Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Continuous infusion of epoprostenol improves the net balance between pulmonary endothelin-1 clearance and release in primary pulmonary hypertension.

BACKGROUND Primary pulmonary hypertension results from progressive narrowing of the precapillary pulmonary vasculature. A variety of endothelial abnormalities have been identified, including a net reduction in pulmonary clearance of the vasoconstrictor and smooth muscle mitogen endothelin-1. In many patients, net pulmonary release of endothelin-1 is observed. Chronic infusions of epoprostenol (prostacyclin) improve functional capacity, survival, and hemodynamics in patients with advanced primary pulmonary hypertension. We hypothesized that the epoprostenol infusions, as compared with conventional therapy, might alter the abnormal pulmonary endothelin-1 homeostasis. METHODS AND RESULTS Using a subset of patients from a larger randomized study comparing epoprostenol plus conventional therapy (n=11 in the present study) with conventional therapy alone (n=7 in the present study), we determined the ratio of plasma endothelin-1 levels in systemic arterial blood leaving the lung to levels in mixed venous blood entering the lung both before randomization and after 88 days of continuous therapy. There were no differences between the 2 groups before therapy, but by day 88, the epoprostenol-treated group had a greater proportion of patients (82%) with an arterial/venous ratio <1 than did the conventional therapy group, in which only 29% of patients had a ratio <1 (P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS These results suggest that continuous epoprostenol therapy may have a beneficial effect on the balance between endothelin-1 clearance and release in many patients with primary pulmonary hypertension and may provide one explanation for the salutary effect of epoprostenol in this disease.
Verified and validated calculation of unsteady dynamics of viscous hydrogen–air detonations

The dynamics of one-dimensional, piston-driven hydrogen–air detonations are predicted in the presence of physical mass, momentum and energy diffusion. The calculations are automatically verified by the use of an adaptive wavelet-based computational method which correlates a user-specified error tolerance to the error in the calculations. The predicted frequency of 0.97 MHz for an overdriven pulsating detonation agrees well with the 1.04 MHz frequency observed by Lehr in a shock-induced combustion experiment around a spherical projectile, thus giving a limited validation for the model. A study is performed in which the supporting piston velocity is varied, and the long time behaviour is examined for an initially stoichiometric mixture at 293.15 K and 1 atm. Several distinct propagation behaviours are predicted: a stable detonation, a high-frequency pulsating detonation, a pulsating detonation with two competing modes, a low-frequency pulsating detonation and a propagating detonation with many active frequencies. In the low-frequency pulsating mode, the long time behaviour undergoes a phenomenon similar to period-doubling. Harmonic analysis is used to examine how the frequency of the pulsations evolves as the supporting piston velocity is varied. It is found that the addition of viscosity shifts the neutral stability boundary by about 2 % with respect to the supporting piston velocity. As the supporting piston velocity is lowered, the intrinsic instability grows in strength, and the effect of viscosity is weakened such that the results are indistinguishable from the inviscid predictions.
An efficient adder/subtracter circuit for one-hot residue number system

Residue number system (RNS) is an appropriate system for fast and parallel arithmetic operation. This speed increases if one-hot residue (OHR) number system is used. There are problems in OHR with area and hardware consumption, when modules are large or result of various arithmetic operations is needed. In this paper, a new design for concurrent add and subtract operation in OHR systems, using barrel shifter structure is proposed. This design is extended to include the even and odd modules of a RNS system. For add/subtract operation in this paper, Presented design generates the addition and subtraction of two parameters synchronously in a one-hot circuit which its hardware is in the order of (m+1)2, compare to original 2m.2 it means that the amount of hardware in the proposed circuit is half of conventional structure that used two barrel shifters.
Novel Multi-bit Bitwise Adaptive Embedding Algorithms with Minimum Error for Data Hiding

