Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cortical encoding of timbre changes in cochlear implant users.

BACKGROUND Most cochlear implant (CI) users describe music as a noise-like and unpleasant sound. Using behavioral tests, most prior studies have shown that perception of pitch-based melody and timbre is poor in CI users. PURPOSE This article will focus on cortical encoding of timbre changes in CI users, which may allow us to find solutions to further improve CI benefits. Furthermore, the value of using objective measures to reveal neural encoding of timbre changes may be reflected in this study. RESEARCH DESIGN A case-control study of the mismatch negativity (MMN) using electrophysiological technique was conducted. To derive MMNs, three randomly arranged oddball paradigms consisting of standard/deviant instrumental pairs: saxophone/piano, cello/trombone, and flute/French horn, respectively, were presented. STUDY SAMPLE Ten CI users and ten normal-hearing (NH) listeners participated in this study. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS After filtering, epoching, and baseline correction, independent component analysis (ICA) was performed to remove artifacts. The averaged waveforms in response to the standard stimuli (STANDARD waveform) and the deviant stimuli (DEVIANT waveform) in each condition were separately derived. The responses from nine electrodes in the fronto-central area were averaged to form one waveform. The STANDARD waveform was subtracted from the DEVIANT waveform to derive the difference waveform, for which the MMN was judged to be present or absent. The measures used to evaluate the MMN included the MMN peak latency and amplitude as well as MMN duration. RESULTS The MMN, which reflects the ability to automatically detect acoustic changes, was present in all NH listeners but only approximately half of CI users. In CI users with present MMNs, the MMN peak amplitude and duration were significantly smaller and shorter compared to those in NH listeners. CONCLUSIONS Our electrophysiological results were consistent with prior behavioral results that CI users' performance in timbre perception was significantly poorer than that in NH listeners. Our results may suggest that timbre information is poorly registered in the auditory cortex of CI users and the capability of automatic detection of timbre changes is degraded in CI users. Although there are some limitations of the MMN in CI users, along with other objective auditory evoked potential tools, the MMN may be a useful objective tool to indicate the extent of sound registration in auditory cortex in the future efforts of improving CI design and speech strategy.
Study on Online Detection and Fault Diagnosis of Band Saw Equipment

Due to the size and material changes and the hard impurities of the cutting workpieces in the band sawing process, the load of the band saw blades changes greatly so as to easily break the blades. The load of the band saw blades in the cutting process is unbalanced so as to easily produce the deviation of the saw blade’s cutting path, even seriously affect the accuracy of the sawing. On the occasion of the heavy cutting to some materials, the artificial cutting is time consuming and laborious, and the efficiency is low. So there is an urgent need to develop the automatic weighing and measuring device for the band sawing machine. At the same time, the CNC technology is widely used in the high-level band saw machine. So the online detection technology of the band saw equipment is an important foundation for the solution of the above problems and the application of the numerical control technology [1-4]. Aiming at the lower automation, accuracy and efficiency of the domestic band sawing machine, this paper studies the real-time detection technology based on the sawing load, and the control system of the constant power sawing. The real-time detection technology based on the micro-deviation of the band saw’s trajectory and the deviation-correction control system are studied. The weight-detection technology based on the scan reconstruction of the surface profile size and the control system of the fixed weight are researched. That can improve the accuracy and efficiency of the band sawing machine and provide the foundation for the realization of the digital control of the band sawing machine. The fault diagnosis for the band sawing machine at home supplies usually the alarm information and the alarm lamp output when the proximity switch or contact switch collects the information over the designated station [5]. The fairly advanced band sawing machine has the HMI display to supply the alarm information. Those are low in the automatic diagnosis. The high-level CNC band sawing machine has the complex structure, and influenced by many factors. If the failure in the processing state can be not timely and accurately diagnosed, the machine will not be able to protect the manufacturing quality and accuracy. It will cause the waste to increase, the productivity to decline, or even result in a significant loss of the machine scrap. That urgently needs to introduce the dynamic monitoring and control with the intelligent diagnostic technology. The abnormal recognition and intelligent maintenance On li V rsi on O nly .
THE DISTRIBUTION OF 51 CR-LABELED LYMPHOCYTES INTO ANTIGEN-STIMULATED MICE LYMPHOCYTE

