Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Factors influencing blood supply in wound granuloma quantitated by a new in vivo technique.

A new quantitative assay for measuring angiogenesis in a s.c. located sponge implant in rats is described. Using this model, which detects neovascularization by measuring alterations in 133Xe clearance, it has been shown that the known angiogenic factors, transforming growth factor alpha and tumor necrosis factor alpha, cause maximum vascularization of the sponge to occur by Day 11 postimplantation compared with Days 15 to 17 in control animals. The monokine interleukin 1 alpha is shown to be strongly angiogenic, suggesting that more than one macrophage-derived cytokine may be the active mediator in macrophage-induced angiogenesis. Extracellular matrix proteins appear to play a role in regulating the angiogenic response such that presoaking sponges in laminin (40 micrograms/ml) or fibrinogen (500 micrograms/ml) solutions induced a significant reduction in the time taken to achieve maximum 133Xe clearance values; no such enhancement of neovascularization was observed when sponges were presoaked in type IV collagen (100 micrograms/ml) solution. The assay described here, which is reproducible, objective, and quantitative, should be of considerable use in elucidating the molecular basis of angiogenesis regulation.
The Influential Role of Perceived Risks versus Perceived Benefits in the Acceptance of Business Process Outsourcing : Empirical Evidence from the German Banking Industry

Business process outsourcing (BPO) has been suggested as one of the biggest areas of growth in the outsourcing market. Nevertheless, many organizations are still reluctant to outsource business processes that are part of their core business. In order to help overcome this divergence between expectations and reality, we systematically analyze the factors that form an organization’s attitude towards BPO as well as their intention to adopt BPO. We develop a BPO adoption model which is based on the argument that BPO poses both risks and benefits and that decision makers need to balance both before adopting BPO. The model is tested based on data that was collected in the German Banking Industry. Altogether 218 data points on the perceptions of business managers in the four areas of transaction processing (credits, securities, domestic payments, and foreign exchange/money market) were available for model testing via Partial Least Squares. The results show that the intention to outsource these IT-intensive business processes is strongly influenced by the manager’s attitude towards BPO. Other non-rational factors play a minor role. Only peer influences in the banking industry were found to significantly influence intentions. Around 77 percent of the variations in attitude are explained by perceived risks and perceived benefits. The perceived benefits have a much stronger influence on BPO acceptance than risks. This indicates that risks may be somewhat underrepresented in the adoption process. Moreover, it is instructive to note that the ability to focus on core competencies is the strongest advantage for BPO, followed by quality improvements and cost transparency. Interestingly, anticipated cost reductions have less influence than the previous three factors, and access to better resources plays no role in attitude formation. On the other hand, overall BPO risks are clearly dominated by financial risks. Strategic risks are also important and, to a lesser extent, performance risks, while psychosocial risks and privacy risks are not significant predictors. These findings support the recommendation that providers of BPO services should emphasize risk mitigation proposals in their offerings. Subject Areas: Business Process Outsourcing, Risk-benefit concept, Attitude-Behavior Structure, Perceived Risk Theory, Partial Least Squares, Questionnaire surveys
A role for the ventral pallidum in context‐induced and primed reinstatement of alcohol seeking

The ventral pallidum (VP) is a major target of projections from the nucleus accumbens, and has been implicated in the reinstatement of psychostimulant seeking as part of a cortical–striatal–pallidal ‘final common pathway’ for relapse. Here, we studied the role of the VP in context‐induced and primed reinstatement of alcoholic beer seeking, using a combination of microinjections and tract tracing studies. In experiment 1, rats were trained to respond to alcoholic beer in one context (A), and then extinguished in a second context (B), prior to testing for reinstatement (ABA renewal) and extinction (ABB). VP microinjection of the μ‐opioid receptor (MOR) antagonist CTAP prevented reinstatement. In experiment 2, VP microinjection of CTAP also prevented the primed reinstatement of alcoholic beer seeking after rats were trained, extinguished, and tested in the same context. In experiment 3, we employed retrograde neural tract tracing together with c‐Fos immunohistochemistry to identify the VP afferents recruited during context‐induced reinstatement of alcoholic beer seeking. There was evidence for the recruitment of accumbens core→VP, basolateral amygdala→VP and paraventricular thalamus→VP pathways during context‐induced reinstatement. These results indicate that the VP MORs are critical for context‐induced reinstatement, and that the VP receives inputs from a number of regions known to be important in reinstatement of drug seeking.
VCP Associated Inclusion Body Myopathy and Paget Disease of Bone Knock-In Mouse Model Exhibits Tissue Pathology Typical of Human Disease

