Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Endovascular stroke treatment now and then-procedural and clinical effectiveness and safety of different mechanical thrombectomy techniques over time.

BACKGROUND The most essential development in endovascular stroke treatment (EST) was the shift from intra-arterial thrombolysis to endovascular thrombectomy with dedicated thrombectomy devices, most notably the introduction of stent-retrievers. We evaluated procedural and clinical effectiveness and safety of different EST techniques over time. METHODS We retrospectively analyzed EST cases that were treated by the same interventionalist before (n=36) and after (n=50) stent-retrievers were established as the treatment device of first choice. EST techniques in the first cohort comprised intra-arterial thrombolysis (n=24), manual thrombus aspiration (n=15), the use of the Penumbra thrombectomy system (n=13) and the Phenox clot retriever (n=3), intracranial stenting (n=10), and EST with stent-retrievers as a salvage procedure (n=11). In the second cohort, EST with stent-retrievers was the treatment option of first choice (n=47). Intra-arterial thrombolysis (n=15) and stenting of the occluded vessel (n=1) were performed, whenever EST with stent-retrievers failed. RESULTS In both cohorts, revascularization rates (TICI ≥2b) were high (91.7% and 86.0%, respectively). A significantly lower number of interventional techniques per case were required in the second cohort (mean ± SD, 1.4±0.5 vs. 2.1±0.9, P<0.001). Recanalization was achieved almost twice as fast in the second cohort (85 vs. 163 minutes on average, P<0.001). The rate of patients achieving good functional outcome (mRS ≤2) was higher in the second cohort (40.0% vs. 22.2%, P=0.083). CONCLUSIONS Our findings imply that when stent-retrievers were established as first-line the treatment device a significantly lower number of interventional techniques per case were required and recanalization was achieved almost twice as fast.
LibHSA: One step towards mastering the era of heterogeneous hardware accelerators using FPGAs

Various signal and image processing applications require vast acceleration in order to enable real-time processing and meet constraints in power consumption. On FPGAs these applications can be implemented as application-specific circuit. Although IP cores for various applications exist, even interfacing these usually requires experienced knowledge in hardware design. Using FPGAs or other accelerators in a heterogeneous system from a host CPU would simplify the usage of accelerator hardware for a common software developer. Recognizing this, several companies and partners from academia created the HSA Foundation (Heterogeneous System Architecture Foundation) to define a platform specification for heterogeneous system requirements as a macro-architecture for efficient and easy targeting heterogeneous processors from popular high-level languages like C/C++, Python, Java and other domain specific languages. In this paper we present an IP library (LibHSA), that greatly simplifies integration of hardware accelerator functions into existing HSA compliant systems. This allows accelerators to take advantage of the existing HSA programming model, libraries, compilers and toolchains. We will demonstrate the work of LibHSA utilizing a programmable image processor implementation on a Xilinx FPGA. The image processor supports low-level algorithms, e.g. Sobel, Median, Laplace, or Gauss. Our results show a substantial decrease integrating customized hardware accelerators using the LibHSA infrastructure. To our knowledge, our library is the first approach for integrating reconfigurable hardware into an HSA compliant system.
Lighting the Beacon: Presidential Discourse, American Exceptionalism, and Public Diplomacy in Global Contexts

Jason Gilmore PhD Utah State University Charles Rowling PhD University of Nebraska, Kearney Final version submitted to Presidential Studies Quarterly: Gilmore, J., & Rowling, C. M. Lighting the Beacon: Presidential Discourse, American Exceptionalism, and Public Diplomacy in Global Contexts. Presidential Studies Quarterly. Jason Gilmore is an Assistant Professor of Global Communication at Utah State University. His research program focuses on the strategic creation, dissemination, and effects of national and international ideas—such as American exceptionalism and anti-Americanism—that are regularly communicated within and across national and cultural boundaries.
Uptake and toxicity of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in terrestrial springtails—studying bioconcentration kinetics and linking toxicity to chemical activity

