Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Analysis of the Development of the Human Auditory System

Reprint requests: Dr. Willard, Department of Anatomy, College of Osteopathic Medicine, University of New England, 11 Hills Beach Road, Biddeford, MA 04005 The auditory system has assumed an expanded role in clinical medicine as a monitor of intracerebral conditions. Volleys of acoustic information can be recorded as evoked potentials as they pass from receptor to cerebral cortex along the auditory pathways. These evoked potentials represent an index of the integrity of the cochlea, brainstem, and temporal cortex. Given the noninvasive nature of this technique along with its independence from patient cooperation, it is easy to understand why the study of auditory-evoked potentials has been extended to include neonatal and premature infants. The ability to distinguish between normal developmental variation and pathological situations in the infant brain will be greatly enhanced, however, by a better knowledge of events occurring in the ontogeny of the human auditory system. This review will analyze some of the seminal processes occurring during the development of the auditory system. In general, nervous system ontogeny can be divided into a series of embryological processes, each representing a landmark event in development. These processes are: induction, proliferation, migration, aggregation, differentiation, synaptic remodeling, and myelination. In this review, each process will be examined in terms of two major epochs in the development of the human auditory system: a preoperational period (4 to 20 weeks of gestation) and a period of hearing onset and maturation (20 weeks to 18 years after birth). (Numerous formats for reporting the embryo's growth are used in the literature on the human auditory system; unfortunately, only a few articles used staged embryos. To enhance comparison of data, all measurements have been converted into weeks of gestation using the charts provided in Lemire et al.) Chronological reviews of human auditory system development are available; the events in the
HIV-associated sensory neuropathy: still a problem in the post-stavudine era?

Sensory neuropathy (SN) is a common and difficult to manage cause of chronic pain in HIV. Recent recommendations for earlier HIV treatment and avoidance of neurotoxic antiretroviral drugs (such as stavudine) have led to optimism that HIV-SN rates may decline. We present several reasons as to why HIV-SN is likely to remain prevalent, despite improvements in HIV management, together with clinical evidence confirming high HIV-SN rates in cohorts never exposed to neurotoxic medications. A combination of epidemiologic studies, laboratory work and clinical trials are needed to understand the problem of HIV-SN in the post-stavudine era. Improved HIV-SN prevention and management strategies are needed if the morbidity associated with HIV infection is to improve along with life expectancy.
The prognostic value of the acute‐phase response in stroke recurrence

We measured the erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) in 318 acute stroke patients receiving heparin to evaluate its predictor value on the risk of early recurrence (first two weeks). The cumulative risks of early recurrence were 2.93 ± 1.85% for the low ESR group, and 9.77 ± 3.25% for the high ESR group. With logistic regression the risk of early stroke recurrence was associated to the ESR group (OR 3.55, 95% IC 1.24‐10.15), and a history of recent (< 1 week) (OR 6.95, 95% IC 2.06–23.42), or remote TIA (OR 4.27, 95% IC 1.22‐14.91). These results pointed to an inflammatory component in the pathogenesis of early recurrent stroke.
How ecosystems change

Conservation planning must accommodate changes in ecosystem composition to protect biodiversity Human impacts on the planet, including anthropogenic climate change, are reshaping ecosystems in unprecedented ways. To meet the challenge of conserving biodiversity in this rapidly changing world, we must understand how ecological assemblages respond to novel conditions (1). However, species in ecosystems are not fixed entities, even without human-induced change. All ecosystems experience natural turnover in species presence and abundance. Taking account of this baseline turnover in conservation planning could play an important role in protecting biodiversity.
Effect of Smoking Cessation Advice on Cardiovascular Disease

