Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Use of the Excimer Laser-assisted Anastomosis Technique Alleviates Neuroanesthesia During Cerebral High-flow Revascularization

In patients with complex intracranial aneurysms or skull base tumors, parent vessel occlusion and flow replacement by high-flow bypass surgery is a demanding therapy, both for the neurosurgeon and the neuroanesthesiologist. One reason for this is the need for prolonged temporary occlusion of a major cerebral artery, which carries a high risk of perioperative ischemia and necessitates versatile neuroprotective measures during anesthesia. Recently, a novel excimer laser-assisted nonocclusive anastomosis (ELANA) technique has been introduced, circumventing the need for temporary occlusion of cerebral vessels. We hypothesized that the use of this ELANA technique would facilitate also the neuroanesthesiologic management of these patients. To test this, we reviewed the details of the neuroanesthesiologic management of patients undergoing ELANA high-flow bypass surgery at our institution. Twenty-nine patients with giant aneurysms (n=27) or skull base tumor (n=2) who were undergoing parent vessel occlusion and permanent flow replacement by high-flow bypass surgery using the ELANA technique were investigated retrospectively. The records of the patients were analyzed for induction and maintenance of anesthesia, fluid therapy, transfusion requirements, hemodynamic parameters, and brain protective strategies. Although we are not able to provide a sufficient body of cohort data to compare the neuroanesthesiologic management of patients undergoing the conventional anastomosis technique with management using the ELANA technique, in each of our reported cases the conventional anastomosis technique would have entailed a high probability of prolonged temporary occlusion that would, in turn, have warranted intensive brain-protective strategies. The observation that use of the ELANA technique precluded the necessity of brain-protective strategies without entailing perioperative cerebral infarction suggests that the ELANA technique supports the neurosurgeon in creating difficult permanent intracranial anastomoses and also facilitates neuroanesthesiologic management of patients undergoing cerebral high-flow revascularization procedures.
INBREEDING ALTERS RESISTANCE TO INSECT HERBIVORY AND HOST PLANT QUALITY IN MIMULUS GUTTATUS (SCROPHULARIACEAE)

Abstract Previous studies have demonstrated genetic variation for resistance to insect herbivores and host plant quality. The effect of plant mating system, an important determinant of the distribution of genetic variation, on host plant characteristics has received almost no attention. This study used a controlled greenhouse experiment to examine the effect of self- and cross-pollination in Mimulus guttatus (Scrophulariaceae) on resistance to and host plant quality for the xylem-feeding spittlebug Philaenus spumarius (Homoptera: Cercopidae). Spittlebugs were found to have a negative effect on two important fitness components in M. guttatus, flower production and aboveground biomass. One of two M. guttatus populations examined showed a significant interaction between the pollination and herbivore treatments. In this case, the detrimental effects of herbivores on biomass and flower production were much more pronounced in inbred (self) plants. The presence of spittlebug nymphs increased inbreeding depression by as much as three times. Pollination treatments also had significant effects on important components of herbivore fitness, but these effects were in opposite directions in our two host plant populations. Spittlebug nymphs maturing on self plants emerged as significantly larger adults in one of our host plant populations, indicating that inbreeding increased host plant quality. In our second host plant population, spittlebug nymphs took significantly longer to develop to adulthood on self plants, indicating that inbreeding decreased host plant quality. Taken together these results suggest that the degree of inbreeding in host plant populations can have important and perhaps complex effects on the dynamics of plant-herbivore interactions and on mating-system evolution in the host. Corresponding Editor: S. Strauss
Structured Graph Viewer: a scalable hypermedia browsing tool

When browsing a large hypermedia collection, users open struggle to maintain context. An overview facility which works together with standard browsers is needed. The Structured Graph Viewer is part of a system designed to do this. The system supports organising a collection as a structured graph, which can then be explored with the viewer. Structured graphs is a visual formalism originally created to assist the design of scalable graph based CASE tools. A structured graph includes: a graph, a hierarchy and a rule for graph summarisation which uses the hierarchy. The viewer offers improved navigation by letting users find nodes with a combination of: direct hyperlinks, summary hyperlinks, hierarchy based and text based search.
Serenoa repens treatment modifies bax/bcl-2 index expression and caspase-3 activity in prostatic tissue from patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia.

