Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Acute stroke intervention: a systematic review.

IMPORTANCE Acute ischemic stroke is a major cause of mortality and morbidity in the United States. We review the latest data and evidence supporting catheter-directed treatment for proximal artery occlusion as an adjunct to intravenous thrombolysis in patients with acute stroke. OBJECTIVE To review the pathophysiology of acute brain ischemia and infarction and the evidence supporting various stroke reperfusion treatments. EVIDENCE REVIEW Systematic literature search of MEDLINE databases published between January 1, 1990, and February 11, 2015, was performed to identify studies addressing the role of thrombolysis and mechanical thrombectomy in acute stroke management. Studies included randomized clinical trials, observational studies, guideline statements, and review articles. Sixty-eight articles (N = 108,082 patients) were selected for review. FINDINGS Intravenous thrombolysis is the mainstay of acute ischemic stroke management for any patient with disabling deficits presenting within 4.5 hours from symptom onset. Randomized trials have demonstrated that more patients return to having good function (defined by being independent and having slight disability or less) when treated within 4.5 hours after symptom onset with intravenous recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (IV rtPA) therapy. Mechanical thrombectomy in select patients with acute ischemic stroke and proximal artery occlusions has demonstrated substantial rates of partial or complete arterial recanalization and improved outcomes compared with IV rtPA or best medical treatment alone in multiple randomized clinical trials. Regardless of mode of reperfusion, earlier reperfusion is associated with better clinical outcomes. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE Intravenous rtPA remains the standard of care for patients with moderate to severe neurological deficits who present within 4.5 hours of symptom onset. Outcomes for some patients with acute ischemic stroke and moderate to severe neurological deficits due to proximal artery occlusion are improved with endovascular reperfusion therapy. Efforts to hasten reperfusion therapy, regardless of the mode, should be undertaken within organized stroke systems of care.
Anorexia and Cachexia

cer, acute nonlymphocytic leukemia, and sarcomas have a low frequency of weight loss (31–40%) (16). This suggests that cachexia-inducing tumors may have an altered genetic expression that allows them to produce factors that degrade triglyceride stores in adipose tissue and myofibrillar proteins in skeletal muscle. Certainly cachexia bears no simple correlation to tumor burden, metastasis, or anatomic site of involvement. Cachexia can arise in a patient with a tumor comprising <0.01% of the host weight, although some large tumors do not produce cachexia.
Trade‐offs between the shade‐avoidance response and plant resistance to herbivores? Tests with mutant Cucumis sativus

Summary 1 Plants exhibit adaptations to many stresses, including light competition and herbivory. The expression of these traits may interact negatively, potentially instigating a trade-off. 2 We employed a combination of genetically altered Cucumis sativus varieties and phenotypic manipulations to test for trade-offs in field experiments. The different genetic lines of C. sativus were altered in their phytochrome-mediated shade responses and the production of terpenoid defence compounds. 3 Cucumber plants constitutively expressing the shade-avoidance response had 93% more herbivory by specialist beetles compared with wild types. The long-hypocotyl mutants also produced leaves with fewer trichomes, greater toughness and a higher carbon to nitrogen ratio (C : N) than wild types. Plants lacking defensive cucurbitacins had 23% longer internodes than the cucurbitacin-producing line. 4 We then manipulated the plant phenotype by artificially imposing neighbours’ shade on plants with and without cucurbitacins. As expected, plants responded to shade by growing longer hypocotyls and first internodes, but few trade-offs were found between plant line and shade treatment and, although herbivory levels were very low, there was a trend towards reduced damage on shaded plants. 5 The use of genetically altered plant lines provided strong evidence for the trade-off hypothesis, while phenotypic manipulations did not support the hypothesis.
Association of defensin beta-1 gene polymorphisms with asthma.

BACKGROUND Defensins are antimicrobial peptides that may take part in airway inflammation and hyperresponsiveness. OBJECTIVE We characterized the genetic diversity in the defensin beta-1 (DEFB1) locus and tested for an association between common genetic variants and asthma diagnosis. METHODS To identify single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), we resequenced this gene in 23 self-defined European Americans and 24 African Americans. To test whether DEFB1 genetic variants are associated with asthma, we genotyped 4 haplotype-tag SNPs in 517 asthmatic and 519 control samples from the Nurses' Health Study (NHS) and performed a case-control association analysis. To replicate these findings, we evaluated the DEFB1 polymorphisms in a second cohort from the Childhood Asthma Management Program. RESULTS Within the NHS, single SNP testing suggested an association between asthma diagnosis and a 5' genomic SNP (g.-1816 T>C; P = .025) and intronic SNP (IVS+692 G>A; P = .054). A significant association between haplotype (Adenine, Cytosine, Thymine, Adenine [ACTA]) and asthma ( P = .024) was also identified. Associations between asthma diagnosis and both DEFB1 polymorphisms were observed in Childhood Asthma Management Program, a second cohort: g. -1816 T>C and IVS+692 G>A demonstrated significant transmission distortion ( P = .05 and .007, respectively). Transmission distortion was not observed in male subjects. The rare alleles (-1816C and +692A) were undertransmitted to offspring with asthma, suggesting a protective effect, contrary to the findings in the NHS cohort. Similar effects were evident at the haplotype level: ACTA was undertransmitted ( P = .04) and was more prominent in female subjects ( P = .007). CONCLUSION Variation in DEFB1 contributes to asthma diagnosis, with apparent gender-specific effects.
Remote gas analysis using fibre optic links and near infrared absorption

