Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Methemoglobinemia and topical pharyngeal anesthesia.

To the Editor: Methemoglobinemia results from oxidation of ferrous iron (Fe2+) to ferric iron (Fe3+), which renders the hemoglobin molecule unavailable for oxygen transport, resulting in potentially life-threatening hypoxemia. This disorder may be triggered by topical anesthetics1 used in endoscopic procedures. However, reports on the safety of transesophageal echocardiography in more than 25,000 patients2,3 and upper endoscopy in more than 500,000 patients4,5 do not list methemoglobinemia as a potential complication. We recently observed two cases of methemoglobinemia during transesophageal echocardiography within a three-month period. These cases underscore the importance of familiarity with the expected findings on .
Nonlinear Planning with Parallel Resource Allocation

Most nonlinear problem solvers use a leastcommitment search strategy, reasoning about partially ordered plans. Although partial orders are useful for exploiting parallelism in execution, leastcommitment is NP-hard for complex domain descriptions with conditional effects. Instead, a casual-commitment strategy is developed, as a natural framework to reason and learn about control decisions in planning. This paper describes how NOLIMIT reasons about totally ordered plans using a casual-commitment strategy, how it generates a partially ordered solution from a totally ordered one by analyzing the dependencies among the plan steps, and finally how resources are allocated by exploiting the parallelism embedded in the partial order. We illustrate our claims with the implemented algorithms and several examples. This work has been done in the context of the PRODIGY architecture that incorporates NOLIMIT, a nonlinear problem solver.
De invloed van merkervaring op user experience: eerst indruk vs gebruik

As a researcher I’m interested in the factors that contribute to a positive user experience (UX) with interactive products. Brand experience influences the UX. De Angeli, Hartmann and Sutcliffe (2009) report that brand attitude, which is part of the brand experience, is an important factor that influences the evaluation of a website. Brand attitude does not only influence hedonic quality aspects (creativity and novelty of the design and pleasure with interaction), but also pragmatic quality aspects (usability). But the reason why brand experience has an influence on the UX is unknown. There are a couple of possible explanations why brand experience has an effect on the UX. One possible explanation is that users oversee flaws of a product when they have a positive attitude towards the brand of the website. Another explanation is that a brand can influence the meaning that a user relates to the website. A brand can be used as a heuristic to evaluate a website. This study builds forth on the research of De Angeli et al. and assesses whether the influence of brand experience on UX is present before and after the use of a website. In the ‘first impression condition’ a respondent has five seconds to evaluate a website, followed by a questionnaire. In the ‘use condition’ respondents get two tasks that they can accomplish at the assigned website, followed by a questionnaire. The results of this study indicate that brand experience has a significant effect on the UX aspects (identification, stimulation, pragmatic quality and attractiveness of a website). This indicates that users use their experience with a brand as a heuristic during the evaluation of a website of that brand. Brand attitude often has no direct significant effect on the UX aspects in the first impression condition. However, purchase intention explains the variance in the UX aspect scores better in the first impression condition, than brand attitude. Why this is the case is unknown. A possible explanation is that users are also guided by norms of relevant people in the first impression phase. However, purchase intention doesn’t have an effect on the UX aspects after use of a website. This study also indicates that brand attitude has more influence on the perceived identification after use of a website, than purchase intention before use of a website. This implies that after the use of the website the brand experience of the user can influence the associations he or she has with the website. However, brand experience doesn’t always have a significant effect on all UX aspects. Brand experience has no effect on the experienced stimulation related to a website. Furthermore, brand experience doesn’t always have a significant effect on the UX aspects when looking at individual websites.
Bidirectional Placental Transfer of Glucose and Its Turnover in Fetal and Maternal Sheep

