Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
MULTICENTER STUDY OF EARLY LACTATE CLEARANCE AS A DETERMINANT OF SURVIVAL IN PATIENTS WITH PRESUMED SEPSIS

We sought to determine (a) if early lactate clearance is associated with improved survival in emergency department patients with severe sepsis and (b) the concordance between central venous oxygen saturation (ScvO2) optimization and lactate clearance during early sepsis resuscitation. Within a multicenter shock research network that uses quantitative resuscitation for severe sepsis, we analyzed prospectively collected registries of consecutive emergency department patients diagnosed with severe sepsis at three urban hospitals. Inclusion criteria are as follows: (a) age older than 17 years, (b) two or more systemic inflammation criteria, (c) systolic blood pressure 90 mmHg or less after fluid challenge or initial lactate of 4mmol/L or greater, and (d) initial and repeat lactate measurement within 6 h of resuscitation initiation. We stratified patients into two groups defined a priori based on previously published data: (a) lactate clearance-repeat lactate decrease by 10% or greater from initial (or both initial and repeat levels ≤2.0 mmol/L), and (b) lactate non-clearance-repeat lactate decrease by less than 10% from initial. The primary outcome was in-hospital mortality. Among 166 patients, lactate non-clearance occurred in 15 (9%) of 166. Mortality was 60% for lactate non-clearance versus 19% for lactate clearance, P < 0.001. On multivariate analysis, lactate non-clearance was an independent predictor of death (odds ratio, 4.9 [confidence interval, 1.5-15.9]). We found discordance between ScvO2 optimization and lactate clearance; 79% of lactate non-clearance had concomitant ScvO2 of 70% or greater. In this multicenter cohort of sepsis patients, failing to clear lactate during resuscitation carried a high risk of death, and ScvO2 optimization did not reliably exclude lactate non-clearance. These data provide rationale for a clinical trial of lactate clearance as a distinct end point of early sepsis resuscitation.
FK 506 in solid organ transplantation.

FK506 (Prograt) is a new immunosuppressive agent. recently approved for use in solid organ transplants. The first use of FK506 was for the indication of refractory liver allograft rejection. This revealed a marked ability to reverse ongoing rejection. even in cases where chronic changes were observed. Between 50 and 70% of patients converted to FK506 had shown improvement. In long-term follow-up of patients with chronic rejection. 75% of patients were still alive at 3 years following FK506 conversion. and 65% of liver allografts were still functioning. FK506 has been compared to cyclosporine in primary liver transplantation. In the three randomized trials. freedom from rejection was statistically greater in the FK506-treated group, as compared to the cyclosporine-treated group. By intent-to-treat analysis, the patient and graft survival in the FK506 group was the same or better than the cyclosporine group. The good results in the cyclosporine limb was due. in part, to the ability of FK506 to treat rejection in the cyclosporine group. Freedom from steroid use, and the lower incidence of hypertension, were prominent features of FK506 patients. FK506 has been used for rescue of rejecting kidney allografts, with results similar to the liver transplant trials. When used as primary immunosuppression. FK506 was shown to be effective. as measured by graft survival. FK506-based immunosuppression has also been used in primary heart transplantation. as well as for primary adult pulmonary transplantation. Results from these small series of patients are equally encouraging. The results . of these studies suggest that FK506 is effective for solid organ transplantation. Both FK506 and cyclosporine administration have been associated with side effects. many of which are similar. and some of which are peculiar to a given organ transplant.
Multi-level Shared Caching Techniques For Scalability In VMP-MC

The problem of building a scalable shared memory multiprocessor can be reduced to that of building a scalable memory hierarchy, assuming interprocessor communication is handled by the memory system. In this paper, we describe the VMP-MC design, a distributed parallel multi-computer based on the VMP multiprocessor design, that is intended to provide a set of building blocks for configuring machines from one to several thousand processors. VMP-MC uses a memory hierarchy based on shared caches, ranging from on- chip caches to board-level caches connected by busses to, at the bottom, a high-speed fiber optic ring. In addition to describing the building block components of this architecture, we identify the key performance issues associated with the design and provide performance evaluation of these issues using trace-drive simulation and measurements from the VMP. This work was sponsored in part by the Defense Advanced Re- search Projects Agency under Contract N00014-88-K-0619.
Finding "Face" in the Preference Structures of Talk-in-Interaction