This paper describes the potential application of optical fibre addressed systems in remote gas spectroscopy. The paper will first describe the basic principles of the spectroscopic measurements and the reasons why such measurements find applications complementing more established mid infrared and electrochemically-based systems. We shall describe some practical field trials and the results obtained there from. Finally we shall discuss the potential offered by new approaches in laser design and system architectures to enhance the range of addressable species and the sensitivity which these remote detection systems may achieve.
Compact coplanar epsilon-negative antenna with ultra-wide band character

In this paper, a compact coplanar epsilon-negative (ENG) antenna is proposed with ultra-wide operation band and small size of 18x11.5 mm2. The proposed antenna is designed based on a coplanar-waveguide (CPW) feeding antenna, and thus the via-free structure is employed to realize the ENG unit cell, which is convenient to tune the frequency of zeroth-order resonance (ZOR) and extends the ZOR bandwidth. The high-order resonant frequencies are achieved and mainly determined by the separate slots that are located between the radiating patch and the ground plane. Adding the left-handed inductance between the radiating patch and ground has slight impact on the high-order resonant frequencies, and then the ultra-wide band is achieved by merging the ZOR bandwidth with the high-order resonant bandwidths. The ground plane primarily works as a matching network for the proposed antenna. Although it generates a low-frequency resonance, the performance is undesirable due to the impedance mismatching. The measured results show that the reflection coefficient, |S11| < -10 dB, is in a wide frequency range from 5.25 to 13 GHz, which covers the upper operation band of UWB communication. Also, the antenna contains relatively stable gains and omni-directional radiation patterns.
Sleep, Rhythms, and the Endocrine Brain: Influence of Sex and Gonadal Hormones

While much is known about the mechanisms that underlie sleep and circadian rhythms, the investigation into sex differences and gonadal steroid modulation of sleep and biological rhythms is in its infancy. There is a growing recognition of sex disparities in sleep and rhythm disorders. Understanding how neuroendocrine mediators and sex differences influence sleep and biological rhythms is central to advancing our understanding of sleep-related disorders. While it is known that ovarian steroids affect circadian rhythms in rodents, the role of androgen is less understood. Surprising findings that androgens, acting via androgen receptors in the master “circadian clock” within the suprachiasmatic nucleus, modulate photic effects on activity in males point to novel mechanisms of circadian control. Work in aromatase-deficient mice suggests that some sex differences in photic responsiveness are independent of gonadal hormone effects during development. In parallel, aspects of sex differences in sleep are also reported to be independent of gonadal steroids and may involve sex chromosome complement. This a summary of recent work illustrating how sex differences and gonadal hormones influence sleep and circadian rhythms that was presented at a Mini-Symposium at the 2011 annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience.
A Hierarchical Semantic Overlay for P2P Search

In this paper, we propose a hierarchical semantic overlay network for searching heterogeneous data over wide-area networks. In this system, data are represented as RDF triples based on ontologies. Peers that have the same semantics are organized into a semantic cluster, and the semantic clusters are self-organized into a one-dimensional ring space to form the toplevel semantic overlay network. Each semantic cluster has its low-level overlay network which can be built using an unstructured overlay or a DHT-based overlay. A search is first forwarded to the appropriate semantic cluster, and then routed to the specific peers that hold the relevant data using a parallel flooding algorithm or a DHT-based routing algorithm. By combining the advantages of both unstructured and structured overlay networks, we are able to achieve a better tradeoff in terms of search efficiency, search cost and overlay maintenance cost.
Clinical and Experimental Gastroenterology Dovepress Differential Response to Microbial Antigens by Age of Diagnosis in Patients with Crohn's Disease

