Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of Pancreatectomy on Glucose Tolerance and Extracellular Fluid Insulin in the Dog

An intravenous glucose tolerance test (IVGTT No. 1) was performed in anesthetized dogs after dissection of the pancreas but prior to its removal. The test was repeated forty minutes (IVGTT No. 2) and three hours and forty minutes (IVGTT No. 3) after the pancreatectomy was completed. Glucose, immunoreactive insulin (IRI), and insulin-like activity (ILA) were measured in serum and in thoracic duct lymph. During IVGTT No. 1, serum IRI concentration rose sharply and then decreased while lymph IRI increased more slowly and reached a plateau at twice the fasting level. Net glucose disappearance rate (K) was 1.7 per cent per minute. Forty minutes after pancreatectomy, at the initiation of IVGTT No. 2, lymph IRI had decreased to 50 per cent of the fasting level, but blood glucose concentrations were still within the normal range. At this point, following glucose injection, no increase in serum or lymph IRI was observed and glucose tolerance was subnormal: K = 0.5 per cent per minute. Further lowering of lymph IRI and hyperglycemia were noted three hours and forty minutes after pancreatectomy. IVGTT No. 3 showed further deterioration of carbohydrate tolerance: K < 0.5 per cent per minute. Thus, progressive reduction in the rate of glucose assimilation was observed pari passu with reduction in the plateau level of interstitial IRI. It is suggested that this moiety is probably the major determinant of net glucose disappearance rate. Endogenous serum IRI rapidly equilibrated with interstitial fluid IRI. On the other hand, changes in serum “nonsuppressible” insulin-like activity (NSILA) were not reflected in lymph NSILA levels, thus suggesting that this moiety does not play a major role in the assimilation of a glucose load.
Comparing Time-Fixed Mortality Prediction Models and Their Effect on ICU Performance Metrics Using the Simplified Acute Physiology Score 3

Objectives:To examine ICU performance based on the Simplified Acute Physiology Score 3 using 30-day, 90-day, or 180-day mortality as outcome measures and compare results with 30-day mortality as reference. Design:Retrospective cohort study of ICU admissions from 2010 to 2014. Setting:Sixty-three Swedish ICUs that submitted data to the Swedish Intensive Care Registry. Patients:The development cohort was first admissions to ICU during 2011–2012 (n = 53,546), and the validation cohort was first admissions to ICU during 2013–2014 (n = 57,729). Interventions:None. Measurements and Main Results:Logistic regression was used to develop predictive models based on a first level recalibration of the original Simplified Acute Physiology Score 3 model but with 30-day, 90-day, or 180-day mortality as measures of outcome. Discrimination and calibration were excellent for the development dataset. Validation in the more recent 2013–2014 database showed good discrimination (C-statistic: 0.85, 0.84, and 0.83 for the 30-, 90-, and 180-d models, respectively), and good calibration (standardized mortality ratio: 0.99, 0.99, and 1.00; Hosmer-Lemeshow goodness of fit H-statistic: 66.4, 63.7, and 81.4 for the 30-, 90-, and 180-d models, respectively). There were modest changes in an ICU’s standardized mortality ratio grouping (< 1.00, not significant, > 1.00) when follow-up was extended from 30 to 90 days and 180 days, respectively; about 11–13% of all ICUs. Conclusions:The recalibrated Simplified Acute Physiology Score 3 hospital outcome prediction model performed well on long-term outcomes. Evaluation of ICU performance using standardized mortality ratio was only modestly sensitive to the follow-up time. Our results suggest that 30-day mortality may be a good benchmark of ICU performance. However, the duration of follow-up must balance between what is most relevant for patients, most affected by ICU care, least affected by administrative policies and practically feasible for caregivers.
A hyperfused mitochondrial state achieved at G1–S regulates cyclin E buildup and entry into S phase

Mitochondria undergo fission–fusion events that render these organelles highly dynamic in cells. We report a relationship between mitochondrial form and cell cycle control at the G1–S boundary. Mitochondria convert from isolated, fragmented elements into a hyperfused, giant network at G1–S transition. The network is electrically continuous and has greater ATP output than mitochondria at any other cell cycle stage. Depolarizing mitochondria at early G1 to prevent these changes causes cell cycle progression into S phase to be blocked. Inducing mitochondrial hyperfusion by acute inhibition of dynamin-related protein-1 (DRP1) causes quiescent cells maintained without growth factors to begin replicating their DNA and coincides with buildup of cyclin E, the cyclin responsible for G1-to-S phase progression. Prolonged or untimely formation of hyperfused mitochondria, through chronic inhibition of DRP1, causes defects in mitotic chromosome alignment and S-phase entry characteristic of cyclin E overexpression. These findings suggest a hyperfused mitochondrial system with specialized properties at G1–S is linked to cyclin E buildup for regulation of G1-to-S progression.
DRM Mechanism without Third Party using System Verification Technique

