Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prevalence of thrombophilia according to age at the first manifestation of venous thromboembolism: results from the MAISTHRO registry

Thrombophilia is a well‐established risk factor for a venous thromboembolic event (VTE), and it has been proposed that hereditary thrombophilia may substantially contribute to the development of VTE in young patients. We aimed to analyse the prevalence of thrombophilia with special regard to the age of VTE manifestation. The study cohort consisted of 1490 patients (58% females) with a median age 43 years at the time of their first VTE. At least one thrombophilic disorder was identified in 50·1% of patients. The probability of detecting a hereditary thrombophilia declined significantly with advancing age (from 49·3% in patients aged 20 years and younger to 21·9% in patients over the age of 70 years; P < 0·001). This may be primarily attributed to the decreasing frequencies of the F5 R506Q (factor V Leiden) mutation and deficiencies of protein C or protein S with older age at the time of the initial VTE event. Moreover, thrombophilia was more prevalent in unprovoked compared with risk‐associated VTE (57·7% vs. 47·7%; P = 0·001). The decline in the prevalence of hereditary thrombophilia with older ages supports the use of a selected thrombophilia screening strategy dependent on age and the presence or absence of additional VTE risk factors.
Fibronectin Gene Expression in Aortic Regurgitation: Relative Roles of Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinases

Objectives: In aortic regurgitation (AR), fibronectin (FN) expression is upregulated. This study sought to determine signal transduction pathways involved in upregulation of FN expression in AR. Methods: Cardiac fibroblasts (CF) from rabbits with surgically induced AR and matched controls (NL) were cultured and assayed for FN expression and kinase activity with and without inhibitors of kinases JNK, p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) and extracellular response kinase (ERK). NL CF also were subjected to cyclic strain mimicking AR for 24 h in culture with and without inhibitors. Results: AR CF exhibited 2.9-fold greater c-Jun phosphorylation (p < 0.01) and 1.5- to 2-fold greater ATF2 phosphorylation (p < 0.05–0.01) than NL. JNK and p38MAPK inhibition reduced c-Jun and ATF2 phosphorylation to NL; ERK inhibition had no effect. FN mRNA expression was similar in pattern to kinase activities. Cyclic strain in NL CF increased c-Jun phosphorylation 2-fold versus unstrained controls (p < 0.005). This was suppressed by inhibition of JNK but not p38MAPK. Conclusion: FN expression in response to the acute mechanical strain resembling AR is upregulated primarily via JNK. However, in chronic AR both JNK and p38MAPK are involved. These signaling pathways represent potential therapeutic targets for normalizing extracellular matrix (ECM) composition and contractile force transmission, believed to be related to ECM composition/organization, in AR.
Distributed Real-Time Demand Response in Multiseller–Multibuyer Smart Distribution Grid

Demand response is a key solution in smart grid to address the ever-increasing peak energy consumption. With multiple utility companies, users will decide from which utility company to buy electricity and how much to buy. Consequently, how to devise distributed real-time demand response in the multiseller-multibuyer environment emerges as a critical problem in future smart grid. In this paper, we focus on the real-time interactions among multiple utility companies and multiple users. We propose a distributed real-time demand response algorithm to determine each user's demand and each utility company's supply simultaneously. By applying dual decomposition, the original problem is firstly decoupled into single-seller-multibuyer subsystems; then, the demand response problem in each subsystem can be distributively solved. The major advantage of this approach is that each utility company and user locally solve subproblems to perform energy allocation, instead of requiring a central controller or any third party. Therefore, privacy is guaranteed because no entity needs to reveal or exchange private information. Numerical results are presented to verify efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed approach.
Multiple sclerosis and poliomyelitis

