Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Surgical procedures for posterior fossa tumors in children: does craniotomy lead to fewer complications than craniectomy?

OBJECT Traditionally, access to the posterior fossa involved a suboccipital craniectomy. More recently, posterior fossa craniotomies have been described, although the long-term benefits of this procedure are not clear. The authors compared the postoperative complications of craniectomies and craniotomies in children with posterior fossa tumors. METHODS From a total of 110 children undergoing surgery for posterior fossa tumors, 56 underwent craniectomy and 54 had a craniotomy. The mean duration of the hospital stay was longer in the craniectomy group (17.5 compared with 14 days). At operation, similar numbers of patients in both groups had total macroscopic clearance of the tumor, complete dural closure, and duraplasty. Postoperatively, more patients in the craniectomy group were noted to have cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) leakage (27 compared with 4%; p < 0.01) and pseudomeningoceles (23 compared with 9%; p < 0.05). There was no significant difference between the two groups in the numbers of patients with CSF infections, wound infections, or hydrocephalus requiring permanent CSF drainage. Patients with CSF leaks had a longer duration of hospital stay (20.7 compared with 14.9 days; p < 0.01), and were more likely to have CSF infections (35 compared with 12%; p < 0.01) and wound infections (24 compared with 1%; p < 0.01) than patients without CSF leaks. Postoperatively, wound exploration and reclosures for CSF leakage were more likely in the craniectomy group (11 compared with 0%; p < 0.01). Multivariate analysis revealed that the only predictor of CSF leakage postoperatively was the type of surgery (that is, craniotomy compared with craniectomy; odds ratio 10.8; p = 0.03). CONCLUSIONS Craniectomy was associated with postoperative CSF leaks, pseudomeningocele, increased wound reclosures, and thus prolonged hospital stays. In turn, CSF leakage was associated with infections of the CSF and wound. The authors propose mechanisms that may explain why CSF leakage is less likely if the bone flap is replaced.
Bis(4-aminopyridine){2,2′-[1,2-phenylenebis(nitrilomethanylylidene)]diphenolato}cobalt(III) nitrate

In the title compound, [Co(C20H14N2O2)(C5H6N2)2]NO3, the CoIII atom is coordinated in a slightly elongated octahedral geometry by the N2O2 donor set of the tetradentate Schiff base ligand and by the pyridine N atoms of two trans-arranged monodentate 4-aminopyridine molecules. The pyridine rings are aligned nearly perpendicularly to each other [dihedral angle = 82.28 (13)°]. The phenoxy rings form dihedral angles of 12.37 (12) and 12.16 (14)° with the phenylene ring. In the crystal, N—H⋯O and C—H⋯O hydrogen bonds link the ions into a three-dimensional network.
Relationship between methamphetamine exposure and matrix metalloproteinase 9 expression

Matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) 9 is up regulated following various types of insults to the brain. Recent studies have also implicated MMP9 in neural remodeling after stimulant doses of methamphetamine (METH). The involvement of MMP9 in METH‐induced neurotoxicity, however, remains unclear and was thus evaluated in the present study. Male, Swiss Webster mice were injected with stimulant or toxic doses of METH. MMP9 gene expression was up regulated in the brain within 5 min. By 24 h, MMP9 gene expression returned to control levels in the stimulant treated mice, but remained elevated in animals exposed to toxic doses of METH. The development of neurotoxicity was evidenced between 17 days following METH exposure as depletions in striatal dopamine levels. However, this marker of METH neurotoxicity was not accompanied by concomitant changes in striatal MMP9 gene expression. In MMP9 knock out mice, neurotoxic dosing with METH produced depletions in striatal dopamine levels that were comparable to wild type mice. Although the absence of MMP9 did not affect METH neurotoxicity, the knock out mice exhibited the expected decrease in behavioral sensitization following repeated administration of stimulant doses of METH. Together, the data suggest that changes in MMP9 expression do not affect METH‐induced neurotoxicity, and may instead be contributing to remodeling of the nervous system.
On Service Resilience in Cloud-Native 5G Mobile Systems

