Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Role of Soluble Epoxide Hydrolase in Postischemic Recovery of Heart Contractile Function

Cytochrome P450 epoxygenases metabolize arachidonic acid to epoxyeicosatrienoic acids (EETs) which are converted to dihydroxyeicosatrienoic acids (DHETs) by soluble epoxide hydrolase (Ephx2, sEH). To examine the functional role of sEH in the heart, mice with targeted disruption of the Ephx2 gene were studied. Hearts from sEH null mice have undetectable levels of sEH mRNA and protein and cannot convert EETs to DHETs. sEH null mice have normal heart anatomy and basal contractile function, but have higher fatty acid epoxide:diol ratios in plasma and cardiomyocyte cell culture media compared with wild type (WT). sEH null hearts have improved recovery of left ventricular developed pressure (LVDP) and less infarction compared with WT hearts after 20 minutes ischemia. Perfusion with the putative EET receptor antagonist 14,15-epoxyeicosa-5(Z)-enoic acid (10 to 100 nmol/L) before ischemia abolishes this cardioprotective phenotype. Inhibitor studies demonstrate that perfusion with phosphatidylinositol-3 kinase (PI3K) inhibitors wortmannin (200 nmol/L) or LY294002 (5 &mgr;mol/L), the ATP-sensitive K+ channel (KATP) inhibitor glibenclamide (1 &mgr;mol/L), the mitochondrial KATP (mitoKATP) inhibitor 5-hydroxydecanoate (100 to 200 &mgr;mol/L), or the Ca2+-sensitive K+ channel (KCa) inhibitor paxilline (10 &mgr;mol/L) abolishes the cardioprotection in sEH null hearts. Consistent with increased activation of the PI3K cascade, sEH null mice exhibit increased cardiac expression of glycogen synthase kinase-3&bgr; (GSK-3&bgr;) phospho-protein after ischemia. Together, these data suggest that targeted disruption of sEH increases the availability of cardioprotective EETs that work by activating PI3K signaling pathways and K+ channels.
Modelling Coral Reef Futures to Inform Management: Can Reducing Local-Scale Stressors Conserve Reefs under Climate Change?

Climate change has emerged as a principal threat to coral reefs, and is expected to exacerbate coral reef degradation caused by more localised stressors. Management of local stressors is widely advocated to bolster coral reef resilience, but the extent to which management of local stressors might affect future trajectories of reef state remains unclear. This is in part because of limited understanding of the cumulative impact of multiple stressors. Models are ideal tools to aid understanding of future reef state under alternative management and climatic scenarios, but to date few have been sufficiently developed to be useful as decision support tools for local management of coral reefs subject to multiple stressors. We used a simulation model of coral reefs to investigate the extent to which the management of local stressors (namely poor water quality and fishing) might influence future reef state under varying climatic scenarios relating to coral bleaching. We parameterised the model for Bolinao, the Philippines, and explored how simulation modelling can be used to provide decision support for local management. We found that management of water quality, and to a lesser extent fishing, can have a significant impact on future reef state, including coral recovery following bleaching-induced mortality. The stressors we examined interacted antagonistically to affect reef state, highlighting the importance of considering the combined impact of multiple stressors rather than considering them individually. Further, by providing explicit guidance for management of Bolinao's reef system, such as which course of management action will most likely to be effective over what time scales and at which sites, we demonstrated the utility of simulation models for supporting management. Aside from providing explicit guidance for management of Bolinao's reef system, our study offers insights which could inform reef management more broadly, as well as general understanding of reef systems.
Menopause: A Standardized Isopropanolic Black Cohosh Extract (Remifemin) Is Found to Be Safe and Effective for Menopausal Symptoms

This randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicenter clinical study investigated the efficacy and various safety aspects of a standardized proprietary isopropanolic extract of black cohosh (Remifemin) in a population of 304 postmenopausal women who met strict parameter guidelines that determined the inclusion criteria. This clinical study confirmed previous results, which clearly indicate the efficacy and tolerability of this proprietary black cohosh extract (Remifemin) in addressing menopausal symptoms, particularly hot flashes.
ACDC: Small, Predictable and High-Performance Data Cache

