Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of electrode displacement in high-definition transcranial direct current stimulation: A computational study

In order to understand better the ways in which cortical excitability is linked to target brain areas, this study describes the effects of focalized high-definition transcranial direct current stimulation (HD-tDCS), and investigates the way in which these effects persisted after the stimulus electrodes were displaced from the target area. We constructed a 3D volume conduction model of an anatomically realistic head that is ideal for HD-tDCS, as well as compartmental models of layer 3 and layer 5 pyramidal neurons. Using extracellular approaches, we observed stimulus-induced electric fields and simulated neuronal responses by combining stimulus-induced potential fields with pyramidal neuronal models coupled with the head model. We found that the stimulus-induced electric fields were focused on the hand-knob when the electrodes were placed directly above the target region; further, the neuronal responses varied, such that the upper parts of the dendrites were hyperpolarized, while the soma and axons were depolarized. The magnitude of the electric fields, as well as the maximum polarizations at each compartment decreased according to the displacement of the electrodes from the target area. Considerable excitability at the target area within the range of 5 mm displacement between electrodes and the target area was shown by means of stimulus-induced electric fields and membrane polarization. In conclusion, using detailed computational approaches, we discovered the ways in which excitability in the target area persisted even with increased distance from the active electrode.
The migration and differentiation of hUC-MSCsCXCR4/GFP encapsulated in BDNF/chitosan scaffolds for brain tissue engineering

We previously developed a biomaterial scaffold that could effectively provide seed cells to a lesion cavity resulting from traumatic brain injury. However, we subsequently found that few transplanted human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells (hUC-MSCs) are able to migrate from the scaffold to the lesion boundary. Stromal derived-cell factor-1α and its receptor chemokine (C-X-C motif) receptor (CXCR)4 are chemotactic factors that control cell migration and stem cell recruitment to target areas. Given the low expression level of CXCR4 on the hUC-MSC membrane, lentiviral vectors were used to generate hUC-MSCs stably expressing CXCR4 fused to green fluorescent protein (GFP) (hUC-MSCsCXCR4/GFP). We constructed a scaffold in which recombinant human brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) was linked to chitosan scaffolds with the crosslinking agent genipin (CGB scaffold). The scaffold containing hUC-MSCsCXCR4/GFP was transplanted into the lesion cavity of a rat brain, providing exogenous hUC-MSCs to both lesion boundary and cavity. These results demonstrate a novel strategy for inducing tissue regeneration after traumatic brain injury.
[Utility of bolus somatostatin administration in preventing pancreatitis after endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography: a controlled, non-randomized study].

INTRODUCTION Somatostatin is one of the most extensively evaluated drugs in the prophylaxis of pancreatitis after endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP), but its utility remains controversial. PATIENTS AND METHODS The aim of this study was to evaluate the role of somatostatin as prophylaxis of ERCP-induced acute pancreatitis. A group of consecutive patients that underwent ERCP in our endoscopy unit was prospectively studied for 8 months. Patients in this group were administered an endovenous bolus of 250 micrograms of somatostatin immediately before introducing the catheter in the papilla of Vater (somatostatin group). This group was compared with another group composed of consecutive patients who had undergone ERCP in the 8 previous months, without somatostatin administration (placebo group). Both groups contained the same number of patients. The following variables were recorded; sex, age, contrast injection in the duct of Wirsung, endoscopist, therapeutic maneuvers, and the development of post-ERCP pancreatitis. RESULTS During the 16 months of patient inclusion, we performed 320 ERCP in our unit, of which 248 were included in the study: 142 in the somatostatin group and 142 in the placebo group. Of these patients, 152 (53.5%) were men and 132 (46.5%) were women. The mean age was 70.05 +/- 13.83 years (range: 27-93 years). Acute pancreatitis occurred in 10 patients in the somatostatin group and in 5 in the placebo group; this difference was not statistically significant (p > 0.05). No significant differences were found between the two groups in the remaining variables studied. CONCLUSION Somatostatin does not seem to be useful in preventing post-ERCP acute pancreatitis.
Disturbance observer based model predictive control for autopilot design of bank-to-turn missiles

The attitude control performance of the bank-to-turn (BTT) missiles are severely interrupted by heavy nonlinear crossing couplings, time-varying aerodynamic parameters, and external disturbances. A distributed composite control framework consisting of a high-level model predictive control, a low-level state feedback stabilizer, and a feedforward compensation based on disturbance observer is proposed in this article for the BTT missile autopilot design. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed control strategy exhibits promising abilities against external disturbances, nonlinear crossing couplings and aerodynamic parameter perturbations.
N‐methyl‐D‐aspartate but not glutamate induces the release of hydroxyl radicals in the neonatal rat: Modulation by group I metabotropic glutamate receptors

