Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Peritubular capillaritis in early renal allograft is associated with the development of chronic rejection and chronic allograft nephropathy

Abstract: Peritubular capillaritis (PTCitis) has been recognized as one form of acute/active allograft rejection, and its relation to humoral immunity has been suggested. However, its mechanisms remain to be fully clarified, and there are no criteria for evaluating the extent of PTCitis in a biopsied allograft. In this study, we first evaluated the extent of PTCitis in early allografts in patients presenting with acute cellular rejection (ACR) and antibody‐mediated rejection (AbAR). We also included patients who showed no evidence of ACR and/or AbAR. Next, we investigated whether or not PTCitis persisted and if peritubular capillary basement membrane (PTCBM) thickening was present in their follow‐up biopsy specimens. We adopted the scoring system of PTCitis, which was presented at the Seventh Banff Conference on Allograft Pathology in 2003. In total, 53 patients were included in this study. At first biopsy, 17 showed ACR, eight showed AbAR, 16 showed mild PTCitis only, and 14 were without significant pathologic changes. The PTC score was the highest in the AbAR group, and in some patients the score gradually increased during the follow‐up period. Similar changes were also observed in the group with mild PTCitis only. In late allografts, half of the patients with AbAR developed chronic rejection (CR), and the PTCBM score was the highest in that group. Surprisingly, CR was present in more than 30% of patients without ACR and/or AbAR but mild PTCitis only. In the control group, only a few showed CR and/or chronic allograft nephropathy (CAN). In conclusion, it became clear that we should carefully monitor for mild PTCitis in early allografts. In addition, our data also proved the usefulness of the PTC score and PTCBM score.
The Routineness of Routines: Measuring Rhythms of Media Interaction

The routines of information work are commonplace yet difficult to characterize. Although cognitive models have successfully characterized routine tasks within which there is little variation, a large body of ethnomethodological research has identified the inherent nonroutineness of routines in information work. We argue that work does not fall into discrete classes of routine versus nonroutine; rather, task performance lies on a continuum of routineness, and routineness metrics are important to the understanding of workplace multitasking. In a study of 10 information workers shadowed for 3 whole working days each, we utilize the construct of working sphere to model projects/tasks as a network of humans and artifacts. Employing a statistical technique called T-pattern analysis, we derive measures of routineness from these real-world data. In terms of routineness, we show that information workers experience archetypes of working spheres. The results indicate that T-patterns of interactions with information and computational media are important indicators of facets of routineness and that these measures are correlated with workers' affective states. Our results are some of the first to demonstrate how regular temporal patterns of media interaction in tasks are related to stress. These results suggest that designs of systems to facilitate so-called routine work should consider the degrees to which a person's working spheres fall along varying facets of routineness.
Psychological impact on caregivers of HIV-infected children in Udupi district, Karnataka

ABSTRACT Caregivers of children living with HIV/AIDS (CLWHA) face unique challenges due to disease-related stigma and discrimination, isolation from society, financial constraints, grief and mortality of loved one. A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted at Udupi ART centre to assess the caregiver burden, psychological distress and their associated factors among the caregivers of CLWHA in Udupi District. The convenience sampling technique was used to collect the data from 171 caregivers and analysed with the help of SPSS version 15.0. Majority of caregivers were female (64.9%) with mean age of 38.1 ± 9.6 years. About 64.3% caregivers were HIV-positive and 63.2% were biological parents of CLWHA. Mild-to-severe caregiver burden on Zarit Burden Inventory (ZBI) was reported among 84.8% of caregivers, and mild-to-severe psychological distress on General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) was reported among 49.7% caregivers. Relationship with child was found to be a significant predictor of caregiver burden as compared to other relatives/foster (P < 0.001). Relationship with child (P 0.004), Alcohol use (P 0.008) and Schooling of children (P 0.049) were reported as significant predictors of psychological distress. Study concludes that caregiver burden and psychological distress were high among caregivers of CLWHA. Psychological problems of caregivers need to be addressed and integrated along with the clinical care of HIV-infected children at ART centres.
The effect of work motivation on a sample of nurses in an Italian healthcare setting.

