Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hemodynamic effects of different modes of mechanical ventilation in acute cardiac and pulmonary failure: An experimental study

Objective: To determine the hemodynamic effects of four different modes of mechanical ventilation in an animal model of acute cardiac and pulmonary failure. Design: Prospective, randomized, crossover design. Setting: University research laboratory. Subjects: Twelve piglets weighing 10 to 16 kg. Interventions: The experimental protocol consisted of three stable 30‐min periods: when ventricular and pulmonary functions were normal (control), after the induction of acute cardiac failure by the administration of a &bgr;‐adrenergic receptor blocker, and after pulmonary failure induced by repeated lung lavage. Modes of mechanical ventilation included controlled mechanical ventilation, high‐frequency oscillation, synchronized high‐frequency jet ventilation, and external negative pressure oscillation combined with pressure support ventilation. Each mode of respiratory support was randomly and sequentially applied to each animal with the assessment of cardiopulmonary function at the end of each period. Measurements and Main Results: Continuous monitoring included electrocardiogram, right atrial, left ventricular end‐diastolic, pulmonary arterial, intrathoracic aortic, arterial, esophageal, and transpulmonary pressures and arterial and mixed venous oxygen saturation measurements. In addition, cardiac output using the thermodilution technique was measured intermittently. Whereas in the control period cardiac index was significantly ( p < .05) higher during synchronized high‐frequency jet ventilation (193 ± 19.3 mL/kg/min) than during controlled mechanical ventilation (151 ± 12.1 mL/kg/min) and high‐frequency oscillation (151 ± 18.1 mL/kg/min), there was no significant hemodynamic difference between the four modes of mechanical ventilation in the cardiac and pulmonary failure periods. In the pulmonary failure period, transpulmonary pressure was significantly higher during high‐frequency oscillation (7.1 ± 1.6 mm Hg) than during controlled mechanical ventilation (5.6 ± 0.6 mm Hg), high‐frequency ventilation (4.1 ± 0.4 mm Hg), and external negative pressure oscillation combined with pressure support ventilation (5.3 ± 0.5 mm Hg). Conclusions: Synchronized high‐frequency ventilation improves cardiac performance in control conditions. No hemodynamic difference is present between the four modes of mechanical ventilation in the cardiac and pulmonary failure periods. External negative pressure oscillation combined with pressure support ventilation has moderate hemodynamic advantages over controlled mechanical ventilation and high‐frequency oscillation in different clinical settings, but it also results in a deterioration of pulmonary gas exchange during the pulmonary failure period. (Crit Care Med 1994; 22:1624–1630)
The Gates' Foundation and the Future of U.S. Public Education: A Call for Scholars to Counter Misinformation Campaigns.

America‘s high schools are obsolete . By obsolete, I don‘t just mean that our high schools are broken, flawed, and under-funded – though a case could be made for every one of those points. By obsolete, I mean that our high schools – even when they‘re working exactly as designed – cannot teach our kids what they need to know today . Training the workforce of tomorrow with the high schools of today is like trying to teach kids about today‘s computers on a 50-year-old mainframe. It‘s the wrong tool for the times. Our high schools were designed fifty years ago to meet the needs of another age. Until we design them to meet the needs of the 21st century, we will keep limiting – even ruining – the lives of millions of Americans every year. On February 26, 2005 governors, policy makers, and business leaders from across the nation met to discuss ways of preventing American students from falling behind their international competitors. The ―National Summit on High Schools,‖ sponsored by Achieve Inc., marked the beginning of the conference, and Bill Gates was there to deliver the keynote address, where he made the above remarks. Since 1999 Achieve Inc. has received $10,921,771 from the Gates Foundation in order to ―help states align secondary school math expectations with the demands of postsecondary education and work,‖ as well as assistance for encouraging ―specific states to adopt high school graduation requirements that align with college entry requirements. ‖
Optimum Linear Detection of a Modified V-BLAST System with Delay Offsets

