Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Treatment of Status Epilepticus with Ketamine, Are we There yet?

Status epilepticus (SE), a neurological emergency both in adults and in children, could lead to brain damage and even death if untreated. Generalized convulsive SE (GCSE) is the most common and severe form, an example of which is that induced by organophosphorus nerve agents. First‐ and second‐line pharmacotherapies are relatively consensual, but if seizures are still not controlled, there is currently no definitive data to guide the optimal choice of therapy. The medical community seems largely reluctant to use ketamine, a noncompetitive antagonist of the N‐methyl‐d‐aspartate glutamate receptor. However, a review of the literature clearly shows that ketamine possesses, in preclinical studies, antiepileptic properties and provides neuroprotection. Clinical evidences are scarcer and more difficult to analyze, owing to a use in situations of polytherapy. In absence of existing or planned randomized clinical trials, the medical community should make up its mind from well‐conducted preclinical studies performed on appropriate models. Although potentially active, ketamine has no real place for the treatment of isolated seizures, better accepted drugs being used. Its best usage should be during GCSE, but not waiting for SE to become totally refractory. Concerns about possible developmental neurotoxicity might limit its pediatric use for refractory SE.
Sensemaking for Strategy in an Agent-based Organization

In order to survive and progress in an environment where the commercial rules are constantly evolving and overwhelmed with data, agent-based organizations are forced to apply new strategies and methods in an attempt to offer products and services that are in line with the market demand. To any system designer, it is especially difficult to apply some of the key characteristics in the agent-based organization's dynamic capability. These capabilities include an organization's sensemaking ability as well as the organizational effectiveness in executing new found opportunities in a radically changing environment. In this article, we will examine in greater details the design concept on strategy of agent-based organizational sensemaking process. Three dimensions of the concept will include agents in each level of the system (horizontal), agents interaction between system levels (vertical) and finally, dynamic adjustment of the system itself (dynamics). Through these dimensions we hope to apply a systematic understanding as to how these agent-based organizations formulate successful and innovative strategies via effective sensemaking and sensegiving process design.
Influence of microstructural changes on corrosion behaviour of thermally aged Ti‐6Al‐7Nb alloy

Solution treatment and ageing (STA) is an effective strengthening method for α + β titanium alloys. This paper reports the effect of solution treatment and aging on the corrosion behaviour of Ti‐6Al‐7Nb alloy in a simulated body fluid (Ringer's solution). Ti‐6Al‐7Nb alloy is hot rolled in the α + β field and subjected to solution treatment above and below its beta transus temperature (1283 K). The solution treated specimens are water quenched (WQ), air‐cooled (AC), and furnace cooled (FC) at three different rates, and subsequently aged at 823 K for 4 h. Microstructural changes were examined using optical microscopy and phases developed were analyzed using XRD. The influence of microstructure on the corrosion performance of the alloys are discussed in detail based on the Open Circuit Potential (OCP), passive current density and area of repassivation loop values obtained from the cyclic polarization study in Ringer's solution. The passive current density was low (0.5 μA/cm2) for the specimen with duplex microstructure obtained for specimen solution treated at 1223 K, air‐cooled, and aged, in comparison with that for as‐rolled specimen (1.5 μA/cm2). The corrosion aspects resulting from various heat treatments are discussed in detail.
Three New Species and One New Subspecies of Toxorhynchites (Diptera: Culicidae) of the Afrotropical Region

Abstract Three new species and one new subspecies in the subgenus Afrorhynchus of the genus Toxorhynchites are described from the Afrotropical region. With the addition of these four new taxa, 14 species and two subspecies of subgenus Afrorhynchus are presently known in the region. Keys are provided for the identification of adult males and females of the subgenus Afrorhynchus in Africa.
Brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity in Japanese university students.

