Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Case Report of Plasmapheresis and Cyclophosphamide for Steroid‐Resistant Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis: Recovery of Renal Function After Five Months on Dialysis

Abstract: We describe a patient who presented with nephrotic syndrome and progressive renal failure with biopsy findings of focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS). He progressed rapidly to end‐stage renal disease (ESRD) and remained hemodialysis dependent for five months despite high dose prednisone therapy. Initiation of plasmapheresis and low dose oral cyclophosphamide resulted in the prompt return of urine output and renal recovery. He remains off dialysis with stable renal function (creatinine clearance = 40 mL/min) two years later. This is the first report of late rescue from apparent ESRD due to FSGS with combined plasmapheresis and low dose oral cyclophosphamide.
Experience, Results and Lessons Learned from Automated Driving on Germany's Highways

The BMW Group Research and Technology has been testing automated vehicles on Germany's highways since Spring 2011. Since then, thousands of kilometers have been driven on the highways around Munich, Germany. Throughout this project, fundamental technologies, such as environment perception, localization, driving strategy and vehicle control, were developed in order to safely operate prototype automated vehicles in real traffic with speeds up to 130 km/h. The goal of this project was to learn what technologies are necessary for automated driving. This paper presents the architecture and algorithms developed during this project, results from real driving scenarios, the lessons learned throughout the project and a quick introduction into the latest developments for improving the system.
Goals and Personal Resources that Contribute to the Development and Agency Attachment of Older Adult Volunteers*

RÉSUMÉ Nous avons examiné la contribution bénévolat (N = 100) pour développer le rôle bénévolat et l’attachement aux agences des personnes âgées. Informé par un cadre intégrant la réglementation du développement et la théorie de la selectivité socio-affective, nous avons testé une double hypothèse pour la prémisse que le développement de plus grand rôle et l’attachement à l’agence serait vécue par (1) les personnes âgées qui avaient des objectifs multiples pour le bénévolat, et (2) les personnes âgées qui ont poursuivi ces objectifs en faisant une plus grande utilisation de leurs ressources sociales par rapport à leur physique et leurs ressources cognitives. Les deux hypothèses ont été corroborées. Les personnes âgées qui ont des motifs nombreux pour le bénévolat, et qui maximisent l’utilisation de leurs compétences et de leurs comportements sociales, sont plus fortement attachées à leur organisme d’acceuil et atteindre des niveaux plus élevés de développement du rôle bénévole. Les implications pour le domaine du volontariat sont discutées. ABSTRACT We examined the volunteer service contribution of older adults (N = 100) to volunteer role development and agency attachment. Informed by a developmental regulation framework and socio-emotional selectivity theory, we tested a twofold hypothesis for the premise that greater role development and agency attachment would be experienced by (1) older adults who had multiple goals for volunteering, and (2) older adults who pursued these goals by making greater use of their social resources relative to their physical and cognitive resources. Both hypotheses were supported. Older adults who have numerous motives for volunteering, and who maximize the use of their social skills and prosocial attitudes, are more strongly attached to their host agency and experience higher levels of volunteer role development. Implications for the field of volunteerism are discussed.
On overloaded vector precoding for single-user MIMO channels

We address the possibility of overloaded vector precoding in single user MIMO channels, i.e. the number of data streams is larger than the minimum of the number of antennas at transmitter and receiver side.We find that the convex vector precoding introduced in allows for overloading while, with a certain probability, keeping the received signal free of interference. We find that the probability that overloading is not possible decays exponentially with the size of the system as long as the number of data streams is less than twice the minimum number of antennas. We give an explicit formula to calculate this probability for any antenna configuration in presence of correlated Rayleigh fading. Although overloading comes with the need for increased transmitted power, we show by means of the replica method that overloading up to 22% yields better spectral and power efficiency than without overload and spatial matched filter processing at the receiver.
ISIS: a networked-epidemiology based pervasive web app for infectious disease pandemic planning and response

