Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Autoimmune disorders: An overview of molecular and cellular basis in today?s perspective

Autoimmunity arises when immune responses mounted in the host are directed against self-components. Autoimmune diseases are pathophysiological states that result from a loss of self-tolerance and the consequent immune destruction of host tissues. Autoimmunity is mediated by a variety of molecular and cellular events, and responses. The development of an is a very complex process in which recognition of selfantigens by lymphocytes is centrally involved in pathologic organ damage. Autoimmune disease is inherited as a complex trait, with multiple loci controlling various aspects of disease susceptibility. More recently, some of these susceptibility genes have been identified. Certain environmental influences, such as cigarette smoke, ultraviolet light, or infectious agents, may interplay with this genetic predisposition to initiate the disease process. Silica exposure and its role in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) have been identified in studies of occupational exposure, and experimental studies have explored potential mechanisms related to immune dysregulation. Some autoimmune responses emerge following infection by a pathogen, whose protein(s) hold structural similarities to regions on proteins of the host. Thus, antibodies evoked against a pathogen might cross-react with a self-protein and act as autoantibodies, and the concerned autoantigen then provides a source for persistent stimulation. Evidence is emerging that activation of autoimmune B cells and T cells can be influenced by innate immune receptors, such as Toll-like receptors, which primarily recognize pathogen-derived molecular structures but may cross-react with host molecules. Proteins to which the immune system is generally self-tolerant might, if altered, elicit autoimmune responses. Potential involvement of chaperones in the induction of pathogenesis has also been explored. The contributions of microRNA to pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases like SLE are beginning to be uncovered and may provide us a new arena for exploration of mechanisms responsible for initiation and pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases.
Alloying of Ohmic Contacts to n-Type 4H-SiC via Laser Irradiation

In this study, we present the results of alloying nickel as ohmic contact material to n-type 4H-SiC via a continuous wave fiber laser with different laser beam powers and processing times. The laser system exhibits an emitting wavelength of 1070 nm and a beam propagation factor M2 smaller than 1.1. Contact resistance was determined by current-voltage measurement using the two-terminal contact resistance method. The results indicate that a laser beam power of at least 100 W is mandatory to initialize contact silicidation. Although the contact resistance is improvable by longer processing times, our experiments outline the much higher impact of laser beam power to contact silicidation compared with processing time. For laser beam powers of 300 W and processing times of 0.5 s a contact resistance of 6.5 , comparable to contacts alloyed in a lamp heated furnace at 910 °C for 2 min with a contact resistance of 10.3 , was achieved.
Playful ambience

This research started in 2004 as a search for a pervasive game equivalent of Brian Eno’s ignorable ambient music, such as ‘Music for Airports’. Brian Eno explicitly stated that the attention of listeners might alter over time, from ignoring to listening intently to the music; the ambient music pervading an environment and creating a mood, "it must be as ignorable as it is interesting" (Eno, 1978) Listeners might come across the music and then choose to what extent they engage with it. Defining ambience, and ambient properties, was particularly challenging. The concept of ambience, especially when applied to games, was not immediately clear. Building on the definition of ambience developed by Brian Eno for music (ibid.), fundamental properties of ambience as applied to games were posited. These properties included ideas of different levels of engagement by players, different levels of affect, persistence of the game when players are not present and the context of the game (where, when, who). The game design research methodology (Dishman, 2003; Eglin, Eyles, & Dansey, 2008; Eyles, 2008b; Zimmerman, 2003) developed for this research was used with phenomenological methods (Krzywinska, 2005; Mallon, 2006) to determine the experience of players and hence throw light on the fundamental nature of games and ambient gameplay. Following research into experimental games (M. Eyles, Eglin, R., 2007a, 2007b) which were designed to contain high degrees of ambience as previously (theoretically) defined it became clear
Histomorphometric and fluorescence microscopic evaluation of interfacial bone healing around 3 different dental implants before and after radiation therapy.

