Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Emerging Perspectives on Transforming the Healthcare System: Redesign Strategies and a Call for Needed Research

BackgroundU.S. healthcare requires major redesign of its delivery systems, finances, and incentives. Healthcare operations, leadership, and payors are increasingly recognizing the need for community-business-research partnerships to transform healthcare. New models of continuous learning, research, and development should help focus and sustain redesign efforts. PurposeThis study summarizes suggested strategies for transformational change in healthcare and identifies needed areas for research to inform, spread, and sustain transformational change. MethodsWe developed these recommendations based on a series of review papers, invited expert discussion, and a subsequent review in the context of a health system transformation research conference (The Regenstrief Biennial Research Conference). The multidisciplinary audience included health systems researchers, clinicians, informaticians, social and engineering scientists, and operational and business leaders. FindingsConference participants and literature reviews identified key strategies for system redesign with the following themes: using the framework of complex adaptive systems; fostering organizational redesign; developing appropriate performance measures and incentives; creating continuous learning organizations; and integrating health information, technology, and communication into practice. Sustained investment in research and development in these areas is crucial. ConclusionsMultiple issues influence the likelihood that healthcare leaders will make transformational changes in their healthcare systems. Healthcare leaders, clinicians, researchers, journals, and academic institutions, in partnership with payors, government and multiple other stakeholders, should apply the recommendations relevant to their own setting to redesign healthcare delivery, improve cognitive support, and sustain transformation. Fostering further research investments in these areas will increase the impact of transformation on the health and healthcare of the public.
Profiling Social Networks: A Social Tagging Perspective

The web is rapidly becoming both more open and more social through the provision of technologies that make it easier for end users to access resources and join in social networks. Social networks have pioneered online communities, allowing users to contribute to collective knowledge by tagging online resources. Tagging behavior increased dramatically between 2005 and 2007. This paper reports on an investigation of social tagging using data gathered from Delicious, Flickr and YouTube for the years 2005, 2006 and 2007. Preliminary findings indicate both that it is possible to profile a social network through the analysis of tagging data and that Delicious is a more representative venue for analyzing the social tagging behavior of users than either Flickr or YouTube.
A thermodynamic study of β-N-acetylhexosaminidase enzyme heterogeneity in cerebrospinal fluid from patients with multiple sclerosis

Background. ß-N-acetylhexosaminidase (Hex) is a lysosomal hydrolase, whose determination in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) has provided discordant results. Methods. Total Hex and its isoenzymes Hex A and Hex B were determined using a thermodynamic procedure in the CSF of 27 patients with definitive MS, 8 with possible MS, 9 with meningitis, 14 with other neurological diseases, and in 10 controls without any neurological disease. Results. In the group of patients with definitive MS, the total Hex and Hex A were significantly higher than in the control group (p<0.001), with a possible association of greater enzymatic activities with the presence of oligoclonal bands and recent relapse; however, an overlap was detected for the activities of total Hex and its isoenzymes between the groups of patients with different neurological diseases. A significant correlation was obtained for neuron-specific enolase (NSE) with total Hex and Hex A and Hex B isoenzymes (p<0.001); however, in the partial correlation statistical significance was only obtained between NSE and Hex A (p<0.001) which is the most abundant Hex isoenzyme in the brain. Conclusions. Although the inflammatory process in MS mainly takes place in the perivascular zone, with little activity in the cerebral parenchyma, the significant increase of NSE and Hex A isoenzyme in CSF reveals a neuronal damage. The disease status may have effect on the CSF Hex activity.
Microwave‐enhanced enzyme reaction for protein mapping by mass spectrometry: A new approach to protein digestion in minutes