Objective ± To evaluate whether persons with a history of poliomyelitis are at an increased risk of developing multiple sclerosis (MS). Material and methods ± All patients diagnosed with acute poliomyelitis in the greater capital area of Copenhagen, Denmark, between 1919 and 1954 were identi®ed and followed with respect to MS. Information on vital status and diagnosis of sclerosis was obtained through linkage with the Danish Civil Registration System and The Danish Multiple Sclerosis Registry, respectively. Follow-up started on the date of the establishment of the Danish Civil Registration System (April 1, 1968) until death, emigration or December 31, 1996, whichever came ®rst. The observed incidence of MS among polio patients was compared with the expected incidence calculated according to national gender, age and period speci®c rates of MS. Results ± During 149,364 years of follow-up, 19 cases of multiple sclerosis were observed among 5652 polio patients compared with 11.0 expected (SIR=1.73 (1.04±2.74)). The increased risk of MS was most pronounced in polio patients hospitalized during adolescence. Neither gender nor the acute severity of poliomyelitis modi®ed the risk of MS. Conclusion ± Our results are based on small numbers of events, however the ®ndings suggest that the polio patients might be at an increased risk of MS. N. M. Nielsen, J. Wohlfahrt, M. Melbye, S. Rasmussen, K. Mùlbak, D. S. Askgaard, P. Aaby Department of Epidemiology Research, Danish Epidemiology Science Centre, Statens Serum Institut, Copenhagen, Denmark; Danish Institute of Clinical Epidemiology, Copenhagen, Denmark; Department of Infectious Diseases M, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen, Denmark
Welfare Maximization with Production Costs: A Primal Dual Approach

We study online combinatorial auctions with production costs proposed by Blum et al. [4] using the online primal dual framework. In this model, buyers arrive online, and the seller can produce multiple copies of each item subject to a nondecreasing marginal cost per copy. The goal is to allocate items to maximize social welfare less total production cost. For arbitrary (strictly convex and differentiable) production cost functions, we characterize the optimal competitive ratio achievable by online mechanisms/algorithms. We show that online posted pricing mechanisms, which are incentive compatible, can achieve competitive ratios arbitrarily close to the optimal, and construct lower bound instances on which no online algorithms, not necessarily incentive compatible, can do better. Our positive results improve or match the results in several previous work, e.g., Bartal et al. [3], Blum et al. [4], and Buchbinder and Gonen [6]. Our lower bounds apply to randomized algorithms and resolve an open problem by Buchbinder and Gonen [6].
Nutritional requirements for growth of Aerococcus viridans.

SUMMARY: Vitamin requirements for growth in a casein hydrolysate medium were determined for 27 strains of Aerococcus viridans from diverse sources. Panto-thenic acid, nicotinic acid and biotin were either absolutely required by, or markedly stimulatory to, all strains; none required thiamin, riboflavin, pyridoxine, folic acid or folinic acid. Tween 80 replaced the biotin requirement of most strains. Amino acid requirements were not sharply defined and varied from strain to strain. As the amino acid composition of the medium was simplified the amount of growth was decreased and most strains would not grow when biotin was replaced by Tween 80. A single purine base was required: either guanine or xanthine alone satisfied this requirement for each of the strains tested; adenine was a suitable alternative source for some strains. Exogenous pyrimidine was not required.
CmeABC Functions as a Multidrug Efflux System in Campylobacter jejuni

ABSTRACT Campylobacter jejuni, a gram-negative organism causing gastroenteritis in humans, is increasingly resistant to antibiotics. However, little is known about the drug efflux mechanisms in this pathogen. Here we characterized an efflux pump encoded by a three-gene operon (designated cmeABC) that contributes to multidrug resistance in C. jejuni 81-176. CmeABC shares significant sequence and structural homology with known tripartite multidrug efflux pumps in other gram-negative bacteria, and it consists of a periplasmic fusion protein (CmeA), an inner membrane efflux transporter belonging to the resistance-nodulation-cell division superfamily (CmeB), and an outer membrane protein (CmeC). Immunoblotting using CmeABC-specific antibodies demonstrated that cmeABC was expressed in wild-type 81-176; however, an isogenic mutant (9B6) with a transposon insertion in the cmeB gene showed impaired production of CmeB and CmeC. Compared to wild-type 81-176, 9B6 showed a 2- to 4,000-fold decrease in resistance to a range of antibiotics, heavy metals, bile salts, and other antimicrobial agents. Accumulation assays demonstrated that significantly more ethidium bromide and ciprofloxacin accumulated in mutant 9B6 than in wild-type 81-176. Addition of carbonyl cyanide m-chlorophenylhydrazone, an efflux pump inhibitor, increased the accumulation of ciprofloxacin in wild-type 81-176 to the level of mutant 9B6. PCR and immunoblotting analysis also showed that cmeABC was broadly distributed in various C. jejuni isolates and constitutively expressed in wild-type strains. Together, these findings formally establish that CmeABC functions as a tripartite multidrug efflux pump that contributes to the intrinsic resistance of C. jejuni to a broad range of structurally unrelated antimicrobial agents.
Learning vector quantization for the probabilistic neural network

