Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Volunteerism and Humanitarian Efforts in Surgery

The goal of this article is to present an overview to the surgical ommunity of global voluntary humanitarian projects, activities, and nitiatives. The target audience is general surgeons and surgical specialists ith an experience or interest in this area. By no means exhaustive or omplete, this information hopefully will form a base from which to xpand, compare, analyze, debate, criticize, stay involved, or get inolved. Background information will be presented in the realm of globalization nd will provide a broad framework from which to establish the concepts, ole, and opportunities for volunteerism for humanitarian activity (Table ). The United States and other developed nations, along with the United ations (UN) and subordinate agencies, are working through a myriad of nitiatives to address the specific area of health care. The Millennium evelopment Goals (MDGs) address the primordial causes of most health roblems—poverty, as well as specific diseases, and health areas such as aternal and child health (Table 2). Given the recent interest on the part of the American College of urgeons (ACS), the response to a volunteer questionnaire by the ACS, nd the burgeoning body of anecdotal reports on global humanitarian urgical experiences in the Bulletin of the ACS, it seemed logical and rudent to try to compile an overview to educate, satisfy, and entice the urgical community. The information presented in this monograph will be eaningful and interesting to those with a past, present, or future interest r experience in this area. Since the author has been involved with global umanitarian effects in cardiothoracic surgery, the information may be
Rapid and Simple Cryopreservation of Anaerobic Ammonium-Oxidizing Bacteria

ABSTRACT A quick and simple protocol for long-term cryopreservation of anaerobic ammonium-oxidizing bacteria (anammox bacteria) was developed. After 29 weeks of preservation at −80°C, activity recovery for all tested cultures under at least one of the applied sets of preservation conditions was observed. Growth recovery was also demonstrated for a single-cell culture of “Candidatus Kuenenia stuttgartiensis. ”
Monozygotic Twins with Dissimilar Phenotypes and Chromosome Complements

A case history of monozygotic twins is presented. Twin A showed gonadal dysgenesis and chromosomal mosaicism (45, X0/46, XX). Twin B was a phenotypical normal female with the karyotype 46, XX. Fifteen previous reports of monozygotic twins with gonadal dysgenesis are reviewed. Dissimilar phenotypes seem to be the rule rather than the exception, and mosaicism is found in the majority of cases with dissimilar phenotype. The assumption is made that the chromosome disorder leading to gonadal dysgenesis arises postzygotically, either before or after the process leading to twinning.
Dense linear solve on the Intel Touchstone DELTA System

The author describes an effort to implement the solution of dense linear systems using the LU (lower-upper) factorization with partial pivoting on the Intel Touchstone DELTA System, a massively parallel distributed memory MIMD (multiple instruction, multiple data) computer. Preliminary results of the performance of the dense linear solve on the Intel touchstone DELTA are reported. These results suggest that this class of algorithms can attain high performance on massively parallel architectures. <<ETX>>
Structural dynamics of troponin during activation of skeletal muscle

Significance Muscle contraction is controlled by structural changes in the thin filament of the muscle sarcomere triggered by calcium binding to troponin. It has long been suspected that myosin binding has an additional effect in switching on the thin filament, but the biological function of this effect was unknown. We have elucidated the in situ sequence of calcium-induced structural changes of troponin and identified a kinetic component tracking myosin binding to the thin filament. We propose a model of muscle regulation with kinetics determined by coordinated changes in the structures of both thick and thin filaments in response to mechanical conditions rather than, as in the conventional view, solely by the calcium transient and structural changes in the thin filament. Time-resolved changes in the conformation of troponin in the thin filaments of skeletal muscle were followed during activation in situ by photolysis of caged calcium using bifunctional fluorescent probes in the regulatory and the coiled-coil (IT arm) domains of troponin. Three sequential steps in the activation mechanism were identified. The fastest step (1,100 s−1) matches the rate of Ca2+ binding to the regulatory domain but also dominates the motion of the IT arm. The second step (120 s−1) coincides with the azimuthal motion of tropomyosin around the thin filament. The third step (15 s−1) was shown by three independent approaches to track myosin head binding to the thin filament, but is absent in the regulatory head. The results lead to a four-state structural kinetic model that describes the molecular mechanism of muscle activation in the thin filament–myosin head complex under physiological conditions.
Di-μ-acetato-bis[(acetato-κ2 O,O′)bis(isonicotinamide-κN)copper(II)]

