Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The adrenergic blocking activity of N-tert.-butylmethoxamine (butoxamine).

The effects of butoxamine upon a number of adrenergic responses were determined in the anesthetized dog and the isolated rat uterus. Studies in the dog included a determination of the intrinsic effects of butoxamine on mean arterial pressure, heart rate, intestinal motility, cardiac contractile force, retractor penis muscle contractions and femoral vascular flow. These studies in the dog also included the effects of pretreatment with butoxamine on the responses to epinephrine, isoproterenol, ethylnorepinephrine and phenylephrine on these same parameters. Studies with the isolated, spontaneously contracting rat uterus consisted of a determination of both the intrinsic action of butoxamine and its ability to modify the uterine inhibitory responses to epinephrine, isoproterenol, norepinephrine, phenylephrine and papaverine. Butoxamine reduced the vasodilator response to isoproterenol and reversed the vasodilator response to ethylnorepinephrine. Butoxamine also produced isoproterenol and ethylnorepinephrine blood pressure "reversal" (depressor to pressor). None of the other parameters measured were reduced to any significant extent in the dog. In the isolated rat uterus, butoxamine produced a blockade of the uterine inhibitory responses to the catecholamines that was similar to the blockade produced by N-isopropylmethoxamine, dichloroisoproterenol and pronethalol. Butoxamine appears to be capable of producing a selective blockade of some, but not all, beta adrenergic receptors.
Maximum likelihood decoding of uncoded and coded PSK signal sequences transmitted over Rayleigh flat-fading channels

The problem of maximum likelihood (ML) detection for uncoded and coded M-PSK signals on Rayleigh fading channels is investigated. It is shown that, if the received signal is sampled at baud-rate, a ML receiver employing per-survivor processing can be implemented. The error rate performance of this receiver is evaluated by means of computer simulations and its limitations are discussed. In addition, it is shown that, on a fast fading channel, the error floor in the BER curve can be appreciably lowered if more than one received signal sample per symbol interval is processed by the receiver algorithm, Finally, a sub-optimum two-stage receiver structure for interleaved coded PSK systems is proposed. Its error rate performance is assessed for simple trellis-coded modulation schemes and compared to that provided by other receiver structures.
Renal vascular structural properties and their alterations by removal of uraemic toxins in a rat model of chronic kidney disease

Renal vascular structural properties and their alterations by removal of uraemic toxins with AST‐120, an oral adsorbent, were examined in subtotal nephrectomized rats. Eight‐ or 9‐week‐old Sprague‐Dawley rats received 3/4 nephrectomy (n = 18) and thereafter were fed 24.5% protein diet with (AST; n = 9) or without (AST–; n = 9) AST‐120 (0.4 g/100 g bodyweight). Sham‐operated rats (Sham; n = 9) received the diet without AST‐120. At 21–22 weeks of age, flow–pressure (F‐P) and pressure–glomerular filtration rate (P‐GFR) relationships were determined for maximally vasodilated, perfused kidneys. The gradient of F‐P (minimal renal vascular resistance reflecting the overall luminal dimensions of pre‐ and post‐glomerular vasculature) was lower in AST– than Sham rats. In contrast, the x‐intercept (preglomerular : post‐glomerular vascular resistance ratio) and gradient (glomerular filtration capacity) of P‐GFR did not differ between the two groups. The vascular wall and lumen at the interlobular arteries were greater in AST– than Sham rats. Although the vascular wall and lumen at the interlobular arteries were less in AST than in AST– rats, the gradient of F‐P and the x‐intercept of P‐GFR did not differ between the two groups. In contrast, the glomerular filtration capacity was greater in AST than AST– rats. In conclusion, the lumen of both pre‐ and post‐glomerular resistance vessels increased and glomerular filtration capacity failed to increase in subtotal nephrectomized rats. Uraemic toxins could play an important role in the development of structural alterations in glomeruli rather than renal resistance vessels in chronic kidney disease.
Intensity of physical activity in the energy expenditure of older adults.