Passive dosing applies a polymer loaded with test compound(s) to establish and maintain constant exposure in laboratory experiments. Passive dosing with the silicone poly(dimethylsiloxane) was used to control exposure of the terrestrial springtail Folsomia candida to six polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in bioconcentration and toxicity experiments. Folsomia candida could move freely on the PAH‐loaded silicone, resulting in exposure via air and direct contact. The bioconcentration kinetics indicated efficient uptake of naphthalene, anthracene, and pyrene through air and (near) equilibrium partitioning of these PAHs to lipids and possibly the waxy layer of the springtail cuticle. Toxicities of naphthalene, phenanthrene, and pyrene were related to chemical activity, which quantifies the energetic level and drives spontaneous processes including diffusive biouptake. Chemical activity–response relationships yielded effective lethal chemical activities (La50s) well within the expected range for baseline toxicity (0.01–0.1). Effective lethal body burdens for naphthalene and pyrene exceeded the expected range of 2 to 8 mmol kg−1 fresh weight, which again indicated the waxy layer to be a sorbing phase. Finally, chemical activities were converted into equilibrium partitioning concentrations in lipids yielding effective lethal concentrations for naphthalene and phenanthrene in good correspondence with the lethal membrane burden for baseline toxicity (40–160 mmol kg−1 lipid). Passive dosing was a practical approach for tightly controlling PAH exposure, which in turn provided new experimental possibilities and findings. Environ. Toxicol. Chem. 2013;32:361–369. © 2012 SETAC
Antibodies to Rotavirus Outer Capsid Glycoprotein VP7 Neutralize Infectivity by Inhibiting Virion Decapsidation

ABSTRACT The rotavirus capsid is composed of three concentric protein layers. Proteins VP4 and VP7 comprise the outer layer. VP4 forms spikes, is the viral attachment protein, and is cleaved by trypsin into VP8* and VP5*. VP7 is a glycoprotein and the major constituent of the outer protein layer. Both VP4 and VP7 induce neutralizing and protective antibodies. To gain insight into the virus neutralization mechanisms, the effects of neutralizing monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) directed against VP8*, VP5*, and VP7 on the decapsidation process of purified OSU and RRV virions were studied. Changes in virion size were followed in real time by 90° light scattering. The transition from triple-layered particles to double-layered particles induced by controlled low calcium concentrations was completely inhibited by anti-VP7 MAbs but not by anti-VP8* or anti-VP5* MAbs. The inhibitory effect of the MAb directed against VP7 was concentration dependent and was abolished by papain digestion of virus-bound antibody under conditions that generated Fab fragments but not under conditions that generated F(ab′)2 fragments. Electron microscopy showed that RRV virions reacted with an anti-VP7 MAb stayed as triple-layered particles in the presence of excess EDTA. Furthermore, the infectivity of rotavirus neutralized via VP8*, but not that of rotavirus neutralized via VP7, could be recovered by lipofection of neutralized particles into MA-104 cells. These data are consistent with the notion that antibodies directed at VP8* neutralize by inhibiting binding of virus to the cell. They also indicate that antibodies directed at VP7 neutralize by inhibiting virus decapsidation, in a manner that is dependent on the bivalent binding of the antibody.
Mechanical properties and function of the spinal pia mater.

OBJECT The pia mater has received little attention regarding its function in the deformation of the spinal cord under compression. In this study the mechanical properties and function of the spinal pia mater were investigated using three methods. METHODS Spinal cord segments were excised from rabbits. The elastic modulus of the pia mater was measured by performing a tensile test using specimens with the pia mater intact and ones with the pia mater stripped off. The stiffness of the spinal cord was examined by performing a compression test with specimens containing an intact pia mater and ones with a pia mater that was incised at both sides. The cross-sectional area and circumference of the spinal cord were measured on axial views of magnetic resonance images in patients with cervical disc herniations before and after surgery. The pia mater had an elastic modulus of 2300 kPa, which was 460 times higher than that of spinal cord parenchyma. By covering the parenchyma, it tripled the overall elastic modulus of the spinal cord. The pia mater increased the stiffness of the spinal cord and enhanced its shape recovery after removal of the compression. The cross-sectional area of the spinal cord increased after surgery, whereas the circumference of the spinal cord changed little. CONCLUSIONS The pia mater firmly covers the spinal cord and has a high elastic modulus; it therefore provides a constraint on the spinal cord surface. It prevents elongation of the circumference and produces a large strain energy that is responsible for shape restoration following decompression.
Multi‐constraint computational design suggests that native sequences of germline antibody H3 loops are nearly optimal for conformational flexibility