To cope with the tremendous growth in mobile data traffic on one hand, and the modest average revenue per user on the other hand, mobile operators have been exploring network virtualization and cloud computing technologies to build cost-efficient and elastic mobile networks and to have them offered as a cloud service. In such cloud-based mobile networks, ensuring service resilience is an important challenge to tackle. Indeed, high availability and service reliability are important requirements of carrier grade, but not necessarily intrinsic features of cloud computing. Building a system that requires the five nines reliability on a platform that may not always grant it is, therefore, a hurdle. Effectively, in carrier cloud, service resilience can be heavily impacted by a failure of any network function (NF) running on a virtual machine (VM). In this paper, we introduce a framework, along with efficient and proactive restoration mechanisms, to ensure service resilience in carrier cloud. As restoration of a NF failure impacts a potential number of users, adequate network overload control mechanisms are also proposed. A mathematical model is developed to evaluate the performance of the proposed mechanisms. The obtained results are encouraging and demonstrate that the proposed mechanisms efficiently achieve their design goals.
Comparisons of the Hbv and HIV Polymerase, and Antiviral Resistance Mutations

The antiviral treatment of chronic hepatitis B is limited by the selection of antiviral resistance mutations. Primary resistance to lamivudine occurs at rtM204I/V in the C Domain of the polymerase. Recently, resistance to adefovir has also been described in the D Domain at rtN236T. The treatment of patients with resistant virus without complete suppression can lead to the further selection of compensatory mutations. Thus, to gain an understanding of the hepatitis B virus (HBV) polymerase and also mutations associated with resistance, a three-dimensional model of the HBV reverse transcriptase core region based on homology with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) was created. A comparative analysis of the HIV polymerase and the model of HBV polymerase was performed. In addition, the antiviral resistance mutations including potential compensatory mutations were mapped to determine their effect on the HBV polymerase model, especially in the nucleotide binding site.
A framework for context-aware web service composition using planning techniques

A web service is an application that is published on the web and can be discovered and used automatically. In many cases, a web service cannot provide the capability that the user has requested. Therefore, according to the user request, it should be possible to combine various services and produce a new composite service for user request. AI planning techniques are used for automated web service composition. Also, context is the information that can be used to characterize the situation of an entity. JSHOP2 is one of the techniques of planning. In this paper, the design and implementation of the proposed framework for context-aware web service composition is presented and is used JSHOP2 and the proposed framework reduces the number of failures and composition time.
Markov Logic Networks for Text Mining: A Qualitative and Empirical Comparison with Integer Linear Programming

Joint inference approaches such as Integer Linear Programming (ILP) and Markov Logic Networks (MLNs) have recently been successfully applied to many natural language processing (NLP) tasks, often outperforming their pipeline counterparts. However, MLNs are arguably much less popular among NLP researchers than ILP. While NLP researchers who desire to employ these joint inference frameworks do not necessarily have to understand their theoretical underpinnings, it is imperative that they understand which of them should be applied under what circumstances. With the goal of helping NLP researchers better understand the relative strengths and weaknesses of MLNs and ILP; we will compare them along different dimensions of interest, such as expressiveness, ease of use, scalability, and performance. To our knowledge, this is the first systematic comparison of ILP and MLNs on an NLP task.
NS35 and not vp7 is the soluble rotavirus protein which binds to target cells

Recent studies using radiolabeled rotavirus lysates have demonstrated a 35-kilodalton viral protein that binds specifically to the surface of MA104 cells (N. Fukuhara, O. Yoshie, S. Kitakoa, and T. Konno, J. Virol. 62:2209-2218, 1988; M. Sabara, J. Gilchrist, G.R. Hudson, and L.A. Babiuk, J. Virol. 53:58-66, 1985). The binding protein was identified as vp7, an outer capsid glycoprotein and the product of rotavirus gene 9. These studies concluded that vp7 mediated viral attachment to MA104 cells and that the binding of a soluble viral protein to a cell monolayer mirrored the attachment of infectious rotavirus to permissive tissue culture cells. In the process of determining which viral protein adheres to the in vivo target cell in rotavirus infection, the mammalian enterocyte, we found that a similar 35-kilodalton rhesus rotavirus (RRV) protein bound to both MA104 cells and murine enterocytes. However, further analysis of this protein by immunoprecipitation, inhibition of glycosylation, and partial proteolysis showed that it was not the RRV gene 9 product, vp7, but the gene 8 product, NS35. Similar results were obtained by using porcine rotavirus (OSU) and bovine rotavirus (NCDV) strains. Binding studies using the in vitro-expressed products of RRV genes 8 and 9 confirmed these results. Since double-shelled virions inhibited the binding of NS35 to cells, we looked for the presence of this protein in preparations of purified virus. Examination of density gradient-purified virus preparations revealed biochemical and immunological evidence that NS35 copurifies in small amounts with double-shelled virions. Thus, these studies clearly demonstrated that when rotavirus proteins are prepared in a soluble form from infected cells, NS35, and not vp7, binds to the surfaces of MA104 cells and murine enterocytes. The observations do not confirm previous experimental results which supported the hypothesis that vp7 was the viral attachment protein. They are consistent with but do not prove the hypothesis that NS35 functions as the rotavirus attachment protein.
Modeling mixed retention and early arrivals in multidimensional heterogeneous media using an explicit Lagrangian scheme