PURPOSE Permixon is a lipidosterolic extract of Serenoa repens (SR) widely used to treat men with benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). We tested the effect of this drug on molecular mechanisms associated with apoptosis, such as the Bax-to-Bcl-2 expression ratio and caspase-3 activity, in prostatic tissue from men with symptomatic BPH treated for 3 months before surgery. MATERIALS AND METHODS An open, multicenter pilot study of 2 parallel groups of patients with BPH was done. They were randomized to be followed for 3 weeks without any treatment before surgery (control group) or to receive 160 mg SR orally twice daily for a 3-month period preceding the same surgery. Surgery was ultimately performed in 17 controls and 12 patients by transurethral prostate resection or retropubic adenomectomy. Bax and Bcl-2 expression, and caspase-3 activity were determined by Western blot in 15 controls and 10 patients, and reported in blinded fashion. RESULTS The Bax-to-Bcl-2 ratio, which is used as an apoptotic index, was significantly increased in the prostatic tissue of treated patients. The level of the intact 116 kDa poly (adenosine diphosphate-ribose) polymerase form, an enzyme involved in the cell death apoptotic pathway, was also found to be decreased in prostatic tissue from SR treated patients, suggesting increased caspase 3 activity in the prostate. CONCLUSIONS Permixon increased molecular markers involved in the apoptotic process, ie the Bax-to-Bcl-2 expression ratio and caspase-3 activity. This could have clinical relevance due to the improvement in symptoms produced by treatment with this drug.
Randomized clinical trials in pediatric critical care: Rarely done but desperately needed

Objective To review the benefits and challenges of using the randomized, controlled trial (RCT) study design to evaluate preventive and therapeutic interventions in pediatric critical care medicine. Conclusions The RCT design is able to control for many sources of potential bias that other types of study designs cannot. The findings of RCTs often contradict the findings of less rigorous study designs. Before performing an RCT, there must exist a state of clinical equipoise, a sufficient number of eligible patients must be available, and the epidemiology of the disorder in question must be well studied. There are many challenges to performing high-quality RCTs. Studying multiple element support strategies in the critically ill patient population is more complex than studying a single drug therapy. High patient and practice variability and hazy diagnostic definitions can dilute the signal-to-noise ratio. Most interventions in critical care are expected to have a modest or small effect. This markedly increases the requisite sample size. There is a paucity of accepted clinically important measurements of the outcome of critical care, making mortality a common outcome to evaluate with a not-so-common incidence. Developmental issues, the inability to give informed consent, and the failure to perform the appropriate pharmacokinetic and safety studies are additional challenges facing pediatric investigators. Despite these limitations, a good RCT remains the best way to prove that an intervention is working or not. Indeed, RCTs are and will remain the “gold standard” method to estimate the efficacy of a therapeutic or prophylactic intervention.
Intratumoral Hypoxia Reduces IFN-γ–Mediated Immunity and MHC Class I Induction in a Preclinical Tumor Model

