Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
T2 Relaxometry MRI Predicts Cerebral Palsy in Preterm Infants

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: T2-relaxometry brain MR imaging enables objective measurement of brain maturation based on the water-macromolecule ratio in white matter, but the outcome correlation is not established in preterm infants. Our study aimed to predict neurodevelopment with T2-relaxation values of brain MR imaging among preterm infants. MATERIALS AND METHODS: From January 1, 2012, to May 31, 2015, preterm infants who underwent both T2-relaxometry brain MR imaging and neurodevelopmental follow-up were retrospectively reviewed. T2-relaxation values were measured over the periventricular white matter, including sections through the frontal horns, midbody of the lateral ventricles, and centrum semiovale. Periventricular T2 relaxometry in relation to corrected age was analyzed with restricted cubic spline regression. Prediction of cerebral palsy was examined with the receiver operating characteristic curve. RESULTS: Thirty-eight preterm infants were enrolled for analysis. Twenty patients (52.6%) had neurodevelopmental abnormalities, including 8 (21%) with developmental delay without cerebral palsy and 12 (31.6%) with cerebral palsy. The periventricular T2-relaxation values in relation to age were curvilinear in preterm infants with normal development, linear in those with developmental delay without cerebral palsy, and flat in those with cerebral palsy. When MR imaging was performed at >1 month corrected age, cerebral palsy could be predicted with T2 relaxometry of the periventricular white matter on sections through the midbody of the lateral ventricles (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve = 0.738; cutoff value of >217.4 with 63.6% sensitivity and 100.0% specificity). CONCLUSIONS: T2-relaxometry brain MR imaging could provide prognostic prediction of neurodevelopmental outcomes in premature infants. Age-dependent and area-selective interpretation in preterm brains should be emphasized.
Dose-Dependent Effects of Randomized Intraduodenal Whey-Protein Loads on Glucose, Gut Hormone, and Amino Acid Concentrations in Healthy Older and Younger Men

Protein-rich supplements are used widely for the prevention and management of malnutrition in older people. We have reported that healthy older, compared to younger, adults have less suppression of energy intake by whey-protein—effects on appetite-related hormones are unknown. The objective was to determine the effects of intraduodenally administered whey-protein on glucose, gut hormone, and amino acid concentrations, and their relation to subsequent ad libitum energy intake at a buffet meal, in healthy older and younger men. Hydrolyzed whey-protein (30 kcal, 90 kcal, and 180 kcal) and a saline control (~0 kcal) were infused intraduodenally for 60 min in 10 younger (19–29 years, 73 ± 2 kg, 22 ± 1 kg/m2) and 10 older (68–81 years, 79 ± 2 kg, 26 ± 1 kg/m2) healthy men in a randomized, double-blind fashion. Plasma insulin, glucagon, gastric inhibitory peptide (GIP), glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), peptide tyrosine-tyrosine (PYY), and amino acid concentrations, but not blood glucose, increased, while ghrelin decreased during the whey-protein infusions. Plasma GIP concentrations were greater in older than younger men. Energy intake correlated positively with plasma ghrelin and negatively with insulin, glucagon, GIP, GLP-1, PYY, and amino acids concentrations (p < 0.05). In conclusion, intraduodenal whey-protein infusions resulted in increased GIP and comparable ghrelin, insulin, glucagon, GIP, GLP-1, PYY, and amino acid responses in healthy older and younger men, which correlated to subsequent energy intake.
Influence of facial skin ageing characteristics on the perceived age in a Russian female population

The desire for a youthful look remains a powerful motivator in the purchase of cosmetics by women globally. To develop an anti‐ageing solution that targets the need of end consumers, it is critical to understand which signs of ageing really matter to them and which influence their age perception. To date, such research has not been performed in a Russian population. The aim of this work was to identify the signs of ageing that contribute the most to an ‘older’ or ‘younger’ look for Russian women aged 40 years old and above.
Molecular Characterization of a Novel Cathepsin L in Macrobrachium nipponense and Its Function in Ovary Maturation