This paper presents the novel multi-bit bitwise adaptive embedding algorithms for data hiding. These embedding algorithms can embed multi-bit (k-bit, k>=1 ) secret data into cover data only introduce minimum embedding error smaller than (2^(k-1)-1)*2^(i-k) according to the embedding location i. To achieve such a goal, the proposed embedding algorithm adaptively evaluates the most similar value to replace the original one and which can be divided into three steps: (1) embed logo data into cover data, (2) adaptively adjust the least-significant bits (LSBs) of cover data, and (3) adaptively adjust the maximum-significant bits (MSBs) of cover data. The proposed embedding algorithms are not only achieving minimum error but also suitable to hardware implementation due to it is based on logic, algebraic, and bit operations. Many simulations show that the proposed embedding algorithms perform good embedding quality for watermarking and steganography applications.
Microcompression of brittle and anisotropic crystals: recent advances and current challenges in studying plasticity in hard materials

Recent years have seen an increased application of small-scale uniaxial testing—microcompression—to the study of plasticity in macroscopically brittle materials. By suppressing fast fracture, new insights into deformation mechanisms of more complex crystals have become available, which had previously been out of reach of experiments. Structurally complex intermetallics, metallic compounds, or oxides are commonly brittle, but in some cases extraordinary, though currently mostly unpredictable, mechanical properties are found. This paper aims to give a survey of current advances, outstanding challenges, and practical considerations in testing such hard, brittle, and anisotropic crystals.
Study on the Relationship Between Metacognitive Strategies and English Reading

Language learning strategy is an very important aspect in the study of second language acquisition.Metacognitive strategy is one of learning strategies.Based on the study of the relevant literature home and abroad and the questionnaire research done by the authors,the paper expounds the connotation of metacognitive strategy and the nature of reading.Then it analyzes and discusses the relationship between metacognitive strategies and English reading.Finally it proposes applying metacognitive strategies to English reading.
Altered Resting-State Functional Connectivity of the Striatum in Parkinson's Disease after Levodopa Administration

Background Despite improvement in motor symptoms, the effect of dopaminergic medications on cognition in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) is less clear. The purpose of this study was to reveal levodopa-induced acute changes in the functional connectivity of the striatum in patients with PD compared with matched untreated patients and healthy volunteers. Methods Twenty-two patients with PD underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging both ON and OFF dopamine-replacement therapy on two consecutive days. Twenty-eight normal aging volunteers also did them without taking in levodopa. Three caudate seeds and two putamen seeds were selected to calculate functional connectivity intensity. Results Motor symptoms measured by UPDRS were significantly worse in PD OFF than PD ON. Decreased functional connectivity in PD OFF compared to controls was detected in the following seed regions: dorsal caudate, ventral putamen and dorsal putamen. Increases in connectivity in PD ON compared to controls were found in the primary and supplementary motor areas and the associative prefrontal and parietal regions, while decreases in anterior cingulate, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and parahippocampal gyrus. For the ventral striatal seeds, decreased connectivity in PD ON compared to PD OFF was found in the ventromedial prefrontal and orbitofrontal regions, dorsolateral prefrontal regions. For the dorsal striatal seeds, increased connectivity in PD ON compared to PD OFF was observed in the primary and secondary motor areas. Conclusion Our results suggest that levodopa significantly changes the motor and cognitive networks of the cortico-striatal pathways. This knowledge will lead clinicians to survey a broader range of symptoms in determining optimal therapy.
CpG-DNA-Mediated Receptor Activation Site in TLR 9 That Contributes to Identification of an N-Terminal Recognition