Tumor hypoxia occurs because of an increased demand for oxygen by the rapidly growing tumor cells, together with reduction in the oxygen supply due to malformed and nonfunctional tumor vasculature. The effects of tumor hypoxia on radiotherapy (RT) are well known; however, recent findings suggest it may also suppress immunotherapy, although the mechanisms governing this observation remain undetermined. Our laboratory and others have shown that IFN-γ conditions the tumor milieu and is important for the efficacy of RT. Thus, we hypothesized that hypoxia could inhibit IFN-γ–mediated antitumor responses, resulting in decreased RT efficacy. This inhibition could involve the production and/or the cellular response to IFN-γ. To test this, we used murine tumor cell lines B16F0 and Colon38. We observed that hypoxia inhibited upregulation of IFN-γ–dependent MHC class I expression by tumor cells along with the gene expression of IFN-γ–dependent chemokines CXCL9 and CXCL10, essential for immune cell infiltration. Furthermore, CD8+ T cells, an important source of IFN-γ, which mediate effector antitumor responses, had reduced ability to proliferate and generate IFN-γ under hypoxic conditions in vitro. Interestingly, reoxygenation restored the cytokine-producing capability of these cells. Studies performed in vivo using a mouse tumor model and the hypoxia marker EF5 demonstrated that RT could reverse the hypoxia within treated tumors. This study has identified a unique mechanism of hypoxia-induced immune suppression involving the downregulation of IFN-γ production and cellular responsiveness to this essential cytokine. These results suggest that therapies that target and reduce tumor hypoxia can potentially boost antitumor immune responses.
Deletion of the rbo Gene Increases the Oxygen Sensitivity of the Sulfate-Reducing BacteriumDesulfovibrio vulgaris Hildenborough

ABSTRACT The rbo gene of Desulfovibrio vulgarisHildenborough encodes rubredoxin oxidoreductase (Rbo), a 14-kDa iron sulfur protein; forms an operon with the gene for rubredoxin; and is preceded by the gene for the oxygen-sensing protein DcrA. We have deleted the rbo gene from D. vulgaris with thesacB mutagenesis procedure developed previously (R. Fu and G. Voordouw, Microbiology 143:1815–1826, 1997). The absence of therbo-gene in the resulting mutant, D. vulgarisL2, was confirmed by PCR and protein blotting with Rbo-specific polyclonal antibodies. D. vulgaris L2 grows like the wild type under anaerobic conditions. Exposure to air for 24 h caused a 100-fold drop in CFU of L2 relative to the wild type. The lag times of liquid cultures of inocula exposed to air were on average also greater for L2 than for the wild type. These results demonstrate that Rbo, which is not homologous with superoxide dismutase or catalase, acts as an oxygen defense protein in the anaerobic, sulfate-reducing bacteriumD. vulgaris Hildenborough and likely also in other sulfate-reducing bacteria and anaerobic archaea in which it has been found.
Interactions and Survival of Enteric Viruses in Soil Materials

There were marked differences in the abilities of eight different soil materials to remove and retain viruses from settled sewage, but for each soil material the behavior of two different viruses, poliovirus type 1 and reovirus type 3, was often similar. Virus adsorption to soil materials was rapid, the majority occurring within 15 min. Clayey materials efficiently adsorbed both viruses from wastewater over a range of pH and total dissolved solids levels. Sands and organic soil materials were comparatively poor adsorbents, but in some cases their ability to adsorb viruses increased at low pH and with the addition of total dissolved solids or divalent cations. Viruses in suspensions of soil material in settled sewage survived for considerable time periods, despite microbial activity. In some cases virus survival was prolonged in suspensions of soil materials compared to soil-free controls. Although sandy and organic soil materials were poor virus adsorbents when suspended in wastewater, they gave ≥95% virus removal from intermittently applied wastewater as unsaturated, 10-cm-deep columns. However, considerable quantities of the retained viruses were washed from the columns by simulated rainfall. Under the same conditions, clayey soil material removed ≥99.9995% of the viruses from applied wastewater, and none were washed from the columns by simulated rainfall.
Different Intelligent Approaches for Modeling the Style of Car Driving

In this paper, we propose a hierarchical pattern of the style of driving, which is composed of three levels, one to recognize the emotional state, other to recognize the state of the driver, and finally, the last one corresponds to the style of driving. Each level is defined by different types of descriptors, which are perceived in different multi-modal ways (sound, vision, etc.). Additionally, we analyze three techniques to recognize the style of driving, using our hierarchical pattern, one based on fuzzy logic, another based on chronicles (a temporal logic paradigm), and another based on an algorithm that models the functioning of the human neocortex, exploiting the idea of recursivity and learning in the recognition process. We compare the techniques considering the dynamic context where a car driver operates.
A Modular and Hybrid Connectionist System for Speaker Identification

