Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Role of programmed ventricular stimulation in patients with Brugada syndrome: a meta-analysis of worldwide published data.

AIMS Brugada syndrome (BS) is an ion channelopathy with the risk of sudden cardiac death. The role of programmed ventricular stimulation (PVS) in risk stratification has been controversially discussed. Therefore, we performed a meta-analysis on the prognostic role of PVS in BS. METHODS AND RESULTS A Medline search until July 2006 documented 822 entries for BS. Only English publications with > 10 patients and a follow-up period were considered (n = 15). Patients [n = 1217; 974 males (80%)] were divided into three groups: survived sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) [n = 222 (18%)], syncope (Syncope) [n = 275 (23%)], and asymptomatic patients (Asympt) [n = 720 (59%)]. PVS was conducted in 1036 patients (85%). In 548 patients (53%), sustained ventricular tachyarrhythmias (VT) or ventricular fibrillation (VF) was inducible. During follow-up (34 +/- 40 months), VT/VF occurred in 141 patients. SCA bore the highest chance for a VT/VF occurrence during follow-up [odds ratio (OR) 14.4 compared with asymptomatic patients; P < 0.0005]. However, except for one study, the OR for VT/VF during follow-up in relation to VT/VF inducibility was non-significant (OR 1.5; P = ns). CONCLUSION The main finding is that we were unable to identify a significant role of PVS with regard to arrhythmic events during follow-up in BS, thus questioning the role of PVS for risk stratification in patients with BS. Patients with BS and survived SCA show the highest chance for VT/VF occurrence during follow-up.
Trust Management for Semantic Web

The contemporary Web is heading towards its next stage of evolution. From a clump of unorganized information spaces, the Web is becoming more focused on the meaning of information that is a Semantic Web. Trust is an integral component in semantic web, allowing people to act under uncertainty and with the risk of negative consequences. In this paper we discussed trust management and its connection to the semantic web. We first discussed aspects of semantic web and trust management including defining trust and describing trust negotiations and then relationship of them. After that we explored how mechanisms of XML access control are used to protect the confidentiality, integrity and availability of ontologies in trust management.
Clinical Epidemiology Dovepress Open Access to Scientific and Medical Research Open Access Full Text Article Dovepress Specifying Exposure Classification Parameters for Sensitivity Analysis: Family Breast Cancer History

One of the challenges to implementing sensitivity analysis for exposure misclassification is the process of specifying the classification proportions (eg, sensitivity and specificity). The specification of these assignments is guided by three sources of information: estimates from validation studies, expert judgment, and numerical constraints given the data. The purpose of this teaching paper is to describe the process of using validation data and expert judgment to adjust a breast cancer odds ratio for misclassification of family breast cancer history. The parameterization of various point estimates and prior distributions for sensitivity and specificity were guided by external validation data and expert judgment. We used both nonprobabilistic and probabilistic sensitivity analyses to investigate the dependence of the odds ratio estimate on the classification error. With our assumptions, a wider range of odds ratios adjusted for family breast cancer history misclassification resulted than portrayed in the conventional frequentist confidence interval.
Nutrient partitioning during pregnancy: adverse gestational outcome in overnourished adolescent dams

Appropriate nutrient partitioning between the maternal body and gravid uterus is essential for optimum fetal growth and neonatal survival, and in adult sheep nutrient partitioning during pregnancy generally favours the conceptus at the expense of the dam. However, recent studies using an overnourished adolescent sheep model demonstrate that the hierarchy of nutrient partitioning during pregnancy can be dramatically altered in young growing females. Overnourishing the adolescent dams to promote rapid maternal growth throughout pregnancy results in a major restriction in placental mass and leads to a significant decrease in birth weight relative to moderately-fed adolescents of equivalent gynaecological age. High maternal feed intakes are also associated with an increased incidence of non-infectious spontaneous abortion, a reduction in gestation length and colostrum production, and a higher incidence of neonatal mortality. The present paper examines the putative role of a variety of endocrine regulators of nutrient partitioning in this unusual model system, where the dam is overnourished while the stunted placenta restricts nutrient supply to the fetus. The central role of nutritionally-mediated alterations in placental growth and development in setting the subsequent pattern of nutrient partitioning between the maternal body, placenta and fetus is examined, and critical periods of sensitivity to alterations in maternal nutritional status are defined. Finally, the consequences of this form of inappropriate nutrient partitioning on the growth and development of the fetus and neonate are described with particular emphasis on the reproductive axis.
Endangered Species Research Endang Species Res Global Research Priorities for Sea Turtles: Informing Management and Conservation in the 21st Century

