Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The course of blood pressure in acute stroke is related to the severity of the neurological deficits

Objectives– To evaluate how soon after stroke the diagnosis of hypertension could be established. Methods– In a prospective study including 1192 patients with acute stroke within 6 h, blood pressure was measured serially at 2‐h intervals during the first 24 h. Results are presented as mean arterial blood pressure (MAP). The Scandinavian Stroke Scale (SSS) assessed the neurological deficit. Results– In 779 patients with mild to moderate ischaemic stroke or transient ischaemic attack (TIA) and SSS > 25, MAP was 118 mmHg (CI 95%: 116–119 mmHg) on admission and 109 mmHg (CI 95%: 108–110 mmHg) 4 h later (paired t‐test, P < 0.001). No such early decrease was observed in 228 patients with severe cerebral infarction (CI). In mild to moderate ischaemic stroke or TIA, MAP at 24 h was not different from MAP at 3 months in paired t‐test. Conclusions– Blood pressure 24 h after admission in patients with mild to moderate CI or TIA was representative of the patient's blood pressure 3 months after stroke. A diagnosis of arterial hypertension can be established a few days after stroke.
Supporting Online Material Materials and Methods Som Text Figs. S1 to S10 Tables S1 to S3 References Movies S1 to S4 the Equatorial Ridges of Pan and Atlas: Terminal Accretionary Ornaments?

Cassie state with water and various organic liquids. The presence of re-entrant curvature, though, is not a sufficient condition for developing highly nonwetting surfaces; the Cassie state may be inaccessible in practice if the applied pressure (or energy barrier) required to transition from the Cassie to the Wenzel state is small. However, by independently controlling both the chemical and topographic nature of surfaces (as embodied in two dimensionless design parameters, D* and H*), we have shown that it is possible to design extremely robust nonwetting surfaces. 21. Recent work by McCarthy and colleagues (20) points out that these models are applicable only at the solid-liquid-vapor three-phase contact line (drop perimeter) and that the interfacial area within the drop perimeter does not affect either the apparent contact angle or the hysteresis; thus, these models can be easily applied only to surfaces with a homogeneous texture, as considered here. 37. These surfaces are referred to as micro-hoodoos because their geometry and process of creation are reminiscent of geological features called hoodoos, which are created by soil erosion. Hoodoos are composed of a soft sedimentary rock topped by a piece of harder, less easily eroded stone. 38. Because 2D << (g lv /rg) 0.5 (capillary length; r is the density of liquid), the effect of gravity is negligible and we approximate the liquid-air interface to be a horizontal plane. 39. Nosonovsky (11) recently derived another important criterion for the creation of a local minimum in free energy, and thus for the creation of a stable heterogeneous interface: dA sl dq < 0, where dA sl is the change in solid-liquid contact area with the advancing or receding of the liquid, and dq is the change in local contact angle. This criterion also emphasizes the importance of re-entrant surfaces. Langmuir 23, 4310 (2007). 41. As the surface is pushed toward the water droplet, the droplet moves, and hence the normal force is not transferred perfectly. 42. The difference in contact angle values from the Cassie prediction is related to contact line pinning. In the outer regions of Saturn's main rings, strong tidal forces balance gravitational accretion processes. Thus, unusual phenomena may be expected there. The Cassini spacecraft has recently revealed the strange " flying saucer " shape of two small satellites, Pan and Atlas, located in this region, showing prominent equatorial ridges. The accretion of ring particles onto the equatorial surfaces of already-formed bodies …
Immune reconstitution after allogeneic marrow transplantation compared with blood stem cell transplantation.