Dominant mutations in the valosin containing protein (VCP) gene cause inclusion body myopathy associated with Paget's disease of bone and frontotemporal dementia (IBMPFD). We have generated a knock-in mouse model with the common R155H mutation. Mice demonstrate progressive muscle weakness starting approximately at the age of 6 months. Histology of mutant muscle showed progressive vacuolization of myofibrils and centrally located nuclei, and immunostaining shows progressive cytoplasmic accumulation of TDP-43 and ubiquitin-positive inclusion bodies in quadriceps myofibrils and brain. Increased LC3-II staining of muscle sections representing increased number of autophagosomes suggested impaired autophagy. Increased apoptosis was demonstrated by elevated caspase-3 activity and increased TUNEL-positive nuclei. X-ray microtomography (uCT) images show radiolucency of distal femurs and proximal tibiae in knock-in mice and uCT morphometrics shows decreased trabecular pattern and increased cortical wall thickness. Bone histology and bone marrow derived macrophage cultures in these mice revealed increased osteoclastogenesis observed by TRAP staining suggestive of Paget bone disease. The VCPR155H/+ knock-in mice replicate the muscle, bone and brain pathology of inclusion body myopathy, thus representing a useful model for preclinical studies.
Bounding the Cost of Stability in Games over Interaction Networks

We study the stability of cooperative games played over an interaction network, in a model that was introduced by Myerson ['77]. We show that the cost of stability of such games (i.e., the subsidy required to stabilize the game) can be bounded in terms of natural parameters of their underlying interaction networks. Specifically, we prove that if the treewidth of the interaction network H is k, then the relative cost of stability of any game played over H is at most k + 1, and if the pathwidth of H is k', then the relative cost of stability is at most k'. We show that these bounds are tight for all k≥ 2and all k' ≥ 1, respectively.
Adolescent Misconduct Behaviors

The primary goal of the current study was to examine cultural differences in Chinese and U.S. adolescents’ and parents’ perceptions and evaluations of adolescent misconduct behaviors. A total of 395 U.S. and Chinese adolescents (ages 11-19 years) and 255 parents participated in this study. Each participant generated adolescent misconduct behaviors and rated each misconduct behavior as to the degree of wrongness. The misconduct behaviors were coded into 10 categories across three themes (moral offenses, drugs, and conventions). Results revealed significant cultural differences in a number of adolescent misconduct behaviors. For example, the United States generated more misconduct behaviors in weapon offenses and drug use than did China. These cultural differences were further complicated by an interaction between culture and generation. Chinese adolescents were more likely than U.S. adolescents to use categories of school, home, and social conventional violations, and considered these adolescent misconduct behaviors to be more wrong. However, it was the U.S. parents who considered adolescent misconduct behaviors in these categories to be more wrong than did Chinese parents.
Characterizing and modeling the behavior of context switch misses!

One of the essential features in modern computer systems is context switching, which allows multiple threads of execution to time-share a limited number of processors. While very useful, context switching can introduce high performance overheads, with one of the primary reasons being the cache perturbation effect. Between the time a thread is switched out and when it resumes execution, parts of its working set in the cache may be perturbed by other interfering threads, leading to (context switch) cache misses to recover from the perturbation. The goal of this paper is to understand how cache parameters and application behavior influence the number of context switch misses the application suffers from. We characterize a previously-unreported type of context switch misses that occur as the artifact of the interaction of cache replacement policy and an application's temporal reuse behavior. We characterize the behavior of these “reordered misses” for various applications, cache sizes, and the amount of cache perturbation. As a second contribution, we develop an analytical model that reveals the mathematical relationship between cache design parameters, an application's temporal reuse pattern, and the number of context switch misses the application suffers from. We validate the model against simulation studies and find that it is accurate in predicting the trends of context switch misses. The mathematical relationship provided by the model allows us to derive insights into precisely why some applications are more vulnerable to context switch misses than others. Through a case study, we also find that prefetching tends to aggravate the number of context switch misses.
On the Benefits of Decorrelation in Dual-Branch Diversity

