Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Presentation of atrial fibrillation and its management by cardiologists in the ambulatory and hospital setting: MOVE cross-sectional study

Abstract Objective: The aim of the study was to collect comprehensive data on atrial fibrillation (AF) in ambulatory and hospital-based management in Germany. Methods: Consecutive patients with ECG-confirmed AF in the previous 12 months were documented in a non-interventional study in 638 physician offices (78.0%) or hospitals (12.7%). Results: Of the 3354 patients (mean age 68.9 ± 10.1 years; CHADS2 score 1.9 ± 1.3), a total of 1136 (33.9%) had paroxysmal, 899 (26.8%) persistent, 1295 (38.6%) permanent and 24 (0.7%) unspecified AF. In the 12 months prior to documentation, pharmacological conversion was attempted in 18.2%, electric cardioversion in 17.5%, the combination of both in 31.2%, and catheter ablation of AF in 5.5%. Only 41.4% of patients met the definition of stable disease (having neither AF related intervention nor change in antiarrhythmic therapy in the previous 12 months). As treatment strategy, physicians stated rate control in 64%, rhythm control in 8%, and both in 19% (not reported: 8%). Patients received antiarrhythmic drugs of class IA in 1.3%, IC in 13.8%, II in 78.1%, III in 17.9%, IV in 9.7% and digitalis in 26.7%. Drugs for thromboembolic prevention (oral anticoagulants and/or antithrombotics) were administered in 81.5%. Hospitalisations for AF or associated diseases in the previous 12 months were reported in 34.2%. Possible limitations include the open, observational design, selection of physicians with particular interest in the field and selection of patients (i.e. underrepresentation of critically ill individuals). Conclusions: While treatment rates with regards to the prevention of thromboembolic events were among the highest reported to date, the low proportion of stable patients and in particular, the high hospitalisation rate hint at difficulties in the management of patients with AF in clinical practice.
Dunaliella biotechnology: methods and applications

The microalga Dunaliella salina is the best commercial source of natural β‐carotene. Additionally, different species of Dunaliella can accumulate significant amounts of valuable fine chemicals such as carotenoids, glycerol, lipids, vitamins, minerals and proteins. They also have a large potential for biotechnological processes such as expressing of foreign proteins and treatment of wastewater. In this review, we discussed several biotechnological aspects of the mass cultivation of D. salina like strain selection, carotenoid induction, culture conditions, culture systems and downstream processes. We also discuss several traditional and new applications of the genus.
Inter-Golgi transport mediated by COPI-containing vesicles carrying small cargoes

A core prediction of the vesicular transport model is that COPI vesicles are responsible for trafficking anterograde cargoes forward. In this study, we test this prediction by examining the properties and requirements of inter-Golgi transport within fused cells, which requires mobile carriers in order for exchange of constituents to occur. We report that both small soluble and membrane-bound secretory cargo and exogenous Golgi resident glycosyl-transferases are exchanged between separated Golgi. Large soluble aggregates, which traverse individual stacks, do not transfer between Golgi, implying that small cargoes (which can fit in a typical transport vesicle) are transported by a different mechanism. Super-resolution microscopy reveals that the carriers of both anterograde and retrograde cargoes are the size of COPI vesicles, contain coatomer, and functionally require ARF1 and coatomer for transport. The data suggest that COPI vesicles traffic both small secretory cargo and steady-state Golgi resident enzymes among stacked cisternae that are stationary. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.7554/eLife.01296. 001
Structural-Acoustic Coupling Effects on the Non-Vacuum Packaging Vibratory Cylinder Gyroscope