We describe ISIS, a high-performance-computing-based application to support computational epidemiology of infectious diseases. ISIS has been developed over the last seven years in close coordination with public health and policy experts. It has been used in a number of important federal planning and response exercises. ISIS grew out of years of experience in developing and using HPC-oriented models of complex socially coupled systems. This identified the guiding principle that complex models will be used by domain experts only if they can do realistic analysis without becoming computing experts. Using ISIS, one can carry out detailed computational experiments as they pertain to planning and response in the event of a pandemic. ISIS is designed to support networked epidemiology -- study of epidemic processes over social contact networks. The current system can handle airborne infectious diseases such as influenza, pertussis, and smallpox. ISIS is comprised of the following basic components: (i) a web app that serves as the user-interface, (ii) a middleware that coordinates user interaction via the web app with backend models and databases, (iii) a backend computational modeling framework that is comprised of highly resolved epidemic simulations combined with highly realistic control strategies that include pharmaceutical as well as non-pharmaceutical interventions and (iv) a backend data management framework that manages complex unstructured and semi-structured data. ISIS has been used in over a dozen case studies defined by the DoD, DHHS, NIH, BARDA and NSC. We describe three recent studies illustrating the use of ISIS in real-world settings:(i) uses of ISIS during the H1N1 pandemic, Cii) supporting a US military planning exercise, and (iii) distribution of limited stockpile of pharmaceuticals using public and private outlets.
Conformation-dependent reaction thermochemistry: study of lactones and lactone enolates in the gas phase.

Gas-phase acidities (Delta H degrees (acid)) of lactones with ring sizes from four to seven have been measured on a Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometer. Electron affinities (EAs) of the corresponding lactone enolate radicals were measured on a continuous-wave ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometer, and the bond dissociation energies (BDEs) of the alpha C-H bonds were derived. In order of increasing ring size, Delta H degrees (acid) = 368.7 +/- 2. , 369.4 +/- 2.2, 367.3 +/- 2.2, and 368.3 +/- 2.2 kcal/mol and BDE = 99.4 +/- 2.3, 94.8 +/- 2.3, 89.2 +/- 2.3, and 92.8 +/- 2.4 kcal/mol for beta-propiolactone, gamma-butyrolactone, delta-valerolactone, and epsilon-caprolactone, respectively. For their corresponding enolate radicals, EA = 44.1 +/- 0.3, 38.8 +/- 0.3, 35.3 +/- 0.3, and 37.9 +/- 0.6 kcal/mol. All of these lactones are considerably more acidic than methyl acetate, consistent with a dipole repulsion model. Both BDEs and EAs show a strong dependence on ring size, whereas Delta H degrees (acid) does not. These findings are discussed, taking into account differential electronic effects and differential strain between the reactant and product species in each reaction.
Minimização da Latência no Posicionamento de Funções em Cloud RANs

O conceito de C-RAN (Cloud Radio Access Network) consiste em executar funcoes de estacoes radio base em uma infraestrutura de nuvem, que pode ser centralizada ou composta por diversos niveis de hierarquia. Assim, as estacoes atuam apenas como receptores de sinais, que sao posteriormente processados na nuvem. Dada a distância entre a nuvem e as estacoes, a latencia e um fator critico em C-RAN. Neste trabalho formula-se um problema de programacao linear inteira mista para escolher o posicionamento das funcoes de radio em uma C-RAN, de forma a minimizar a latencia em uma nuvem com diferentes niveis de hierarquia. Para solucao do problema, este trabalho propoe duas heuristicas e mostra situacoes nas quais essas alcancam o resultado otimo.
Compressed Sensing MRI via Two-stage Reconstruction

Compressed sensing (CS) has been applied to magnetic resonance imaging for the acceleration of data collection. However, existing CS techniques usually produce images with residual artifacts, particularly at high reduction factors. In this paper, we propose a novel, two-stage reconstruction scheme, which takes advantage of the properties of k-space data and under-sampling patterns that are useful in CS. In this algorithm, the under-sampled k-space data is segmented into low-frequency and high-frequency domains. Then, in stage one, using dense measurements, the low-frequency region of k-space data is faithfully reconstructed. The fully reconstituted low-frequency k-space data from the first stage is then combined with the high-frequency k-space data to complete the second stage reconstruction of the whole of k-space. With this two-stage approach, each reconstruction inherently incorporates a lower data under-sampling rate and more homogeneous signal magnitudes than conventional approaches. Because the restricted isometric property is easier to satisfy, the reconstruction consequently produces lower residual errors at each step. Compared with a conventional CS reconstruction, for the cases of cardiac cine, brain and angiogram imaging, the proposed method achieves a more accurate reconstruction with an improvement of 2-4 dB in peak signal-to-noise ratio respectively, using reduction factors of up to 6.
Visualizing Brazilian justice: the supreme court 2.0 project

