Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Recent progress toward the understanding of the pathophysiology of hypertension during preeclampsia.

Studies published in Hypertension and other journals over the last few years have provided exciting new insights into potential mechanisms underlying the pathogenesis of hypertension during preeclampsia. Although numerous factors including genetic, immunologic, behavioral, and environmental influences have been implicated in the pathogenesis of preeclampsia, the main focus of this Hypertension Highlight is to review recent studies that link endothelial dysfunction and hypertension in preeclampsia.1–11 The pathophysiologic processes that underlie preeclampsia has been proposed to occur in 2 stages: stage 1, reduced placental perfusion, and stage 2, the maternal clinical syndrome.1,4 Placental ischemia/hypoxia is believed to result in the release of a variety of placental factors that have profound effects on blood flow and arterial pressure regulation.1,4,10,11 These factors include a host of molecules such as the soluble VEGF receptor-1 (sFlt-1), the angiotensin II type-1 receptor autoantibody (AT1-AA), and cytokines such as tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α which in turn generate widespread dysfunction of the maternal vascular endothelium.1–11 This dysfunction manifests as enhanced formation of factors such as endothelin, reactive oxygen species (ROS), thromboxane, 20-HETE, and augmented vascular sensitivity to angiotensin II.1–11 In addition, preeclampsia is also associated with decreased formation of vasodilators such as nitric oxide (NO) and prostacyclin.1–11 These alterations in vascular function not only lead to hypertension but multi-organ dysfunction, especially in women with early onset preeclampsia.1,4,11–20 Preterm preeclampsia remains a leading cause of maternal death and perinatal morbidity. Moreover, it has recently been recognized that women who endure preeclampsia are at a greater risk for cardiovascular disease later in life. Therefore, identifying the connection between placental ischemia/hypoxia and maternal cardiovascular abnormalities is an important area of investigation.1,10,11,21 In addition, the quantitative importance of the various endothelial and humoral factors that mediate vascular dysfunction and hypertension during preeclampsia remains to …
Reflections and Perspectives on Pediatric Psychology: Editor's Vale Dictum

: Reviews major activities of the Editor and changes in the Journal of Pediatric Psychology (JPP) for issues published in 1993 through 1997. Significant trends and accomplishments are reviewed, including the increased use of Special Issues and Special Sections to highlight current pediatric psychological research. Articles published during the term are analyzed in terms of article type and population type. Comparisons are made to earlier trends in JPP publications, as reported by Roberts (1992).
Design of On-Chip Gate Drivers With Power-Efficient High-Speed Level Shifting and Dynamic Timing Control for High-Voltage Synchronous Switching Power Converters

Two integrated high-speed gate drivers to enable high-frequency operation of synchronous rectifiers in high-voltage switching power converters are presented in this paper. The first synchronous gate driver for a CMOS power train consists of a capacitively coupled level shifter (CCLS) that offers negligible propagation delays and no static current consumption, and requires only one off-chip capacitor to enable high-side power pMOS driving capability without any external floating supply. The second synchronous gate driver consists of a low-power high-speed dynamically controlled level shifter (DCLS) with a reliability-enhanced error-suppression technique for driving a dual-nMOS power train. In addition, a dynamic timing control (DTC) is developed to generate proper dead time for power FETs in order to enable soft switching operation of the converter under different input voltages for enhancing the converter reliability. The converter power efficiency can be also improved by minimizing both switching and short-circuit power losses under high-input-voltage conditions. Implemented in a 0.5 μm 120 V CMOS process, both proposed CCLS and DCLS have demonstrated to shift up 5 V signal to 100 V and 40 V, respectively, improving the FoM by at least 10 times and 2.9 times compared to respective state-of-the-art level shifters. The DTC circuit enables proper ZVS operation in a synchronous buck converter with the CCLS-based gate driver over a wide input supply range from 40 V to 100 V, providing a converter maximum power-efficiency improvement of 11.5%.
Processing of Emotional Distraction Is Both Automatic and Modulated by Attention: Evidence from an Event-related fMRI Investigation