This article connects the concept of face to interactionally characterizable locations in conversation and to a specific speaking practice used there. I consider the relevance of the self/other distinction for the organization of some action sequences in order to locate face concerns in interactional terms. In conversation, next speakers ordinarily begin speaking at or near a place where the current speaker could be finished. Occasionally, however, participants do not wait for the current speaker to finish, but complete the current turn themselves. One systematic basis for this relaxation of turn-taking practices is found in a preference organization for alternative actions in conversation. The anticipatory completion of speaking turn by another speaker can be used to preempt an emerging dispreferred action and change it into the alternative preferred action. This preference structure includes a preference for agreement over disagreement, a preference for self-correction over other-correction, and a preference far offers over requests. A recipient's anticipatory completion of an ongoing speaking turn is one conversational practice that makes possible a preference relationship between asymmetrical (i.e., differently valued) action types, and furnishes a basis for the recognizability offace concerns.
The spectrum of imaging and neuropsychological findings in Pick's disease

To seek improved methods for the diagnosis of Pick's disease, we reviewed imaging studies of four women and two men (ages 48 to 65 years at onset) and psychometric testing of three of them with autopsy or biopsy-proved Pick's. The presence of Pick bodies was required for the diagnosis. Seven patients with biopsy-proved Alzheimer's disease served as a comparison group. In the Pick's patients, CT in five of six showed marked frontal pole or temporal pole atrophy, which clearly differed from the pattern of cerebral atrophy seen in the Alzheimer's patients. Psychometric testing showed performance patterns that tended to differ from those of the Alzheimer's patients in that recent memory was relatively preserved despite marked impairment of executive functions. The distinctive psychometric pattern in the Pick's patients was evanescent, however. Thus, there were imaging and psychometric findings of potential diagnostic value for Pick's disease, but, for different reasons, they were imperfect.
Women and Self-Employment

There has been a notable increase in the number of women entering self-employment in the UK since the 1980s, such that by 1997 women represented approximately 26% of the self-employed population (Office of National Statistics, 1997). Existing evidence pertaining to this area has largely focused upon the challenges presented specifically to women when entering self-employment and whether their problems are associated with their gender. Whilst there are dissenting opinions, the evidence would appear to suggest that women will experience challenges within self-employment that can be related to their gender. This has resulted in suggestions for specific policies or initiatives to assist women to overcome these barriers, and also suggestions regarding specific behaviours that women might adopt to help themselves and to serve as role models to other nascent female ‘entrepreneurs’. This paper offers a critique of the dominant focus of the literature pertaining to women and self-employment and upon the so-called ‘solution’ to the problem of female entrepreneurship. Rather, it is suggested that the prevailing literature has almost completely failed to cite the analysis of women in self-employment in the larger feminist debate regarding female subordination, androcentric norms and masculinized hegemony. Hence, the dominant analysis in this area represents women as blemished men who must be assisted to become honorary men, and in so doing will then achieve within the existing paradigm of entrepreneurship. For as long as this analysis persists, our comprehension of the experience of femaleness and self-employment will only be partial.
Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Kinase Domain Mutations in Esophageal and Pancreatic Adenocarcinomas