OBJECTIVE Pulse wave velocity (PWV) correlates well with arterial distensibility and stiffness and is a useful non-invasive index to assess arteriosclerosis. The present study was conducted to evaluate the validity of noninvasive brachial-ankle PWV (baPWV) measurements in overweight young adults. METHODS Three hundred and fifty-three students were voluntarily enrolled (mean age: 20+/-2, 93 women and 260 men). The subjects were divided into three groups: normal (18.5 < or = body mass index (BMI) <25 n = 120), overweight (25 < or = BMI <30 n = 164) and obese (BMI > or = 30, n = 69). The baPWV was measured using volume-plethymographic apparatus. RESULTS Hypertension and hyperlipidemia were diagnosed in one-third of the subjects of the obese group and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) was diagnosed in 64% of the obese group. The baPWV in male subjects was significantly higher in the obese group than in the overweight group and in the males with NAFLD than in those without NAFLD. The stepwise linear regression analysis showed that PWV was significantly associated with mean blood pressure (p < 0.001) and gamma-GTP (p = 0.03). CONCLUSION Mean blood pressure was a powerful determination for baPWV in the university students. BaPWV may be useful to predict the initial stage of arteriosclerosis and conceivably NAFLD including nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) in obese young adults.
Unique Properties of Eukaryote-Type Actin and Profilin Horizontally Transferred to Cyanobacteria

A eukaryote-type actin and its binding protein profilin encoded on a genomic island in the cyanobacterium Microcystis aeruginosa PCC 7806 co-localize to form a hollow, spherical enclosure occupying a considerable intracellular space as shown by in vivo fluorescence microscopy. Biochemical and biophysical characterization reveals key differences between these proteins and their eukaryotic homologs. Small-angle X-ray scattering shows that the actin assembles into elongated, filamentous polymers which can be visualized microscopically with fluorescent phalloidin. Whereas rabbit actin forms thin cylindrical filaments about 100 µm in length, cyanobacterial actin polymers resemble a ribbon, arrest polymerization at 5-10 µm and tend to form irregular multi-strand assemblies. While eukaryotic profilin is a specific actin monomer binding protein, cyanobacterial profilin shows the unprecedented property of decorating actin filaments. Electron micrographs show that cyanobacterial profilin stimulates actin filament bundling and stabilizes their lateral alignment into heteropolymeric sheets from which the observed hollow enclosure may be formed. We hypothesize that adaptation to the confined space of a bacterial cell devoid of binding proteins usually regulating actin polymerization in eukaryotes has driven the co-evolution of cyanobacterial actin and profilin, giving rise to an intracellular entity.
An Alternative Nonlinear Control Law for the Global Stabilization of the PVTOL Vehicle

A popular method for the control of the planar vertical takeoff and landing vehicle (PVTOL) is to cast the system into the form of a cascade nonlinear system with an exponentially stable linear subsystem, as suggested by Olfati-Saber in 2002. This idea has since been incorporated into many other published works. The contribution of this note is to demonstrate an alternative cascade structure, achieved by minimizing the interconnection term between closed-loop subsystems. Global stability of the proposed controller is proven, and simulation results suggest improved performance of this new approach as compared to that previously published.
Short Certificates for Tournaments

An isomorphism certificate of a labeled tournament $T$ is a labeled subdigraph of $T$ which together with an unlabeled copy of $T$ allows the errorless reconstruction of $T$. It is shown that any tournament on $n$ vertices contains an isomorphism certificate with at most $n \log_2 n$ edges. This answers a question of Fishburn, Kim and Tetali. A score certificate of $T$ is a labeled subdigraph of $T$ which together with the score sequence of $T$ allows its errorless reconstruction. It is shown that there is an absolute constant $\epsilon >0$ so that any tournament on $n$ vertices contains a score certificate with at most $ ({1/2}-\epsilon)n^2$ edges.
Wernicke's area homologue in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and its relation to the appearance of modern human language

