Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Elevated Circulating Platelet-Derived Microparticles in Patients with Active Inflammatory Bowel Disease

OBJECTIVES:Platelet-derived microparticles (PDMPs) are active molecules involved in the hemostatic and inflammatory responses. To evaluate the changes in the platelet function in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), we measured circulating PDMP levels.METHODS:Twenty-five healthy controls, 44 patients with ulcerative colitis (UC), and 43 patients with Crohn's Disease (CD) were studied. The PDMP and soluble P-selectin (sP-selectin) levels were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). RESULTS:In the healthy controls, the PDMP levels were 17.2 ± 6.2 U/mL. Significant differences were not observed between the healthy controls and inactive UC patients (20.8 ± 9.5 U/mL, n = 25) or between the healthy controls and inactive CD patients (17.6 ± 7.8 U/mL, n = 24). In contrast, the PDMP levels were significantly higher in both active UC (49.2 ± 33.6 U/mL, n = 19) and active CD (48.6 ± 42.8 U/mL, n = 19) patients than in the healthy controls. A significant correlation was found between the PDMP levels and the clinical activity indexes (CAI) of UC patients (r = 0.65, p < 0.01, n = 44), and between the PDMP levels and Crohn's disease activity indexes (CDAI) (r = 0.72, p < 0.01, n = 43). Elevated PDMP levels in active patients were significantly reduced after remission. A significant correlation was observed between the PDMP levels and the sP-selectin levels (r = 0.60, p < 0.01, n = 122). CONCLUSION:Elevated circulating PDMPs in active IBD patients suggest a role for platelets in the pathogenesis of IBD.
Analysis of the infrared spectra of the peculiar post-AGB stars EP Lyrae and HD 52961

Aims. We aim to study in detail the peculiar mineralogy and structure of the circumstellar environment of two binary post-AGB stars, EP Lyr and HD 52961. Both stars were selected from a larger sample of evolved disc sources observed with Spitzer and show unique solid-state and gas features in their infrared spectra. Moreover, they show a very small infrared excess in comparison with the other sample stars. Methods. The different dust and gas species are identified on the basis of high-resolution Spitzer-IRS spectra. We fit the full spectrum to constrain grain sizes and temperature distributions in the discs. This, combined with our broad-band spectral energy distribution and interferometric measurements, allows us to study the physical structure of the disc, using a self-consistent 2D radiative-transfer disc model. Results. We find that both stars have strong emission features due to CO2 gas, dominated by 12 C 16 O2, but with clear 13 C 16 O2 and even 16 O 12 C 18 O isotopic signatures. Crystalline silicates are apparent in both sources but proved very hard to model. EP Lyr also shows evidence of mixed chemistry, with emission features of the rare class-C PAHs. Whether these PAHs reside in the oxygen-rich disc or in a carbon-rich outflow is still unclear. With the strongly processed silicates, the mixed chemistry and the low 12 C/ 13 C ratio, EP Lyr resembles some silicate J-type stars, although the depleted photosphere makes nucleosynthetic signatures difficult to probe. We find that the disc environment of both sources is, to a first approximation, well modelled with a passive disc, but additional physics such as grain settling, radial dust distributions, and an outflow component must be included to explain the details of the observed spectral energy distributions in both stars.
Ca-doped lead zirconate titanate thin film capacitors on base metal nickel on copper foil

Ca-doped lead zirconate titanate (52/48) thin film capacitors were prepared on electroless nickel-coated copper foils for embedded capacitor applications. The impact of Ca doping and process parameter variations was studied. Ca addition significantly reduced the temperature coefficient of capacitance. Specifically, the temperature variation wasreduced to less than 10% between 300 and 580 K through calcium addition. Optimized capacitance densities and loss tangents were 400 nF/cm^2 and 0.02, respectively. Crystallization temperatures of 600 °C yielded these optimized electrical properties, while higher temperaturesresulted in interfacialreactions. The influence of oxygen partial pressure during crystallization was also studied. Dielectric properties were sensitive to p O_2, with optimal properties occurring in a narrow p O_2 window centered about 10^-3 Torr. The trends with oxygen pressure were mirrored by changes in phase assemblage. Electrical transport across the dielectric layers was not strongly dependent upon doping level. This insensitivity was attributed to a thin interfacial layer present in all samples. Interface analysis using equivalent circuit analogues showed the nature of the interface to be highlyresistive (insulating), rather than semiconducting or conducting.
Cell size regulation in bacteria