Performance measures and guidelines encourage physicians to advise smokers to quit. The effect of these efforts on the morbidity, mortality, and cost of cardiovascular disease is not known. This article analyzes the effects of offering smoking cessation advice in the US population. The Archimedes model is used to simulate several clinical trials in which basic advice and medication advice are offered and to calculate the rates of myocardial infarctions, congestive heart disease deaths, strokes, life years, quality-adjusted life years (QALYs), costs, and cost/ QALY. The simulated population is a representative sample of the US population drawn from the Third National Health and Nutrition Survey conducted just before the performance measures and guidelines were introduced. The results show that offering basic advice and medication advice can prevent about 13% and 19% of myocardial infarctions and strokes, respectively. The 30-year cost/QALY is approximately $3000 less than the base-case assumptions and less than $10 000 under pessimistic assumptions.
Nuclear magnetic resonance detection and spectroscopy of single proteins using quantum logic

Sensing single proteins with diamonds Nuclear magnetic resonance is a powerful technique for medical imaging and the structural analysis of materials, but is usually associated with large-volume samples. Lovchinsky et al. exploited the magnetic properties of a single spin associated with a defect in diamond and manipulated it with a quantum-logic protocol. They demonstrated the magnetic resonance detection and spectroscopy of multiple nuclear species within individual ubiquitin proteins attached to a specially treated diamond surface at room temperature. Science, this issue p. 836 The quantum properties of diamond are used for magnetic resonance spectroscopy of single proteins. Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy is a powerful tool for the structural analysis of organic compounds and biomolecules but typically requires macroscopic sample quantities. We use a sensor, which consists of two quantum bits corresponding to an electronic spin and an ancillary nuclear spin, to demonstrate room temperature magnetic resonance detection and spectroscopy of multiple nuclear species within individual ubiquitin proteins attached to the diamond surface. Using quantum logic to improve readout fidelity and a surface-treatment technique to extend the spin coherence time of shallow nitrogen-vacancy centers, we demonstrate magnetic field sensitivity sufficient to detect individual proton spins within 1 second of integration. This gain in sensitivity enables high-confidence detection of individual proteins and allows us to observe spectral features that reveal information about their chemical composition.
Advancing Aspirin Utilization: A Review of Clinical and Systems-Based Interventions

Underuse of clinical preventive services (CPS) such as low-dose aspirin therapy leads to tens of thousands of preventable deaths per year. The authors examined the current literature related to delivery of CPS and then provided the results to a preventive medicine expert panel who identified best practices to improve aspirin counseling and use. An exploratory literature search was conducted in PubMed using keywords associated with preventive health interventions. The review included articles published between January 2000 and March 2009. More than 200 articles were identified for review, and 35 met inclusion criteria. Interventions that increased patient—provider contact and physician interactive educational programs were most likely to improve delivery of CPS. The expert panel recommended a prevention systems cascade of reinforcing strategies and tools to maximize appropriate aspirin use. This model emphasizes important interrelationships of clinical practice settings and how they affect aspirin use.
Single-vesicle imaging reveals different transport mechanisms between glutamatergic and GABAergic vesicles

Neurotransmitter uptake one vesicle at a time Despite opposing ionic gradients, synaptic vesicles are able to accumulate neurotransmitters. To resolve the mystery of how this happens, Farsi et al. made parallel measurements of pH gradients and membrane potential at the single synaptic vesicle level. Glutamatergic and GABAergic vesicles had different uptake mechanisms, revealing insights into the energetic and ionic coupling of vesicular neurotransmitter transport. Science, this issue p. 981 GABA transport into vesicles relies on the counter flow of protons, whereas glutamate uptake does not. Synaptic transmission is mediated by the release of neurotransmitters, which involves exo-endocytotic cycling of synaptic vesicles. To maintain synaptic function, synaptic vesicles are refilled with thousands of neurotransmitter molecules within seconds after endocytosis, using the energy provided by an electrochemical proton gradient. However, it is unclear how transmitter molecules carrying different net charges can be efficiently sequestered while maintaining charge neutrality and osmotic balance. We used single-vesicle imaging to monitor pH and electrical gradients and directly showed different uptake mechanisms for glutamate and γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) operating in parallel. In contrast to glutamate, GABA was exchanged for protons, with no other ions participating in the transport cycle. Thus, only a few components are needed to guarantee reliable vesicle filling with different neurotransmitters.
Do Timely Outpatient Follow-up Visits Decrease Hospital Readmission Rates?