The cellular events related to the induction of humoral and cell-mediated immunity involve antigen recognition, blast transformation, and multiplication of lymphoid cells in lymph nodes and spleen. The early histological changes in lymph nodes draining the site of a skin graft (1, 2), particulate antigen injection (3, 4), adjuvant stimulation (5), or application of skin-sensitizing chemicals (6-9) have been shown to involve mainly proliferation of thymus-derived lymphocytes in the paracortical regions adjacent to postcapillary venules. Before this mitotic activity, 1-3 days after antigenic challenge, a "trapping" of circulating lymphocytes has been reported to occur (10-14); this phenomenon has also been demonstrated in spleen (15, 16). Since recruitment of lymphocytes may be amongst the earliest of cellular events in the initiation of immune responses, it was of interest to investigate this phenomenon quantitatively. The kinetics of trapping were studied by following the distribution of 5tCr-labeled lymphocytes in groups of syngeneic mice which had been previously challenged with sheep erythrocytes, Salmonella typhi H antigen, keyhole limpet hemocyanin, allogeneic, or xenogeneic skin. Previous work has demonstrated the feasibility of using the system of 5'Cr-labeled lymphocyte migration to quantitate changes in lymphoid populations (17-19).
Disulfide engineering at the dimer interface of lactobacillus casei thymidylate synthase: Crystal structure of the T155C/E188C/C244T mutant

The crystal structure of a covalently cross‐linked Lactobacillus casei thymidylate synthase has been determined at 2.8 å resolution. The sites for mutation to achieve the bis‐disulfide linked dimer were identified using the disulfide modeling program MODIP. The mutant so obtained was found to be remarkably thermostable. This increase in stability has been reasoned to be entirely a consequence of the covalent gluing between the two subunits.
WLC46-6: Cooperative Interference Cancellation in Multi-hop Wireless Networks: A Cross Layer Approach

Multi-hop wireless networks are expected to play a key role in the next generation wireless systems. In such networks, the presence of multiple links may create severe interference during signal reception and this will greatly limit the network capacity. There has been a lot of work on interference cancellation in single-hop wireless networks. However, how to effectively mitigate interference caused by multi-hop transmission has not received much attention. This paper presents a cross-layer approach for interference cancellation in multi-hop networks. Specifically, two cooperative interference cancellation strategies, which we shall refer to as decode-and-cancel protocol and amplify-and-cancel protocol, are proposed. These schemes take advantage of the presence of a common packet being transmitted through the multiple nodes or hops. It is shown that at a given interfered node, the interference can be estimated and cancelled based upon the received signal of this common packet during the preceding hops. We shall derive the capacity regions of the proposed two protocols and show that they can significantly increase the link capacity.
The Ews/Fli-1 Fusion Gene Changes the Status of p53 in Neuroblastoma Tumor Cell Lines

One hallmark of Ewing’s sarcoma/peripheral neuroectodermal tumors is the presence of the Ews/Fli-1 chimeric oncogene. Interestingly, infection of neuroblastoma tumor cell lines with Ews/Fli-1 switches the differentiation program of neuroblastomas to Ewing’s sarcoma/peripheral neuroectodermal tumors. Here we examined the status of cytoplasmically sequestered wt-p53 in neuroblastomas after stable expression of Ews/Fli-1. Immunofluorescence revealed that in the neuroblastoma-Ews/Fli-1 infectant cell lines, p53 went from a punctate-pattern of cytoplasmic sequestration to increased nuclear localization. Western blot analysis revealed that PARC was down-regulated in one neuroblastoma cell line but not expressed in the second. Therefore, decreased PARC expression could not fully account for relieving p53 sequestration in the neuroblastoma tumor cells. Neuroblastoma-Ews/Fli-1 infectant cell lines showed marked increases in p53 protein expression without transcriptional up-regulation. Interestingly, p53 was primarily phosphorylated, without activation of its downstream target p21WAF1. Western blot analysis revealed that whereas MDM2 gene expression does not change, p14ARF, a negative protein regulator of MDM2, increases. These observations suggest that the downstream p53 pathway may be inactivated as a result of abnormal p53. We also found that p53 has an extended half-life in the neuroblastoma-Ews/Fli-1 infectants despite the retention of a wild-type sequence in neuroblastoma-Ews/Fli-1 infectant cell lines. We then tested the p53 response pathway and observed that the neuroblastoma parent cells responded to genotoxic stress, whereas the neuroblastoma-Ews/Fli-1 infectants did not. These results suggest that Ews/Fli-1 can directly abrogate the p53 pathway to promote tumorigenesis. These studies also provide additional insight into the relationship among the p53 pathway proteins.
Preventing Staphylococcus aureus Bacteremia and Sepsis in Patients With Staphylococcus aureus Colonization of Intravascular Catheters: A Retrospective Multicenter Study and Meta-Analysis