This study examined the intensity of activity contributing to physical activity energy expenditure in older adults. In 57 men and women aged ≥ 65, total energy expenditure (TEE) was measured using doubly labeled water and resting metabolic rate was measured using indirect calorimetry to calculate a physical activity index (PAI). Sedentary time and physical activity of light and moderate to vigorous (mod/vig) intensity was measured using an accelerometer. The subjects were 75 ± 7 yrs (mean ± SD) of age and 79% female. Subjects spent 66 ± 8, 25 ± 5, and 9 ± 4% of monitor wear time in sedentary, light, and mod/vig activity per day, respectively. In a mixture regression model, both light (β = 29.6 [15.6-43.6, 95% CI]), p < . 001) and mod/vig intensity activity (β = 28.7 [7.4-50.0, 95% CI]), p = . 01) were strongly associated with PAI, suggesting that both light and mod/vig intensity activities are major determinants of their physical activity energy expenditure.
Evaluation of Classifiers Based On I2C Distance for Action Recognition

— Naive Bayes Nearest Neighbor (NBNN) and its variants, i,e. , local NBNN and the NBNN kernels, are local feature-based classifiers that have achieved impressive performance in image classification. By exploiting instance-to-class (I2C) distances (instance means image/video in image/video classification), they avoid quantization errors of local image descriptors in the bag of words (BoW) model. However, the performances of NBNN, local NBNN and the NBNN kernels have not been validated on video analysis. In this paper, we introduce these three classifiers into human action recognition and conduct comprehensive experiments on the benchmark KTH and the realistic HMDB datasets. The results shows that those I2C based classifiers consistently outperform the SVM classifier with the BoW model.
Temperature dependence of impact ionization in GaAs

The temperature dependence of electron and hole impact ionization in gallium arsenide (GaAs) has been determined from photomultiplication measurements at temperatures between 20 K and 500 K. It is found that impact ionization is suppressed by increasing temperature because of the increase in phonon scattering. Temperature variations in avalanche multiplication are shown to decrease with decreasing avalanching region width, and the effect is interpreted in terms of the reduced phonon scattering in the correspondingly reduced ionization path length. Effective electron and hole ionization coefficients are derived and are shown to predict accurately multiplication characteristics and breakdown voltage as a function of temperature in p/sup +/in/sup +/ diodes with i-regions as thin as 0.5 /spl mu/m.
Comparison of the Efficacies of Commonly Used Antibiotics for the Treatment of Salmonella enterica Serovar Typhi Infection

Most antibiotics available for the treatment of Salmonella enterica serovar typhi have been reported to be ineffective at adequate concentrations; therefore the need to determine the efficacies of some of the commonly used antibiotics for the treatment of the etiological agent of typhoid fever. Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion method, determination of MIC using agar diffusion method and in vivo antibiotic assay was used to analyze the susceptibility pattern of Salmonella enterica serovar typhi to different antimicrobial agents. The zones of inhibition to the predetermined battery of antibiotics on the medium shielded with Salmonella enterica serovar typhi indicated that ciprofloxacin had the highest zone of inhibition (24 mm) while amoxicillin and chloramphenicol had 8 mm each. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of ciprofloxacin was found to be 3.65 µg/ml while those of amoxicillin and chloramphenicol were 124 µg/ml and 228 µg/ml respectively. There was significant difference (P<0.05) in the number colony forming units (cfu) of Salmonella enterica serovar typhi of the treated rats compared with the untreated ones. Histopathological examination of the liver and kidney of the treated rats revealed that there was tissue degradation, necrosis, heamosiderosis in the organs of rats treated with amoxicillin and chloramphenicol at concentration of 100 and 150 mg/kg and tissue proliferation by viable Salmonella enterica serovar typhi at 50 mg/kg. Out of all the antibiotics tested, ciprofloxacin was the only antibiotics found to be of good efficacy for the treatment of Salmonella enterica serovar typhi. We therefore advocate for continous surveillance on the susceptibility pattern of this organism.
Genetic low nephron number hypertension is associated with altered expression of osteopontin and CD44 during nephrogenesis*