Various bacteria such as the canonical gram negative Escherichia coli or the well-studied gram positive Bacillus subtilis divide symmetrically after they approximately double their volume. Their size at division is not constant, but is typically distributed over a narrow range. Here, we propose an analytically tractable model for cell size control, and calculate the cell size and inter-division time distributions, and the correlations between these variables. We suggest ways of extracting the model parameters from experimental data, and show that existing data for E. coli supports partial size control, and a particular explanation: a cell attempts to add a constant volume from the time of initiation of DNA replication to the next initiation event. This hypothesis accounts for the experimentally observed correlations between mother and daughter cells as well as the exponential dependence of size on growth rate. PACS numbers: 87.17. Ee, 87.17. Aa, 87.10. Mn, 87.81Tt
Efficient and Simplified Parallel Graph Processing over CPU and MIC

Intel Xeon Phi (MIC architecture) is a relatively new accelerator chip, which combines large-scale shared memory parallelism with wide SIMD lanes. Mapping applications on a node with such an architecture to achieve high parallel efficiency's a major challenge. In this paper, we focus on developing system for heterogeneous graph processing, which is able to utilize both a many-core Xeon Phi and a multi-core CPU ozone node. We propose a simple programming API with unintuitive interface for expressing SIMD parallelism. We develop efficient techniques for supporting our high-level API, focusing on exploiting wide SIMD lanes, massive number of cores, and partitioning of the work across CPU and accelerator, while handling the irregularity of graph applications. The components of our runtime system include a condensed static memory buffer, which supports efficient message insertion and SIMD message reduction while keeping memory requirements low, and specifically formic, a pipelining scheme for efficient message generation by avoiding frequent locking operations. Besides, a hybrid graph partitioning module is able to effectively partition the workload between the CPU and the MIC, ensuring balanced workload and low communication overhead. The main observations from our experimental evaluation using five popular applications are: formic executions, pipelining scheme is up to 3.36x faster than naive approach using locking based message generation, and the speedup over OpenMP ranges from 1.17 to 4.15. Heterogeneous-MIC execution achieves a speedup of up to 1.41 over the better of the CPU-only and MIC-only executions.
Using group communication to support mobile augmented reality applications

Augmented reality and group communication in wireless ad-hoc networks form relatively, new fields of research. When using group communication ordering and timeliness requirements are important. Moreover when using wireless ad-hoc networks, the possibility of network partition is a serious consideration. In this paper we explore these three issues in the context of using group communication to support mobile augmented reality applications. We describe a policy that enables its to handle partitions and failures, while allowing the members in a partition to make progress, although limited by the application's consistency requirements. We introduce an approach to determining the message ordering requirements needed to maintain a desired level of consistency and timeliness requirements that should be met in order to have the application state correspond to the sequence of events perceived in the real world.
Primary ciliary dyskinesia with complex abnormalities including cleavage of B‐subfibers

A 25‐year‐old Japanese woman suffered from repeated respiratory tract infections. Because of her characteristic medical history and imaging findings, we suspected primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD) and performed a transbronchial biopsy. The biopsy revealed complex abnormalities of the ciliary structure including cleavage of the B‐subfibers observed by transmission electron microscopy analysis and the complete loss of ciliary motion by video analysis. Genetic examinations to diagnose PCD have progressed in recent years. However, in this case, the well‐known genetic mutations in causal genes of PCD were not detected via whole‐exome sequencing of the blood. Cleavage of the B‐subfibers in patients with PCD has never been reported. This case appears to be the first report of this PCD subtype in humans.
Complexity-based induction systems: Comparisons and convergence theorems

