Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Timing of Raf/ERK and AKT Activation in Protecting PC12 Cells against Oxidative Stress

Acute brain injuries such as ischemic stroke or traumatic brain injury often cause massive neural death and irreversible brain damage with grave consequences. Previous studies have established that a key participant in the events leading to neural death is the excessive production of reactive oxygen species. Protecting neuronal cells by activating their endogenous defense mechanisms is an attractive treatment strategy for acute brain injuries. In this work, we investigate how the precise timing of the Raf/ERK and the AKT pathway activation affects their protective effects against oxidative stress. For this purpose, we employed optogenetic systems that use light to precisely and reversibly activate either the Raf/ERK or the AKT pathway. We find that preconditioning activation of the Raf/ERK or the AKT pathway immediately before oxidant exposure provides significant protection to cells. Notably, a 15-minute transient activation of the Raf/ERK pathway is able to protect PC12 cells against oxidant strike that is applied 12 hours later, while the transient activation of the AKT pathway fails to protect PC12 cells in such a scenario. On the other hand, if the pathways are activated after the oxidative insult, i.e. postconditioning, the AKT pathway conveys greater protective effect than the Raf/ERK pathway. We find that postconditioning AKT activation has an optimal delay period of 2 hours. When the AKT pathway is activated 30min after the oxidative insult, it exhibits very little protective effect. Therefore, the precise timing of the pathway activation is crucial in determining its protective effect against oxidative injury. The optogenetic platform, with its precise temporal control and its ability to activate specific pathways, is ideal for the mechanistic dissection of intracellular pathways in protection against oxidative stress.
Isolated torsion of the fallopian tube with hydrosalpinx mimicking a multiloculated ovarian cyst: Whirlpool sign on preoperative sonography and MRI

Isolated torsion of the fallopian tube is a rare case of lower abdominal pain. Early diagnosis of such cases is crucial because it allows for the possibility of salvage surgery and the prevention of irreversible vascular damage. However, diagnosis is rarely made before surgery due to nonspecific clinical and imaging features. We report a case of isolated tubal torsion with specific imaging findings on preoperative ultrasonography, color Doppler ultrasonography, and magnetic resonance imaging that was misdiagnosed as a multiloculated ovarian cyst at a local hospital. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Ultrasound 42:45–48, 2014
The impact of injury coding schemes on predicting hospital mortality after pediatric injury.

OBJECTIVES Accurate adjustment for injury severity is needed to evaluate the effectiveness of trauma management. While the choice of injury coding scheme used for modeling affects performance, the impact of combining coding schemes on performance has not been evaluated. The purpose of this study was to use Bayesian logistic regression to develop models predicting hospital mortality in injured children and to compare the performance of models developed using different injury coding schemes. METHODS Records of children (age < 15 years) admitted after injury were obtained from the National Trauma Data Bank (NTDB) and the National Pediatric Trauma Registry (NPTR) and used to train Bayesian logistic regression models predicting mortality using three injury coding schemes (International Classification of Disease-9th revision [ICD-9] injury codes, the Abbreviated Injury Scale [AIS] severity scores, and the Barell matrix) and their combinations. Model performance was evaluated using independent data from the NTDB and the Kids' Inpatient Database 2003 (KID). RESULTS Discrimination was optimal when modeling both ICD-9 and AIS severity codes (area under the receiver operating curve [AUC] = 0.921 [NTDB] and 0.967 [KID], Hosmer-Lemeshow [HL] h-statistic = 115 [NTDB] and 147 [KID]), while calibration was optimal when modeling coding based on the Barell matrix (AUC = 0.882 [NTDB] and 0.936 [KID], HL h-statistic = 19 [NTDB] and 69 [KID]). When compared to models based on ICD-9 codes alone, models that also included AIS severity scores and coding from the Barell matrix showed improved discrimination and calibration. CONCLUSIONS Mortality models that incorporate additional injury coding schemes perform better than those based on ICD-9 codes alone in the setting of pediatric trauma. Combining injury coding schemes may be an effective approach for improving the predictive performance of empirically derived estimates of injury mortality.
Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1-Hepatitis C Virus Coinfection: Intraindividual Comparison of Cellular Immune Responses against Two Persistent Viruses

