Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cyclophilin-A: a novel biomarker for untreated male essential hypertension

Abstract Vascular cytokines, total nitrite, and cyclophilin-A (CyP-A) may be related to the pathogenesis of untreated hypertension. Forty males with normotensive and untreated essential hypertension were recruited in this cytokines survey. Body mass index (BMI), hyperlipidemia, and plasma CyP-A were increased in the hypertensive group (p < 0.05). However, only BMI (p = 0.022) and plasma CyP-A (p = 0.020) were found to be significant contributors to hypertension by multiple regression analysis. CyP-A was also positively correlated with systolic blood pressure (p = 0.029) and diastolic blood pressure (p = 0.047). These findings indicated that plasma CyP-A is a critical molecular biomarker in the early pathogenesis of essential hypertension.
National Survey of Physicians' Perception of the Cause, Complications, and Management of Gastroparesis

Objectives: Manifestations of gastroparesis are heterogeneous and clinical complications are poorly defined. Misconceptions of gastroparesis may be common. The objective was to determine physicians' perception of gastroparesis and identify areas that need further research and education. Methods: A physician survey was prospectively developed and tested. The survey included questions on the etiology, symptoms, management and perceived complications of gastroparesis. Physicians' feedback included rated responses by Likert scale and ranked responses by priority. A total of 3658 surveys were mailed to gastroenterologists and general practitioners using an online physician directory and a local medical society directory. Analysis of variance and t test were utilized. Results: A total of 397 surveys were returned. 85.9% of responses were from the national survey and 14.1% were local. Physicians ranked diabetes (70%) as the most common cause of gastroparesis, followed by idiopathic (21%) and postsurgical (9%). Postprandial epigastric pain (61%) was ranked as the most frequent symptom of gastroparesis, followed by retching/vomiting (20%) and heartburn/regurgitation (19%). 60% believed scintigraphy t1/2 is an accurate measurement of gastric emptying. Only one-third believed gastric electrical stimulation was effective as treatment of gastroparesis. Physicians rated abdominal pain as the most clinically significant complication of gastroparesis surpassing weight loss, hospitalization for dehydration, and malnutrition (P < 0.01). There were small but statistically significant differences between gastroenterologists versus general practitioners and private versus academic physicians. Conclusion: More physician awareness and education is needed on gastroparesis and the standardized four-hour gastric scintigraphy method, as well to clarify the management strategy for this condition.
The Gut Origin of Bacterial Pancreatic Infection during Acute Experimental Pancreatitis in Rats

Background: Infections are frequent complications and determine clinical course and outcome in severe pancreatitis. A novel animal model was used to assess minimal transit time of bacterial translocation (BT) across the gut mucosa in vivo using green fluorescent protein-transfected Escherichia coli and intravital video microscopy. Methods: Three hours after induction of acute pancreatitis by i.p. injection of 40 µg/kg cerulein, 0.5 ml of a suspension of green fluorescent protein-transfected E. coli were injected into the lumen of a small bowel reservoir formed by ligature in anesthetized Wistar rats. Translocation of E. coli was assessed by intravital microscopy. Animals were sacrificed 5 h after induction of pancreatitis. Results: BT across the mucosa and into the muscularis propria took a mean ± SD of 36.4 ± 8 min and 80.9 ± 9.5 min, respectively, in sham animals. Pancreatitis resulted in a significantly shorter minimal transit time across the mucosa (16.4 ± 4.9 min, p = 0.007) and into the muscularis propria (47.7 ± 2.5 min, p = 0.001). E. coli were detected on frozen cross-sections and on bacteriological examination of pancreatic tissue in animals with acute pancreatitis but not in controls. Discussion: Intravital microscopy of fluorescent bacteria is a new approach towards studying BT in vivo. Minimal transit time of BT serves as a novel functional aspect of mucosal barrier function during acute pancreatitis. The observation of fluorescent bacteria translocating from the small bowel lumen into the pancreas provides substantial experimental proof for the gut-origin-hypothesis of infectious complications in pancreatitis.
Business/IT Alignment through IT Governance Patterns in Portuguese Healthcare