Purpose: Specific activating mutations within the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) identify a subset of non–small cell lung cancers with dramatic sensitivity to the specific tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI), gefitinib and erlotinib. Despite the abundant expression of EGFR protein in a broad range of epithelial cancers, EGFR mutations have not been reported in a substantial fraction of other cancers. Given recent reports of TKI-responsive cases of esophageal and pancreatic cancer, this study was designed to determine the prevalence of EGFR mutations in these gastrointestinal cancers. Experimental Design: We sequenced exons 18 to 21 of EGFR from 21 cases of Barrett's esophagus, 5 cases of high-grade esophageal dysplasia, 17 cases of esophageal adenocarcinoma, and 55 cases of pancreatic adenocarcinoma. Subsets of esophageal (n = 7) and pancreatic cancer cases (n = 5) were obtained from patients who were subsequently treated with gefitinib or erlotinib-capecitabine, respectively. Results: Mutations of EGFR were identified in two esophageal cancers (11.7%), three cases of Barrett's esophagus (14.2%), and two pancreatic cancers (3.6%). The mutations consisted of the recurrent missense L858R and in-frame deletion delE746-A750, previously characterized as activating EGFR mutations in non–small cell lung cancer. We also identified the TKI drug resistance–associated EGFR T790M mutation in an untreated case of Barrett's esophagus and the corresponding adenocarcinoma. Conclusion: The presence of activating mutations within EGFR in both esophageal and pancreatic adenocarcinomas defines a previously unrecognized subset of gastrointestinal tumors in which EGFR signaling may play an important biological role. EGFR mutations in premalignant lesions of Barrett's esophagus also point to these as an early event in transformation of the esophageal epithelium. The role of genotype-directed TKI therapy should be tested in prospective clinical trials.
Behavioral and Pharmacological Determinants of Drug Abuse a

While there is little doubt that the pharmacological properties of a drug play an important role in the initiation of a multitude of responses, it is also clear that several variables can significantly alter the effects of that drug both on intermediate processes and in its ultimate effects on behavior. This chapter focuses on some of the variables that have been shown to modify the behavioral effects of abused drugs. The emphasis is on describing certain conditions under which the effects of an abused drug are changed, often dramatically, by prior behavioral and/or pharmacological experience. Because these effects have been shown with a wide variety of abused drugs, are stable over lengthy periods of time, and are observed under a broad range of conditions, it would seem that these fictors may have direct relevance for eventually understanding and being able to intercede in altering those conditions that lead to drug abuse. Although several determinants of the behavioral effects of drugs have been described (eg., rate of responding in the absence of the drug, schedule of reinforcement and type of maintaining event), these variables typically are identifiable when assessing
O~ical Flow Estimation Using Line lmaae Sequences

This paper presents and evaluates a method for measuring the speed of objects in line image sequences. In a line sequence, a line corresponds to a fixed line position in the real scene, and the objects move against it. The line image sequence is a space-time two dimensional image giving a good record of moving objects. The method uses two such line image sequences and estimate the object speed by optical flow computation. Unidirectional movement of the objects is assumed which simplifies the optical flow computation and makes it a simple method to implement. The usefullness and performance of the method is shown by an example comprising several vehicles of different speed. The performance evaluation shows good linearity and low error. 1. InftoduclJon 1.1. PREVIOUS WORK ON OPTICAL FLOW Optical flow estimation by intensity gradient based techniques has been investigated by many workers [5], [6], [7]. They mainly show how to compute a multidimensional flow field, that not only gives rise to the velocity magnitude, but also to its direction. Unfortunately, this cannot be done without assuming some a priori knowledge [10], [11], [13], [14], because of the aperture problem, that basically specifies that motion can locally onty be measured along the intensity gradient. 1.2 LINE IMAGE SEQUENCE The scope of this paper covers the simpliest of these assumptions, namely the assumption that the motion is along a straight line of known direction. According to that, we use a line image camera that produces a space-time two-dimensional image [1]. Such a camera shoots only one line image at a time, and atways aims at the same place; a time sequence is collected and the line images are put aside. The two-dimensional image produced is spatially defined along one axis, and temporally along the other. Such an image is quiet different from an ordinary one. When nothing moves, the background only is shot, and no significant feature is present in the image. When an object crosses the line, then it leaves a trail on the record; if it crosses the line slowly, then it will have a longer trace than when it goes faster. Using such a camera, we will be able to survey every moving object crossing the line of acquisition on a path perpendicular to it. This sort of camera is a~so used for order decision, e. g. in horse races or bicycle races. 1.3. METHODS FOR MEASURING SPEED We have seen that a moving object has a longer trace when it goes slow than when it goes fast.
DNA damage checkpoint in budding yeast