SUMMARY: Glucose biokinetics were assessed simultaneously in the pregnant ewe and its fetus by a primed constant infusion of 2-1H glucose and U-1 C glucose. Late in gestation fetal glucose turnover was 27.3 ± 3.7 mg/min; expressed in terms of fetal weight this is 6 to 10 mg/kg/min. In the fed state the results indicated that all of the fetal glucose turnover was derived from the mother via placental transfer and there was no evidence that the fetus was capable of glucose production. Maternal glucose turnover was 145.6 ± 9.3 mg/min (2.8 mg/kg/min). There was a significant amount of glucose (16.3 ± 2.3 mg/min) transferred from the fetus to the mother. This feto-maternal transfer of glucose accounted for 11% of the maternal glucose turnover and approximately 50% of the total glucose coming to the fetus from the mother. This study provides the first in vivo simultaneous quantification of the bidirectional glucose transfer across the placenta.Speculation: In the fed state all the fetal glucose is derived from the mother, and the fetus does not produce glucose. A large portion of the glucose coming from the mother to the fetus is returned to the mother, despite glucose concentrations that are threefold higher in the mother than fetus. Thus, the transplacental passage of glucose is bidirectional, this bidirectionality may be responsible for maintaining the concentration gradient that always keeps fetal glucose ooncentration at a lower level than that of the mother, and thereby facilitates fetal glucose supply.
Detecting moving objects from dynamic background with shadow removal

Background subtraction is commonly used to detect foreground objects in video surveillance. Traditional background subtraction methods are usually based on the assumption that the background is stationary. However, they are not applicable to dynamic background, whose background images change over time. In this paper, we propose an adaptive Local-Patch Gaussian Mixture Model (LPGMM) as the dynamic background model for detecting moving objects from video with dynamic background. Then, the SVM classification is employed to discriminate between foreground objects and shadow regions. Finally, we show some experimental results on several video sequences to demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed method.
MRAM defect analysis and fault modeling

With the advent of system-on-chip (SOC), the demand for embedded memory cores increases rapidly. The magnetic random access memory (MRAM) is considered one of the potential candidates that replace current on-chip memories (RAM, EEPROM, and flash memory) in the future. The MRAM has a high speed and does not need high supply voltage for read/write operations, so it has the advantages of RAM and flash memory, making it a potentially good choice for SOC. The testing of MRAM, however, has not been fully investigated. In this work we classify and analyze the MRAM defects and their behavior, and propose its fault models. We have built a SPICE model of MRAM cell and performed defect injection and simulation of a real MRAM circuit. The circuit has been implemented and fabricated with a novel 0.18 m technology. The simulation results regarding the correlation between the defects and conventional fault models show that most of the defects can be covered by the stuck-at fault model. The test data based on the fabricated chips show that the stuck-at faults do cover most of the defects on the chips. However, from the experiment we also have identified two new faults, i.e., the Multi-Victims fault and Kink fault.
Rectal/urinary toxicity after hypofractionated vs conventional radiotherapy in low/intermediate risk localized prostate cancer: systematic review and meta analysis

Purpose The aim of this review was to compare radiation toxicity in Localized Prostate Cancer (LPC) patients who underwent conventional fractionation (CV), hypofractionated (HYPO) or extreme hypofractionated (eHYPO) radiotherapy. We analyzed the impact of technological innovation on the management of prostate cancer, attempting to make a meta-analysis of randomized trials. Methods PubMed database has been explored for studies concerning acute and late urinary/gastrointestinal toxicity in low/intermediate risk LPC patients after receiving radiotherapy. Studies were then gathered into 5 groups: detected acute and chronic toxicity data from phase II non randomized trials were analyzed and Odds Ratio (OR) was calculated by comparing the number of patients with G0-1 toxicity and those with toxicity > G2 in the studied groups. A meta-analysis of prospective randomized trials was also carried out. Results The initial search yielded 575 results, but only 32 manuscripts met all eligibility requirements: in terms of radiation-induced side effects, such as gastrointestinal and genitourinary acute and late toxicity, hypofractionated 3DCRT seemed to be more advantageous than 3DCRT with conventional fractionation as well as IMRT with conventional fractionation compared to 3DCRT with conventional fractionation; furthermore, IMRT hypofractionated technique appeared more advantageous than IMRT with conventional fractionation in late toxicities. Randomized trials meta-analysis disclosed an advantage in terms of acute gastrointestinal and late genitourinary toxicity for Hypofractionated schemes. Conclusions Although our analysis pointed out a more favorable toxicity profile in terms of gastrointestinal acute side effects of conventional radiotherapy schemes compared to hypofractionated ones, prospective randomized trials are needed to better understand the real incidence of rectal and urinary toxicity in patients receiving radiotherapy for localized prostate cancer.
Action of growth hormone in adipose tissue.