BACKGROUND Research in Human Resources Management has highlighted that implementing strategies for increasing employees' motivation can be an advantage for organizations because this improves their performance. OBJECTIVE Self Determination Theory (SDT) was used to analyze the mediating role of autonomous vs. controlled motivation on the relationship between organizational factors (perceived organizational support and job autonomy) and work outcomes (affective commitment, job satisfaction, and intent to quit). METHODS A total of 304 nurses from an Italian hospital participated in the study. RESULTS The results supported the importance of the mediating role of autonomous motivation on the relationship between both perceived organizational support (POS) and job autonomy, and work outcomes. Conversely, controlled motivation did not show mediating effects on that relationship. POS was directly related to affective commitment and job satisfaction. CONCLUSIONS Practical implications for organizations and employees are discussed along with a call for further research in this area.
Design of a stator-separated axial flux-switching hybrid excitation synchronous machine

A stator-separated axial flux-switching hybrid excitation synchronous machine (SSAFHESM) is introduced in this paper. The flux-leakage coefficient of SSAFHMSM is studied by finite element analysis (FEA) with the depth of non-magnetizer, and its field control ability is analyzed under different excitation currents. FEA results show that the flux-leakage coefficient is reduced evidently when the depth of non-magnetizer varies from 0 to 8mm, while it is almost not changed when the depth of non-magnetizer is greater than 8mm. Good field control ability is obtained in SSAFHESM.
EXPRESSION OF HUMAN FACTOR IX GENE IN MURINE PLASMA THROUGH LENTIVIRAL VECTOR‐INFECTED HAEMATOPOIETIC STEM CELLS

1 Haematopoietic stem cells (HSC) are an attractive target for gene therapy. Gene transfer to HSC can provide a potential cure for many inherited diseases. Moreover, recombinant lentiviral vectors can transfer genes efficiently to HSC. In the present study, we used the recombinant lentiviruses FUGW (Flip, ubiquitin promoter, GFP and WRE vector) and FUXW (Flip, ubiquitin promoter, F IX and WRE vector), which carry the enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) and human factor IX (hFIX) gene, respectively, to infect HSC. 2 High titres of recombinant lentivirus were prepared from 293T cells by calcium phosphate‐mediated transient cotransfection. Murine mononuclear cells (MNC) separated from murine bone marrow and HSC separated by magnetic cell sorting were cultured in vitro. Cells they were infected by the recombinant lentiviruses FUGW and FUXW. The expression of EGFP was observed under a fluorescent microscope and was analysed by fluorescence‐activated cell sorting, whereas the expression of hFIX was detected by ELISA. 3 The results show that the lentiviral vectors can efficiently infect murine HSC in vitro and that transduction was more efficient following cytokine treatment with interleukin (IL)‐3, IL‐6 and stem cell factor. 4 Haematopoietic stem cells infected with lentivirus FUXW were transplanted into [60Co]‐irradiated non‐obese diabetic/severe combined immunodeficiency (NOD‐SCID) mice. The expression of hFIX in the blood plasma of the transplanted mice reached a peak of 44.9 ± 7.6 ng/mL on Day 7. An assay of transaminase levels and a histological study of the liver showed that there was no significant damage following HSC transplantation to mice. 5 The results of the present study suggest that transplantation of HSC results in the persistant expression of hFIX in mice, which may be useful in haemophilia B gene therapy.
Hemispheric Language Dominance Testing by Means of fMRI