Although they likely involve activation of N‐methyl‐D‐aspartate (NMDA) receptors, the mechanisms giving rise to perinatal hypoxic‐ischemic‐induced damages remained unclear. The purpose of the present study was to investigate in vivo the mechanisms regulating the glutamate‐induced release of toxic hydroxyl radicals (·OH) in neonatal rat. Anesthetized 7‐day‐old Wistar rat pups bearing a microdialysis cannula implanted in the striatum were perfused with a solution containing salicylate as an ·OH trap. Hydroxyl radicals formation was evaluated, after a 3 hr postoperative delay, by measuring the 2,3‐DHBA levels by HPLC/EC before, during and over 3 hr after the administration of glutamatergic agonists or antagonists. Administration of NMDA and of ibotenate dramatically increased the efflux of ·OH, 17‐fold and sixfold, respectively. Glutamate, used at the same concentration did not produce any significant increase in the ·OH release and may even decrease this efflux when given at larger concentrations. The NMDA‐induced ·OH response was partially but progressively reduced by glutamate coinjection and completely blunted by DHPG [(RS)‐3,5‐dihydroxyphenylglycine], a group I metabotropic glutamate receptor agonist. Conversely, AIDA [(RS)‐1‐aminoindan‐1,5‐dicarboxylic acid], an antagonist of the same receptors, unmasked an ·OH response to glutamate. These results are evidence that the glutamate‐induced activation of a group I metabotropic glutamate receptor normally protected the neonatal brain from any glutamate activation of NMDA receptor, which otherwise would produce the release of toxic hydroxyl radicals. Targeting group I metabotropic glutamate receptors and/or ·OH might contribute to protecting the neonatal brain against perinatal hypoxic‐ischemic induced lesions. J. Neurosci. Res. 62:84–90, 2000. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Late-life depression and microstructural abnormalities in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex white matter.

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to determine whether microstructural abnormalities in the white matter of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex are associated with late-life depression. METHOD Seventeen elderly depressed subjects were compared with 16 elderly subjects who were not depressed. Diffusion tensor imaging was used to measure the fractional anisotropy of the white matter in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex's superior and middle frontal gyri bilaterally and in the left occipital lobe as a control region. The authors compared results between groups while controlling for age, sex, and comorbid medical disorders. RESULTS Even after controlling for age, sex, hypertension, and heart disease, the authors found significantly lower fractional anisotropy values in the right superior frontal gyrus white matter of depressed patients than comparison subjects. CONCLUSIONS Microstructural changes in the white matter of the right superior frontal gyrus are associated with late-life depression. Further work is needed to determine how these changes contribute to depression outcomes.
Cancer stem cells: A product of clonal evolution?

The cancer stem cell (CSC) model has emerged as a prominent paradigm for explaining tumour heterogeneity. CSCs in tumour recurrence and drug resistance have also been implicated in a number of studies. In fact, CSCs are often identified by their expression of drug‐efflux proteins which are also highly expressed in normal stem cells. Similarly, pro‐survival or proliferation signalling often exhibited by stem cells is regularly reported as being upregulated by CSC. Here we review evidence suggesting that many aspects of CSCs are more readily described by clonal evolution. As an example, cancer cells often exhibit copy number gains of genes involved in drug‐efflux proteins and pro‐survival signalling. Consequently, clonal selection for stem cell traits may result in cancer cells developing “stemness” traits which impart a fitness advantage, without strictly following a CSC model. Finally, since symmetric cell division would give rise to more cells than asymmetric division, it is expected that more advanced tumours would depart from a CSC. Collectively, these observations suggest clonal evolution may explain many aspects of the CSC.
MyD 88-Dependent SHIP 1 Regulates Proinflammatory Signaling Pathways in Dendritic Cells after Monophosphoryl Lipid A Stimulation of TLR 4

