Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Haemolysis: an overview of the leading cause of unsuitable specimens in clinical laboratories

Abstract Prevention of medical errors is a major goal of healthcare, though healthcare workers themselves have not yet fully accepted or implemented reliable models of system error, and neither has the public. While there is widespread perception that most medical errors arise from an inappropriate or delayed clinical management, the issue of laboratory errors is receiving a great deal of attention due to their impact on the quality and efficiency of laboratory performances and patient safety. Haemolytic specimens are a frequent occurrence in clinical laboratories, and prevalence can be as high as 3.3% of all of the routine samples, accounting for up to 40%–70% of all unsuitable specimens identified, nearly five times higher than other causes, such as insufficient, incorrect and clotted samples. This article focuses on this challenging issue, providing an overview on prevalence and leading causes of in vivo and in vitro haemolysis, and tentative guidelines on identification and management of haemolytic samples in clinical laboratories. This strategy includes continuous education of healthcare personnel, systematic detection/quantification of haemolysis in any sample, immediate clinicians warning on the probability of in vivo haemolysis, registration of non-conformity, completing of tests unaffected by haemolysis and request of a second specimen for those potentially affected. Clin Chem Lab Med 2008;46:764–72.
Distributed computing in fault-prone dynamic networks

Dynamics in networks is caused by a variety of reasons, like nodes moving in 2D (or 3D) in multihop cellphone networks, joins and leaves in peer-to-peer networks, evolution in social networks, and many others. In order to understand such kinds of dynamics, and to design distributed algorithms that behave well under dynamics, many ways to model dynamics are introduced and analyzed w.r. t. correctness and efficiency of distributed algorithms. In [16], Kuhn, Lynch, and Oshman have introduced a very general, worst case type model of dynamics: The edge set of the network may change arbitrarily from step to step, the only restriction is that it is connected at all times and the set of nodes does not change. An extended model demands that a fixed connected subnetwork is maintained over each time interval of length T (T-interval dynamics). They have presented, among others, algorithms for counting the number of nodes under such general models of dynamics. In this paper, we generalize their models and algorithms by adding random edge faults, i.e., we consider fault-prone dynamic networks: We assume that an edge currently existing may fail to transmit data with some probability p. We first observe that strong counting, i.e., each node knows the correct count and stops, is not possible in a model with random edge faults. Our main two positive results are feasibility and runtime bounds for weak counting, i.e., stopping is no longer required (but still a correct count in each node), and for strong counting with an upper bound, i.e., an upper bound N on n is known to all nodes.
Behavioral decision theory : a new approach

1. Outline of heuristics and biases 2. Practical techniques 3. Apparent overconfidence 4. Hindsight bias 5. Small sample fallacy 6. Conjunction fallacy 7. Regression fallacy 8. Base rate fallacy 9. Availability and simulation fallacies 10. Anchoring and adjustment bias 11. Expected utility fallacy 12. Bias by frames 13. Simple biases accompanying complex biases 14. Problem questions 15. Training 16. Uncertainties.
Chasing Cysteine Oxidative Modifications: Proteomic Tools for Characterizing Cysteine Redox Status

Redox proteomics involves the large-scale analysis of oxidative protein posttranslational modifications. In particular, cysteine residues have become the subject of intensifying research because of their redox-reactive thiol side chain. Certain reactive cysteine residues can function as redox switches, which sense changes in the local redox environment by flipping between the reduced and oxidized state. Depending on the reactive oxygen or nitrogen species, cysteine residues can receive one of several oxidative modifications, each with the potential to confer a functional effect. Modification of these redox switches has been found to play an important role in oxidative signaling in the cardiovascular system and elsewhere. Because of the labile and dynamic nature of these modifications, several targeted approaches have been developed to enrich, identify, and characterize the status of these critical residues. Here, we review the various proteomic strategies and limitations for the large-scale analysis of the different oxidative cysteine modifications. Reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (RO/NS) have been found to play a dual role in the cardiovascular system, acting both as second messengers in physiological redox signaling and as agents of oxidative damage, leading to pathological conditions.1,2 This dual role is determined largely by the balance of oxidant production and the capacity of the cell’s antioxidant defense. RO/NS in cardiomyocytes can be produced by several sources, including, in the mitochondria, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate oxidases and NO synthases.3–5 The levels of these species are held in check by antioxidant scavengers such as catalase, glutathione (GSH) peroxidase, superoxide dismutase, peroxiredoxin, and free GSH, which patrol the cell neutralizing them.6 Changes in redox balance occur when the levels of RO/NS production exceed the local antioxidant capacity. Small changes in the concentration of some species (eg, superoxide, hydrogen peroxide, or NO) are more likely to participate in redox-signaling …
Managing and mapping data lineage for business intelligence and analytics applications in health care

