Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
PEDIATRIC AND CONGENITAL HEART DISEASE Original Studies Characterization of Radiation Exposure and Effect of a Radiation Monitoring Policy in a Large Volume Pediatric Cardiac Catheterization Lab

Objectives: This study aimed to characterize radiation dose during cardiac catheterization in congenital heart disease and to assess changes in dose after the introduction of a radiation monitoring policy. Background: Minimizing radiation exposure is an important patient safety initiative and relatively few data are available characterizing radiation dose for the broad spectrum of congenital cardiac catheter-based interventions. Methods: Radiation dose data were reviewed on all cases since 7/1/05 at a single large center. Procedures were classified according to 20 common case types then subdivided into five age categories. Groups with <20 cases were excluded. Radiation dose was estimated by cumulative air KERMA (mGy) and DAP (dose area product, lGym) which were reported as median and interquartile range (IQR). We also examined differences in radiation dose before and after the implementation of a radiation policy. Results: Between 7/1/05 and 12/10/08, 3,365 cases were identified for inclusion. Radiation dose increased with age and procedural complexity. Patients were characterized into low, medium, and high dose categories relative to each other. ‘‘Low’’ dose cases included isolated pulmonary or aortic valvotomy, pre-Fontan assessment, and ASD closure. ‘‘High’’ dose cases involved multiple procedures in pulmonary arteries or veins. After introduction of a radiation policy, there was a significant decrease in radiation dose across a variety of case types, particularly among infants and young children. Conclusions: Radiation dose in congenital cardiac catheterization varies by age and procedure type. A radiation monitoring and notification policy may have contributed to reduced radiation dose. VC 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Anatomical study of the renal excretory system in pigs. A review of its characteristics as compared to its human counterpart.

BACKGROUND Despite the importance of the pyelocalyceal system in the pig as an experimental model, there is little information about this particular anatomical subject. We determined the morphological characteristics of the renal excretory system in pigs. MATERIALS AND METHODS This descriptive cross-sectional study evaluated 130 pairs of kidneys of pigs destined to slaughter. The pyelocalyceal system was subjected to injection technique - corrosion by infusion of polyester resin (85% Palatal and 15% Styrene) and subsequent infusion in potassium hydroxide (KOH) for 10 days. The significance level used was p < 0.05. RESULTS The renal excretory system is characterised by the presence of type A major cranial and caudal calyxes seen in 34.3% of the kidneys (type A1 in 30% and type A2 in 4.3%). type B calyxes, corresponding to minor calyxes draining directly into the renal pelvis, were present in 65.7% of the specimens (type B1 59.2%; type B2 6.5% of the cases). The number of minor calyxes in the collector system was 7.9 ± 2.27 with statistically significant differences in side (p = 0.0047). CONCLUSIONS The morphometric characteristics of the kidneys in this study are slightly smaller than reported in humans. Similarly, the incidence of type A renal excretory system distribution is highest in humans and lowest in pigs. Due to its few morphological differences, the pig kidney is an excellent model for teaching- -learning processes, for research purposes, and for training of urologic applications.
Factors behind the increase in cardiovascular mortality in Russia: apolipoprotein AI and B distribution in the Arkhangelsk study 2000.

BACKGROUND Cardiovascular mortality is markedly higher in Russia than in Western Europe and the US. Little is known about indicators of atherosclerotic risk in the Russian population. To our knowledge, this is the first study of apolipoprotein (apo) AI and B in Russia based on the WHO-IFCC standard. METHODS We measured apo AI and B by immunoturbidimetric assay in 3694 men and women from Arkhangelsk, Russia, in 1999-2000. RESULTS The age-related distribution of apo B was similar to that in other countries, whereas the apo AI profile was different. For men > or = 20 years, apo AI was considerably higher than in studies from other countries. Women had also relatively high apo AI concentrations, although the difference was not as pronounced as in men. The apo AI concentration was positively associated with age and lifestyle variables such as alcohol consumption and physical activity, and negatively associated with body mass index and self-reported myocardial infarction. gamma-Glutamyltransferase was positively associated with apo AI in both sexes. CONCLUSIONS The apparently favorable apolipoprotein profiles contrast with official death statistics indicating high cardiovascular mortality in Russia. High apo AI might indicate excessive alcohol consumption.
A New Comprehensive RSU Installation Strategy for Cost-Efficient VANET Deployment