The performance of a dual-branch decorrelator receiver operating in correlated Rayleigh and Rician fading channels in conjunction with selection combining (SC), square- law combining (SLC) and equal gain combining (EGC) diversity is analyzed and compared to the performance of a conventional SC, SLC and EGC diversity receiver. Analytical expressions for the average symbol error rate (SER) and the average bit error rate (BER) of several modulation techniques of practical interest, the mean output signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and the outage probability are derived. It is shown that the decorrelator receiver has superior performance over the conventional receiver by as much as 2.1 dB in average SNR when SC is employed. Interestingly, it is also shown that the mean output SNR of the decorrelator SC receiver improves with increasing the correlation coefficient while that of the conventional SC receiver degrades with increasing the correlation coefficient. In Rician fading, the results indicate that the outage probability of the decorrelator receiver is much less than the outage probability of the conventional receiver and the gap between the two increases as the channels become less faded.
Phylogenetic taxonomy in Drosophila: Problems and prospects

The genus Drosophila is one of the best-studied model systems in modern biology, with twelve fully sequenced genomes available. In spite of the large number of genetic and genomic resources, little is known concerning the phylogenetic relationships, ecology, and evolutionary history of all but a few species. Recent molecular systematic studies have shown that this genus is comprised of at least three independent lineages and that several other genera are actually embedded within Drosophila. This genus accounts for over 2000 described, and many more undescribed, species. While some Drosophila researchers are advocating dividing this genus into three or more separate genera, others favor maintaining Drosophila as a single large genus. With the recent sequencing of the genomes of multiple Drosophila species and their expanding use in comparative biology, it is critical that the Drosophila research community understands the taxonomic framework underlying the naming and relationships of these species. The subdivision of this genus has significant biological implications, ranging from the accurate annotation of single genes to understanding how ecological adaptations have occurred over the history of the group.
"Natural histories" of mitral valve prolapse. Influence of patient selection on cardiovascular event rates.

BACKGROUND In previous studies the reported incidence of cardiovascular events among mitral valve prolapse patients has differed more than 10 fold. We endeavored to determine the relation between the clinical features and mode of ascertainment of mitral valve prolapse and the resulting event rate. METHODS Between January 1979 and August 1996, 275 patients (129-47% men, 146-53% women, mean age 43 +/- 19 years), were followed for a mean of 98 months after evaluation in a referral center for valvular heart disease. Comparative data were obtained from a separate, less selected population consisting of 316 patients. RESULTS A total of 65 events occurred (2.9/100 patient-years): 46 (2.0/100 patient-years) mitral surgery, 12 cardiac deaths (0.5/100 patient-years), 6 neurologic ischemia (0.26/100 patient-years), and 1 infective endocarditis (0.04/100 patient-years). The overall event rate varied significantly according to demographic, clinical and echocardiographic variables (all p < 0.0001). It was higher among males (odds ratio-OR 2.1), subjects > or = 45 years of age (OR 14.7), those with a holosystolic murmur (OR 25.9), an enlarged left ventricle (OR 13.5) or left atrium (OR 34.9) and those with 3-4+ mitral regurgitation at color Doppler echocardiography (OR 40.0). It was lower in those with an audible mid-systolic click (OR 0.05). These ORs closely resembled those we reported previously in a less selected population. At multivariate analysis, male gender (p = 0.013), severe Doppler mitral regurgitation (p = 0.0048), and left atrial enlargement (p = 0.046) were all independent predictors of events. CONCLUSIONS In a population of mitral valve prolapse patients, including many with significant mitral regurgitation at baseline, we identified similar predictors of events but an overall event rate nearly 3 times higher than that we previously reported for relatively unselected patients or family members in New York City (1/100 patient-years). Therefore, the impact of patient selection on the prevalence of mitral regurgitation, older age and male gender strongly affects the adversity of the "natural history" of mitral valve prolapse.
Plasma MicroRNA Are Disease Response Biomarkers in Classical Hodgkin Lymphoma

