to quantitatively evaluate the relative contributions of local evaporation and external sources to Barents-Kara Seas (BKS) moisture in winter during 1979-2015. On average, the local and external moistures explain 35.4% and 57.3% of BKS moisture, respectively. The BKS itself, Norwegian Sea and mid-latitude North Atlantic are the three major sources and show significant increasing trends of moisture contribution. The local moisture contribution correlates weakly to downward infrared radiation (IR) but significantly to sea-ice variation, which suggests the recent-decade increase of local moisture contribution is only a manifestation of sea-ice melt.
The cell biology of disease: Recent insights into the cellular biology of atherosclerosis

Atherosclerosis occurs in the subendothelial space (intima) of medium-sized arteries at regions of disturbed blood flow and is triggered by an interplay between endothelial dysfunction and subendothelial lipoprotein retention. Over time, this process stimulates a nonresolving inflammatory response that can cause intimal destruction, arterial thrombosis, and end-organ ischemia. Recent advances highlight important cell biological atherogenic processes, including mechanotransduction and inflammatory processes in endothelial cells, origins and contributions of lesional macrophages, and origins and phenotypic switching of lesional smooth muscle cells. These advances illustrate how in-depth mechanistic knowledge of the cellular pathobiology of atherosclerosis can lead to new ideas for therapy.
Soluble biomarkers of HIV transmission, disease progression and comorbidities

Purpose of reviewThe purpose of this study is to survey and synthesize recent progress in soluble biomarkers relevant to HIV-1 disease stages, progression and comorbidities. Recent findingsSoluble biomarkers in plasma and other body fluids provide insight into many aspects of HIV-1 disease. Chemokines and defensins in breast milk and cervicovaginal secretions have been associated with HIV-1 susceptibility and transmission. Acute infection plasma cytokine storm components, including serum amyloid A, IFN&ggr;-induced protein 10, interleukin (IL)-12, interferon-gamma (IFN&ggr;), IL-7 and IL-15, may help predict viral load set-point and the subsequent disease progression. During chronic infection, IL-6, soluble (s)CD14, sCD163, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, D-dimer, fibrin and hyaluronic acid can help predict comorbidities, and to some extent disease progression and mortality, in patients both on and off antiretroviral therapy. Furthermore, recent results suggest that assessment of combinations of soluble biomarkers may prove more powerful than the single factors alone in predicting disease. SummarySoluble biomarkers help us understand HIV-1 immunopathogenesis. Integration of many biomarkers derived from a single plasma sample might become a powerful tool to optimize and individualize treatment and care.
Patterns of changes and diagnostic values of FEF50%, FEF25%-75% and FEF50%/FEF25%-75% ratio in patients with varying control of bronchial asthma.

BACKGROUND The pattern of change in FEF50%, FEF25%-75% and FEF50%/FEF25%-75% ratio depends on mechanics of forceful expiration, provided that non-homogenous lung emptying is faithfully recorded in the expiratory flow-volume loops. OBJECTIVE To assess the potential clinical value of FEF50%, FEF25%-75% and FEF50%/FEF25%-75% ratio as an indicator of bronchial asthma (BA) control. METHODOLOGY The study involved 75 patients with BA matched for age and gender with 45 non-asthmatic subjects. Based on asthma control test (ACT) and spirometry, asthmatic patients were subdivided into controlled and poorly controlled/uncontrolled. The relationship between FEF50% and FEF25%-75% as well as FEF50%/FEF25%-75% ratio and ACT score were assessed using linear regression. ROC curves were used to assess reliability of FEF25%-75% and FEF50% to diagnose BA in patients with different degree of asthma control. RESULTS FEF50% correlated strongly with FEF25%-75% (r = 0.989, P < 0.001) and the relationship between the two indices is governed by the formula FEF50% = 1.132* FEF25%-75% - 0.003. There was no significant correlation (r = - 0.159, P = 0.083) between FEF50%/FEF25-75% ratio and ACT score. The diagnostic capability of FEF25%-75% for spirometric diagnosis of BA is only marginally better compared to FEF50% (area under ROC curves were 0.88 and 0.89 respectively, P < 0.001); however, diagnostic power of both spirometric indices deceased with poor BA control. CONCLUSION FEF50%/FEF25%-75% has no clinical value as an indicator for BA control. Role of FEF25%-75% in evaluation of BA is marginally better than FEF50%; however, efficiency of both indices declined substantially as BA control worsened.
A New Scheduling Method for Enhanced Quality of Experience in LTE Systems