Recently, studies on vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) are booming due to their huge potential. The road side unit (RSU) is a key component of the VANET infrastructure connecting mobile vehicles to the rest of the infrastructure. To maximize the availability of RSUs, RSUs should be densely deployed. Otherwise, blind spots may exist in which vehicles lose the connection to the infrastructure. Unfortunately, the massive deployment of RSUs to seamlessly cover the whole area of interest, which could be a vast metropolitan, can be very expensive. As the effectiveness and the benefits of the VANET have yet to be fully proven, such large scale deployment can hardly be a currently viable option. Motivated by this observation, this paper investigates a new strategy of how to best deploy RSUs so that their spatiotemporal coverage is maximized under a limited budget. In detail, for the first time in the literature, we consider an innovative RSU deployment framework, which is a well-balanced combination of three different approaches: deploying RSUs on static locations, public mobile transportation, and fully controllable vehicles owned by the local government. We first introduce a new strategy to abstract a map of city area into a grid graph. Then, we formulate the problem as a new optimization problem and show its NP-hardness. To solve this problem, we transform this problem into another optimization problem. Then, we propose a new polynomial running time approximation algorithm for the problem and show that the performance ratio (the ratio between the quality of an output of the proposed algorithm and the quality of the best possible solution) is at least half of the best possible ratio. We also conduct simulations under various settings to study the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
Association between Patient Age and Influenza A Subtype during Influenza Outbreaks

The distribution of influenza A subtypes was studied in specimens recovered from patients in long-term care facility (LTCF) outbreaks and in non-LTCF outbreaks in Alberta, Canada, for 3 years before the influenza pandemic of 2009. We found that H3 but not HI was associated with infection in older adults. Therefore, H3 was more commonly found than HI in outbreaks in LTCFs.
Quantified H I morphology - II. Lopsidedness and interaction in WHISP column density maps

Lopsidedness of the gaseous disc of spiral galaxies is a common phenomenon in disc morphology, profile and kinematics. Simultaneously, the asymmetry of a galaxy’s stellar disc, in combination with other morphological parameters, has seen extensive use as an indication of recent merger or interaction in galaxy samples. Quantified morphology of stellar spiral discs is one avenue to determine the merger rate over much of the age of the Universe. In this paper, we measure the quantitative morphology parameters for the H i column density maps from the Westerbork observations of neutral Hydrogen in Irregular and SPiral galaxies (WHISP). These are Concentration, Asymmetry, Smoothness, Gini, M20 and one addition of our own, the Gini parameter of the second-order moment (GM). Our aim is to determine if lopsided or interacting discs can be identified with these parameters. Our sample of 141 H i maps have all previous classifications on their lopsidedness and interaction. We find that the Asymmetry, M20 and our new GM parameter correlate only weakly with the previous morphological lopsidedness quantification. These three parameters may be used to compute a probability that an H i disc is morphologically lopsided but not unequivocally to determine it. However, we do find that the question whether or not an H i disc is interacting can be settled well using morphological parameters. Parameter cuts from the literature do not translate from ultraviolet to H i directly but new selection criteria using combinations of Asymmetry and M20 or Concentration and M20 work very well. We suggest that future all-sky H i surveys may use these parameters of the column density maps to determine the merger fraction and hence rate in the local Universe with a high degree of accuracy.
Clinical Evaluation of the ASTY Colorimetric Microdilution Panel for Antifungal Susceptibility Testing