—The advance in computing and easy availability of technology has led to an increase in the consumption of digital content. It has also led to illegal replication and distribution of digital contents. This poses to huge threat to organizations dealing with highly confidential digital contents and could drastically affect its financial standing. Digital Rights Management (DRM) technologies aim to provide protection and secure distribution of the digital contents. The proposed DRM mechanism focusses on protecting and securing the distribution of digital content in a small organization. It aims to benefit the small organizations by providing security, privacy, accountability as well revocation of malicious users. It eliminates the need for third party by using the system details to provide controlled access and prevent illegal redistribution of the digital content. Various security layers have been proposed at each level that enhance the security of digital content and simultaneously achieve privacy, accountability and revocation of a malicious user without the use of third party.
Multiresolution Information Mining for Pavement Crack Image Analysis

Empirical mode decomposition (EMD) is a multiresolution data analysis method recently developed to cater to the inherent nonstationarity in real-world signals. A two-dimensional (2D) extension of EMD is used in this paper as a pavement distress image analytical tool. The algorithm decomposes an image into a set of narrow band components (called bidimensional intrinsic mode function, or BIMF) that uniquely reflect the variations in the image. Although some components could have good image edge characteristics, others might hold fidelity to the shape and size of objects or trends in the image. Therefore, the complete spatial and frequency characteristic of a desired image feature might also be divided into the different components, indicating that all attributes of a desired feature might not be found in a single component. An optimal solution requires image mining from the different component resolutions to accurately extract those specific attributes without compromising certain spatial and frequency characteristics. Two major contributions to pavement image analysis are achieved. First, the paper explores pavement image denoising or enhancement by combining the EMD and a weighted reconstruction technique as a tool for background standardization of images acquired under different types of illumination effects. Second, using principal component pursuit (PCP), the authors reconstruct a composite image by selecting salient information from coarse and fine resolution BIMFs useful for accurate extraction of linear patterns in a pavement distress image. Compared with conventional image reconstruction or approximation techniques, the methodology used in this paper yields better results. DOI:10.1061/(ASCE)CP.1943-5487.0000178. (C) 2012 American Society of Civil Engineers.
Modeling and Simulation of Multithreaded Architectures

Multithreaded architectures are widely used for, among other things, hiding long memory latency. In such an architecture, a number of threads are allocated to each Processing Element (PE), and whenever a running thread becomes suspended, the PE switches to the next ready thread. We have developed a simulation platform, MTASim, that can be used to test and evaluate various policies and parameters of a multithreaded computer. The most important features of the MTASim are its flexibility and its ease of use. The MTASim model is based on finite state machines and can be easily modified and expanded. The simulation platform includes an experimental planner, an interface to PVM for the execution of independent experiments in parallel, and an interface to Matlab for processing and displaying results. The MTASim has been used to, among other things, determine the optimal number of threads and to evaluate various prefetching strategies and thread replacement algorithms.
Using Functional or Structural Magnetic Resonance Images and Personal Characteristic Data to Identify ADHD and Autism

A clinical tool that can diagnose psychiatric illness using functional or structural magnetic resonance (MR) brain images has the potential to greatly assist physicians and improve treatment efficacy. Working toward the goal of automated diagnosis, we propose an approach for automated classification of ADHD and autism based on histogram of oriented gradients (HOG) features extracted from MR brain images, as well as personal characteristic data features. We describe a learning algorithm that can produce effective classifiers for ADHD and autism when run on two large public datasets. The algorithm is able to distinguish ADHD from control with hold-out accuracy of 69.6% (over baseline 55.0%) using personal characteristics and structural brain scan features when trained on the ADHD-200 dataset (769 participants in training set, 171 in test set). It is able to distinguish autism from control with hold-out accuracy of 65.0% (over baseline 51.6%) using functional images with personal characteristic data when trained on the Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange (ABIDE) dataset (889 participants in training set, 222 in test set). These results outperform all previously presented methods on both datasets. To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of a single automated learning process that can produce classifiers for distinguishing patients vs. controls from brain imaging data with above-chance accuracy on large datasets for two different psychiatric illnesses (ADHD and autism). Working toward clinical applications requires robustness against real-world conditions, including the substantial variability that often exists among data collected at different institutions. It is therefore important that our algorithm was successful with the large ADHD-200 and ABIDE datasets, which include data from hundreds of participants collected at multiple institutions. While the resulting classifiers are not yet clinically relevant, this work shows that there is a signal in the (f)MRI data that a learning algorithm is able to find. We anticipate this will lead to yet more accurate classifiers, over these and other psychiatric disorders, working toward the goal of a clinical tool for high accuracy differential diagnosis.
Treating civilian gunshot wounds to the extremities in a level 1 trauma center: our experience and recommendations.