Eukaryotic cells have evolved a network of control mechanisms, known as checkpoints, which coordinate cell‐cycle progression in response to internal and external cues. The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae has been invaluable in dissecting genetically the DNA damage checkpoint pathway. Recent results on posttranslational modifications and protein–protein interactions of some key factors provide new insights into the architecture of checkpoint protein complexes and their order of function.
An open book: what and how young children learn from picture and story books

Looking at and listening to picture and story books is a ubiquitous activity, frequently enjoyed by many young children and their parents. Well before children can read for themselves they are able to learn from books. Looking at and listening to books increases children’s general knowledge, understanding about the world and promotes language acquisition. This collection of papers demonstrates the breadth of information pre-reading children learn from books and increases our understanding of the social and cognitive mechanisms that support this learning. Our hope is that this Research Topic/eBook will be useful for researchers as well as educational practitioners and parents who are interested in optimizing children’s learning. We conceptually divide this research topic into four broad sections, which focus on the nature and attributes of picture and story books, what children learn from picture and story books, the interactions children experience during shared reading, and potential applications of research into shared reading, respectively.
An Experiment on Tele-immersive Communication with Tiled Displays Wall over JGN2plus Network

In remote collaborative work via WAN, the sharing of various contents and video streaming between remoteplaces and its display by the large-scale screen is effective. However, wide-area display using a projector and large-sized display system is low-resolution, and sufficient presence is not obtained. In this paper, we have constructed Tele-immersive environment with Tiled displays wall to realize remote collaborative works with real video streaming and visualization contents by high-resolution. In addition, we have performed some experiments on tele-immersive communication on JGN2plus network. We have implemented an application to display high-resolution real video streaming on Tiled displays wall in remote place. By using the application, we have showed to display the clear video image of remote place over a wide range. Moreover, we have tried realistic display processing of high-resolution astronomical observation image and movie data, and it have enabled to observe the entire image of observation data all over Tiled displays wall.
Fault class prioritization in Boolean expressions

A recent study has classified faults in Boolean expressions into ten classes and has proved that there are five key fault classes, namely CCF, CDF, ORF, ENF and ASF, such that if a test suite can kill all faulty versions of these five core fault classes, if can kill all faulty versions of all fault classes. In order to generate more effective test suites, we should prioritize these five fault classes further, such that test cases with stronger fault detection capability could be generated as early as possible. Such a process is referred to as the fault class prioritization. Based on the observation in the fault class hierarchy, we divide the five fault classes into two groups {CCF, CDF} and {ORF, ENF, ASF}. Two strategies of fault class prioritization are proposed to generate test cases efficiently. We design experiments using TCAS Boolean expressions and some randomly generated Boolean expressions. The experimental results suggest that if we generate test cases for CCF and CDF firstly, the final test suite always have a higher efficiency of killing faults.
Differential expression of Fas (CD95) and Fas ligand on normal human phagocytes: implications for the regulation of apoptosis in neutrophils