INTRODUCTION Over the past 30 years, the status of sea turtles and the need for their protection and population recovery have increasingly captured the interest of many government agencies, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the general public (Raustiala 1997, Wright & Mohanty 2006, Campbell 2007). This interest has been matched with increased research attention, which focuses on a wide variety of topics relating to sea turtle biology and conservation, including the interrelations with the physical and biological environments in which they live, and the human dimensions associated with these elements (Avise 2007, Campbell & Cornwell 2008). Indeed, for the last 3 decades there has been an annual symposium dedicated to sea turtle biology and conservation; recently the symposium has had roughly 300 presentations annually, with atten-dees from over 80 countries across 6 continents (see www.seaturtlesociety.org). The growing body of peer-reviewed literature has equally reflected the increase in sea turtle research, with the ISI Web of Science reporting 813 research items from 2006 to 2009 in a search for 'sea turtle' or 'marine turtle' and 'conserva-ABSTRACT: Over the past 3 decades, the status of sea turtles and the need for their protection to aid population recovery have increasingly captured the interest of government agencies, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the general public worldwide. This interest has been matched by increased research attention, focusing on a wide variety of topics relating to sea turtle biology and ecology, together with the interrelations of sea turtles with the physical and natural environments. Although sea turtles have been better studied than most other marine fauna, management actions and their evaluation are often hindered by the lack of data on turtle biology, human–turtle interactions , turtle population status and threats. In an effort to inform effective sea turtle conservation a list of priority research questions was assembled based on the opinions of 35 sea turtle researchers from 13 nations working in fields related to turtle biology and/or conservation. The combined experience of the contributing researchers spanned the globe as well as many relevant disciplines involved in conservation research. An initial list of more than 200 questions gathered from respondents was condensed into 20 metaquestions and classified under 5 categories: reproductive biology, biogeography, population ecology, threats and conservation strategies. Resale or republication not permitted without written consent of the publisher
Capacity and power control in spread spectrum macrodiversity radio networks

What is the capacity of the uplink of a radio network of receivers? We consider a spread spectrum model in which each user is decoded by all the receivers in the network (macrodiversity). We use a carrier-to-interference performance criterion that we derive from Shannon theory; each user must find the right transmitter power level to satisfy its carrier-to interference constraint. Satisfying this requirement for all users is equivalent to solving a fixed point problem. We use this power control problem to derive the network capacity region and find that the feasibility of a configuration of users is independent of their positions in the network; each user can be assigned a bandwidth that is independent of the user's position in the network. Our capacity region is an upper bound over all schemes that treat the interference of other users as pure noise. To show that the capacity can be realized in practice, we propose a decentralized power adaptation algorithm and prove global convergence to the fixed point via a monotonicity argument.
Integrative and Personalized QSAR Analysis in Cancer by Kernelized Bayesian Matrix Factorization

With data from recent large-scale drug sensitivity measurement campaigns, it is now possible to build and test models predicting responses for more than one hundred anticancer drugs against several hundreds of human cancer cell lines. Traditional quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) approaches focus on small molecules in searching for their structural properties predictive of the biological activity in a single cell line or a single tissue type. We extend this line of research in two directions: (1) an integrative QSAR approach predicting the responses to new drugs for a panel of multiple known cancer cell lines simultaneously and (2) a personalized QSAR approach predicting the responses to new drugs for new cancer cell lines. To solve the modeling task, we apply a novel kernelized Bayesian matrix factorization method. For maximum applicability and predictive performance, the method optionally utilizes genomic features of cell lines and target information on drugs in addition to chemical drug descriptors. In a case study with 116 anticancer drugs and 650 cell lines, we demonstrate the usefulness of the method in several relevant prediction scenarios, differing in the amount of available information, and analyze the importance of various types of drug features for the response prediction. Furthermore, after predicting the missing values of the data set, a complete global map of drug response is explored to assess treatment potential and treatment range of therapeutically interesting anticancer drugs.
Implementation of boost converter zero current detection using digital ASIC design flow

Energy can be harvested from ambient sources such as vibration, wireless, thermal and solar. Using energy harvesting in running ultra-low power systems could potentially enable battery-free operation in many applications, especially in wearable and implantable biomedicai devices. A special energy efficient interface circuit, which transfers harvested energy to be utilized by the load, is an essential part in the overall harvesting system. Traditionally, power converters such as DC-DC converters were entirely based on analog circuit design. This paper presents detailed implementation of a zero current detection technique for the inductor-based DC-DC converter using digital ASIC design flow. The proposed design was implemented using 65 nm Global Foundries Low Power CMOS process. It occupied an area of 209.88 μm2 and consumed 8.07 μW. Furthermore, it ran at a frequency of 925.96 MHz. By using the ASIC design flow, the design is all-digital, portable and technology independent.
The impact of metabolic syndrome on the outcomes of transurethral resection of the prostate.