This study develops an explicit two‐step Lagrangian scheme based on the renewal‐reward process to capture transient anomalous diffusion with mixed retention and early arrivals in multidimensional media. The resulting 3‐D anomalous transport simulator provides a flexible platform for modeling transport. The first step explicitly models retention due to mass exchange between one mobile zone and any number of parallel immobile zones. The mobile component of the renewal process can be calculated as either an exponential random variable or a preassigned time step, and the subsequent random immobile time follows a Hyper‐exponential distribution for finite immobile zones or a tempered stable distribution for infinite immobile zones with an exponentially tempered power‐law memory function. The second step describes well‐documented early arrivals which can follow streamlines due to mechanical dispersion using the method of subordination to regional flow. Applicability and implementation of the Lagrangian solver are further checked against transport observed in various media. Results show that, although the time‐nonlocal model parameters are predictable for transport with retention in alluvial settings, the standard time‐nonlocal model cannot capture early arrivals. Retention and early arrivals observed in porous and fractured media can be efficiently modeled by our Lagrangian solver, allowing anomalous transport to be incorporated into 2‐D/3‐D models with irregular flow fields. Extensions of the particle‐tracking approach are also discussed for transport with parameters conditioned on local aquifer properties, as required by transient flow and nonstationary media.
Effect of titania nanoparticles on the dielectric properties of transformer oil-based nanofluids

In this paper, a study on the dielectric properties of transformer oil-based nanofluids is presented. Titanium oxide nano ceramic particles, known as titania nanofillers, was used in the investigation process. The nanofluid samples were prepared using two-step method, in which, nanoparticles were mixed with the base oil and then dispersed using magnetic stirrer, dispersants and ultrasonic processor. Different amounts of dispersants were considered and the best amount of dispersant was determined according to the observed images obtained by an optical microscope. Different nanoparticle volume fractions were considered, starting from 0.1 g/L to 0.3 g/L. Breakdown strength was measured for the prepared samples using a liquid tester and then compared to that of the base oil. The breakdown strength increased significantly with the addition of nanofillers. The obtained results will enable to develop a new class of liquid dielectrics with a visibility for the application into power transformers.
Dissociation of the mouse testis and characterization of isolated spermatogenic cells.

A recently developed procedure which permits the isolation of discrete populations of seminiferous epithelial cells from the prepuberal and adult mouse testis is reviewed in this presentation. The procedure involves an initial incubation of the testis with collagena.se in an enriched Krebs-Ringer medium (EKRB). This step dissociates the interstitial tissue but leaves the dispersed seminiferous tubules (or cords) relatively intact. The purified seminiferous epithelium is then dissociated with trypsin to produce a monodisperse cell suspension. Furthermore, suspensions enriched in specific cell types can be obtained by selecting animals of the appropriate developmental age. These respective cell suspensions are subjected to sedimentation velocity at unit gravity using a 2-4% bovine serum albumin gradient in EKRB. This technique enables the isolation of highly enriched populations of prepuberal Sertoli cells and primitive type A spermatogonia on day 6, type A spermatogonia and type B spermatogonia on day 8, preleptotene, leptotene/zygotene and early-mid pachytene spermatocytes on day 18 and finally late pachytene spermatocytes, round spermatids and residual bodies from the adult seminiferous epithelium. The advantages of this sequential enzymatic procedure include: (a) the elimination of both blood and interstitial tissue, (b) a marked reduction in the incidence of symplasts (multinucleated cells) and (c) an apparent preservation of cellular integrity as assessed by the exclusion of trypan blue, ultrastructural morphology, oxygen consumption and a quantitative and qualitative recovery of ribonucleic acid and histone species. Limitations inherent to the dissociation technique and isolated cell populations are considered in detail, including some counteractive measures.
Towards Ex Vivo Testing of MapReduce Applications

Big Data programs are those that process large data exceeding the capabilities of traditional technologies. Among newly proposed processing models, MapReduce stands out as it allows the analysis of schema-less data in large distributed environments with frequent infrastructure failures. Functional faults in MapReduce are hard to detect in a testing/preproduction environment due to its distributed characteristics. We propose an automatic test framework implementing a novel testing approach called Ex Vivo. The framework employs data from production but executes the tests in a laboratory to avoid side-effects on the application. Faults are detected automatically without human intervention by checking if the same data would generate different outputs with different infrastructure configurations. The framework (MrExist) is validated with a real-world program. MrExist can identify a fault in a few seconds, then the program can be stopped, not only avoiding an incorrect output, but also saving money, time and energy of production resources.
Neisseria gonorrhoeae utilizes and enhances the biosynthesis of the asialoglycoprotein receptor expressed on the surface of the hepatic HepG2 cell line

