Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Electrical storm: still a cryptogenic phenomenon?

The implantable cardioverter/defibrillator (ICD) has become the dominant therapeutic modality for the treatment of life-threatening ventricular tachyarrhythmias. However, the ICD does not prevent the occurrence of ventricular tachycardia (VT) or ventricular fibrillation (VF). Repeated tachyarrhythmias occurring in a short period of time may therefore result in the delivery of multiple shocks. This phenomenon has been termed ‘electrical storm’ (ES). ES constitutes a medical emergency, which usually results in hospitalization. Occasionally, individual patients may experience more than 50 consecutive shocks. Most patients become anxious and agitated, and psychosocial consequences often outlast the acute event.1 ES may also cause premature ICD battery depletion necessitating generator replacement. Fortunately, patients experiencing extremely frequent ICD discharges are rare. In order to make it possible to study the mechanisms, predictors, and the prognostic significance of ES, its definition has been broadened. Some studies defined ES as two or more arrhythmia episodes resulting in ICD activation (either antitachycardia pacing or shock delivery) within 24 h,2 whereas others used three or more arrhythmia episodes.3–5 Most investigators have considered multiple consecutive shocks occurring within several minutes as one arrhythmia episode. However, all of these definitions are arbitrary. It cannot be determined whether patients who have a few arrhythmia episodes within 24 h significantly differ from those who have multiple episodes during the same time window in terms of the underlying mechanism. Most published studies are single-centre retrospective evaluations that have assessed the frequency of ES in consecutive ICD patients.2–4 The results of these studies suggest an incidence of ES ranging from 10 to 28% during variable follow-up durations. The results of these studies suggest that low left ventricular … Corresponding author. Tel: +49 3303 508166; fax: +49 30 450 553 961. E-mail address : wilhelm.haverkamp{at}charite.de
Immediate results of right internal thoracic artery and radial artery as the second arterial graft in myocardial revascularization.

OBJECTIVE We sought to compare early clinical outcomes in patients receiving a right internal thoracic artery or a radial artery as the second arterial graft in myocardial revascularization. METHODS We retrospectively studied 58 consecutive patients who underwent coronary artery bypass surgery and received both a left internal thoracic artery graft and either a right internal thoracic artery (n=20) or a radial artery graft (n=38), between January 2004 and March 2006. Hospital mortality, pleural drainage, operative time and postoperative complications were analyzed. RESULTS There were no significant preoperative differences between groups. There was only one (1.7%) in-hospital death which occurred in the Radial Group. Operative times was significantly higher in the Right Internal Thoracic Group (p-value = 0.0018), but were not associated with increased Intensive Care Unit stays, mechanical ventilation or other postoperative complications. We were able to perform significantly more distal anastomosis using the radial artery than the right internal thoracic artery (1.57 versus 1.05: p-value =0.003). CONCLUSION In our group of patients, the use of a right internal thoracic artery as a second arterial graft was associated with a prolonged operative time, but had no interference with the immediate clinical outcomes.
Rapid diagnosis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteremia by PCR

A method based on DNA amplification and hybridization has been used for the rapid detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in blood samples from 38 hospitalized patients (15 human immunodeficiency virus [HIV] positive and 23 HIV negative) in whom localized or disseminated forms of tuberculosis were suspected. In 32 of these patients, the diagnosis of tuberculosis was eventually confirmed by conventional bacteriological or histological procedures. M. tuberculosis DNA was detected with the PCR technique in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells from 9 of 11 (82%) HIV-infected patients and in 7 of 21 (33%) HIV-negative patients (P < 0.01), while M. tuberculosis blood cultures were positive in 1 of 8 (12.5%) and 1 of 18 (5.5%) patients, respectively. PCR was positive in all cases with disseminated disease in both HIV-negative and HIV-positive patients and also in the HIV-positive patients with extrapulmonary tuberculosis. Seven samples from patients with documented illness other than tuberculosis and 12 specimens from healthy volunteers, including seven volunteers with a recent positive purified protein derivative test, were used as controls and had a negative PCR. These results suggest that detection of M. tuberculosis DNA in peripheral blood mononuclear cells may be a useful tool for rapid diagnosis of disseminated and extrapulmonary forms of tuberculosis, especially in an HIV-positive population.
An Agile Information-Architecture-Driven Approach for the Development of User-Centered Interactive Software