The data delivery architectures in most enterprises are complex and under documented. When a Healthcare manager looks at a report, they want to know exactly what each element or technical expression on a report means, where the values shown originate from and how often they are getting updated. We propose a tool framework that includes: a meta-data repository for each step in the data delivery architecture; a web based interface to access and manage that repository; and mapping tools that capture data lineage to support step by step automation of data delivery. We illustrate and evaluate our approach with a prototype implementation and a case study using a health care analytics dashboard for managing hospital acquired infections.
The localization of nerve growth factor‐like immunoreactivity in the adult rat basal forebrain and hippocampal formation

The role of nerve growth factor (NGF) as a target derived neurotrophic agent for specific cell populations in the peripheral nervous system has been well documented and much evidence suggests that NGF may serve a similar neurotrophic role in the CNS supporting the cholinergic neurons of the basal forebrain. Previous attempts to localize NGF by immunocytochemical methods, however, have not yielded evidence confirming the regional distribution expected based upon reported levels of extractable NGF. In the present study, affinity purified polyclonal antibodies to β‐NGF and a modified immunohistochemical protocol were used to demonstrate specific NGF‐like immunoreactivity in the adult rat hippocampal formation and basal forebrain. In the hippocampal formation, NGF‐like immunoreactivity was localized primarily within the hilus of the dentate gyrus and within stratum lucidum of the CA3 and CA2 hippocampal subfields. Staining appeared to be associated with cell processes and was similar to the reported distribution of mossy fibers suggesting that granule cells may either serve as a primary source of hippocampal NGF or that mossy fibers selectively accumulate NGF produced by other cell populations. In the basal forebrain, NGF‐like immunoreactivity was localized within neuronal cell bodies of the medial septum, diagonal band, and nucleus basalis of Meynert and was further demonstrated to colocalize exclusively with LNGF‐R positive neurons. These findings demonstrate the presence of an NGF‐like antigen in association with cholinergic neurons of the basal forebrain and strongly support the hypothesis that NGF may serve as an endogenous trophic factor for this adult neuronal population. © 1992 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Digital Multiplierless Realization of Two Coupled Biological Morris-Lecar Neuron Model

Modeling and implementation of biological neural networks are significant objectives of the neuromorphic research field. In this field, neuronal synchronization plays a significant role in the processing of biological information. This paper presents a set of piecewise linear (MLPWL1) and multiplierless piecewise linear (MLPWL2) neuron models, which mimic behaviors of different types of neurons, similar to the biological behavior of conductance-based neurons. Both simulations and a low-cost digital implementation are carried out to compare the proposed models to a single ML neuron and two coupled ML neurons, demonstrating the required range of dynamics with a more efficient implementation. Hardware implementations on a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) show that the modified models mimic the biological behavior of different types of neurons with higher performance and significantly lower implementation costs compared to the previous realizations of the ML model. The mean normalized root mean square errors (NRMSEs) of the MLPWL1 and MLPWL2 models are 3.70% and 4.89%, respectively, as compared to the original ML model.
Levodopa‐induced dyskinesias in tyrosine hydroxylase deficiency