ABSTRACT Both human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) lead to chronic infection in a high percentage of persons, and an expanding epidemic of HIV-1-HCV coinfection has recently been identified. These individuals provide an opportunity for simultaneous assessment of immune responses to two viral infections associated with chronic plasma viremia. In this study we analyzed the breadth and magnitude of the CD8+- and CD4+-T-lymphocyte responses in 22 individuals infected with both HIV-1 and HCV. A CD8+-T-lymphocyte response against HIV-1 was readily detected in all subjects over a broad range of viral loads. In marked contrast, HCV-specific CD8+-T-lymphocyte responses were rarely detected, despite viral loads in plasma that were on average 1,000-fold higher. The few HCV-specific responses that were observed were relatively weak and limited in breadth. CD4-proliferative responses against HIV-1 were detected in about half of the coinfected subjects tested, but no proliferative response against any HCV protein was found in these coinfected persons. These data demonstrate a major discordance in immune responses to two persistent RNA viruses. In addition, they show a consistent and profound impairment in cellular immune responses to HCV compared to HIV-1 in HIV-1-HCV-coinfected persons.
Growth and Population Dynamics of Anaerobic Methane-Oxidizing Archaea and Sulfate-Reducing Bacteria in a Continuous-Flow Bioreactor

ABSTRACT The consumption of methane in anoxic marine sediments is a biogeochemical phenomenon mediated by two archaeal groups (ANME-1 and ANME-2) that exist syntrophically with sulfate-reducing bacteria. These anaerobic methanotrophs have yet to be recovered in pure culture, and key aspects of their ecology and physiology remain poorly understood. To characterize the growth and physiology of these anaerobic methanotrophs and the syntrophic sulfate-reducing bacteria, we incubated marine sediments using an anoxic, continuous-flow bioreactor during two experiments at different advective porewater flow rates. We examined the growth kinetics of anaerobic methanotrophs and Desulfosarcina-like sulfate-reducing bacteria using quantitative PCR as a proxy for cell counts, and measured methane oxidation rates using membrane-inlet mass spectrometry. Our data show that the specific growth rates of ANME-1 and ANME-2 archaea differed in response to porewater flow rates. ANME-2 methanotrophs had the highest rates in lower-flow regimes (μANME-2 = 0.167 · week−1), whereas ANME-1 methanotrophs had the highest rates in higher-flow regimes (μANME-1 = 0.218 · week−1). In both incubations, Desulfosarcina-like sulfate-reducing bacterial growth rates were approximately 0.3 · week−1, and their growth dynamics suggested that sulfate-reducing bacterial growth might be facilitated by, but not dependent upon, an established anaerobic methanotrophic population. ANME-1 growth rates corroborate field observations that ANME-1 archaea flourish in higher-flow regimes. Our growth and methane oxidation rates jointly demonstrate that anaerobic methanotrophs are capable of attaining substantial growth over a range of environmental conditions used in these experiments, including relatively low methane partial pressures.
Using Facebook to Recruit Young Adults for Qualitative Research Projects: How Difficult Is It?