PURPOSE To investigate the effect of metabolic syndrome (MS) and its components on the outcomes of transurethral resection of the prostate (TURP). PATIENTS AND METHODS Fifty patients with MS and 50 without MS were enrolled for the study. Patients without MS were assigned to Group 1 and patients with MS were in Group 2. Patients were evaluated by the International Prostate Symptom Score (IPSS), Quality of Life index (QoL), maximum urine flow rate (Qmax), prostate-specific antigen level, and urinary ultrasonography. Six months after surgery, patients were again evaluated by IPSS and uroflowmetry; then comparison was made between the groups with respect to IPSS, QoL, and Qmax. RESULTS Postoperative IPSS was determined as 11.2±0.87 in Group 1 and 12.9±0.88 in Group 2 (P<0.05). Postoperative Qmax values were determined as 18.2±0.81 and 13.9±1.12 for the two groups, respectively (P<0.05). After multivariate analyses, elevated fasting glucose (EFG) and dyslipidemia were determined to have a significant correlation with IPSS improvement. EFG and hypertension had a significant negative impact on Qmax, and hypertension and abdominal obesity had a significant correlation with QoL improvement. CONCLUSIONS MS as a comorbidity seems to diminish the effects of TURP. Further well-designed prospective, randomized studies with larger cohorts are needed to confirm the findings of this study.
A Sliding Mode Control for Induction Motors Using Adaptive Switching Control Law

An adaptive sliding-mode control system, which is insensitive to uncertainties, is proposed to control the position of an induction motor drive. The designed sliding mode control presents an adaptive switching gain to relax the requirement for the bound of uncertainties. The switching gain is adapted using a simple algorithm which do not implies a high computational load. Stability analysis based on Lyapunov theory is also performed in order to guarantee the closed loop stability. Finally simulation results show, on the one hand that the proposed controller provides high-performance dynamic characteristics, and on the other hand that this scheme is robust with respect to plant parameter variations and external load disturbances. Key–Words: Sliding Mode Control, Induction Motor, Adaptive Control, Field Oriented Control.
Exploring new features to combine the output of machine translation paradigm

Machine translation can be seen as a part of information and knowledge technology. All current machine translation paradigms have their own shortcomings, and on the other hand their own non-overlapping advantages. Therefore, combining different machine translation systems could help to find or generate a better hypothesis. In this paper, we apply a hypothesis selection method. Using the limited number of features, we rescore hypotheses, and then the hypothesis with the highest score is selected as the final output. Experimental results on Persian-English task shows a significant improvement of 1.13% and 1.19% in BLEU on the tuning and unseen test sets as compared to the best individual system.
Incidence and treatment of 'no-reflow' after percutaneous coronary intervention.

BACKGROUND Profound reduction in antegrade epicardial coronary flow with concomitant ischemia is seen occasionally during percutaneous coronary intervention despite the absence of evident vessel dissection, obstruction, or distal vessel embolic cutoff. In a prior small series of cases, this "no-reflow" phenomenon appeared to be promptly reversed by the intra-coronary administration of verapamil. METHODS AND RESULTS To further understand the prevalence of this syndrome and its responsiveness to the proposed therapy, we reviewed 1919 percutaneous interventions performed between January 1991 and April 1993. During the study period, 39 patients (2.0%) met our criteria for no reflow, 37 of whom were treated with intracoronary nitroglycerin followed by intracoronary verapamil and 2 of whom received intracoronary nitroglycerin alone. An additional 16 patients (0.8%) were given verapamil as part of the management of a flow-limiting dissection or distal embolus (mechanical obstruction). Intracoronary verapamil (50 to 900 micrograms, total dose) improved TIMI flow grade in 89% of no-reflow patients and markedly reduced the number of cineframes between contrast injection and opacification of a selected distal landmark (from 91 +/- 56 to 38 +/- 21 frames, P < .001). By contrast, only 19% of patients with epicardial mechanical obstruction showed improvement in TIMI flow grade after verapamil, with minimal reduction in frames to opacification (from 107 +/- 42 to 101 +/- 69, P = .73). CONCLUSIONS The no-reflow phenomenon--reduction in distal flow without apparent dissection or distal embolization--occurs in 2% of coronary interventions. It generally responds promptly to intracoronary verapamil administration, suggesting that distal microvascular spasm may be its etiology.
NUMERICAL MODELING OF THE COAGULATION AND POROSITY EVOLUTION OF DUST AGGREGATES