Human language is distinctive compared with the communication systems of other species. Yet, several questions concerning its emergence and evolution remain unresolved. As a means of evaluating the neuroanatomical changes relevant to language that accompanied divergence from the last common ancestor of chimpanzees, bonobos and humans, we defined the cytoarchitectonic boundaries of area Tpt, a component of Wernicke's area, in 12 common chimpanzee brains and used design-based stereologic methods to estimate regional volumes, total neuron number and neuron density. In addition, we created a probabilistic map of the location of area Tpt in a template chimpanzee brain coordinate space. Our results show that chimpanzees display significant population-level leftward asymmetry of area Tpt in terms of neuron number, with volume asymmetry approaching significance. Furthermore, asymmetry in the number of neurons in area Tpt was positively correlated with asymmetry of neuron numbers in Brodmann's area 45, a component of Broca's frontal language region. Our findings support the conclusion that leftward asymmetry of Wernicke's area originated prior to the appearance of modern human language and before our divergence from the last common ancestor. Moreover, this study provides the first evidence of covariance between asymmetry of anterior and posterior cortical regions that in humans are important to language and other higher order cognitive functions.
An 18Gbps polymer microwave fiber (PMF) communication link in 40nm CMOS

A high-speed polymer microwave fiber (PMF) communication link is implemented in a 40nm bulk CMOS technology, by making use of two-tone CP-FSK modulation and a carrier frequency of 120GHz. The presented transceiver and enhanced coupler, with a loss of only 3.4dB, allows communication over a distance of 15m at 1.5Gbps. Data rates up to 17.7Gbps were achieved over a link distance of 1m with a BER <; 10-12. The maximum product of data rate and distance is 60.8Gbps. m over a distance of 8m, resulting in an energy efficiency of only 1.2pJ/bit/m. The transmitter has an output power level of -1.9dBm at 120GHz and a DC power consumption of 11.1mW, the receiver consumes 59.6mW. The transmitter and receiver occupy an active area of respectively 0.025mm2 and 0.43mm2 in 40nm CMOS.
Power and energy analysis and modeling of high performance computing systems using WattProf

Modeling power/energy consumption of HPC applications and analyzing its correlation with application performance characteristics can reveal interesting insights and provide useful recommendations for improving power/energy efficiency. For that purpose, fine-grained tools are needed that can synchronize power/energy measurements with application activity. In this paper we use WattProf, a new power monitoring tool that enables high frequency (multiple kilohertz) direct power measurement of hardware components in a compute node (e.g., CPU, DRAM, GPU, NIC, PCIe cards, fans, hard drives, SSD). The platform includes support for streaming the collected data to the host, storing them on the controller, and streaming via network. Software enables synchronization of the measurements with applications under test to allow fine-grained application power profiling. Using this tools, we perform application monitoring and modeling on some benchmarks and mini-applications.
The Real Estate Factor: Quantifying the Impact of Infarct Location on Stroke Severity

Background and Purpose— The severity of the neurological deficit after ischemic stroke is moderately correlated with infarct volume. In the current study, we sought to quantify the impact of location on neurological deficit severity and to delineate this impact from that of volume. Methods— We developed atlases consisting of location-weighted values indicating the relative importance in terms of neurological deficit severity for every voxel of the brain. These atlases were applied to 80 first-ever ischemic stroke patients to produce estimates of clinical deficit severity. Each patient had an MRI and National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) examination just before or soon after hospital discharge. The correlation between the location-based deficit predictions and measured neurological deficit (NIHSS) scores were compared with the correlation obtained using volume alone to predict the neurological deficit. Results— Volume-based estimates of neurological deficit severity were only moderately correlated with measured NIHSS scores (r=0.62). The combination of volume and location resulted in a significantly better correlation with clinical deficit severity (r=0.79, P=0.032). Conclusions— The atlas methodology is a feasible way of integrating infarct size and location to predict stroke severity. It can estimate stroke severity better than volume alone.
Comprehensive evaluation of damage in asphalt mastics using x-ray CT, continuum mechanics, and micromechanics