ABSTRACT A method using a commercially prepared colorimetric microdilution panel (ASTY; Kyokuto Pharmaceutical Industrial Co., Ltd.) was compared in four different laboratories with the National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards (NCCLS) reference microdilution method by testing 802 clinical isolates of Candida spp. (C. albicans, C. glabrata, C. tropicalis,C. parapsilosis, C. krusei, C. lusitaniae, C. guilliermondii, C. lipolytica, C. rugosa, and C. zeylanoides) against amphotericin B, 5-fluorocytosine (5FC), fluconazole, and itraconazole. Reference MIC endpoints were established after 48 h of incubation, and ASTY endpoints were established after 24 and 48 h of incubation. ASTY endpoints were determined to be the time at which the color of the first well changed from red (indicating growth) to purple (indicating growth inhibition) or blue (indicating no growth). Excellent agreement (within 2 dilutions) between the reference and colorimetric MICs was observed. Overall agreement was 93% at 24 h and 96% at 48 h. Agreement ranged from 90% with itraconazole and 5FC to 96% with amphotericin B at 24 h and from 92% with itraconazole to 99% with amphotericin B and 5FC at 48 h. The ASTY colorimetric microdilution panel method appears to be comparable to the NCCLS reference method for testing the susceptibilities of Candida spp. to a variety of antifungal agents.
Suppression of FNR‐dependent transcription activation at the Escherichia coli nir promoter by Fis, IHF and H‐NS: modulation of transcription initiation by a complex nucleo‐protein assembly

Expression from the Escherichia coli nir promoter is co‐dependent on both the FNR protein (an anaerobically triggered transcription activator) and the NarL or NarP proteins (transcription activators triggered by nitrite and nitrate). Under anaerobic conditions, FNR binds to a site centred between positions −41 and −42, activating transcription of the nir operon. In previous work, we showed that this activation is suppressed by the binding of Fis protein, and at least one other protein, to sequence elements located upstream of the nir promoter. We proposed that the binding of NarL or NarP to a site centred between positions −69 and −70 counteracts this suppression, resulting in increased transcription in response to nitrite or nitrate. Here we have further investigated the different proteins that downregulate the nir promoter. We show that the nir promoter is repressed by three DNA binding proteins, Fis, IHF and H‐NS. We demonstrate that, in addition to binding to its previously characterized upstream site located at position −142, Fis also binds to a second downstream site located at position +23. A second suppressing factor is IHF, that binds to a site located at position −88. Finally, the nucleoid associated protein, H‐NS, preferentially binds to upstream sequences at the nir promoter and represses promoter activity. The association of Fis, IHF and H‐NS suggests that nir promoter DNA is sequestrated into a highly ordered nucleo‐protein structure that represses FNR‐dependent transcription activation. NarL and NarP can relieve both IHF‐ and Fis‐mediated repression, but are unable to counteract H‐NS‐mediated repression.
Massive black hole seeds born via direct gas collapse in galaxy mergers: their properties, statistics and environment

We study the statistics and cosmic evolution of massive black hole seeds formed during major mergers of gas-rich late-type galaxies. Generalizing the r esults of the hydro-simulations from Mayer et al. (2010), we envision a scenario in which a supermassive star can form at the center of galaxies that just experienced a major merger owing to a multi-scale powerful gas inflow, provided that such galaxies live in haloes with masse s above 10 11 M⊙, are gas-rich and disc-dominated, and do not already host a massive black hole. We assume that the ultimate collapse of the supermassive star leads to the rapid formati on of a black hole of 10 5 M⊙ following a quasi-star stage. Using a model for galaxy formation applied to the outputs of the Millennium Simulation, we show that the conditions required for this massive black hole formation route to take place in the concordance ΛCDM model are actually common at high redshift, and can be realized even at low redshift. Most major mergers above z ∼ 4 in haloes with mass > 10 11 M⊙ can lead to the formation of a massive seed and, at z ∼ 2, the fraction of favourable mergers decreases to about half. Interesting ly, we find that even in the local universe a fraction (∼ 20%) of major mergers in massive haloes still satisfy the conditions for our massive black hole formation route. Those late events take place in galaxies with a markedly low clustering amplitude, that have lived in isolation for most of their life, and that are experiencing a major merger for the first time. We predict that massive black hole seeds from galaxy mergers can dominate the massive end of the mass function at high (z > 4) and intermediate (z ∼ 2) redshifts relative to lighter seeds formed at higher reds hift, for example, by the collapse of Pop III stars. Finally, a fraction of these massive seeds could lie, soon after formation, above the MBH− MBulge relation.
A Prospective Study of Headache after Carotid Endarterectomy: Incidence and Clinical Characteristics