Growth hormone (GH) has diverse and still not fully elucidated effects on adipose tissue. Both preadipocytes and mature adipocytes possess specific GH receptors. GH may mediate its actions via these receptors, but some effects are indirectly mediated through the GH-mediated secretion of insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I). IGF-I may then act back on the adipose tissue in an autocrine/paracrine manner. In primary cultures of adipose precursor cells obtained from human or rat adipose tissue, GH is found to stimulate the proliferation of these immature cells and reduce their differentiation to mature adipocytes. During long-term incubation and in in vivo studies, GH has a pronounced lipolytic effect. Whether this lipolytic effect is a direct effect of GH or more indirectly mediated, for instance, via inhibition of the action of antilipolytic compounds (e.g. adenosine, prostaglandins and insulin) is presently unknown. Finally, GH produces a pronounced inhibition of adipose tissue lipoprotein lipase activity. This enzyme plays a main role for hydrolysing triglycerides in the blood circulation in the adipose tissue and then for triglyceride accumulation in adipose cells. Thus, GH inhibits adipocyte differentiation, reduces triglyceride accumulation and increases lipolyses--all mechanisms which reduce adipose tissue mass.
A multi-objective Artificial Bee Colony for optimizing multi-objective problems

This work proposes a multi-objective artificial bee colony (MOABC) for optimizing problems with multiple objectives. We have adapted the original Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) algorithm to multi objective problems with a grid-based approach for maintaining and adaptively assessing the Pareto front. The Pareto set is used to control the flying behaviours of the individuals and structuring the bee colony. The proposed algorithm was evaluated upon numerical benchmark problems. Our experimental results indicate that the proposed approach is highly competitive compared to other algorithms considered in this work.
EFFECTS OF INTRAVITREAL MORPHINE ADMINISTERED AT DIFFERENT TIME POINTS AFTER REPERFUSION IN A RABBIT MODEL OF ISCHEMIC RETINOPATHY

Purpose: To investigate the effects of morphine administered after reperfusion in a rabbit model of ischemic retinopathy. Methods: The right eyes of 54 albino New Zealand rabbits were randomly allocated into nine treatment groups (n = 6 in each group). The eyes in saline-control group received 0.1 mL of phosphate-buffered saline solution intravitreally. In the ischemia-saline group, ischemia was induced by raising the intraocular pressure to 150 mmHg for 60 minutes. Then 0.1 mL of phosphate-buffered saline solution was administered intravitreally 5 minutes after reperfusion. The eyes in three ischemia-morphine groups (ischemia-morphine 0 hour, 1 hour, and 18 hours) received 0.1 mL of morphine (10 μmol/L) intravitreally 5 minutes, 1 hour, or 18 hours after termination of 60 minutes of ischemia, respectively. The eyes in ischemia-naloxone-morphine group received 0.05 mL of naloxone (10 μmol/L) intravitreally followed by injection of 0.05 mL morphine (10 μmol/L) 5 minutes after termination of ischemia. Toxicity controls were performed with morphine (10 μmol/L) and naloxone (10 μmol/L) without ischemia. Histologic evaluation was performed for all groups on the seventh postoperative day. Results: Sixty minutes of ischemia led to severe cell loss in ganglion cell layer and thinning of the inner nuclear layer in ischemia-saline group compared with that of the saline-control group (P < 0.001). Thickness of the inner plexiform layer to the inner limiting membrane (a measure of inner retinal thickness) was significantly increased due to edema (P < 0.001). Administration of morphine 5 minutes after reperfusion significantly improved all of the above mentioned indices compared with ischemia-saline group (P < 0.001). Administration of morphine 1 hour after reperfusion had also a significant effect on the improvement of above mentioned indices compared with saline-control group (P < 0.05). However, the number of ganglion cells was significantly higher in ischemia-morphine 0 hour group compared with ischemia-morphine 1 hour group (P < 0.001). Morphine treatment 18 hours after reperfusion did not change the amount of injury. Administration of naloxone 5 minutes before morphine abolished most of the morphine protective effects. Conclusion: Intravitreal administration of morphine immediately after reperfusion maximally protects retina against ischemia-reperfusion injury. Pharmacologic evidence suggests that this protective phenomenon may be mediated in part by opioid receptors.
Emotion regulation as a transdiagnostic factor in the development of internalizing and externalizing psychopathology: Current and future directions