This paper presents and evaluates a modular/hybrid connectionist system for speaker identification. Modularity has emerged as a powerful technique for reducing the complexity of connectionist systems, and allowing a priori knowledge to be incorporated into their design. Text-independent speaker identification is an inherently complex task where the amount of training data is often limited. It thus provides an ideal domain to test the validity of the modular/hybrid connectionist approach. To achieve such identification, we develop, in this paper, an architecture based upon the cooperation of several connectionist modules, and a Hidden Markov Model module. When tested on a population of 102 speakers extracted from the DARPA-TIMIT database, perfect identification was obtained.
SUPPORTING INCLUSIVE EDUCATION: NEGOTIATING HOME-SCHOOL PARTNERSHIP IN SINGAPORE

While there has been growing theoretical and policy interest in the areas of homeschool partnership and inclusive education, relatively little work has linked the two fields. Where there have been studies, these have focused primarily on parent or school perspective. With inclusive education in its nascent stage in Singapore, this study examines the different roles emerging from home and school as well as factors underpinning this partnership. Data was drawn from interviews with 13 parents and 30 school staff. Our findings indicate that home-school partnership is a work in progress that is continually subject to home and school dynamics. The expectations and perceptions of parents and educators must be taken into consideration if the partnership is to succeed and sustain. Support from the wider community creates a synergy which reinforces home-school partnership and increases the visibility of children with disabilities by turning a private concern into a shared societal issue.
Load-Independent Current Control Technique of a Single-Inductor Multiple-Output Switching DC–DC converter

A load-independent current control technique is applied to a single-inductor multiple-output switching dc-dc boost converter implemented in a 0.5-μm standard CMOS technology. The total current is regulated by monitoring the instant of zero inductor current, and no additional power stage and reactive components are required. The output voltage settles within 25 μs with a voltage dip less than 50 mV when the load of the other output changes between 0 and 50 mA.
Requisite role of cardiac myocytes in coronary alpha1-adrenergic constriction.

BACKGROUND Alpha-adrenergic activation in vivo causes constriction of coronary arterioles, but, paradoxically, in vitro these microvessels do not contract to this stimulus. We hypothesized that cardiac myocytes have a requisite role in alpha1-adrenergic coronary arteriolar constriction through the release of myocyte-derived contractile factor(s). METHODS AND RESULTS Administration of the alpha1-adrenergic agonist phenylephrine did not constrict isolated coronary arterioles, but constriction was observed to supernatant obtained from phenylephrine-treated cardiac myocytes. Constriction to the supernatant was blocked by administration of an endothelin-A antagonist to the microvessel preparation or an alpha-adrenergic antagonist to the myocytes and was augmented after administration of an adenosine antagonist. Administration of phenylephrine to the myocytes increased endothelin-1 levels in the supernatant, but only to subthreshold concentrations. CONCLUSIONS Cardiac myocytes have a requisite role in constriction of coronary resistance vessels to alpha1-adrenergic stimuli, which may be mediated by endothelin-1 and other unidentified myocyte-derived vasoconstrictors.
Pollution, décès prématuré et compensation

Nous etudions la compensation des personnes decedees prematurement dans une economie ou la production genere de la pollution, et ou la pollution reduit, au-dela d’un certain seuil, les chances de survie. Pour ce faire, nous caracterisons l’optimum egalitarien ex post et nous le comparons a l’equilibre de laissez-faire et a l’optimum utilitariste. Lorsque le seuil de pollution au-dessus duquel une mortalite prematuree apparait est eleve, l’optimum egalitarien ex post requiert une pollution egale a ce seuil, et inferieure a celles prevalant au laissez-faire et a l’optimum utilitariste.Mais lorsque le seuil critique de pollution est faible, le niveau de pollution associe a l’optimum egalitarien ex post est egal a celui qui prevaut au laissez-faire, et superieur a celui associe a l’optimum utilitariste.
Phonon Confinement Induced Non-Concomitant Near-Infrared Emission along a Single ZnO Nanowire: Spatial Evolution Study of Phononic and Photonic Properties