The title centrosymmetric bimetallic complex, [Cu2(C2H3O2)4(C6H6N2O)4], is composed of two copper(II) cations, four acetate anions and four isonicotinamide (INA) ligands. The asymmetric unit contains one copper cation to which two acetate units bind asymmetrically; one of the Cu—O distances is rather long [2.740 (2) Å], almost at the limit of coordination. These Cu—O bonds define an equatorial plane to which the Cu—N bonds to the INA ligands are almost perpendicular, the Cu—N vectors subtending angles of 2.4 (1) and 2.3 (1)° to the normal to the plane. The metal coordination geometry can be described as a slightly distorted trigonal bipyramid if the extremely weak Cu—O bond is disregarded, or as a highly distorted square bipyramid if it is not. The double acetate bridge between the copper ions is not coplanar with the CuO4 equatorial planes, the dihedral angle between the (O—C—O)2 and O—Cu—O groups being 34.3 (1)°, resulting in a sofa-like conformation for the 8-member bridging loop. In the crystal, N—H⋯O hydrogen bonds occur, some of which generate a head-to tail-linkage between INA units, giving raise to chains along [101]; the remaining ones make inter-chain contacts, defining a three-dimensional network. There are in addition a number of C—H⋯O bonds involving aromatic H atoms. Probably due to steric hindrance, the aromatic rings are not involved in significant π⋯π interactions.
Perceived Stress Mediates the Associations between Sleep Quality and Symptoms of Anxiety and Depression among College Nursing Students

Abstract Mental illnesses, such as anxiety and depression, are top concerns among college students. Poor sleep quality intensifies the risk of mental illnesses. However, the mechanism for the associations between sleep quality and mental illnesses in college students is not well understood. Online surveys were collected with 242 undergraduate nursing students at a public university in the northeast United States. Multivariate linear regression models suggested that poor sleep quality was associated with an increased risk of symptoms of anxiety (β = 1.08, p < 0.01) and depression (β = 1.00, p < 0.01). Perceived stress mediated the association between sleep quality and symptoms of anxiety by 85.3 %, and mediated the association between sleep quality and symptoms of depression by 60.0 %. This study suggested that in addition to sleep promotion, effective interventions to identify unique stressors in nursing students and facilitate the development of appropriate coping strategies are needed to enhance their mental health and well-being.
Functional analysis of limb transcriptional enhancers in the mouse

Transcriptional enhancers are genomic sequences bound by transcription factors that act together with basal transcriptional machinery to regulate gene transcription. Several high‐throughput methods have generated large datasets of tissue‐specific enhancer sequences with putative roles in developmental processes. However, few enhancers have been deleted from the genome to determine their roles in development. To understand the roles of two enhancers active in the mouse embryonic limb bud we deleted them from the genome. Although the genes regulated by these enhancers are unknown, they were selected because they were identified in a screen for putative limb bud‐specific enhancers associated with p300, an acetyltransferase that participates in protein complexes that promote active transcription, and because the orthologous human enhancers (H1442 and H280) drive distinct lacZ expression patterns in limb buds of embryonic day (E) 11.5 transgenic mice. We show that the orthologous mouse sequences, M1442 and M280, regulate dynamic expression in the developing limb. Although significant transcriptional differences in enhancer‐proximal genes in embryonic limb buds accompany the deletion of M1442 and M280 no gross limb malformations during embryonic development were observed, demonstrating that M1442 and M280 are not required for mouse limb development. However, M280 is required for the development and/or maintenance of body size; M280 mice are significantly smaller than controls. M280 also harbors an “ultraconserved” sequence that is identical between human, rat, and mouse. This is the first report of a phenotype resulting from the deletion of an ultraconserved element. These studies highlight the importance of determining enhancer regulatory function by experiments that manipulate them in situ and suggest that some of an enhancer's regulatory capacities may be developmentally tolerated rather than developmentally required.
Réseaux bayésiens : Apprentissage et diagnostic de systemes complexes

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. Réseaux bayésiens : Apprentissage et diagnostic de systemes complexes Ph. Leray
Three-dimensional models of glutamate receptors.