Abstract Aims: The study set out to investigate whether the osteopontin (OPN)-CD44-integrin-receptor-system is differently regulated during nephrogenesis in inborn nephron deficit, a major determinant of human primary hypertension and cardiovascular disease in adult life. Methods: We compared a genetic rat model with an inherited nephron deficit, the Munich-Wistar-Froemter rat (MWF), to normotensive Wistar rats during nephrogenesis at day 19 of fetal development (E19) and at postpartal day 7 (D7). Results: Renal OPN mRNA (–75%, P<0.05) and protein expression (–38%, P<0.05) were strongly decreased at E19 in MWF compared to Wistar. Renal mRNA-expression of CD44 was increased at E19 in MWF (+271%, P<0.05). At D7, renal OPN protein expression was increased (+115%, P<0.05) and renal mRNA-expression of CD44 remained elevated compared to Wistar control (+127%, P<0.05). Conclusions: Altered fetal expression of the OPN-CD44-integrin-receptor-system in the MWF model points to a possible role in low nephron number hypertension and cardiovascular disease.
Compact Modeling and Simulation of Circuit Reliability for 65-nm CMOS Technology

Negative bias temperature instability (NBTI) and channel hot carrier (CHC) are the leading reliability concerns for nanoscale transistors. The de facto modeling method to analyze CHC is based on substrate current Isub, which becomes increasingly problematic with technology scaling as various leakage components dominate Isub. In this paper, we present a unified approach that directly predicts the change of key transistor parameters under various process and design conditions for both NBTI and CHC effects. Using the general reaction-diffusion model and the concept of surface potential, the proposed method continuously captures the performance degradation across subthreshold and strong inversion regions. Models are comprehensively verified with an industrial 65-nm technology. By benchmarking the prediction of circuit performance degradation with the measured ring oscillator data and simulations of an amplifier, we demonstrate that the proposed method very well predicts the degradation. For 65-nm technology, NBTI is the dominant reliability concern, and the impact of CHC on circuit performance is relatively small.
The behavioural toxicity of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors

The serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are generally better tolerated than the traditional tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs) in the treatment of major depression. In particular the SSRIs are relatively free from cognitive and psychomotor effects likely to cause behavioural toxicity. Behavioural toxicity is studied using a battery of psychometric assessments. This paper discusses the effects of the TCAs and SSRIs on two such assessments, choice reaction time (CRT) and critical flicker fusion threshold (CFFT). CRT measures psychomotor speed, and CFFT assesses the information processing capacity of the CNS. The behavioural toxicity associated with the traditional TCAs can lead to an increased accident risk, whereas the SSRIs are not associated with such effects. Clinically relevant differences in the behavioural toxicity of the SSRIs are highlighted.
LPS ABOLISHES EXTRASPLENIC VASOCONSTRICTION TO ATRIAL NATRIURETIC PEPTIDE: THE ROLE OF NO AND ENDOTHELIN 1

Sepsis causes changes in vascular resistance and hypovolemia. Previous studies have demonstrated that the spleen regulates blood volume via atrial natiuretic peptide (ANP). We hypothesized that LPS alters extrasplenic responses to ANP via endothelial-dependent mechanisms and studied the role of NO and endothelin 1 (ET-1). Isolated extrasplenic arteries and veins (vessels in mesentery adjoining spleen) were obtained from male Wistar rats weighing 200 to 280 g (n = 102) and mounted on a pressure myograph to determine intraluminal diameter for 4 h. Isolated vessels constricted in response to the half-maximum response of ANP (veins, 30% ± 1.7%; arteries, 34.5 ± 1.7%; P < 0.05), and this was abolished by the NO donor S-nitroso-N-acetylpenicillamine (SNAP 75 μM). Arteries and veins incubated with LPS (50 μg mL−1 for 4 h) were unresponsive to ANP, and constriction was not restored by the NOS inhibitor Nω-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME 100 μM). However, venular constriction returned in the presence of the ET-1 antagonist Bosentan, increasing from −1.5 ± 1.2 (10 min) to −10 ± 2.5% (4 h) with LPS + Bosentan (3 × 10-6 M) compared with −2.3 ± 1.2 and 0% with LPS alone. In conclusion, LPS abolished endothelial-dependent extrasplenic venular constriction to ANP partially due to increased ET-1, whereas NO seemed to modulate vascular responses to ANP.
Efficient Support for Content-based Routing in Web Server Clusters

