Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Echocardiographic assessment of right heart function in heart transplant recipients and the relation to exercise hemodynamics

This study aimed to characterize right heart function in heart transplantation (HTx) patients using advanced echocardiographic assessment and simultaneous right heart catheterization (RHC). Comprehensive two‐dimensional (2D) and three‐dimensional (3D) echocardiographic assessment of right heart function was performed in 105 subjects (64 stable HTx patients and 41 healthy controls). RHC was performed at rest and during semi‐supine maximal exercise test. Compared with controls, in conclusion, HTx patients had impaired right ventricle (RV) systolic function in terms of decreased RV‐free wall (FW) global longitudinal strain (GLS) (−20 ± 5% vs. −28 ± 5%, P < 0.0001) and 3D‐ejection fraction (EF) (50 ± 8% vs. 60 ± 6%, P < 0.0001). In HTx patients, echocardiographic RV systolic function was significantly correlated with NYHA‐class (3D‐RVEF: r = −0.62, P < 0.0001; RV‐FW‐GLS: r = −0.41, P = 0.0009) and cardiac allograft vasculopathy (3D‐RVEF: r = −0.42, P = 0.0005; RV‐FW‐GLS: r = −0.25, P = 0.0444). RHC demonstrated a good correlation between invasively assessed resting RV‐stroke volume index and exercise capacity (r = 0.58, P < 0.0001) and NYHA‐class (r = −0.41, P = 0.0009). RV systolic function is reduced in HTx patients compared with controls. 3D RVEF and 2D longitudinal deformation analyses are associated with clinical performance in stable HTx patients and seem suitable in noninvasive routine right heart function evaluation after HTx. Invasively assessed RV systolic reserve was strongly associated with exercise capacity.
Cytostatic activity of adenosine triphosphate-competitive kinase inhibitors in BRAF mutant thyroid carcinoma cells.

CONTEXT The V600E mutation accounts for the vast majority of thyroid carcinoma-associated BRAF mutations. OBJECTIVE The aim was to study the effects of the two BRAF V600E ATP-competitive kinase inhibitors, PLX4032 and PLX4720, in thyroid carcinoma cell lines. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN We examined the activity of PLX4032 and PLX4720 in thyroid carcinoma cell lines harboring BRAF V600E (8505C, BCPAP, SW1736, BHT101), NRAS Q61R (HTH7), KRAS G12R (CAL62), HRAS G13R (C643), or RET/PTC1 (TPC-1) oncogenes. Normal thyrocytes (PC Cl 3) were used as control. RESULTS Both compounds inhibited the proliferation of BRAF mutant cell lines, but not normal thyrocytes, with a half maximal effective concentration (EC(50)) ranging from 78-113 nm for PLX4720 and from 29-97 nm for PLX4032. Doses equal to or higher than 500 nm were required to achieve a similar effect in BRAF wild-type cancer cells. Phosphorylation of ERK 1/2 and MAPK kinase (MEK) 1/2 decreased upon PLX4032 and PLX4720 treatment in BRAF mutant thyroid carcinoma cells but not in normal thyroid cells or in cell lines harboring mutations of RAS or RET/PTC1 rearrangements. PLX4032 and PLX4720 treatment induced a G(1) block and altered expression of genes involved in the control of G(1)-S cell-cycle transition. 8505C cell tumor xenografts were smaller in nude mice treated with PLX4032 than in control mice. This inhibition was associated with reduction of phospho-ERK and phospho-MEK levels. CONCLUSIONS This study provides additional evidence of the promising nature of mutant BRAF as a molecular target for thyroid carcinoma cells.
Effect of Fracture on Bone Turnover Markers: A Longitudinal Study Comparing Marker Levels Before and After Injury in 113 Elderly Women

In this longitudinal, prospective, and population‐based study (n = 1044), seven BTMs were assessed before and after trauma in 113 elderly women (85 with fractures). Markers were not altered in the immediate postfracture period but were clearly elevated during fracture repair. Recent fracture should thus be taken into account when markers are used in clinical practice.
Fracturing Domesticity: Media, Nationalism, and the Question of Feminist Influence