Structural models of glutamate receptors have been produced as part of a multidisciplinary study of neuronal function--both ligand/receptor interactions and ion transport--at the atomic level. The models have concentrated on the agonist binding and transmembrane domains of ionotropic (i.e. ligand-gated) glutamate receptors (iGluRs), and have aided our understanding of the molecular determinants of (1) ligand binding and (2) channel activity. The model building process involved a combination of homology modelling, distance geometry, molecular mechanics, protein-ligand and protein-protein docking, electrostatic calculations and manual adjustment, in conjunction with restraints from site-directed mutagenesis, ligand binding and electrophysiological studies. The initial models were used to produce hypotheses which were tested experimentally; these models have been subsequently refined as part of an extremely effective multidisciplinary study using an iterative molecular modelling/experimental verification cycle in which restraints derived from experimental studies are used at all stages, and the findings from one round of modelling are used as restraints in the next. By studying a variety of agonists and antagonists, details have been built up of (1) those residues involved in ligand binding and (2) the role of agonist binding (i.e. agonist-induced conformational change) in channel gating. The models also aid our understanding of the conductance properties of the channels.
Detection of tube agglutination 37°C-onIy antibodies by solid-phase red cell adherence

Abstract There are no published data on the detection of tube agglutination (TA) 37°C-onJy antibodies by solid-phase (SP) red celi adherence assays using anti-IgG-coated indicator red cells. Thirteen examples of TA 37°C-only antibodies were tested by conventional SP methods. Four TA 37°C-only antibodies failed to react by SP. Three were anti-Lea considered clinically insignificant, and one was anti-E, an antibody of potential clinical significance. The remaining nine TA 37°C-only antibodies reacted by SP, including three anti-c, two anti-D, two anti-E, one anti-N. and one anti-M. The anti-M reacted with indicator red cells that lacked the red cell antigen and failed to react with IgG-coated indicator red cells whose anti-IgG component had been neutralized, indicating the antibody contained an IgG component. Two anti-D and one anti-c continued to react in an SP test using neutralized anti-IgG antigen-positive indicator red cells, i.e., indicator binding independent of antiglobulin, suggesting an IgM nature to these antibodies. Therefore, many TA 37°C-oniy antibodies can be detected by SP either through detection of an IgG component by the anti-IgG of the indicator red cells, or through IgM crosslinking of antigen-positive indicator red cells to antigen-positive SP reagent red cell membranes. Immunobematology 1996;12:27-29.
Period Gene Expression in Four Neurons Is Sufficient for Rhythmic Activity of Drosophila melanogaster under Dim Light Conditions

The clock gene expressing lateral neurons (LN) is crucial for Drosophila 's rhythmic locomotor activity under constant conditions. Among the LN, the PDF expressing small ventral lateral neurons (s-LNv) are thought to control the morning activity of the fly (M oscillators) and to drive rhythmic activity under constant darkness. In contrast, a 5th PDF-negative s-LN v and the dorsal lateral neurons (LNd) appeared to control the fly's evening activity (E oscillators) and to drive rhythmic activity under constant light. Here, the authors restricted period gene expression to 4 LN—the 5th s-LNv and 3 LNd— that are all thought to belong to the E oscillators and tested them in low light conditions. Interestingly, such flies showed rather normal bimodal activity patterns under light moonlight and constant moonlight conditions, except that the phase of M and E peaks was different. This suggests that these 4 neurons behave as ″M″ and ″E″ cells in these conditions. Indeed, they found by PER and TIM immunohistochemistry that 2 LNd advanced their phase upon moonlight as predicted for M oscillators, whereas the 5th s-LNv and 1 LNd delayed their activity upon moonlight as predicted for E oscillators. Their results suggest that the M or E characteristic of clock neurons is rather flexible. M and E oscillator function may not be restricted to certain anatomically defined groups of clock neurons but instead depends on the environmental conditions.
Hierarchical Test Generation Based on Delayed Propagation

