Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Letter: Lack of association between MDR1 polymorphisms and pharmacoresistance to anticonvulsive drugs in patients with childhood‐onset epilepsy

clinic? One solution would be to provide financial incentives for the development of drugs with limited markets, and to reevaluate informed consent in life-threatening conditions as was done in the U.S.A. Another option is to use controlled preclinical trials with clinically relevant endpoints to ‘‘fast-track’’ the compound into clinical use. Can preclinical trials help to pave the way for novel clinical treatments? The U.S. military accepts preclinical evidence in primates in the development of treatments for organophosphate nerve agent poisoning. In the case of SE, this approach would, first, require validation of the models. Although they are far from perfect, several available rodent models of SE recapitulate many aspects of generalized or complex partial SE. One would have to define the preclinical evidence needed for demonstrating efficacy to regulatory agencies, and for convincing clinicians to use the compound in emergency situations. One could consider validating the current models by testing available SE treatments in these models. Surprisingly, many of the current SE treatments have never been systematically investigated in animal models, nor have they been validated through controlled clinical trials. Preclinical trials allow the use of placebos and of a rigorous design, and many laboratories have access to 24/7 video-EEG (electroencephalography) monitoring, depth electrodes, various imaging modalities, and behavioral testing, so that measures of treatment efficacy can easily be tailored in a clinically relevant way. A recent Workshop on Research Priorities in Epilepsy in Europe indicated an urgency to discover novel treatments for SE (Baulac & Pitk nen, 2009). It is hoped that this work will go hand-in-hand with developing strategies to bring investigational compounds from bench to clinic. Solving this problem is a matter of will, and requires close collaboration between basic scientists, clinicians, and regulatory agencies. We truly hope that the upcoming Innsbruck Colloquium on Status Epilepticus will address this issue.
Acute Kidney Injury Is Associated With Increased Long-Term Mortality After Cardiothoracic Surgery

Background— Long-term survival after acute kidney injury (AKI) is poorly studied. We report the relationship between long-term mortality and AKI with small changes in serum creatinine during hospitalization after various cardiothoracic surgery procedures. Methods and Results— This was a retrospective study of 2973 patients with no history of chronic kidney disease who were discharged from the hospital after cardiothoracic surgery between 1992 and 2002. AKI was defined by the RIFLE classification (Risk, Injury, Failure, Loss, and End stage), which requires at least a 50% increase in serum creatinine and stratifies patients into 3 grades of AKI: Risk, injury, and failure. Patient survival was determined through the National Social Security Death Index. Long-term survival was analyzed with a risk-adjusted Cox proportional hazards regression model. Survival was worse among patients with AKI and was proportional to its severity, with an adjusted hazard ratio of 1.23 (95% CI 1.06 to 1.42) for the least severe RIFLE risk class and 2.14 (95% CI 1.73 to 2.66) for the RIFLE failure class compared with patients without AKI. Survival was worse among all subgroups of cardiothoracic surgery with AKI except for valve surgery. Patients with complete renal recovery after AKI still had an increased adjusted hazard ratio for death of 1.28 (95% CI 1.11 to 1.48) compared with patients without AKI. Conclusions— The risk of death associated with AKI after cardiothoracic surgery remains high for 10 years regardless of other risk factors, even for those patients with complete renal recovery. Improved renal protection and closer postdischarge follow-up of renal function may be warranted.
Connections of areas 3b and 1 of the parietal somatosensory strip with the ventroposterior nucleus in the owl monkey (Aotus trivirgatus)