In 1964 the author proposed as an explication of {\em a priori} probability the probability measure induced on output strings by a universal Turing machine with unidirectional output tape and a randomly coded unidirectional input tape. Levin has shown that if tilde{P}'_{M}(x) is an unnormalized form of this measure, and P(x) is any computable probability measure on strings, x , then \tilde{P}'_{M}\geqCP(x) where C is a constant independent of x . The corresponding result for the normalized form of this measure, P'_{M} , is directly derivable from Willis' probability measures on nonuniversal machines. If the conditional probabilities of P'_{M} are used to approximate those of P , then the expected value of the total squared error in these conditional probabilities is bounded by -(1/2) \ln C . With this error criterion, and when used as the basis of a universal gambling scheme, P'_{M} is superior to Cover's measure b\ast . When H\ast\equiv -\log_{2} P'_{M} is used to define the entropy of a rmite sequence, the equation H\ast(x,y)= H\ast(x)+H^{\ast}_{x}(y) holds exactly, in contrast to Chaitin's entropy definition, which has a nonvanishing error term in this equation.
Prevalence of Coronary Atherosclerosis in Patients With Cerebral Infarction

Background and Purpose— There is an overlap between stroke and coronary heart disease, but the exact prevalence of coronary artery disease in patients with nonfatal cerebral infarction is unclear, particularly when there is no known history of coronary heart disease. Methods— We consecutively enrolled 405 patients presenting with acute cerebral infarction documented by neuroimaging who underwent carotid and femoral artery, thoracic, and abdominal aorta ultrasound examinations. Of the 342 patients with no known coronary heart disease, 315 underwent coronary angiography a median of 8 days (interquartile range, 6–11) after stroke onset. Results— Coronary plaques on angiography, regardless of stenosis severity, were present in 61.9% of patients (95% confidence interval [CI], 56.5–67.3) and coronary stenoses ≥50% were found in 25.7% (95% CI, 20.9–30.5). The overall prevalence of coronary plaque increased with the number of arterial territories (carotid or femoral arteries) involved, with an adjusted odds ratio of coronary artery disease of 1.25 (95% CI, 0.58–2.71) for presence of plaque in 1 territory, and 4.31 (95% CI, 1.92–9.68) for presence of plaque in both territories, compared with no plaque in either territory. The presence of plaque in both femoral and carotid arteries had an age- and sex-adjusted positive predictive value of 84% for presence of coronary plaque and a negative predictive value of 44%. Conclusions— There is a high burden of silent coronary artery disease in patients with nonfatal cerebral infarction and no known coronary heart disease, even in the absence of systemic atherosclerosis. The prevalence is even higher in patients with evidence of carotid and/or femoral plaque.
Pyramid texture compression and decompression using interpolative vector quantization

Texture mapping is a common technique used to increase the visual quality of 3D scenes. As texture mapping requires a large amount of memory to deal with large textures generally required in the current visual systems, we propose an algorithm for compressing a pyramid texture used for mipmapping. Vector quantization is used to compress all levels of the pyramid texture to one representative value databook, one residual codebook and one index map. The proposed compression scheme uses interpolative texel difference vector quantization that compresses the difference between the interpolated surfaces generated by the representative value and the correct uncompressed texels of the texture at each level. The compressed pyramid texture can be accessed randomly and decompressed without loss of visual quality. We also propose a hardware architecture that performs the trilinear filtering with the compressed pyramid texture.
Hierarchical Mobile IPv6 Based Fast Vertical Handover using IEEE 802.21 Media Independent Handover Function

In this paper, the new fast vertical handover scheme is proposed for the hierarchical Mobile IPv6 (HMIPv6) to optimize and enhance the existing fast vertical handover HMIPv6 (FVH-HMIPv6) in heterogeneous wireless access networks. The recently standardized IEEE 802.21 Media Independent Handover Function (MIHF) is adopted for the proposed FVH-HMIPv6. Firstly, the Media Independent Information Service (MIIS) is extended by including new L3 information to provide domain prefixes of heterogeneous neighbouring mobility anchor points (MAPs), which is critical to the handover performance of proposed FVHFMIPv6 with MIHF. Secondly, the operation procedure for the proposed scheme is described in detail. Finally, the analysis for handover performance is performed for the proposed scheme and the existing scheme, which shows the proposed FVH-HMIPv6 with MIHF can optimize and enhance the handover performance of the existing scheme.
Nasopharyngeal Carriage Rate and Serotypes of Streptococcus pneumoniae and Antimicrobial Susceptibility in Healthy Korean Children Younger than 5 Years Old: Focus on Influence of Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccination

Background Even after pneumococcal vaccination introduction, Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumoccocus) is still an important cause of respiratory and invasive severe infection. Pneumococcus is resided in nasal mucosa and local or systemic infection begins with the nasal mucosa damage. We studied the indirect effect of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) on pneumococcal nasopharyngeal carriage rates, serotypes and antimicrobial susceptibility between vaccinate and non-vaccinated children. Materials and Methods From January 2010 to October 2010, 379 healthy children under 5 years old from three university hospitals were recruited. Fully vaccinated children over 3 time doses of PCV and children with no vaccination history of PCV were enrolled, and nasopharyngeal aspirations were obtained from these children. Serotypes using multibead serotyping assay with multiplex PCR and antimicrobial susceptibility was analyzed. Antimicrobial susceptibilities were determined by the CLIS guideline. Results Two hundred seventy six children were received pneumococcal vaccination while 103 were not. 137 pneumococci were isolated from nasopharyngeal aspiration specimens. Nasal carriage rate was significantly low in vaccinated group (P-value; 0.001). Nasopharyngeal carriage rate was 28.6% (79/276) in vaccinate group and 56.3% (58/103) in non-vaccinated group. Among those vaccinated group, 13.0% (36/276) of the serotypes were vaccine or vaccine related type with the most common type 19F. In contrast, 31.1% (32/103) of the serotypes in non vaccinated group were vaccine or vaccine related type with the most common type 6A. The resistant rate of penicillin was 90.5%. For antimicrobial susceptibility, amoxicillin and amoxicillin/clavulanate showed high susceptibility (73.0%), but 19F and 19A serotypes were all resistant against amoxicillin. Conclusions High nasopharyngeal carriage rate in non vaccinated group corresponded to the result of past study. However, 19F and 19A still came up as problematic serotypes with a high carriage rate and antimicrobial resistance in both vaccinated and non vaccinated groups. Also, this study showed that the resistance rate of primary oral antimicrobial agents was increased in compared to past. For solving these problems, the selective antimicrobial use with establishment of high dose amoxicillin/clavulanate regimen and active PCV immunization should be needed. Furthermore, pneumococcal carriage and serotype study concerning with antimicrobial susceptibility should be conducted in the future in 10 or 13-valent PCV received children.
Automatic molecular structure perception for the universal force field

The Universal Force Field (UFF) is a classical force field applicable to almost all atom types of the periodic table. Such a flexibility makes this force field a potential good candidate for simulations involving a large spectrum of systems and, indeed, UFF has been applied to various families of molecules. Unfortunately, initializing UFF, that is, performing molecular structure perception to determine which parameters should be used to compute the UFF energy and forces, appears to be a difficult problem. Although many perception methods exist, they mostly focus on organic molecules, and are thus not well‐adapted to the diversity of systems potentially considered with UFF. In this article, we propose an automatic perception method for initializing UFF that includes the identification of the system's connectivity, the assignment of bond orders as well as UFF atom types. This perception scheme is proposed as a self‐contained UFF implementation integrated in a new module for the SAMSON software platform for computational nanoscience (http://www.samson-connect.net). We validate both the automatic perception method and the UFF implementation on a series of benchmarks.
Glycoproteomic Analysis of Antibodies