Clustered server architectures have been employed for many years on the Internet as a way to increase performance, reliability and scalability in the presence of the Internet's explosive growth. A routing mechanism for mapping requests to individual servers within cluster is at the heart of any server clustering techniques. In this paper, we first analyze the deficiencies of existing request-routing approaches. Based on these observations, we argue that the request routing mechanism in a cluster-based server should factor in the content of a request in making decisions. Thus, we designed and implemented a new mechanism to efficiently support content-aware routing in Web server clusters. With this mechanism, we also built in a number of sophisticated content-aware intelligence for making routing decision. Performance evaluation on a prototype implementation demonstrates substantial performance improvements over contemporary routing schemes. The proposed mechanism can also enable many new capabilities in cluster-based servers, such as sophisticated load balancing, differentiated service, special content deployment, session integrity, etc.
Android Application Level CPU DVFS Tuning

Battery life and performance are two important aspects for smart phone devices. The Android platform runs on top of the Linux kernel. The Linux kernel allows Android users to tune or control the CPU settings via virtual governors and cpufreq in the application level. This thesis introduces an approach to tuning CPU DVFS Ondemand governor at the Android application level that allows better balance between the two aspects. This approach gathers information based on system sensors, application context, and CPU utilization to tune the Ondemand governor policy. Our approach allows users to tune their governor policies dynamically and without having to reinstall custom Android OS for their phones to achieve this balance. We compared the Ondemand and Interactive virtual governor settings to our approach for performance and power consumption. From our benchmarks, it is possible to achieve 8% to 17% power savings on idle state. For high single core CPU utilization, energy consumption improved for in a quad-core and dual-core system respectively by 7% to 13% without decrease in performance.
What is the most common mammographic appearance of T1a and T1b invasive breast cancer?

What is the most common mammographic appearance of T1a and T1b invasive breast cancer? Background. Data about the mammographic appearance of breast cancer smaller than 10 mm are very limited and different authors use different mammographic criteria. The aim of this study was to determine the most common mammographic appearance of small invasive breast cancers (T1a and T1b). Patients and methods. The study group consisted of 100 women with 102 small (1-10 mm) invasive breast cancers detected on mammography at a single institution in 16 months period. The mammographic appearance of tumours was classified as: mass, mass with associated calcifications, only calcifications or others (asymmetric density and architectural distortion). Results. The most common mammographic appearance was a mass without calcifications (60/102; 59%). Additional 12/102 (11%) tumours had a mammographic appearance of a mass with associated calcifications. Only microcalcifications were detected in 12 (11 %) and asymmetric density and architectural distortion in 18 breast cancers (18 %). Most (44/60) cancers which presented mammographically as a mass had stellate margins. The proportion of castig type calcifications was higher in women under 50 years. Conclusions: The most common mammographic finding of small breast cancer is a mass with stellate margins independent of the age of patients. Calcifications with/without mass are more common in woman under 50 years.
Nutrition and Breast Cancer Risk by Age 50: A Population-Based Case-Control Study in Germany

Diet is recognized to play a role in the occurrence of breast cancer; however, the data are inconsistent. The goal of this study was to determine the influence of dietary factors on breast cancer risk among women up to 50 yr of age in a German population. A population-based case-control study was conducted including 706 cases and 1,381 controls. In addition to a risk factor questionnaire, a subgroup of 355 cases and 838 controls completed a food frequency questionnaire. Breast cancer risk was inversely associated with vegetable consumption (P for trend = 0.034). The odds ratio for the fourth quartile of vegetable intake compared with the first quartile was 0.64 (95% confidence interval = 0.43-0.96). Breast cancer risk increased with a higher consumption of red meat (P for trend = 0.016); women with the highest consumption level had an 85% elevated breast cancer risk compared with the lowest quartile (95% confidence interval = 1.23-2.78). When only premenopausal women were considered, the protective effect of vegetable intake and the positive association with meat intake were even stronger. These results are compatible with the international recommendations for a breast cancer preventive diet and suggest that the favorable effect of a diet high in vegetables and low in red meat, especially beef, may be stronger in premenopausal women.
Bank Ownership and Efficiency in China: What Will Happen in the World's Largest Nation?