The impact of mixed defects on ZnO phononic and photonic properties at the nanoscale is only now being investigated. Here we report an effective strategy to study the distribution of defects along the growth direction of a single ZnO nanowire (NW), performed qualitatively as well as quantitatively using energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), confocal Raman-, and photoluminescence (PL)-mapping technique. A non-concomitant near-infrared (NIR) emission of 1.53 ± 0.01 eV was observed near the bottom region of 2.05 ± 0.05 μm along a single ZnO NW and could be successfully explained by the radiative recombination of shallowly trapped electrons VO** with deeply trapped holes at VZn″. A linear chain model modified from a phonon confinement model was used to describe the growth of short-range correlations between the mean distance of defects and its evolution with spatial position along the axial growth direction by fitting the E2H mode. Our results are expected to provide new insights into improving the study of the photonic and photonic properties of a single nanowire.
The impact of regular vaginal pH screening on the diagnosis of bacterial vaginosis in pregnancy.

BACKGROUND Bacterial vaginosis has recently been associated with preterm labor and delivery. The purpose of our study was to determine whether regular prenatal vaginal pH testing resulted in more frequent diagnoses of bacterial vaginosis and other vaginal infections, more frequent treatment with antibiotics, and fewer preterm deliveries. We also sought to determine the sensitivity and specificity of pH testing and vaginal symptom reporting in identifying vaginal infections. METHODS Our study was a prospective clinical trial involving 121 pregnant women randomized to receive either standard prenatal care, including routine inquiry about vaginal symptoms, or standard care supplemented by vaginal pH testing. Women with symptoms or a vaginal pH level >4.5 received a wet mount examination. Confirmed infections were treated according to study protocols. RESULTS Women who received regular pH testing showed significantly higher detection rates for bacterial vaginosis than controls (48.4% vs 27.1%, P =.015) and more frequent detection of Trichomonas vaginalis (7.8% vs 1.7%, P = .116). A higher percentage of women in the experimental group were treated for bacterial vaginosis and trichomoniasis (46.9% vs 27.1%, P =.024), and the preterm birth rate was one half that of the control group (4.7% vs 10.2%, P = .243). The presence of vaginal symptoms or a vaginal pH level >4.5 identified bacterial vaginosis or trichomoniasis with 84.4% sensitivity. CONCLUSIONS In our study, frequent vaginal pH testing during pregnancy resulted in more frequent diagnosis and treatment of bacterial vaginosis. Since vaginal symptoms and elevated pH levels appear to be useful in screening for bacterial vaginosis and trichomoniasis, frequent pH testing should be evaluated in larger studies.
Respiratory allergy to rats: exposure-response relationships in laboratory animal workers.

Laboratory animal workers are at high risk of developing occupational allergy. Little is known about the relationship between levels of exposure and the risk of developing laboratory animal allergy. A cross-sectional study was performed in 540 workers at eight facilities to quantify the exposure-response relationship for allergy to rats, while controlling for determinants like atopy, gender, and smoking. All participants completed a questionnaire, underwent skin prick testing with common and occupational allergens, and total IgE as well as occupational allergen-specific IgE antibodies were serologically measured. Personal air dust samples were taken during full-shift periods to estimate the rat urinary aeroallergen exposure levels. In the whole study population no clear exposure-response relationship was observed. However, in the group of workers with less than 4 yr of working experience with laboratory animals the prevalence rate of sensitization to rat allergens was clearly associated with exposure levels. The exposure-response relationship was steepest for workers with atopy-associated risk factors, i.e., self-reported allergy or sensitization to cats or dogs, or elevated total serum IgE. The prevalence rates of sensitization to rat allergens for these workers were about 15, 9.5, and 7.3 times higher in the high, medium, and low exposure group, respectively, compared with internal reference group.