Although it is well established that TLR9 recognizes CpG-DNA, the structural details of ligand-receptor interaction are still mostly unknown. The extracellular domain of TLR9 is composed of 25 leucine-rich repeat (LRR) motifs, 5 of which bear inserting sequences that do not conform to the LRR consensus motif. In this study, we show that the functional integrity of the extracellular domain of murine TLR9 is lost by deletion of individual LRR motifs. When deleting only the inserting sequences, we observed that LRR2, 5, and 8 contribute to receptor activation by CpG-DNA. The latter deletions did not affect receptor dimerization but inhibited CpG-DNA binding. On the basis of a homology modeling approach, we furthermore identify a positively charged region in the N terminus that is essential for CpG-DNA-induced TLR9 activation. This interaction site mirrors ﬁndings previously shown for the structural recognition of dsRNA by TLR3 and hints toward a general principle of nucleic acid recognition by the respective TLR. The Journal of Immunology, 2009, 182: 7690–7697. whose extracellular domain (ECD) 4 is for ligand binding. The ECD of TLR of leucine-rich repeats (LRR) (2). LRR a loop in which conserved hydrophobic residues point inward, and several of these loops build-up a horseshoe-shaped ECD, which is N- and C-terminally ﬂanked by so-called cysteine ﬂanking regions, termed LRR-NT and -CT, respectively. The ﬁrst 10 aa of LRR are conserved in all LRR subtypes and form a (cid:1) -sheet shaping the
Evaluation of brain lesions in patients after coronary artery bypass grafting using MRI with the emphasis on susceptibility-weighted imaging

Introduction Patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) are at risk of strokes and neurocognitive disorders. The aim of the study The aim of the study was to assess the clinical utility of susceptibility-weighted imaging (SWI) MRI in detection of new brain lesions in patients after CABG. We assessed the incidence and types of brain lesions and correlated the data with neurological examinations in groups of patients who underwent on-pump and off-pump CABG. Material and methods Patients underwent a neurological examination and MRI before, 6-20 days after and 6 months after the CABG. Fifty-one patients (43 men, mean age 63.12 years) were analyzed. Results Fifteen (29.4%) patients underwent on-pump CABG, 36 (70.6%) off-pump CABG. On postoperative scans new lesions were detected in 12 (23.5%) patients. Ischemic lesions (visible on diffusion-weighted imaging [DWI]) were detected in 4 patients, in 6 lesions were visible on SWI, in 1 case lesions were visible on SWI and DWI. Hemorrhagic stroke was observed in 1 patient. In the group of patients who underwent on-pump CABG, new brain lesions were observed in 60.0% of patients vs. 8.3% of those who underwent off-pump CABG (p < 0.0001); these changes more frequently were multiple (p < 0.0013) and located infratentorially (p < 0.0218). Lesions visible on SWI were observed only in patients undergoing on-pump CABG (p = 0.00005). In all patients (except for 1 with stroke), lesions visible in MRI were clinically silent. Conclusions The use of SWI enables one to detect lesions occurring in the brain after CABG, invisible in other sequences. On-pump CABG is associated with a greater risk of clinically silent brain damage compared to off-pump CABG.
Gaining Access to Housing in Germany: The Foreign-minority Experience

Housing is a critical component of household well-being and the extent to which minority households have achieved parity with Germans is a measure of the extent to which this population is integrated into the larger German society. Specifically, we examine whether the housing conditions for immigrants improved between 1985 and 1998 despite the greater barriers to upward mobility for low-skill workers arising from industrial restructuring.1 We use regression models to determine the degree to which socioeconomic differences between the two populations account for variations in the average quality of their housing. Finally, given the low number of vacancies in the German housing market and the disadvantaged position of minorities within it, we are interested in measuring the magnitude of the improvements persons of foreign origin are able to make through residential mobility. Our descriptive analyses reveal that, although housing conditions for minorities have improved in absolute terms across a wide array of indicators, only in a few instances has the housing quality gap between Germans and persons of foreign origin narrowed. Further, we find that the housing conditions of minorities remained poorer even after controlling for variables thought to be strong predictors of housing quality (income, age, family size, etc.). Finally, persons of foreign origin are becoming increasingly likely to move into the large, often geographically and socially isolated, apartment complexes built in the post-World War II era.
Noise effect analysis in the non-invasive organization estimation of atrial fibrillation