Presurgical evaluation of patients with intractable epilepsy routinely includes hemispheric language dominance (HLD) testing. Commonly, HLD is assessed by the intracarotid amobarbital (Wada) test.1 The advent of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has generated considerable interest in this technique as an alternative to HLD testing.2–6 Functional MRI mapping of the brain relies on the detection of focal changes in the concentrations of deoxyhemoglobin.7
Hyperspherical Query Likelihood Models with Word Embeddings

This paper presents an initial study on hyperspherical query likelihood models (QLMs) for information retrieval (IR). Our motivation is to naturally utilize pre-trained word embeddings for probabilistic IR. To this end, key idea is to directly leverage the word embeddings as random variables for directional probabilistic models based on von Mises-Fisher distributions which are familiar to cosine distances. The proposed method enables us to theoretically take semantic similarities between document and target queries into consideration without introducing heuristic expansion techniques. In addition, this paper reveals relationships between hyperspherical QLMs and conventional QLMs. Experiments show document retrieval evaluation results in which a hyperspherical QLM is compared to conventional QLMs and document distance metrics using word or document embeddings.
An efficient voltage and frequency division method for multiprecision multiplier on FPGA

In this paper, an efficient Dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS) for multi precision multiplier on reconfigurable FPGA is proposed. This paper is focusing on implementation of multiplier which works on runtime data with lower supply and clock frequency. Multipliers plays important role in arithmetic operations and it is power consuming part of circuit. This system is designed to address the issue of excess power consumption at lower workload. Dynamic system is developed for effective use of reconfigurable hardware and to address the power challenge. Range detection is the first step for making system dynamic once range is detected it generates control signal to frequency scaling unit, voltage scaling unit, and multiplication. In the Multiplication reversible gate as multiplier and Kogge-stone adder is used which results in efficient use of LUT's and delays as compared with previous scheme. To maintain performance trend in the age of runtime changing hardware configuration, it is beneficial to implement Multiprecision multiplier (MP) multiplier in modern XILINX as part of an FPGA. Experimental result shows that implementation of DVFS for multiplier block is on FPGA and it is offering good performance at low power supply voltage 3.3V to 1.25V and frequency 32MHz to 8MHz.
Humanoid Robotic Language and Virtual Reality Simulation

This chapter describes the development of a humanoid robotic language and the creation of a virtual reality system for the simulation of humanoid robots. In this chapter we propose a description language for specifying motions for humanoid robots and for allowing humanoid robots to acquire motor skills. Locomotion greatly increases our ability to interact with our environments, which in turn increases our mental abilities. This principle also applies to humanoid robots. However, there are great difficulties to specify humanoid motions and to represent motor skills, which in most cases require four-dimensional space representations. We propose a representation framework that includes the following attributes: motion description layers, egocentric reference system, progressive quantized refinement, and automatic constraint satisfaction. We also outline strategies for acquiring new motor skills by learning from trial and error, macro approach, and programming.
Effect of doping to the pore structure and pore diameter on silicon membrane surface

This paper studies parameters which affect the pore diameter of silicon membranes. The fabrication process starts with thinning the silicon substrate to get a membrane thickness of 8 μm. An electrochemical etch is carried out to produce the pores on the silicon membrane surface. The main parameter studied is the type of doping of the silicon substrate, which could be un-doped, phosphorus doped or boron doped. The pore geometry and pore diameter are observed in this experimental setup to clarify the effect of doping on the silicon substrate. Due to this setup, the development of nanoporous silicon membrane can be used in micro/nano filtration especially in bioMEMS applications.
Surface Sampling of Spores in Dry-Deposition Aerosols