The limited size of the germline antibody repertoire has to recognize a far larger number of potential antigens. The ability of a single antibody to bind multiple ligands due to conformational flexibility in the antigen‐binding site can significantly enlarge the repertoire. Among the six complementarity determining regions (CDRs) that generally comprise the binding site, the CDR H3 loop is particularly variable. Computational protein design studies showed that predicted low energy sequences compatible with a given backbone structure often have considerable similarity to the corresponding native sequences of naturally occurring proteins, indicating that native protein sequences are close to optimal for their structures. Here, we take a step forward to determine whether conformational flexibility, believed to play a key functional role in germline antibodies, is also central in shaping their native sequence. In particular, we use a multi‐constraint computational design strategy, along with the Rosetta scoring function, to propose that the native sequences of CDR H3 loops from germline antibodies are nearly optimal for conformational flexibility. Moreover, we find that antibody maturation may lead to sequences with a higher degree of optimization for a single conformation, while disfavoring sequences that are intrinsically flexible. In addition, this computational strategy allows us to predict mutations in the CDR H3 loop to stabilize the antigen‐bound conformation, a computational mimic of affinity maturation, that may increase antigen binding affinity by preorganizing the antigen binding loop. In vivo affinity maturation data are consistent with our predictions. The method described here can be useful to design antibodies with higher selectivity and affinity by reducing conformational diversity. Proteins 2009. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Alternate Routes for Children with Difficult Central Venous Access

Abstract Background: Some children requiring chemotherapy, total parenteral nutrition, or repeated blood sampling for long periods have no more axillary, internal jugular, external jugular, saphenous, or femoral veins available for cannulation. In such patients, the central venous system can still be accessed via alternate routes e.g. the azygos vein, the gonadal vein or the inferior epigastric vein. Patients and Methods: We report the use of: 1) The inferior epigastric vein for placement of the catheter into the IVC in 20 patients. 2) The right gonadal vein for placement of the catheter using a retroperitoneal approach in five pediatric patients. 3) The second and third right intercostal veins for placement of the catheter by right intrapleural thoracotomy in five pediatric patients. Pre-procedural assessment of the patency of these veins was done using colour Doppler ultrasonography and confirmation of occlusion of common sites used for central venous access. Results: A total of 38 implantable venous access devices (IVAD) were inserted in 30 patients. The average age at operation was 1.4 years (range 1 month to 12 years). Infection was seen in two patients, venous thrombosis in two. The average longevity of IVAD is 6.5 months. Recovery from the procedure was uncomplicated and the patients were able to receive complete intravenous medication or nutritive mixtures after the insertion of the catheter. Conclusion: The knowledge of alternate routes to obtain central venous access for children requiring chemotherapy, total parenteral nutrition, or repeated blood sampling for long periods is critically important, and the azygos system, right gonadal vein or the inferior epigastric vein can be used when standard accessible veins are unavailable.
E2f4 and E2f5 are essential for the development of the male reproductive system

ABSTRACT The E2F transcription factors are primarily implicated in the regulation of entry and exit from the cell cycle. However, in vivo studies have established additional roles for E2Fs during organ development and homeostasis. With the goal of addressing the intestinal requirements of E2f4 and E2f5, we crossed mice carrying Vil-cre, E2f4 conditional and E2f5 germline alleles. E2f4 deletion had no detectable effect on intestinal development. However, E2f4f/f;E2f5+/−;Vil-cre males, but not E2f4f/f;Vil-cre littermates, were unexpectedly sterile. This defect was not due to defective spermatogenesis. Instead, the seminiferous tubules and rete testes showed significant dilation, and spermatozoa accumulated aberrantly in the rete testis and efferent ducts. Our data show that these problems result from defective efferent ducts, a tissue whose primary function is to concentrate sperm through fluid absorption. First, Vil-cre expression, and consequent E2F4 loss, was specific to the efferent ducts and not other reproductive tract tissues. Second, the E2f4f/f;E2f5+/−;Vil-cre efferent ducts had completely lost multiciliated cells and greatly reduced levels of critical absorptive cell proteins: aquaporin1, a water channel protein, and clusterin, an endocytic marker. Collectively, the observed testis phenotypes suggest a fluid flux defect. Remarkably, we observed rete testis dilation prior to the normal time of seminiferous fluid production, arguing that the efferent duct defects promote excessive secretory activity within the reproductive tract. Finally, we also detect key aspects of these testis defects in E2f5−/− mice. Thus, we conclude that E2f4 and E2f5 display overlapping roles in controlling the normal development of the male reproductive system.
Subclinical atherosclerosis and risk of atrial fibrillation: the rotterdam study.