In recent studies, Sample Entropy (SampEn) has demonstrated that can be a very promising non-linear index to assess atrial fibrillation (AF) organization from surface ECG recordings. However, non-linear regularity metrics are notably sensitive to noise. Thereby, in the present work, the effect that noise provokes in the SampEn-based organization estimation is analyzed. Given that AF organization was estimated by computing SampEn over the atrial activity (AA) signal, to evaluate the noise impact on AA regularity, 25 synthetic signals with different organization degrees were generated following a published model. Noise coming from real ECG recordings with different energy levels was added to the synthesized AA signals to obtain different signal to noise ratios (SNR). Results showed that SampEn, i.e., the AA irregularity, increased with noise, thus hiding the differences between organized and disorganized recordings. Precisely, in the presence of noise, SampEn values were increased, in average, by factors of 1.64, 4.46, 9.46 and 14.23 for SNRs of 24, 15, 9 and 3 dB, respectively. As a conclusion, a proper AF organization evaluation via SampEn requires noise reduction in the AA signal.
Effects of forest edges, fruit display size, and fruit colour on bird seed dispersal in a New Zealand mistletoe, Alepis flavida

This study examined how forest edges, fruit display size, and fruit colour influenced rates of seed dispersal in an endemic, bird-dispersed, New Zealand mistletoe species, Alepis flavida. To examine rates of seed dispersal, fruit removal rates were compared between plants growing on forest edges and in forest interior, and also between two morphs of plants with different coloured fruits. Two aspects of fruit display size were examined: plant size and the neighbourhood of conspecific plants. There was no overall difference in fruit removal rates on forest edges and in forest interior, but birds removed fruits from red-fruited plants at a faster rate than from orange-fruited plants. Proximity of plant neighbours interacted with edges to influence fruit removal rates. The smaller the distance to nearest neighbours, the greater the fruit removal rates for orange-fruited plants in both habitats, but this relationship was significant for red-fruited plants only in the interior. Plant size affected fruit removal rates for orange-fruited plants, but not for red-fruited plants, and these differences were consistent in both habitats. Thus, fruit colour had the strongest effects on rates of fruit removal in this system, but forest edges also affected fruit removal rates, via altering the effects of neighbouring plants. Although birds prefer red fruits, there appears to be little selection pressure against orange-fruited plants because fruit removal rates are very high for both morphs.
Tablet computers to support outpatient pulmonary rehabilitation in patients with COPD

Background A minicomputer (tablet) with instructions and a training diary has the potential of facilitating adherence to pulmonary rehabilitation (PR). Objective To evaluate the effect of adding a tablet to a classic outpatient PR programme for COPD patients. Methods A total of 115 patients participated in a 7- to 10-week outpatient PR programme in groups of 10–12 individuals. Half of the groups were assigned to PR plus a tablet (tablet group) and the other groups were assigned to PR only (controls). Primary effect parameters were endurance shuttle walk time (ESWT) and disease-specific health status (COPD Assessment Test=CAT). Results The change in ESWT was significantly better in the control group (mean 167 sec) compared with the tablet group (mean 51 sec) (p<0.01), whereas the change in CAT score did not differ significantly between the two groups (−0.6 vs. −2.3) (p=0.17). Conclusions Compared with usual PR, no significant improvements were seen in the group equipped with the tablet after 7–10 weeks of rehabilitation. Future studies should focus on long-term effects.
The higher Hilbert pairing via (phi,G)-modules

We prove the Tate duality for higher dimensional local fields of mixed characteristic (0,p), when p is an odd prime, using the theory of higher fields of norms. Assuming that p is not ramified in the basefield, we then use this construction to define the higher Hilbert pairing. In particular, we show that the Hilbert pairing is non-degenerate, and we re-discover the formulae of Brueckner and Vostokov.
Contributions des voies vestibulospinale et corticospinale au contrôle des mouvements du bras