ABSTRACT The ability to reliably and reproducibly sample surfaces contaminated with a biological agent is a critical step in measuring the extent of contamination and determining if decontamination steps have been successful. The recovery operations following the 2001 attacks with Bacillus anthracis spores were complicated by the fact that no standard sample collection format or decontamination procedures were established. Recovery efficiencies traditionally have been calculated based upon biological agents which were applied to test surfaces in a liquid format and then allowed to dry prior to sampling tests, which may not be best suited for a real-world event with aerosolized biological agents. In order to ascertain if differences existed between air-dried liquid deposition and biological spores which were allowed to settle on a surface in a dried format, a study was undertaken to determine if differences existed in surface sampling recovery efficiencies for four representative surfaces. Studies were then undertaken to compare sampling efficiencies between liquid spore deposition and aerosolized spores which were allowed to gradually settle under gravity on four different test coupon types. Tests with both types of deposition compared efficiencies of four unique swabbing materials applied to four surfaces with various surface properties. Our studies demonstrate that recovery of liquid-deposited spores differs significantly from recovery of dry aerosol-deposited spores in most instances. Whether the recovery of liquid-deposited spores is overexaggerated or underrepresented with respect to that of aerosol-deposited spores depends upon the surface material being tested.
Broad-band all-optical flip-flop based on optical bistability in an integrated SOA/DFB-SOA

We have demonstrated a broad-band all-optical flip-flop for wavelength-division-multiplexing system based on optical bistability in a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA)/distributed feedback (DFB)-SOA with wide gain bandwidth for both SOA and DFB-SOA regions. Input signal with two different wavelength selections of 1530.45 and 1578.12 nm and the repetition ration of about 6 ns is injected into the SOA/DFB-SOA.
Regulation of L‐type calcium channels by protein tyrosine kinase and protein kinase C in cultured rat and human retinal pigment epithelial cells 1

The effect of protein tyrosine kinases (PTKs) on L‐type calcium channel currents was studied in cultured rat and human retinal pigment epithelial cells. Barium currents through L‐type channels were measured in the perforated patch‐clamp technique and identified by using the L‐type calcium channel opener Bay K8644 (10−6 M). Application of the PTK blockers genistein (5 × 10−6 M) or lavendustin A (5×10−6 M) led to a decrease of L‐type currents. The inactive genistein analog daidzein (10−5 M) showed no effect on calcium channels. Intracellular application of pp60c‐src (30 U/ml) via the patch‐pipette during the conventional whole‐cell configuration led to an increase of L‐type currents. The protein kinase A and protein kinase G blocker H9 (10−6 M) showed no effect on L‐type currents; genistein reduced the current in the presence of H9. The protein kinase C (PKC) blocker chelerythrine (10−5 M) reduced the L‐type current; additional inhibition of PTK by lavendustin showed an additional reduction of currents. Intracellular application of myristoylated PKC substrate (5×10−5 M) for PKC inhibition led to a fast rundown of L‐type current amplitudes. Intracellularly applied myristoylated PKC substrate (10−4 M) together with pp60c‐src showed no effect on L‐type current. Up‐regulation of PKC by 10−6 M phorbol‐12‐myristate‐13‐acetate (PMA) had no effect on the L‐type current amplitude. However, genistein in cells pretreated with PMA led to an increase of the L‐type currents. Intracellular application of pp60c‐src in PMA‐treated cells led to a reduction of L‐type currents. We conclude that in the resting cell, PTK and PKC regulate L‐type calcium channels in an additive manner. L‐type channels appeared as a site of integration of PTK activation and of PKC‐dependent pathways. The activity of PKC determines whether PTK decreases or increases L‐type channel activity. —Strauss, O. , Mergler, S. , Wiederholt, M. Regulation of L‐type calcium channels by protein tyrosine kinase and protein kinase C in cultured rat and human retinal pigment epithelial cells. FASEB J. 11, 859–867 (1997)
Evolution of cadmium resistance in Daphnia magna