We previously showed that monophosphoryl lipid A (MLA) activates TLR4 in dendritic cells (DCs) in a Toll/IL-1R domain-containing adaptor inducing IFN-β (TRIF)–biased manner: MLA produced from Salmonella minnesota Re595 induced signaling events and expression of gene products that were primarily TRIF dependent, whereas MyD88-dependent signaling was impaired. Moreover, when tested in TRIF-intact/MyD88-deficient DCs, synthetic MLA of the Escherichia coli chemotype (sMLA) showed the same activity as its diphosphoryl, inflammatory counterpart (synthetic diphosphoryl lipid A), indicating that TRIF-mediated signaling is fully induced by sMLA. Unexpectedly, we found that the transcript level of one proinflammatory cytokine was increased in sMLA-treated cells by MyD88 deficiency to the higher level induced by synthetic diphosphoryl lipid A, which suggested MyD88 may paradoxically help restrain proinflammatory signaling by TRIF-biased sMLA. In this article, we demonstrate that sMLA induces MyD88 recruitment to TLR4 and activates the anti-inflammatory lipid phosphatase SHIP1 in an MyD88dependent manner. At the same time, MyD88-dependent signaling activity at the level of IL-1R– associated kinase 1 is markedly reduced. Increased SHIP1 activity is associated with reductions in sMLA-induced IκB kinase α/β and IFN regulatory factor 3 activation and with restrained expression of their downstream targets, endothelin-1 and IFN-β, respectively. Results of this study identify a pattern that is desirable in the context of vaccine adjuvant design: TRIF-biased sMLA can stimulate partial MyD88 activity, with MyD88-dependent SHIP1 helping to reduce proinflammatory signaling in DCs. Copyright © 2011 by The American Association of Immunologists, Inc. Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Thomas C. Mitchell, Institute for Cellular Therapeutics, Donald Baxter Research Building, 570 South Preston Street, Room 410, Louisville, KY 40202. tom.mitchell@louisville.edu. 1Current address: La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology, Division of Inflammation Biology, La Jolla, CA. 2Current address: The Biomedical Research Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The online version of this article contains supplemental material. Disclosures T.M. is a subcontractor for a National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases/GlaxoSmithKline-Biologicals National Institutes of Health-funded contract involving synthetic TLR agonists. None of that funding was used in support of work reported in this manuscript. NIH Public Access
Novel Hybrid Cascade Asymmetric Inverter Based on 5-level Asymmetric inverter

A novel hybrid cascade asymmetric inverter is developed in this paper. The novel inverter is based on connection of multiple single-phase asymmetric 5-level inverter modules. With the dc bus voltage ratio V1:V2=1:2, the phase voltage of the novel inverter with two modules per phase will output 13 voltage levels. A new hybrid asymmetric control technique for the inverter is proposed. Spectral analysis of the phase output voltage is carried out. According to the spectral analysis, there is no real power exchange between modules in a phase leg. A two-module three-phase inverter was constructed in the laboratory, experimental results are presented as well as comparison with hybrid diode-clamp cascade inverter is given
AMBA bus hardware accelerator IP for Viola-Jones face detection

Face detection is an important aspect for biometrics, video surveillance and human computer interaction. Owing to the complexity of the detection algorithms any biometric system requires a huge amount of computational and memory resources. A direct software-like implementation of any detection algorithm on a low speed, low resource, low power system on chip (SoC) is not feasible. Instead, a software-hardware codesign approach can be used to build hardware accelerators for the most computational consuming parts of the detection algorithms. Therefore the authors propose a compliant advanced microcontroller bus architecture (AMBA) bus hardware IP, a modularised, highly configurable, low power and technology independent core written in an hardware description language (HDL) language. The IP core accelerates Viola-Jones algorithm considered to be one of the most used algorithms for face detection. The hardware accelerator IP is used in an embedded face detection system built around the LEON3 Sparc V8 processor. The authors present the methodology, challenges and performance results for software, hardware and system level design. For the mentioned system the authors have obtained an acceleration factor of 10-12 when using the hardware accelerator in comparison with the software only traditional approach.
Object associations of early-learned light and heavy English verbs

Many of the verbs that young children learn early have been characterized as ‘light. ’ However, there is no agreed upon definition of ‘lightness’ and no useable metric that could be applied to a wide array of verbs. This article provides evidence for one metric by which the ‘lightness’ of early-learned verbs might be measured: the number of objects with which they are associated (in adult judgment) or co-occur (in speech to and by children). The results suggest that early-learned light verbs and heavy verbs differ in the breadth of the objects they are associated with: light verbs have weak associations with specific objects, whereas heavy verbs are strongly associated with specific objects. However, there is an indication that verbs have narrower associations to objects in speech to children. The methodological usefulness of this metric is discussed as are the implications of the patterns of distributions for children’s learning of common verbs.
Ad libitum fluid intake and plasma responses after pickle juice, hypertonic saline, or deionized water ingestion.