In multitasking real-time systems, the worst-case execution time (WCET) of each task and also the effects of interferences between tasks in the worst-case scenario need to be calculated. This is especially complex in the presence of data caches. In this article, we propose a small instruction-driven data cache (256 bytes) that effectively exploits locality. It works by preselecting a subset of memory instructions that will have data cache replacement permission. Selection of such instructions is based on data reuse theory. Since each selected memory instruction replaces its own data cache line, it prevents pollution and performance in tasks becomes independent of the size of the associated data structures. We have modeled several memory configurations using the Lock-MS WCET analysis method. Our results show that, on average, our data cache effectively services 88% of program data of the tested benchmarks. Such results double the worst-case performance of our tested multitasking experiments. In addition, in the worst case, they reach between 75% and 89% of the ideal case of always hitting in instruction and data caches. As well, we show that using partitioning on our proposed hardware only provides marginal benefits in worst-case performance, so using partitioning is discouraged. Finally, we study the viability of our proposal in the MiBench application suite by characterizing its data reuse, achieving hit ratios beyond 90% in most programs.
Activated satellite cells in extraocular muscles of normal adult monkeys and humans.

PURPOSE Mammalian extraocular muscles (EOMs) are both physiologically and biochemically unique when compared with nonocular skeletal muscles. Recent studies have demonstrated a process of continuous myonuclear addition in normal uninjured myofibers in adult EOMs of rabbits and mice. The current study was conducted to determine whether this process of myonuclear addition is a universal phenomenon in mammalian EOMs. METHODS The EOMs from adult uninjured monkeys and humans were examined immunohistochemically for the expression of specific markers of activated satellite cells: hepatocyte growth factor (HGF); the myogenic regulatory factors MyoD, myogenin, and Pax7; and a marker for nuclei in all proliferative phases of the cell cycle, Ki-67. The satellite cell identity of the cells positive for Ki-67, HGF, and Pax7 was determined by colabeling sets of serial sections with either laminin or dystrophin. RESULTS In cross sections of monkey and human EOMs, approximately 7% to 8% of the myofiber profiles were associated with Pax7-positive satellite cells and between 2% and 4% were associated with MyoD-positive satellite cells or HGF-positive satellite cells. Similar percentages of satellite cells were positive for myogenin in the orbital layer, but the global layer had few satellite cells that were myogenin positive. An average of 0.72% of the myofibers had Ki-67-positive cells associated with them in the satellite cell position. CONCLUSIONS Activated satellite cells were present on myofibers in normal uninjured adult monkey and human EOMs, as visualized with these five distinct markers. The data support the hypothesis that the process of continuous myonuclear addition is most likely active in primate and human EOMs. The presence of continuous myofiber remodeling in EOM suggests new mechanisms that may be responsible for EOM sparing or involvement in skeletal muscle diseases.
Ras Dimer Formation as a New Signaling Mechanism and Potential Cancer Therapeutic Target

The K-, N-, and HRas small GTPases are key regulators of cell physiology and are frequently mutated in human cancers. Despite intensive research, previous efforts to target hyperactive Ras based on known mechanisms of Ras signaling have been met with little success. Several studies have provided compelling evidence for the existence and biological relevance of Ras dimers, establishing a new mechanism for regulating Ras activity in cells additionally to GTP-loading and membrane localization. Existing data also start to reveal how Ras proteins dimerize on the membrane. We propose a dimer model to describe Ras-mediated effector activation, which contrasts existing models of Ras signaling as a monomer or as a 5-8 membered multimer. We also discuss potential implications of this model in both basic and translational Ras biology.
A New Approach in the Search for periodic orbits