Headache associated with Carotid Endarterectomy (CEA) is a known condition; however, its incidence and etiology are not well defined. In this study, we determined the incidence and evaluated the characteristics of headache following CEA. This prospective study was conducted between January and July 2009, in 32 patients submitted to CEA. 68.7% of patients were male; mean age was 67.3 years-old. Headache incidence was 37.5%, ipsilateral to the CEA in 91% of patients; pressure was the most common pain quality (81.2%) and affected the frontal region alone in 37.5% of headache episodes. All headache episodes were of mild intensity. No correlation (p > 0.05) was found between sexes and no significant value (p > 0.05) was determined between the presence of headache and the mean degree of stenosis in the ipsilateral and contralateral carotid operated. Headache following CEA is a common condition; in most cases it is ipsilateral to the procedure, pressure type, mild and self-limiting.
Effects of Total Ionizing Dose on the Retention of 41-nm NAND Flash Cells

Flash memories operating in space are subject at the same time to the progressive accumulation of total ionizing dose and to intrinsic aging phenomena. In this work we investigate latent Total Ionizing Dose (TID) effects in 41-nm NAND single level cells that do not display neither floating gate errors nor any apparent kind of degradation after exposure. Retention of irradiated cells is analyzed at room and high temperature as a function of total dose previously received. We found that FG cell retention at room temperature is practically unchanged after a total dose up to 30 krad(Si). On the contrary, TID exposure slightly worsens the cell retention time during high-temperature tests. We attribute this behavior to the removal of compensating electrons from the tunnel oxide at high temperature.
Spatial Classification Using Fuzzy Membership Models

In the usual statistical approach to spatial classification, it is assumed that each pixel belongs to precisely one of a small number of known groups. This framework is extended to include mixed-pixel data; then, only a proportion of each pixel belongs to each group. Two models based on multivariate Gaussian random fields are proposed to model this fuzzy membership process. The problems of predicting the group membership and estimating the parameters are discussed. Some simulations are presented to study the properties of this approach, and an example is given using Landsat remote-sensing data. >
Crystal structure of poxvirus thymidylate kinase: An unexpected dimerization has implications for antiviral therapy

Unlike most DNA viruses, poxviruses replicate in the cytoplasm of host cells. They encode enzymes needed for genome replication and transcription, including their own thymidine and thymidylate kinases. Some herpes viruses encode only 1 enzyme catalyzing both reactions, a peculiarity used for prodrug activation to obtain maximum specificity. We have solved the crystal structures of vaccinia virus thymidylate kinase bound to TDP or brivudin monophosphate. Although the viral and human enzymes have similar sequences (42% identity), they differ in their homodimeric association and active-site geometry. The vaccinia TMP kinase dimer arrangement is orthogonal and not antiparallel as in human enzyme. This different monomer orientation is related to the presence of a canal connecting the edge of the dimer interface to the TMP base binding pocket. Consequently, the pox enzyme accommodates nucleotides with bulkier bases, like brivudin monophosphate and dGMP; these are efficiently phosphorylated and stabilize the enzyme. The brivudin monophosphate-bound structure explains the structural basis for this specificity, opening the way to the rational development of specific antipox agents that may also be suitable for poxvirus TMP kinase gene-based chemotherapy of cancer.
Competing risks for reliability analysis using Cox’s model