In this paper a new approach to the resource allocation and scheduling mechanism that reflects the effect of user's Quality of Experience is presented. The proposed scheduling algorithm is examined in the context of 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) system. Pause Intensity (PI) as an objective and no-reference quality assessment metric is employed to represent user's satisfaction in the scheduler of eNodeB. PI is in fact a measurement of discontinuity in the service. The performance of the scheduling method proposed is compared with two extreme cases: maxCI and Round Robin scheduling schemes which correspond to the efficiency and fairness oriented mechanisms, respectively. Our work reveals that the proposed method is able to perform between fairness and efficiency requirements, in favor of higher satisfaction for the users to the desired level.
Restoration measurements on an IP/MPLS backbone: The effect of Fast Reroute on link failure

In this paper we show data plane restoration measurements for restoration under backbone link failures for a large network with IP/MPLS OSPF routing and also for the same backbone with Traffic Engineering (TE) and Fast Reroute (FRR) deployed. Our study is unique as we analyzed a significant quantity of measurements obtained from a production network over a 14-month period encompassing many link failures. The results show that TE/FRR restoration reduces outage-induced loss-duration substantially as compared to OSPF restoration. We also note that for both OSPF and FRR the course of restoration is not as simple as is commonly believed. A detailed study of the data shows that while loss-duration and overall duration is much reduced, TE/FRR results in path changes with no detectable loss over a period of seconds. Thus implementation of TE/FRR in a network results in a vast improvement in behavior for all data flows.
Interior Point Methods in Semidefinite Programming with Applications to Combinatorial Optimization

This paper studies the semidefinite programming SDP problem, i.e., the optimization problem of a linear function of a symmetric matrix subject to linear equality constraints and the additional condition that the matrix be positive semidefinite. First the classical cone duality is reviewed as it is specialized to SDP is reviewed. Next an interior point algorithm is presented that converges to the optimal solution in polynomial time. The approach is a direct extension of Ye’s projective method for linear programming. It is also argued that many known interior point methods for linear programs can be transformed in a mechanical way to algorithms for SDP with proofs of convergence and polynomial time complexity carrying over in a similar fashion. Finally, the significance of these results is studied in a variety of combinatorial optimization problems including the general 0-1 integer programs, the maximum clique and maximum stable set problems in perfect graphs, the maximum k-partite subgraph problem in graph.
Biogenesis of Fe-S Cluster by the Bacterial Suf System

Biosynthesis of iron-sulfur clusters (Fe-S) depends on multiprotein systems. Recently, we described the SUF system of Escherichia coli and Erwinia chrysanthemi as being important for Fe-S biogenesis under stressful conditions. The SUF system is made of six proteins: SufC is an atypical cytoplasmic ABC-ATPase, which forms a complex with SufB and SufD; SufA plays the role of a scaffold protein for assembly of iron-sulfur clusters and delivery to target proteins; SufS is a cysteine desulfurase which mobilizes the sulfur atom from cysteine and provides it to the cluster; SufE has no associated function yet. Here we demonstrate that: (i) SufE and SufS are both cystosolic as all members of the SUF system; (ii) SufE is a homodimeric protein; (iii) SufE forms a complex with SufS as shown by the yeast two-hybrid system and by affinity chromatography; (iv) binding of SufE to SufS is responsible for a 50-fold stimulation of the cysteine desulfurase activity of SufS. This is the first example of a two-component cysteine desulfurase enzyme.
Quantitative Estimates of Environmental Effects on the Star Formation Rate of Disk Galaxies in Clusters of Galaxies

