Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Generalized Shwartzman Reaction: Role of the Granulocyte in Intravascular Coagulation and Renal Cortical Necrosis

The protective effect of nitrogen mustard‐induced neutropenia on the development of the GSR was studied. No coagulation defect was found in neutropenic rabbits and simultaneous administration of Thorotrast and endotoxin did not produce intravascular coagulation or renal cortical necrosis. Infusion of neutropenic rabbits with suspensions of viable granulocytes derived from peritoneal exudates reinduced susceptibility to both intravascular coagulation and renal cortical necrosis. It is concluded that the presence of granulocytes is essential for the production of intravascular coagulation by endotoxin.
On the Use of Subwavelength Radial Grooves to Support Spoof Surface-Plasmon-Polariton Waves

This letter introduces radial grooves as a feasible geometry to support spoof surface-plasmon-polariton (SPP) waves propagating along a vacuum-metallic interface. Through the analytical derivation of a dispersion relation, validated also with full-wave simulations, the ability of radial grooves to operate in the fundamental mode at the microwave regime is demonstrated. Also, results demonstrate the utility of radial geometries to decrease the depth of the grooves, in comparison with the widely used rectangular grooves, thereby providing a superior methodology for generating spoof SPPs.
Propagation models for IEEE 802.15.6 standardization of implant communication in body area networks

A body area network is a radio communication protocol for short-range, low-power, and highly reliable wireless communication for use on the surface, inside, or in the peripheral proximity of the human body. Combined with various biomedical sensors, BANs enable realtime collection and monitoring of physiological signals. Therefore, it is regarded as an important technology for the treatment and prevention of chronic diseases, and health monitoring of the elderly. The IEEE 802 LAN/MAN Standards Committee approved Task Group TG15.6 in December 2007. As a result of more than four years of effort, in February 2012, TG15.6 published the first international standard for BANs, IEEE Std 802.15. 6. Throughout the development of this standard, ample collaboration between the standardization group and the research community was required. In particular, understanding the radio propagation mechanisms for BANs demanded the most research effort. Technical challenges were magnified for the case of implant communication because of the impossibility of conducting in-body measurements with human subjects. Therefore, research in this field had to make use of intricate computer simulations. This article outlines some of the research that has been done to obtain accurate propagation models supporting the standardization of implant communication in BANs. Current research to enhance the channel models of IEEE Std 802.15. 6 through the use of ultra wideband signals for implantable devices along with physical measurements in animals is also presented.
Lipases and lipolysis in the human digestive tract: where do we stand?

Purpose of reviewThe review evaluates current knowledge of the different lipases catalyzing triglyceride lipolysis in the human digestive tract, focusing on their mode of action – information useful for developing strategies to regulate the bioavailability of fatty acid. Recent findingsOptimal levels of digestive lipases promote efficient triglyceride lipolysis in healthy humans. Management of fatty acid bioavailability during pancreatic insufficiencies, however, requires enzyme replacement therapy. Such therapy entails gastro-protected porcine pancreatic powder, associated with antacid treatment when duodenal pH is too acidic; recently, enteric-coated high-buffered pancrelipase or recombinant gastric lipase have been used. Another promising strategy is to focus on lipid substrate to optimize lipid–water interface properties. Research on obesity treatment focuses on inhibitors. Orlistat is the first inhibitor to be used extensively. Others treatments are in development, including human pancreatic lipase C-terminal, polyphenols, specific proteins and peptides; however, their relevance has not yet been tested in humans. SummaryA better knowledge of lipase structure and mode of action will help the development of new natural inhibitors with fewer secondary effects. More intensive research in protein engineering for recombinant lipase production and in clinical nutrition, together with careful evaluation of patients' individual needs is necessary.
Robust Adaptive Fault-Tolerant PID Control of MIMO Nonlinear Systems With Unknown Control Direction