Purpose: Fifteen percent of incident Crohn's disease (CD) cases are diagnosed at older ages and demonstrate colonic location and inflammatory behavior. Serologic responses to gut microbial antigens are associated with specific phenotypes, and may differ by age at diagnosis. Our aim was to identify an association between age at diagnosis of CD and responses to gut microbial antigens. Patients and methods: Levels of anti-Saccharomyces cerevisiae antibodies (ASCA) immu-noglobulins A and G (IgA and IgG), antibodies to Escherichia coli outer membrane porin-C (anti-Omp-C), antibodies to clostridial flagellin (anti-CBir-1), and perinuclear anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies (p-ANCA) were compared in patients by age in three diagnosis groups: patients diagnosed at ages of ,40, $40–59, and $60 years. For each antigen, patients with antibody levels in the first, second, third, and fourth quartile were assigned a score of 1, 2, 3, or 4, respectively. Individual scores were added to create a quartile sum score representing cumulative quantitative immune response. respectively. The majority (71%) had ileocolonic disease in the youngest group, compared to 36% in the oldest group (P=0.001). Mean ASCA IgA and IgG titers were increased in the youngest age group compared to the older groups (P=0.19 and P=0.13, respectively). Mean quartile sum scores for antibody levels were 7.2±2.8 in those patients diagnosed at ages ,40 years, 4.9±2.9 in the 40–59-year-old age group, and 5.6±2.6 in the $60-year-old age group (P=0.06). Conclusion: A trend toward decreased cumulative immune responses to CD-associated gut antigens was observed in CD patients diagnosed at older ages compared to younger patients. Host responses to microbial antigens may be less important in older onset IBD and may contribute to the distinct phenotype in this group.
Fusion of ultrasound harmonic imaging with clutter removal using sparse signal separation

In ultrasound, second harmonic imaging is usually preferred due to the higher clutter artifacts and speckle noise common in the first harmonic image. Typical ultrasound use either one or the other image, applying corresponding filters for each case. In this work we propose a method based on a joint sparsity model that fuses the first and second harmonic images while performing clutter mitigation and noise reduction. Our approach, Fused Morphological Component Analysis (FMCA), uses two adaptive dictionaries for characterizing the clutter components in each image, and a common dictionary for the tissue representation. Our results indicate that the obtained images contain less clutter artifacts, less speckle noise and as such enjoy of the benefits of both harmonic input images.
Scooby: middleware for service composition in pervasive computing

In this paper we argue for middleware languages that aid in service composition. We outline where such languages could be useful through the description of our current architecture, and describe what we believe are the key requirements of such a language. We outline the current state of our implementation, and conclude by describing what requirements are placed on service providers by such composition middleware.
Carbohydrates in plant immunity and plant protection: roles and potential application as foliar sprays

Increasing interest is devoted to carbohydrates for their roles in plant immunity. Some of them are elicitors of plant defenses whereas other ones act as signaling molecules in a manner similar to phytohormones. This review first describes the main classes of carbohydrates associated to plant immunity, their role and mode of action. More precisely, the state of the art about perception of “PAMP, MAMP, and DAMP (Pathogen-, Microbe-, Damage-Associated Molecular Patterns) type” oligosaccharides is presented and examples of induced defense events are provided. A particular attention is paid to the structure/activity relationships of these compounds. The role of sugars as signaling molecules, especially in plant microbe interactions, is also presented. Secondly, the potentialities and limits of foliar sprays of carbohydrates to stimulate plant immunity for crop protection against diseases are discussed, with focus on the roles of the leaf cuticle and phyllosphere microflora.
Online Handwritten Shape Recognition Using Segmental Hidden Markov Models

We investigate a new approach for online handwritten shape recognition. Interesting features of this approach include learning without manual tuning, learning from very few training samples, incremental learning of characters, and adaptation to the user-specific needs. The proposed system can deal with two-dimensional graphical shapes such as Latin and Asian characters, command gestures, symbols, small drawings, and geometric shapes. It can be used as a building block for a series of recognition tasks with many applications
The China Shock: Learning from Labor Market Adjustment to Large Changes in Trade

China’s emergence as a great economic power has induced an epochal shift in patterns of world trade. Simultaneously, it has toppled much of the received empirical wisdom about how labor markets adjust to trade shocks. Alongside its heralded consumer benefits, trade has both significant distributional costs, which theory has long recognized, and substantial adjustment costs, which the literature has tended to downplay. These adjustment costs mean that trade impacts are most visible not in national-level outcomes for broad skill types, as canonical theory would suggest, but in the local labor markets in which the industries most exposed to foreign competition are concentrated. Adjustment in local labor markets is remarkably slow, with wages and local labor-force participation rates remaining depressed, local unemployment rates remaining elevated, and public transfer benefits take-up rising across a spectrum of programs for at least a full decade after trade shocks commence. Within impacted localities, workers most affected by rising trade exposure are those initially employed in firms that compete most directly with China. Exposed workers experience greater job churning and reduced lifetime income, with the largest adverse effects among initially low earners. Recent literature also addresses the aggregation of local-level impacts of trade shocks into national-level outcomes. Employment has fallen in U.S. industries more exposed to import competition, as expected. So too has overall employment in the local labor markets in which these industries were concentrated. Offsetting employment gains in non-tradables, export-oriented tradables, or imported-input-using industries have yet to materialize. Better understanding when and where trade is costly, and how and why it may be beneficial, are key items on the research agenda for trade and labor economists.
Influence of Surface Texture on Friction Properties of Mechanical Seals for Blood -Design Concept of Sealing Surface of Mechanical Seal for Ventricular Assist Device-