Accelerated proteolytic cleavage of proteins under controlled microwave irradiation has been achieved. Selective peptide fragmentation by endoproteases trypsin or lysine C led to smaller peptides that were analyzed by matrix‐assisted laser desorption ionization (MALDI) or liquid chromatography‐electrospray ionization (LC‐ESI) techniques. The efficacy of this technique for protein mapping was demonstrated by the mass spectral analyses of the peptide fragmentation of several biologically active proteins, including cytochrome c, ubiquitin, lysozyme, myoglobin, and interferon α‐2b. Most important, using this novel approach digestion of proteins occurs in minutes, in contrast to the hours required by conventional methods.
The Longevity of Musical Works for Instruments and Electronic Music in the Digital Era

Until the mid-XXth century, classical music relied on a range of stable practices that guaranteed its survival : the written score ; the notion of interpretation ; lutherie instrument making ; oral (in particular) and written teaching traditions ; institutions (conservatories, ensembles, orchestras etc.). ; The advent of digital technology in musical creation from the 1970s onwards perturbed this landscape, forcing us to rethink these practices, particularly all those concerning the endurance of the new kinds of works that have emerged over the past thirty years – especially works for traditional and electronic instruments. Furthermore, the digital arts - though scarcely established - were soon in danger through the proliferation and fragility of digital standards and formats (cf. the “ Digital Dark Age” phenomenon). If contemporary music has the ambition to prolong the classical music tradition, it must find the techniques, modalities and practices to ensure its survival despite the instability of digital technology.
Functional characterization of rat ρ2 subunits expressed in HEK 293 cells

GABAC receptors are thought to be homo‐ or heteropentamers composed of ρ1, ρ2 and ρ3 subunits. Previous work on rat ρ2 subunits expressed in Xenopus oocytes has suggested that they do not form functional homo‐oligomeric GABAC receptors, but do combine with ρ1 or ρ3 subunits to form hetero‐oligomers. These findings are difficult to interpret because both human and mouse ρ2 subunits do form functional homo‐oligomeric receptors. Also, many regions of the rat brain express solely ρ2 subunit transcripts which, according to presently available evidence, would not result in expression of functional GABAC receptors. We show here that homomeric rat ρ2 receptors can be expressed in HEK 293 cells. Homo‐oligomeric rat ρ2 receptors expressed in mammalian cells matured slowly and displayed small but detectable GABA‐induced currents with slow kinetics. Rat ρ2 receptors also had a decreased sensitivity to picrotoxin and a marked sensitivity to the GABAC receptor agonist cis‐aminocrotonic acid. Our results demonstrate for the first time the expression of functional homomeric rat ρ2 receptors, and suggest that ρ2 subunits may contribute to brain function, including in areas not expressing other ρ subunits.
Ionic and structural specificity effects of natural and synthetic polyamines on the aggregation and resolubilization of single-, double-, and triple-stranded DNA.

DNA condensation, precipitation, and aggregation are related phenomena involving DNA-DNA interactions in the presence of multivalent cations, and studied for their potential implications in DNA packaging in the cell. Recent studies have shown that the condensation/aggregation is a prerequisite for the cellular uptake of DNA for gene therapy applications. To elucidate the ionic and structural factors involved in DNA aggregation, we studied the precipitation and resolubilization of high molecular weight and sonicated calf thymus DNA, two therapeutic oligonucleotides, and poly(dA). 2Poly(dT) triplex DNA in the presence of the tetravalent polyamine spermine using a centrifugation assay, Tm measurements, and CD spectroscopy. The ability of spermine to provoke DNA precipitation was in the following order: triplex DNA > duplex DNA > single-stranded DNA. In contrast, their resolubilization at high polyamine concentrations followed a reverse order. The effective concentration of spermine to precipitate DNA increased with Na+ in the medium. Tm data indicated the DNA stabilizing effect of spermine even in the resolubilized state. CD spectroscopy revealed a series of sequential conformational alterations of duplex and triplex DNA, with the duplex form regaining the B-DNA conformation at high concentrations (approximately 200 mM) of spermine. The triplex DNA, however, remained in a Psi-DNA conformation in the resolubilized state. Chemical structural specificity effects were exerted by spermidine and spermine analogues in precipitating and resolubilizing sonicated calf thymus DNA, with N4-methyl substitution of spermidine and a heptamethylene separation of the imino groups of spermine having the maximal difference in the precipitating ability of the analogues compared to spermidine and spermine, respectively. Therapeutically important bis(ethyl) substitution reduced the precipitating ability of the analogues compared to spermine. The effect of the cationicity of polyamines was evident with the pentamines being much more efficacious than the tetramines and triamines. These results provide new insights into the mechanism of DNA precipitation by polyamines, and suggest the importance of polyamine structure in developing gene delivery vehicles for therapeutic applications.
Adaptive Data Broadcasting in Underwater Wireless Networks