Asphalt pavements experience damage due to traffic loading under various environmental conditions. Damage is caused by viscoplastic flow and microcracks, fracture due to fatigue, or fracture due to thermal effects. Asphalt pavements have the capability to recover from some of this damage depending on binder surface and rheological properties, filler surface properties, and length of rest periods. Asphalt mastic (asphalt and mineral filler) properties play a major role in controlling damage and healing. This paper addresses the development of a comprehensive methodology for the characterization of damage and healing in asphalt mastics. The methodology relies on nondestructive imaging techniques (X-ray CT), principles of continuum damage mechanics, and principles of micromechanics. The X-ray CT yields a damage parameter that quantifies the percentage of voids (cracks and air voids) in a specimen. The continuum damage model parameters are derived from the relationship between applied stress and pseudo strain. The micromechanics model relates the damaged mastic modulus to a reference undamaged modulus. This relationship is a function of internal structure properties (void size, film thickness, and percentage of voids), binder modulus, aggregate modulus, and bond energies within the mix. The internal structure properties are all obtained using X-ray CT. The developed methodology is employed to characterize damage in asphalt mastic based on experimental measurements using the Dynamic Mechanical Analyzer (DMA). Damage is monitored as a function of loading cycles, rest period, and moisture state (dry and wet conditions). The damage parameter measured by X-ray CT correlated very well with the predictions of the continuum and micromechanics models. All damage parameters were able to reflect the accumulation of damage under cyclic loading and were also able to capture the influence of moisture conditioning on damage. The healing due to rest periods was captured using X-ray CT, and it was reflected in the continuum and micromechanics damage models. Although this paper focused on fatigue cracking and healing at room temperatures, the methodology developed can be used to assess damage due to different mechanisms such as permanent deformation and low temperature cracking.
Plasma within Templates: Molding Flexible Nanocrystal Solids into Multifunctional Architectures

Recently, there has been a great deal of progress in the synthesis of colloidal nanocrystals with tailored physical and chemical properties through control of size and shape, chemical composition, and surface functionalization (Alivisatos, A. P. Science 1996, 271 (5251), 933−937; Burda, C. ; Chen, X. B. ; Narayanan, R. ; El-Sayed, M. A. Chem. Rev. 2005, 105 (4), 1025−1102). Nanocrystals are thus ideal building blocks for hierarchical self-assembly of topologically complex, multifunctional architectures with properties tuneable at each level of the hierarchy. Here, we present a method, which combines template-assisted self-assembly of nanocrystals with plasma polymerization (Cademartiri, L.; von Freymann, G.; Arsenault, A. C.; Bertolotti, J.; Wiersma, D. S.; Kitaev, V.; Ozin, G. A. Small 2005, 1 (12), 1184−1187) to realize hierarchical architectures that both retain the properties of the nanocrystals and offer multifunctionality. As examples, we describe CoFe2O4−PbS mixed nanocrystal nanorods, which photolumi.
Haematological measurements as an aid to early diagnosis and prognosis of respiratory viral infections in thoroughbred horses

In late November 1988 large numbers of thoroughbred horses in training in Hong Kong developed a transient pyrexia with, in some cases, the clinical signs of viral respiratory disease. Serial blood samples for haematological examination were taken from 10 of the horses which were stabled in six different blocks. They had developed a high temperature within three days of each other and subsequently seroconverted to equine herpes virus 1 (EHV1). The absolute monocyte count was more than 0.5 x 10(9)/litre in all 10 within the first five days, and nine of them had a high neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio on the first day, which then decreased and reversed within four or five days. Five of the horses had a high plasma viscosity, and a large difference between the viscosity of plasma and serum which in three of them returned to normal within 10 days. In the two and a half months after the initial infection six of nine of the horses, including the five which had a large difference between the viscosity of plasma and serum, developed visible mucopus by endoscopic examination. These haematological and endoscopic changes can be used to detect horses in the acute stages of EHV1 infection and monitor the progress of the disease, before it can be confirmed by isolation of the virus and, or, serology.
Optical tweezers on biaxial crystal