For the most part, Information Architecture processes include sets of activities and techniques to be carried out by the development team to create interactive applications effectively, involving usability concerns at every development step. In fact, plenty of process models have already been proposed to bridge the gap between User-Centered Development and Information Architecture, empowering the development team to build usable applications successfully. However, the combination of User-Centered Development and Information Architecture paradigms sometimes results in cumbersome process models containing lots of phases and activities to be considered, which increases the cycle time to have partial and validated software increments readily. As less effort has been devoted to speed up the usable Information Architecture development, the aim of this paper is to address such problem. To do so, we present Scrum-UIA, an agile and usable development process driven by the Information Architecture. This process is intended to develop web applications by splitting up responsibilities and tasks, and decreasing the time to perform technical activities, in order to readily obtain usable software increments.
Institutional Quality and Trade in Pacific Island Countries

This research examines the impact of institutional quality on trade in selected Pacific Island Countries (PICs). Four indicators of institutional quality are chosen: government effectiveness, rule of law, regulatory quality and control of corruption; for six PICs: Fiji, Kiribati, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu.
Mapping of the Binding Frame for the Chaperone SecB within a Natural Ligand, Galactose-binding Protein (*)

The chaperone SecB selectively binds polypeptides that are in a non-native state; however, the details of the interaction between SecB and its ligands are unknown. As a step in elucidation of the molecular mechanism of binding, we have mapped the region of a physiologic ligand (galactose-binding protein) that is in contact with SecB. The binding frame comprises 160 aminoacyl residues and is located in the central portion of the primary sequence. Comparison to the binding frame within maltose-binding protein, which is similarly long and positioned around the center of that polypeptide, reveals no similarity in sequence or in folding motif. The results are consistent with the proposal that the selectivity in binding exhibited by SecB is based on the simultaneous occupancy of multiple binding sites, each of which demonstrates low specificity, by flexible stretches of polypeptide that are only accessible in non-native proteins.
Salmonella Choleraesuis outer membrane vesicles: Proteomics and immunogenicity

Salmonella enterica serotype Choleraesuis (S. Choleraesuis), Gram‐negative facultative intracellular pathogen is capable of inducing the cholera in pigs whose symptoms manifest as fever, depression, septicemia, arthritis, and diarrhea. Infections with S. Choleraesuis has resulted in great economic loss for the swine breeding operations. Bacterial outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) play an important role in pathogenicity and host‐pathogen interaction. In this study, we purified OMVs released by S. Choleraesuis strain χ3545 and characterized their lipopolysaccharide (LPS) profile. The OMVs contained intact LPS molecules. By using LC‐MS/MS, we identified 192 proteins in the OMVs. In addition, the subcellular location and biological functions of the vesicles was predicted. The proteins were mainly derived from outer membranes and cytoplasm. Several proteins were immunoreactive and associated with the secretion pathway. Some putative multi‐drug resistance‐associated proteins were also identified. Furthermore, immunization experiment via intranasal or intraperitoneal route in mice demonstrated that S. Choleraesuis OMVs could elicit strong humoral and mucosal immune responses. Although OMVs as vaccine did not provide strong protection against clinical strain of wild‐type S. Choleraesuis, immunization of OMVs still prolonged the survival time of vaccinated mice after high dose of S. Choleraesuis infection. Overall, this study provides valuable fundamental information toward elucidating the pathogenicity and functions of OMVs secreted from S. Choleraesuis.
Design issues in implementing a cooperative search among heterogeneous agents to aid information management