The resonant shells of vibratory cylinder gyroscopes are commonly packaged in metallic caps. In order to lower the production cost, a portion of vibratory cylinder gyroscopes do not employ vacuum packaging. However, under non-vacuum packaging conditions there can be internal acoustic noise leading to considerable acoustic pressure which is exerted on the resonant shell. Based on the theory of the structural-acoustic coupling, the dynamical behavior of the resonant shell under acoustic pressure is presented in this paper. A finite element (FE) model is introduced to quantitatively analyze the effect of the structural-acoustic coupling. Several main factors, such as sealing cap sizes and degree of vacuum which directly affect the vibration of the resonant shell, are studied. The results indicate that the vibration amplitude and the operating frequency of the resonant shell will be changed when the effect of structural-acoustic coupling is taken into account. In addition, an experiment was set up to study the effect of structural-acoustic coupling on the sensitivity of the gyroscope. A 32.4 mV/°/s increase of the scale factor and a 6.2 Hz variation of the operating frequency were observed when the radial gap size between the resonant shell and the sealing cap was changed from 0.5 mm to 20 mm.
Personal glossaries on the WWW: an exploratory study

We examine basic issues of glossary tools as part of a suite of annotational tools to help users make meaning from documents from unfamiliar realms of discourse. We specifically evaluated the performance of glossary tools for reading medical information about common diseases by users with no formal medical education. We developed both automatic and an editable glossary tools. Both of them extracted definitions from the text of articles. Only the editable glossary tool allowed users to add delete and change entries. Both tools were evaluated to find out how useful they were to users reading technical articles online. The analytical results showed that user performance improved without increasing total reading time. The glossary tools were effective and pleasing to users at no decrease in efficiency. This experiment points the way for longer-term studies with adaptable tools particularly to help users unfamiliar with technical documents. We also discuss the rôle of glossaries as part of a suite of annotational tools to help users make personal (and therefore meaningful) hypertextual document collections.
QUANTITATIVE IMMUNOELECTROPHORETIC ANALYSIS OF SALMONELLA TYPHI ANTIGENS AND OF CORRESPONDING ANTIBODIES IN HUMAN SERA

By quantitative immunoelectrophoretic methods, 86 different antigens were found in sonicated preparations of a Salmonella typhi, using corresponding rabbit antiserum. Lipopolysaccharide was identified, and 5 other antigens characterized. Antibodies against a total of 19 S. typhi antigens were found in human sera. The antibody response in patients with typhoid fever was significantly more pronounced compared to that in normal persons. When the antibody response was expressed as a precipitin score, the predictive value of both a positive (precipitin score 8) test and a negative test was 100%, when sera from patients suffering from typhoid fever were compared with sera from normal persons.
Reversal of allergen-induced airway remodeling by CysLT1 receptor blockade.

RATIONALE Airway inflammation in asthma is accompanied by structural changes, including goblet cell metaplasia, smooth muscle cell layer thickening, and subepithelial fibrosis. This allergen-induced airway remodeling can be replicated in a mouse asthma model. OBJECTIVES The study goal was to determine whether established airway remodeling in a mouse asthma model is reversible by administration of the cysteinyl leukotriene (CysLT)1 receptor antagonist montelukast, the corticosteroid dexamethasone, or the combination montelukast + dexamethasone. METHODS BALB/c mice, sensitized by intraperitoneal ovalbumin (OVA) as allergen, received intranasal OVA periodically Days 14-73 and montelukast or dexamethasone or placebo from Days 73-163. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS Allergen-induced trafficking of eosinophils into the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid and lung interstitium and airway goblet cell metaplasia, smooth muscle cell layer thickening, and subepithelial fibrosis present on Day 73 persisted at Day 163, 3 mo after the last allergen challenge. Airway hyperreactivity to methacholine observed on Day 73 in OVA-treated mice was absent on Day 163. In OVA-treated mice, airway eosinophil infiltration and goblet cell metaplasia were reduced by either montelukast or dexamethasone alone. Montelukast, but not dexamethasone, reversed the established increase in airway smooth muscle mass and subepithelial collagen deposition. By immunocytochemistry, CysLT1 receptor expression was significantly increased in airway smooth muscle cells in allergen-treated mice compared with saline-treated controls and was reduced by montelukast, but not dexamethasone, administration. CONCLUSIONS These data indicate that established airway smooth muscle cell layer thickening and subepithelial fibrosis, key allergen-induced airway structural changes not modulated by corticosteroids, are reversible by CysLT1 receptor blockade therapy.
Human action recognition using Adaptive Hierarchical Depth Motion Maps and Gabor filter