Allogeneic peripheral blood stem cell grafts contain about 10 times more T and B cells than marrow grafts. Because these cells may survive in transplant recipients for a long time, recipients of blood stem cells may be less immunocompromised than recipients of marrow. Immune reconstitution was studied in 115 patients randomly assigned to receive either allogeneic marrow or filgrastim-mobilized blood stem cell transplantation. Between day 30 and 365 after transplantation, counts of most lymphocyte subsets were higher in the blood stem cell recipients. The difference was most striking for CD4 T cells (about 4-fold higher counts for CD45RA(high) CD4 T cells and about 2-fold higher counts for CD45RA(low/-)CD4 T cells; P <. 05). On assessment using phytohemagglutinin and herpesvirus antigen-stimulated proliferation, T cells in the 2 groups of patients appeared equally functional. Median serum IgG levels were similar in the 2 groups. The rate of definite infections after engraftment was 1.7-fold higher in marrow recipients (P =.001). The rate of severe (inpatient treatment required) definite infections after engraftment was 2.4-fold higher in marrow recipients (P =.002). The difference in the rates of definite infections was greatest for fungal infections, intermediate for bacterial infections, and lowest for viral infections. Death associated with a fungal or bacterial infection occurred between day 30 and day 365 after transplantation in 9 marrow recipients and no blood stem cell recipients (P =.008). In conclusion, blood stem cell recipients have higher lymphocyte-subset counts and this appears to result in fewer infections. (Blood. 2001;97:3380-3389)
Spectrum Leasing as an Incentive Towards Uplink Macrocell and Femtocell Cooperation

The concept of femtocell access points underlaying existing communication infrastructure has recently emerged as a key technology that can significantly improve the coverage and performance of next-generation wireless networks. In this paper, we propose a framework for macrocell-femtocell cooperation under a closed access policy, in which a femtocell user may act as a relay for macrocell users. In return, each cooperative macrocell user grants the femtocell user a fraction of its superframe. We formulate a coalitional game with macrocell and femtocell users being the players, which can take individual and distributed decisions on whether to cooperate or not, while maximizing a utility function that captures the cooperative gains, in terms of throughput and delay. We show that the network can self-organize into a partition composed of disjoint coalitions which constitutes the recursive core of the game which is a key solution concept for coalition formation games in partition form. Simulation results show that the proposed coalition formation algorithm yields significant gains in terms of average rate per macrocell user, reaching up to 239%, relative to the non-cooperative case. Moreover, the proposed approach shows an improvement in terms of femtocell users' rate of up to 21% when compared to the traditional closed access policy.
A Simple Algorithm for Complete Motion Planning of Translating Polyhedral Robots

We present a new sampling-based algorithm for complete motion planning. Our algorithm relies on computing a star-shaped roadmap of the free space. We partition the free space into star-shaped regions such that a single point, called the guard, can see every point in the star-shaped region. The resulting set of guards capture the intra-region connectivity—the connectivity between points belonging to the same star-shaped region. We capture the inter-region connectivity by computing connectors that link guards of adjacent regions. The guards and connectors are combined to obtain the star-shaped roadmap. We present an efficient algorithm to compute the roadmap in a deterministic manner without explicit computation of the free space. We show that the star-shaped roadmap captures the connectivity of the free space, thereby enabling us to perform complete motion planning. Our approach is relatively simple to implement. We apply our approach to perform motion planning of robots with translational and rotational degrees of freedom (dof). We highlight its performance in challenging scenarios with narrow passages or when there is no collision-free path for robots with low degrees of freedom.
Survival and growth patterns of white spruce (Picea glauca [Moench] Voss) rangewide provenances and their implications for climate change adaptation