The Brazilian Supreme Court is one of the largest in the world in terms of case load. Since 1988 more than 1.5 million cases have reached the court, which is comprised of eleven Justices, mostly through appeal. This study describes the Supremo 2.0 ('Supreme Court' 2.0) project, undertaken to allow fast and interactive visualization of this case load. We describe the technologies and algorithms employed and outline its general functioning. We discuss the benefits of intuitive visualization, cross-filtering and multiple-view systems for knowledge discovery.
Does uninjured skin release proinflammatory cytokines following trauma and hemorrhage?

HYPOTHESIS Uninjured skin contributes to the elevation in circulating levels of proinflammatory cytokines seen following severe injury. DESIGN Male C3H/HeN mice underwent trauma, trauma-hemorrhage and resuscitation, or closed long-bone fracture. Serum, skin, and liver samples were harvested at designated times after experimental treatment. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Levels of interleukin (IL) 1beta, IL-6, and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha) were determined in serum and skin cultures at 1, 8, and 24 hours after trauma-hemorrhage. The RNA was isolated from liver and skin samples at 1, 2, 4, 8, and 24 hours from all 3 experimental groups, and gene expression of the cytokines was determined. RESULTS Remote (nontraumatized) skin from trauma-hemorrhage animals released significantly more IL-6 and TNF-alpha into culture supernatants at 1 and 24 hours and significantly more IL-1beta at 1, 8, and 24 hours than did skin from sham animals. Serum levels of all 3 cytokines were significantly elevated at 1 and 24 hours after trauma-hemorrhage relative to sham animals. Gene expression of all 3 cytokines was detected in skin and liver following trauma-hemorrhage. Furthermore, gene expression of all 3 cytokines was detected in uninjured skin after soft tissue trauma and closed long-bone fracture. CONCLUSIONS Proinflammatory cytokine gene expression is up-regulated in uninjured skin following trauma, trauma-hemorrhage, and long-bone fracture. This increase in gene expression correlates with increased cytokine production by cultured skin as well as increased circulating cytokine levels. These results suggest that uninjured skin may also contribute to the rise in circulating cytokine levels seen after injury.
Distortion lower bounds for finite dimensional joint source-channel coding

In this work we consider joint source-channel coding (JSCC) schemes that are limited to work in blocks of finite length. We focus on the high resolution and high signal to noise ratio (SNR) regime, and derive new lower bounds for the distortion of JSCC schemes over rth-moment constrained additive noise channels. These new bounds are based on the method of Ziv and Zakai [11], combined with the Renyi information measure, as was recently proposed by Leibowitz and Zamir [5]. Numerical results are presented for the case of Gaussian source and channel, and it is shown that the new bounds improve upon Shannon's original bound in several cases, including bandwidth expansion and reduction.
Cross-lingual tagger evaluation without test data

We address the challenge of cross-lingual POS tagger evaluation in absence of manually annotated test data. We put forth and evaluate two dictionary-based metrics. On the tasks of accuracy prediction and system ranking, we reveal that these metrics are reliable enough to approximate test set-based evaluation, and at the same time lean enough to support assessment for truly low-resource languages.
SAMIR: Sparsity Amplified Iteratively-reweighted Beamforming for High-rsolution Ultrasound Imaging