This paper shows that the structurally simple and computationally inexpensive PID control, popular with single-input single-output (SISO) linear time-invariant systems, can be generalized and extended to control nonlinear multi-input multi-output (MIMO) systems with nonparametric uncertainties and actuation failures. By utilizing the Nussbaum-type function and the matrix decomposition technique, nonsquare systems with unknown control direction are also considered. Furthermore, with the proposed analytic algorithms for adaptively tuning PID gains, the resultant PID control can be made robust, adaptive, and fault-tolerant, and applicable to nonlinear systems with nonvanishing uncertainties and unexpected actuation faults. Both theoretical analysis and numerical simulation verify the effectiveness and benefits of the design.
Fish as bioindicators to assess the effects of pollution in two southern Brazilian rivers using the Comet assay and micronucleus test

Industrial effluents, agricultural runoff, and municipal wastewaters contain unknown substances and complex mixtures that are released into the environment and can lead to contamination of surface and subsurface waters. In the present report, we have used the alkaline Comet assay and the micronucleus (MN) test to detect the genotoxicity due to multiple sources of pollution in the peripheral blood of two native estuarine fish (mullet and sea catfish) and evaluated possible interactive genotoxic effects from multiple contaminants and the seasonal variation of the genotoxicity. Mullet and sea catfish were captured in the Tramandaí and Mampituba Rivers in the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. Reference animals were obtained from the Armazém lagoon. Fish captured in the two estuaries during the four seasons over a period of 2 years had increased levels of DNA damage and MN frequencies relative to the reference fish. In general, the alkaline Comet assay was more sensitive to the genotoxicity of the river contaminants than the MN test. The Comet assay demonstrated significant differences in fish captured at different seasons and at the two river sites, while the MN test showed significant differences only for the annual average for mullet from both sites and fish from the control site. The increases in DNA damage appear to be related to the increase in the number of people in the towns close to the study areas during the warm spring and summer seasons. Although no specific cause‐effect relationships were established, comparison of the chemical contaminants and physical variations in the rivers with the genotoxicity data indicate that there may be some association between hydrocarbons, metals, pH, and water temperature and the level of damaged cells observed in mullet and sea catfish from the Tramandaí and Mampituba estuaries. Environ. Mol. Mutagen. 2004. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
5-Hydroxy-1,7-bis(1H-indol-3-yl)hepta-1,4,6-trien-3-one hemihydrate

The title compound, C23H18N2O2·0.5H2O, a derivative of the biologically active compound curcumin, crystallizes with two organic molecules and a solvent water molecule in the asymmetric unit. Each of the two independent molecules is close to being planar (the dihedral angles between the indole ring systems are approximately 9 and 12°) and each exists in the keto–enol form. There is an intramolecular O—H⋯O hydrogen bond between the keto and enol groups. In the crystal, the components interact by way of N—H⋯N, N—H⋯O and O—H⋯O hydrogen bonds.
A frequency selective microstrip line using compensated spiral compact microstrip resonant cells (C-SCMRC)

In this paper, a novel frequency selective microstrip line using compensated spiral compact microstrip resonant cells (C-SCMRC) is presented. A microstrip open stub resonant line is added at the center of SCMRC to select signal wanted. The frequency selective microstrip line consists of two different pass-band cells based C-SCMRC structure. The frequency selective microstrip line is fabricated on PCB process without via holes. The results of this study lead us to the conclusion that the proposal is useful for realizing the high performance compact frequency selective microstrip line.
The Phenomenon of Rapid Cycling in Bipolar Mood Disorders: A Review

Objective: To review the various pharmacological and nonpharmacological factors associated with the induction of rapid cycling in bipolar mood disorder, and to introduce the idea that parturition may also have a role. Factors known to contribute to bipolar mood disorder rapid cycling include antidepressant agents, female gender and middle age. Currently, there is evidence that hypothyroidism may also play a role. Method: A critical review of the literature was undertaken. Conclusion: Caution should be exercised in the use of antidepressants in patients with bipolar mood disorders.
Abnormal Endogenous Repression of GA Signaling in a Seedless Table Grape Cultivar with High Berry Growth Response to GA Application