One of the lipooligosaccharide (LOS) structures of Neisseria gonorrhoeae contains a terminal Gal(beta 1-4)GlcNAc residue which is a good candidate to serve as a ligand for human asialoglycoprotein receptors (ASGP-R). These receptors have been shown to be present on macrophages, sperm cells, and hepatocytes. The human tissue culture cell line used most often to study this receptor, HepG2, was used in our investigations only as a model. We also chose N. gonorrhoeae 1291 for these studies because, unlike many other gonococcal strains, this strain expresses one main species of LOS. The LOS structure expressed by this strain has also been fully characterized. Using well-established assays for the utilization of the ASGP-R, we found that incubation of HepG2 cells with gonococci expressing the terminal Gal(beta 1-4)GlcNAc asialo-LOS carbohydrate structure competitively inhibited the ASGP-R from binding to one of its well-known ligands, asialo-alpha-acid-1-glycoprotein. The inhibition was specific to the ASGP-R, since binding of two other ligands to their specific receptors in the same model cell system was not affected. Immunoblot analysis for the ASGP-R suggested that gonococci seemed to stimulate the HepG2 cells to increase the expression of the major (46-kDa) receptor species. This observation was confirmed both by functional analysis, which showed that the concentration of total receptor molecules, as well as surface receptors, was about 60% higher after incubation with gonococci than in control cells and by Northern (RNA) blot analysis using a cDNA probe of the major human H1 subunit. Poly(A) RNA purified from control and HepG2 cells exposed to gonococci indicated the presence of increased amounts of mRNA coding for the ASGP-R after incubation with gonococci. This result supports the idea that the molecular mechanism controlling the receptor level after gonococcal exposure is under transcriptional regulation.
Using the SLEUTH urban growth model to simulate the impacts of future policy scenarios on urban land use in the Tehran metropolitan area in Iran

The SLEUTH model, based on the Cellular Automata (CA), can be applied to city development simulation in metropolitan areas. In this study the SLEUTH model was used to model the urban expansion and predict the future possible behavior of the urban growth in Tehran. The fundamental data were five Landsat TM and ETM images of 1988, 1992, 1998, 2001 and 2010. Three scenarios were designed to simulate the spatial pattern. The first scenario assumed historical urbanization mode would persist and the only limitations for development were height and slope. The second one was a compact scenario which makes the growth mostly internal and limited the expansion of suburban areas. The last scenario proposed a polycentric urban structure which let the little patches grow without any limitation and would not consider the areas beyond the specific buffer zone from the larger patches for development. Results showed that the urban growth rate was greater in the first scenario in comparison with the other two scenarios. Also it was shown that the third scenario was more suitable for Tehran since it could avoid undesirable effects such as congestion and pollution and was more in accordance with the conditions of Tehran city.
Identification of streptococcal proteins reacting with sera from Behçet's disease and rheumatic disorders.

OBJECTIVES We evaluated the reactivity of sera from Behçet's disease (BD), systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), dermatomyositis (DM), rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and Takayasu's arteritis (TA) patients against human α-enolase and streptococcal α-enolase, and identified additional streptococcal antigens. METHODS Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and immunoblotting were performed using sera from patients with BD, SLE, DM, RA, and TA and healthy volunteers (control) against human α-enolase and streptococcal α-enolase. Immunoblot analysis and matrix-assisted laser desorption ionisation-time-of-flight mass spectrometry were used to identify and recombine other streptococcal antigens. RESULTS Specific positive signals against recombinant human α-enolase were detected by IgM ELISA of serum samples from 50% of BD, 14.3% of SLE, 57.1% of DM, 42.9% of RA, and 57.1% of TA patients. Specific positive signals against streptococcal α-enolase were detected from 42.9% of BD, 14.3% of DM, and 14.3% of TA patients. No SLE and RA sera reacted against streptococcal α-enolase antigen. Streptococcal proteins reacting with sera were identified as hypothetical protein (HP) for SLE and DM patients, acid phosphatase (AP) for RA patients, and glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) for TA patients. CONCLUSIONS We observed that RA patients did not present serum reactivity against either HP or GAPDH though BD, SLE, DM, and TA patients did. Also, AP reacted with sera from BD, SLE, DM, RA, and TA patients.