Cathepsin L genes, which belonged to cysteine proteases, were a series of multifunctional protease and played important roles in a lot of pathological and physiological processes. In this study, we analyzed the characteristics a cathepsin L (named Mn-CL2) in the female oriental river prawn, Macrobrachium nipponense which was involved in ovary maturation. The Mn-CL2 was1,582 bp in length, including a 978 bp open reading frame that encoded 326 amino acids. The Mn-CL2 was classified into the cathepsin L group by phylogenetic analysis. Real-time PCR (qPCR) analysis indicated that Mn-CL2 was highly expressed in the hepatopancreas and ovaries of female prawns. During the different ovarian stages, Mn-CL2 expression in the hepatopancreas and ovaries peaked before ovarian maturation. In situ hybridization studies revealed that Mn-CL2 was localized in the oocyte of the ovary. Injection of Mn-CL2 dsRNA significantly reduced the expression of vitellogenin. Changes in the gonad somatic index also confirmed the inhibitory effects of Mn-CL2 dsRNA on ovary maturation. These results suggest that Mn-CL2 has a key role in promoting ovary maturation.
Technologies for Cofabricating MEMS and Electronics

Microfabrication technologies initially developed for integrated electronics have been successfully applied to batch-fabricate a wide variety of micromechanical structures for sensing, actuating, or signal-processing functions such as filters. By appropriately combining the deposition, etching, and lithography steps for microelectromechanical devices with those needed for microelectronic devices, it is possible to fabricate an integrated microsystem in a single process sequence. This paper reviews the strategies for cofabrication, with an emphasis on modular approaches that do not mix the two process sequences. The integrated processes are discussed using examples of physical sensors (infrared imagers and inertial sensors), chemical and biochemical sensors, electrostatic and thermal actuators for displays and optical switching, and nonvolatile memories. By adding new functionality to integrated electronics, the use of microelectromechanical systems is opening new applications in sensing and actuating, as well as enhancing the performance of analog and digital integrated circuits.
Triazolinones as nonpeptide angiotensin II antagonists. 1. Synthesis and evaluation of potent 2,4,5-trisubstituted triazolinones.

A series of 2,4-dihydro-2,4,5-trisubstituted-3H-1,2,4-triazol-3-ones was prepared via several synthetic routes and evaluated as AII receptor antagonists in vitro and in vivo. The preferred compounds contained a [2'-(5-tetrazolyl)biphenyl-4-yl]methyl side chain at N4 and an n-butyl group at C5. A number of these bearing an alkyl or aralkyl substituent at N2 showed in vitro potency in the nanomolar range (rabbit aorta membrane receptor), and several of these, e.g., the 2,2-dimethyl-1-propyl analogue (54, IC50 = 2.1 nM), effectively blocked the AII pressor response in conscious rats with significant duration (2.5 h at 1 mg/kg orally for 54). Among analogues possessing aryl substituents at N2, ortho substitution on the phenyl moiety resulted in several derivatives with in vitro potency in the low nanomolar range. One of these, featuring a 2-(trifluoromethyl)phenyl substituent at N2 (25, IC50 = 1.2 nM), was effective at 1 mg/kg orally in the rat model, with a duration of > 6 h. Implications for hydrophobic and hydrogen-bonding interactions with the AT1 receptor are discussed.
Ethanol Increases Hepatic Smooth Endoplasmic Reticulum and Drug-Metabolizing Enzymes

Rats were fed ethanol for 2 weeks along with diets either adequate or deficient in protein and choline, the latter intake being similar to that of many alcoholics. Hepatic lipids, smooth endoplasmic reticulum, and the activities of drug-metabolizing enzymes (aniline hydroxylase and nitroreductase) were increased with the adequate diet but more so with the deficient one. These results may explain the increased tolerance by alcoholics of drugs such as sedatives.
c-di-GMP-linked phenotypes are modulated by the interaction between a diguanylate cyclase and a polar hub protein