Searching for information is an ubiquitous need in today's data-oriented environments. However, a request for search often entails the service and cooperation of tools managing a diversified set of tasks. In this article, we explore how tools in the form of cooperating agents can be deployed for information management. We describe an agent framework called GAME (goal-oriented, agent-managed environment), and focus on how GAME agents search cooperatively for information requested by a user. Cooperative search entails several issues such as coordinating agent activities, maintaining transparency to agent heterogeneity, and designing information formats to be shared among the agents that require examination. This article analyzes these issues and describes how they are handled in the GAME framework. Cooperative search effectively supports collaboration and information sharing not only among agents in a domain, but also among GAME agents developed across domains. We illustrate the application of cooperative search in task-oriented domains such as Manufacturing and Front Office showing how GAME promotes intradomain and interdomain collaboration in a Factory environment.
Group Decision Making Using Comparative Linguistic Expression Based on Hesitant Intuitionistic Fuzzy Sets

We introduce a method for aggregation of experts’ opinions given in the form of comparative linguistic expression. An algorithmic form of technique for order preference is proposed for group decision making. A simple example is given by using this method for the selection of the best alternative as well as ranking the alternatives from the best to the worst.
EEG brainwave behaviour due to RF Exposure using kNN classification

EEG brainwave asymmetry gives information on which brain hemisphere is activated during certain cognitive brain function. In this study, Power Asymmetry Ratio (PAR) is computed from the Power Spectral Density (PSD) of the EEG signal. PAR is used to observe the difference brainwave power between left and right hemisphere after being exposed to mobile phone Radiofrequency (RF) radiation. 95 subjects for EEG test were divided into Left Exposure (LE) group, Right Exposure (RE) group and Sham Exposure (SE) group with 34, 31 and 30 subjects for each group. Subjects in LE were exposed to the RF radiation from left side and subjects in RE were exposed to the RF radiation from right side. Whereas, no exposure for subjects in SE and used as the control group. kNN is used to classify the different groups for the exposure session and also to prove that there are significant different of the EEG signals due to the RF radiation. Beta, alpha, theta and delta were used as inputs for the classification. The results showed that the performance of kNN classification is 97.37% training accuracy and 94.74 % testing accuracy for brainwave after being exposed to the radiation. This showed that there is disparity in the EEG signals for the different exposure groups.
The Effects of Pilocarpine on the Dynamics of Aqueous Humor in a Primate (Macaca Irus)

Albumin labelled with '•"/ and I was used to determine at the same time and. in both eyes the rates of conventional and uveoscleral bulk drainage of aqueous humor in cynomolgus monkeys under pentobarbital anesthesia. With 10'* M per liter of pilocarpine in the anterior chamber, the rate of conventional bulk drainage of aqueous humor was 0.98 ± 0.19 nl per minute as compared with 0.56 ± 0.12 fil per minute in the control eye. The rate of uveoscleral bulk drainage was 0.07 t 0.01 fil per minute in the pilocarpine eye, and 1.04 t 0.14 fil per minute in the control eye. The mean rate of aqueous humor production in the pilocarpine eye, 1.05 ± 0.17 fil per minute, was significantly loioer than that in the control eye, 1.60 0.14 fil per minute. The average increase in facility that was produced by pilocarpine toas 0.109 ± 0.042 fil per minute per millimeters of mercury; it ivas probably significant. The outflow pressure in the pilocarpine eye was calculated to be about 3.7 mm. Hg, that in the control eye was about 2.6 mm. Hg. The intraocular pressure was 2.64 ± 0.71 mm. Hg higher on the pilocarpine side. Part of the rise in intraocular pressure teas due to the reduction in uveoscleral drainage of aqueous humor that caused an increased fiow by way of conventional routes. The reduction in aqueous humor formation in the pilocarpine eyes was related to the rise in intraocular pressure, and probably caused by this rise.
LKB1 mutations and their correlation with LKB1 and Rheb expression in bladder cancer