PURPOSE Radiation therapy influence on bone healing around 3 types of endosseous dental implants in dogs was evaluated. MATERIALS AND METHODS Implants with 3 different surfaces (A = machined commercially pure titanium screws, B = commercially pure titanium plasma spray-coated cylinders, C = hydroxyapatite [HA] -ceramic coated cylinders) were first implanted unilaterally into the right posterior edentulous mandibles of 7 dogs as nonirradiated controls. After 12 weeks without functional loading and after sequential fluorochrome labeling these implants were retrieved by block dissection. In this same surgery, implants were placed on the contralateral side. Three weeks postimplantation the implant-containing hemimandibles were Cobalt 60 irradiated with the biologic equivalent of 5,000 cGy. Twelve weeks postimplantation and after labeling these irradiated implants were retrieved at sacrifice. On scanning electron, light, and fluorescence microscopic images of undecalcified longitudinal ground sections of the implants with surrounding tissues, percent bone-to-implant contact (% BIC), bone formation, and remodeling were histometrically and subjectively evaluated. RESULTS Woven bone formation started 1 week after implantation at the implant interfaces on both the nonirradiated and the irradiated sides. Average BICs (total/cortical/spongious bone bed) of 26%/49%/36% for surface A, 46%/48%/64% for surface B, and 81%/83%/78% for surface C were observed. In the irradiated hemimandibles average BICs (total/cortical/spongious bone bed) were reduced to 11%/9%/4% for surface A, 43%/46%/43% for surface B, and 63%/85%/76% for surface C, with increased resorption of peri-implant bone and retarded bone formation after irradiation. DISCUSSION Reductions of total % BIC in all irradiated implants, though not statistically significant, were significant (P < or = .05) on implant surfaces A and B in the spongious bone bed. CONCLUSION Retarded bone formation on surfaces A and B in the spongious bone bed represented a more radiation-sensitive situation at the time of radiation onset compared to advanced bone formation and maturation at surface C.
Eurographics/ Acm Siggraph Symposium on Computer Animation (2006) Fast Simulation of Deformable Models in Contact Using Dynamic Deformation Textures

We present an efficient algorithm for simulating contacts between deformable bodies with high-resolution surface geometry using dynamic deformation textures, which reformulate the 3D elastoplastic deformation and collision handling on a 2D parametric atlas to reduce the extremely high number of degrees of freedom in such a computa-tionally demanding simulation. We perform proximity queries for deformable bodies using a two-stage algorithm directly on dynamic deformation textures, resulting in output-sensitive collision detection that is independent of the combinatorial complexity of the deforming meshes. We present a robust, parallelizable formulation for computing constraint forces using implicit methods that exploits the structure of the motion equations to achieve highly stable simulation, while taking large time steps with inhomogeneous materials. The dynamic deformation textures can also be used directly for real-time shading and can easily be implemented using SIMD architecture on commodity hardware. We show that our approach, complementing existing pioneering work, offers significant computational advantages on challenging contact scenarios in dynamic simulation of deformable bodies.
Gender Differences in Causes of Depression

ABSTRACT This study adopts a stress process perspective to analyze gender differences in the causes of depression. The stress process links psychological well-being to position in the social structure via the mediating and moderating effects of stressors and resources. The study examines stressors and resources as mediators of the SES/depression relationship, and resources as moderators of the stressor/depression relationship. Furthermore, it tests the hypotheses that women are more exposed and more vulnerable to stressors than are men, that women benefit more psychologically from socially supportive relationships, and suffer more from conflict-ridden relationships than men. The analysis utilizes survey data of urban Nevadans age 45–74, collected in the Fall of 1997, and employs ordinary least squares regression to test the stress process model. The results indicate that financial strain and perceptions of danger in one's neighborhood mediate the relationship between SES and depression, but resources do not moderate the effects of stressors on depression. Women are more exposed to stressors than men, but are not more vulnerable to them. Positive social relationships do have more beneficial psychological effects for women than for men, but the effects of marital conflict do not vary by gender. Implications for social policy and treatment for depression are discussed.
Planar-adaptive routing: low-cost adaptive networks for multiprocessors

Network throughput can be increased by allowing multipath, adaptive routing. Adaptive routing allows more freedom in the paths taken by messages, spreading load over physical channels more evenly. The flexibility of adaptive routing introduces new possibilities of deadlock. Previous deadlock avoidance schemes in k-ary n-cubes require an exponential number of virtual channels, independent of network size and dimension. Planar adaptive routing algorithms reduce the complexity of deadlock prevention by reducing the number of choices at each routing step. In the fault-free case, planar-adaptive networks are guaranteed to be deadlock-free. In the presence of network faults, the planar-adaptive router can be extended with misrouting to produce a working network which remains provably deadlock free and is provably livelock free. In addition, planar adaptive networks can simultaneously support both in-order and adaptive, out-of-order packet delivery. Planar-adaptive routing is of practical significance. It provides the simplest known support for deadlock-free adaptive routing in k-ary n-cubes of more than two dimensions (with k > 2). Restricting adaptivity reduces the hardware complexity, improving router speed or allowing additional performance-enhancing network features. The structure of planar-adaptive routers is amenable to efficient implementation.
Decreased Morbidity of Laparoscopic Distal Gastrectomy Compared With Open Distal Gastrectomy for Stage I Gastric Cancer: Short-term Outcomes From a Multicenter Randomized Controlled Trial (KLASS-01).