Depth motion maps (DMMs) have shown effectiveness in human action recognition, however, they lose the temporal information and suffer from intra-class variations caused by action speed variations. To address these challenges, we propose a novel method for human action recognition. Firstly, Adaptive Hierarchical Depth Motion Maps (AH-DMMs) are calculated over temporal hierarchical windows of video sequences to capture the temporal information. Moreover, adaptive windows and steps are employed to ensure that AH-DMMs are robust to motion speed variations. Then, Gabor filter is adopted to encode the texture information of AH-DMMs, generating compact and discriminative action representations. Finally, the representations serve as the input of collaborative representation classifier (CRC). Experimental results on public benchmark MSRAction3D dataset and DHA dataset demonstrate the superiority of the proposed method over the state-of-the-art depth-based action recognition approaches.
Case, Coordination, and Information Structure in Japanese

This paper investigates the nature of Japanese argument cluster (Steedman 2000b). Based on Combinatory Categorial Grammar, a type-raising analysis of case particles which captures some aspects of the information structure in Japanese is discussed, including contrastive interpretation of coordination, wh-constructions, and some theme and rheme-related grammatical phenomena. These observations offer further support for the study of syntax, semantics, and phonology interface and the earlier analysis of English information structure.
Design of a new algorithm for WAN disconnection emulation and implementing it in WANem

Network availability is a very important need of any production environment. Unfortunately due to many reasons a link in a wide area network does not have consistent availability for a long period of time. Hence an application needs to be designed considering this unreliability factor of a wide area network. However, such network instabilities are not seen in a typical LAN based development environment. This is the reason why most of the applications developed in a LAN based development environment perform very badly while in production in a Wide Area Network. It is observed that -- testing robustness of such an application in a wide area network is a difficult task. In this paper a new method which can emulate network availability of a Wide Area Network (WAN) inside the LAN is proposed. Using proposed method, one can, therefore, create a WAN availability test condition within the LAN itself. This way an application can be tested as if it is running in an actual production environment.
The Putative Mevalonate Diphosphate Decarboxylase from Picrophilus torridus Is in Reality a Mevalonate-3-Kinase with High Potential for Bioproduction of Isobutene

ABSTRACT Mevalonate diphosphate decarboxylase (MVD) is an ATP-dependent enzyme that catalyzes the phosphorylation/decarboxylation of (R)-mevalonate-5-diphosphate to isopentenyl pyrophosphate in the mevalonate (MVA) pathway. MVD is a key enzyme in engineered metabolic pathways for bioproduction of isobutene, since it catalyzes the conversion of 3-hydroxyisovalerate (3-HIV) to isobutene, an important platform chemical. The putative homologue from Picrophilus torridus has been identified as a highly efficient variant in a number of patents, but its detailed characterization has not been reported. In this study, we have successfully purified and characterized the putative MVD from P. torridus. We discovered that it is not a decarboxylase per se but an ATP-dependent enzyme, mevalonate-3-kinase (M3K), which catalyzes the phosphorylation of MVA to mevalonate-3-phosphate. The enzyme's potential in isobutene formation is due to the conversion of 3-HIV to an unstable 3-phosphate intermediate that undergoes consequent spontaneous decarboxylation to form isobutene. Isobutene production rates were as high as 507 pmol min−1 g cells−1 using Escherichia coli cells expressing the enzyme and 2,880 pmol min−1 mg protein−1 with the purified histidine-tagged enzyme, significantly higher than reported previously. M3K is a key enzyme of the novel MVA pathway discovered very recently in Thermoplasma acidophilum. We suggest that P. torridus metabolizes MVA by the same pathway.
Single-Stage and Boost-Voltage Grid-Connected Inverter for PV / Fuel-Cell Generation System