Underwater acoustic networks have recently emerged as a new area of research in wireless networking. These networks can support a large number of applications such as environmental and underwater equipment monitoring. In recent years, there has been substantial work on protocol design for these networks with most efforts focusing on MAC and network layer protocols. Despite being a fundamental networking primitive, data broadcasting has so far received little attention in the context of underwater networks. This paper proposes an adaptive push system for dissemination of data in underwater acoustic wireless networks. Besides achieving adaptation of its broadcast schedule according to the a priori unknown needs of the clients, the proposed system also efficiently combats the problem of high latency of the underwater acoustic wireless environment. Simulation results show superior performance of the proposed system in the underwater environment compared to adaptations of existing terrestrial push systems.
Delta-Generalization: High Accuracy Data Release for Privacy Preserving

Generalization and suppression are important technical approaches for k-anonymity, which protect respondents' identity when releasing microdata. However, although those solutions are very efficient in terms of the security of sensitive private information, they are known to be defective. They may cause some deviations between the published dataset and the original dataset, the authenticity, readability, and applicability can be reduced to the tuples in the released dataset. In this paper, we proposed a new and powerful improved method, called δ-generalization, to solve these problems. We show, thorough both theoretical analysis and experiment evaluation, that δ-generalization can significantly enhance the accuracy of the published dataset on the premise of guaranteeing the equal security levels compared with the conventional generalization. Extensive experiments with real data confirm that δ-generalization is practical and can be implemented efficiently.
Design and in‐situ evaluation of a mixed‐initiative approach to information organization

Organizing personal information by folders or tags has proved to be effective for finding, remembering, and understanding information. However, past studies have shown that the cost of organization can be too high for some users to be worth the effort. Mixed‐initiative approaches attempt to reduce the burden of manual organization by automatically identifying and suggesting organizational units such as folders to users. However, little is known about how such mixed‐initiative approaches influence users' organizational experiences. In this paper, we explore a mixed‐initiative approach that suggests high‐level organizational units to users to facilitate e‐mail organization. In 2 in‐situ experiments with 34 knowledge workers, we study how our mixed‐initiative approach influenced users' experience with organization. We show that our approach made it easier to create organizational units without negatively affecting recall of those units, and led to the creation of units that otherwise would have not been created. Our findings suggest ways computers and people can most effectively work together to organize information.
A novel method based on click chemistry, which overcomes limitations of cell cycle analysis by classical determination of BrdU incorporation, allowing multiplex antibody staining