DOI: 10.1097/NXN.0b013e31826e4fca Recruiting participants is a challenge for any research study. Traditionally, researchers have gone to significant lengths to recruit samples, including mailing letters, putting recruitment information in the media, and canvassing locations where potential participants might be found. More recently, researchers have begun to use the Internet to recruit research samples. In theory, the Internet has a number of strengths when used for this purpose. It should enable a large number of individuals to be contacted in a cost-effective manner in a short period. It should also help researchers to capture hard-to-reach populations. The Internet is considered to be a particularly suitable medium for recruiting younger people. Recently, social networks have become important features on the Internet landscape. These are Web-based services that allow individuals to develop online profiles and connect with people who are similar to them. More than half of young adults are on social network sites, most of whom use these sites every day. At the time of writing this article, Facebook (Facebook, Menlo Park, CA) is the dominant social network site on the Internet, with close to a billion members. A feature of Facebook is that its users can join together to form “user groups” based around shared interests. These groups can be located by searching Facebook. Because of its reach and the prevalence of health-related user groups on the site, Facebook is considered to be a promising new way to recruit young adults into medical research. Key Points •Researchers are increasingly using social network sites such as Facebook to recruit patients for research studies. •Qualitative researchers may experience a lower and slower than expected response to Facebook recruitment campaigns. •We suggest that researchers continue to recruit from traditional settings in tandem with Facebook.
Stabilization and Task Definition in a Performance Test Battery

Most tasks show practice effects with repeated administrations, effects that may appear in the group mean, the variance among subjects, or the correlations over subjects among trials or repeated testings. Fortunately, there comes a point in many tasks after which practice no longer produces changes in performance; as we will put it, the task stabilizes. Stabilization in this sense is a key phenomenon for performance testing, the prediction of individual behavior, and the theory of personality. It is also desirable that a task be well-defined, that is, that the average correlation among stabilized trials be high (greater than .80). The paper focuses on differential stability, that is, constancy in the positions of individual subjects relative to one another from one trial to the next. Instability or differential change over a set of consecutive trials may appear either within that set of trials (local change) or between the set and other tasks or preceding trials on the sane task (general change). Of the two forms of differential stability or change the latter, general change, is much the more important. The paper concludes with a brief summary of stabilization and task definition in ten tasks currently under consideration for inclusion in a performance test battery for environmental research.
Biopsy of the mouse prostate

Many transgenic and knockout mouse models of prostate cancer have become available over the past decade. In this paper we describe a simple biopsy technique of the murine prostate. This technique allows sequential follow-up of the prostate in an individual mouse. Its use could also reduce the number of mice used in studies of the prostate gland.
Students as Virtual Scientists: An exploration of students' and teachers' perceived realness of a remote electron microscopy investigation

Remote access technologies enable students to investigate science by utilizing scientific tools and communicating in real-time with scientists and researchers with only a computer and an Internet connection. Very little is known about student perceptions of how real remote investigations are and how immersed the students are in the experience. This study, conducted with high school students and their teachers, explored the impact of students' perception of ownership and virtual presence during a remote investigation using a scanning electron microscope. Students were randomly assigned to one of two treatment groups: students able to select their own insect to use during the remote investigation, and students that did not select their own insects to view during the remote investigation. The results of this study showed that students in the experimental group who had choice and ownership of their insect reported being more present (less distracted) during the remote investigation than students in the control group, whereas students in the control group reported controlling the technology was easier than the experimental group. Students indicated the remote investigation was very real; however, the teachers of these students were less likely to describe the investigation as being real. The results of this study have practical implications for designing remote learning environments.
Glomerular filtration rate estimation using the Cockcroft-Gault and Modification of Diet in Renal Disease formulas for digoxin dose adjustment in patients with heart failure