Low, stable friction, a higher load-carrying capacity, and lower leakage of sealed blood are required for mechanical seals in implantable ventricular assist devices. One solution is to apply surface texture to the mechanical seal surface, consisting of self-mated silicon carbide. However, the effect of surface texture on the frictional properties of mechanical seals under blood sealing conditions has not yet been studied. Therefore, this study aimed to clarify the effect of surface texture on fundamental frictional properties of mechanical seals and to propose design concepts for mechanical seals in ventricular assist devices. The results show that surface texture increases the critical load of mechanical seals, although it also causes periodic peaks in friction. Further, it was found that surface texture induces the formation of denatured protein aggregates on the sealing surface, also inducing periodic surface friction peaks. The frictional properties of the mechanical seals were stabilized by creating small, dispersed concave features with wet blast fabrication, followed by coating with diamond-like carbon. Lower and more stable frictional properties were thus achieved, while simultaneously ensuring a higher critical load.
Sex/Gender Disparities and Women’s Eye Health

Abstract Our eyes are, both literally and figuratively, windows to the world, and ophthalmic approaches offer a tremendous space for conducting research to learn more. Male/female differences in ocular health and disease are prevalent but we know far too little about root causes to design and implement diagnostic, preventive, and treatment strategies to address sex- and gender-based disparities in eye health. Herein, we discuss several ophthalmic diseases and other conditions with ocular manifestations, with a focus upon those that disproportionately affect women. Because the vast majority of biomedical research in this area comes from studies of mixed-gender populations, or of male-predominant populations, there is a pressing need for sex- and/or gender-based research at various points along the basic to clinical biomedical research continuum. Moreover, the multitude of factors that affect eye health call for a balanced look at the influence of biology, culture, and societal contributors. As clinicians, we owe our patients the best care for their needs, and that care must be derived from research that shows what is effective, for whom, and under what conditions.
Hub nodes identification in public transport networks using markov chain model

Identifying hub nodes in public transport networks is essential for transport planning, safety evaluation and location advantage research. Some assumptions are first discussed, and a new method based on Markov chain model is proposed to measure the importance of nodes in public transport network. The transition probability is then deduced and the existence and uniqueness of solutions are presented. Two solution algorithms are described. One real-world public transit network is analyzed using the method proposed and the results are discussed.
On the use of pipesize estimators to improve TCP transient behavior

This paper presents a simulative analysis of a modification to the TCP congestion control mechanism called ESSE (early slow start exit), designed to improve the TCP startup phase by setting the slow start threshold according to a pipesize estimation based on the observation of few ACK arrival times. We evaluate the performance of ESSE by using various methods to estimate the pipesize as the ratio between the round trip time and the spacing between ACK. This algorithm is easy to implement and preserves the compatibility with the standard protocol since it requires changes to the sender side only. Simulative experiments show that ESSE allows us to speed-up TCP connections and drastically reduce the packet drop rate under several working conditions and load levels. Better performance of TCP can be observed for any of the considered estimators, which indicates that the algorithm is robust against estimation errors. Further, the characteristics of fairness and friendliness (towards Newreno) of the algorithm are investigated. According to our simulations, ESSE-modified protocols guarantee fair utilization of bandwidth among homogeneous and heterogeneous (Newreno) connections sharing a common link.
Improvement of Vacuum-Ultraviolet Transparency of Silica Glass by Modification of Point Defects (Review)

Silica glass is an important optical material in deep-ultraviolet (DUV, λ≤300 nm) and vacuum-ultraviolet (VUV, λ≤200 nm) spectral regions. However, DUV-VUV transparency of silica glass is significantly influenced by the presence of structural imperfections (point defects). This article describes point defects in silica glasses of low metallic impurity contents (“synthetic” silica glasses), and optical and chemical properties of these point defects. It is shown that controlled doping with specific point defects can improve the transparency and radiation hardness of silica glass in DUV-VUV spectral region. Such doped species include network modifiers that relax the glass structure and mobile interstitial hydrogen molecules. Utilization of these techniques in developing photomask substrates for F2 laser photolithography and DUV optical fibers for ArF laser transmission is presented.