Anatomical tracers were injected into electrophysiologically defined sites in somatosensory cortical Area 3b (SI proper) and Area I (posterior cutaneous field) of owl monkeys after these cortical subdivisions had been extensively explored in microelectrode mapping experiments. These mapping experiments revealed that both Areas 3b and 1 contain complete and separate representations of the body surface (Merzenich et al., '78). Restricted injections of the retrograde tracer, horseradish peroxidase (HRP), into either Area 3b or Area 1 labeled neurons within a band of cells in the ventroposterior nucleus (VP). The location of the labeled band in VP varied with the location of the injection site in both representations, and the labeled region of VP was overlapping for injections in corresponding body parts in the two representations. Neurons projecting to the hand and foot cortical representations were in architectonically identified subnuclei. Because injections into either Area 3b or Area 1 labeled over half of the neurons in the appropriate regions of VP, it appears that some neurons in VP project to both cortical representations. Finally, injections of HRP combined with the anterograde tracer, 3H‐proline, indicate that VP neurons are reciprocally interconnected with both Areas 3b and 1.
Vector Quantization Technique for Nonparametric Classifier Design

An effective data reduction technique based on vector quantization is introduced for nonparametric classifier design. Two new nonparametric classifiers are developed, and their performance is evaluated using various examples. The new methods maintain a classification accuracy that is competitive with that of classical methods but, at the same time, yields very high data reduction rates. >
Acute hemodialysis complications in end‐stage renal disease patients: The burden and implications for the under‐resourced Sub‐Saharan African health systems

Little is known about the challenges of routine renal replacement therapy in Sub‐Saharan Africa. We investigated the fatal and nonfatal acute hemodialysis (HD) complications in patients with end‐stage renal disease (ESRD) in two main dialysis centers in Cameroon. 1000 consecutive HD sessions incurred over a 4‐month period by 129 patients (96 men, 74%) with ESRD, receiving two weekly HD sessions of 4 hours each, were considered. Personal and clinical profiles before, during, and within 24 hours after HD sessions were used to diagnose complications. Participants were aged 7 to 80 years (mean 46 years). In all, 452 acute complications were recorded in 411 (41%) of the 1000 HD sessions. Of the 11 types of complications, hypotension (25%), muscular cramps (22%), hypertensive crisis (14%), pruritus (10%), and fever (7%) were the most frequent. Three hundred and six complications (67.7%) occurred during understaffed nighttime. The vascular access was the main bleeding site with 64%. Being diabetic and ultrafiltration rate >1000 mL/h were associated with hypotension and muscle cramps. The shorter duration in dialysis was associated with the risk of bleeding and the disequilibrium syndrome while longer duration was associated with muscle cramps. Four deaths (three from bleeding and one from disequilibrium syndrome) occurred, all during nighttime. Nearly half of dialysis sessions in these settings are associated with acute complications, some of which are fatal. Those complications occurred mostly during understaffed periods. Urgent strategies are needed to quickly solve the human capital crisis in the health care sector.
Spironolactone Regulates HCN Protein Expression Through Micro-RNA-1 in Rats With Myocardial Infarction

Abstract: Emerging evidence has shown that aldosterone blockers reduced the incidence of ventricular arrhythmias in patients with myocardial infarction (MI). However, the mechanism remains unknown. In this study, we investigated the mechanism by which spironolactone, a classic aldosterone blocker, regulates hyperpolarization-activated cyclic nucleotide-gated channel (HCN) protein expression in ischemic rat myocardium after MI. Eighteen rats surviving 24 hours after MI were randomly assigned into 3 groups: MI, spironolactone, and spironolactone + antagomir-1. Six sham-operated rats had a suture loosely tied around the left coronary artery, without ligation. The border zone of the myocardial infarct was collected from each rat at 1 week after MI. HCN2 and HCN4 protein and messenger RNA (mRNA) level were measured in addition to miRNA-1 levels. Spironolactone significantly increased miRNA-1 levels and downregulated HCN2 and HCN4 protein and mRNA levels. miRNA-1 suppression with antagomir-1 increased HCN2 and HCN4 protein levels; however, HCN2 and HCN4 mRNA levels were not affected. These results suggested that spironolactone could increase miRNA-1 expression in ischemic rat myocardium after MI and that the upregulation of miRNA-1 expression partially contributed to the posttranscriptional repression of HCN protein expression, which may contribute to the effect of spironolactone to reduce the incidence of MI-associated ventricular arrhythmias.
Evaluation of a Dominance-Based Rough Set Approach to Interface Design