A modified version of the PNN (probabilistic neural network) learning phase which allows a considerable simplification of network structure by including a vector quantization of learning data is proposed. It can be useful if large training sets are available. The procedure has been successfully tested in two synthetic data experiments. The proposed network has been shown to improve the classification performance of the LVQ (learning vector quantization) procedure.
Large-amplitude traveling electromagnetic waves in collisionless magnetoplasmas.

A class of exact large-amplitude traveling-wave solutions to the nonlinear Vlasov-Maxwell equations describing a one-dimensional collisionless magnetized plasma is obtained. These waves are complementary to the electrostatic Bernstein-Greene-Kruskal modes and can be classified as nonlinear {ital fast} electromagnetic waves and ({ital slow}) electromagnetic whistler waves. The wave characteristics are discussed for the case of a trapped-particle distribution function.
Temporal Sequence of Pulmonary and Systemic Inflammatory Responses to Graded Polymicrobial Peritonitis in Mice

ABSTRACT The lungs are the remote organ most commonly affected in human peritonitis. The major goals of this study were to define the dose- and time-dependent relationship between graded septic peritonitis and systemic and pulmonary inflammatory responses in mice. BALB/c mice were treated with intraperitoneal polymicrobial inoculi and sacrificed at 3, 12, and 24 h. The treatment protocol resulted in distinct groups of animals with respect to mortality rate, kinetics, and concentrations of a broad spectrum of pro- and anti-inflammatory endogenous mediators, intrapulmonary bacterial accumulation, and static lung compliance. In sublethally infected mice, pulmonary bacterial proliferation was controlled. Levels of monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1), interleukin-10, interleukin-6, granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF), and tumor necrosis factor (TNF) in plasma were elevated 3 h after infection exclusively. At 3 h, MCP-1, gamma interferon, and TNF were detected in extracts of pulmonary tissue or in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid. Static lung compliance (Cst) was transiently decreased at 12 h. In contrast, in lethally infected mice pulmonary bacterial proliferation was not contained. Concentrations of MCP-1, G-CSF, and TNF in plasma were maximal at 24 h, as were pulmonary MCP-1 levels. Lung myeloperoxidase activity was increased at 3, 12, and 24 h. Cst was reduced after 3 h and did not reach control values at 24 h. Pulmonary cyclooxygenase-2 mRNA and eicosanoids in BAL fluid and plasma were elevated at 3 and 24 h. This study shows that polymicrobial peritonitis in mice leads to dose-dependent systemic and pulmonary inflammation accompanied by a decrease in lung compliance.
ANXIETY SENSITIVITY, BEHAVIORAL INHIBITION, AND COGNITIVE BIASES AS RISK FACTORS FOR ANXIETY: CUMULATIVE, INCREMENTAL, AND MEDIATED INFLUENCES