Photo voltaic (PV), with (i) the micro-grid side of the bidirectional voltage-source converters (μGVSC) (ii) tight control of the voltage converter is the ability to multi-functional characteristics of the fuel cell, (iii) MPPT / fuel cell hybrid power conversion system for grid integration group and the low power gain waves cascaded integrated boost (HGICB) DCDC Converter with high gain tracking the performance demonstrated in this paper. PV solar irradiation from the side of the variable HGICB converter to extract the maximum power is controlled by the P & O MPPT algorithm. In this paper, intelligent functionality (a) the levels of irradiation at a ratio of active power into the grid feed (b) reactive power compensation of the following micro-grid applications maikrogramulu VSC theory postulates that a revised instant symmetrical components (C), load balancing (D), if any, non-linear loads generated by the point of common coupling (PCC) at unity power factor sinusoidal current distribution grid, thus enabling the mitigation of the current balance. Fuel Cell Energy System (BESS) and the utility grid of the power balance between PV generation is controlled. A new control algorithm is also tight for the converter DC link voltage to control the efficiency of the fuel cell is proposed in this paper. The fuel cell converter dynamic performance, researched and conventional average current mode control (ACMC) compared with. The development of a prototype of a hybrid PV Energy Conversion system and MATLAB / SIMULINK simulation environment. Maikrogramulu VSC converters and battery power conversion system HGICB extensive simulation studies for the effectiveness of the proposed control strategies are validated by.
Isolation of different serovars of Salmonella enterica from wild birds in Great Britain between 1995 and 2003

Postmortem examinations were carried out on the carcases of 779 wild birds. Salmonellosis was a common cause of death in greenfinches (Carduelis chloris), house sparrows (Passer domesticus) and chaffinches (Fringilla coelebs), and was also responsible for the deaths of other birds such as goldfinches (Carduelis carduelis), feral pigeons and different species of gulls. Most cases of salmonellosis in finches occurred between January and March, whereas salmonellosis in house sparrows tended to occur between October and March. Salmonella Typhimurium DT40 and DT56 (variant) predominated in finches and sparrows, DT41 and DT195 were the most common strains isolated from gulls, and DT2 and DT99 were recovered from feral pigeons. These ‘wild bird’ strains of Salmonella made up less than 0·5 per cent of the isolates of Salmonella recovered from cattle, sheep, pigs, chickens or turkeys in Great Britain over the same period, but they made up nearly 3 per cent of the isolates from more extensively reared avian livestock such as gamebirds, ducks and geese.
Model-Based Testing Using Symbolic Animation and Machine Learning

We present in this paper a technique based on symbolic animation of models that aims at producing model-based tests. In order to guide the animation of the model, we rely on the use of a deterministic finite automaton (DFA) of the model that is built using a well-known machine learning algorithm, that considers a complex model as a black-box component, whose behavior is inferred. Since the DFA obtained in this way may be an over-approximation and, thus, admit traces that were not admitted on the original model, this abstraction is refined using counter-examples made of unfeasible traces. The computation of counter-examples is performed using a systematic coverage of the DFA states and transitions, producing test sequences that are replayed on the model, providing either test cases for offline testing, or counter-examples that aim at refining the abstraction.
3D facial expression recognition using distance features and LBP features based on automatically detected keypoints

The 3D facial surface demonstrates rich information about human beings' expressions. However, methods to recognize humans' facial expression are mainly still focusing on 2D images, which is not robust to pose and lighting conditions. In this paper, the problem of the person-independent facial expression recognition is addressed on basis of the line segments connected by specific 3D automatically detected facial keypoints and LBP features of depth images around the automatically detected facial keypoints. Using a Support Vector Machine classifier, the recognition rate reaches up to 92.1% on the BU-3DFE database. Comparative analysis shows that our method outperforms the competitor approaches using similar experimental settings, which proves the effectiveness of our method for 3D facial expression recognition.
Chronic Stress and Performance