A MERICAN NATIONAL MEDIA are continually rediscovering (and forgetting) the problem of domestic violence that pervades American homes, despite their own coverage of this topic since the 1970s. During the first weeks after the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman in June 1994, for instance, commentators discussed the prevalence of wife battering as they attempted to contextualize the crime. They claimed that this murder would serve as a national referendum about domestic violence, much the same way that the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings supposedly brought sexual harassment to the fore.1 In subsequent weeks, however, reporters lost interest in the social ramifications of the case as the legal wranglings surrounding it absorbed most media attention. Instead of raising awareness about power relations as it once promised, media hype around the Simpson case exposes how narratives of domestic violencenews stories, movies, and the like-reveal a struggle to maintain Americans' most cherished national values and beliefs in the face of social conditions that challenge them. News reports and talk shows about the Simpson case function discursively to construct imagined communities for viewers that rely on and in turn reproduce a shared national identity (Anderson 1991). The mainstream news media's obsessive coverage of this case indicates that the
Radiosensitization and Stromal Imaging Response Correlates for the HIF-1 Inhibitor PX-478 Given with or without Chemotherapy in Pancreatic Cancer

Growing tumors are hypoxic and respond to microenvironmental stress through increased expression of the hypoxia inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α) transcription factor, resulting in an adaptive switch to glycolytic metabolism, angiogenic signaling, survival, and metastasis. HIF-1α expression is associated with tumor resistance to cytotoxic therapy and inferior patient outcomes. Pancreatic cancer is the most hypoxic of all solid tumors and remains refractory to current chemoradiotherapy. We have seen nuclear HIF-1α in 88% of human pancreatic ductal carcinoma but in only 16% of normal pancreas. Stroma adjacent to the pancreatic ductal carcinoma also showed HIF-1α in 43% of cases. We investigated the novel selective HIF-1α inhibitor PX-478 on in vitro and in vivo radiation response of human pancreatic cancer models. Inhibition of HIF-1α by PX-478 increased cell killing by radiation. In mice with Panc-1, CF-PAC-1, or SU.86. 86 pancreatic xenografts, concurrent administration of PX-478 potentiated the antitumor effects of fractionated radiation, with or without combined treatment with 5-fluorouracil or gemcitabine. Alternative sequencing of PX-478 with fractionated radiotherapy suggests optimal radiosensitization with concurrent or neoadjuvant administration of drug. Early tumor responses to combined PX-478/radiation treatment could be rapidly and repeatedly quantified by vascular imaging biomarkers. Dual-tracer dynamic contrast enhanced–magnetic resonance imaging and ultrasound imaging discriminated response to combined treatment prior to detection of differences in anatomic tumor size at 10 days posttreatment. Therefore, PX-478 is a mechanistically appealing and potentially clinically relevant enhancer of pancreatic cancer radiosensitivity, inhibiting tumor and stromal HIF-1 proangiogenic signaling and reducing the innate radiation resistance of hypoxic tumor cells. Mol Cancer Ther; 9(7); 2057–67. ©2010 AACR.
Microspectroscopy of spectral biomarkers associated with human corneal stem cells

Purpose Synchrotron-based radiation (SRS) Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) microspectroscopy potentially provides novel biomarkers of the cell differentiation process. Because such imaging gives a “biochemical-cell fingerprint” through a cell-sized aperture, we set out to determine whether distinguishing chemical entities associated with putative stem cells (SCs), transit-amplifying (TA) cells, or terminally-differentiated (TD) cells could be identified in human corneal epithelium. Methods Desiccated cryosections (10 μm thick) of cornea on barium fluoride infrared transparent windows were interrogated using SRS FTIR microspectroscopy. Infrared analysis was performed through the acquisition of point spectra or image maps. Results Point spectra were subjected to principal component analysis (PCA) to identify distinguishing chemical entities. Spectral image maps to highlight SCs, TA cells, and TD cells of the cornea were then generated. Point spectrum analysis using PCA highlighted remarkable segregation between the three cell classes. Discriminating chemical entities were associated with several spectral differences over the DNA/RNA (1,425–900 cm−1) and protein/lipid (1,800–1480 cm−1) regions. Prominent biomarkers of SCs compared to TA cells and/or TD cells were 1,040 cm−1, 1,080 cm−1, 1,107 cm−1, 1,225 cm−1, 1,400 cm−1, 1,525 cm−1, 1,558 cm−1, and 1,728 cm−1. Chemical entities associated with DNA/RNA conformation (1,080 cm−1 and 1,225 cm−1) were associated with SCs, whereas protein/lipid biochemicals (1,558 cm−1 and 1,728 cm−1) most distinguished TA cells and TD cells. Conclusions SRS FTIR microspectroscopy can be employed to identify differential spectral biomarkers of SCs, TA cells, and/or TD cells in human cornea. This nondestructive imaging technology is a novel approach to characterizing SCs in situ.
Effect of Semirecumbent and Upright Body Position on Maximal and Submaximal Exercise Testing