Abstract In response to rapidly growing rates of comorbidity among psychiatric disorders, clinical scientists have become interested in identifying transdiagnostic processes that can help explain dysfunction across diagnostic categories (e.g., Kring & Sloan, 2009). One factor that has received a great deal of attention is that of emotion regulation, namely, the ability to modulate the intensity and/or duration of emotional states (e.g., Cicchetti, Ackerman, & Izard, 1995; Gross, 1998). Recent theoretical and empirical work has begun to emphasize the role that emotion regulation plays in the temporal comorbidity between internalizing and externalizing conditions (e.g., Aldao & De Los Reyes, 2015; De Los Reyes & Aldao, 2015; Drabick & Kendall, 2010; Jarrett & Ollendick, 2008; Patrick & Hajcak, 2016). However, close inspection of this work reveals two very pertinent areas of growth: (a) this literature is characterized by mixed findings that are likely explained, in part, by methodological heterogeneity; and (b) emotion regulation tends to be studied in relatively narrow terms. To address these issues, we provide a series of recommendations for facilitating cross-study comparisons and leveraging multifaceted approaches to studying emotion regulation processes within a developmental psychopathology framework. We hope that our perspective can enhance the organization and growth of this very important area of inquiry, and ultimately result in more effective prevention and treatment programs.
When speaking of probability in behavior analysis

Probability is not an unambiguous concept within the sciences or in vernacular language, yet it is fundamental to much of behavior analysis. The present paper examines some problems this ambiguity creates in general,as well as within the experimental analysis of behavior, in particular. As background material, we first introduce the three most common theories of probability in mathematics and science, discussing their advantages and disadvantages, and their relevance to behavior analysis. Next, we discuss the concept of probability as encountered in the writings of B.F. Skinner and in the contemporary behavior analysis more generally, the latter being based on material drawn from the professional literature and from a questionnaire survey. Although the exercise is basically a descriptive one, we do conclude with some suggestions that may promote more effective action on those occasions when behavior analysts speak of "probability. "
Cooperating expert systems for the next generation of real-time monitoring applications

A distributed monitoring and diagnosis system has been developed and successfully applied to real-time monitoring of interplanetary spacecraft at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. This system uses a combination of conventional processing and artificial intelligence. Knowledge-based diagnosis modules are embedded within an automated monitoring system that detects on-board spacecraft anomalies. The diagnostic modules are specialized to respond to anomalies in a single domain of expertise and to cooperate with one another when necessary to solve complex problems that extend beyond an individual domain. Details of the distributed architecture, real-time diagnosis, and system performance are described in the paper. A brief summary of lessons learned in transferring research prototypes into operational environments is also reported. <<ETX>>
Negative regulation of mitochondrial transcription by mitochondrial topoisomerase I