In this paper, we present a new approach for finding periodic orbits in dynamical systems modeled by differential equations. It is based on the Homotopy Analysis Method (HAM) but it differs from the usual way it is applied. We apply HAM to construct approximations of a formal series solution of the equation. These approximations exist for any value of the frequency. They can be obtained by choosing a suitable linear operator and allowing the initial conditions to vary freely. Then we study the behavior of the obtained expressions as a function of the frequency. This procedure allows us to find those values of the frequency for which the series converges and therefore to find the periodic orbits. We show several examples of application of the proposed method. Mathematica and MATCONT were applied for all the calculations.
Communication and Optimization Aspects of Parallel Programming Models on Hybrid Architectures

Most HPC systems are clusters of shared memory nodes. Parallel programming must combine the distributed memory parallelization on the node interconnect with the shared memory parallelization inside each node. The hybrid MPI+OpenMP programming model is compared with pure MPI, compiler based parallelization, and other parallel programming models on hybrid architectures. The paper focuses on bandwidth and latency aspects, and also on whether programming paradigms can separate the optimization of communication and computation. Benchmark results are presented for hybrid and pure MPI communication. This paper analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of several parallel programming models on clusters of SMP nodes.
Traffic optimization in software defined naval network for satellite communications

Naval surface fleets of the United States and its allies rely on multiple satellite communication systems (SATCOM) for onboard communication with other entities such as ships, shore nodes and hosts from external networks. Current practice is for an onboard ship router to select a particular SATCOM link for each outgoing traffic flow based on a mission-specific routing policy. In this paper we propose an alternative solution by viewing the multi-SATCOM link utilization task as a traffic engineering and load balancing problem — in particular, as a Multi-Commodity Flow (MCF) optimization problem. We propose using the Flow Deviation Method (FDM) as a network-wide optimal load-balancing solution that maximizes total throughput and minimizes traffic flow delay and jitter. Our approach is equally valid for both UDP and TCP flows. Network-wide global optimization is carried out via a central controller in a Software Defined Networking (SDN) framework. For TCP flows we propose a novel solution that combines the best attributes of Multi-Path TCP, SDN and FDM. Compared to single-path TCP or MPTCP-SDN without FDM-based traffic optimizer, our proposed combined scheme is more efficient in bandwidth utilization, delay/jitter minimization and also robust against jamming and intermittent link failure. Network performance results are validated via Mininet emulation tests.
IDENTIFICATION USING DIFFUSION MAPS

In this paper we propose a data-driven approach for speaker identification without assuming any particular speaker model. The goal in speaker identification task is to determine which one of a group of known speakers best matches a given voice sample. Here we focus on text-independent speaker identification, i.e. no assumption is made regarding the spoken text. Our approach is based on a recently developed manifold learning technique, named diffusion maps. Diffusion maps enable embedding of the recording into a new space, which is likely to capture the speech intrinsic structure. The algorithm is tested and compared to common identification algorithms. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm obtains improved results when few labeled samples are available.
Power Optimized ALU for Efficient Datapath

With the scaling of technology and the need for high performance and more functionality, power dissipation becomes a major bottleneck for microprocessor systems design. Also clock power can be significant in high performance systems. In this paper, a low power ALU for efficient datapath is proposed. In ALU, based on the observation, that while one functional unit is working other functional units remain idle, but they are connected to clock and all units dissipating significant amount of power. By using clock gating technique, a significant amount of power saving can be achieved at high frequency operations. Functionality of proposed ALU implemented on FPGA is tested using Xilinx tool. Power analysis is carried out using Xilinx’s Xpower analysis tool. It is found that designed ALU is dissipating a power of 24mw when it is operated at a clock frequency of 15MHz and supply voltage of 2.4V under load current of 4.8mA
Predictors of the transition from acute to persistent musculoskeletal pain in children and adolescents: a prospective study