Quantification of BrdU incorporation into DNA is a widely used technique to assess the cell cycle status of cells. DNA denaturation is required for BrdU detection with the drawback that most protein epitopes are destroyed and classical antibody staining techniques for multiplex analysis are not possible. To address this issue we have developed a novel method that overcomes the DNA denaturation step but still allows detection of BrdU. Cells were pulsed for a short time by 5‐ethynyl‐2′‐deoxyuridine, which is incorporated into DNA. The exposed nucleotide alkyne group of DNA was then derivatized in physiologic conditions by the copper (I)‐catalyzed azide‐alkyne cycloaddition (CuAAC) using BrdU azides. The resulting DNA‐bound bromouracil moiety was subsequently detected by commercial anti‐BrdU mAb without the need for a denaturation step. Continuous labeling with EdU showed a slightly increased anti‐proliferative activity compared to BrdU. However, using a lower concentration of EdU for labeling can compensate for this. Alkynyl tags could be detected quickly by a highly specific reaction using BrdU azides. Fluorescence quenching by the DNA dye PI using both BrdU azides was negligible. Our labeling method is suitable for FCM and HCA and shows a higher signal to noise ratio than other methods. This method also allowed multiplex analysis by simultaneous detection of EdU‐BrdU, caspase‐3, and phospho‐histone 3 mAbs, proving sensitivity and feasibility of this new technique. In addition, it has the potential for use in vivo, as exemplified for bone marrow studies. We have established a new method to determine the position of cells in the cell cycle. This is superior when compared to traditional BrdU detection since it allows multiplex analysis, is more sensitive and shows less quenching with PI. The method provides new opportunities to investigate changes in protein expression at different cell cycle stages using pulse labeling experiments. © 2008 International Society for Advancement of Cytometry
Fast HEVC intra coding algorithm based on Otsu's method and gradient

High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), the newest video coding standard established, aims to significantly improve the compression performance compared with H.264/AVC and other existing video coding standards. In the intra coding of HEVC, this improvement is achieved by adopting the coding tree unit (CTU) structure and providing up to 35 prediction modes for each prediction unit (PU). However, the computational complexity is greatly increased due to these new techniques. In this paper, we propose a fast coding unit (CU) size decision and PU mode decision algorithm for HEVC intra coding to reduce the time consumption. Since CU sizes are highly correlated to the texture detail and variance information of the largest coding unit (LCU), we introduce the Otsu's method to measure the texture complexity of each LCU and skip some CU depth levels. Meanwhile, as the prediction modes always correspond to gradient directions, we apply improved Sobel masks to measure gradient directions of PUs and reduce some candidate intra modes. Experimental results show that our proposed algorithm can save 33% time consumption on average with negligible loss of coding efficiency.
CT differentiation of large exophytic renal angiomyolipomas and perirenal liposarcomas.

OBJECTIVE The purpose of our study was to describe the imaging findings and CT characteristics that lead to accurate distinction of large exophytic renal angiomyolipomas from retroperitoneal perirenal liposarcomas, which at times can be confused on imaging studies and even at pathologic examination. MATERIALS AND METHODS We retrospectively analyzed CT images of 15 large exophytic renal angiomyolipomas and 12 well-differentiated perirenal liposarcomas. Pathologic correlation was available for six of 15 angiomyolipomas and all of the liposarcomas. All examinations were evaluated for lesion size, renal parenchymal defect, enlarged vessels, kidney displacement, lesion encapsulation or margination, associated hemorrhage, and additional angiomyolipomas. The records of patients with tuberous sclerosis or the forme fruste of that condition were excluded from the study. RESULTS The average size of the angiomyolipomas was 14 x 10 cm. They showed a renal parenchymal defect (n = 15), enlarged vessels (n = 12), renal displacement (n = 14), good margination without a distinct capsule (n = 14), hemorrhage (n = 1), and additional (one or two) angiomyolipomas (n = 4). The average size of the liposarcomas was 18 x 11.6 cm. They showed enlarged vessels (n = 3), renal displacement (n = 11), and encapsulation (n = 4); none showed a renal parenchymal defect, hemorrhage, or associated angiomyolipomas. CONCLUSION Although large exophytic angiomyolipomas and well-differentiated retroperitoneal liposarcomas may have similar appearances on imaging, careful evaluation for a defect in the renal parenchyma combined with the presence of enlarged vessels in angiomyolipomas should enable accurate differentiation in almost all cases. Achieving an accurate diagnosis can have a significant impact on patient treatment.
Corrigendum: The histone H2B-specific ubiquitin ligase RNF20/hBRE1 acts as a putative tumor suppressor through selective regulation of gene expression.