The pervasive use of technology in organizations to address the increased services complexity has created a critical dependency on information technology (IT) that calls to a specific focus on IT Governance (ITG). However, determining the right ITG mechanisms remains a complex endeavor. This paper uses Design Science Research and proposes an exploratory research by analyzing ITG case studies to elicit possible ITG mechanisms patterns. Six interviews were performed in Portuguese healthcare services organizations to assess the ITG practices. The goal of the authors is to build some theories (ITG mechanisms patterns), which will guide healthcare services organizations about the advisable ITG mechanisms given their specific context. The authors also intend to elicit conclusions regarding the most relevant ITG mechanisms for Portuguese healthcare services organizations. Additionally, a comparison is made with the financial industry to identify improvement opportunities. The authors finish the paper with limitations, contribution and future work.
A game theoretical approach for cooperative environmentally friendly cellular networks powered by the smart grid

This paper investigates the collaboration between multiple mobile operators to optimize the energy efficiency of cellular networks, maximize their profits or achieve or tradeoff between both objectives. Mobile operators cooperate together by eliminating redundant base stations (BSs) using a low complexity algorithm that aims to maximize their objective functions subject to a quality of service constraint. The problem is modeled as a two-level Stackelberg game: a mobile operator level and a smart grid level. Indeed, in our framework, we assume that cellular networks are powered by multiple energy providers existing in the smart grid characterized by different pollutant levels in addition to renewable energy source deployed in BS sites. The objective is to find the best active BS combination and the optimal procurement decision needed to the network operation during collaboration by considering electricity real-time pricing. Our study includes the daily traffic variation in addition to the daily green energy availability. Our simulation results show a significant saving in terms of CO2 emissions compared to the non-collaboration case and that cooperative mobile operators exploiting renewables are more awarded than traditional operators.
Numerical solution of the 2D Poisson equation on an irregular domain with Robin boundary conditions

We describe a 2D finite difference algorithm for inverting the Poisson equation on an irregularly shaped domain, with mixed boundary conditions, with the domain embedded in a rectangular Cartesian grid. We give both linear and quadratic boundary treatments and derive 1D error expressions for both cases. The linear approach uses a five point formulation and is first order accurate while the quadratic treatment uses a nine point stencil and is second order accurate. The key aspect of the quadratic treatment is the use of a suitably chosen directional derivative to find the second order accurate approximation to the normal derivative at the boundary. References F. Bouchon and G. H. Peichl, {A second-order immersed interface technique for an elliptic Neumann problem}, Numer. Methods Partial Differential Equations. 23 (2007), no. 2, 400--420. doi:10.1002/num.20187 J. H. Bramble and B. E. Hubbard, {Approximation of solutions of mixed boundary value problems for Poisson's equation by finite differences}, J. Assoc. Comput. Mach. 12 (1965) 114--123. doi:10.1145/321250.321260 P.G. Ciarlet, {Introduction to numerical linear algebra and optimisation}, 1st English edition, Cambridge University Press , 1989. doi:10.2277/0521339847 L. Collatz, {Bemerkungen zur fehlerabschaetzung fuer das differnzenverfahren bei partiellen differentialgleichungen}, Z. Angew. Math. Mech. 13 (1933) 56--57. doi:10.1002/zamm.19330130110 D. Greenspan, {On the numerical solution of problems allowing mixed boundary conditions}, J. Franklin Inst. 277 (1964) 11--30. doi:10.1016/0016-0032(64)90035-3 Z. Jomaa and C. Macaskill, {The Shortley--Weller embedded finite-difference method for the 3D Poisson equation with mixed boundary conditions}, {submitted}. Z. Jomaa and C. Macaskill, {The embedded finite difference method for the Poisson equation in a domain with an irregular boundary and Dirichlet boundary conditions}, J. Comp. Phys. 202 (2005) 488--506. doi:10.1016/j.jcp. 2004.07. 011 X. Liu, R. Fedkiw and M. Kang, {A boundary condition capturing method for Poisson's equation on irregular domains}, J. Comp. Phys. {{160}} (2000) 151--178. doi:10.1006/jcph.2000. 6444 G. H. Shortley and R. Weller, {The numerical solution of Laplace's equation}, J. Appl. Phys. 9 (1938) 334--348. doi:10.1063/1.1710426
Mammography Screening Uptake among Female Health Care Workers in Primary Health Care Centers in Palestine - Motivators and Barriers.