BACKGROUND Myocardial infarction is an important risk factor for atrial fibrillation, but the role of subclinical atherosclerosis is unknown. This longitudinal study evaluates whether atherosclerosis affects the risk of atrial fibrillation in persons without overt coronary disease. METHODS This investigation was part of the Rotterdam Study, a population-based cohort study among persons 55 years or older. Participants with atrial fibrillation at baseline, with a history of myocardial infarction, or with angina pectoris and those who had undergone cardiac operative procedures were excluded, leaving 4407 subjects for the analyses. Baseline intima-media thickness of the common carotid artery and the presence of carotid plaques were used as indices of generalized atherosclerosis. During a median follow-up of 7.5 years, 269 cases of incident atrial fibrillation were identified. Relative risks were calculated with 95% confidence intervals, adjusted for age and sex, using the Cox proportional hazards model. Additional adjustments were made for body mass index, hypertension, systolic blood pressure, serum cholesterol level, smoking, diabetes mellitus, left ventricular hypertrophy on the electrocardiogram, and the use of cardiac medication. RESULTS The risk of atrial fibrillation was associated with carotid intima-media thickness (relative risk, 1.90; 95% confidence interval, 1.20-3.00, highest vs lowest quartile) and severity of carotid plaques (relative risk, 1.49; 95% confidence interval, 1.06-2.10, severe vs absence). Risk estimates were stronger in women than in men. CONCLUSIONS Atherosclerosis in participants without manifest atherosclerotic disease is an independent risk factor for atrial fibrillation. These results suggest that aggressive treatment of asymptomatic atherosclerosis may help to prevent atrial fibrillation.
CEE Trade in Services: Value-Added Versus Gross Terms Approaches

This article assesses the impact of the determinants of service exports in both value-added terms and gross terms for seven Central Eastern European economies in 1995–2011. The results confirm the importance of increasing labor productivity and highly skilled and medium-skilled workers in the growth of trade in services. Exports of services are also supported by linkages between domestic services, especially business services, and the manufacturing sector. The results show that the impacts of the determinants are fairly similar when exports are measured in value-added or gross terms; however, the strength of the impact differs across the countries analyzed.
Thyroid hormone exerts negative feedback on hypothalamic type 4 melanocortin receptor expression

The type 4 melanocortin receptor MC4R, a key relay in leptin signaling, links central energy control to peripheral reserve status. MC4R activation in different brain areas reduces food intake and increases energy expenditure. Mice lacking Mc4r are obese. Mc4r is expressed by hypothalamic paraventricular Thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH) neurons and increases energy usage through activation of Trh and production of the thyroid hormone tri-iodothyronine (T3). These facts led us to test the hypothesis that energy homeostasis should require negative feedback by T3 on Mc4r expression. Quantitative PCR and in situ hybridization showed hyperthyroidism reduces Mc4r mRNA levels in the paraventricular nucleus. Comparative in silico analysis of Mc4r regulatory regions revealed two evolutionarily conserved potential negative thyroid hormone-response elements (nTREs). In vivo ChIP assays on mouse hypothalamus demonstrated association of thyroid hormone receptors (TRs) with a region spanning one nTRE. Further, in vivo gene reporter assays revealed dose-dependent T3 repression of transcription from the Mc4r promoter in mouse hypothalamus, in parallel with T3-dependent Trh repression. Mutagenesis of the nTREs in the Mc4r promoter demonstrated direct regulation by T3, consolidating the ChIP results. In vivo shRNA knockdown, TR over-expression approaches and use of mutant mice lacking specific TRs showed that both TRα and TRβ contribute to Mc4r regulation. T3 repression of Mc4r transcription ensures that the energy-saving effects of T3 feedback on Trh are not overridden by MC4R activation of Trh. Thus parallel repression by T3 on hypothalamic Mc4r and Trh contributes to energy homeostasis.
Entrepreneurs, culture and productivity