A simple model is constructed to evaluate the change of star formation rate of a disk galaxy due to environmental effects in clusters of galaxies. Three effects are investigated: (1) tidal force from the potential well of the cluster, (2) increase of external pressure when the galaxy plows into the intracluster medium, and (3) high-speed encounters between galaxies. General analysis indicates that the star formation rate increases significantly when the pressure of molecular clouds rises above ~3 × 105 cm-3 K in ~108 yr. This is because the pressure rise makes the destruction time of the majority of molecular clouds in the galaxy less than 108 yr. The tidal force from the potential well of the cluster accelerates molecular clouds in a disk galaxy infalling toward the cluster center. Thus, the kinetic pressure rises above ~3 × 105 cm-3 K. Before the galaxy reaches the cluster center, the star formation rate reaches a maximum. The peak is 3-4 times larger than the initial value. If this is the main mechanism of the Butcher-Oemler effect, blue galaxies are expected to be located within ~300 kpc from the center of the cluster. However this prediction is inconsistent with the recent observations. The increase of external pressure when the galaxy plows into the intracluster medium does not change star formation rate of a disk galaxy significantly. Thus, the increase of external pressure may not be the main mechanism of the Butcher-Oemler effect. The velocity perturbation induced by a single high-speed encounter between galaxies is too small to affect star formation rate of a disk galaxy, while successive high-speed encounters (galaxy harassment) trigger star formation activity because of the accumulation of gas in the galaxy center. Therefore, the galaxy harassment remains a candidate for a mechanism of the Butcher-Oemler effect.
Predicting the Ventilatory Support Necessity for Acute Exacerbation of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Patients Using Rapid Shallow Breathing Index

Acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a common cause of intensive care unit (ICU) admission due to respiratory failure which often necessitates mechanical ventilation (MV). This study evaluated the rapid shallow breathing index (RSBI) as a predicator of ventilatory support necessity in patients admitted with acute exacerbation of COPD. This study was conducted on 100 acute COPD exacerbation patients who admitted to the critical care department at Alexandria main university hospital. All enrolled patients (n=80) were subjected on admission to RSBI measurement on admission and every 30 minutes for the first 2 hours. The RSBI cutoff value that discriminated best between the need for noninvasive and invasive MV using the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) was > 241 breath/minute/Liter, it showed a sensitivity of 88.33% and a specificity of 100%. RSBI may be a good predictor of ventilatory support necessity in acute exacerbation of COPD.
Cognitive function in patients with late stage amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Background: Subtle cognitive deficits have been found in a substantial percentage of patients with early stage amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Cognitive function in later stages of the disease remain to be investigated because the neuropsychological tests that are usually employed, such as written or verbal fluency tests, cannot be performed by those patients because of motor or speech impairment, or both. Methods: In the present study, 11 patients with late stage ALS who were severely physically impaired and matched controls underwent a neuropsychological test battery to explore their cognitive function with respect to disease related functional status. Testing was restricted to tasks that used a binary (yes/no) signal and did not require verbalisation or measures of reaction time to index performance. Results: Although some patients displayed deficits in aspects of executive function, learning and memory, overall test results indicated normal cognitive function. A statistically highly significant negative correlation was found between the performance on two learning and memory tasks and the functional status of the patients. Conclusion: The results of this study indicate a superior performance on learning and memory tasks of patients whose disease had further progressed. This may have important implications for our view on cognitive function in relation to the course of the disease.
Plasmid Profile Analysis and Antimicrobial Resistance Pattern of Shigella flexneri Strains Isolated From Azad Kashmir, Pakistan