Purpose: Although microRNAs (miRNA) show potential as diagnostic biomarkers in cancer, their role as circulating cell-free disease response biomarkers remains unknown. Candidate circulating miRNA biomarkers for classical Hodgkin lymphoma (cHL) might arise from Hodgkin–Reed–Sternberg (HRS) cells and/or nonmalignant tumor-infiltrating cells. HRS cells are sparse within the diseased node, embedded within a benign microenvironment, the composition of which is distinct from that seen in healthy lymph nodes. Experimental Design: Microarray profiling of more than 1,000 human miRNAs in 14 cHL primary tissues and eight healthy lymph nodes revealed a number of new disease node–associated miRNAs, including miR-494 and miR-1973. Using quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR), we tested the utility of these, as well as previously identified disease node–associated plasma miRNAs (including miR-21 and miR-155), as disease response biomarkers in a prospective cohort of 42 patients with cHL. Blood samples were taken in conjunction with radiologic imaging at fixed time points before, during, and after therapy. Absolute quantification was used so as to facilitate implementation in diagnostic laboratories. Results: Levels of miR-494, miR-1973, and miR-21 were higher in patients than control (n = 20) plasma (P = 0.004, P = 0.007, and P < 0.0001, respectively). MiR-494 and miR-21 associated with Hasenclever scores ≥3. Strikingly, all three miRNAs returned to normal at remission (P = 0.0006, P = 0.0002, and P < 0.0001 respectively). However, only miR-494 and miR-1973 reflected interim therapy response with reduction being more pronounced in patients achieving complete versus partial responses (P = 0.043 and P = 0.0012, respectively). Conclusion: Our results demonstrate that in patients with cHL, circulating cell-free miRNAs can reflect disease response once therapy has commenced. Clin Cancer Res; 20(1); 253–64. ©2013 AACR.
Yield enhancement for 3D-stacked memory by redundancy sharing across dies

Three-dimensional (3D) memory products are emerging to fulfill the ever-increasing demands of storage capacity. In 3D-stacked memory, redundancy sharing between neighboring vertical memory blocks using short through-silicon vias (TSVs) is a promising solution for yield enhancement. Since different memory dies are with distinct fault bitmaps, how to selectively matching them together to maximize the yield for the bonded 3D-stacked memory is an interesting and relevant problem. In this paper, we present novel solutions to tackle the above problem. Experimental results show that the proposed methodology can significantly increase memory yield when compared to the case that we only bond self-reparable dies together.
Selective Laser Melting of Prealloyed High Alloy Steel Powder Beds

This paper presents the results of a recent comprehensive investigation of selective laser melting (slm) of prealloyed gas and water atomised M2 and H13 tool steel powders. The objective of the study was to establish the parameters that control the densification of single and multiple layers with the aim of producing high density parts without the need for infiltration. Powders were processed using continuous wave (CW) CO2 and Nd:YAG lasers. Relationships between alloy composition, powder particle size and shape, flowability, microstructure (phases present, their size, morphology and distribution), track morphology, post scanned density, surface finish and scan conditions (Laser power, spot size and scan speed) are discussed for single track, single layer and multi-layer (up to 25 layers) constructions. Processing with a Nd:YAG laser with powders placed on substrates rather than on a loose powder bed gave more stable builds than with the CO2 laser. Using the Nd:YAG laser densities up to ~90% relative were possible with H13 powder compared with a maximum of ~70% for M2 in multi-layer builds. Maximum density achieved with CW CO2 processing was only ~60%, irrespective of powder composition. The paper compares the processibility of these materials with stainless steel powders processed to higher densities (up to 99% relative) under similar conditions. The results of the work show that a crucial factor for high density processing is melt pool wettability and this is controlled largely by carbon content; low carbon contents producing better wettability, flatter tracks and higher densities. The significance of this observation for the processing high alloy steels by slm will be discussed.
Prospective Study of Sleep-disordered Breathing and Hypertension the Sleep Heart Health Study at a Glance Commentary