Two previous studies in tertiary care hospitals identified Staphylococcus aureus colonization of intravascular (IV) catheters as a strong predictor of subsequent S. aureus bacteremia (SAB), even in the absence of clinical signs of systemic infection. Bacteremia was effectively prevented by timely antibiotic therapy. We conducted this study to corroborate the validity of these findings in non-university hospitals. Using the laboratory information management systems of the clinical microbiology departments in 6 Dutch hospitals, we identified patients who had IV catheters from which S. aureus was cultured between January 1, 2003, and December 31, 2008. Patients with demonstrated SAB between 7 days before catheter removal and 24 hours after catheter removal were excluded. We extracted clinical and demographic patient data from the patients' medical records. The primary risk factor was initiation of anti-staphylococcal antibiotic therapy within 24 hours, and the primary endpoint was SAB >24 hours after IV catheter removal. Subsequently, we performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of all observational studies evaluating the effect of antibiotic therapy for S. aureus IV catheter tip colonization. In the current study, 18 of the 192 included patients developed subsequent SAB, which was associated with not receiving antibiotic therapy within 24 hours (odds ratio [OR], 4.2; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.1-15.6) and with documented exit-site infection (OR, 3.3; 95% CI, 1.2-9.3). When we combined these results with results of a previous study in a university hospital, a third risk factor was also associated with subsequent SAB, namely corticosteroid therapy (OR, 2.9; 95% CI, 1.3-6.3). We identified 3 other studies, in addition to the present study, in a systematic review. In the meta-analysis of these studies, antibiotic therapy yielded an absolute risk reduction of 13.6% for subsequent SAB. The number needed to treat to prevent 1 episode of SAB was 7.4. We conclude that early initiation of antibiotic therapy for IV catheters colonized with S. aureus prevents subsequent SAB. Abbreviations: CI = confidence interval, CVC = central venous catheter, IDSA = Infectious Diseases Society of America, IV = intravascular, MRSA = methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, OR = odds ratio, q4h = every 4 hours, q8h = every 8 hours, q12h = every 12 hours, SAB = Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia.
Alpha-4/beta-1 and alpha-L/beta-2 integrins mediate cytokine induced lung leukocyte-epithelial adhesion and injury.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Injury to the alveolar epithelium is a critical feature of acute lung injury (ALI). Using a cytokine model of ALI we demonstrated previously that newly recruited mononuclear phagocytes (MNP) contributed to lung inflammation and injury. We hypothesized that cytokines delivered into the alveolar airspace would have multiple effects on the lung that may contribute to lung injury. EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH Intratracheal cytokine insufflation and leukocyte adoptive transfer in vivo were combined with in vitro analyses of lung epithelial cell-MNP adhesion and injury. Lung inflammatory injury was assessed by histology, leukocyte infiltration, and release of LDH and RAGE. KEY RESULTS Cytokine insufflation was associated with apparent MNP-epithelial adhesion, up-regulation of alveolar ICAM-1 and VCAM-1, and the release of LDH and RAGE into the bronchoalveolar lavage. Insufflation of small molecule integrin antagonists suppressed adhesion of MNP and modulated release of LDH and RAGE. Adoptive transfer of MNP purified from cytokine insufflated lungs into leukopenic rats demonstrated the requirement of MNP for release of LDH that was not induced by cytokine alone. Corroboration that disrupting the ICAM/LFA1 interaction or the VCAM/VLA4 interaction blocked MNP-epithelial cell interaction and injury was obtained in vitro using both blocking monoclonal antibodies and the small molecule integrin antagonists, BIO5192 and XVA143. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS MNP recruited following cytokine insufflation contributed to lung injury. Further, integrin antagonists reduced alveolar epithelial cell injury induced during lung inflammation. Intratracheal delivery of small molecule antagonsists of leukocyte-epithelial adhesion that prevent lung injury may have significant clinical utility.
2-Amino-6-methylpyridinium 2-carboxybenzoate

