Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Nondestructive Microstructural Characterization of Superduplex Stainless Steel by Double Loop Electrochemical Polarization Reactivation Portable Test

Superduplex stainless steels (SDSS) are frequently employed in the petrochemical industries where is required high mechanical strength, toughness, and corrosion resistance. However, these properties can be affected by deleterious phases formation due thermomechanical processes applied in the field during pipes and vessels construction. This work propose the nondestructive microstructural characterization of deleterious phases precipitated in SDSS isothermally treated in 800 and 850oC using portable double loop electrochemical polarization reactivation tests (DL-EPR). The results obtained in this nondestructive test are quite close to those obtained by conventional test, and can be correlated with the amount of deleterious phases precipitated. It can be concluded that the microstructural degradation of superduplex stainless steel can be evaluated by portable DL-EPR test with slow sweep rates, using a special cell and a proper electrolyte at room temperature.
Anesthetic management of superior vena cava syndrome due to anterior mediastinal mass

Anesthetic management of superior vena cava syndrome carries a possible risk of life-threatening complications such as cardiovascular collapse and complete airway obstruction during anesthesia. Superior vena cava syndrome results from the enlargement of a mediastinal mass and consequent compression of mediastinal structures resulting in impaired blood flow from superior vena cava to the right atrium and venous congestion of face and upper extremity. We report the successful anesthetic management of a 42-year-old man with superior vena cava syndrome posted for cervical lymph node biopsy.
Quantification of non–water‐suppressed MR spectra with correction for motion‐induced signal reduction

Intrascan subject movement in clinical MR spectroscopic examinations may result in inconsistent water suppression that distorts the metabolite signals, frame‐to‐frame variations in spectral phase and frequency, and consequent reductions in the signal‐to‐noise ratio due to destructive averaging. Frame‐to‐frame phase/frequency corrections, although reported to be successful in achieving constructive averaging, rely on consistent water suppression, which may be difficult in the presence of intrascan motion. In this study, motion correction using non–water‐suppressed data acquisition is proposed to overcome the above difficulties. The time‐domain matrix‐pencil postprocessing method was used to extract water signals from the non–water‐suppressed spectroscopic data, followed by phase and frequency corrections of the metabolite signals based on information obtained from the water signals. From in vivo experiments on seven healthy subjects at 3.0 T, quantification of metabolites using the unsuppressed water signal as a reference showed improved correlation with water‐suppressed data acquired in the absence of motion (R2 = 0.9669; slope = 0.94). The metabolite concentrations derived using the proposed approach were in good agreement with literature values. Computer simulations under various degrees of frequency and phase variations further demonstrated robust performance of the time‐domain postprocessing approach. Magn Reson Med, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Diagnostic delays in rheumatic diseases with associated arthritis

Objective The objective of this study was to determine the length of delay in diagnosis of inflammatory rheumatic diseases, and to indicate the main factors responsible for such delays. Material and methods A retrospective multi-centre questionnaire survey carried out among 197 patients with diagnosed inflammatory rheumatic diseases or undergoing the diagnostic process. Results The most common early symptoms of inflammatory rheumatic disease included joint pain (94%), joint swelling (78%), morning joint stiffness (77%), fatigue (76%), and sleep disturbed by joint pain (74%). When asked about the reasons for seeking medical help, most patients indicated intensification of the symptoms (89%) and the fact that the symptoms made them unable to perform daily activities or work (86%). Limited access to specialists (70%) and the conviction that the symptoms will resolve spontaneously (57%) had the biggest impact on delaying a visit to a doctor. Before visiting a rheumatologist, the patients consulted their symptoms with their general practitioners (GPs, 95%), orthopaedicians (43%), and neurologists (29%). Almost half of the patients (48%) consulted their symptoms with at least 2 non-rheumatologists, whereas as many as 21% of patients visited 4 or more specialists. After the onset of symptoms of rheumatic disease, 28% of patients delayed seeing any doctor for 4 months or longer. 36% of patients waited 4 months or longer for a referral to a rheumatologist. The great majority of the patients (85%) made an appointment with a rheumatologist within a month of receiving a referral. 25% of patients waited 4 months or longer to see a rheumatologist. Conclusions Diagnostic delays result from both the level of patients’ awareness (ignoring early symptoms) and improper functioning of the health care system. In the case of the health care system, the source of delays is not only “queues to rheumatologists”, but also referring patients to non-rheumatologists.
Learning to Recognize Discontiguous Entities