A diverse laboratory population of Daphnia magna Straus was established by combining individuals from eight sources. Artificial selection for increased resistance to the acute toxic effects of cadmium was performed, and after eight generations, the average median effective concentration increased from 61 to 180 μg/L. No differences in life span, offspring production, time to first brood, number of offspring in the first brood, or intrinsic rate of population increase (r) were observed between the cadmium‐adapted population and the controls under ideal conditions or under conditions of temperature or feeding ration stress, but cadmium‐adapted daphnids were smaller. Control and cadmium‐adapted populations were equally sensitive to copper and malathion, but the cadmium‐adapted population was less sensitive to lead and more sensitive to phenol. Analysis of amplified fragment‐length polymorphisms indicated a significant decrease in genetic diversity in the cadmium‐adapted population. Although the evolved cadmium resistance would allow adapted populations to exist in areas where cadmium concentrations would be toxic to unadapted populations, the decreased genetic diversity, smaller size, and increased sensitivity to at least one other toxicant could reduce the probability of long‐term survival even in the absence of future cadmium exposure.
Association of a CTLA-4 3′ untranslated region (CT60) single nucleotide polymorphism with autoimmune thyroid disease in the Japanese population

The etiology of the autoimmune thyroid diseases (AITDs), Graves' disease (GD) and Hashimoto's thyroiditis is largely unknown. However, genetic susceptibility is believed to play a major role. The cytotoxic T-lymphocyte antigen-4 (CTLA-4) gene, encoding a negative regulator of the T-lymphocyte immune response, had been reported to be associated and/or linked to AITD. Recently, AITD susceptibility in the Caucasians was mapped to the 6.1-kb 3′UTR of the CTLA-4 gene, in which the single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), CT60, was most strongly associated with AITD. In order to determine the association of the CTLA-4 gene with AITD in the Japanese, case-control association analysis for the CT60 of the CTLA-4 gene using 264 AITD patients and 179 healthy controls was done. The frequency of the disease-susceptible G allele of the CT60 of the Japanese control was higher than that of the Caucasians (72.6 vs. 52.3%). However, the G allele of the CT60 was associated with GD (84.0 vs. 72.6%, P=0.0008) and AITD (80.1 vs. 72.6%, P=0.009) in the Japanese. Furthermore, the G allele of the CT60 was associated with the increased risk for GD [P=0.004, odds ratio (OR)=2.0] and AITD (P=0.03, OR=1.6) in a recessive model. These results suggested that the CTLA-4 gene is involved in the susceptibility for GD and AITD in the Japanese.
Determination of phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitors and analogs using high-performance liquid chromatography with ultraviolet detection.

A considerable number of erectile dysfunction products, and dietary supplements suspected of containing phosphodiesterase-5 (PDE-5) inhibitors, have been analyzed by the US Food and Drug Administration. Often these samples are found to contain the approved active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) such as sildenafil, tadalafil or vardenafil. However, analogs of these APIs have also been identified in many samples and products containing multiple PDE-5 inhibitors have also been found. A single high-performance liquid chromatography with ultraviolet detection method has been developed for the determination of sildenafil, tadalafil, vardenafil and a number of commonly encountered analogs in pharmaceutical dosage forms and dietary supplement products, including tablets, capsules, bulk powders, troches and liquids. This method was designed as an alternative to methods developed for the determination of a single PDE-5 inhibitor. Using this protocol, 14 PDE-5 inhibitor compounds can be separated and determined in a single analysis.
Analysing the effects of mobile advertising on consumers' memory

The authors conducted a mobile advertising campaign with a follow-up survey to analyse the effects of mobile advertising upon consumers’ memory using the most common memory values: recall and recognition. An experimental field study using two different mobile advertising text message designs was carried out. The first textual design focused on monetary aspects, whereas the second textual design focused on a celebrity endorser. The results of the study indicate that mobile advertising has an overall high positive effect on consumers’ memory. Regarding recall, there are no significant differences between the subjects who received either of the aforementioned mobile advertising designs. In contrast, significantly more subjects were able to recognise the mobile advert featuring the textual design which focused on a celebrity endorser. Furthermore, we discovered that consumer recognition as a result of mobile advertising has a significant impact upon consumers’ behavioural purchase intention.