Traditionally, emotional stimuli have been thought to be automatically processed via a bottom–up automatic “capture of attention” mechanism. Recently, this view has been challenged by evidence that emotion processing depends on the availability of attentional resources. Although these two views are not mutually exclusive, direct evidence reconciling them is lacking. One limitation of previous investigations supporting the traditional or competing views is that they have not systematically investigated the impact of emotional charge of task-irrelevant distraction in conjunction with manipulations of attentional demands. Using event-related fMRI, we investigated the nature of emotion–cognition interactions in a perceptual discrimination task with emotional distraction by manipulating both the emotional charge of the distracting information and the demands of the main task. Our findings show that emotion processing is both automatic and modulated by attention, but emotion and attention were only found to interact when finer assessments of emotional charge (comparison of most vs. least emotional conditions) were considered along with an effective manipulation of processing load (high vs. low). The study also identified brain regions reflecting the detrimental impact of emotional distraction on performance as well as regions involved in coping with such distraction. Activity in the dorsomedial pFC and ventrolateral pFC was linked to a detrimental impact of emotional distraction, whereas the dorsal ACC and lateral occipital cortex were involved in helping with emotional distraction. These findings demonstrate that task-irrelevant emotion processing is subjective to both the emotional content of distraction and the level of attentional demand.
Plasmarings as dual black rings

We construct solutions to the relativistic Navier-Stokes equations that describe the long wavelength collective dynamics of the deconfined plasma phase of = 4 Yang Mills theory compactified down to d = 3 on a Scherk-Schwarz circle and higher dimensional generalisations. Our solutions are stationary, axially symmetric spinning balls and rings of plasma. These solutions, which are dual to (yet to be constructed) rotating black holes and black rings in Scherk-Schwarz compactified AdS5 and AdS6, and have properties that are qualitatively similar to those of black holes and black rings in flat five dimensional supergravity.
Magmatic Sulfide Formation by Reduction of Oxidized Arc Basalt

The Hidaka Metamorphic Belt, in southeastern Hokkaido, Japan, provides insights into how magmatic sulfide deposits may form through magma mixing deep within arcs. Here, a near-complete cross-section of arc crust is exposed, with large mafic igneous complexes preserved at deeper levels. Magmatic sulfide mineralization occurs within the Opirarukaomappu Gabbroic Complex (OGC), which preserves a record of crustal contamination of mafic magmas via assimilation and magma mixing involving introduction of crust-derived tonalite. Assimilation^fractional crystallization modelling suggests that the gabbro evolved through a combination of approximately 10 wt % mixing and 14 wt % fractional crystallization. Magmatic sulfides and associated gabbros, diorites and tonalites at this locality contain graphite, with carbon isotope signatures consistent with derivation from the surrounding partially melted carbonaceous shales. This indicates that crust-derived carbon was added to the mafic magma through the magma mixing and assimilation process. Sulfur isotope data suggest that sulfur was also added from crustal sources during assimilation and magma mixing. The relationships observed in the OGC suggest that intrusion of basalt into a segment of deep arc crust drove partial melting of carbonaceous metamorphic rocks, producing graphite-bearing felsic magmas with high reducing potential. Redox budget modelling shows that mixing of only small proportions of these magmas is sufficient to lower the oxidation state of oxidized basaltic magmas enough to induce sulfide saturation and consequent exsolution of immiscible sulfide melt. Magmatic sulfide deposits are likely to form by this reduction-induced sulfide saturation mechanism deep within other arcs where magma mixing is thought to be common.
Prevalence, Distribution, and Risk Factor Correlates of High Thoracic Periaortic Fat in the Framingham Heart Study