The present study aimed to advance understanding of the cumulative, incremental, and mediated influences of anxiety sensitivity, behavioral inhibition, and interpretive and judgment biases on anxiety outcomes. Cumulative and multiple-risk factor models, as well as direct and indirect pathways linking anxiety sensitivity and behavioral inhibition with anxiety outcomes, were examined in 862 emerging adults. Exploratory cluster analyses were also performed in an effort to identify subgroups of participants with different constellations of risk. The cumulative and multiple-risk factor models significantly predicted anxiety outcomes, although the statistical prediction offered by the latter model was superior. Additionally, variability in each risk factor significantly predicted anxiety outcomes after controlling for the total number of risks, supporting the value of the content of risk to the prediction of anxiety outcomes. Structural equation modeling revealed that interpretive and judgment biases partially mediated pathways linking anxiety sensitivity and behavioral inhibition with anxiety outcomes. Anxiety sensitivity and behavioral inhibition were also directly linked with anxiety outcomes. Results were similar for males and females. Finally, cluster analyses revealed four clusters with varying combinations of risk and somewhat different levels of anxiety. Findings, implications for intervention, and limitations are discussed.
Framework for context-based film recommendation system

This paper proposes a novel framework for a context-based film recommendation system based on shot genre classification of MPEG compressed films. This method analyzes low level audio-visual features extracted on compressed domain, to then classify MPEG coded films into predefined genres at the shot level to allow efficient indexing. Moreover, the distribution of the resulting shot genres can be used to represent film context, which is in turn applied to a film recommendation system. According to reasonable classification results in some experiments using MPEG-1 coded films, the proposed film recommendation system enables to recommend subjectively appropriate films to users without large dataset of film ratings and user preferences on film genres, which has not been achieved by conventional methods such as content-based approaches.
NF-kappaB activation and overexpression of regulated genes in human diabetic nephropathy.

BACKGROUND Nuclear factor-kappaB (NF-kappaB) regulates genes involved in renal disease progression, such as the chemokines monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) and RANTES. NF-kappaB is activated in experimental models of renal injury, and in vitro studies also suggest that proteinuria and angiotensin II could be important NF-kappaB activators. It has been proposed that locally produced MCP-1 may be involved in the development of diabetic nephropathy (DN). We examined the hypothesis that NF-kappaB could be an indicator of renal damage progression in DN. METHODS Biopsy specimens from 11 patients with type 2 diabeties and overt nephropathy were studied by southwestern histochemistry for the in situ detection of activated NF-kappaB. In addition, by immunohistochemistry and/or in situ hybridization, we studied the expression of MCP-1 and RANTES, whose genes are regulated by NF-kappaB. RESULTS NF-kappaB was detected mainly in cortical tubular epithelial cells and, to a lesser extent, in some glomerular and interstitial cells. A strong upregulation of MCP-1 and RANTES was observed in all the cases, mainly in tubular cells, and there was a strong correlation between the expression of these chemokines and NF-kappaB activation in the same cells, as observed in serial sections (r = 0.7; P = 0.01). In addition, the tubular expression of these chemokines was correlated mainly with the magnitude of the proteinuria (P = 0.002) and with interstitial cell infiltration (P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS The activation of NF-kappaB and the transcription of certain pro-inflammatory chemokines in tubular epithelial cells are markers of progressive DN. Proteinuria might be one of the main factors inducing the observed pro-inflammatory phenotype.
In situ structure characterization of airborne carbon nanofibres by a tandem mobility–mass analysis

Carbon nanofibres aerosolized by the agitation of as-produced commercial powder have been characterized in situ by using the differential mobility analyser–aerosol particle mass analyser (DMA–APM) method to determine their structural properties such as the effective density and fractal dimension for toxicology study. The effective density of the aerosolized carbon nanofibres decreased from 1.2 to 0.4 g cm−3 as the mobility diameters increased from 100 to 700 nm, indicating that the carbon nanofibres had open structures with an overall void that increased with increasing diameter, due to increased agglomeration of the nanofibres. This was confirmed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) observation, showing that 100 nm mobility diameter nanofibres were predominantly single fibres, while doubly or triply attached fibres were seen at mobility diameters of 200 and 400 nm. Effective densities calculated using Cox’s theory were in reasonable agreement with experimental values. The mass fractal dimension of the carbon nanofibres was found to be 2.38 over the size range measured and higher than that of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs), suggesting that the carbon nanofibres have more compact structure than SWCNTs.
Efficient geometrical environment preprocessing technique for ray tracing propagation model