In [1], a modified Vertical-Bell Labs layered space- time (V-BLAST) system has been proposed, where different delay offsets are intentionally applied to the spatially multiplexed data streams. Compared with the conventional synchronous V- BLAST system, the modified system with only a simple linear detection under zero-forcing(ZF) criterion can achieve Mr th- order diversity(where Mr is the number of receive antennas), therefore giving a reasonable tradeoff between complexity and performance. In this paper, we focus on how to find the optimum linear detection of the Modified V-BLAST Systems. Simulations demonstrate that the optimum linear detection is superior to the ZF detection algorithm used in [Shihai Shao et al., 2007], especially when the number of transmit antennas is large.
A Large Population of Small Chloroplasts in Tobacco Leaf Cells Allows More Effective Chloroplast Movement Than a Few Enlarged Chloroplasts1

We generated transgenic tobacco (Nicotiana tabacumcv Xanthi) plants that contained only one to three enlarged chloroplasts per leaf mesophyll cell by introducingNtFtsZ1-2, a cDNA for plastid division. These plants were used to investigate the advantages of having a large population of small chloroplasts rather than a few enlarged chloroplasts in a leaf mesophyll cell. Despite the similarities in photosynthetic components and ultrastructure of photosynthetic machinery between wild-type and transgenic plants, the overall growth of transgenic plants under low- and high-light conditions was retarded. In wild-type plants, the chloroplasts moved toward the face position under low light and toward the profile position under high-light conditions. However, chloroplast rearrangement in transgenic plants in response to light conditions was not evident. In addition, transgenic plant leaves showed greatly diminished changes in leaf transmittance values under both light conditions, indicating that chloroplast rearrangement was severely retarded. Therefore, under low-light conditions the incomplete face position of the enlarged chloroplasts results in decreased absorbance of light energy. This, in turn, reduces plant growth. Under high-light conditions, the amount of absorbed light exceeds the photosynthetic utilization capacity due to the incomplete profile position of the enlarged chloroplasts, resulting in photodamage to the photosynthetic machinery, and decreased growth. The presence of a large number of small and/or rapidly moving chloroplasts in the cells of higher land plants permits more effective chloroplast phototaxis and, hence, allows more efficient utilization of low-incident photon flux densities. The photosynthetic apparatus is, consequently, protected from damage under high-incident photon flux densities.
Hysteresis bound quantization approach in optimal Model Predictive Direct Torque Control of induction machines

This paper addresses a novel approach for adapting the concept of Model Predictive Control (MPC) in Direct Torque Control (DTC) of induction motor drives. The proposed algorithm enhances the performance of a two-level inverter DTC controller by keeping the motor's electromagnetic torque and stator flux magnitude within predefined hysteresis bounds while minimizing the switching losses. The MPC controller extracts chains of candidate switching sequences over the prediction horizon. Dynamic programming is implemented to choose the switching sequences that minimize the cost function on power losses. The simulations are performed on accurate models of the motor and controllers and results verify the advantages of the proposed MPDTC method in comparison with classic DTC.
Role of Novel Choline Binding Proteins in Virulence of Streptococcus pneumoniae

ABSTRACT The choline binding proteins (CBPs) are a family of surface proteins noncovalently bound to the phosphorylcholine moiety of the cell wall of Streptococcus pneumoniae by a conserved choline binding domain. Six new members of this family were identified, and these six plus two recently described cell wall hydrolases, LytB and LytC, were characterized for their roles in virulence. CBP-deficient mutants were constructed and tested for adherence to eukaryotic cells, colonization of the rat nasopharynx, and ability to cause sepsis. Five CBP mutants, CbpD, CbpE, CbpG, LytB, and LytC, showed significantly reduced colonization of the nasopharynx. For CbpE and -G this was attributable to a decreased ability to adhere to human cells. CbpG, a putative serine protease, also played a role in sepsis, the first observation of a pneumococcal virulence determinant strongly operative both on the mucosal surface and in the bloodstream.
Approved IFCC Reference Method for the Measurement of HbA1c in Human Blood