This paper focuses on the study of recognizing discontiguous entities. Motivated by a previous work, we propose to use a novel hypergraph representation to jointly encode discontiguous entities of unbounded length, which can overlap with one another. To compare with existing approaches, we first formally introduce the notion of model ambiguity, which defines the difficulty level of interpreting the outputs of a model, and then formally analyze the theoretical advantages of our model over previous existing approaches based on linear-chain CRFs. Our empirical results also show that our model is able to achieve significantly better results when evaluated on standard data with many discontiguous entities.
Paint by numbers: abstract image representations

Computer graphics research has concentrated on creating photo-realistic images of synthetic objects. These images communicate surface shading and curvature, as well as the depth relationships of objects in a scene. These renderings are traditionally represented by a rectangular array of pixels that tile the image plane.As an alternative to photo-realism, it is possible to create abstract images using an ordered collection of brush strokes. These abstract images filter and refine visual information before it is presented to the viewer. By controlling the color, shape, size, and orientation of individual brush strokes, impressionistic paintings of computer generated or photographic images can easily be created.
Exendin‐4, a glucagon‐like protein‐1 (GLP‐1) receptor agonist, reverses hepatic steatosis in ob/ob mice

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) represents a burgeoning problem in hepatology, and is associated with insulin resistance. Exendin‐4 is a peptide agonist of the glucagon‐like peptide (GLP) receptor that promotes insulin secretion. The aim of this study was to determine whether administration of Exendin‐4 would reverse hepatic steatosis in ob/ob mice. Ob/ob mice, or their lean littermates, were treated with Exendin‐4 [10 μg/kg or 20 μg/kg] for 60 days. Serum was collected for measurement of insulin, adiponectin, fasting glucose, lipids, and aminotransferase concentrations. Liver tissue was procured for histological examination, real‐time RT‐PCR analysis and assay for oxidative stress. Rat hepatocytes were isolated and treated with GLP‐1. Ob/ob mice sustained a reduction in the net weight gained during Exendin‐4 treatment. Serum glucose and hepatic steatosis was significantly reduced in Exendin‐4 treated ob/ob mice. Exendin‐4 improved insulin sensitivity in ob/ob mice, as calculated by the homeostasis model assessment. The measurement of thiobarbituric reactive substances as a marker of oxidative stress was significantly reduced in ob/ob‐treated mice with Exendin‐4. Finally, GLP‐1–treated hepatocytes resulted in a significant increase in cAMP production as well as reduction in mRNA expression of stearoyl‐CoA desaturase 1 and genes associated with fatty acid synthesis; the converse was true for genes associated with fatty acid oxidation. In conclusion, Exendin‐4 appears to effectively reverse hepatic steatosis in ob/ob mice by improving insulin sensitivity. Our data suggest that GLP‐1 proteins in liver have a novel direct effect on hepatocyte fat metabolism. (HEPATOLOGY 2006;43:173–181.)
Metachromatic Leukodystrophy (MLD): VIII. MLD in Adults; Diagnosis and Pathogenesis

ADULTS, as well as children, develop metachromatic leukodystrophy (MLD). Does the adult with MLD also have a sulfatase A deficiency? If he does, can this enzyme deficiency really explain his illness? For example, if one presumes that the enzymic defect is inborn, why did his symptoms not begin when he was a child? Are different mechanisms involved in the delayed demyelination of adult MLD than in the form of MLD which affects young children? 1-3Answers to questions posed in the MLD model may help explain why other neurological disorders, though "inborn," appear clinically only later in life. The purpose of the present report is threefold: (1) to note sulfatase studies and other laboratory data in a 62-year-old adult with MLD; (2) to review the pertinent literature and to comment on some special clinical features and pathogenic mechanisms of adult MLD; (3) to synthesize from this information a working
Statistics of static avalanches in a random pinning landscape.