A hierarchical test generation method is presented which is based on a functional approach to guide backward and forward propagations. The proposed algorithm permits solving most propagation conflicts by taking advantage of the functionality of the implemented block and avoids costly unnecessary design modifications. It has been implemented and its effectiveness has been proved on a set of datapaths. The formalism and the algorithms are general enough to handle any type of synchronous digital circuit.
Tests of series quantum Hall arrays based on epitaxial graphene

Epitaxial graphene based quantum Hall resistance devices with four and eight series-connected Hall bars have been fabricated and tested for realization of quantum resistance standards with up-scaled values. Triple series connection with external bonding wires was used. Most of the tested devices had relatively low longitudinal resistance and showed half-integer quantum Hall effect at filling factor 2 starting from magnetic field of about 6 T, but the quantized Hall resistance deviated from the expected value much more than in our earlier experiments with four series-connected Hall bars.
A Parameterizable Methodology for Internet Traffic Flow Profiling

We present a parameterizable methodology for profiling Internet traffic flows at a variety of granularities. Our methodology differs from many previous studies that have concentrated on end-point definitions of flows in terms of state derived from observing the explicit opening and closing of TCP connections. Instead, our model defines flows based on traffic satisfying various temporal and spatial locality conditions, as observed at internal points of the network. This approach to flow characterization helps address some central problems in networking based on the Internet model. Among them are route caching, resource reservation at multiple service levels, usage based accounting, and the integration of IP traffic over an ATM fabric. We first define the parameter space and then concentrate on metrics characterizing both individual flows as well as the aggregate flow profile. We consider various granularities of the definition of a flow, such as by destination network, host-pair, or host and port quadruple. We include some measurements based on case studies we undertook, which yield significant insights into some aspects of Internet traffic, including demonstrating (i) the brevity of a significant fraction of IP flows at a variety of traffic aggregation granularities, (ii) that the number of host-pair IP flows is not significantly larger than the number of destination network flows, and (iii) that schemes for caching traffic information could significantly benefit from using application information. >
Aire Expression Is Inherent to Most Medullary Thymic Epithelial Cells during Their Differentiation Program

Aire in medullary thymic epithelial cells (mTECs) plays an important role in the establishment of self-tolerance. Because Aire+ mTECs appear to be a limited subset, they may constitute a unique lineage(s) among mTECs. An alternative possibility is that all mTECs are committed to express Aire in principle, but Aire expression by individual mTECs is conditional. To investigate this issue, we established a novel Aire reporter strain in which endogenous Aire is replaced by the human AIRE-GFP-Flag tag (Aire/hAGF-knockin) fusion gene. The hAGF reporter protein was produced and retained very efficiently within mTECs as authentic Aire nuclear dot protein. Remarkably, snapshot analysis revealed that mTECs expressing hAGF accounted for >95% of mature mTECs, suggesting that Aire expression does not represent a particular mTEC lineage(s). We confirmed this by generating Aire/diphtheria toxin receptor–knockin mice in which long-term ablation of Aire+ mTECs by diphtheria toxin treatment resulted in the loss of most mature mTECs beyond the proportion of those apparently expressing Aire. These results suggest that Aire expression is inherent to all mTECs but may occur at particular stage(s) and/or cellular states during their differentiation, thus accounting for the broad impact of Aire on the promiscuous gene expression of mTECs.
Teaching skills for students: our future educators

Background: The future of medical education is under increasing strain from a paucity of clinical educators with formal teaching experience and time to fulfil their teaching roles. ‘Teaching on the Run’ (TOR), is a programme aimed at improving the quality of teaching by medical educators. We hypothesised that the completion of the TOR programme by senior medical students would increase student awareness of quality educational practice, thereby improving their competence and confidence in teaching and assessing their peers.
Golomb Rulers And Difference Sets For Succinct Quantum Automata