BACKGROUND Early detection remains the cornerstone of breast cancer control in terms of outcome and survival. Thus far the only breast cancer screening method proven effective is mammography. The awareness of female health care workers (HCW) about breast cancer prevention is of vital importance, as their beliefs and behavior may have a major impact on other women. This study was designed to assess mammography screening uptake among female healthcare workers at primary healthcare centers, and to identify the primary motivators and barriers that affect uptake results. MATERIALS AND METHODS A cross sectional study design was used to assess mammography screening by 299 female healthcare workers who completed a self-administered questionnaire that assessed demographics, screening uptake, motivators and barriers. RESULTS The mean age was 46 years (within age of risk). The majority (95.1%) demonstrated adequate knowledge about breast cancer and mammography screening and 50% of the participants reported having at least one mammogram; however only 21% of them had regularly scheduled mammograms. The most frequent reported motivator was the perceived benefit that early detection of breast cancer is important for its management (89.6%), followed by the belief that mammography can detect breast cancer before its symptoms appear (84.4%). On the other hand, the most frequent barrier reported was being busy (46.7%), followed by the lack of perceived susceptibility (41.5%). CONCLUSIONS Mammography screening was found to be sub-optimal in a population of HCW's with 50 % stating that they received a mammogram at least once, and a minority reported regular screening. There is a pressing need for educational programs aimed at removing the barriers that limit compliance with recommendations for mammography screening, and to emphasize the importance of early detection in breast cancer treatment. Ensuring the availability and accessibility of screening services, particularly for healthcare workers within their work settings are other important factors that would improve the acceptance and compliance for mammography screening programs.
Determination of LED die strength

LED (Light Emitting Diode), converting the electron current into the light through the p-n junction of semiconductor diodes, has recently gained popularity worldwide. The high-power LEDs are found in a number of applications to high-volume consumer markets, such as illumination, signaling, screen backlights, automotives and so on. In these applications, the high-power LED packages would be subjected to mechanical, thermal, and environmental loadings during manufacturing processes and services. The strength of LED dies, cut from wafers, has to be determined for the design need in order to assure good reliability of the packages in manufacturing and service. The objective of this study is to determine high-power LED die strength with size of 1 times 1 times 0.1 mm by point-load test (PLT) and line-load test (LLT) associated with a plate-on-elastic-foundation configuration. The finite element analysis and the related stress formulation are used to correlate the failure force of the tests to die strength. It is found that the good consistency of the strength data (~1.3 GPa) with a minor scatter from both the point- and line-load tests is for the specimens failed on chip surfaces, but not for the ones (-1.2 GPa and -0.6 GPa, respectively) failed on the ground surfaces. The inconsistency of strength data from both tests for failure on ground surfaces is found due to edge chipping, observed by scanning electron microscopy. As a result, it can be confirmed that the LED die strength has been successfully determined by these feasible and reliable test methods.
UvA-DARE ( Digital Academic Repository ) Long term follow-up of health-related quality of life in young adults born very preterm or with a very low birth weight

Background: The purpose was, first, to evaluate changes in health-related quality of life (HRQL) in a cohort of very low birth weight (VLBW; <1500 g.) or very preterm (< 32 weeks of gestation) children between ages 14 and 19, and second, to identify correlates of HRQL at age 19. Methods: HRQL was assessed using the Health Utilities Index Mark 3 (HUI3). In order to explore correlates of HRQL, we performed a hierarchical regression analysis. Results: Surviving VLBW children (n = 959) from a 1983 Dutch nation-wide cohort were eligible; 630 participated both at age 14 and 19; 54 at age 19 only. The mean HRQL score decreased from 0.87 to 0.86. The HRQL of 45% was stable, 25% were better and 30% were worse. A regression model showed internalizing problems were related most strongly to HRQL. Conclusions: In the transition from adolescence to young adulthood, HRQL in Dutch VLBW children was stable at the group level but varied at the individual level. HRQL was negatively associated with internalizing problems and also with physical handicaps. Long-term follow-up studies on the impact of VLBW on HRQL are all the more called for, given the growing number of vulnerable infants surviving the neonatal period.
Spectral‐spatial pulse design for through‐plane phase precompensatory slice selection in T  2* ‐weighted functional MRI