China is reforming its banking system, partially privatizing and taking on minority foreign ownership of three of its dominant "Big Four" state-owned banks. This paper helps predict the effects by analyzing the efficiency of Chinese banks over 1994-2003. Findings suggest that Big Four banks are by far the least efficient; foreign banks are most efficient; and minority foreign ownership is associated with significantly improved efficiency. We present corroborating robustness checks and offer several credible mechanisms through which minority foreign owners may increase Chinese bank efficiency. These findings suggest that minority foreign ownership of the Big Four will likely improve performance significantly.
Heterogeneous spline surface intersections

While the PC just a few years ago included only one single-core CPU and a fixed functionality graphics card, the current commodity PC is a heterogeneous system, equipped with both a multi-core CPU and a fully programmable graphics processing unit (GPU). This change has given the commodity PC one to two orders of magnitude increase in computational performance compared with a few years ago [Brodtkorb et al. 2010; Owens et al. 2008]. We will in this paper address the potential of exploiting such a parallel computational capacity for the calculation of intersections and self-intersections of spline represented surfaces. The focus will be on massive parallel spline space refinement by knot insertion, an approach much better adapted to parallel implementations than the knot insertion used in traditional recursive subdivision based intersection algorithms. Rather than presenting a complete algorithm we address the most resource demanding sub-algorithms of surface intersection and self-intersection algorithms and their relative performance on multi-core processors and GPUs for different levels of refinement. Our results show the efficiency of the sub-algorithms on the two types of processors and how this can be used to improve the overall performance on this heterogeneous system.
Changes in isoenzyme profiles during induction of differentiation in human myelomonocytic leukemia cell lines.

The human leukemia cell lines HL-60, KG-1, KLM-2, ML-3, THP-1, and U-937 were treated with the phorbol ester 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol 13-acetate (TPA). TPA partially or completely inhibited the proliferative activity of the cell cultures. The number of cells with the ability to reduce nitroblue tetrazolium increased in the TPA-treated cell lines HL-60, ML-3, THP-1, and U-937, whereas the cell lines KG-1 and KLM-2 remained nitroblue tetrazolium negative. Except for KG-1 and KLM-2, all TPA-treated cell lines showed varying degrees of strong adherence to plastic surface. The carboxylic esterase, acid phosphatase, hexosaminidase, and lactate dehydrogenase isoenzyme profiles from these cell lines were analyzed by isoelectric focusing on horizontal polyacrylamide gels. The new or stronger expression of an esterase isoenzyme which is specific for monocytes-macrophages was induced in HL-60, ML-3, THP-1, and U-937 but not in KG-1 or KLM-2. The new expression of the tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase isoenzyme was induced in ML-3, THP-1, and U-937. The number of esterase and acid phosphatase isoenzymes and the staining intensity of isoenzymes characteristic for myeloid cells were increased by TPA in all cell lines. The loss of the hexosaminidase I isoenzyme which is a marker of immature hematopoietic cells was noted in KG-1, ML-3, THP-1, and U-937. TPA triggered an increase in number and staining intensity of the lactate dehydrogenase isoenzymes in all cell lines. Some isoenzymatic changes (e.g., monocyte-specific esterase, tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase, hexosaminidase I) appear to correlate with TPA-induced differentiation while other alterations in the isoenzyme patterns do not (e.g., lactate dehydrogenase, other esterase and acid phosphatase isoenzymes). Differentiation of nonmonocytoid cells appears, at the isoenzyme level, to be quite different from that of the monocytoid cell lines.
Acute Acalcholous Cholecystitis Determining Mirizzi Syndrome

Background: Although Mirizzi syndrome is widely reported in literature, little is known about acute acalcholous cholecystitis determinig the findings of a Mirizzi syndrome. Case Report: We report a case of MRCP-confirmed Mirizzi syndrome in acute acalculous cholecystitis resolved by surgery. Conclusion: Acute acalcholosus cholecystitis determinig a Mirizzi Syndrome should be included in the Mirizzi classification as a type 1. Thus it could be useful to divide the type 1 in two entity (compression by stone and compression by enlarged gallbladder). Magnetic Resonance should be considered the preferred diagnostic tool in any case of Mirizzi syndrome suspicious.