CONTEXT Adding sodium (Na(+)) to drinks improves rehydration and ad libitum fluid consumption. Clinicians (∼25%) use pickle juice (PJ) to treat cramping. Scientists warn against PJ ingestion, fearing it will cause rapid plasma volume restoration and thereby decrease thirst and delay rehydration. Advice about drinking PJ has been developed but never tested. OBJECTIVE To determine if drinking small volumes of PJ, hypertonic saline (HS), or deionized water (DIW) affects ad libitum DIW ingestion, plasma variables, or perceptual indicators. DESIGN Crossover study. SETTING Laboratory. PATIENTS OR OTHER PARTICIPANTS Fifteen, euhydrated (urine specific gravity ≤ 1.01) men (age = 22 ± 2 years, height = 178 ± 6 cm, mass = 82.9 ± 8.4 kg). INTERVENTION(S) Participants completed 3 testing days (≥ 72 hours between days). After a 30-minute rest, a blood sample was collected. Participants completed 60 minutes of hard exercise (temperature = 36 ± 2°C, relative humidity = 16 ± 1%). Postexercise, they rested for 30 minutes; had a blood sample collected; rated thirst, fullness, and nausea; and ingested 83 ± 8 mL of PJ, HS, or DIW. They rated drink palatability (100-mm visual analog scale) and were allowed to drink DIW ad libitum for 60 minutes. Blood samples and thirst, fullness, and nausea ratings (100-mm visual analog scales) were collected at 15, 30, 45, and 60 minutes posttreatment drink ingestion. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S) Ad libitum DIW volume, percentage change in plasma volume, plasma osmolality (OSMp,) plasma sodium concentration ([Na(+)]p), and thirst, fullness, nausea, and palatability ratings. RESULTS Participants consumed more DIW ad libitum after HS (708.03 ± 371.03 mL) than after DIW (532.99 ± 337.14 mL, P < .05). Ad libitum DIW ingested after PJ (700.35 ± 366.15 mL) was similar to that after HS and DIW (P > .05). Plasma sodium concentration, OSMp, percentage change in plasma volume, thirst, fullness, and nausea did not differ among treatment drinks over time (P > .05). Deionized water (73 ± 14 mm) was more palatable than HS (17 ± 13 mm) or PJ (26 ± 16 mm, P < .05). CONCLUSIONS The rationale behind advice about drinking PJ is questionable. Participants drank more, not less, after PJ ingestion, and plasma variables and perceptual indicators were similar after PJ and DIW ingestion. Pickle juice did not inhibit short-term rehydration.
Integrated motor drive design for weight optimization

The More-Electric Aircraft (MEA) concept has been introduced as part of the process of reducing the environmental impact of air travel. Incorporating more electrical systems including motor drives has become increasingly attractive researched. High power density across the complete system is a key factor in the realization of this technology. This paper considers a motor drive sizing procedure with a focus on optimizing the main weight contributors which are identified as the electrical machine, grid input filters and converter cooling system. A multi-level integrated optimization method is then proposed, followed by an example of its application incorporating the sizing procedure above. Comparison of results between single-level optimizations and multi-level optimizations are then presented. Finally, this paper presents the software validation of the sizing functions performed using different multi-physics software.
Combination of Features for Efficient Recognition of Offline Handwritten Devanagari Words

In this article, we describe our recent study of a novel combination of two feature vectors for holistic recognition of offline handwritten word images. In the literature, both contour and skeleton based feature representations have been studied for offline handwriting recognition purpose. However, to the best of our knowledge, there is no such study in which combination of the two feature representations have been considered for the purpose. In the proposed recognition scheme, we use multiclass SVM as the classifier. We have implemented the proposed approach for holistic recognition of Devanagari handwritten town names and tested its performance on a large handwritten word sample database of 100 Indian town names written in Devanagari. Experimental results show sharp improvement in recognition accuracy over the use of any of the individual feature representation schemes. The proposed approach is script independent and can be used for development of a holistic handwritten word image recognition of any script.
Diurnal variation in insulin sensitivity of glucose metabolism is associated with diurnal variations in whole-body and cellular fatty acid metabolism in metabolically normal women.

CONTEXT The mechanism(s) responsible for diurnal variations in insulin sensitivity of glucose metabolism in healthy people are unclear. OBJECTIVE The objective of the study was to evaluate whether diurnal variations in whole-body and cellular fatty acid metabolism could contribute to evening insulin resistance in metabolically normal people. SUBJECTS AND DESIGN We measured plasma the free fatty acid (FFA) concentration, palmitate kinetics, and skeletal muscle expression of genes involved in fatty acid metabolism at breakfast (7:00 am) and dinner (7:00 pm) in 13 overweight (body mass index 27.8 ± 1.2 kg/m(2)) but metabolically normal, women. RESULTS Plasma FFA concentration was approximately 30% greater just before consuming dinner than breakfast (P < .05) and remained greater after dinner than breakfast (FFA areas under the curve: 0.88 ± 0.33 and 0.51 ± 0.09 μmol/mL × 4 h, P = .001). However, adipose tissue lipolytic activity was not different in the evening and in the morning. Skeletal muscle expression of genes that regulate fatty acid oxidation were 38-82% lower, whereas genes involved in de novo lipogenesis were 51%-87 % higher before dinner than before breakfast (all P < .05), and these changes were associated with diurnal variation in the muscle expression of core clock genes that regulate fatty acid metabolism. CONCLUSION Metabolically normal women demonstrate diurnal variations in fatty acid metabolism, manifested by an increase in circulating FFAs, presumably derived from previous meal consumption rather than lipolysis of adipose tissue triglycerides, and a shift in muscle fatty acid metabolism from oxidation to lipogenesis. These metabolic alterations could be responsible for the known evening decline in insulin sensitivity.