In the title molecular salt, C6H9N2 +·C8H5O4 −, an intramolecular O—H⋯O hydrogen bond occurs within the anion, thereby generating an S(7) ring, which may correlate with the fact that both the carboxylic acid and carboxylate groups are almost coplanar with their attached rings [dihedral angles = 2.9 (3) and 5.2 (3)°, respectively]. In the crystal, each cation is linked to its adjacent anion by two N—H⋯O hydrogen bonds; the dihedral angle between the pyridine and benzene rings is 2.22 (10)°. The ion pairs are linked by further N—H⋯O interactions.
Medical Domain Ontology Construction Approach: A Basis for Medical Decision Support

In this paper, we present an approach for building medical domain ontology as a foundation for knowledge-centric decision support. The knowledge acquisition phase is based on heterogeneous data sources including textual corpora, practice guidelines, databases, terminological sources as well as existing ontologies and medical Standards. Beyond a knowledge modelization process, we propose a meta-conceptualization and a formalization phase constituting a Medical Core-Ontology established at a high-level of abstraction and guiding the operationalization and exploitation phase. The operationalization process instantiates a referential medical domain ontology and integrates it into a knowledge-based system allowing knowledge reasoning and inference and thus, preparing the basis for a medical decision support.
Effect of restriction of the binocular visual field on driving performance

The importance of the visual field on driving performance was investigated. This was undertaken by simulating binocular visual field defects for a group of young normal subjects and assessing the impact of these defects on performance on a driving course. Constriction of the binocular visual field to 40° or less, significantly increased time taken to complete the course, reduced the ability to detect and correctly identify road signs, avoid obstacles and lo manoeuvre through limited spaces. Accuracy of road positioning and reversing were also impaired. Constriction of the binocular visual field did not significantly affect speed estimation, stopping distance, or the time taken for the reversing and manoeuvring tasks. The monocular condition did not significantly affect performance for any of the driving tasks assessed.
Free breathing 3D balanced FFE coronary magnetic resonance angiography with prolonged cardiac acquisition windows and intra‐RR motion correction

A shortcoming of today's coronary magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) is its low total scan efficiency (<5%), as only small well‐defined fractions of the respiratory (50%) and cardiac (10%) cycle are used for data acquisition. These precautions are necessary to prevent blurring and artifacts related to respiratory and cardiac motion. Hence, scan times range from 4 to 9 min, which may not be tolerated by patients. To overcome this drawback, an ECG‐triggered, navigator‐gated free breathing radial 3D balanced FFE sequence with intra‐RR motion correction is investigated in this study. Scan efficiency is increased by using a long cardiac acquisition window during the RR interval. This allows the acquisition of a number of independent k‐space segments during each cardiac cycle. The intersegment motion is corrected using a self‐guided epicardial fat tracking procedure in a postprocessing step. Finally, combining the motion‐corrected segments forms a high‐resolution image. Experiments on healthy volunteers are presented to show the basic feasibility of this approach. Magn Reson Med 53:719–723, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
A Two‐Part Joint Model for the Analysis of Survival and Longitudinal Binary Data with Excess Zeros