OBJECTIVE To determine the safety of laparoscopy-assisted distal gastrectomy (LADG) compared with open distal gastrectomy (ODG) in patients with clinical stage I gastric cancer in Korea. BACKGROUND There is still a lack of large-scale, multicenter randomized trials regarding the safety of LADG. METHODS A large-scale, phase 3, multicenter, prospective randomized controlled trial was conducted. The primary end point was 5-year overall survival. Morbidity within 30 postoperative days and surgical mortality were compared to evaluate the safety of LADG as a secondary end point RESULTS : A total of 1416 patients were randomly assigned to the LADG group (n = 705) or the ODG group (n = 711) between February 1, 2006, and August 31, 2010, and 1384 patients were analyzed for modified intention-to-treat analysis (ITT) and 1256 were eligible for per protocol (PP) analysis (644 and 612, respectively). In the PP analysis, 6 patients (0.9%) needed open conversion in the LADG group. The overall complication rate was significantly lower in the LADG group (LADG vs ODG; 13.0% vs 19.9%, P = 0.001). In detail, the wound complication rate of the LADG group was significantly lower than that of the ODG group (3.1% vs 7.7%, P < 0.001). The major intra-abdominal complication (7.6% vs 10.3%, P = 0.095) and mortality rates (0.6% vs 0.3%, P = 0.687) were similar between the 2 groups. Modified ITT analysis showed similar results with PP analysis. CONCLUSIONS LADG for patients with clinical stage I gastric cancer is safe and has a benefit of lower occurrence of wound complication compared with conventional ODG.
Amygdala activity and prefrontal cortex–amygdala effective connectivity to emerging emotional faces distinguish remitted and depressed mood states in bipolar disorder

Perlman SB, Almeida JRC, Kronhaus DM, Versace A, LaBarbara EJ, Klein CR, Phillips ML. Amygdala activity and prefrontal cortex–amygdala effective connectivity to emerging emotional faces distinguish remitted and depressed mood states in bipolar disorder. Bipolar Disord 2012: 14: 162–174. © 2012 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2012 John Wiley & Sons A/S.
The Human Factors Engineering Approach to Biomedical Informatics Projects: State of the Art, Results, Benefits and Challenges

Summary Objectives The objective of this paper is to define a comprehensible overview of the Human Factors approach to biomedical informatics applications for healthcare. The overview starts with a presentation of the necessity of a proper management of Human factors for Healthcare IT projects to avoid unusable products and unsafe work situations. The first section is dedicated to definitions of the Human Factors Engineering (HFE) main concepts. The second section describes a functional model of an HFE lifecycle adapted for healthcare work situations. The third section provides an overview of existing HF and usability methods for healthcare products and presents a selection of interesting results. Thelast section discusses the benefits and limitations of the HF Eapproach. Methods Literature review based on Pubmedand conference proceedings in the field of Medical Informatics coupled with a review of other databases and conference proceedings in the field of Ergonomics focused on papers addressing healthcare work and system design. Results Usability studies performed on healthcare applications have uncovered unacceptable usability flaws that make the systems error prone, thus endangering the patient safety. Moreover, in many cases, the procurement and the implementation process simply forget about human factors: following only technological considerations, they issue potentially dangerous and always unpleasant work situations. But when properly applied to IT projects, the HFE approach proves efficient when seeking to improve patient safety, users’ satisfaction and adoption of the products. Conclusions We recommend that the HFE methodology should be applied to most informatics and systems development projects, and the usability of the products should be systematically checked before permitting their release and implementation. This requires the development of Centers specialized in Human Factors for Healthcare and Patient safety in each Country/Region.
Hydrolysis of polyethyleneterephthalate by p‐nitrobenzylesterase from Bacillus subtilis