Background Thoracic periaortic adipose tissue (TAT) is associated with atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors and may play a role in obesity‐mediated vascular disease. We sought to determine the prevalence, distribution, and risk factor correlates of high TAT. Methods and Results Participants from the Framingham Heart Study (n=3246, 48% women, mean age 51.1 years) underwent multidetector computed tomography; high TAT and visceral adipose tissue (VAT) were defined on the basis of sex‐specific 90th percentiles in a healthy referent sample. The prevalence of high TAT was 38.1% in women and 35.7% in men. Among individuals without high VAT, 10.1% had high TAT. After adjustment for age and VAT, both women and men with high TAT in the absence of high VAT were older and had a higher prevalence of CVD (P<0.0001) compared with those without high TAT. In addition, men in this group were more likely to be smokers (P=0.02), whereas women were more likely to have low high‐density lipoprotein cholesterol (P=0.005). Conclusions Individuals in our community‐based sample with high TAT in the absence of high VAT were characterized by an adverse cardiometabolic profile. This adipose tissue phenotype may identify a subset of individuals with distinct metabolic characteristics.
Wound Care in Buruli Ulcer Disease in Ghana and Benin

Buruli ulcer (BU) is a disease affecting the skin, subcutaneous fat, and bone tissues. Wound care is important in the prevention of disabilities. Awareness of current wound care practices in BU-endemic regions is necessary for future wound care interventions. Thirty-one health care workers in Ghana and Benin were interviewed with a semi-structured interview, complemented by structural observations. Quantitative data were analyzed through t tests and one-way analysis of variance, and qualitative data through descriptive statistics. There appeared to be a general understanding of wound assessment. A large variety of different topical antiseptics was reported to be used, pressure irrigation was never reported. Gauze was the main dressing type and a moist environment was preferred, but could not be maintained. Bleeding and pain were observed frequently. Standard of wound care differed importantly between health care personnel and between institutions and adherence to World Health Organization guidelines was low.
Concurrent Sexual Partnerships Among Women in the United States

Background. The marked racial disparity in sexually transmitted infection (STI) rates in the United States remains inadequately explained. One important factor may be concurrent sexual partnerships (relationships that overlap in time), which can transmit STIs more rapidly through a population than does sequential monogamy. Methods. To determine prevalence, distribution, and correlates of U.S. women’s involvement in concurrent partnerships, we analyzed sexual partnership data reported by the 10,847 women, age 15–44 years, in the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth. Overlapping sexual partnership dates were determined by computer program and visual review of the data. Results. Prevalence of concurrent partnerships since January 1991 was 12% overall. Prevalence was lowest among currently married respondents (4%) and highest among those who were formerly married (22%), never married (19%), in the lowest income stratum (17%), age 18–24 years when interviewed (23%), or who first had sexual intercourse at age 12 or 13 (35%). Prevalence was 21% among blacks, 11% among whites, 8% among Hispanics, and 6% among Asian American and Pacific Islanders. Multiple logistic analysis substantially weakened the relationship between concurrency and black race (OR = 1.2; 95% CI = 1.1–1.4). Conclusions. Marital status in particular is strongly related to concurrency; thus, lower marriage rates among blacks and the associated higher concurrency of sexual partners may contribute to racial disparities in STI rates.
High-Efficiency Millimeter-Wave Energy-Harvesting Systems With Milliwatt-Level Output Power

The output power level and the power conversion efficiency (PCE) rate of the energy-harvesting systems are vital factors in realizing effective millimeter-wave wireless power transfer solutions that can power battery-less and charge coil-free smart everyday objects. Two 60-GHz energy harvesters that use a tuned complementary cross-coupled oscillator-like rectifying circuitry in 40-nm digital CMOS process are presented. They harvest energy at power rates and peak PCE levels in excess of 1 mW and 30%. These figures are significantly higher than those of the prior art. In one design, two rectifier stages are in a cascode configuration to produce higher dc output voltage levels at the low-current regime. Novel theoretical analyses of the unique rectifying circuitry of the single-stage and two-stage cascode harvesters are presented, which formulate all of the key specifications.
Physiologically Based Pharmacokinetic Modeling of Transporter-Mediated Hepatic Clearance and Liver Partitioning of OATP and OCT Substrates in Cynomolgus Monkeys