This study was carried out to determine the antimicrobial susceptibility patterns of 584 Shigella flexneri isolated from diarrheal patients admitted in hospitals in Azad Kashmir Pakistan and to evaluate their changing trends against twenty antibiotics. The isolates showed highest resistance against penicillin followed by carbenicillin, ampicillin, tetracycline, erythromycin, ceftizoxime, kanamycin, co-trimoxazole, piperacillin, amoxicillin, amikacin, streptomycin, nalidixic acid, gentamicin, chloramphenicol, cephalothin and ceftriaxone. All S. flexneri isolates were sensitive to cefixime, ciprofloxacin and enoxacin. Multiple drug resistance (MDR) was observed against 3-10 drugs and was resistant against three or more antibiotics was at the level as high as 300µg/ml. The resistant isolates showed different patterns of antibiotics resistance. The most common pattern was PCaA. The plasmids were observed in 32.8% MDR strains of S. flexneri which were found resistant against three or more antibiotics. The number of plasmids varied from one to seven. Analysis of plasmid DNA of S. flexneri revealed that all the strains contained a heterogeneous population of plasmids ranging between >23.1 kb to 23.1 Kb and 23.1 Kb plasmids.
A Preliminary Randomized Controlled Trial to Assess Effectiveness of Nasal High-Flow Oxygen in Intensive Care Patients

OBJECTIVE: In a cardiothoracic and vascular intensive care unit, to compare nasal high-flow (NHF) oxygen therapy and standard high-flow face mask (HFFM) oxygen therapy in patients with mild to moderate hypoxemic respiratory failure. METHODS: In a prospective randomized comparative study, 60 patients with mild to moderate hypoxemic respiratory failure were randomized to receive NHF or HFFM. We analyzed the success of allocated therapy, noninvasive ventilation rate, and oxygenation. RESULTS: Significantly more NHF patients succeeded with their allocated therapy (P = .006). The rate of noninvasive ventilation in the NHF group was 3/29 (10%), compared with 8/27 (30%) in the HFFM group (P = .10). The NHF patients also had significantly fewer desaturations (P = .009). CONCLUSIONS: NHF oxygen therapy may be more effective than HFFM in treating mild to moderate hypoxemic respiratory failure.
On Stateless Automata and P Systems

We introduce the notion of stateless multihead two-way (respectively, one-way) NFAs and stateless multicounter systems and relate them to P systems and vector addition systems. In particular, we investigate the decidability of the emptiness and reachability problems for these stateless automata and show that the results are applicable to similar questions concerning certain variants of P systems, namely, token systems and sequential tissue-like P systems.
A Novel Multivariate Index for Pancreatic Cancer Detection Based On the Plasma Free Amino Acid Profile

Background The incidence of pancreatic cancer (PC) continues to increase in the world, while most patients are diagnosed with advanced stages and survive <12 months. This poor prognosis is attributable to difficulty of early detection. Here we developed and evaluated a multivariate index composed of plasma free amino acids (PFAAs) for early detection of PC. Methods We conducted a cross-sectional study in multi-institutions in Japan. Fasting plasma samples from PC patients (n = 360), chronic pancreatitis (CP) patients (n = 28), and healthy control (HC) subjects (n = 8372) without apparent cancers who were undergoing comprehensive medical examinations were collected. Concentrations of 19 PFAAs were measured by liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry. We generated an index consisting of the following six PFAAs: serine, asparagine, isoleucine, alanine, histidine, and tryptophan as variables for discrimination in a training set (120 PC and matching 600 HC) and evaluation in a validation set (240 PC, 28 CP, and 7772 HC). Results Several amino acid concentrations in plasma were significantly altered in PC. Plasma tryptophan and histidine concentrations in PC were particularly low, while serine was particularly higher than that of HC. The area under curve (AUC) based on receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis of the resulting index to discriminate PC from HC were 0.89 [95% confidence interval (CI), 0.86–0.93] in the training set. In the validation set, AUCs based on ROC curve analysis of the PFAA index were 0.86 (95% CI, 0.84–0.89) for all PC patients versus HC subjects, 0.81 (95% CI, 0.75–0.86) for PC patients from stage IIA to IIB versus HC subjects, and 0.87 (95% CI, 0.80–0.93) for all PC patients versus CP patients. Conclusions These findings suggest that the PFAA profile of PC was significantly different from that of HC. The PFAA index is a promising biomarker for screening and diagnosis of PC.
Carbon‐based nanomaterials accelerate arteriolar thrombus formation in the murine microcirculation independently of their shape