The objective of this study was to characterize levodopa (l‐dopa)–induced dyskinesias in patients with tyrosine hydroxylase deficiency. Clinical observation was carried out on 6 patients who were diagnosed with tyrosine hydroxylase deficiency and were treated with escalating doses of l‐dopa. All 6 patients showed l‐dopa‐induced dyskinesias of variable intensity early in the course of treatment and regardless of the age of initiation. l‐Dopa–induced dyskinesias were precipitated by increases in the dose of l‐dopa and also by febrile illnesses and stress. They caused dysfunction and distress in 2 patients. The dyskinesias were improved by decreasing the l‐dopa dose or by slowing its titration upward. Increasing the dose frequency was helpful in 2 patients, and introducing amantadine was helpful in another 2 patients. l‐Dopa–induced dyskinesias are a common phenomenon in tyrosine hydroxylase deficiency. The current observations show that l‐dopa–induced dyskinesias are frequent in a dopamine‐deficient state in the absence of nigrostriatal degeneration. Although l‐dopa–induced dyskinesias in tyrosine hydroxylase deficiency are phenomenologically similar to those that occur in Parkinson's disease, they are different in a number of other respects, suggesting intrinsic differences in the pathophysiologic basis of l‐dopa–induced dyskinesias in the 2 conditions. © 2013 Movement Disorder Society
New Outer Bounds on the Capacity of the Two-User Gaussian Interference Channel

The best outer bound on the capacity region of the two-user Gaussian interference channel (GIC) is known to be the intersection of regions of various bounds including genie-aided outer bounds, in which a genie provides noisy input signals to the intended receiver. In this paper, we propose a new upper-bounding technique that utilizes noisy observation of interfering signals as auxiliary random variables. In order to derive new capacity bounds, we also introduce a conditional version of the worst additive noise lemma. The resulting outer bounds are shown to be tighter than the existing bounds for a certain range of channel parameters in the weak interference regime. We show that the rate gap between the time division lower bound (or inner bound) and the upper bounds (or outer bounds) is fairly small for practical medium-to-high values of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in the weak interference regime of the symmetric real GIC. This result leaves a somewhat marginal performance benefit to interference management schemes, compared to the simple time division scheme in the symmetric real case. On a positive side, we further investigate the impact of phase offset of direct-channel and cross-channel coefficients on the capacity of the asymmetric complex GIC. It turns out that sophisticated interference management schemes still have a meaningful opportunity to noticeably improve the sum-rate performance in this general case.
Performance Problems of Patients With Chronic Low-Back Pain and the Measurement of Patient-Centered Outcome

Study Design. In a prospective interventional study, problems with performance were evaluated in 101 consecutive patients with chronic low-back pain for more than 12 months, before and after participation in an outpatient-based multidisciplinary pain management program in Mansfield, United Kingdom. Objectives. To describe problems identified as most important by patients with chronic low-back pain and to evaluate the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (COPM) as a tool for measuring problem-specific outcomes. Summary of Background Data. Patients with chronic low-back pain report difficulties with a variety of activities. The COPM permits the identification and measurement of problems of particular concern to the patient. Materials and Methods. COPM, likert-modified Roland and Morris Disability Questionnaire, Pain Self-Efficacy Questionnaire, and 5-minute walk test were administered at baseline, immediately after, and 9 months after intervention. Differences and statistical interactions were determined by nonparametric tests. Results. Participants identified 60 different types of problem activity, 45 of which were identified by nine or fewer participants. Decreased walking tolerance was the most frequently identified problem (56% of participants). Improvements were observed in all outcomes following intervention. Approximately one third of participants reported improvements two or more COPM units in overall performance and satisfaction with their performance at 9 months. Higher reported performance and satisfaction were associated with greater self-efficacy. Increased reported walking performance was associated with increased observed 5-minute walk distance (R = 0.35, P = 0.02). Conclusions. Patients with chronic low-back pain report problems with diverse activities. The COPM provides a patient-centered outcome measure that displays good external validity and responsiveness to change when addressing the individual’s goals.
CRITICAL SURFACE FOR EXPLOSIONS OF ROTATIONAL CORE-COLLAPSE SUPERNOVAE