It is widely believed that timely follow-up decreases hospital readmissions; however, the literature evaluating time to follow-up is limited. The authors conducted a retrospective analysis of patients discharged from a tertiary care academic medical center and evaluated the relationship between outpatient follow-up appointments made and 30-day unplanned readmissions. Of 1044 patients discharged home, 518 (49.6%) patients had scheduled follow-up ≤14 days after discharge, 52 (4.9%) patients were scheduled ≥15 days after discharge, and 474 (45.4%) had no scheduled follow-up. There was no statistical difference in 30-day readmissions between patients with follow-up within 14 days and those with follow-up 15 days or longer from discharge (P = .36) or between patients with follow-up within 14 days and those without scheduled follow-up (P = .75). The timing of postdischarge follow-up did not affect readmissions. Further research is needed to determine such factors and to prospectively study time to outpatient follow-up after discharge and the decrease in readmission rates.
Adesão à terapêutica medicamentosa: elementos para a discussão de conceitos e pressupostos adotados na literatura

A questao da adesao a terapeutica tem sido discutida e estudada por profissionais de saude por se tratar de um ponto fundamental para a resolubilidade de um tratamento. Neste artigo sao discutidos, a partir de estudos de adesao a terapeutica medicamentosa relatados na literatura, os significados adotados para o fenomeno da adesao e os fatores a ele relacionados. Estudos de adesao a terapeutica foram analisados quanto aos seus conceitos e pressupostos, metodologias empregadas e o papel designado para profissionais e pacientes envolvidos. Sao discutidos os pressupostos teoricos encontrados nos estudos, e os fatores relacionados ao tema, que envolvem questoes relativas ao tratamento, ao profissional de saude e a doenca, e as metodologias adotadas nestes estudos, que sao baseadas em metodos diretos e indiretos e qualitativos, alguns com abordagem fiscalizadora. Conclui-se que os estudos no campo dos medicamentos em geral nao priorizam o papel do paciente no processo saude/doenca/tratamento, comprometendo a capacidade dos estudos de obter uma compreensao mais ampla e profunda sobre o tema.
A Utility-Based Joint Subcarrier and Power Allocation for Green Communications in Multi-User Two-Way Regenerative Relay Networks

In this paper, we investigate utility-based joint subcarrier and power allocation algorithms for improving the energy efficiency (EE) in multi-user two-way regenerative relay networks. With the objective of determining the best subcarrier allocation for each user pair, subcarrier pairing permutation, and power allocation to all the nodes, a network price is introduced to the power consumption as a penalty for the achievable sum rate, followed by the examination of its impact on the tradeoff between the EE and spectral efficiency. The formulated optimization problem is a non-convex mixed-integer nonlinear programming problem, and thus a concave lower bound on the objective function and a series of convex transformations are applied to transform the problem into a convex one. Through dual decomposition, we propose a utility-based resource allocation algorithm for iteratively tightening the lower bound and finding the optimal solution of the primal problem. By exploring the structure of the obtained optimal solution, an optimal price that enables green resource allocation is found from the perspective of maximizing EE. Additionally, a suboptimal algorithm is investigated to strike a balance between computational complexity and optimality. Simulation results evince the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms.
Design of multiplierless, high-performance, wavelet filter banks with image compression applications