Although carbon‐based nanomaterials (CBNs) have been shown to exert prothrombotic effects in microvessels, it is poorly understood whether CBNs also have the potential to interfere with the process of leukocyte‐endothelial cell interactions and whether the shape of CBNs plays a role in these processes. Thus, the aim of this study was to compare the acute effects of two differently shaped CBNs, fiber‐shaped single‐walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) and spherical ultrafine carbon black (CB), on thrombus formation as well as on leukocyte‐endothelial cell interactions and leukocyte transmigration in the murine microcirculation upon systemic administration in vivo. Systemic administration of both SWCNT and CB accelerated arteriolar thrombus formation at a dose of 1 mg kg–1 body weight, whereas SWCNT exerted a prothrombotic effect also at a lower dose (0.1 mg kg–1 body weight). In vitro, both CBNs induced P‐selectin expression on human platelets and formation of platelet‐granulocyte complexes. In contrast, injection of fiber‐shaped SWCNT or of spherical CB did not induce leukocyte–endothelial cell interactions or leukocyte transmigration. In vitro, both CBNs slightly increased the expression of activation markers on human monocytes and granulocytes. These findings suggest that systemic administration of CBNs accelerates arteriolar thrombus formation independently of the CBNs' shape, but does not induce leukocyte–endothelial cell interactions or leukocyte transmigration. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Self-reported arousal: further development of a multi-factorial inventory.

— The previously presented (Bohlin & Kjellberg, 1973) inventory of self-reported arousal, which contained four factor analytically derived scales, was further developed in the following way. First, the original factor pattern was cross-validated. Second, a new response scale was constructed which proved to be superior to the old one. Third, the inventory was extended with new items and factor analysis applied to this new inventory. From the model of phenomenological arousal advanced by Bohlin & Kjellberg (1973) six factors were hypothesized and it was shown that a similar solution could be obtained with the extended inventory. Finally, this six-factor pattern was cross-validated and six scales, labelled Sleep-Wakeful-ness, Energy, Stress, Irritation, Euphoria, and Concentration, were constructed.
Speciation of Campylobacter coli, C. jejuni, C. helveticus, C. lari, C. sputorum, and C. upsaliensis by Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption Ionization-Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry

ABSTRACT Multiple strains of Campylobacter coli, C. jejuni, C. helveticus, C. lari, C. sputorum, and C. upsaliensis isolated from animal, clinical, or food samples have been analyzed by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS). Whole bacterial cells were harvested from colonies or confluent growth on agar and transferred directly into solvent and then to a spot of dried 3-methoxy-4-hydroxycinnamic acid (matrix). Multiple ions in the 5,000- to 15,000-Da mass range were evident in spectra for each strain; one or two ions in the 9,500- to 11,000-Da range were consistently high intensity. “Species-identifying” biomarker ions (SIBIs) were evident from analyses of multiple reference strains for each of the six species, including the genome strains C. jejuni NCTC 11168 and C. jejuni RM1221. Strains grown on nine different combinations of media and atmospheres yielded SIBI masses within ±5 Da with external instrument calibration. The highest-intensity C. jejuni SIBIs were cytosolic proteins, including GroES, HU/HCj, and RplL. Multiple intraspecies SIBIs, corresponding probably to nonsynonymous nucleotide polymorphisms, also provided some intraspecies strain differentiation. MALDI-TOF MS analysis of 75 additional Campylobacter strains isolated from humans, poultry, swine, dogs, and cats revealed (i) associations of SIBI type with source, (ii) strains previously speciated incorrectly, and (iii) “strains” composed of more than one species. MALDI-TOF MS provides an accurate, sensitive, and rapid method for identification of multiple Campylobacter species relevant to public health and food safety.