BACKGROUND Gunshot wounds impose a continuous burden on community and hospital resources. Gunshot injuries to the extremities might involve complex soft tissue, bone, vascular, musculotendinous, and nerve injuries. A precise knowledge of anatomy is needed to evaluate and treat those injuries. OBJECTIVES To review our experience with gunshot wounds to the extremities. METHODS We retrospectively reviewed all civilian cases of gunshot wounds to the limbs treated in our institution during 2003-2005. Altogether, we evaluated 60 patients with 77 injuries. RESULTS Of the 60 patients 36 had fractures, 75% of them in the lower extremity and 81% in long bones. The most common fixation modality used was external fixation (33%), followed by intramedullary nailing (25%). This relatively high percentage of fracture treated with external fixation may be attributed to the comminuted pattern of the fractures, the general status of the patient, or the local soft tissue problems encountered in gunshot wounds. About one-fifth of the fractures were treated by debridement only without hardware fixation. We treated 10 vascular injuries in 8 patients; 6 of them were injuries to the popliteal vessels. Fractures around the knee comprised the highest risk factor for vascular injuries, since 5 of the 12 fractures around the knee were associated with vascular injury requiring repair or reconstruction. There were 13 nerve injuries (16.8%), most of them of the deep peroneal nerve (38%). Only three patients had concomitant nerve and vascular injuries. The overall direct complication rate in our series was 20%. CONCLUSIONS To successfully treat complex gunshot injuries a team approach is necessary. This team should be led by an orthopedic surgeon knowledgeable in the functional anatomy of the limbs.
Model predictive control of a dual output seven-level rectifier

In this paper, a component efficient multilevel rectifier is modeled and controlled using Model Predictive Control (MPC) technique. The recently introduced Capacitor Tied Switches (CTS) converter structure features two distinct dc-load terminals which can operate at different voltage levels while experiencing high voltage levels at the ac-side terminals. The CTS converter structure inherits attractive features from the efficiency and power quality perspectives, with excellent topology performance which was validated through different simulation scenarios.
Product Market Competition, Union Organizing Activity, and Employer Resistence

We develop and estimate a model of the union's optimal extent of organizing activity that accounts for the decision of employers regarding resistance to union organizing. The central exogenous variable in the analysis is the quantity of quasi-rents per worker available to be split between unions and employers. We measure available quasi-rents per worker as the difference per worker between total industry revenues net of raw materials costs and labor costs evaluated at the opportunity cost of the workers. Using two-digit industry level data for thirty-five U.S. industries for the period 1955 through 1986, we find that both organizing activity and employer resistance to unionization are positively related to available quasi-rents per worker. However, there is still a strong negative trend in union organizing activity and a strong positive trend in employer resistance after controlling for quasi-rents per worker. Thus, the explanation for the decline in union organizing activity and the increase in employer resistance to unionization since the mid 1970's lies elsewhere.
Histochemical determination of lactate dehydrogenase activity in rat lens; influence of different parameters.

PURPOSE 1. To optimize a histochemical technique for the determination of lactate dehydrogenase activity in rat lens. 2. To determine the distribution of lactate dehydrogenase activity within the lens. 3. To analyse different components of variation in the method. METHODS A total of 24 six-week-old Sprague-Dawley rats were used. Cryosections of whole eyes were incubated with different media. The influence of incubation time, pH, the concentration of dye, lactate, nicotinamide dinucleotide, phenazine methosulfate, sodium azide, hydrazine and polyvinyl alcohol on the enzyme histochemical reaction was investigated. The staining reactant was nitrobluetetrazolium and the staining density was measured with a microscope-based photometer. RESULTS The lactate dehydrogenase activity was highest in the epithelium, followed by the nucleus, the anterior cortex, and the posterior cortex. The three largest components of variation in the analyses were rats, sections (including variation in section thickness) and density measurements (including variation within the different regions). CONCLUSION The composition of the final incubation medium for the detection of lactate dehydrogenase activity in rat lens are similar to that shown for other tissues. Lactate dehydrogenase activity varies in different regions of the lens.
Novel structural elements identified during tail resorption in Xenopus laevis metamorphosis: lessons from tailed frogs.