Gibberellin (GA) application is routinely used in the table grape industry to increase berry size and cluster length. Although grapevine cultivars show a wide range of growth responsiveness to GA3 application, the reasons for these differences is unclear. To shed light on this issue, two commercial grapevine cultivars with contrasting berry response to GA were selected for comparative analysis, in which we tested if the differences in response: (1) is organ-specific or cultivar-related; (2) will be reflected in qualitative/quantitative differences in transcripts/proteins of central components of GA metabolism and signaling and levels of GA metabolites. Our results showed that in addition to the high response of its berries to GA, internodes and rachis of cv. Black finger (BF) presented a greater growth response compared to that of cv. Spring blush (SB). In agreement, the results exposed significant quantitative differences in GA signaling components in several organs of both cultivars. Exceptionally higher level of all three functional VvDELLA proteins was recorded in young BF organs, accompanied by elevated VvGID1 expression and lower VvSLY1b transcripts. Absence of seed traces, low endogenous GA quantities and lower expression of VvGA20ox4 and VvGA3ox3 were also recorded in berries of BF. Our results raise the hypothesis that, in young organs of BF, low expression of VvSLY1b may be responsible for the massive accumulation of VvDELLA proteins, which then leads to elevated VvGID1 levels. This integrated analysis suggests causal relationship between endogenous mechanisms leading to anomalous GA signaling repression in BF, manifested by high quantities of VvDELLA proteins, and greater growth response to GA application.
Automatic Age Estimation from Face Images via Deep Ranking

This paper focuses on automatic age estimation (AAE) from face images, which amounts to determining the exact age or age group of a face image according to features from faces. Although great effort has been devoted to AAE [1, 4, 6], it remains a challenging problem. The difficulties are due to large facial appearance variations resulting from a number of factors, e.g., aging and facial expressions. AAE algorithms need to overcome heterogeneity in facial appearance changes to provide accurate age estimates. To this end, we propose a generic, deep network model for AAE (see Figure 1). Given a face image, our network first extracts features from the face through a 3-layer scattering network (ScatNet) [2], then reduces the feature dimension by principal component analysis (PCA), and finally predicts the age via category-wise rankers constructed as a 3-layer fullyconnected network. The contributions are: (1) Our ranking method is point-wised and thus is easily scaled up to large-scale datasets; (2) our deep ranking model is general and can be applied to age estimation from faces with large facial appearance variations as a result of aging or facial expression changes; and (3) we show that the high-level concepts learned from large-scale neutral faces can be transferred to estimating ages from faces under expression changes, leading to improved performance. Our model is with the following characteristics: (1) The scattering features are invariant to translation and small deformations. ScatNet is a deep convolutional network of specific characteristics. It uses predefined wavelets and computes scattering representations via a cascade of wavelet transforms and modulus pooling operators from shallow to deep layers. With the nonlinear modulus and averaging operators, ScatNet can produce representations that are discriminative as well as invariant to translation and small deformations. As ScatNet provides fundamentally invariant representations for discriminating feature extraction, only the weights of the fully-connected layers are learned in our network model, which considerably reduces the training time. (2) The rank labels encoded in the network exploit the ordering relation among labels. Each category-wise ranker is an ordinal regression ranker. We encode the age rank based on the reduction framework [5]. Given a set of training samples X = {(xi,yi), i = 1 · · ·N}, let xi ∈ RD be the input image and yi be a rank label (yi ∈ {1, . . . ,K}), respectively, where K is the number of age ranks. For rank k, we separate X into two subsets, X k and X − k , as follows: X k = {(xi,+1)|yi > k} X− k = {(xi,−1)|yi ≤ k}. (1)
Hyperglycemia at admission to the intensive care unit is associated with elevated serum concentrations of interleukin-6 and reduced ex vivo secretion of tumor necrosis factor-&agr;*