T 2* ‐weighted functional MR images suffer from signal loss artifacts caused by the magnetic susceptibility differences between air cavities and brain tissues. We propose a novel spectral‐spatial pulse design that is slice‐selective and capable of mitigating the signal loss. The two‐dimensional spectral–spatial pulses create precompensatory phase variations that counteract through‐plane dephasing, relying on the assumption that resonance frequency offset and through‐plane field gradient are spatially correlated. The pulses can be precomputed before functional MRI experiments and used repeatedly for different slices in different subjects. Experiments with human subjects showed that the pulses were effective in slice selection and loss mitigation at different brain regions. Magn Reson Med 61:1137–1147, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Human papillomavirus vaccination: what is the best choice? A comparison of 16 strategies by means of a decisional model

SUMMARY Some European countries decided to include human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines in national immunization schedules. In order to help decision makers choose the best vaccination policy for females, a decisional model has been developed. The study was performed from the National Health Service perspective. Several hypotheses of multi-cohort vaccination policies were compared. ‘Potentially avoidable infections’ were chosen as the outcome. The model envisioned a short-term scenario (2008–2011). The best policy was that of vaccinating 12-year-olds and, a year later, those aged 14–16 years; the most expensive strategy was that of vaccinating 12-year-old females and, after 1 year, vaccinating those aged 15, 18 and 25 years. The sensitivity analysis showed that coverage rate has a great effect on the cost of avoidable infections. The study offers stake-holders an important datum-point for the choice of the best HPV policy vaccination in the short term. Indeed, it could generate interesting savings for the National Health Service and a rapid HPV immunization of young girls.
Intelligent text classification system based on self-administered ontology

Over the last couple of decades, web classification has gradually transitioned from a syntax- to semantic-centered approach that classifies the text based on domain ontologies. These ontologies are either built manually or populated automatically using machine learning techniques. A prerequisite condition to build such systems is the availability of ontology, which may be either full-fledged domain ontology or a seed ontology that can be enriched automatically. This is a dependency condition for any given semantics-based text classification system. We share the details of a proof of concept of a web classification system that is self-governed in terms of ontology population and does not require any prebuilt ontology, neither full-fledged nor seed. It starts from a user query, builds a seed ontology from it, and automatically enriches it by extracting concepts from the downloaded documents only. The evaluated parameters like precision (85{\%}), accuracy (86{\%}), AUC (convex), and MCC (high positive) demonstrate the better performance of the proposed system when compared with similar automated text classification systems.
Warping approach for rearview pedestrian detection with fish eye cameras

The trade-off between distortion-handling and keeping a wide field of view (FOV) is a problem affecting pedestrian detection systems of automobile rearview monitors that use on-vehicle fisheye cameras. We propose an image warping approach, called horizontal panorama mosaicing (HPM), as a solution to the problem. HPM is designed to (1) recover collinearity in the vertical direction and (2) create a sweeping panorama in the horizontal direction, such that it effectively normalize the appearances of vertically long objects like pedestrians in the full horizontal FOV. Using HPM warping as a preprocessing of the image input, conventional detectors (e.g. Faster r-cnn (FRCN) and DPM) can be used for rearview pedestrian detection without losing a wide horizontal FOV. In our evaluations, log-average miss rate of pretrained FRCN were reduced from 80.1 to 24.6 percents in the marginal view angle range using HPM. Our method is simple enough to be easily translated into a look-up-table representation, so it also has an advantage when it comes to its implementation in on on-board real-time systems.
Dehydration stress associated variations in rectal temperature, pulse and respiration rate of Marwari sheep