The effect of rotation on the explosion of core-collapse supernovae is investigated systematically in three-dimensional simulations. In order to obtain the critical conditions for explosion as a function of mass accretion rate, neutrino luminosity, and specific angular momentum, rigidly rotating matter was injected from the outer boundary with an angular momentum, which is increased every 500 ms. It is found that there is a critical value of the specific angular momentum, above which the standing shock wave revives, for a given combination of mass accretion rate and neutrino luminosity, i.e., an explosion can occur by rotation even if the neutrino luminosity is lower than the critical value for a given mass accretion rate in non-rotational models. The coupling of rotation and hydrodynamical instabilities plays an important role in characterizing the dynamics of shock revival for the range of specific angular momentum that are supposed to be realistic. Contrary to expectations from past studies, the most rapidly expanding direction of the shock wave is not aligned with the rotation axis. Being perpendicular to the rotation axis on average, it can be oriented in various directions. Its dispersion is small when the spiral mode of the standing accretion shock instability (SASI) governs the dynamics, while it is large when neutrino-driven convection is dominant. As a result of the comparison between two-dimensional and three-dimensional rotational models, it is found that m ≠ 0 modes of neutrino-driven convection or SASI are important for shock revival around the critical surface.
Single-stage endovascular treatment of subarachnoid hemorrhage related to bilateral vertebral artery dissecting aneurysms

Objective Treatment of bilateral vertebral artery dissecting aneurysms presenting with subarachnoid hemorrhage remains challenging as bilateral deconstructive procedures may not be feasible. In this case series, we describe our approach to their management and review the pertinent literature. Method A retrospective review of our prospectively collected database on aneurysms was performed to identify all patients with acute subarachnoid hemorrhage in the setting of bilateral intradural vertebral artery dissections (VAD) encompassing a period from January 2000 and March 2012. Result Four patients (M/F = 2/2; mean age, 51.5 years) were identified. In two cases the site of rupture could be identified by angiographic and cross-sectional features; in these patients deconstructive treatment (proximal obliteration or trapping) of the ruptured site and reconstructive treatment of the unruptured site (using stents and coils) were performed. In the patients in whom the site of hemorrhage could not be determined, bilateral reconstructive treatment was performed. No treatment-related complications were encountered. Modified Rankin scale scores were 0–1 at discharge, and on follow-up (mean 63 months), no recurrence, in-stent thrombosis or new neurological deficits were encountered. Conclusion We believe that single-stage treatment in patients with bilateral VAD is indicated: If the site of hemorrhage can be determined, we prefer deconstructive treatment on the affected site and reconstructive treatment on the non-affected site to prevent increased hemodynamic stress on the unruptured but diseased wall. If the site of dissection cannot be determined, we prefer bilateral reconstructive treatment to avoid increasing hemodynamic stress on the potentially untreated acute hemorrhagic dissection.
Three Types of Striational Antibodies in Myasthenia Gravis

Myasthenia gravis (MG) is caused by antibodies that react mainly with the acetylcholine receptor on the postsynaptic site of the neuromuscular junction. A wide range of clinical presentations and associated features allow MG to be classified into subtypes based on autoantibody status. Striational antibodies, which react with epitopes on the muscle proteins titin, ryanodine receptor (RyR), and Kv1.4, are frequently found in MG patients with late-onset and thymoma. Antititin and anti-RyR antibodies are determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay or immunoblot. More recently, a method for the detection of anti-Kv1.4 autoantibodies has become available, involving 12–15% of all MG patients. The presence of striational antibodies is associated with more severe disease in all MG subgroups. Anti-Kv1.4 antibody is a useful marker for the potential development of lethal autoimmune myocarditis and response to calcineurin inhibitors. Detection of striational antibodies provides more specific and useful clinical information in MG patients.
Chasing Ghosts: Competing with Stateful Policies