Porosity evolution of dust aggregates is crucial in understanding dust evolution in protoplanetary disks. In this study, we present useful tools to study the coagulation and porosity evolution of dust aggregates. First, we present a new numerical method for simulating dust coagulation and porosity evolution as an extension of the conventional Smoluchowski equation. This method follows the evolution of the mean porosity for each aggregate mass simultaneously with the evolution of the mass distribution function. This method reproduces the results of previous Monte Carlo simulations with much less computational expense. Second, we propose a new collision model for porous dust aggregates on the basis of our N-body experiments on aggregate collisions. As the first step, we focus on “hit-and-stick” collisions, which involve neither compression nor fragmentation of aggregates. We first obtain empirical data on porosity changes between the classical limits of ballistic cluster–cluster and particle–cluster aggregation. Using the data, we construct a recipe for the porosity change due to general hit-and-stick collisions as well as formulae for the aerodynamical and collisional cross sections. Our collision model is thus more realistic than a previous model of Ormel et al. based on the classical aggregation limits only. Simple coagulation simulations using the extended Smoluchowski method show that our collision model explains the fractal dimensions of porous aggregates observed in a full N-body simulation and a laboratory experiment. By contrast, similar simulations using the collision model of Ormel et al. result in much less porous aggregates, meaning that this model underestimates the porosity increase upon unequal-sized collisions. Besides, we discover that aggregates at the high-mass end of the distribution can have a considerably small aerodynamical cross section per unit mass compared with aggregates of lower masses. This occurs when aggregates drift under uniform acceleration (e.g., gravity) and their collision is induced by the difference in their terminal velocities. We point out an important implication of this discovery for dust growth in protoplanetary disks.
Activation of the Akt/Mammalian Target of Rapamycin/4E-BP1 Pathway by ErbB2 Overexpression Predicts Tumor Progression in Breast Cancers

The Akt/mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR)/4E-BP1 pathway is considered to be a central regulator of protein synthesis, involving the regulation of cell proliferation, differentiation, and survival. The inhibitors of mTOR as anticancer reagents are undergoing active evaluation in various malignancies including breast cancer. However, the activation status of the Akt/mTOR/4E-BP1 pathway and its potential roles in breast cancers remain unknown. Thus, we examined 165 invasive breast cancers with specific antibodies for the phosphorylation of Akt, mTOR, and 4E-BP1 by immunohistochemistry and compared them with normal breast epithelium, fibroadenoma, intraductal hyperplasia, and ductal carcinoma in situ. We discovered that the phosphorylation of Akt, mTOR, and 4E-BP1 increased progressively from normal breast epithelium to hyperplasia and abnormal hyperplasia to tumor invasion. Phosphorylated Akt, mTOR, and 4E-BP1 were positively associated with ErbB2 overexpression. Survival analysis showed that phosphorylation of each of these three markers was associated with poor disease-free survival independently. In vitro, we further confirmed the causal relationship between ErbB2 overexpression and mTOR activation, which was associated with enhanced invasive ability and sensitivity to a mTOR inhibitor, rapamycin. Our results, for the first time, demonstrate the following: (a) high levels of phosphorylation of Akt, mTOR, and 4E-BP1 in breast cancers, indicating activation of the Akt/mTOR/4E-BP1 pathway in breast cancer development and progression; (b) a link between ErbB2 and the Akt/mTOR/4E-BP1 pathway in breast cancers in vitro and in vivo, indicating the possible role of Akt/mTOR activation in ErbB2-mediated breast cancer progression; and (c) a potential role for this pathway in predicting the prognosis of patients with breast cancer, especially those treated with mTOR inhibitors.
High Ornithine Decarboxylase Activity and Polyamine Levels in Human Colorectal Neoplasia

Polyamines are required for cell proliferation, and ornithine decarboxylase (ODC) is the first and probably rate-limiting enzyme in their synthesis. Tissue containing colonic or rectal adenocarcinomas (N = 34) or polyps (N = 6) and noninvolved paired colonic mucosa were obtained from fresh surgical specimens. ODC activity was elevated (mean: 320%) in both the cancer and polyps. In noninvolved colonic mucosa of tumor-bearing specimens, ODC activity was 165% that of colonic mucosa of nonneoplastic disease. Concentrations of polyamines in neoplasms were 121–214% increased, as compared with normal mucosa; those of spermidine and spermine varied inversely with the histological grade of the tumor. High levels of ODC activity and of polyamines were features of neoplasia, but not of malignancy alone. These characteristics of colonic neoplasia suggest its susceptibility to control by inhibition of ODC.
The Ontology Lookup Service: more data and better tools for controlled vocabulary queries

The Ontology Lookup Service (OLS) (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/ols) provides interactive and programmatic interfaces to query, browse and navigate an ever increasing number of biomedical ontologies and controlled vocabularies. The volume of data available for querying has more than quadrupled since it went into production and OLS functionality has been integrated into several high-usage databases and data entry tools. Improvements have been made to both OLS query interfaces, based on user feedback and requirements, to improve usability and service interoperability and provide novel ways to perform queries.