Intraspecific assisted migration (ISAM) through seed transfer during artificial forest regeneration has been suggested as an adaptation strategy to enhance forest resilience and productivity under future climate. In this study, we assessed the risks and benefits of ISAM in white spruce based on long-term and multilocation, rangewide provenance test data. Our results indicate that the adaptive capacity and growth potential of white spruce varied considerably among 245 range-wide provenances sampled across North America; however, the results revealed that local populations could be outperformed by nonlocal ones. Provenances originating from south-central Ontario and southwestern Québec, Canada, close to the southern edge of the species' natural distribution, demonstrated superior growth in more northerly environments compared with local populations and performed much better than populations from western Canada and Alaska, United States. During the 19–28 years between planting and measurement, the southern provenances have not been more susceptible to freezing damage compared with local populations, indicating they have the potential to be used now for the reforestation of more northerly planting sites; based on changing temperature, these seed sources potentially could maintain or increase white spruce productivity at or above historical levels at northern sites. A universal response function (URF), which uses climatic variables to predict provenance performance across field trials, indicated a relatively weak relationship between provenance performance and the climate at provenance origin. Consequently, the URF from this study did not provide information useful to ISAM. The ecological and economic importance of conserving white spruce genetic resources in south-central Ontario and southwestern Québec for use in ISAM is discussed.
Effect of saffron on semen parameters of infertile men.

INTRODUCTION We conducted this study to determine the effects of saffron (Crocus sativus) on the results of semen analysis in men with idiopathic infertility. MATERIALS AND METHODS In this clinical trial, 52 nonsmoker infertile men whose problem could not be solved surgically were enrolled. They were treated by saffron for 3 months. Saffron, 50 mg, was solved in drinking milk and administered 3 times a week during the study course. Semen analysis was done before and after the treatment and the results were compared. RESULTS The mean percentage of sperm with normal morphology was 26.50 +/- 6.44% before the treatment which increased to 33.90 +/- 10.45%, thereafter (P < .001). The mean percentage of sperm with Class A motility was 5.32 +/- 4.57% before and 11.77 +/- 6.07% after the treatment (P < .001). Class B and C motilities were initially 10.09 +/- 4.20% and 19.79 +/- 9.11% which increased to 17.92 +/- 6.50% (P < .001) and 25.35 +/- 10.22% (P < .001), respectively. No significant increase was detected in sperm count; the mean sperm count was 43.45 +/- 31.29 x 106/mL at baseline and 44.92 +/- 28.36x 106/mL after the treatment period (P = .30). CONCLUSION Saffron, as an antioxidant, is positively effective on sperm morphology and motility in infertile men, while it does not increase sperm count. We believe further studies on larger sample sizes are needed to elucidate the potential role and mechanism of action of saffron and its ingredient in the treatment of male infertility.
Improvement of retroviral vectors by coating with poly(ethylene glycol)‐poly(L‐lysine) block copolymer (PEG‐PLL)

Although some cationic reagents, such as polybrene, improve gene transduction in vitro, their use in vivo is prohibited due to their toxicity to the exposed cells. This paper demonstrates that a new cationic reagent, poly(ethylene glycol)‐poly(L‐lysine) block copolymer (PEG‐PLL), improves gene transduction with retroviral vectors without increasing cell toxicity.
A Comparison of Word Frequency and N-Gram Based Vulnerability Categorization Using SOM

Network attackers exploit software vulnerabilities on network computers to facilitate successful attacks. Many organizations keep track of the existing software vulnerabilities in the form of vulnerability databases. However, categorizing vulnerabilities is difficult due to the large number of different attributes maintained. In this work we apply a dataclustering algorithm (SOM) to two different representations of information contained in an existing online vulnerability databases. After identifying the more valuable approach for this task, we are able to identify critical vulnerability features inherent in the dataset.
Fast and efficent multimodal eye biometrics using projective dictionary pair learning

This work proposes a projective pairwise dictionary learning-based approach for fast and efficient multimodal eye biometrics. The work uses a faster Projective pairwise Discriminative Dictionary Learning (DL) in contrast to the traditional DL which uses synthesis DL. Projective Pairwise Discriminative Dictionary (PPDD) uses a synthesis dictionary and an analysis dictionary jointly to achieve the goal of pattern representation and discrimination. As the PPDD process of DL is in contrast to the use of l0 or l1-norm sparsity constraints on the representation coefficients adopted in most traditional DL, it works faster than other DL. Moreover, the blending of synthesis dictionary and an analysis dictionary also enhance the feature representation of the complex eye patterns. We employed the combination of sclera and iris traits to establish multimodal biometrics. The experimental study and analysis conducted fulfill the hypothesis we considered. In this work we employed a part of the UBIRIS version 1 dataset to conduct the experiments.
A New Concept for Medical Imaging Centered on Cellular Phone Technology