Although there are extensive studies on the genetics of bladder cancer, several questions remain unanswered. One of the pathways which are altered in bladder cancer is the mTOR signaling pathway. In the present study, we analyzed the expression of Rheb gene and genetic alterations in the LKB1 gene which are the key components of mTOR pathway. Nine exons of the LKB1 gene were analyzed by direct sequencing in 51 bladder cancer patients. To investigate the expression of Rheb and LKB1, real‐time quantitative RT‐PCR was performed in bladder tumor and normal bladder tissue samples. We did not observed a statistically significant difference in Rheb or LKB1 expression between the tumor and normal tissue samples. We detected a novel missense mutation creating stop codon in a high percent of the tumor samples. Five different single nucleotide substitutions were also observed in the introns. Our results indicate that LKB1 gene may play a role in the progression of bladder cancer. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Comparative Analysis

This paper demonstrates the high sensitivity of youth’s fear of failure to local culture, in terms of its persistence across space and its change (hysteresis) in times of economic shocks, which renders entrepreneurship a very dubious tool for tackling youth unemployment especially in times of crisis. The paper compares in particular the propensity to entrepreneurship among young people in Germany and Greece as a function of their fear-of-failure and its variation across space (Greece and Germany) and over time (before and after the crisis in 2007). Data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) provides a pooled cross-section for the period 2003 – 2010. We address the data using a probit model with year fixed effects. Regarding the influence of personal fear-of-failure, we find that youth between 15-24 years of age are less entrepreneurial in both Greece and Germany, while the 25-34 years old young adults in Greece are already at the same entrepreneurial level as an average adult. Our findings also support existing gender differentials in both countries, which generally phase out among young people. Yet, country differences in perceptions have the greatest impact on entrepreneurial propensity. Regarding the local cultural characteristics, there is evidence of cultural embeddedness and cultural persistence effects especially among youth between 15 and 24 years of age which makes entrepreneurship an unsuitable tool for handling youth unemployment especially for this age group.
A common factor-analytic model for classification

In this era of data explosion, much research has been directed to the problem of filtering and extracting useful information from extremely large datasets. The focus is on discriminant analysis of high-dimensional data, where the number of dimensions p is very large relative to the number of observations n. Mixture discriminant analysis provides an effective parametric approach, where each class density is modeled using mixtures of common factor analyzers. Although the adoption of mixture models with common factor loadings in the components significantly reduces the number of parameters to be estimated, the number of variables has to be reduced first to a more manageable level. Thus we consider the problem of dimension reduction for high-dimensional data. In this paper, we propose a factor-analytic model with common factor loadings for classification. We apply our model to a breast cancer study involving microarray gene expression data, which shows the parametric approach can select informative genes that improve the prediction of disease outcome.
Why Do Hot Dogs Come in Packs of 10 and Buns in 8s or 12s? A Demand-Side Investigation

This paper presents a theory that yields insight into the determination of package prices and sizes. Consumer heterogeneity in consumption rates, storage costs, and transactions costs (costs of making trips to the store) explains differences in package sizes and unit prices. In the model, fully-informed consumers and a monopolist seller pursue optimizing behavior. The seller chooses package sizes and prices to maximize profits, and the consumers select package sizes that maximize their utilities. The authors show that consumer heterogeneity may induce the seller to offer more than one size and that larger sizes would be sold either at unit-price discounts or unit-price premiums. Welfare implications and empirical tests of the theory are presented. Copyright 1987 by the University of Chicago.
A prognostic model for one-year mortality in patients requiring prolonged mechanical ventilation*