Abstract HbA1c is the stable glucose adduct to the N-terminal group of the β-chain of HbA0. The measurement of HbA1c in human blood is most important for the long-term control of the glycaemic state in diabetic patients. Because there was no internationally agreed reference method the IFCC Working Group on HbA1c Standardization developed a reference method which is here described. In a first step haemoglobin is cleaved into peptides by the enzyme endoproteinase Glu-C, and in a second step the glycated and non-glycated N-terminal hexapeptides of the β-chain obtained are separated and quantified by HPLC and electrospray ionisation mass spectrometry or in a two-dimensional approach using HPLC and capillary electrophoresis with UV-detection. Both principles give identical results. HbA1c is measured as ratio between the glycated and non-glycated hexapeptides. Calibrators consisting of mixtures of highly purified HbA1c and HbA0 are used. The analytical performance of the reference method has been evaluated by an international network of reference laboratories comprising laboratories from Europe, Japan and the USA. The intercomparison studies of the network showed excellent results with intra-laboratory CVs of 0.5 to 2% and inter-laboratory CVs of 1.4 to 2.3%. Possible interferences have been carefully investigated. Due to the higher specificity of the reference method the results are lower than those generated with most of the present commercial methods which currently are calibrated with unspecific designated comparison methods. The new reference method has been approved by the member societies of the International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine and will be the basis for the future uniform standardization of HbA1c routine assays worldwide.
Investigation of cross talk in Kerfless annular arrays for high-frequency imaging

The effect of electromechanical cross talk in high-frequency (> 30 MHz) Kerfless annular arrays is investigated. Finite-element model predictions of the radiation patterns from arrays are compared to predictions from an ideal model without cross talk and with experimental measurements. High cross talk in the array causes element broadening and an increase in the amplitude of secondary lobes in the radiation pattern. However, an increase in the pulse ring-down time was not found. This can be attributed to the absence of lateral modes in the Kerfless substrate. The level of the pedestal secondary lobes in the two-way radiation pattern increases linearly with the element path difference. The element broadening increases the effective element path difference, which increases the pedestal level for a Kerfless annular array above the level for an ideal array. The broadening limits how close to an array one can image compared to the ideal case by reducing the contrast available in the image at small f-numbers. When the element broadening is taken into account by widening the electrode dimensions, the ideal radiation pattern agrees well with the finite-element model and experimental radiation patterns
Glycoprotein gE of herpes simplex virus type 1: effects of anti-gE on virion infectivity and on virus-induced fc-binding receptors

An Fc-binding glycoprotein, designated gE, was detected previously in cells infected with herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) and in virion preparations isolated from infected cells. For the studies reported here, we purified gE from HSV-1 strain HFEM(syn) by affinity chromatography and preparative electrophoresis and then immunized a rabbit to produce an antiserum to glycoprotein gE. We found that this antiserum selectively precipitated gE and its precursors from detergent-solubilized extracts of HSV-1 strain HFEM(syn)-infected HEp-2 cells, from extracts of other cell lines infected with the same virus, and from extracts of HEp-2 cells infected with several other HSV-1 strains. The antiserum did not precipitate any proteins from uninfected cells. The several forms of gE detected by immunoprecipitation accumulated in variable quantities in different cells infected with the different virus strains and also varied slightly with respect to electrophoretic mobility, suggesting some differences in the gE's from different HSV-1 strains and some effects of the host cell on the nature and extent of post-translational processing. One of the electrophoretic forms of gE previously detected in purified preparations of virions could be precipitated by anti-gE from extracts of purified HSV-1 strain HFEM(syn) virions. Moreover, anti-gE neutralized HSV-1 infectivity, but only in the presence of complement. Finally, F(ab')2 fragments of the anti-gE immunoglobulin partially inhibited the binding of 125I-labeled immunoglobulin G to the Fc receptors on HSV-1-infected cells.
Novel Antibody-Lectin Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay That Distinguishes Prion Proteins in Sporadic and Variant Cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease

ABSTRACT We used different anti-prion protein (anti-PrP) monoclonal antibodies to capture either full-length or truncated PrP species and then used biotinylated lectin to compare the nature of the glycans on bound PrP species present in control, sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (sCJD), or variant CJD (vCJD) brains. When full-length PrP species in these three groups were compared, no significant difference in the binding of concanavalin A or Aleuria aurantia lectin was detected. However, the binding of Ricinus communis agglutinin I (RCA) to sCJD and vCJD samples was significantly increased. In contrast, when only truncated PrP species were compared, only vCJD samples had more RCA binding activity. Therefore, while most of the RCA binding activity in sCJD is restricted to the full-length PrP species, the RCA binding activity in vCJD is associated with truncated and full-length PrP species. Furthermore, the RCA binding activity in sCJD and vCJD samples is mostly associated with proteinase K-resistant PrP species, a known signature of infectious prion. Therefore, PrP species in sCJD and vCJD have dissimilar lectin immunoreactivity, which reflects differences in their N-linked glycans. These differences may account for the distinct phenotypes of sCJD and vCJD.
Cerebral plasticity in crossed C7 grafts of the brachial plexus: An fMRI study

In order to rescue elbow flexion after complete accidental avulsion of one brachial plexus, seven patients underwent a neurotization of the biceps with fibers from the contralateral C7 root. The C7 fibers used for the graft belonged to the pyramidal pathway, which descends from the cerebral hemisphere ipsilateral to the damaged plexus, and which controls extension and abduction of the contralateral arm. After several months of reeducation, a functional magentic resonance imaging study was performed with a 1.5 tesla clinical magnetic resonance scan system, in order to investigate the central neural networks involved in the recovery of elbow flexion. Functional brain images were acquired under four conditions: flexion of each of the two elbows, and imagined flexion of each elbow. Results show that flexion of the neurotized arm is associated with a bilateral network activity. The contralateral cortex originally involved in control of the rescued arm still participates in the elaboration and control of the task through the bilateral premotor and primary motor cortex. The location of the ipsilateral clusters in the primary motor, premotor, supplementary motor area, and posterior parietal areas is similar among patients. The location of contralateral activations within the same areas differs across patients. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc. Microsurgery, 2006.
Vocal fold wound healing after injection of human adipose-derived stem cells in a rabbit model

Abstract Conclusion: Injection of injured rabbit vocal folds with human adipose-derived stem cells (hADSCs) led to improved wound healing and fewer signs of scarring as demonstrated by a decreased collagen content in the treated folds compared with the untreated folds. hADSCs remained viable for up to 12 weeks in rabbit vocal folds. Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the morphologic and histologic properties of scarred rabbit vocal folds following injection of hADSCs. Methods: This was a randomized, controlled animal study. Twenty-four vocal folds from 12 New Zealand rabbits were scarred using a CO2 laser and injected with either hADSCs (left vocal fold) or phosphate-buffered saline (right vocal fold). Every 4 weeks for the first 12 weeks after injection, an endoscopic examination was performed to assess the morphology of the vocal folds. Twelve weeks later the animals were euthanized and the tissues were stained for histology. Results: In comparison with the right vocal folds, there was significantly less granulation tissue in the hADSCs-injected left vocal folds (p < 0.05). Histological examination revealed excessive collagen deposition and perichondral fibrosis in the right vocal folds, whereas the left vocal folds exhibited better wound healing and less collagen deposition (p < 0.05). Among the 12 specimens injected with hADSCs, 4 specimens demonstrated viable hADSCs under immunofluorescent cytochemistry.
Alliance and Outcome in Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Adolescent Depression