According to World Health Organization reports, some three quarters of the world population does not have access to medical imaging. In addition, in developing countries over 50% of medical equipment that is available is not being used because it is too sophisticated or in disrepair or because the health personnel are not trained to use it. The goal of this study is to introduce and demonstrate the feasibility of a new concept in medical imaging that is centered on cellular phone technology and which may provide a solution to medical imaging in underserved areas. The new system replaces the conventional stand-alone medical imaging device with a new medical imaging system made of two independent components connected through cellular phone technology. The independent units are: a) a data acquisition device (DAD) at a remote patient site that is simple, with limited controls and no image display capability and b) an advanced image reconstruction and hardware control multiserver unit at a central site. The cellular phone technology transmits unprocessed raw data from the patient site DAD and receives and displays the processed image from the central site. (This is different from conventional telemedicine where the image reconstruction and control is at the patient site and telecommunication is used to transmit processed images from the patient site). The primary goal of this study is to demonstrate that the cellular phone technology can function in the proposed mode. The feasibility of the concept is demonstrated using a new frequency division multiplexing electrical impedance tomography system, which we have developed for dynamic medical imaging, as the medical imaging modality. The system is used to image through a cellular phone a simulation of breast cancer tumors in a medical imaging diagnostic mode and to image minimally invasive tissue ablation with irreversible electroporation in a medical imaging interventional mode.
Subclinical Changes in Luteal Function in Cynomolgus Monkeys with Moderate Blood Lead Levels

The objective of the present study was to investigate luteal function in cynomolgus monkeys (n = 32), aged 15–20 years with blood lead levels (BLLs) in the range of <3.0 μg dl−1 (control, n = 20), 10–15 μg dl−1 (low, n = 7) and 25–30 μg dl−1 (moderate, n = 5). Sampling was performed daily beginning with day 10 of the menstrual cycle and concluding on the first day of the subsequent menstrual cycle. Circulating levels of oestradiol (E2), progesterone (P4) and 20α‐hydroxyprogesterone (20‐OHP) were normalized to the day of the ovulatory E2 surge. The area under the concentration curve (AUC) for P4 was significantly lower in monkeys with moderate BLLs compared to the control group (P = 0.04). The number of days for which circulating levels of P4 were greater than 1.0 ng ml−1 were also significantly fewer (P = 0.03) in monkeys with moderate BLLs compared to controls. There was no statistical evidence of a lead effect on circulating levels of E2, 20‐OHP or menstrual cycle characteristics. These data suggest that chronic lead exposure suppresses corpora luteal production of P4 in the monkey at circulating BLLs lower than previously reported and relevant to humans with occupational exposure to lead.
Antibody-Mediated Suppression of Grafted Lymphoma Cells. I. Participation of a Host Factor(s) other than Complement

Summary Humoral alloantibodies directed against two transplanted lymphomas suppressed the growth of these tumors as effectively in syngeneic mice severely depleted of C3 or genetically deficient in C5 as in controls with normal complement activity. In addition, whole-body irradiation at 400 R or higher abolished the animal's ability to suppress the tumor grafts in the presence of antibody even though irradiation did not diminish complement activity. It is concluded that the complete complement system is not needed for the antibody-mediated suppression of the lymphomas. An as yet unidentified host factor(s) distinct from the complement system is needed for this suppressive reaction.
Experimental Study of Bushen Ningxin Granules and the Impacts on Norpinephrine and Dopamine in the Brain Tissue of Experimental Anxiety Model Rats