The control of arm movement involves many pathways originating from the brain. This thesis, composed essentially of two studies, aims to clarify the contribution of pathways originating from the vestibular system and the motor cortex. The goal of the first study (Raptis et al 2007) was to better define the role of descending pathways originating from the vestibular system in motor equivalence during goal-directed movements, i.e. the ability of the system to reach the same motor goal regardless of the number of degrees of freedom involved. We hypothesized that the vestibular system plays an essential role in motor equivalence. We compared the ability of providing motor equivalence in arm-trunk reaching movements in healthy and chronic vestibulo-deficient subjects. While their vision was temporarily blocked, subjects were asked to maintain a position of the index finger or to reach a remembered target (within arm reach) while simultaneously flexing the trunk. In randomly selected trials, trunk movement was unexpectedly blocked by an electromagnetic device at the ‘‘go’’ signal. Healthy subjects were able to preserve the required finger position and trajectory in the two trunk conditions (trunk-free, trunkblocked) by short-latency (60-180 ms) adjustments of shoulder and elbow joint rotations. In comparison, six of the seven chronic vestibulo-deficient patients showed deficits in the compensatory angular modifications, so that 30-100% of the trunk displacement was not compensated and thus influenced the finger position or trajectory. These results imply that vestibular influences evoked by head movement during trunk flexion play a major role in providing motor equivalence in these motor tasks when the number of degrees of freedom changes. These findings also suggest that the long-term plasticity following complete unilateral vestibular lesion may not be sufficient to allow the CNS to restore a normal degree of motor equivalence in arm-trunk movements. Arm-trunk coordination tasks constitute a new and sensitive approach in the clinical evaluation of vestibular deficits, targeting a functional dimension of vestibular influence which is not accounted for by standard clinical tests, which often are not sensitive enough to detect vestibular deficits after a 6 months recovery period.
In Vitro Evaluation of Planktonic Growth on Experimental Cement-Retained Titanium Surfaces

Background The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of selected cements, or their combination with titanium, on the growth of two periodontopathic bacteria: Prevotella intermedia (Pi) and Fusobacterium nucleatum (Fn). Material/Methods This study was comprised of several experimental groups: 1) Dental luting cements (glass ionomer cement, methacrylate-based resin cement, zinc-oxide eugenol cement, eugenol-free zinc oxide cement; 2) titanium discs; and 3) titanium combination cement discs. The disks were submerged in bacterial suspensions of either Fn or Pi. Planktonic bacterial growth within the test media was measured by determining the optical density of the cultures (OD600). Mean and standard deviations were calculated for planktonic growth from three separate experiments. Results Intergroup comparison of all experimental groups revealed increased growth of Pi associated with cement-titanium specimens in comparison with cement specimens. Regarding the comparison of all groups for Fn, there was an increased amount of bacterial growth in cement-titanium specimens although the increase was not statistically significant. Conclusions The combination of cement with titanium may exacerbate the bacterial growth capacity of Pi and Fn in contrast to their sole effect.
Seeking Self-Verification: Motives for Private and Personal Chefs’ Boundary Work

Drawing on interviews with private and personal chefs, this study highlights the interplay between internal and external forces shaping boundary work. Private and personal chefs’ social and professional position is ambiguous, and their employment is precarious. In order to navigate their uncertain standing and assert self-worth, some drew boundaries between themselves and clients. They disliked clients who were wasteful, lacked the ‘right’ motivations for hiring a chef, or lacked the ‘right’ taste or approach to food. But rather than simply seeking to establish superiority, the chefs distanced themselves from and disregarded clients who seemed not to see them as they saw themselves – as skilled and valuable workers. This article argues that a desire for self-verification – to have one’s self-views verified by others – can activate boundaries. It suggests that an uncertain standing might foster this desire, and that workers’ views of themselves vis-à-vis other workers can drive their evaluations of clients.
The Labor Market in the Seventeenth-Century Italian Art Sector

We analyze the labor market for painters in Baroque Rome using unique panel data on primary sales of still lifes, portraits, genre paintings, landscapes and figurative paintings. In line with the traditional artistic hierarchy of genres, average price differentials between them were high. We identify supply and demand factors related to prices of paintings. The panel dimension of the dataset and its matched painter-patron nature allows us to evaluate the extent to which price heterogeneity is related to unobservable characteristics of painters and patrons. We find that most of the inter-genre price differential is explained by the variation in average artist heterogeneity across genres. This suggests that the market allocated artists between artistic genres to the point of equalizing the marginal return of each genre. We also explain residual price differences in terms of efficiency wage, signalling and incentive mechanisms to induce effort in the production of artistic quality.