Given a function p : N → [0,1] of period n, we study the minimal size (number of states) of a one-way quantum finite automaton (Iqfa) inducing the stochastic event ap + b, for real constants a>0, b≥0, a+b≤1. First of all, we relate the estimation of the minimal size to the problem of finding a minimal difference cover for a suitable subset of Zn. Then, by observing that the cardinality of a difference cover Δ for a set A ⊆ Zn, must satisfy , we investigate the class of sets A admitting difference covers of cardinality exactly . We relate this problem with the efficient construction of Golomb rulers and difference sets. We design an algorithm which outputs each of the Golomb rulers (if any) of a given set in pseudo-polynomial time. As a consequence, we obtain an efficient algorithm that construct minimal difference covers for a non-trivial class of sets. Moreover, by using projective geometry arguments, we give an algorithm that, for any n=q2+q+1 with q prime power, constructs difference sets for Zn in quadratic time.
Flavonoid profile, antioxidant and antiglycation properties of Retama sphaerocarpa fruits extracts

Abstract Retama sphaerocarpa occurs in the Mediterranean area of North-east Africa and in the Iberian Peninsula, and grows on a variety of soil types and climatic conditions. Used in Algerian folk medicine, it is a valuable species for revegetation and soil restoration. The aim of this study is to evaluate flavonoid composition and antioxidant and antiglycation properties of methanolic and aqueous extracts from R. sphaerocarpa fruits. HPLC-PDA/ESI-MS was used to identify/quantify flavonoid content. Antioxidant activity was evaluated by Folin–Ciocalteu, ORAC, FRAP, TEAC, and DPPH assays, and antiglycation capability by glucose/fructose-BSA assay. Results showed that fruits contain isoflavones (daidzein and genistein derivatives) and flavonols (apigenin, isorhamnetin, kaempferol and quercetin derivatives), and extracts (especially the methanolic one, richer in flavonoids) possess good in vitro antioxidant and antiglycation properties. These findings evidence that R. sphaerocarpa fruits are a source of valuable phytochemicals, with potential applications in the field of phytopharmaceuticals and in food industry.
Systolic Architectures for the Computation of the Discrete Hartley and the Discrete Cosine Transforms Based on Prime Factor Decomposition

Two-dimensional systolic array implementations for computing the discrete Hartley transform (DHT) and the discrete cosine transform (DCT) when the transform size N is decomposable into mutually prime factors are proposed. The existing two-dimensional formulations for DHT and DCT are modified, and the corresponding algorithms are mapped into two-dimensional systolic arrays. The resulting architecture is fully pipelined with no control units. The hardware design is based on bit serial left to right MSB (most significant bit) to LSB (least significant bit) binary arithmetic. >
Construction and application of a built-in dual luciferase reporter for microRNA functional analysis

Background: As key gene regulators, microRNAs post-transcriptionally modulate gene expression via binding to partially complementary sequence in the 3' UTR of target mRNA. An accurate, rapid and quantitative tool for sensing and validation of miRNA targets is of crucial significance to decipher the functional implications of miRNAs in cellular pathways. Results: Taking advantage of an improved restriction-free cloning method, we engineered a novel built-in dual luciferase reporter plasmid where Firefly and Renilla luciferase genes were assembled in a single plasmid named "pFila". This design eliminates the transfection of a separate control plasmid and thus minimizes the time and labor required for miRNA-target sensing assays. pFila consistently produces Firefly and Renilla luciferase activities when transfected into human-, monkey- and mouse-derived mammalian cell systems. Moreover, pFila is capable of recapitulating the interaction of miR-16 and its known target CCNE1 in Hela cells. Additionally, pFila is shown to be a sensitive miR-biosensor by evaluating the inhibition efficiency of endogenous miRNA. Conclusions: pFila would facilitate miRNA target identification and verification in a rapid and simplified manner. Also, pFila is a sensitive biosensor for active miRNA profiling in vivo .