In ultrasound imaging, one typically employs delay-and-sum (DAS) beamformers for image reconstruction. An apodization window is used to suppress the side-lobes of an array beam pattern. The application of an apodization window to suppress the side-lobes widens the main-lobe width. We consider a statistical beamformer and present two variants. The signal of interest is modeled as a Laplacian-distributed random variable and additive interference components as Gaussian distributed. The resultant LASSO formulation is known to suffer from underestimation of large signal amplitudes due to the ${\ell _1}$-norm regularization. In the first variant, we reformulate the LASSO problem with a minimax-concave penalty (called Sparsity AMplified (SAM)) to contain the bias, thereby enhancing the beamformed image. A closed-form pointwise estimator is obtained for the optimization problem. In the second variant, we propose Sparsity A Mplified Iteratively-Reweighted (SAMIR) beamforming algorithm, which leverages the properties of an apodization function. In SAMIR beamforming, we jointly optimize the cost over the signal of interest and the exmnsic apodization weights. This beamformer results in high-resolution ultrasound images, especially in the lateral direction. The proposed methods are compared with the standard DAS and a recently proposed statistically-modeled beamformer, iMAP, for a different number of plane-wave insonifications.
Irinotecan and gemcitabine in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer, previously treated with cisplatin-based chemotherapy. A phase II study.

BACKGROUND To evaluate the efficacy and tolerability of irinotecan plus gemcitabine administered every two weeks in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) previously treated with cisplatin-based chemotherapy. PATIENTS AND METHODS Fifty patients with advanced NSCLC, refractory or resistant to cisplatin derivatives, were treated on an out-patient basis with irinotecan 150 mg/m2 intravenously (i.v.) and gemcitabine 1,800 mg/m2 i.v. on days 1 and 15, every two weeks. The response to treatment was evaluated every two cycles. The patients' median age was 59 years, 44 were men and 92% had a performance status (PS) of 0-1. RESULTS On an intent-to-treat analysis, 8 (16%) patients, [95% confidence interval (CI), 7.2% to 29.1%] achieved partial response (PR), 19 (38%) stable disease (SD) and 23 (46%) progressive disease (PD). The median time to tumor progression (TTP) was 5.5 months (range, 0.1 to 16.5 months), the median survival time was 8.1 months (range, 0.8 to 22.1 months) and the 1-year survival 36% (95% CI, 22.9% to 50.8%). Clinical benefit response, including improvement of PS, dyspnea, anorexia and fatigue, cessation of hemoptysis and fever and reduction of cough and pain, was observed in 10% to 44% of patients. No patient experienced grade 3/4 anemia. Grade 3/4 neutropenia and thrombocytopenia occurred in 7 (14%) and 8 (16%) patients, respectively. Five (10%) patients were hospitalized due to febrile neutropenia and were successfully treated with broad-spectrum antibiotics and G-CSF support. One (2%) patient experienced grade 4 fatigue and discontinued treatment. Other grade 3/4 adverse events included diarrhea (3 cases, 2 of whom required hospitalization), alopecia (5 cases), asthenia (2 cases) and allergy (2 cases). Eight (16%) patients required a dose reduction. There were no treatment-related deaths. CONCLUSION The combination of irinotecan and gemcitabine, administered every two weeks, demonstrated rather modest activity in advanced NSCLC patients who had previously been treated with cisplatin-based chemotherapy. It was well tolerated with mild toxicity and was associated with significant 1-year survival rate and symptomatic benefit response.
Molecular Cloning of a Cysteine Proteinase cDNA from the Cotton Boll Weevil Anthonomus grandis (Coleoptera: Curculionidae)

The cotton boll weevil (Anthonomus grandis) causes severe cotton crop losses in North and South America. This report describes the presence of cysteine proteinase activity in the cotton boll weevil. Cysteine proteinase inhibitors from different sources were assayed against total A. grandis proteinases but, unexpectedly, no inhibitor tested was particularly effective. In order to screen for active inhibitors against the boll weevil, a cysteine proteinase cDNA (Agcys1) was isolated from A. grandis larvae using degenerate primers and rapid amplification of cDNA ends (RACE) techniques. Sequence analysis showed significant homologies with other insect cysteine proteinases. Northern blot analysis indicated that the mRNA encoding the proteinase was transcribed mainly in the gut of larvae. No mRNA was detected in neonatal larvae, pupae, or in the gut of the adult insect, suggesting that Agcys1 is an important cysteine proteinase for larvae digestion. The isolated gene will facilitate the search for highly active inhibitors towards boll weevil larvae that may provide a new opportunity to control this important insect pest.
Intermittent Hypoxia during Development Induces Long-Term Alterations in Spatial Working Memory, Monoamines, and Dendritic Branching in Rat Frontal Cortex