In this paper, we propose optical tweezers based on a biaxial crystal. To control the movement of opaque particles, we use the shift polarization interferometer. The results of experimental study of laser tweezers are shown. We demonstrates movement of a microparticle of toner using singular-optical trap, rotate a particle due to orbital momentum, conversion of two traps when changing the plane of polarizer transmission and converging of two traps.
Abductive Markov Logic for Plan Recognition

Plan recognition is a form of abductive reasoning that involves inferring plans that best explain sets of observed actions. Most existing approaches to plan recognition and other abductive tasks employ either purely logical methods that donot handle uncertainty, or purely probabilistic methods thatdo not handle structured representations. To overcome these limitations, this paper introduces an approach to abductive reasoning using a ﬁrst-order probabilistic logic, speciﬁcally Markov Logic Networks (MLNs). It introduces several novel techniques for making MLNs efﬁcient and effective for abduction. Experiments on three plan recognition datasets showthe beneﬁt of our approach over existing methods.
Incorporating required structure into tiles

Search based procedural content generation uses search techniques to locate high-quality content elements for use in games. This study extends an evolutionary-computation based system to generate tiles used to assemble floor plans for levels in a video game as well as evolving assembly plans. The separate evolution of assembly plans and tiles yields a decomposition of the level generation problem that saves substantial time. The tiles used in this study use a more sophisticated fitness function than earlier studies and also permit the user to specify features, e.g. rooms of a particular shape or short or long transit distances between two points in the tile. Evolutionary computation is used as an off-line tool to generate libraries of both tiles and assembly plans. Systems for rapidly assembling tile libraries can then be used to generate large levels on demand with combinatorially huge numbers of level plans available. The new fitness function can be used to control the topology of the tiles and optionally permits the incorporation of enforced symmetry in tiles. Symmetric tiles are found to have a visually striking appearance. Control is achieved by requesting that different pairwise distances between user-specified checkpoints be minimized, maximized, or left free. This study explores the new fitness functions and demonstrates the variety of tiles that can be generated as well as assembling exemplary level plans from those tiles.
Sodium reabsorption and distribution of Na+/K+-ATPase during postischemic injury to the renal allograft.

BACKGROUND A loss of proximal tubule cell polarity is thought to activate tubuloglomerular feedback, thereby contributing to glomerular filtration rate depression in postischemic acute renal failure (ARF). METHODS We used immunomicroscopy to evaluate the segmental distribution of Na+/K+-ATPase in tubules of recipients of cadaveric renal allografts. Fractional excretion (FE) of sodium and lithium was determined simultaneously. Observations were made on two occasions: one to three hours after graft reperfusion (day 0) and again on post-transplant day 7. An inulin clearance below or above 25 ml/min on day 7 was used to divide subjects into groups with sustained (N = 15) or recovering (N = 16) ARF, respectively. RESULTS In sustained ARF, the fractional excretion of sodium (FENa) was 40 +/- 6% and 11 +/- 5%, and the fractional excretion of lithium (FELi) was 76 +/- 5% and 70 +/- 2% on days 0 and 7, respectively. Corresponding findings in recovering ARF were 28 +/- 2% and 6 +/- 2% for the FENa and 77 +/- 4% and 55 +/- 3% (P < 0.05 vs. sustained) for FELi. Na+/K+-ATPase distribution in both groups was mainly basolateral in distal straight and convoluted tubule segments and collecting ducts. However, Na+/K+-ATPase was poorly retained in the basolateral membrane of proximal convoluted and straight tubule segments in sustained and recovering ARF on both days 0 and 7. CONCLUSIONS We conclude that loss of proximal tubule cell polarity for Na+/K+-ATPase distribution is associated with enhanced delivery of filtered Na+ to the macula densa for seven days after allograft reperfusion. Whether an ensuing activation of tubuloglomerular feedback is an important cause of glomerular filtration rate depression in this form of ARF remains to be determined.