This paper contributes to explain the persistence of differences in levels of entrepreneurship within and across countries. We analyse in a dynamic setting the mutual relationship among the distribution of preferences for entrepreneurship in the population, public administration efficiency, and entrepreneurial productivity when preferences and productivity evolve over time. Individuals with entrepreneurial preferences start their own business, while the other individuals join the public and traditional sectors. In each generation, individuals vote on the taxes the entrepreneurs will pay. Under a balanced public budget, the collected taxes are used to pay the civil servants' wages. The effort of civil servants captures the effort made to generate an efficient normative and regulatory environment, and it will affect the probability of success of entrepreneurship. The dynamic of entrepreneurial productivity is determined by the relative proportion of entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial individuals among generations. We show that an economy can reach two different long-run equilibria: a traditional equilibrium, with a low proportion of entrepreneurs, low productivity, high taxes and an ineffcient Administration and an entrepreneurial equilibrium with a high proportion of entrepreneurs, a higher productivity and lower taxes but enough to implement an efficient Administration. Our main result is that the equilibrium achieved completely depends on the tax policy followed by the different generations. If decisions are made by majority voting in a myopic way, then the initial conditions of the society become crucial. This result explains persistence: an economy evolves around similar levels of entrepreneurship unless some reforms are implemented.
Reducing Wire and Energy Overheads of the SMART NoC Using a Setup Request Network

Network-on-chip (NoC), due to its superior scalability, has become increasingly popular in multicore and many-core designs. A recent state-of-the-art NoC design, called single-cycle multihop asynchronous repeated traversal (SMART), enables ultralow latency performance by enabling a flit to bypass the pipelines of intermediate routers entirely. This enables a flit to traverse multiple routers within a single clock cycle. However, there are two concerns related to SMART: 1) it employs dedicated broadcast wires to transmit SMART-hop setup requests (SSRs), incurring large wire and energy overheads and 2) it needs a complex allocator to arbitrate multiple simultaneous SSRs. In this paper, we propose an SSR network to address these two concerns. This is a specialized network that replaces long and overlapping broadcast wires with shorter wires and switches. It reduces the wire and energy overheads significantly. It also eliminates lowpriority SSRs before they reach the allocator and, therefore, leads to a simplified allocator design. We evaluate SSR networks in various contexts. Our evaluation demonstrates that the SSR network can reduce the wire overhead by up to 12.2×. Moreover, it results in up to 63.7% area reduction, and up to 15.7% dynamic energy reduction. It also makes multiple physical networks and/or wider flits feasible. This paper shows that with fewer wires and the same amount of buffer space, multiple simple SMART-1D networks can deliver a higher bandwidth and lower latency than a single complex SMART-2D network, when our SSR network is used.
High-Performance Carbon Nanotube Fiber

With their impressive individual properties, carbon nanotubes should form high-performance fibers. We explored the roles of nanotube length and structure, fiber density, and nanotube orientation in achieving optimum mechanical properties. We found that carbon nanotube fiber, spun directly and continuously from gas phase as an aerogel, combines high strength and high stiffness (axial elastic modulus), with an energy to breakage (toughness) considerably greater than that of any commercial high-strength fiber. Different levels of carbon nanotube orientation, fiber density, and mechanical properties can be achieved by drawing the aerogel at various winding rates. The mechanical data obtained demonstrate the considerable potential of carbon nanotube assemblies in the quest for maximal mechanical performance. The statistical aspects of the mechanical data reveal the deleterious effect of defects and indicate strategies for future work.