In the present investigations, we evaluate in vitro hepatocyte uptake and partitioning for the prediction of in vivo clearance and liver partitioning. Monkeys were intravenously co-dosed with rosuvastatin and bosentan, substrates of the organic anion transporting polypeptides (OATPs), and metformin, a substrate of organic cation transporter 1 (OCT1). Serial plasma and liver samples were collected over time. Liver and plasma unbound fraction was determined using equilibrium dialysis. In vivo unbound partitioning (Kpu,u) for rosuvastatin, bosentan, and metformin, calculated from total concentrations in the liver and plasma, were 243, 553, and 15, respectively. A physiologically based pharmacokinetic monkey model that incorporates active and passive hepatic uptake was developed to fit plasma and liver concentrations. In addition, a two-compartment model was used to fit in vitro hepatic uptake curves in suspended monkey hepatocyte to determine active uptake, passive diffusion, and intracellular unbound fraction parameters. At steady-state in the model, in vitro Kpu,u was determined. The results demonstrated that in vitro values under-predicted in vivo active uptake for rosuvastatin, bosentan, and metformin by 6.7-, 28-, and 1.5-fold, respectively, while passive diffusion was over-predicted. In vivo Kpu,u values were under-predicted from in vitro data by 30-, 79-, and 3-fold. In conclusion, active uptake and liver partitioning in monkeys for OATP substrates were greatly under-predicted from in vitro hepatocyte uptake, while OCT-mediated uptake and partitioning scaled reasonably well from in vitro, demonstrating substrate- and transporter-dependent scaling factors. The combination of in vitro experimental and modeling approaches proved useful for assessing prediction of in vivo intracellular partitioning.
Hypoxic preconditioning protects cardiomyocytes against hypoxia/reoxygenation injury through AMPK/eNOS/PGC-1α signaling pathway.

OBJECTIVE AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) is an important regulator of multiple cellular pathways in the setting of energetic stress. Whether AMPK plays a critical role in hypoxic preconditioning (HPC), protecting cardiomyocytes against hypoxia reoxygenation (H/R) injury remains uncertain. METHODS H9c2 cells were preconditioned by exposing to 10 min of hypoxia and 30 min of reoxygenation. Then, the preconditioned and non-preconditioned cardiomyocytes were exposed to 90 min of hypoxia followed by 120 min of reoxygenation. RESULTS HPC protected H9c2 cells against H/R injury, the AMPK inhibitor or eNOS inhibitor abolished the effect of HPC. Compared with H/R group, HPC significantly increased the expression of p-AMPK (Thr172). HPC also markedly increased p-eNOS (Ser1177) expression, which was abolished by AMPK inhibition. HPC significantly increased PGC-1α expression, which were nullified by AMPK inhibition or eNOS inhibition. HPC attenuated the oxidative stress by increasing the SOD activity and decreasing the MDA and ROS level, which were abolished by AMPK inhibition or eNOS inhibition. Interestingly, the AMPK activator metformin mimicked the effects of HPC in part. CONCLUSIONS These results indicated that HPC protects H9c2 cells against H/R injury by reducing oxidative stress partly via AMPK/eNOS/PGC-1α signaling pathway.
AODV-BR: backup routing in ad hoc networks

Nodes in mobile ad hoc networks communicate with one another via packet radios on wireless multihop links. Because of node mobility and power limitations, the network topology changes frequently. Routing protocols therefore play an important role in mobile multihop network communications. A trend in ad hoc network routing is the reactive on-demand philosophy where routes are established only when required. Most of the protocols in this category, however, use a single route and do not utilize multiple alternate paths. We propose a scheme to improve existing on-demand routing protocols by creating a mesh and providing multiple alternate routes. Our algorithm establishes the mesh and multipaths without transmitting any extra control message. We apply our scheme to the Ad-hoc On-Demand Distance Vector (AODV) protocol and evaluate the performance improvements by simulation.
An analysis of the origin of metazoans, using comparisons of partial sequences of the 28S RNA, reveals an early emergence of triploblasts.