Histone monoubiquitylation is implicated in critical regulatory processes. We explored the roles of histone H2B ubiquitylation in human cells by reducing the expression of hBRE1/RNF20, the major H2B-specific E3 ubiquitin ligase. While H2B ubiquitylation is broadly associated with transcribed genes, only a subset of genes was transcriptionally affected by RNF20 depletion and abrogation of H2B ubiquitylation. Gene expression dependent on RNF20 includes histones H2A and H2B and the p53 tumor suppressor. In contrast, RNF20 suppresses the expression of several proto-oncogenes, which reside preferentially in closed chromatin and are modestly transcribed despite bearing marks usually associated with high transcription rates. Remarkably, RNF20 depletion augmented the transcriptional effects of epidermal growth factor (EGF), increased cell migration, and elicited transformation and tumorigenesis. Furthermore, frequent RNF20 promoter hypermethylation was observed in tumors. RNF20 may thus be a putative tumor suppressor, acting through selective regulation of a distinct subset of genes.
The Prognostic Value of Stress Hyperglycaemia and Previously Unrecognized Diabetes in Acute Stroke

In a prospective study of 86 patients with acute stroke, blood glucose and HbA1 were estimated within 72 h of onset. The prevalence of previously diagnosed diabetes mellitus was 8% whereas 28% could be assumed to have had unrecognized hyperglycaemia preceeding the acute event as identified by a stable HbA1 raised more that two SD above the mean reference value. Complete functional recovery of the limbs within 4 weeks of the stroke was confined to those patients with a normal admission blood glucose. None of the patients with a raised admission blood glucose regained full functional recovery within 4 weeks. Cumulative mortality at 4 weeks was significantly raised in patients with an elevated blood glucose value irrespective of their HbA1 values (p <0.05). The prevalence of unrecognized hyperglycaemia as a risk factor for acute stroke is greater than previously reported in the UK and admission blood glucose concentration is of greatest importance in predicting early mortality and morbidity.
Host Plants of the Wheat Stem Sawfly (Hymenoptera: Cephidae)

Abstract Wheat stem sawfly (Cephus cinctus Norton) is a pest of economic importance across much of the wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)-growing areas of the western Great Plains of North America as well as an ecologically important insect owing to its wide range of grass hosts. Little research has been published regarding the noncultivated native and invasive grasses attacked by this insect. Knowledge of the complete host range of C. cinctus can inform future research about potential new sources of genetic resistance, improve understanding of the biology and spread of natural enemies, and better define this insect's role in grassland and agricultural systems. The aim of this review is to compile a checklist of reported host plants of C. cinctus and present data from an extensive survey of noncultivated hosts used by C. cinctus.
Pharmacological modulation of chemokine receptor function

G protein‐coupled chemokine receptors and their peptidergic ligands are interesting therapeutic targets due to their involvement in various immune‐related diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, inflammatory bowel disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, HIV‐1 infection and cancer. To tackle these diseases, a lot of effort has been focused on discovery and development of small‐molecule chemokine receptor antagonists. This has been rewarded by the market approval of two novel chemokine receptor inhibitors, AMD3100 (CXCR4) and Maraviroc (CCR5) for stem cell mobilization and treatment of HIV‐1 infection respectively. The recent GPCR crystal structures together with mutagenesis and pharmacological studies have aided in understanding how small‐molecule ligands interact with chemokine receptors. Many of these ligands display behaviour deviating from simple competition and do not interact with the chemokine binding site, providing evidence for an allosteric mode of action. This review aims to give an overview of the evidence supporting modulation of this intriguing receptor family by a range of ligands, including small molecules, peptides and antibodies. Moreover, the computer‐assisted modelling of chemokine receptor–ligand interactions is discussed in view of GPCR crystal structures. Finally, the implications of concepts such as functional selectivity and chemokine receptor dimerization are considered.