Exposure to intermittent hypoxia (IH), such as occurs in sleep-disordered breathing, is associated with increased apoptosis in vulnerable brain regions as well as with spatial reference memory deficits in adult and developing rats. The latter are more susceptible to IH, suggesting that early exposure to IH may have long-term consequences. Rats were exposed to 14 d of room air (RA) or IH starting at postnatal d 10. Working memory was then assessed in the water maze at 4 mo of age using a delayed matching to place task in which the rats were required to locate a submerged platform hidden in a novel location on the first trial (T1 or acquisition trial), and then remember that position after a delay (T2 or test trial). Mean escape latencies and swim distances were derived and the savings (T1–T2) were used as a measure of working memory. Male but not female rats exposed to IH showed working memory deficits at both a 10- and 120-min delay (for both latency and pathlength). Additionally, Sholl analysis of Golgi-stained neurons revealed decreased dendritic branching in the frontal cortex, but not the hippocampus, of male rats exposed to IH. Norepinephrine concentrations, dopamine turnover, and tyrosine hydroxylase activity were increased similarly in males and females. However, increased dopamine concentrations were present only in the frontal cortex of female rats. In conclusion, exposure to IH during a critical developmental period is associated with long-term alterations in frontal cortical dopaminergic pathways that may underlie gender differences in neurobehavioral deficits.
Identification of QuiP, the Product of Gene PA1032, as the Second Acyl-Homoserine Lactone Acylase of Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1

ABSTRACT The relevance of the acyl homoserine lactone (acyl-HSL) quorum signals N-3-oxododecanoyl-homoserine lactone (3OC12HSL) and N-butanoyl-homoserine lactone to the biology and virulence of Pseudomonas aeruginosa is well investigated. Previously, P. aeruginosa was shown to degrade long-chain, but not short-chain, acyl-HSLs as sole carbon and energy sources (J. J. Huang, J.-I. Han, L.-H. Zhang, and J. R. Leadbetter, Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 69:5941-5949, 2003). A gene encoding an enzyme with acyl-HSL acylase activity, pvdQ (PA2385), was identified, but it was not required for acyl-HSL utilization. This indicated that P. aeruginosa encodes another acyl-HSL acylase, which we identify here. A comparison of total cell proteins of cultures grown with long-acyl acyl-HSLs versus other substrates implicated the involvement of a homolog of PvdQ, the product of gene PA1032, for which we propose the name QuiP. Transposon mutants of quiP were defective for growth when P. aeruginosa was cultured in medium containing decanoyl-HSL as a sole carbon and energy source. Complementation with a functional copy of quiP rescued this growth defect. When P. aeruginosa was grown in buffered lysogeny broth, constitutive expression of QuiP in P. aeruginosa led to decreased accumulations of the quorum signal 3OC12HSL, relative to the wild type. Heterologous expression of QuiP was sufficient to confer long-chain acyl-HSL acylase activity upon Escherichia coli. Examination of gene expression patterns during acyl-HSL-dependent growth of P. aeruginosa further supported the involvement of quiP in signal decay and revealed other genes also possibly involved. It is not yet known under which “natural” conditions quiP is expressed or how P. aeruginosa balances the expression of its quorum-sensing systems with the expression of its acyl-HSL acylase activities.
Investigation of induction Machine contribution to power system oscillations

Incorporation of load dynamics in stability studies is necessary nowadays, especially due to the increased use of induction machines in both consumption and generation. This paper investigates power system small-signal stability, considering induction machines as dynamic elements. Linear coefficients are proposed that are convenient for both quantitative and qualitative single machine-infinite bus studies. These coefficients are expanded into matrices in the case of multimachine systems, where the off-diagonal elements represent the interaction between machines. Modal interaction between induction machines, as well as between induction and synchronous machines, is investigated. It is shown that a large proportion of induction machines in a realistic power system significantly affects the interarea electromechanical mode and, consequently, the power system stabilizer design.