c-di-GMP is a major player in the decision between biofilm and motile lifestyles. Several bacteria present a large number of c-di-GMP metabolizing proteins, thus a fine-tuning of this nucleotide levels may occur. It is hypothesized that some c-di-GMP metabolizing proteins would provide the global c-di-GMP levels inside the cell whereas others would maintain a localized pool, with the resulting c-di-GMP acting at the vicinity of its production. Although attractive, this hypothesis has yet to be proven in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. We found that the diguanylate cyclase DgcP interacts with the cytosolic region of FimV, a peptidoglycan-binding protein involved in type IV pilus assembly. Moreover, DgcP is located at the cell poles in wild type cells, but scattered in the cytoplasm of cells lacking FimV. Overexpression of DgcP leads to the classical phenotypes of high c-di-GMP levels (increased biofilm and impaired motilities) in the wild-type strain, but not in a AfimV background. Therefore, our findings strongly suggest that DgcP is regulated by FimV and may provide the local c-di-GMP pool that can be sensed by other proteins at the cell pole, bringing to light a specialized function for a specific diguanylate cyclase.
The barley grain thioredoxin system – an update

Thioredoxin (Trx) reduces disulfide bonds and play numerous important functions in plants. In cereal seeds, cytosolic h-type Trx facilitates the release of energy reserves during the germination process and is recycled by NADPH-dependent Trx reductase. This review presents a summary of the research conducted during the last 10 years to elucidate the structure and function of the barley seed Trx system at the molecular level combined with proteomic approaches to identify target proteins.
Optimizing Resource Allocation for Virtualized Network Functions in a Cloud Center Using Genetic Algorithms

With the introduction of network function virtualization technology, migrating entire enterprise data centers into the cloud has become a possibility. However, for a cloud service provider (CSP) to offer such services, several research problems still need to be addressed. In previous work, we have introduced a platform, called network function center (NFC), to study research issues related to virtualized network functions (VNFs). In an NFC, we assume VNFs to be implemented on virtual machines that can be deployed in any server in the CSP network. We have proposed a resource allocation algorithm for VNFs based on genetic algorithms (GAs). In this paper, we present a comprehensive analysis of two resource allocation algorithms based on GA for: 1) the initial placement of VNFs and 2) the scaling of VNFs to support traffic changes. We compare the performance of the proposed algorithms with a traditional integer linear programming resource allocation technique. We then combine data from previous empirical analyses to generate realistic VNF chains and traffic patterns, and evaluate the resource allocation decision making algorithms. We assume different architectures for the data center, implement different fitness functions with GA, and compare their performance when scaling over the time.
Draft Genome Sequences of Five Novel Polyketide Synthetase-Containing Mouse Escherichia coli Strains

ABSTRACT We report herein the draft genomes of five novel Escherichia coli strains isolated from surveillance and experimental mice housed at MIT and the Whitehead Institute and describe their genomic characteristics in context with the polyketide synthetase (PKS)-containing pathogenic E. coli strains NC101, IHE3034, and A192PP.
What Novels Can Do That Films Can't (And Vice Versa)

The study of narrative has become so popular that the French have honored it with a term-la narratologie. Given the escalating and sophisticated literature on the subject, its English counterpart, "narratology," may not be as risible as it sounds. Modern narratology combines two powerful intellectual trends: the Anglo-American inheritance of Henry James, Percy Lubbock, E. M. Forster, and Wayne Booth; and the mingling of Russian formalist (Viktor Shklovsky, Boris Eichenbaum, Roman Jakobson, and Vladimir Propp) with French structuralist approaches (Claude Levi-Strauss, Roland Barthes, Gerard Genette, and Tzvetan Todorov). It's not accidental that narratology has developed during a period in which linguistics and cinema theory have also flourished. Linguistics, of course, is one basis for the field now called semiotics-the study of all meaning systems, not only natural language. Another basis is the work of the philosopher Charles S. Peirce and his continuator, Charles W. Morris. These trees have borne elegant fruit: we read fascinating semiotic analyses of facial communication, body language, fashion, the circus, architecture, and gastronomy. The most vigorous, if controversial, branch of cinema studies, the work of Christian Metz, is also semiotically based. One of the most important observations to come out of narratology is that narrative itself is a deep structure quite independent of its medium. In other words, narrative is basically a kind of text organization, and that organization, that schema, needs to be actualized: in written words, as in stories and novels; in spoken words combined with the movements of actors imitating characters against sets which imitate
Discrepancies Between Blood Glucose and Interstitial Glucose—Technological Artifacts or Physiology: Implications for Selection of the Appropriate Therapeutic Target