From a screening on agar plates with bis(benzoyloxyethyl) terephthalate (3PET), a Bacillus subtilis p‐nitrobenzylesterase (BsEstB) was isolated and demonstrated to hydrolyze polyethyleneterephthalate (PET). PET‐hydrolase active strains produced clearing zones and led to the release of the 3PET hydrolysis products terephthalic acid (TA), benzoic acid (BA), 2‐hydroxyethyl benzoate (HEB), and mono‐(2‐hydroxyethyl) terephthalate (MHET) in 3PET supplemented liquid cultures. The 3PET‐hydrolase was isolated from non‐denaturating polyacrylamide gels using fluorescein diacetate (FDA) and identified as BsEstB by LC‐MS/MS analysis. BsEstB was expressed in Escherichia coli with C‐terminally fused StrepTag II for purification. The tagged enzyme had a molecular mass of 55.2 kDa and a specific activity of 77 U/mg on p‐nitrophenyl acetate and 108 U/mg on p‐nitrophenyl butyrate. BsEstB was most active at 40°C and pH 7.0 and stable for several days at pH 7.0 and 37°C while the half‐life times decreased to 3 days at 40°C and only 6 h at 45°C. From 3PET, BsEstB released TA, MHET, and BA, but neither bis(2‐hydroxyethyl) terephthalate (BHET) nor hydroxyethylbenzoate (HEB). The kcat values decreased with increasing complexity of the substrate from 6 and 8 (s−1) for p‐nitrophenyl‐acetate (4NPA) and p‐nitrophenyl‐butyrate (4NPB), respectively, to 0.14 (s−1) for bis(2‐hydroxyethyl) terephthalate (BHET). The enzyme hydrolyzed PET films releasing TA and MHET with a concomitant decrease of the water‐contact angle (WCA) from 68.2° ± 1.7° to 62.6° ± 1.1° due to formation of novel hydroxyl and carboxyl groups. These data correlated with a fluorescence emission intensity increase seen for the enzyme treated sample after derivatization with 2‐(bromomethyl)naphthalene. © 2011 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Biotechnol. Prog. , 2011
Special units for acute upper gastrointestinal bleeding.

1 Evans DMD, Hudson EA, Brown CL, et al. Terminology in gynaecological cytopathology: report of the working party of the British Society for Clinical Pathology. J Clin Pathol 1986;39:933-44. 2 Soutter WP, Wisdom S, Brough AK, Monaghan JM. Should patients with mild atypia in a cervical smear be referred for colposcopy? BrJ Obstet Gynaecol 1986;93:704. 3 Walker EM, Dodgson J, Duncan ID. Does mild atypia warrant further investigation? Lancet 1986;ii:672-3. 4 Singer A. The abnormal cervical smear. BrMedJ 1986;293:1551-6.
Reproductive Assurance and the Evolution of Pollination Specialization

Flowers with highly specialized pollination systems sometimes have the ability to self‐pollinate, contradicting our notion that pollination specialization reflects selective pressures to ensure high maternal outcrossing rates. We survey the literature (80 species representing 38 families) for the simultaneous study of pollination and breeding systems. We demonstrate that pollination specialization is often associated with a variety of floral traits that facilitate delayed autonomous selfing at the end of the flower’s life span. While the potential autonomous selfing rate can be high, the actual autonomous selfing rate is often much lower, indicating that species in our survey are facultative selfers. Autonomous selfing was more commonly associated with protandry than with protogyny and was found in both herkogamous and nonherkogamous species. We conclude that pollination specialization can evolve independently of the ability to autonomously self‐pollinate and that the presence of floral traits that promote pollination specialization and autonomous selfing in the same flower is not paradoxical. Pollination specialization can be reconciled with autonomous self‐pollination when selective forces other than high maternal outcrossing rates are considered.
Minimum envelope roughness pulse design for reduced amplifier distortion in parallel excitation

Parallel excitation uses multiple transmit channels and coils, each driven by independent waveforms, to afford the pulse designer an additional spatial encoding mechanism that complements gradient encoding. In contrast to parallel reception, parallel excitation requires individual power amplifiers for each transmit channel, which can be cost prohibitive. Several groups have explored the use of low‐cost power amplifiers for parallel excitation; however, such amplifiers commonly exhibit nonlinear memory effects that distort radio frequency pulses. This is especially true for pulses with rapidly varying envelopes, which are common in parallel excitation. To overcome this problem, we introduce a technique for parallel excitation pulse design that yields pulses with smoother envelopes. We demonstrate experimentally that pulses designed with the new technique suffer less amplifier distortion than unregularized pulses and pulses designed with conventional regularization. Magn Reson Med, 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Constructing school timetables using simulated annealing: sequential and parallel algorithms

This paper considers a solution to the school timetabling problem. The timetabling problem involves scheduling a number of tuples, each consisting of class of students, a teacher, a subject and a room, to a fixed number of time slots. A Monte Carlo scheme called simulated annealing is used as an optimisation technique. The paper introduces the timetabling problem, and then describes the simulated annealing method. Annealing is then applied to the timetabling problem. A prototype timetabling environment is described followed by some experimental results. A parallel algorithm which can be implemented on a multiprocessor is presented. This algorithm can provide a faster solution than the equivalent sequential algorithm. Some further experimental results are given.