Abstract Strategies directed at the prevention of disabling pain have been suggested as a public health priority, making early identification of youth at risk for poor outcomes critical. At present, limited information is available to predict which youth presenting with acute pain are at risk for persistence. The aims of this prospective longitudinal study were to identify biopsychosocial factors in the acute period that predict the transition to persistent pain in youth with new-onset musculoskeletal (MSK) pain complaints. Participants were 88 children and adolescents (age 10-17 years) presenting to the emergency department (n = 47) or orthopedic clinic (n = 41) for evaluation of a new MSK pain complaint (<1 month duration). Youth presented for 2 study visits (T1 ⩽1 month post pain onset; T2 = 4-month follow-up) during which they completed questionnaires (assessing pain characteristics, psychological factors, sleep quality) and participated in a laboratory task assessing conditioned pain modulation. Regression analyses tested T1 predictors of longitudinal pain outcomes (pain persistence, pain-related disability, quality of life [QOL]). Results revealed approximately 35% of youth had persistent pain at 4-month follow-up, with persistent pain predicted by poorer conditioned pain modulation and female sex. Higher depressive symptoms at T1 were associated with higher pain-related disability and poorer QOL at T2. Findings highlight the roles of depressive symptoms and pain modulation in longitudinally predicting pain persistence in treatment-seeking youth with acute MSK pain and suggest potential mechanisms in the transition from acute to chronic MSK pain in children and adolescents.
Critical Strain of Carbon Nanotubes: An Atomic-Scale Finite Element Study

This paper employs the atomic-scale finite element method (AFEM) to study critical strain of axial buckling for carbon nanotubes (CNTs). Brenner et al. "second-generation" empirical potential is used to model covalent bonds among atoms. The computed energy curve and critical strain for (8, 0) single-walled CNT (SWNT) agree well with molecular dynamics simulations. Both local and global buckling are achieved, two corresponding buckling zones are obtained, and the global buckling behavior of SWNT with a larger aspect ratio approaches gradually to that of a column described by Euler's formula. For double-walled CNTs with smaller ratio of length to outer diameter, the local buckling behavior can be explained by conventional shell theory very well. AFEM is an efficient way to study buckling of CNTs.
Increased Size of Myocardial Infarction in Dogs with Chronic Hypertension and Left Ventricular Hypertrophy

Impaired coronary reserve in animals and patients with left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) might be expected to augment infarct size following coronary occlusion (CO). To test this hypothesis, the circumflex coronary artery was acutely occluded in 30 control dogs and in 28 renal hypertensive (HT)-LVH dogs during the conscious state. Hemodynamics and regional myocardial flow (microspheres) were measured. After 48 hours of CO, we assessed infarct size pathologically and area at risk by postmortem coronary angiography. Mean arterial pressure (130 ± 5 mm Hg) and LV:body weight ratio (6.1 ± 0.1 g/kg) in HT-LVH dogs were about 35% greater than in control dogs (P < 0.05). During the 48 hours following CO, mortality rate was markedly increased in HT-LVH (54%) compared to control (17%) (P < 0.01). We performed a linear regression analysis of the relationship between area at risk (AR; % of LV mass) and infarct size (IS; % of LV mass); control, IS = 1.20AR - 25.6 (r = 0.96); HT-LVH, IS = 1.19AR - 16.3* (r = 0.95) (*P < 0.05 vs. control). Although the slopes of these relationships were similar, the intercepts were different. Consequently, the minimal AR associated with infarction was 35% smaller in HT-LVH (15 ± 2% of LV mass) than in control (22 ± 1%), and over the entire range of AR, the IS was increased in HT-LVH. The distance between the lateral extent of infarct size and area at risk in different layers of LV was measured. The increase in infarct size in the HT-LVH group reflected primarily an increase in midwall layer infarction. Increase in collateral flow to the risk area was attenuated in HT-LVH. In conclusion, infarct size relative to the area at risk is increased significantly in HT-LVH. This interaction between LVH and myocardial ischemia may significantly influence the outcome of myocardial infarction in patients with hypertension and LVH.
Management of acute ischemic stroke