Objective:A measure that identifies patients who are at high risk of mortality after prolonged ventilation will help physicians communicate prognoses to patients or surrogate decision makers. Our objective was to develop and validate a prognostic model for 1-yr mortality in patients ventilated for 21 days or more. Design:The authors conducted a prospective cohort study. Setting:The study took place at a university-based tertiary care hospital. Patients:Three hundred consecutive medical, surgical, and trauma patients requiring mechanical ventilation for at least 21 days were prospectively enrolled. Measurements and Main Results:Predictive variables were measured on day 21 of ventilation for the first 200 patients and entered into logistic regression models with 1-yr and 3-mo mortality as outcomes. Final models were validated using data from 100 subsequent patients. One-year mortality was 51% in the development set and 58% in the validation set. Independent predictors of mortality included requirement for vasopressors, hemodialysis, platelet count ≤150 × 109/L, and age ≥50 yrs. Areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve for the development model and validation model were . 82 (se .03) and . 82 (se .05), respectively. The model had sensitivity of . 42 (se .12) and specificity of . 99 (se .01) for identifying patients who had ≥90% risk of death at 1 yr. Observed mortality was highly consistent with both 3- and 12-mo predicted mortality. These four predictive variables can be used in a simple prognostic score that clearly identifies low-risk patients (no risk factors, 15% mortality) and high-risk patients (three or four risk factors, 97% mortality). Conclusions:Simple clinical variables measured on day 21 of mechanical ventilation can identify patients at highest and lowest risk of death from prolonged ventilation.
Using Human-Gaming as Cases for Strategic Management Theory

A theory of corporate strategy has its own concept and propositions as a scientific theory. Theory of strategy has two kinds of difficulties with strategic propositions. Since the difficulties are not explicit, it had been almost impossible for us to resolve them. One kind of difficult thing is to prove a proposition. The other is ambiguity in interpreting and applying propositions. This situation should be remedied. In this presentation, we propose how human games can be used as cases so that we can refute strategic propositions by one of the cases. In doing so, we show that the interpretations of a proposition will be extended, and then, business managers could get meaningful guideline for action from strategic propositions.
Responses of retinal rods to single photons.

1. A suction electrode was used to record the membrane current of single rod outer segments in pieces of toad retina. During dim illumination the membrane current showed pronounced fluctuations. 2. Amplitude histograms of responses to dim flashes of fixed intensity exhibited two discrete peaks, one at 0 pA and one near 1 pA, suggesting that the response was quantized. By setting a criterion amplitude level, flash responses could be classed as 'failures' (no response) or as 'successes' (at least one quantal event). 3. The variation of fraction of successes with flash intensity was consistent with the hypothesis that each quantal electrical event resulted from a single photoisomerization. 4. The quantal event had a mean amplitude of about 1 pA (5% of the standing dark current) and a standard deviation of 0.2 pA. Dispersion in the event amplitude prevented identification of histogram peaks corresponding to two or more photoisomerizations. 5. Individual quantal responses exhibited a smooth shape very similar to that of the average quantal response. This suggests that a single photoisomerization releases many particles of transmitter and that radial diffusion of internal transmitter is not a major source of delay in the light response. 6. The 'quantum efficiency' with which an absorbed photon generated an electrical event was measured as 0.5 +/‐ 0.1 (S.E. of mean, n = 4). This is slightly lower than the quantum efficiency of photoisomerization obtained previously for rhodopsin in solution. 7. At wavelengths between 420 and 700 nm the quantal event was invariant in size, although the cell's sensitivity varied over a range of 10(5). 8. The power spectrum of the fluctuations in dim steady light was predicted by assuming that a random series of quantal events occurred independently. 9. In brighter light the fluctuations were faster, and the response to an incremental flash was reduced in size and duration. The power spectrum could be predicted by assuming random superposition of events with the shape of the incremental flash response.
DMMP vapor detection with 50NM thick AlN films based microcantilevers

In this paper, we demonstrate the high sensing performances of a DMMP vapor sensor system based on 50 nm thick AlN film microcantilevers. These devices are particularly interesting for low power integrated gas sensors systems. One key factor for their gas sensing performances optimization relies on the reduction of the AlN layer thickness. Thanks to a digital PLL setup we demonstrate high frequency stability with an Allan deviation of 5.10−8. Finally, using DKAP polymer for surface functionalization of the cantilever, we measure DMMP vapor concentration down to 25 ppb and predict from frequency noise an ultimate resolution of 10 ppb at the level of the state of the art of DMMP sensing.