Objective. The aim of this study was to compare the estimated glomerular filtration rate (GFR) using the Cockcroft-Gault and the 4-, 5-, and 6-variable Modification of Diet in Renal Disease (MDRD) formulas for digoxin dose adjustment. Methods. Steady-state serum digoxin concentrations were determined in 100 patients with heart failure and normal to severely impaired renal function. Total clearance (CL) and predicted average concentrations of digoxin were calculated using general pharmacokinetic principles. Results. The mean±SEM (median) estimated GFR values were 48.9±2.8 (46.5) mL/min/1.73 m2 using the Cockcroft-Gault formula, 61.4±3.6 (56.4) mL/min/1.73 m2 using the MDRD4 formula, 56.8±3.3 (52.1) mL/min/1.73 m2 using the MDRD5 formula, and 53.3±3.0 (48.7) mL/min/1.73 m2 using the MDRD6 formula, with high correlation coefficients between the estimates (r≥ 0.928, P<0.001). Significant correlations were found between the digoxin total CL and estimated GFR by the Cockcroft-Gault (r=0.649, P <0.001), MDRD4 (r=0.634, P <0.001), MDRD5 (r=0.635, P<0.001), and MDRD6 (r=0.652, P <0.001) formulas. A significant negative correlation of the digoxin total CL/GFR ratio with estimated GFR was obtained (r= −0.356, P<0.001), with a high variability for this ratio for GFR lower than 60 mL/min. Analogous correlation coefficients were found between the obtained and predicted digoxin concentrations calculated using the estimated GFR by the Cockcroft-Gault (r=0.628, P <0.001), MDRD4 (r=0.642, P <0.001), MDRD5 (r=0.650, P <0.001), and MDRD6 (r=0.665, P <0.001) formulas, with a wide dispersion between the values in all cases. Conclusion. For GFR lower than 60 mL/min, the high interindividual variation of the digoxin total CL found among patients with similar renal function is an important limiting factor in the prediction of digoxin dosage regimens.
Project power shoe: Piezoelectric wireless power transfer — A mobile charging technique

When a person walks, pressure is exerted on the ground and this pressure can be converted into electrical energy and it can be used to power electronic devices. In this paper a Mobile charging system is designed. A piezo electric generator is placed in the shoe. The power that is generated by piezo electric generator when a person walks is transferred to the device by using a mid-range wireless power transfer (WPT) which is a Resonance coupling technique.
A MonteCarlo model of the rotation of a big, isolated molecule in the ISM

In the diffuse interstellar medium a molecule experi- ences isolation conditions that cannot (yet? ) be achieved in the laboratory. In such conditions its rotation is dominated by the interaction with the radiation field through a complex statistical equilibrium. This problem has been analyzed numerically with MonteCarlo techniques, for a simplified PAH molecule model. As a possible application, the result has been used to calcu- late rotational profiles of absorption bands, suitable for direct comparison with observed molecular bands profiles.
From neural mechanisms to ecology: a neuroethological approach to a novel form of memory

The cellular mechanisms behind sensorimotor adaptations, such as the adaptation to a sustained change in visual inputs by prism goggles in humans, are not known. Here I present a novel example of long-term sensorimotor adaptation in a well-known neuroethological model, the jamming-avoidance response of a weakly electric fish. The adaptation is relatively long lasting, up to 9 hours in vivo and is likely to be mediated by NMDA receptors. I demonstrate in a brain slice preparation that the pacemaker nucleus is the locus of adaptation and that it responds to long-lasting synaptic stimulation with an increase in the postsynaptic spike frequency persisting for hours after stimulus termination. The mechanism for the neuronal memory behaves as an integrator, where memory duration and strength are quantitatively related to the estimated amount of synaptic stimulation. This finding is contrary to the idea that neurons solely respond to long-lasting synaptic input by turning down their intrinsic excitability. I show that this positive feedback at the cellular level actually contributes to a negative feedback loop at the organismic level if the entire neural circuit and the behavioral link are considered.
Position sensorless control of the Reluctance Synchronous Machine considering High Frequency inductances

Position sensorless control of the reluctance synchronous machine (RSM) at zero and low speed is possible using high frequency (HF) carrier injection. The standard d-q model of the RSM reveals greatly varying machine parameters for different working points of fundamental current: this fact needs to be taken into account in the design of the fundamental current controller to ensure stability. Similarly, the HF machine parameters vary greatly and should be considered in the demodulation scheme for the estimated rotor position. This paper shows that the effective HF inductances are different to the standard fundamental model inductances, how they are influenced by saturation and how this knowledge can be used to ensure stable and reliable sensorless control.
The discourse deictics 4 and o-- in a World of Warcraft community