The JPEG2000 image coding standard employs the biorthogonal 9/7 wavelet for lossy compression. The performance of a hardware implementation of the 9/7 filter bank depends on the accuracy and the efficiency with which the quantized filter coefficients are represented. A high-precision representation ensures compression performance close to the unquantized, infinite precision filter bank, but at the cost of increased hardware resources and processing time. If the filter coefficients are quantized such that the filter bank properties are preserved, then, the degradation in compression performance will be minimal. This paper investigates two filter structures and two "compensating" filter coefficient quantization methods for improving the performance of multiplierless, quantized filter banks. Rather than using an optimization technique to guide the design process, the new methods utilizes the perfect reconstruction requirements of the filter bank. The results indicate that the best method (a cascade structure with compensating zeros) realizes image-compression performance very similar to the unquantized filter case while also achieving a fast, efficient hardware implementation.
A recurrent neural network for nonlinear convex optimization subject to nonlinear inequality constraints

This paper presents a novel recurrent neural network for solving nonlinear convex programming problems subject to nonlinear inequality constraints. Under the condition that the objective function is convex and all constraint functions are strictly convex or that the objective function is strictly convex and the constraint function is convex, the proposed neural network is proved to be stable in the sense of Lyapunov and globally convergent to an exact optimal solution. Compared with the existing neural networks for solving such nonlinear optimization problems, the proposed neural network has two major advantages. One is that it can solve convex programming problems with general convex inequality constraints. Another is that it does not require a Lipschitz condition on the objective function and constraint function. Simulation results are given to illustrate further the global convergence and performance of the proposed neural network for constrained nonlinear optimization.
Capture of a third Mg2+ is essential for catalyzing DNA synthesis

A hit-and-run metal ion DNA polymerase is an enzyme that uses existing DNA as a template to build new DNA by adding new nucleotides to the end of the newly forming daughter strand. The enzyme mechanism that catalyzes formation of a phosphodiester bond is known to require two Mg2+ ions, and recent crystal structures have shown that a third metal ion is present after bond formation. Gao et al. used time-resolved crystallography to visualize bond formation. The enzyme-substrate complex captures a third cation before bond formation occurs, and DNA synthesis cannot occur without the third metal ion. Binding of this metal ion requires thermal motion of the enzyme-substrate complex, so that catalysis is achieved by acquiring a transient cofactor. Science, this issue p. 1334 A third metal ion is a transient cofactor in DNA polymerase. It is generally assumed that an enzyme-substrate (ES) complex contains all components necessary for catalysis and that conversion to products occurs by rearrangement of atoms, protons, and electrons. However, we find that DNA synthesis does not occur in a fully assembled DNA polymerase–DNA–deoxynucleoside triphosphate complex with two canonical metal ions bound. Using time-resolved x-ray crystallography, we show that the phosphoryltransfer reaction takes place only after the ES complex captures a third divalent cation that is not coordinated by the enzyme. Binding of the third cation is incompatible with the basal ES complex and requires thermal activation of the ES for entry. It is likely that the third cation provides the ultimate boost over the energy barrier to catalysis of DNA synthesis.
A questionnaire survey of the provision of training in human sexuality in schools of nursing in the UK

The inconsistent and haphazard approach to the provision of training in human sexuality to health professionals in the UK and elsewhere has been a matter of concern for over half a century. This article discusses the implications of findings from a questionnaire survey of 41 schools of nursing in the UK regarding their provision of training in human sexuality. Schools of nursing were chosen, as nurses form by far the largest employment group in the NHS today. The aim of this questionnaire survey was to obtain information on the provision of training in human sexuality in schools of nursing in the UK. The 20-item mixed qualitative and quantitative questionnaire was designed to elicit maximum information about research questions, it was independently validated after focus group discussion. The results drawn from this study will be primarily presented as observations, rather than statistically tested statements. The provision of training in human sexuality in the pre-registration nursing curricula in the UK is inadequate to meet the current varied needs of patients. On average, a mere 6.8 hours out of a potential 2300 hours of theoretical learning is dedicated to teaching human sexuality in schools of health in the UK. This is considerably less time than is dedicated to other areas of learning within the curriculum. The overall provision of training in human sexuality in the nursing curricula does not seem to have significantly improved, regardless of pleas from such esteemed bodies as the World Health Organisation and others.
Wide-linear-range subthreshold OTA for low-power, low-Voltage, and low-frequency applications