In a computer-aided outdoor network design a huge amount of field strength calculations is required; therefore, development of an efficient calculation model is a challenge. In this paper, we present an efficient geometrical environment database preprocessing technique, which considerably accelerates ray tracing method for field strength prediction. This method greatly reduces the simulation time when applied to the shooting and bouncing ray approach and guarantees that all reflective surfaces and all diffractive edges are recognized. The method established by hybridization of concepts of inter-facet visibility distance and angular range of possible bouncing. It is observed that the proposed preprocessing technique is efficient enough for analysis of dense geometrical models. Special emphasis is placed on the discussion for evaluating the efficiency of presented preprocessing technique, including performance, and resources. The applicability of the fast ray-tracing technique based on proposed preprocessing, is demonstrated by comparison with measurement in an urban environment. Comparisons show that accurate predictions can be achieved.
Satellite image time series clustering via affinity propagation

Satellite image time series (SITS) analysis is attracting more researchers recently because SITS have the advantage of fully capturing the dynamic changes of land cover and SITS data is becoming increasingly available. As an unsupervised classification method, clustering gains more importance due to frequent updates of labeled data or training samples are too expensive. When discussing SITS clustering, most researches focus on the similarity measure rather than clustering algorithm. However, the drawbacks of currently popular clustering algorithms tend to be amplified when tackling with SITS datasets. Therefore in this paper, we focus on the clustering algorithms and we find a novel method called affinity propagation is more suitable for SITS clustering. To demonstrate the accuracy and other advantages of affinity propagation, we conduct clustering experiments on MODIS and Landsat-TM SITS datasets. The obtained clustering maps are evaluated both visually and statistically comparing with other widely used clustering algorithms.
Markov Random Fields in Vision Perception: A Survey

In this paper, we present a comprehensive survey of Markov Random Fields (MRFs) in computer vision, with respect to both the modeling and the inference. MRFs were introduced intothe computer vision field about two decades ago, while they started to become a ubiquitous tool forsolving visual perception problems at the turn of the millennium following the emergence of efficientinference methods. During the past decade, different MRF models as well as inference methods - in particular those based on discrete optimization - have been developed towards addressing numerous vision problems of low, mid and high level. While most of the literature concerns pairwise MRFs, during recent years, we have also witnessed significant progress on higher-order MRFs, which substantially enhances the expressiveness of graph-based models and enlarges the extent of solvable problems. We hope that this survey will provide a compact and informative summary of the main literature in this research topic.
Analysis of association between common SNPs in ErbB 4 and bipolar affective disorder , major depressive disorder and schizophrenia in the Han Chinese population

a Bio-X Center and Affiliated Changning Mental Health Center, Key Laboratory for the Genetics of Developmental and Neuropsychiatric Disorders (Ministry of Education), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200030, PR China b Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200030, PR China c Institute for Nutritional Sciences, Shanghai Institutes of Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031, PR China d Institutes of Biomedical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, PR China
A Cross Cultural Analysis of the Mediating Role of Purpose in Life on Organizational Citizenship Behavior

This study investigated the relationship between organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), job satisfaction and life satisfaction in a cross cultural setting. The dimensions of OCB include altruism, conscientiousness, sportsmanship, courtesy, and civic virtue. However it has been cautioned that civic virtue, sportsmanship, and courtesy have dissimilar meanings and in some cases are nonexistent in other cultures. The OCB dimensions of altruism and conscientiousness were examined in the study. Additionally, this study examines the potential mediating role of the purpose in life construct, a variable not often captured for analysis in the OCB research literature. The sample consisted of US and Bahamian managers in the banking industry. Regression analysis and t-tests were performed to address study hypotheses.The study indicated significant differences existed between the two countries for dimensions of satisfaction, the two OCB dimensions and the new construct purpose in life mediates as well as increase OCB altruism and conscientiousness. Study limitations aredelineated and directions for future research are offered.