We consider sequential decision making in a setting where regret is measured with respect to a set of stateful reference policies, and feedback is limited to observing the rewards of the actions performed (the so called “bandit” setting). If either the reference policies are stateless rather than stateful, or the feedback includes the rewards of all actions (the so called “expert” setting), previous work shows that the √ optimal regret grows like Θ(√T) in terms of the number of decision rounds T. The difficulty in our setting is that the decision maker unavoidably loses track of the internal states of the reference policies, and thus cannot reliably attribute rewards observed in a certain round to any of the reference policies. In fact, in this setting it is impossible for the algorithm to estimate which policy gives the highest (or even approximately highest) total reward. Nevertheless, we design an algorithm that achieves expected regret that is sublinear in T, of the form O(T/ log1/4 T). Our algorithm is based on a certain local repetition lemma that may be of independent interest. We also show that no algorithm can guarantee expected regret better than O(T/ log3/2 T).
The Potential Use of Natural and Structural Analogues of Antimicrobial Peptides in the Fight against Neglected Tropical Diseases

Recently, research into the development of new antimicrobial agents has been driven by the increase in resistance to traditional antibiotics and Emerging Infectious Diseases. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are promising candidates as alternatives to current antibiotics in the treatment and prevention of microbial infections. AMPs are produced by all known living species, displaying direct antimicrobial killing activity and playing an important role in innate immunity. To date, more than 2000 AMPs have been discovered and many of these exhibit broad-spectrum antibacterial, antiviral and anti-parasitic activity. Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) are caused by a variety of pathogens and are particularly wide-spread in low-income and developing regions of the world. Alternative, cost effective treatments are desperately needed to effectively battle these medically diverse diseases. AMPs have been shown to be effective against a variety of NTDs, including African trypanosomes, leishmaniosis and Chagas disease, trachoma and leprosy. In this review, the potential of selected AMPs to successfully treat a variety of NTD infections will be critically evaluated.
Human Translocation Liposarcoma-CCAAT/Enhancer Binding Protein (C/EBP) Homologous Protein (TLS-CHOP) Oncoprotein Prevents Adipocyte Differentiation by Directly Interfering with C/EBPβ Function*

Human translocation liposarcoma (TLS)-CCAAT/enhancer binding protein (C/EBP) homologous protein (CHOP) is a fusion oncoprotein found specifically in a malignant tumor of adipose tissue and results from a t(12;16) translocation that fuses the amino-terminal part of TLS to the entire coding region of CHOP. Being that CHOP is a member of the C/EBP transcription factor family, proteins that comprise part of the adipocyte differentiation machinery, we examined whether TLS-CHOP blocked adipocyte differentiation by directly interfering with C/EBP function. Using a single-step retroviral infection protocol, either wild-type or mutant TLS-CHOP were co-expressed along with C/EBPβ in naı̈ve NIH3T3 cells, and their ability to inhibit C/EBPβ-driven adipogenesis was determined. TLS-CHOP was extremely effective at blocking adipocyte differentiation when expressed at a level comparable to that observed in human myxoid liposarcoma. This effect of TLS-CHOP required a functional leucine zipper domain and correlated with its ability to heterodimerize with C/EBPβ and inhibit C/EBPβ DNA binding and transactivation activityin situ. In contrast, the TLS-CHOP basic region was dispensable, making it unlikely that the inhibitory effect of TLS-CHOP is attributable to unscheduled gene expression resulting from TLS-CHOP’s putative transactivation activity. Another adipogenic transcription factor, PPARγ2, was able to rescue TLS-CHOP-inhibited cells, indicating that TLS-CHOP interferes primarily with C/EBPβ-driven adipogenesis and not with other requisite events of the adipocyte differentiation program. Together, the results demonstrate that TLS-CHOP blocks adipocyte differentiation by directly preventing C/EBPβ from binding to and transactivating its target genes. Moreover, they provide strong support for the thesis that a blockade to normal differentiation is an important aspect of the cancer process.