The present investigation was carried out in adult female Marwari sheep to evaluate the dehydration stress associated variations in rectal temperature, pulse and respiration rate. The whole experiment was divided into control, thirst and drinking periods. The thirst period was of 5 days to find out the dehydration stress. The control mean values of rectal temperature ( o F), pulse rate (min -1 ) and respiration rate (min -1 ) were 101.1 ± 0.198, 65.667 ± 2.028 and 25.167 ± 1.515 in the morning and 101.567 ± 0.174, 71.333 ± 1.229 and 27.833 ± 1.83 in the evening, respectively. With the advancement of thirst period the mean values of rectal temperature and pulse rate gradually increased while that of respiration rate increased first and then decreased. After drinking the mean values gradually decreased and on hour 72 of drinking, they differed non significantly (P>0.05) from their respective control values. Changes in rectal temperature, pulse rate and respiration rate indicated the adaptability of the animals to increased thirst periods. Dehydration due to thirst period provoked physiological mechanisms in the body in a manner that helped the animals to survive. Although dehydration was a stress to the animals, but the changes brought about by five days of dehydration were reversible.
Arachidonic Acid Activates a Proton Current in the Rat Glutamate Transporter EAAT4*

The excitatory amino acid transporter EAAT4 is expressed predominantly in Purkinje neurons in the rat cerebellum (1-3), and it participates in postsynaptic reuptake of glutamate released at the climbing fiber synapse (4). Transporter-mediated currents in Purkinje neurons are increased more than 3-fold by arachidonic acid, a second messenger that is liberated following depolarization-induced Ca2+ activation of phospholipase A2 (5). In this study we demonstrate that application of arachidonic acid to oocytes expressing rat EAAT4 increased glutamate-induced currents to a similar extent. However, arachidonic acid did not cause an increase in the rate of glutamate transport or in the chloride current associated with glutamate transport but rather activated a proton-selective conductance. These data reveal a novel action of arachidonate on a glutamate transporter and suggest a mechanism by which synaptic activity may decrease intracellular pH in neurons where this transporter is localized.
Subcloning the MAC-T bovine mammary epithelial cell line: morphology, growth properties, and cytogenetic analysis of clonal cells.

The objectives of the present study were 1) to determine the heterogeneity of the MAC-T cell line; 2) to examine whether homogeneous clones could be derived from MAC-T cells; and 3) to examine cell morphology, cytoskeletal characteristics, size, colony-forming ability, growth characteristics, beta-casein production, response to oxytocin, and cytogenetic properties of the clones. Three clonal cells, designated CU-1, CU-2, and CU-3, were derived from MAC-T cells. CU-1 and CU-2 cells were morphologically homogeneous. CU-3 cells were heterogeneous and contained two distinct subtypes. All clones contained cytokeratin 14 and 18. CU-2 and CU-3 cells were 30 and 18% larger, respectively, than CU-1 cells. CU-1 cells did not grow in serum-free medium. Doubling times for MAC-T, CU-2, and CU-3 were 46, 48, and 78 h, respectively, in serum-free medium. MAC-T cells and clones constitutively expressed beta-casein in culture ranging from . 1 to . 3 micrograms/ml per 24 h. Cytogenetic analyses revealed Robertsonian translocations and isochromosomes in the clonal lines. We conclude that parental MAC-T cells are heterogeneous in morphology, growth, and cytogenetic characteristics.
Defect localisation in photovoltaic panels with the help of synchronized thermography

This paper investigates defects in photovoltaic (PV) panels, more precisely, the location of defects in PV panels. With the help of electrical verification, it is possible to verify the impact of defects on output performances. However, it is not possible to determine the location of defects in order to address problems, for example in the manufacturing process of PV panels. In this paper, the focus lies on finding similarities in the location of defect areas in PV panels. Samples were characterised with the help of synchronized thermography (ST) in order to obtain infrared (IR) images of PV panels. IR-images are helpful to get a visual image on the health of PV panels and identify the position of defects. This information can be useful, for example to improve the fabrication process of PV panels.