In the written English variety used in a community of World of Warcraft players, two iconic lexical items created from symbols have undergone semantic change. The words analyzed are 4 and o-, which have shifted from iconic deictic items used for discourse reference to non-iconic epistemic meanings. 4 shifted from a discourse deictic to an affirmative of a previous utterance, and o– shifted to a selfidentifying meaning similar to a pronoun. The existence and evolution of these lexical items are related to the medium in which they were created, as their meanings are associated with a visual-spatial environment created by textual chat in the virtual world. The different meanings of 4 and ocurrently exist in polysemy in the community, and the continuum of meanings are documented using data from natural language use spanning three years. A statistical analysis is performed on the data, and a diachronic change in meaning is found; furthermore, the observed change follows the path of semantic shift processes previously documented in spoken language. & 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Clinical progression of HIV-1 infection according to the viral response during the first year of antiretroviral treatment

ObjectiveTo compare HIV-disease progression according to changes of plasma HIV RNA observed in the year following initiation of a new antiretroviral treatment. DesignProspective cohort treated with two nucleoside analogues or a triple combination including a protease inhibitor. MethodsA Cox model was used to estimate the effect of viral response during the first year after initiation of treatment on the subsequent occurrence of new AIDS-defining events or death. Viral response was fitted either as HIV RNA reduction during the initial 4–12 months of treatment or reduction during the first month. ResultsAmong 773 patients (47% with triple drug combination) followed for a median period of 27 months, 62 patients experienced a clinical event. Poor viral responders (at least two measurements > 3.7 log10 copies/ml during 4–12 months of treatment) had a higher risk of disease progression than good responders (RNA < 2.7 log10 copies/ml) after adjustment [hazard ratio (HR), 2.24; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.17–4.29]. Intermediate responders (2.7 ⩽ RNA ⩽ 3.7 log10 copies/ml) had a risk of progression comparable with that of good responders (HR, 1.43; 95% CI, 0.64–3.22). A large initial viral reduction was also a protective factor for clinical progression (HR, 0.51 for 1 log10 copies/ml increase of the reduction; 95% CI, 0.31–0.85) and was associated with the viral response during the subsequent 4–12 month period. No patient with a reduction < 0.5 log10 copies/ml in the first month was classified as a good responder in the subsequent 4–12 month period (P < 0.01). ConclusionsA sustained HIV RNA > 3.7 log10 copies/ml should suggest a prompt change of treatment. When the reduction in HIV RNA is < 0.5 log10 after 1 month of treatment, this action should be anticipated. A sustained HIV RNA level between 2.7 and 3.7 log10 copies/ml may permit the deferral of a change of drug regimen according to the patient's history and therapeutic options.
CSTR Control by Using Model Reference Adaptive Control and PSO

This paper presents a comparative analysis of continuously stirred tank reactor (CSTR) control based on adaptive control and optimal tuning of PID control based on particle swarm optimization. In the design of adaptive control, Model reference adaptive control (MRAC) scheme is used, in which the adaptation law have been developed by MIT rule & Lyapunov’s rule. In PSO control parameters of PID controller is tuned by using the concept of particle swarm optimization to get optimized operating point for minimum integral square error (ISE) condition. The results show the adjustment of PID parameters converting into the optimal operating point and the good control response can be obtained by the PSO technique. Keywords—Model reference adaptive control (MRAC), optimal control, particle swarm optimization (PSO).
CONTINUOUSLY MONITORED BARRIER OPTIONS UNDER MARKOV PROCESSES

In this paper, we present an algorithm for pricing barrier options in one‐dimensional Markov models. The approach rests on the construction of an approximating continuous‐time Markov chain that closely follows the dynamics of the given Markov model. We illustrate the method by implementing it for a range of models, including a local Lévy process and a local volatility jump‐diffusion. We also provide a convergence proof and error estimates for this algorithm.