Objective To observe the impacts of bushen ningxin granules on norpinephrine(NE)and dopamine(DA)in the brain tissue of anxiety rats and explore the intervention mechanism of bushen ningxin granules on cardiac neurosis.Methods60 male Wistar rats were randomized into normal blank group,tranquilizer control group,model blank group,bushen ningxin granules high-dose group,middle-dose group and low-dose group,10 rats in each one.The elevated plus-maze test(EPM)was adopted to set up anxiety model.The enzyme linked immunosorbent assay(ELISA)was used to detect the contents of neurotransmitters in the hypothalamus of the rats.ResultsIn the experiment,the behavior test proved the success of modeling and had observed that bushen ningxin granules of high-dose could reduce the contents of central NE and DA significantly,which presented no statistical significant difference as compared with normal blank group and tranquilizer control group separately.ConclusionBushen ningxin granules reduced the contents of central NE and DA and transferred the central nerve from excitation to inhibition,which infers that the drug can inhibit the excitation of central nerves induced by NE and DA,suppress the synthesis and the release of NE and DA and decrease the impacts on cardiac vascular system.
Quality of Life in Adult Transplant Recipients More than 15 Years after Kidney Transplantation

Background. With continuously rising survival rates following renal transplantation, health-related quality of life (HQOL) of long-term transplant survivors becomes increasingly important. Methods. Recipients more than 15 years after successful renal transplantation were studied retrospectively. HQOL in 139 long-term transplant recipients was assessed using the SF-36 and the disease-specific kidney transplant questionnaire (KTQ-25). Results. Long-term transplant recipients revealed satisfactory HQOL that was comparable to the healthy population in four of eight SF-36 categories (role physical, social functioning, role emotional and mental health). Other SF-36 categories such as physical functioning, physical pain, general health, and vitality were reduced. Among the study population, disease-specific HQOL was comparable or even improved to that of patients awaiting transplantation. In contrast to retired or unemployed patients, employed recipients revealed a highly significant improved HQOL in numerous SF-36 categories such as physical functioning (P<0.001), physical pain (P<0.001), general health (P<0.001), vitality (P<0.001), social functioning (P<0.005), and mental health (P<0.001), as well as for the KTQ-dimensions physical symptoms (P<0.001), fatigue (P>0.001), uncertainty/fear (P<0.01), and emotions (P<0.05). Other factors positively correlating with improved HQOL in certain dimensions were living situation, systolic blood pressure, and recipient age. Conclusions. More than 15 years after renal transplantation, recipients present satisfactory HQOL comparable to the general healthy population or at least to pretransplant patients. Vocational rehabilitation following renal transplantation is of highest importance among long-term survivors and is associated with improved HQOL.
The prenatal origins of lung cancer. II. The placenta

We have shown that people who were short at birth in relation to their weight are at increased risk of lung cancer. We suggested that this reflected low amino acid–high glucose delivery to the fetus and that this impaired the development of its antioxidant systems and made it vulnerable to tobacco smoke and other carcinogens in later life. Transfer of amino acids and glucose from mother to fetus depends on the placenta. We here examine how maternal and placental size are related to lung cancer. We studied two cohorts, totaling 20,431 people, born in Helsinki during 1924–1944. Their body size at birth and maternal body size had been recorded together with the weight of the placenta and two diameters of its surface. Of them, 385 had developed lung cancer. Three different maternal–placental–fetal phenotypes were associated with lung cancer. Common to each was a short mother and a newborn baby that was short in relation to its weight. Lung cancer was associated with either a small or a large placental surface area. In the three phenotypes, the hazard ratios associated with a 100 cm2 increase in placental surface were 0.36 (95% CI 0.14 to 0.87, P = 0.02), 2.31 (1.45 to 3.69, P < 0.001) and 2.04 (1.08 to 3.86, P = 0.03). We conclude that three different maternal–placental phenotypes were associated with later lung cancer. We suggest that each led to low amino acid‐normal glucose transfer to the fetus, reflected in a newborn baby that was short in relation to its weight. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.