Objectives:The aim of the study was to investigate the association between admission blood glucose concentrations and immune function variables and its correlation to mortality rate in patients of a medical intensive care unit. Design:Prospective, observational study. Setting:Medical intensive care unit of a university hospital. Patients:Patients were 189 consecutive critically ill patients in the medical intensive care unit. Interventions:At admission to the intensive care unit, serum concentrations of interleukin-6, interleukin-8, interleukin-10, and tumor necrosis factor-&agr; were measured with immunometric assays. Additionally, ex vivo secretion of tumor necrosis factor-&agr; after stimulation with lipopolysaccharide in a whole blood assay and cytometric human leukocyte antigen-DR expression on monocytes were determined in all study subjects. Simplified Acute Physiology Score II and Therapeutic Intervention Scoring System-28 were calculated for the first day in the intensive care unit. Measurements and Main Results:The relationships between blood glucose concentrations and immunologic variables were analyzed using univariate and multivariate statistical methods. Overall, 75 patients (39.7%) presented with hyperglycemia. An elevated blood glucose concentration at admission was related to an increased risk of mortality in the intensive care unit (odds ratio, 2.6; p = .009). At univariate and multivariate analysis, hyperglycemia was associated with increased serum concentrations of interleukin-6 (p < .05), a reduced ex vivo production of tumor necrosis factor-&agr; (p < .01), and a history of diabetes mellitus (p < .05), whereas other clinical (including Simplified Acute Physiology Score II and Therapeutic Intervention Scoring System-28) and immunologic variables were not statistically related to blood glucose. Conclusions:Our main findings show that admission hyperglycemia is statistically related to distinct changes of humoral and cellular immune functions. Furthermore, elevated glucose concentrations at admission are associated with increased intensive care unit mortality rate in a medical intensive care unit. Although these data do not explain cause and effect, our results provide a strong rationale for studying the immunologic effects of strict glycemic control in the intensive care unit during the course of critical illness.
Surgical Management of Temporomandibular Joint Ankylosis in the Pediatric Population

The treatment of temporomandibular joint ankylosis requires excision of the involved structures and immediate reconstruction. This paper presents a consecutive series of nine pediatric patients (mean age 7.7 years) who underwent a standardized treatment protocol to 13 affected joints. Four patients had unilateral temporomandibular joint ankylosis, five bilateral. One child required bilateral release but only unilateral reconstruction. Radiographic evidence demonstrated bony ankylosis in a total of 13 joints. Two patients had undergone surgical intervention of the temporomandibular joint before presentation to the authors. Two patients had preoperative temporomandibular joint pain. The cause of ankylosis was primarily traumatic or congenital. Our operative protocol included excision of the involved ankylotic structures through a coronal and Risdon incision, followed by immediate costochondral grafting. Fixation with miniplates and screws allowed for early mobilization. For unilateral patients, maximal incisal opening was improved from 5.4 mm before surgery to 24.8 mm after it, and for bilateral patients, from 6.0 to 17.5 mm. Mean follow-up was 2 years; only one patient was followed for less than 1 year. Pain symptoms were relieved after surgery. Perioperative complications were minimal, with no evidence of infection, facial nerve injuries, or bleeding. Patients with unilateral or bilateral ankylosis of traumatic cause achieved satisfactory functional results after surgery, while those in our bilateral congenital patients were far more limited. Rationales for this divergence in results are presented.
Investigating the internet's impact on interfirm relations: Evidence from the business travel management distribution chain

Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to show that research on the internet's impact on B2B inter‐firm relations is limited, while findings are anecdotal and sometimes contradictory. This study investigates inter‐firm relations amongst Business Travel Management (BTM) firms and their clients by examining the impact of online BTM solutions on the creation and reinforcement of relational bonds.Design/methodology/approach – The paper shows that two major approaches were combined for examining inter‐firm relations: economic (transaction costs economics) and socio‐psychological (social exchange; inter‐organisation; and industrial network) theories. A model illustrating the interrelations amongst the use of online BTM solutions, two structural (communication, dependence) and two social bonds (trust, satisfaction) was proposed for investigating the impact of online BTM solutions on BTM‐clients relations. Data were gathered from a convenience sample of BTM managers in the UK, Greece, and Cyprus and 194 usable res.
Absorptive capacity, knowledge sharing, and innovative behaviour of R&D employees

ABSTRACT This study explores the interrelationship between absorptive capacity and knowledge sharing, which are innovation-specific antecedents of innovative behaviour. By differentiating the two sub-dimensions of absorptive capacity, potential and realised absorptive capacity, previous contradictory findings on the relationship between absorptive capacity and knowledge sharing are reconciled. To verify the research hypotheses, the survey responses from 138 R&D employees of a multinational electronics company are analysed through structural equation modelling. The results show that both sub-dimensions of absorptive capacity directly influence innovative behaviour. However, knowledge sharing’s effect on innovative behaviour is indirect through realised absorptive capacity. The research findings imply employees’ absorptive capacity and knowledge sharing among them should be nurtured simultaneously to facilitate innovative behaviour. In addition to providing employees with many opportunities to be exposed to external knowledge, internal communications among employees and exploratory trials exploiting external knowledge along with internal knowledge should be encouraged.
DOA Acoustic Source Localization in Mobile Robot Sensor Networks

This paper explores the Audio Source Localization problem (ASL) using only the Direction of Arrivals (DOA) estimated by a Mobile Robot Sensor Network of a fixed single acoustic source. It also proposes a fast algorithm for localizing the 2D source position using the recent Gaussian Probability over DOA approach (GP-DOA). More specifically, the paper focuses on the analysis and explanation of the proposed algorithm that runs in Θ(log22 n) time instead of the state-of-art algorithm that 2 runs in Θ(n2). Several simulation tests varying the errors over the DOA estimation and over the position of the robots are done. Test results show that the proposed approach can reach the same precision of the GP-DOA approach in less time and outperforms the Weighted Least Square method (WLS-DOA) if the maximum error over the positions of the robots is under 0.4 m in a 100 m2 room. A real experiment using Microsoft Kinect as DOA-sensors and a Pioneer 3-AT robot within the ROS framework shows that the algorithm can be a powerful approach in robotics for ASL.
Digital Forensic Artifact Collection Technique using Application Decompilation

Nowadays, many applications tend to collect user profile, such as location, usage trace and so on, even if it is not malicious. This information can be important clues in the criminal investigation. So, the technique is needed which extract artifacts from applications using decompilation. We describe a method for selecting and analyzing forensic artifacts from the Android application with a share of over 80% of mobile devices. Based on the static analysis method, we propose a method for automatically collecting forensic artifact. The effectiveness of the proposed idea is proved by simulation.
Turning GPUs into Floating Devices over the Cluster: The Beauty of GPU Migration

Virtualization techniques have shown to report benefits to data centers and other computing facilities. In this regard, not only virtual machines allow reducing the size of the computing infrastructure while increasing overall resource utilization but also virtualizing individual components of computers may provide significant benefits. This is the case, for example, for the remote GPU virtualization technique, implemented in several frameworks during the recent years. The large degree of flexibility provided by the remote GPU virtualization technique can, however, be further increased by applying the migration mechanism to it, so that the GPU part of applications can be live migrated to another GPU elsewhere in the cluster during execution time in a transparent way. In this paper we present a discussion about how the migration mechanism has been applied to different GPU virtualization frameworks. We also provide a big picture about the possibilities that migrating the GPU part of applications can provide to data centers and other computing facilities. We finally present the first results of an ongoing work consisting on applying the migration mechanism to the rCUDA remote GPU virtualization framework.