The study was designed to determine the effect of upright-posture (UP) versus semirecumbent (SR) cycling on commonly used measures of maximal and submaximal exercise capacity. Nine healthy, untrained men (M age = 27 years, SD = 4.8 years) underwent steady-state submaximal aerobic testing followed by a ramped test to determine maximal oxygen consumption (VO2max). Anaerobic peak and average power and total work were assessed with the Wingate test. All tests were performed in both SR and UP positions, in random order. Oxygen consumption (VO2) and ventilation (VE) at the maximum workrate were lower in the SR position (p < .05). At submaximal workrates (50 W and 100 W), VO2 and VE were equivalent in the UP and SR positions, despite differences in tidal volume and respiratory rate (p < .05). There was no difference in peak or average anaerobic power in the two positions. In summary, SR exercise was associated with a reduced VO2max and a significantly altered ventilatory response to aerobic exercise, with no change in anaerobic power output.
MFC histogram and Poincare plot images for automated gait detection

In this paper, we apply support vector machines (SVMs) for the automatic recognition of young-old gait from their respective gait-patterns. Minimum foot clearance (MFC) data of 30 young and 28 elderly participants were analysed using a PEAK-2D motion analysis system. Gait features extracted from individual MFC histogram-plot and Poincare-plots were used to develop gait classification models using SVMs. Test results indicate that the generalization performance of the SVMs, was on average 83.3% (/spl plusmn/2.9) to differentiate young and elderly gait patterns. Forward feature selection algorithm demonstrated that only 3-5 gait features could differentiate the gait patterns with 90% accuracy. Performance of the gait classifier was evaluated using areas under the receiver operating characteristic plots. Improved performance of the classifier was evident when trained with reduced number of selected good features. These results suggest that SVMs are an efficient gait classifier for recognition of movement pattern changes due to ageing, and has potential for wider applications in gait diagnostics.
Blood Pressure and Vessel Recanalization in the First Hours After Ischemic Stroke

Background and Purpose— Transient elevation of arterial blood pressure (BP) is frequent in acute ischemic stroke and may help to increase perfusion of tissue jeopardized by ischemia. If this is true, recanalization may eliminate the need for this BP elevation. Methods— We analyzed BP in 149 patients with acute ischemic stroke on admission to the hospital and 1 and 12 hours after intraarterial thrombolysis. BP values of patients with adequate recanalization were compared with BP values of patients with inadequate recanalization. Recanalization was determined on cerebral arteriography after thrombolysis using thrombolysis in myocardial infarction grades. Results— Systolic, mean, and diastolic arterial BP decreased significantly from admission to 12 hours after thrombolysis in all patients (P<0.001). Before thrombolysis, patients with adequate and inadequate recanalization showed equal systolic (147.4 and 148.0 mm Hg), mean (102.1 and 104.1 mm Hg), and diastolic (79.5 and 82.1 mm Hg) BP values. Twelve hours after thrombolysis, patients with adequate recanalization had lower values than those with inadequate recanalization (systolic BP, 130 versus 139.9 mm Hg; mean BP, 86.8 versus 92.2 mm Hg; and diastolic, BP 65.2 versus 68.3 mm Hg). Two-way repeated ANOVA analysis showed a significant group × time interaction for systolic BP, indicating a larger systolic BP decrease when recanalization succeeded (P=0.019). Conclusion— The course of elevated systolic but not diastolic BP after acute ischemic stroke was found to be inversely associated with the degree of vessel recanalization. When recanalization failed, systolic BP remained elevated longer than when it succeeded.
Data extraction from wireless sensor networks using distributed fountain codes

A Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) observes a natural field and aims to recreate it with sufficient fidelity at a, perhaps distant, Fusion Center (FC) using a wireless communication channel of arbitrary capacity. We propose a universal and power efficient method for such data extraction, based on Digital Fountain Codes (DFCs) and joint-source channel decoding. Our method implements a distributed `rate-lessiquest DFC which automatically tunes the number of transmissions to the channel capacity. Furthermore, instead of directly compressing the WSN data, we achieve rate reduction by treating the spatiotemporal dependencies in the field as an outer code, and jointly decoding this concatenation at the FC using a multi-stage iterative decoder. We demonstrate that a power efficiency close to the capacity-rate-distortion limit is achieved at moderate distortion levels, irrespective of the channel capacity or field dependencies. As compared to the traditional approach of source-channel separation, the proposed data extraction scheme is particularly attractive for WSN applications due its computationally simple encoding procedure, low latency and the ability to seamlessly trade-off fidelity of reconstruction for power consumption.
Sonification Supports Eyes-Free Respiratory Monitoring and Task Time-Sharing

Three experiments explored the effectiveness of continuous auditory displays, or sonifications, for conveying information about a simulated anesthetized patient's respiration. Experiment 1 established an effective respiratory sonification. Experiment 2 showed an effect of expertise in the use of respiratory sonification and revealed that some apparent differences in sonification effectiveness could be accounted for by response bias. Experiment 3 showed that sonification helps anesthesiologists to maintain high levels of awareness of the simulated patient's state while performing other tasks more effectively than when relying upon visual monitoring of the simulated patient state. Overall, sonification of patient physiology beyond traditional pulse oximetry appears to be a viable and useful adjunct to visual monitors. Actual and potential applications of this research include monitoring in a wide variety of busy critical care contexts.
Actual vs. Reported behavior: Increasing handwashing in public restrooms.

Past research has failed to adequately address the reasons behind the lack of handwashing in public restrooms. The present study explores possibilities for using psychology to design effective handwashing interventions. Specifically, the current study examines whether (1) the frequency of reported handwashing differs from that of actual handwashing behavior and (2) the presence of a sign increases handwashing behavior. Participants self-reported their handwashing behavior and/or their handwashing was observed in a public restroom. In the observation portion of the study, the experimenters either observed participants’ natural behavior or posted a sign in the restroom that read “Washing your hands after going to the bathroom reduces your risk of catching or spreading infectious diseases such as salmonella or hepatitis A” before observing their handwashing behavior. The experimenters recorded whether participants washed their hands with water and soap, with water but no soap, or not at all. Participants rep.
Polymorphisms in the Genes Encoding Chemokine Receptor 5, Interleukin-10, and Monocyte Chemoattractant Protein 1 Contribute to Cytomegalovirus Reactivation and Disease after Allogeneic Stem Cell Transplantation

ABSTRACT We analyzed 90 polymorphisms in 17 genes related to immune function for association with human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) reactivation and disease in patients after allogeneic stem cell transplantation. We found relevant markers (i) in CCR5 and IL-10 genes conferring a higher risk for the development of HCMV disease and (ii) in the MCP1 gene associated with HCMV reactivation. Testing of high-risk patients for the presence of these single-nucleotide polymorphisms might be useful for individualizing antiviral prophylaxis.
A New THP Precoding Scheme with Effective Channel Optimization

Recently there is a trend to use Tomlinson-Harashima precoding (THP) to achieve better performance with full channel state information known at transmit side. In general, performance of THP precoding is governed by the the minimum absolute diagonal elements of the triangle matrix which is derived from QR decomposition to the channel matrix. In this paper we propose a new THP precoding scheme in which codebook based precoding is applied to optimize the effective channel after THP precoding with the aim of maximizing the minimum absolute diagonal elements of the triangle matrix. As a result, about 4 to 8 dB gains are obtained by employing codebooks of different sizes. The merits of the proposed scheme are low complexity, flexible tradeoff between complexity and performance by employing codebook with different sizes, and friendly to hardware implementation because of its fixed complexity. The theory analysis on the BER performance of THP precoding scheme is provided in this paper which is close to the simulation results. Numerical simulation results verify our conclusions.
The wider western Europe : reshaping the EC/EFTA relationship