We propose a novel configuration of linearized subthreshold operational transconductance amplifier (OTA) for low-power, low-voltage, and low-frequency applications. By using multiple input floating-gate (MIFG) MOS devices and implementing a cubic-distortion-term-canceling technique, the linear range of the OTA is up to 1.1 Vpp under a 1.5-V supply for less than 1% of transconductance variation, according to testing results from a circuit designed in a double-poly, 0.8-/spl mu/m, CMOS process. The power consumption of the OTA remains below 1 /spl mu/W for biasing currents in the range between 1-200 nA. The offset voltage due to secondary effects (contributed by parasitic capacitances, errors and mismatches of parameters, charge entrapment, etc.) is of the order of a few ten millivolts, and can be canceled by adjusting biasing voltages of input MIFG MOS transistors.
Computing detection probability of delay defects in signal line tsvs

Three-dimensional stacking technology promises to solve the interconnect bottleneck problem by using Through-Silicon-Vias (TSVs) to vertically connect circuit layers. However, manufacturing steps may lead to partly broken or incompletely filled TSVs that may degrade the performance and reduce the useful lifetime of a 3D IC. Due to combinations of physical factors such as switching activity, supply noise and crosstalk, path delays can experience speed-up or slow-down that could let the effect of resistive open TSV go undetected by conventional test methods. In this work, we present a metric based on probabilistic analysis to detect delay defects induced by resistive opens that occur on signal line TSVs. Our experimental result will show the accuracy of the proposed metric.
New Compact CMOS Li-Ion Battery Charger Using Charge-Pump Technique for Portable Applications

This paper presents a new compact CMOS Li-Ion battery charger for portable applications that uses a charge-pump technique. The proposed charger features a small chip size and a simple circuit structure. Additionally, it provides basic functions with voltage/current detection, end-of-charge detection, and charging speed control. The charger operates in dual-mode and is supported in the trickle/large constant-current mode to constant-voltage mode with different charging rates. This charger is implemented using a TSMC 0.35-mum CMOS process with a 5-V power supply. The output voltage is almost 4.2 V, and the maximum charging current reaches 700 mA. It has 67.89% power efficiency, 837-mW chip power dissipation, and only 1.455times1. 348 mm2 in chip area including pads
Neuronal subtypes and diversity revealed by single-nucleus RNA sequencing of the human brain

Single-nucleus gene expression Identifying the genes expressed at the level of a single cell nucleus can better help us understand the human brain. Blue et al. developed a single-nuclei sequencing technique, which they applied to cells in classically defined Brodmann areas from a postmortem brain. Clustering of gene expression showed concordance with the area of origin and defining 16 neuronal subtypes. Both excitatory and inhibitory neuronal subtypes show regional variations that define distinct cortical areas and exhibit how gene expression clusters may distinguish between distinct cortical areas. This method opens the door to widespread sampling of the genes expressed in a diseased brain and other tissues of interest. Science, this issue p. 1586 Individual neurons have specific transcriptomic signatures and transcriptomic heterogeneity. The human brain has enormously complex cellular diversity and connectivities fundamental to our neural functions, yet difficulties in interrogating individual neurons has impeded understanding of the underlying transcriptional landscape. We developed a scalable approach to sequence and quantify RNA molecules in isolated neuronal nuclei from a postmortem brain, generating 3227 sets of single-neuron data from six distinct regions of the cerebral cortex. Using an iterative clustering and classification approach, we identified 16 neuronal subtypes that were further annotated on the basis of known markers and cortical cytoarchitecture. These data demonstrate a robust and scalable method for identifying and categorizing single nuclear transcriptomes, revealing shared genes sufficient to distinguish previously unknown and orthologous neuronal subtypes as well as regional identity and transcriptomic heterogeneity within the human brain.