This paper explores refinements to methods used in a procedure being developed by the authors to personalize user interfaces for online shopping support tools. In the authors' original procedure, classical methods in rough set theory are used in conjunction with traditional algorithms in web usage mining. This paper will explore an alternative approach, specifically the dominance-based rough set approach (DRSA), for use with the authors' original procedure. DRSA has its foundations in the classical rough set approach (CRSA). However unlike CRSA, DRSA considers feature/preference-ordered data. In web usage mining analyses, where elicitation of user preferences is a common task, feature/preference order is an important factor and may provide insights that classical/traditional approaches may omit. The authors discuss how DRSA may benefit and improve their original procedure and discuss how the information gained from DRSA analyses could be used to further build their original procedure by enabling item ordering and feature highlighting. This paper will describe the research process, outcomes, and outline opportunities for future work.
Statistics for Analysis of Experimental Data

Statistics is a mathematical tool for quantitative analysis of data, and as such it serves as the means by which we extract useful information from data. In this chapter we are concerned with data that are generated via experimental measurement. Experimentation often generates multiple measurements of the same thing, i.e. replicate measurements, and these measurements are subject to error. Statistical analysis can be used to summarize those observations by estimating the average, which provides an estimate of the true mean. Another important statistical calculation for summarizing the observations is the estimate of the variance, which quantifies the uncertainty in the measured variable. Sometimes we have made measurements of one quantity and we want to use those measurements to infer values of a derived quantity. Statistical analysis can be used to propagate the measurement error through a mathematical model to estimate the error in the derived quantity. Sometimes we have measured two different things and we want to know whether there really is a difference between the two measured values. Analysis of variance (t-tests) can be used to estimate the probability that the underlying phenomena are truly different. Finally, we may have measured one variable under a variety of conditions with regard to a second variable. Regression analysis can be used to come up with a mathematical expression for the relationship between the two variables. These are but a few of the many applications of statistics for analysis of experimental data. This chapter presents a brief overview of these applications in the context of typical experimental measurements in the field of environmental engineering.
Potential for suicide prevention in primary care? An analysis of factors associated with suicide.

BACKGROUND General practitioners (GPs) need to be aware of the risk factors for suicide. GP records may provide clues to identifying the relative importance of such risk factors. AIMS To identify, in suicide cases and matched controls, the patterns of consultation, diagnosis, and treatment of mental illness, and recording of risk factors for suicide. To examine the usefulness of data routinely collected by GPs in computerized databases to investigate treatment of patients in general practice prior to suicide. METHOD Case control study using GP records from the General Practice Research Database (GPRD). Three controls selected for each case, matched for age, sex, and duration of registration with practice. Information extracted of the prevalence of major disease; diagnosis of, and treatment, or referral for, mental illness; frequency of recording of recent life events; and consultations with the GP in the 12 months prior to death. RESULT Of the 339 suicide cases recorded, 80% were male, which is similar to the national percentage for this age group. Females were more likely than males to have a history of mental illness and to have been diagnosed and treated for mental illness in the 12 months before death (59% versus 35%), and women were more likely to have previously attempted suicide (47% versus 27%). There was no significant difference between males and females in period of time since last contact with GP practice, but females consulted more frequently. Twenty-nine per cent of cases had not consulted their GP in the six months prior to death. In multivariate analysis, the following were identified as independent risk factors: history of attempted suicide; untreated serious mental illness (odds ratio > 20); recent (past 12 months) marital life event; alcohol abuse; frequent consultations with GP; and previous mental illness. Recording of life events by GPs was poor. CONCLUSIONS Females at risk of suicide are more likely than males to have been diagnosed and treated for mental illness. It is likely that GPs are under-diagnosed and under-treating males at risk. Data from the GPRD give comparable results to those from other studies. The GPRD is a potentially useful tool for research into relatively uncommon events in general practice.
Composition analysis of pork carcasses by dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry.

Dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) was used as a noninvasive method to measure the composition of pig carcasses. A total of 181 half-carcasses (10 to 51 kg, from pigs slaughtered at approximately 30, 60, 90, and 120 kg) were scanned using a Lunar (Madison, WI) DPX-L densitometer. The DXA measurements of fat, lean, bone mineral, and total tissue mass were compared with chemical analysis for fat, water, protein, total ash, and scale weight. The mean value for total tissue mass by DXA was slightly less than the mean carcass weight (32.3 kg vs 33.6 kg, P > .05, R2 = .998). Although highly correlated (R2 = .81), the DXA measurement of the percentage of fat in the half-carcass was less (P < .001) than the chemical measurement (19.5 vs 24.9%). The DXA measurement of lean tissue mass (total mass less fat and bone mineral) was correlated with carcass protein (R2 = .97) and water (R2 = .99) content. The correlation (R2) between DXA bone mineral content and carcass ash content was only . 68; however, DXA bone mineral content was more highly correlated with carcass weight (R2 = .93) than was carcass ash content (R2 = .70). When we used the DXA R value (ratio of the attenuation coefficients for fat and lean) to predict percentage of fat in the carcass, the mean value for predicted carcass fat was 25.9% (P > .05). Similarly, carcass protein and water content were predicted from DXA lean. Using DXA region of interest analysis, estimates of the fat content of the shoulder and ham regions were close to chemical values; however, DXA underestimated the fat content of the loin and side regions by 20 and 28%, respectively. When prediction equations were used to evaluate DXA measurements of the half-carcasses of 28 gilts and 37 boars slaughtered at approximately 120 kg, the half-carcasses of gilts contained more fat (33.9 vs 27.8%, P < .001), less protein (14.1 vs 16.1%, P < .001), and less water (45.9 vs 52.1%, P < .001) than those of boars. These results indicate that DXA could be a valuable research tool for measuring the composition of pig carcasses. On the basis of the results of this study, prediction equations were revised for the DXA estimation of fat, protein, and water content of the half-carcass: Fat (%) = 450 - (315 x DXA R value), Protein (g) = -145 + (.23 x DXA lean), and Water (g) = 150 + (.73 x DXA lean). Furthermore, it seems that separate prediction equations are needed for regional analysis.
The effects of methylprednisolone and cefazolin sodium on antioxidant status in experimentally induced maxillary sinusitis

Conclusion: Sinusitis is accompanied by deteriorated antioxidant status, which can be alleviated with administration of cefazolin sodium or methylprednisolone. Steroids improve sinusitis when combined with antibiotics. Objective: To evaluate the antioxidant status in response to treatment of maxillary sinusitis with methylprednisolone and cefazolin sodium. Materials and methods: Twenty-eight rabbits were inoculated with Staphylococcus aureus and then treated with saline, methylprednisolone, cefazolin sodium, and methylprednisolone plus cefazolin sodium, twice daily for 7 days. After the animals were sacrificed, mucosa samples were obtained to determine catalase (CAT), superoxide dismutase (SOD), and glutathione reductase (GPx) activities and levels of nitric oxide (NO) and malondialdehyde (MDA). Results: Catalase activity among untreated rabbits and those treated with either methylprednisolone or cefazolin sodium was not different. Activities of SOD and GPx were lower for rabbits treated with cefazolin sodium than for those treated with methylprednisolone and for untreated rabbits (p<0.0001). Rabbits treated with cefazolin sodium had lower NO and MDA levels than those treated with methylprednisolone and untreated rabbits (p<0.0001). Combined administration of cefazolin sodium with methylprednisolone increased CAT, SOD, and GPx activities further and decreased NO and MDA levels further in comparison with their administration alone (p<0.0001).
Sequence Analysis of the Segmental Duplication Responsible for Paris Sex-Ratio Drive in Drosophila simulans