Abstract : Stressors are a natural component of life for all mammals. The stress response is a physiological reaction to stressors that may be amenable to change by a variety of situations. Chronic stressors in the form of social stressors, physical stressors, the combination of both social and physical stressors, and the administration of the stress hormone corticosterone have a variety of effects on various measures of animal performance. In particular, chronic stressors can affect spatial learning, anxiety, and depression. Several important themes emerged from a review of the pertinent literature on the effects of chronic stressors on rodent performance. Chronic stressors impact rodent performance in an inconsistent manner and several potential areas remain to be explored.
Some Effects of a Reduced Relational Vocabulary on the Whodunit Problem

A key issue in artificial intelligence lies in finding the amount of input detail needed to do successful learning. Too much detail causes overhead and makes learning prone to over-fitting. Too little detail and it may not be possible to learn anything at all. The issue is particularly relevant when the inputs are relational case descriptions, and a very expressive vocabulary may also lead to inconsistent representations. For example, in the Whodunit Problem, the task is to form hypotheses about the identity of the perpetrator of an event described using relational propositions. The training data consists of arbitrary relational descriptions of many other similar cases. In this paper, we examine the possibility of translating the case descriptions into an alternative vocabulary which has a reduced number of predicates and therefore produces more consistent case descriptions. We compare how the reduced vocabulary affects three different learning algorithms: exemplar-based analogy, prototype-based analogy, and association rule learning. We find that it has a positive effect on some algorithms and a negative effect on others, which gives us insight into all three algorithms and indicates when reduced vocabularies might be appropriate.
Nutritional Genomics and the Mediterranean Diet’s Effects on Human Cardiovascular Health

The synergies and cumulative effects among different foods and nutrients are what produce the benefits of a healthy dietary pattern. Diets and dietary patterns are a major environmental factor that we are exposed to several times a day. People can learn how to control this behavior in order to promote healthy living and aging, and to prevent diet-related diseases. To date, the traditional Mediterranean diet has been the only well-studied pattern. Stroke incidence, a number of classical risk factors including lipid profile and glycaemia, emergent risk factors such as the length of telomeres, and emotional eating behavior can be affected by genetic predisposition. Adherence to the Mediterranean diet could exert beneficial effects on these risk factors. Our individual genetic make-up should be taken into account to better prevent these traits and their subsequent consequences in cardiovascular disease development. In the present work, we review the results of nutritional genomics explaining the role of the Mediterranean diet in human cardiovascular disease. A multidisciplinary approach is necessary to extract knowledge from large-scale data.
TGFbeta2-induced changes in human trabecular meshwork: implications for intraocular pressure.

PURPOSE Transforming growth factor (TGF)-beta2 levels are elevated in glaucomatous human aqueous humor. TGFbeta is a cytokine that alters extracellular matrix (ECM) metabolism, and excess ECM has been proposed to increase aqueous outflow resistance in the trabecular meshwork (TM) of glaucomatous eyes. This study was undertaken to investigate effects of TGFbeta2 on secretion of fibronectin and the protease inhibitor plasminogen activator inhibitor (PAI)-1 from human TM cell cultures and perfused human ocular anterior segments. METHODS Total RNA was isolated from pooled human TM cell monolayers and used for a gene microarray expression analysis. Supernatants from treated human TM cells were analyzed by ELISA for fibronectin or PAI-1 content. TGFbeta2 effects on intraocular pressure (IOP) were evaluated in a perfused organ culture model using human anterior segments, and eluates were analyzed for fibronectin and PAI-1 content. RESULTS Overnight treatment of TM cells with TGFbeta2 upregulated multiple ECM-related genes, such as PAI-1. TGFbeta2 also increased secretion of both fibronectin and PAI-1 from TM cells. TGFbeta2 effects on TM cells were blocked by inhibitors of the TGFbeta type I receptor. In perfused human anterior segments, TGFbeta2 treatment elevated IOP and increased eluate fibronectin and PAI-1 content. CONCLUSIONS TGFbeta2 effects on IOP may be transduced by TGFbeta type-I receptor-mediated changes in TM secretion of ECM-related factors such as fibronectin and PAI-1. Modulation of TGFbeta2-induced changes in the ECM may provide a novel and viable approach to the management of glaucoma.