In order to study the origin of metazoans, we have compared sequences from the 5′ end of the large subunit ribosomal RNA of a number of protists, fungi, plants and metazoans, including all diploblastic phyla (sequences of 10 new species have been determined, including that of the placozoan, Trichoplax adhaerens). These sequences were analyzed using distance matrix, maximum parsimony and maximum likelihood methods, and the validity of the results was ascertained with bootstrapping and species removal or addition. Triploblasts and diploblasts formed two clearly separated monophyletic units; this divergence, which apparently preceded the diversification of diploblastic animals (i.e. the successive sponge, ctenophore, cnidarian radiations), showed a much more ancient origin of triploblasts with respect to diploblasts than classically assumed. These results do not exclude the possibility that triploblasts and diploblasts arose independently from different protists.
The Role of MET Activation in Determining the Sensitivity to Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors

The development of resistance to epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors (EGFR-TKI) seems almost inevitable, even in patients with lung cancer that initially respond well to EGFR-TKIs. MET amplification was recently found to be a mechanism of escape from the anticancer effect of EGFR inhibitors. In the present study, we investigated the means whereby MET affects sensitivity to EGFR-TKIs in PC-9 cells. Gefitinib- or erlotinib-resistant sublines were established by exposing the parental PC-9 cell line to chronic, repeated treatments with these drugs. These resistant sublines showed more than 100-fold more resistance to gefitinib and erlotinib and acquired cross-resistance to other EGFR-TKIs. The T790M EGFR mutation was found by pyrosequencing, and this seemed to be the cause of drug resistance. Resistant cells also showed MET activation, although gene amplification was not detected. Furthermore, the induction of MET activity was not found to be associated with sensitivity to EGFR-TKIs. Interestingly, increased passage number without exposure to gefitinib or erlotinib caused MET activation, but this did not affect sensitivity to EGFR-TKIs. In addition, hepatocyte growth factor was found to block the ability of EGFR-TKIs to inhibit MET activation. However, sustained MET activation by hepatocyte growth factor did not modulate the cellular effects of gefitinib or erlotinib. Rather, activated MET enhanced migration and invasion abilities. Summarizing, MET activation may be acquired during cancer cell proliferation and enhances migratory and invasive abilities without affecting cellular sensitivity to EGFR-TKIs. Accordingly, the present study suggests that MET activation caused by factors other than MET gene amplification is not a suitable surrogate marker of resistance to EGFR-TKIs. (Mol Cancer Res 2009;7(10):1736–43)
Scale-Free Loopy Structure is Resistant to Noise in Consensus Dynamics in Complex Networks

The vast majority of real-world networks are scale-free, loopy, and sparse, with a power-law degree distribution and a constant average degree. In this paper, we study first-order consensus dynamics in binary scale-free networks, where vertices are subject to white noise. We focus on the coherence of networks characterized in terms of the ${H} _{\boldsymbol {2}}$ -norm, which quantifies how closely the agents track the consensus value. We first provide a lower bound of coherence of a network in terms of its average degree, which is independent of the network order. We then study the coherence of some sparse, scale-free real-world networks, which approaches a constant. We also study numerically the coherence of Barabási–Albert networks and high-dimensional random Apollonian networks, which also converges to a constant when the networks grow. Finally, based on the connection of coherence and the Kirchhoff index, we study analytically the coherence of two deterministically growing sparse networks and obtain the exact expressions, which tend to small constants. Our results indicate that the effect of noise on the consensus dynamics in power-law networks is negligible. We argue that scale-free topology, together with loopy structure, is responsible for the strong robustness with respect to noisy consensus dynamics in power-law networks.
Particle swarm guided evolution strategy

Evolution strategy (ES) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) are two of the most popular research topics for tackling real-parameter optimization problems in evolutionary computation. Both of them have strengths and weaknesses for their different search behaviors and methodologies. In ES, mutation, as the main operator, tries to find good solutions around each individual. While in PSO, particles are moving toward directions determined by certain global information, such as the global best particle. In order to leverage the specialties offered by both sides to our advantage, this paper combines the essential mechanism of ES and the key concept of PSO to develop a new hybrid optimization methodology, called particle swarm guided evolution strategy. We introduce swarm intelligence to the ES mutation framework to create a new mutation operator, called guided mutation, and integrate the guided mutation operator into ES. Numerical experiments are conducted on a set of benchmark functions, and the experimental results indicate that PSGES is a promising optimization methodology as well as an interesting research direction.