Mitochondrial topoisomerase I is a genetically distinct mitochondria-dedicated enzyme with a crucial but so far unknown role in the homeostasis of mitochondrial DNA metabolism. Here, we present data suggesting a negative regulatory function in mitochondrial transcription or transcript stability. Deficiency or depletion of mitochondrial topoisomerase I increased mitochondrial transcripts, whereas overexpression lowered mitochondrial transcripts, depleted respiratory complexes I, III and IV, decreased cell respiration and raised superoxide levels. Acute depletion of mitochondrial topoisomerase I triggered neither a nuclear mito-biogenic stress response nor compensatory topoisomerase IIβ upregulation, suggesting the concomitant increase in mitochondrial transcripts was due to release of a local inhibitory effect. Mitochondrial topoisomerase I was co-immunoprecipitated with mitochondrial RNA polymerase. It selectively accumulated and rapidly exchanged at a subset of nucleoids distinguished by the presence of newly synthesized RNA and/or mitochondrial RNA polymerase. The inactive Y559F-mutant behaved similarly without affecting mitochondrial transcripts. In conclusion, mitochondrial topoisomerase I dampens mitochondrial transcription and thereby alters respiratory capacity. The mechanism involves selective association of the active enzyme with transcriptionally active nucleoids and a direct interaction with mitochondrial RNA polymerase. The inhibitory role of topoisomerase I in mitochondrial transcription is strikingly different from the stimulatory role of topoisomerase I in nuclear transcription.
Mapping Medline papers, genes, and proteins related to melanoma research

What is the structure of the research reported on melanoma? How has it evolved over the last 40 years? Which parts of this research field are correlated with the study of genes and proteins? Are there sudden increases in the number of occurrences of certain gene or protein names, reflecting a surge of interest? How are genes, protein and papers interconnected via co-occurrence patterns? This paper aims to provide answers to these questions by analyzing a data set consisting of papers from Medline, genes from the Entrez Gene database, and proteins from UniProt. Word burst detection and co-occurrence analyses were both performed. The spatial layout algorithm VxOrd was applied to create the very first map that shows papers, genes, and proteins and their co-occurrence relationships. The results were validated by five domain experts leading to a number of interesting facts pertaining to structure and dynamics of the melanoma research field.
A Policy-Based Security Architecture for Software-Defined Networks

As networks expand in size and complexity, they pose greater administrative and management challenges. Software-defined networks (SDNs) offer a promising approach to meeting some of these challenges. In this paper, we propose a policy-driven security architecture for securing end-to-end services across multiple SDN domains. We develop a language-based approach to design security policies that are relevant for securing SDN services and communications. We describe the policy language and its use in specifying security policies to control the flow of information in a multi-domain SDN. We demonstrate the specification of fine-grained security policies based on a variety of attributes, such as parameters associated with users and devices/switches, context information, such as location and routing information, and services accessed in SDN as well as security attributes associated with the switches and controllers in different domains. An important feature of our architecture is its ability to specify path- and flow-based security policies that are significant for securing end-to-end services in SDNs. We describe the design and the implementation of our proposed policy-based security architecture and demonstrate its use in scenarios involving both intra- and inter-domain communications with multiple SDN controllers. We analyze the performance characteristics of our architecture as well as discuss how our architecture is able to counteract various security attacks. The dynamic security policy-based approach and the distribution of corresponding security capabilities intelligently as a service layer that enables flow-based security enforcement and protection of multitude of network devices against attacks are important contributions of this paper.
Politiques économiques et pauvreté au Maroc: Analyse en équilibre général micro-simulé

Depuis plusieurs annees, le Maroc s’est inscrit dans une nouvelle dynamique de politiques economiques dont la liberalisation a tous les niveaux et l’attraction des investissements directs etrangers dans plusieurs secteurs d’activite. L’impact economique et social de ces politiques devait etre quantifie et analyse selon plusieurs dimensions. Dans ce travail, nous nous placons dans ce contexte d’analyse et nous proposons une approche basee sur un Modele Calculable d’Equilibre General micro-simule de l’economie marocaine. Cette analyse nous a permis de conclure qu’une politique favorisant le secteur du tourisme serait dominante. Ce resultat nous semble important capital puisque les autorites marocaines ont declare de facon tres explicite que ce secteur est au centre de leur strategie de developpement en visant un nombre de dix millions de touriste d’ici 2010.