Purpose – Cox's model with Weibull distribution and Cox's with exponential distribution are the most important models in reliability analysis. This paper seeks to show that, with a large sample size based on expectation maximization (EM) algorithm, both models give similar results.Design/methodology/approach – The parameters of the models have been estimated by method of maximum likelihood based on EM algorithm. The objective of this analysis is to fit the modification of Cox's model with Weibull distribution and Cox's with exponential distribution, examine its performance and compare their results with Crowder et al.Findings – A simulation study indicates that the parametric Cox's model with Weibull distribution gives similar results to Cox's with exponential distribution, especially for a large sample size. Also, the modification of the two models showed better results compared with Crowder et al., especially for the second causes of failure.Originality/value – A modification of the two competing risk m.
The Benefit of Dobutamine Stress Echocardiography in the Detection of Silent Myocardial Ischemia in Non-Diabetic Hemodialysis Patients

Background: Chronic kidney disease (CKD) treated by hemodialysis (HD) is associated with a high incidence of premature cardiovascular disease, which is the major cause of morbidity and mortality among chronic hemodialysis patients. These patients may remain asymptomatic despite having significant coronary stenosis, which can be reveled brutally after an acute event by a heart failure, Arrhythmia or sudden death. The aim of study was to assess the benefit of Dobutamine Stress Echocardiography (DSE) as a noninvasive method, in the detection of Silent Myocardial Ischemia (SMI) for patients with chronic end stage kidney disease failure on HD. Patients and methods: A transversal multicenter study involving 250 chronic HD patients without diabetes. Thirty two patients who meet inclusion criteria received DSE test. Results: 13 men and 19 women aged of 45 ± 12 years old, with a duration of dialysis of 7.84 ± 5 years, 81.3% of them were on dialysis using distal vascular access, 18.8% are with hypertension in their previous medical history, and 46.9% had a Hemoglobin <10g/dl. The DSE was abnormal (DSE+) in 4 patients (12.5%) with pathological coronary angiography in one of these patients who underwent angioplasty with stenting. In multivariate analysis, DES (+) patients had more High blood pressure in their history (66.6 vs 33.3% p=0.000) with a low tryglycéridemia: 37.5 vs 4.2% (p=0.039). Conclusion: Stress echocardiography remains a reliable method for the detection of coronary artery disease (CAD) in asymptomatic patients on HD. It could be an alternative to invasive methods for proper cardiovascular risk stratification and improved therapeutic management.
Quercetin Partially Preserves Development of Osteoblast Phenotype in Fetal Rat Calvaria Cells in an Oxidative Stress Environment

Studies are needed to improve understanding of the osteoblast antioxidant response, and the balance between oxidative homeostasis and osteoblast differentiation. The flavonol quercetin aglycone (QRC) up‐regulates the osteoblast antioxidant response in vitro without suppressing osteoblast phenotype, suggesting that QRC may preserve osteoblast phenotypic development in cells subsequently exposed to oxidative stress, which suppresses osteoblast differentiation. The aims of this study were to assess the extent that QRC pretreatment preserved development of the osteoblast phenotype in cells subsequently cultured with hydrogen peroxide, an oxidative stressor, and to characterize alterations in the osteoblast antioxidant response and in key antioxidant signaling pathways. We hypothesized that pretreatment with QRC would preserve phenotypic development after hydrogen peroxide treatment, suppress the hydrogen peroxide‐induced antioxidant response, and that the antioxidant response would involve alterations in Nrf2 and ERK1/2 signaling. Results showed that treating fetal rat calvarial osteoblasts for 4 days (D5‐9) with 300 μM hydrogen peroxide resulted in fewer alkaline phosphatase‐positive cells and mineralized nodules, altered cell morphology, and significantly lower osteoblast phenotypic gene expression (P < 0.05). This suppression was partially blocked when cells were pretreated 12 h with 20 μM QRC. Hydrogen peroxide also produced sustained up‐regulation of heme oxygenase‐1 (HO‐1) and γ‐glutamate cysteine ligase catalytic subunit (GCLC), which was partially blocked in hydrogen peroxide‐treated cells that first received QRC pretreatment. The alterations in the antioxidant stress response coincided with alterations in phosphorylated ERK1/2, but not Nrf2. These results suggest that QRC suppresses hydrogen peroxide‐induced activation of the antioxidant response, and partially preserves osteoblast phenotypic development. J. Cell. Physiol. 231: 2779–2788, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.