Sex-ratio distorters are X-linked selfish genetic elements that facilitate their own transmission by subverting Mendelian segregation at the expense of the Y chromosome. Naturally occurring cases of sex-linked distorters have been reported in a variety of organisms, including several species of Drosophila; they trigger genetic conflict over the sex ratio, which is an important evolutionary force. However, with a few exceptions, the causal loci are unknown. Here, we molecularly characterize the segmental duplication involved in the Paris sex-ratio system that is still evolving in natural populations of Drosophila simulans. This 37.5 kb tandem duplication spans six genes, from the second intron of the Trf2 gene (TATA box binding protein-related factor 2) to the first intron of the org-1 gene (optomotor-blind-related-gene-1). Sequence analysis showed that the duplication arose through the production of an exact copy on the template chromosome itself. We estimated this event to be less than 500 years old. We also detected specific signatures of the duplication mechanism; these support the Duplication-Dependent Strand Annealing model. The region at the junction between the two duplicated segments contains several copies of an active transposable element, Hosim1, alternating with 687 bp repeats that are noncoding but transcribed. The almost-complete sequence identity between copies made it impossible to complete the sequencing and assembly of this region. These results form the basis for the functional dissection of Paris sex-ratio drive and will be valuable for future studies designed to better understand the dynamics and the evolutionary significance of sex chromosome drive.
Synthesis of W2C by Reactive Hot Pressing and Its Mechanical Properties

Tungsten hemicarbide W 2 C with no or small amounts of W or WC was prepared by reaction-sintering from W and WC powders using a resistance-heated hot-pressing technique called spark plasma sintering. The product phases, density, microstructure, elastic moduli, hardness, and fracture toughness of the sintered bodies were determined. The stable region of the W 2 C phase had a narrow carbon content below 1860°C. W 2 C had a Poisson's ratio of 0.286, and its Young's modulus at zero porosity was determined to be 444GPa from the true density and bulk density dependence. These values suggest that W 2 C has elastic deformation behavior similar to that of W.
Spectral Analysis of Mandarin Chinese Sibilant Fricatives

This paper investigates the spectral aspects of Mandarin Chinese sibilant [s, ʂ, ɕ] in three vowel context /a, i, u/. Three male and three female speakers of Mandarin Chinese were recorded. To ensure good spectral estimates, frication noise was analyzed using multitaper analysis. For comparison, one female speaker of Polish was analyzed in the same way. A strict ordering was found among Mandarin sibilants in the first spectral moment; [s] has the highest spectral moment, [ɕ] intermediate, and [ʂ] lowest. In contrast, the spectral moments of Polish [ɕ] and [ʂ] presented very similar values. This study also found a strong acoustic effect of the rounded vowel. The noise spectra in the [u] context appear to have a distinct narrow-bandwidth peak at a higher frequency that sometimes increases the first spectral moment.
Rhythmic Similarity in Traditional Turkish Music

In this paper, the problem of automatically assigning a piece of traditional Turkish music into a class of rhythm referred to as usul is addressed. For this, an approach for rhythmic similarity measurement based on scale transforms has been evaluated on a set of MIDI data. Because this task is related to time signature estimation, the accuracy of the proposed method is evaluated and compared with a state of the art time signature estimation approach. The results indicate that the proposed method can be successfully applied to audio signals of Turkish music and that it captures relevant properties of the individual usul.
A Linear Program for the Finite Block Length Converse of Polyanskiy–Poor–Verdú Via Nonsignaling Codes

Motivated by recent work on entanglement-assisted codes for sending messages over classical channels, the larger, easily characterized class of nonsignaling codes is defined. Analyzing the optimal performance of these codes yields an alternative proof of the finite block length converse of Polyanskiy, Poor, and Verdú, and shows that they achieve this converse. This provides an explicit formulation of the converse as a linear program which has some useful features. For discrete memoryless channels, it is shown that nonsignaling codes attain the channel capacity with zero error probability if and only if the dispersion of the channel is zero.