Human neutrophils, monocytes, and eosinophils are known to undergo apoptotic cell death. The Fas/Fas ligand pathway has been implicated as an important cellular pathway mediating apoptosis in diverse cell types. We conducted studies to examine the importance of the Fas/FasL system in normal human phagocytes. Although Fas expression was detected on neutrophils, monocytes, and eosinophils, constitutive expression of FasL was restricted to neutrophils. The three types of phagocytes demonstrated differential sensitivity to Fas-induced apoptosis. Only neutrophils were highly susceptible to rapid apoptosis in vitro after stimulation with activating anti-Fas IgM (mAb CH-11). Fas-mediated neutrophil apoptosis was suppressed by incubation with G-CSF, GM-CSF, IFN-gamma, TNF-alpha, or dexamethasone, as well as the selective tyrosine kinase inhibitors, herbimycin A and genistein. Spontaneous neutrophil death in vitro was partially suppressed by Fas-Ig fusion protein or antagonistic anti-Fas IgG1 (mAb ZB4). In coculture experiments, neutrophils released a soluble factor inducing death in Fas-susceptible Jurkat cells via a mechanism sensitive to the presence of Fas-Ig or anti-Fas IgG1. Immunoblot analysis using specific anti- human FasL IgG1 (mAb No. 33) identified a 37-kD protein in lysates of freshly isolated neutrophils and a 30-kD protein in the culture supernatant of neutrophils maintained in vitro. Our results suggest that mature neutrophils may be irrevocably committed to autocrine death by virtue of their constitutive coexpression of cell-surface Fas and FasL via a mechanism that is sensitive to proinflammatory cytokines, glucocorticoids, and inhibitors of tyrosine kinase activity. Furthermore, neutrophils can serve as a source of soluble FasL, which may function in a paracrine pathway to mediate cell death.
The survival benefits of AIDS treatment in the United States.

BACKGROUND As widespread adoption of potent combination antiretroviral therapy (ART) reaches its tenth year, our objective was to quantify the cumulative survival benefits of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) care in the United States. METHODS We defined eras corresponding to advances in standards of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) disease care, including opportunistic infection prophylaxis, treatment with ART, and the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (pMTCT) of HIV. Per-person survival benefits for each era were determined using a mathematical simulation model. Published estimates provided the number of adult patients with new diagnoses of AIDS who were receiving care in the United States from 1989 to 2003. RESULTS Compared with survival associated with untreated HIV disease, per-person survival increased 0.26 years with Pneumocystis jiroveci pneumonia prophylaxis alone. Four eras of increasingly effective ART in addition to prophylaxis resulted in per-person survival increases of 7.81, 11.05, 11.57, and 13.33 years, compared with the absence of treatment. Treatment for patients with AIDS in care in the United States since 1989 yielded a total survival benefit of 2.8 million years. pMTCT averted nearly 2900 infant infections, equivalent to 137,000 additional years of survival benefit. CONCLUSIONS At least 3.0 million years of life have been saved in the United States as a direct result of care of patients with AIDS, highlighting the significant advances made in HIV disease treatment.
Role of the Cytoplasmic Domain of the NewcastleDisease Virus Fusion Protein in Association with LipidRafts

ABSTRACT To explore the association of the Newcastle disease virus (NDV) fusion (F) protein with cholesterol-rich membrane domains, its localization in detergent-resistant membranes (DRMs) in transfected cells was characterized. After solubilization of cells expressing the F protein with 1% Triton X-100 at 4°C, ca. 40% of total, cell-associated F protein fractionated with classical DRMs with densities of 1.07 to l.14 as defined by flotation into sucrose density gradients. Association of the F protein with this cell fraction was unaffected by the cleavage of F0 to F1 and F2 or by coexpression of the NDV attachment protein, the hemagglutinin-neuraminidase protein (HN). Furthermore, elimination by mutation, of potential palmitate addition sites in and near the F-protein transmembrane domain had no effect on F-protein association with DRMs. Rather, specific deletions of the cytoplasmic domain of the F protein eliminated association with classical DRMs. Comparisons of deletions that affected fusion activity of the protein and deletions that affected DRM association suggested that there is no direct link between the cell-cell fusion activity of the F protein and DRM association. Furthermore, depletion of cholesterol from cells expressing F and HN protein, while eliminating DRM association, had no effect on the ability of these cells to fuse with avian red blood cells. These results suggest that specific localization of the F protein in cholesterol-rich membrane domains is not required for cell-to-cell fusion. Paramyxovirus F-protein cytoplasmic domains have been implicated in virus assembly. The results presented here raise the possibility that the cytoplasmic domain is important in virus assembly at least in part because it directs the protein to cholesterol-rich membrane domains.