PREVIEW In the last 5 years, management of acute ischemic stroke has been revolutionized by the introduction of “clot busting” therapy with tissue plasminogen activator, or tPA. Unfortunately, many patients cannot benefit from this approach because they do not meet the treatment window of 3 hours, within which administration of the drug must be started or other options must be pursued. Knowing how to respond quickly and correctly to manifestations of suspected stroke is critical. In this article, Dr Meschia discusses current treatment approaches to ischemic stroke and appropriate management of complications, which can affect quality and length of life in patients who survive the initial event.
Exact and approximate probabilistic symbolic execution for nondeterministic programs

Probabilistic software analysis seeks to quantify the likelihood of reaching a target event under uncertain environments. Recent approaches compute probabilities of execution paths using symbolic execution, but do not support nondeterminism. Nondeterminism arises naturally when no suitable probabilistic model can capture a program behavior, e.g., for multithreading or distributed systems. In this work, we propose a technique, based on symbolic execution, to synthesize schedulers that resolve nondeterminism to maximize the probability of reaching a target event. To scale to large systems, we also introduce approximate algorithms to search for good schedulers, speeding up established random sampling and reinforcement learning results through the quantification of path probabilities based on symbolic execution. We implemented the techniques in Symbolic PathFinder and evaluated them on nondeterministic Java programs. We show that our algorithms significantly improve upon a state-of-the-art statistical model checking algorithm, originally developed for Markov Decision Processes.
A Simulation-Based Evaluation of Methods to Estimate the Impact of an Adverse Event on Hospital Length of Stay

Introduction:We used agent-based simulation to examine the problem of time-varying confounding when estimating the effect of an adverse event on hospital length of stay. Conventional analytic methods were compared with inverse probability weighting (IPW). Methods:A cohort of hospitalized patients, at risk for experiencing an adverse event, was simulated. Synthetic individuals were assigned a severity of illness score on admission. The score varied during hospitalization according to an autoregressive equation. A linear relationship between severity of illness and the logarithm of the discharge rate was assumed. Depending on the model conditions, adverse event status was influenced by prior severity of illness and, in turn, influenced subsequent severity. Conditions were varied to represent different levels of confounding and categories of effect. The simulation output was analyzed by Cox proportional hazards regression and by a weighted regression analysis, using the method of IPW. The magnitude of bias was calculated for each method of analysis. Results:Estimates of the population causal hazard ratio based on IPW were consistently unbiased across a range of conditions. In contrast, hazard ratio estimates generated by Cox proportional hazards regression demonstrated substantial bias when severity of illness was both a time-varying confounder and intermediate variable. The direction and magnitude of bias depended on how severity of illness was incorporated into the Cox regression model. Conclusions:In this simulation study, IPW exhibited less bias than conventional regression methods when used to analyze the impact of adverse event status on hospital length of stay.
Risk Score for Peri-Interventional Complications of Carotid Artery Stenting

Background and Purpose— Routinely available independent risk factors for the peri-interventional outcome of patients undergoing elective carotid artery stenting (CAS) are lacking. The rationale of the study was to create a risk score identifying high-risk patients. Methods— We prospectively enrolled 606 consecutive patients assigned to CAS at a secondary care hospital. Various biochemical, clinical, and lesion-related risk factors were prospectively defined. The primary end point reflecting periprocedural complications encompassed minor and major stroke, nonfatal myocardial infarction and all-cause mortality within 30 days. Results— Three percent of patients (n=18) experienced a nonfatal minor (n=13) or major (n=5) stroke. 1.3% of patients (n=8) died from fatal stroke (n=4) or other causes (n=4). No myocardial infarction was observed within 30 days after stenting. Multivariable analysis revealed diabetes mellitus with inadequate glycemic control (HbA1c >7%), age ≥80 years, ulceration of the carotid artery stenosis, and a contralateral stenosis ≥50% as independent risk factors. A risk score formed with these variables showed a superior predictive value (C-statistic=0.73) compared with single risk factors. The presence of 2 or more of these risk factors identified patients with a risk of 11% for a periprocedural complication compared with 2% in patients with a score of 0 or 1. Conclusions— In patients undergoing elective CAS, a risk score based on routinely accessible variables was able to identify patients at high-risk for atherothrombotic events and all-cause death within 30 days after the intervention.