We study the minimum-energy configuration of a d -dimensional elastic interface in a random potential tied to a harmonic spring. As a function of the spring position, the center of mass of the interface changes in discrete jumps, also called shocks or "static avalanches. " We obtain analytically the distribution of avalanche sizes and its cumulants within an =4-d expansion from a tree and one-loop resummation using functional renormalization. This is compared with exact numerical minimizations of interface energies for random-field disorder in d=2,3 . Connections to dynamic avalanches are mentioned.
Rat Long Chain Acyl-CoA Synthetase 5 Increases Fatty Acid Uptake and Partitioning to Cellular Triacylglycerol in McArdle-RH7777 Cells*

Long chain acyl-CoA synthetase (ACSL) catalyzes the initial step in long chain fatty acid metabolism. Of the five mammalian ACSL isoforms cloned and characterized, ACSL5 is the only isoform found to be located, in part, on mitochondria and thus was hypothesized to be involved in fatty acid oxidation. To elucidate the specific roles of ACSL5 in fatty acid metabolism, we used adenoviral-mediated overexpression of ACSL5 (Ad-ACSL5) in rat hepatoma McArdle-RH7777 cells. Confocal microscopy revealed that Ad-ACSL5 colocalized to both mitochondria and endoplasmic reticulum. When compared with cells infected with Ad-GFP, Ad-ACSL5-infected cells at 24 h after infection had 2-fold higher acyl-CoA synthetase activities and 30% higher rates of fatty acid uptake when incubated with 500 μm [1-14C]oleic acid. Metabolism of [1-14C]oleic acid to cellular triacylglycerol (TAG) increased 42% in Ad-ACSL5-infected cells, but when compared with control cells, metabolism to acid-soluble metabolites, phospholipids, and medium TAG did not differ substantially. The incorporation of [1-14C]oleate and [1,2,3-3H]glycerol into TAG was similar in Ad-ACSL5-infected cells, thus indicating that Ad-ACSL5 increased TAG synthesis through both de novo and reacylation pathways. However, [1-14C]acetic acid incorporation into cellular lipids showed that, when compared with control cells, Ad-ACSL5-infected cells did not increase the metabolism of fatty acids that were derived from de novo synthesis. These results suggest that uptake of fatty acids into cells is regulated by metabolism and that overexpressed ACSL5 partitions exogenously derived fatty acids toward TAG synthesis and storage.
Single-neuron RNA-Seq: technical feasibility and reproducibility

Understanding brain function involves improved knowledge about how the genome specifies such a large diversity of neuronal types. Transcriptome analysis of single neurons has been previously described using gene expression microarrays. Using high-throughput transcriptome sequencing (RNA-Seq), we have developed a method to perform single-neuron RNA-Seq. Following electrophysiology recording from an individual neuron, total RNA was extracted by aspirating the cellular contents into a fine glass electrode tip. The mRNAs were reverse transcribed and amplified to construct a single-neuron cDNA library, and subsequently subjected to high-throughput sequencing. This approach was applied to both individual neurons cultured from embryonic mouse hippocampus, as well as neocortical neurons from live brain slices. We found that the average pairwise Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient of gene expression level expressed as RPKM (reads per kilobase of transcript per million mapped reads) was 0.51 between five cultured neuronal cells, whereas the same measure between three cortical layer 5 neurons in situ was 0.25. The data suggest that there may be greater heterogeneity of the cortical neurons, as compared to neurons in vitro. The results demonstrate the technical feasibility and reproducibility of RNA-Seq in capturing a part of the transcriptome landscape of single neurons, and confirmed that morphologically identical neurons, even from the same region, have distinct gene expression patterns.
The Intracluster Medium in z > 1 Galaxy Clusters