Summary Many longitudinal studies generate both the time to some event of interest and repeated measures data. This article is motivated by a study on patients with a renal allograft, in which interest lies in the association between longitudinal proteinuria (a dichotomous variable) measurements and the time to renal graft failure. An interesting feature of the sample at hand is that nearly half of the patients were never tested positive for proteinuria (≥1g/day) during follow‐up, which introduces a degenerate part in the random‐effects density for the longitudinal process. In this article we propose a two‐part shared parameter model framework that effectively takes this feature into account, and we investigate sensitivity to the various dependence structures used to describe the association between the longitudinal measurements of proteinuria and the time to renal graft failure.
Mechanisms for Defining Supercoiling Set Point of DNA Gyrase Orthologs

Background: Gyrase orthologs differ in supercoiling proficiency for unknown reasons. Results: Diminished ATPase activity and an inability to couple DNA wrapping with ATP binding differentiate the supercoiling set points of M. tuberculosis and E. coli gyrase. Conclusion: The shape of a dedicated DNA wrapping domain (the CTD) is not solely responsible for defining gyrase activity. Significance: Different bacteria fine-tune gyrase by a variety of mechanisms. DNA topoisomerases are essential enzymes that can overwind, underwind, and disentangle double-helical DNA segments to maintain the topological state of chromosomes. Nearly all bacteria utilize a unique type II topoisomerase, gyrase, which actively adds negative supercoils to chromosomes using an ATP-dependent DNA strand passage mechanism; however, the specific activities of these enzymes can vary markedly from species to species. Escherichia coli gyrase is known to favor supercoiling over decatenation (Zechiedrich, E. L., Khodursky, A. B., and Cozzarelli, N. R. (1997) Genes Dev. 11, 2580–2592), whereas the opposite has been reported for Mycobacterium tuberculosis gyrase (Aubry, A., Fisher, L. M., Jarlier, V., and Cambau, E. (2006) Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 348, 158–165). Here, we set out to understand the molecular basis for these differences using structural and biochemical approaches. Contrary to expectations based on phylogenetic inferences, we find that the dedicated DNA wrapping domains (the C-terminal domains) of both gyrases are highly similar, both architecturally and in their ability to introduce writhe into DNA. However, the M. tuberculosis enzyme lacks a C-terminal control element recently uncovered in E. coli gyrase (see accompanying article (Tretter, E. M., and Berger, J. M. (2012) J. Biol. Chem. 287, 18636–18644)) and turns over ATP at a much slower rate. Together, these findings demonstrate that C-terminal domain shape is not the sole regulatory determinant of gyrase activity and instead indicate that an inability to tightly couple DNA wrapping to ATP turnover is why M. tuberculosis gyrase cannot supercoil DNA to the same extent as its γ-proteobacterial counterpart. Our observations demonstrate that gyrase has been modified in multiple ways throughout evolution to fine-tune its specific catalytic properties.
Template synthesis of metal microtubules

Abstract : We have recently described a template method for the synthesis of organic microtubules. This method entails the use of the pores in a microporous membrane as templates for tubule formation. The key to the tubule-formation process in the presence of molecular anchors on the pore walls, These anchors insure that the tubule-forming materials deposits as a thin skin which lines the pore wall. We describe in this paper an electrochemical template method for the synthesis of metal (Au) microtubles. We also present a general paradigm for the formation of molecular anchors on the pore walls of alumina template membranes. We believe that this paradigm should allow for the synthesis of microtubles composed of any desired material.
Fish Assemblage Changes in an Ozark River after Impoundment: A Long-Term Perspective

Abstract We conducted an intensive fish survey in the tailwater reach of a large Ozark river 30 years after its impoundment and compared the recent fish assemblage with those prior to impoundment and shortly (4 years) after impoundment. Our primary objective was to assess whether relatively short-term monitoring following dam construction can adequately quantify the long-term effects of impoundment on downstream riverine fishes. The preimpoundment survey (1962–1963) described a fish assemblage composed of warmwater fish species, predominantly Cyprinidae, Ictaluridae, Centrarchidae, and Percidae. Yoke darter Etheostoma juliae (34%), central stoneroller Campostoma anomalum (24%), and Ozark madtom Noturus albater (7%) were the most abundant species. The postimpoundment surveys of 1965–1966 and 1968 documented immediate changes in the fish assemblage. No Ozark madtoms and only four yoke darters were collected shortly after impoundment. Central stonerollers accounted for 45–50% of the fish collected, and both .