Antibody glycosylation has been shown to change with various processes. This review presents mass spectrometric approaches for antibody glycosylation analysis at the level of released glycans, glycopeptides, and intact protein. With regard to IgG fragment crystallizable glycosylation, mass spectrometry has shown its potential for subclass-specific, high-throughput analysis. In contrast, because of the vast heterogeneity of peptide moieties, fragment antigen binding glycosylation analysis of polyclonal IgG relies entirely on glycan release. Next to IgG, IgA has gained some attention, and studies of its O- and N-glycosylation have revealed disease-associated glycosylation changes. Glycoproteomic analyses of IgM and IgE are lagging behind but should complete our picture of glycosylation's influence on antibody function.
Exophytic Benign and Malignant Hepatic Tumors: CT Imaging Features

Our objective is to describe the CT features of exophytic hepatic tumors those may pose a diagnostic challenge because of the uncertainty of tumor origin. The beak sign and the feeding artery of a tumor are useful diagnostic indicators of exophytic hepatic tumors. Two- or three-dimensional reformation images are also helpful for diagnosis. The CT features of exophytic hepatic tumors are similar to those of the usual intrahepatic tumors except for their location.
Incidence of autism spectrum disorders: changes over time and their meaning.

AIM Several reviews have noted a huge increase in the rate of diagnosed autism spectrum disorders. The main aims of this paper are: 1) to use published empirical findings to consider whether the rise reflects a true increase in incidence, as distinct from the consequences of better ascertainment and a broadening of the diagnostic concept; and 2) to consider how epidemiological data may be used to test hypotheses about possible causal influences, using MMR and thimerosal as examples. METHODS Search of the literature for studies with a large epidemiological base population, systematic standardized screening, a focus on an age group for which diagnostic assessments are reliable and valid, and diagnosis by trained professionals using high-quality research assessments. Also, search of a broader literature to consider the evidence from all epidemiological studies with respect to the hypothesized causal effect of MMR and thimerosal on autism spectrum disorders. RESULTS The true incidence of autism spectrum disorders is likely to be within the range of 30-60 cases per 10 000, a huge increase over the original estimate 40 years ago of 4 per 10000. The increase is largely a consequence of improved ascertainment and a considerable broadening of the diagnostic concept. However, a true risk due to some, as yet to be identified, environmental risk factor cannot be ruled out. There is no support for the hypothesis for a role of either MMR or thimerosal in causation, but the evidence on the latter is more limited. CONCLUSION Progress in testing environmental risk hypotheses will require the integration of epidemiological and biological studies.
Efferent Vagal Nerve Stimulation Protects Heart Against Ischemia-Induced Arrhythmias by Preserving Connexin43 Protein

Background—Myocardial ischemia (MI) leads to derangements in cellular electrical stability and the generation of lethal arrhythmias. Vagal nerve stimulation has been postulated to contribute to the antifibrillatory effect. Here, we suggest a novel mechanism for the antiarrhythmogenic properties of vagal stimulation during acute MI. Methods and Results—Under anesthesia, Wistar rats underwent 30 minutes of left coronary artery (LCA) ligation with vagal stimulation (MI-VS group, n=11) and with sham stimulation (MI-SS group, n=12). Eight of the 12 rats in the MI-SS group had ventricular tachyarrhythmia (VT) during 30-minute LCA ligation; on the other hand, VT occurred in only 1 of the 11 rats in the MI-VS group (67% versus 9%, respectively). Atropine administration abolished the antiarrhythmogenic effect of vagal stimulation. Immunoblotting revealed that the MI-SS group showed a marked reduction in the amount of phosphorylated connexin43 (Cx43), whereas the MI-VS group showed only a slight reduction compared with the sham operation and sham stimulation group (37±20% versus 79±18%). Immunohistochemistry confirmed that the MI-induced loss of Cx43 from intercellular junctions was prevented by vagal stimulation. In addition, studies with rat primary-cultured cardiomyocytes demonstrated that acetylcholine effectively prevented the hypoxia-induced loss of phosphorylated Cx43 and ameliorated the loss of cell-to-cell communication as determined by Lucifer Yellow dye transfer assay, which supports the in vivo results. Conclusions—Vagal nerve stimulation exerts antiarrhythmogenic effects accompanied by prevention of the loss of phosphorylated Cx43 during acute MI and thus plays a critical role in improving ischemia-induced electrical instability.