When the tail of the Xenopus laevis tadpole resorbs at the end of metamorphosis, various cell types, including muscle, fibroblasts, skin, and spinal cord, are lost at about the same time. However, feeding frogs with tails can be produced by inhibiting thyroid hormone production at the climax of metamorphosis with the goitrogen methimazole. These tails lose their fast muscle preferentially, showing that the different cell types of the tail have different fates and confirming that more than one cell death program is involved in tail resorption. Both normal and methimazole tails contain "cords," novel structures that consist of two dorsal and two ventral parallel rows of slow muscle bundles joined by collagen fibers that run the length of the tail. The cords persist until the very end of tail resorption, being the last structure to dissolve. When thyroid hormone induces expression of proteolytic enzymes in the notochord sheath, the notochord, a structural rod that runs the length of the tail, begins to buckle, demonstrating that the tail is under tension. When sections of the tail that contain cords are surgically separated from the notochord, they contract in vitro, suggesting that the cords contribute to the tension that augments tail resorption.
Does it Pay to Be Green? An Integrated View of Environmental Marketing with Evidence from the Forest Products Industry in China

This research considers the question “Does it Pay to be Green? ” which has been debated by forest industry practitioners and scholars for several decades. It was the same question that I encountered from time to time during my work with local industries and communities in the Asia-Pacific region as a consultant to the Rainforest Alliance over the past few years. The United Nations has declared 2011 as the International Year of Forests. As we enter the second decade of the 21st century, there is still a lot of skepticism and ambiguity floating around in the Asian forest products industry about “Green” and “Pay” issues. Given that limited research has been done to address these questions in a systematic approach, particularly in the context of the forest products industry in China, this study attempts to fill in the blank by investigating the drivers of environmental marketing strategies as “Green”, and their impacts on the bottom line of businesses - “Pay” - which is measured by two types of performance: environmental and competitive performance, in the context of the Chinese forest products industry.
Hospital Length of Stay and Readmission

This article is an investigation into the relationship between length of stay and readmission within 30 days of discharge from an acute care hospitalization. We estimated probability models for heart attack and for heart failure patients using generalized estimating techniques applied to hospital administrative data from California for calendar year 2008. The key independent variable was length of stay in the initial hospitalization. We found negative associations between length of stay and readmission probability, particularly in the case of heart attack. Simulated values of predicted readmissions based on a 1-day increase in length of stay yielded estimated reductions in readmission rates in the 7% to 18% range for heart attack patients and the 1% to 8% range for heart failure patients. Increasing length of stay for some patients may be a means of improving quality of care by reducing readmission during the 30-day postdischarge period.
Big data privacy: The datafication of personal information

ABSTRACT In the age of big data we need to think differently about privacy. We need to shift our thinking from definitions of privacy (characteristics of privacy) to models of privacy (how privacy works). Moreover, in addition to the existing models of privacy—the surveillance model and capture model—we need to also consider a new model: the datafication model presented in this article, wherein new personal information is deduced by employing predictive analytics on already-gathered data. These three models of privacy supplement each other; they are not competing understandings of privacy. This broadened approach will take our thinking beyond current preoccupation with whether or not individuals’ consent was secured for data collection to privacy issues arising from the development of new information on individuals' likely behavior through analysis of already collected data—this new information can violate privacy but does not call for consent.
Population-based study of risk factors for severe maternal morbidity.

BACKGROUND Severe maternal morbidity (SMM) is a serious health condition potentially resulting in death without immediate medical attention, including organ failure, obstetric shock and eclampsia. SMM affects 20000 US women every year; however, few population-based studies have examined SMM risk factors. METHODS We conducted a population-based case-control study linking birth certificate and hospital discharge data from Washington State (1987-2008), identifying 9485 women with an antepartum, intrapartum or postpartum SMM with ≥3-day hospitalisation or transfer from another facility and 41 112 random controls. Maternal age, race, smoking during pregnancy, parity, pre-existing medical condition, multiple birth, prior caesarean delivery, and body mass index were assessed as risk factors with logistic regression to estimate odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals [CI], adjusted for education and delivery payer source. RESULTS Older women (35-39: OR 1.65 [CI 1.52, 1.79]; 40+: OR 2.48 [CI 2.16, 2.81]), non-White women (Black: OR 1.82 [CI 1.64, 2.01]; American Indian: OR 1.52 [CI 1.32, 1.73]; Asian/Pacific Islander: OR 1.30 [CI 1.19, 1.41]; Hispanic: OR 1.17 [CI 1.07, 1.27]) and women at parity extremes (nulliparous: OR 1.83 [CI 1.72, 1.95]; parity 3+: OR 1.34 [CI 1.23, 1.45]) were at greater risk of SMM. Women with a pre-existing medical condition (OR 2.10 [CI 1.88, 2.33]), a multiple birth (OR 2.54 [CI 2.26, 2.82]) and a prior caesarean delivery (OR 2.08 [CI 1.93, 2.23]) were also at increased risk. CONCLUSION The risk factors identified are not modifiable at the individual level; therefore, provider and system-level factors may be the most appropriate target for preventing SMM.