Background: For decades, the major source of information used to make therapeutic decisions by patients with diabetes has been glucose measurements using capillary blood samples. Knowledge gained from clinical studies, for example, on the impact of metabolic control on diabetes-related complications, is based on such measurements. Different to traditional blood glucose measurement systems, systems for continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) measure glucose in interstitial fluid (ISF). The assumption is that glucose levels in blood and ISF are practically the same and that the information provided can be used interchangeably. Thus, therapeutic decisions, that is, the selection of insulin doses, are based on CGM system results interpreted as though they were blood glucose values. Methods: We performed a more detailed analysis and interpretation of glucose profiles obtained with CGM in situations with high glucose dynamics to evaluate this potentially misleading assumption. Results: Considering physical activity, hypoglycemic episodes, and meal-related differences between glucose levels in blood and ISF uncover clinically relevant differences that can make it risky from a therapeutic point of view to use blood glucose for therapeutic decisions. Conclusions: Further systematic and structured evaluation as to whether the use of ISF glucose is more safe and efficient when it comes to acute therapeutic decisions is necessary. These data might also have a higher prognostic relevance when it comes to long-term metabolic consequences of diabetes. In the long run, it may be reasonable to abandon blood glucose measurements as the basis for diabetes management and switch to using ISF glucose as the appropriate therapeutic target.
UDP-Glucosyltransferase 71 C 5 , a Major Glucosyltransferase , Mediates Abscisic Acid Homeostasis in Arabidopsis 1 [ OPEN ]

Key Laboratory of Bio-Resources and Eco-Environment of Ministry of Education, College of Life Sciences, Sichuan University, Sichuan 610064, China (Z.L., J.-P.Y., D.-K.L., Q.L., Q.Y., Z.-B.L., J.-M.W., X.-F.L., Y.Y.); State Key Laboratory of Hydraulics and Mountain River Engineering, Sichuan University, Sichuan 610065, China (Z.L., D.-K.L., Y.Y.); Biotechnology Research Center of Life Science and Technology College, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Yunnan 650500, China (J.P.-Y.); and West China School of Pharmacy, Sichuan University, Sichuan 610041, China (L.-M.Y.)
Radiation-induced leukocyte entrapment in the rat retinal microcirculation.

PURPOSE To evaluate the effects of irradiation on leukocyte dynamics in the rat retinal microcirculation. METHODS Thirty-five Brown-Norway rats received a dose of 10 Gy irradiation in one fraction. Leukocyte dynamics were studied with acridine orange digital fluorography, in which a nuclear fluorescent dye of acridine orange is used and examined by scanning laser ophthalmoscope. This technique allowed visualization of fluorescent leukocytes in vivo. The leukocyte dynamics were evaluated at 0, 4, 7, 14, 30, and 60 days after the irradiation. RESULTS Mean leukocyte velocity in the retinal capillaries decreased immediately. It partially recovered on day 4 but then gradually decreased up to the 2-month mark. Low-dose irradiation induced entrapment of leukocytes in the retinal microcirculation. The number of entrapped leukocytes gradually increased with time. The major retinal vessels significantly constricted immediately after irradiation. The diameter was reduced by 76% in arteries and 75% in veins, 2 months after irradiation. CONCLUSIONS Entrapped leukocytes may be activated and exacerbate vascular injury and microinfarction and thus may participate in the pathogenesis of radiation retinopathy.
Normobaric hypoxia conditioning reduces blood pressure and normalizes nitric oxide synthesis in patients with arterial hypertension