The Chandra X-Ray Observatory was used to obtain a 190 ks image of three high-redshift galaxy clusters in one observation. The results of our analysis of these data are reported for the two z > 1 clusters in this Lynx field, which are the most distant known X-ray luminous clusters. Spatially extended X-ray emission was detected from both these clusters, indicating the presence of hot gas in their intracluster media. A fit to the X-ray spectrum of RX J0849+4452 at z = 1.26 yields a temperature of kT = 5.8 keV. Using this temperature and the assumption of an isothermal sphere, the total mass of RX J0849+4452 is found to be 4.0 × 1014 h M☉ within r = 1 h Mpc. The TX for RX J0849+4452 approximately agrees with the expectation based on its Lbol = 3.3 × 1044 ergs s-1 according to the low-redshift LX-TX relation. The very different distributions of X-ray-emitting gas and of the red member galaxies in the two z > 1 clusters, in contrast to the similarity of the optical/IR colors of those galaxies, suggests that the early-type galaxies mostly formed before their host clusters.
Multiband microstrip antennas fed by an L-probe

This paper presents microstrip antennas (MSAs) for multiband operation fed by an L-probe. The proposed antennas consist of a double-layered dielectric substrate. Patch elements are on the top surface of the upper substrate and the L-shaped probe is in the lower substrate. V-shaped slots on a rhombic MSA and multiple-ring MSAs are effective for multiple resonances. In order to realize wideband impedance matching, an L-shaped probe or a modified L-shaped probe is used to excite these patch elements. The rhombic MSA with V-shaped slots and the multiple-ring MSAs work as multiband planar antennas for linear polarization and for combination of linear and circular polarizations, respectively. Multiband performance with good radiation patterns of these types of multiband MSAs are demonstrated. Furthermore, muliband MSAs fed by a modified L-shaped probe for linear polarization composed in a single-layer dielectric substrate are described.
Visceral adiposity and expression of clock genes in peripheral blood mononuclear cells: A pilot study

ABSTRACT Increasing evidence suggests a close interrelationship between disrupted circadian rhythms and obesity and metabolic disturbances. In particular, abdominal obesity, which contributes to the pathogenesis of metabolic disease, is associated with disrupted clock gene expression. However, little is known about the relationship between clock gene expression and accurate computed tomography (CT)-based measurements of visceral adiposity. Therefore, we examined the relationship between expression of clock genes in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) with visceral and subcutaneous adiposity in 75 healthy overweight or obese individuals. PBMCs were obtained from blood samples collected at 8 AM, and gene expression was analyzed by real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction. Visceral and subcutaneous adiposity were measured by CT. Our results showed that visceral fat area was significantly positively correlated with BMAL1 and CRY1 mRNA levels and significantly negatively correlated with CLOCK, PER2, PER3 and CRY2 mRNA levels. In contrast, subcutaneous fat area was not correlated with the expression of any of the clock genes analyzed. After adjusting for multiple variables, visceral fat area was significantly associated with the expression of BMAL1, PER2 and CRY1. Taken together, our results indicate that visceral adiposity, but not subcutaneous adiposity, correlates with expression of clock genes in PBMCs.
Direct fusion of Dirac mixture densities using an efficient approximation in joint state space

In this paper, we present a direct fusion algorithm for processing the combination of two Dirac mixture densities. The proposed approach allows the multiplication of two Dirac mixture densities without requiring identical support and thus enables the fusion of two independently generated sample sets. The resulting posterior Dirac mixture density is an approximation of the true continuous density that would result from the processing of the underlying true continuous density functions. This procedure is based on a suboptimal greedy approximation of the joint state space by means of a Dirac mixture that iteratively increases the resolution of the fusion result while considering only the relevant regions in the joint state space, where the fusion constraint holds.
Identification of IS1R and IS10R elements inserted into ompk36 porin gene of two multidrug-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae hospital strains.