Introduction, Helen Wallace and Wolfgang Wessels EC-EFTA relations - an historical outline, Thomas Pedersen. Part 1 The policy issues: European security in transformation, Martin Saeter foreign policy - towards a dialogue, Elfriede Regelsberger economic interdependence, Per Magnus Wijkman extending the EES to services, Michael Klein the monetary dimension, Jens Thomsen the consequences for EFTA of the Internal Energy Market, Janne Haaland Matlary environment, Finn Laursen. Part 2 The attitudes of the participants: Community attitudes and interests, Thomas Pedersen Austria, Paul Luif Finland, Esko Antola Iceland, Gunnar Helgi Kristinsson Norway, Martin Saeter and Olav F.Knudsen Sweden, Carl Einar Stalvant and Carl Hamilton Switzerland, Richard Senti. Part 3 The negotiations: EFTA and its limits, Esko Antola the legal issues, Friedl Weiss conclusions, Helen Wallace and Wolfgang Wessels.
Single-step purification and h.p.l.c. analysis of glutathione transferase 8-8 in rat tissues.

GSSG selectively elutes two GSH transferases from a mixture of rat GSH transferases bound to a GSH-agarose affinity matrix. One is a form of GSH transferase 1-1 and the other is shown to be GSH transferase 8-8. By using tissues that lack this form of GSH transferase 1-1 (e.g. lung), GSH transferase 8-8 may thus be purified from cytosol in a single step. Quantitative analysis of the tissue distribution of GSH transferase 8-8 was obtained by h.p.l.c.
Selectable grained reconfigurable architecture (SGRA) and its design automation

In this paper, we describe a Selectable Grained Reconfigurable Architecture (SGRA) in which each Configurable Logic Block can be configured to operate in either fine-grained or coarse-grained mode. Compared with the Mixed Grained Reconfigurable Architecture (MGRA), which has a fixed ratio of fine- and coarse-grained operation blocks and a heterogeneous floorplan, SGRA offers greater flexibility in the mapping and placement of functional units, thus reducing wasted wiring and improving the critical path delay. We also present an automated design flow for SGRA that is developed by customizing the Verilog-to-Routing (VTR) platform. Experimental results demonstrate that SGRA achieves, on average, a 13% reduction in circuit area over MGRA.
A Convex Formulation for Learning a Shared Predictive Structure from Multiple Tasks

In this paper, we consider the problem of learning from multiple related tasks for improved generalization performance by extracting their shared structures. The alternating structure optimization (ASO) algorithm, which couples all tasks using a shared feature representation, has been successfully applied in various multitask learning problems. However, ASO is nonconvex and the alternating algorithm only finds a local solution. We first present an improved ASO formulation (iASO) for multitask learning based on a new regularizer. We then convert iASO, a nonconvex formulation, into a relaxed convex one (rASO). Interestingly, our theoretical analysis reveals that rASO finds a globally optimal solution to its nonconvex counterpart iASO under certain conditions. rASO can be equivalently reformulated as a semidefinite program (SDP), which is, however, not scalable to large datasets. We propose to employ the block coordinate descent (BCD) method and the accelerated projected gradient (APG) algorithm separately to find the globally optimal solution to rASO; we also develop efficient algorithms for solving the key subproblems involved in BCD and APG. The experiments on the Yahoo webpages datasets and the Drosophila gene expression pattern images datasets demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed algorithms and confirm our theoretical analysis.
Evaluating the Generation of Domain Ontologies in the Knowledge Puzzle Project

One of the goals of the knowledge puzzle project is to automatically generate a domain ontology from plain text documents and use this ontology as the domain model in computer-based education. This paper describes the generation procedure followed by TEXCOMON, the knowledge puzzle ontology learning tool, to extract concept maps from texts. It also explains how these concept maps are exported into a domain ontology. Data sources and techniques deployed by TEXCOMON for ontology learning from texts are briefly described herein. Then, the paper focuses on evaluating the generated domain ontology and advocates the use of a three-dimensional evaluation: structural, semantic, and comparative. Based on a set of metrics, structural evaluations consider ontologies as graphs. Semantic evaluations rely on human expert judgment, and finally, comparative evaluations are based on comparisons between the outputs of state-of-the-art tools and those of new tools such as TEXCOMON, using the very same set of documents in order to highlight the improvements of new techniques. Comparative evaluations performed in this study use the same corpus to contrast results from TEXCOMON with those of one of the most advanced tools for ontology generation from text. Results generated by such experiments show that TEXCOMON yields superior performance, especially regarding conceptual relation learning.