Objectives Insufficient production and/or increased decomposition of the potent endogenous vasodilator nitric oxide plays an important role in development and progression of arterial hypertension and its complications. One of the most effective means of stimulating endogenous nitric oxide synthesis is controlled adaptation to hypoxia. This study examined the effect of a 20-day, intermittent, normobaric intermittent hypoxia conditioning (IHC) program on blood pressure (BP) and nitric oxide production in patients with stage 1 arterial hypertension. Methods The IHC sessions consisted of four to 10 cycles of alternating 3-min hypoxia (10% FIO2) and 3-min room air breathing. BP was monitored for 24 h before and after IHC, and nitric oxide synthesis was evaluated by 24-h urinary excretion of the stable nitric oxide metabolites nitrate and nitrite. Results IHC increased nitric oxide synthesis and decreased BP in hypertensive patients to values similar to those of normotensive individuals. Significant inverse correlations were found between nitric oxide production and disease duration, SBP, and DBP. Moreover, IHC enhancement of nitric oxide synthesis was especially robust in patients with arterial hypertension of more than 5 years duration. The reduction in BP persisted for at least 3 months in 28 of 33 hypertensive patients. Conclusion IHC exerted a robust, persistent therapeutic effect and can be considered as an alternative, nonpharmacological treatment for patients with stage 1 arterial hypertension. The antihypertensive action of IHC is associated with normalization of nitric oxide production.
The Effect of Provider Case Volume on Cancer Mortality: Systematic Review and Meta‐Analysis

The authors systematically reviewed the association between provider case volume and mortality in 101 publications involving greater than 1 million patients with esophageal, gastric, hepatic, pancreatic, colon, or rectal cancer, of whom more than 70,000 died. The majority of studies addressed the relation between hospital surgical case volume and short‐term perioperative mortality. Few studies addressed surgeon case volume or evaluated long‐term survival outcomes. Common methodologic limitations were failure to control for potential confounders, post hoc categorization of provider volume, and unit of analysis errors. A significant volume effect was evident for the majority of gastrointestinal cancers; with each doubling of hospital case volume, the odds of perioperative death decreased by 0.1 to 0.23. The authors calculated that between 10 and 50 patients per year, depending on cancer type, needed to be moved from a “low‐volume” hospital to a “high‐volume” hospital to prevent 1 additional volume‐associated perioperative death. Despite this, approximately one‐third of all analyses did not find a significant volume effect on mortality. The heterogeneity of results from individual studies calls into question the validity of case volume as a proxy for care quality, and leads the authors to conclude that more direct quality measures and the validity of their use to inform policy should also be explored. CA Cancer J Clin 2009;59:192–211. © 2009 American Cancer Society.
MUL-SWoT: A Social Web of Things Platform for Internet of Things Application Development

Social Web of Thing (SWoT) has been considered a great platform for future App development because it integrates IoT and Social Networks (SN) and makes human readily monitor and manage smart objects. This work discusses technical options and various requirements of SWoT and presents a scalable and flexible Multimedia-supported SWoT platform called MUL-SWoT. MUL-SWoT provides easy integration of smart objects and 3rd party service providers. It can handle multimedia data and provide novel IoT-based service recommendation to users. Finally, to understand MUL-SWoT, we describe how an intrusion detection service is built on the MUL-SWoT platform.
A Fall-back Strategy for Sentiment Analysis in Hindi: a Case Study

Sentiment Analysis (SA) research has gained tremendous momentum in recent times. However, there has been little work in this area for an Indian language. We propose in this paper a fall-back strategy to do sentiment analysis for Hindi documents, a problem on which, to the best of our knowledge, no work has been done until now. (A) First of all, we study three approaches to perform SA in Hindi. We have developed a sentiment annotated corpora in the Hindi movie review domain. The first of our approaches involves training a classifier on this annotated Hindi corpus and using it to classify a new Hindi document. (B) In the second approach, we translate the given document into English and use a classifier trained on standard English movie reviews to classify the document. (C) In the third approach, we develop a lexical resource called Hindi-SentiWordNet (H-SWN) and implement a majority score based strategy to classify the given document.
Spectral dimensions from the spectral action

The generalized spectral dimension ${D}_{S}(T)$ provides a powerful tool for comparing different approaches to quantum gravity. In this work, we apply this formalism to the classical spectral actions obtained within the framework of almost-commutative geometry. Analyzing the propagation of spin-0, spin-1 and spin-2 fields, we show that a nontrivial spectral dimension arises already at the classical level. The effective field theory interpretation of the spectral action yields plateau structures interpolating between a fixed spin-independent ${D}_{S}(T)={d}_{S}$ for short and ${D}_{S}(T)=4$ for long diffusion times $T$. Going beyond effective field theory the spectral dimension is completely dominated by the high-momentum properties of the spectral action, yielding ${D}_{S}(T)=0$ for all spins. Our results support earlier claims that high-energy bosons do not propagate.