Rationale: Cross-sectional epidemiologic studies show an association between sleep-disordered breathing and hypertension, but only one cohort study has examined sleep-disordered breathing as a risk factor for incident hypertension. Objectives: To examine whether sleep-disordered breathing increases the risk of incident hypertension among persons 40 years of age and older. Methods: In a prospective cohort study, we analyzed data from 2,470 participants who at baseline did not have hypertension, defined as blood pressure of at least 140/90 mm Hg or taking antihypertensive medication. The apnea-hypopnea index (AHI), the number of apneas plus hypopneas per hour of sleep, was measured by overnight in-home polysomnography. We estimated odds ratios for developing hypertension during 5 years of follow-up according to baseline AHI. Measurements and Main Results: The odds ratios for incident hyperten-sion increased with increasing baseline AHI; however, this relationship was attenuated and not statistically significant after adjustment for baseline body-mass index. Although not statistically significant, the observed association between a baseline AHI greater than 30 and future hypertension (odds ratio, 1.51; 95% confidence interval, 0.93– 2.47) does not exclude the possibility of a modest association. Conclusions: Among middle-aged and older persons without hyper-tension, much of the relationship between AHI and risk of incident hypertension was accounted for by obesity. After adjustment for body mass index, the AHI was not a significant predictor of future hyper-tension, although a modest influence of an AHI greater than 30 on hypertension could not be excluded. Sleep-disordered breathing, the recurrent episodic disruption of normal breathing during sleep, is a common condition affecting as much as 17% of US adults (1). Cross-sectional studies have shown an association between sleep-disordered breathing and hypertension that is not explained by potential confounding from age, sex, and obesity (2–6), although the evidence is not uniformly consistent in showing an independent association (7, 8). Additionally, cross-sectional studies cannot characterize the temporal relationship between sleep-disordered breathing and hypertension. Few prospective studies have directly investigated sleep-disordered breathing as an independent risk factor for the future development of hypertension in the general population. In a co-hort study of 709 working, middle-age adults in Wisconsin, Peppard and colleagues (9) observed that the risk of developing hypertension over 4 years increased with the degree of sleep-disordered breathing at baseline. In addition, in the Nurses' Health Study of over 70,000 female nurses, self-reported snoring at baseline, a surrogate for sleep-disordered breathing, predicted incident physician-diagnosed hypertension, even after adjustment for potential confounders …
Cytotoxic effects induced by combination of heliantriol B2 and dequalinium against human leukemic cell lines

Natural occurring compounds are considered an important source of antitumoral agents. In the present study, the cytotoxic potential of three pentacyclic triterpenes isolated from Chuquiraga erinacea (Asteraceae), against the human leukemic cell lines NB4 and K562 was assessed. Heliantriol B2 (HB2) showed the highest cytotoxic activity after 24 h treatment showing IC50 values of 1.98 ± 0.12 µm and 3.52 ± 0.14 µm for NB4 and K562 cells, respectively. This activity was higher than that of the reference compound dequalinium (DQA). Apoptosis and necrosis induced by HB2 in both NB4 and K562 cell lines were analysed by Annexin V/PI labeling. Mitochondrial alterations including reactive oxygen species (ROS) production and mitochondrial transmembrane potential (ΔΨm) were also tested. The results demonstrated that HB2 induced cell death by apoptosis and necrosis and showed enhanced cytotoxic effects in combination with DQA. Besides, HB2 induced ROS overproduction in NB4 cells and a slight decrease of ΔΨm. Consequently, our findings prompt further studies on the HB2 mechanism of action and its selectivity to tumor cells in order to assess the potential of HB2 as an agent for cancer treatment. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.