This study examined predictive relations between therapeutic alliance and treatment outcomes in manual-guided, cognitive-behavioral therapy for adolescent depression. Fifty-four adolescents met criteria for a depressive disorder and were treated in school-based clinics. Alliance was measured after the third session from both therapist and adolescent perspectives, and change in depressive symptoms was assessed by structured interview and self-report. Two models of alliance–outcome relations were assessed, one direct and one through treatment participation. Results showed significant associations between adolescent-reported alliance and change in depressive symptoms, even after controlling for number of sessions completed. Therapist-reported alliance was only marginally related to outcomes but was predictive of number of sessions completed. On average, alliance showed a modest relation with outcomes (r = .26). Results are discussed in the context of differential alliance–outcome relations in prior studies of cognitive-behavioral compared to nonbehavioral therapy with children and adolescents.
The World As Will And Idea

Gdansk, Poland). 1805 20 April: Suicide (alleged) of his father. 1809–11 Studies in Gottingen. 1811–13 Studies at Berlin University; lectures by Fichte, Wolf, and Schleiermacher. 1813 Writes his dissertation: On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason. 1815 On Seeing and Colors. 1818 First Italian journey. 1819 The World as Will and Representation; with Hegel’s help, received lectureship at Berlin University 1822 Second Italian Journey. 1831 Fled Berlin because of cholera epidemic. 1833–60 Settled in Frankfurt-am-Main. 1835 On the Will in Nature. 1839 Competition essay “On the Freedom of Human Will”, awarded first prize. 1841 The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics, treated in two academic prize essays. 1844 The World as Will and Representation: second edition. 1851 Parerga and Paralipomena. 1859 The World as Will and Representation: third edition. 1860 21 September, died in Frankfurt, Germany. THE WORLD AS WILL AND IDEA
A comparison of different over-the-counter foot orthotic devices on multi-segment foot biomechanics

Background: Over-the-counter foot orthoses are a cost-effective alternative to custom-made devices. However, few studies have compared over-the-counter devices and most biomechanical research involving orthoses has focused on rearfoot biomechanics. Objectives: To determine changes in multi-segment foot biomechanics during shod walking in three commercially available over-the-counter devices: SOLE, SuperFeet and Powerstep when compared to no orthotic. Study design: Repeated measures, cross-sectional study. Methods: Retroreflective markers were placed on the right limb of 18 participants representing forefoot, midfoot, rearfoot and shank segments. Three-dimensional kinematics were recorded using an eight-camera motion capture system while participants walked on a treadmill and the order of condition was randomized between four conditions: SOLE, SuperFeet, Powerstep and no orthotic. Results: All over-the-counter devices exhibited significant decreases in plantar fascia strain compared to no orthotic and only Powerstep exhibited significant decreases in peak rearfoot eversion. Medial longitudinal arch deformation was not reduced for any over-the-counter device. Conclusion: Different over-the-counter devices exhibited specific alterations in rearfoot kinematics and all reduced plantar fascia strain by varying amounts. These over-the-counter-specific kinematic changes should be taken into consideration when recommending these devices as a treatment option. Clinical relevance Over-the-counter orthoses are a cost-effective alternative to custom-made devices. We demonstrated that three commonly used over-the-counter devices influence foot kinematics and plantar fascia strain differently. Clinicians can use these results to provide more tailored treatment options for their patients.
The Computational Complexity of Immanants

Permanents and determinants are special cases of immanants. The latter are polynomial matrix functions defined in terms of characters of symmetric groups and corresponding to Young diagrams. Valiant has proved that the evaluation of permanents is a complete problem in both the Turing machine model (#P-completeness) as well as in his algebraic model (VNP-completeness). We show that the evaluation of immanants corresponding to hook diagrams or rectangular diagrams of polynomially growing width is both #P-complete and VNP-complete.