Hospital Klebsiella pneumoniae strains (n = 196) were collected in 2012-16 from the patients of a Moscow neurosurgical intensive care unit. Klebsiella pneumoniae strains were multidrug-resistant and carried beta-lactamase genes blaSHV (97.4% of strains), blaCTX-M (84.7%), blaTEM (56.1%), blaOXA-48-like (49.0%) and blaNDM-1 (one strain), class 1 integrons (43.4% of strains) and porin protein ompK36 gene (100% of strains). The ompK36 porin protein gene disruption by insertion sequence (IS) elements and OmpK36 production loss in two strains were detected in this study. Outer membrane proteins were isolated according to Carlone et al. (Rapid microprocedure for isolating detergent-insoluble outer membrane proteins from Haemophilus species. J Clin Microbiol 1986;24:330-2). The IS10R element belonging to the IS4 family, IS10 group was detected at the position of the 41st nucleotide of the ompK36 gene in K. pneumoniae strain KPB-2304K/15 (the first report for a certain IS element in K. pneumoniae). The IS1R element belonging to the IS1 family was identified at the position of the 86th nucleotide of the ompK36 gene in the K. pneumoniae strain KPB-367K/15 (novel insertion site for IS1 element into ompK36 gene). DNA transfer of the intact ompK36 gene into the strain KPB-367K/15 by vector plasmid restored OmpK36 porin protein production and resulted in a decrease of imipenem minimal inhibitory concentration. Such data confirm the importance of IS elements in ongoing multidrug-resistant evolution in hospital Klebsiella.
Intergenerational Transmission of Attachment in Father-Child Dyads: The Case of Single Parenthood

Researchers have repeatedly found that intergenerational transmission of attachment is more robust in mother-child dyads than it is in father-child dyads. They have proposed several explanations for the inconsistent father-child findings, including the use of the strange situation procedure, the young age of the children, and the fact that fathers are often less involved in early caregiving than are mothers. The authors aimed to investigate intergenerational transmission in father-child dyads when several conditions are present that may heighten the likelihood of such a transmission. Thus, the authors assessed 16 married fathers and 12 divorced fathers who had full custody of their 4-6-year-old child, using the story-stem attachment measure with the children. As expected, the authors observed no transmission with married fathers. In contrast, paternal preoccupation with past attachment experiences was associated with child hyperactivation in the full-custodial father group. The findings suggest that attachment transmission is more likely to occur when fathers have a primary caregiving role.
Representative sequence selection in unsupervised anomaly detection using spectrum kernel with theoretical parameter setting

Unsupervised anomaly detection is an important topic of data mining research, especially with respect to non-numerical sequence data. However, the majority of previous algorithms features empirical parameter selection. The contribution of this study is twofold: First, we show how the Akaike Information Criterion can be used to set the parameter of the spectrum kernel. Second, a distance-based algorithm for one-class unsupervised anomaly detection is presented. The algorithm uses the distance matrix of the data to select a sequence representative of the normal class by means of robust statistics. The proposed algorithm is applied to two kinds of sequence data, showing its suitability.
Automated extraction of coastline from satellite imagery by integrating Canny edge detection and locally adaptive thresholding methods

This paper presents a comprehensive approach to effectively and accurately extract coastlines from satellite imagery. It consists of a sequence of image processing algorithms, in which the key component is image segmentation based on a locally adaptive thresholding technique. Several technical innovations have been made to improve the accuracy and efficiency for determining the land/water boundaries. The use of the Levenberg-Marquardt method and the Canny edge detector speeds up the convergence of iterative Gaussian curve fitting process and improves the accuracy of the bimodal Gaussian parameters. The result is increased reliability of local thresholds for image segmentation. A series of further image processing steps are applied to the segmented images. Particularly, grouping and labelling contiguous image regions into individual image objects enables us to utilize heuristic human knowledge about the size and continuity of the land and ocean masses to discriminate the true coastline from other object boundaries. The final product of our processing chain is a vector-based line coverage of the coastline, which can be readily incorporated into a GIS database. Our method has been applied to both radar and optical satellite images, and the positional precision of the resulting coastline is measured at the pixel level.
Queries on Databases with User-Defined Functions MS-CIS-93-62 LOGIC & COMPUTATION 70

The notion of a database query is generalized for databases with user-defined functions. Then, we can prove that the computable queries coincide with those expressible by an extension of the relational machine, with oracles ([4]). This implies that any complete query language, extended with user-defined function symbols in a "reasonable" way, is still complete. We give an example of a complete query language with user-defined functions, and discuss its connections with object inventions. Comments University of Pennsylvania Department of Computer and Information Science Technical Report No. MSCIS-93-62. This technical report is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn. edu/cis_reports/282 Queries on Databases with User-Defined Functions MS-CIS-93-62 LOGIC & COMPUTATION 70