Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
[Ischemic brain damage in very low birth weight preterm newborn infants].

OBJECTIVE To present a critical and up-to-date review of ischemic brain damage in premature, very low birth weight infants. SOURCES OF DATA Articles were obtained by means of a search of the MEDLINE database, with those considered most representative by the authors being selected. SUMMARY OF THE FINDINGS The most frequent ischemic injuries among preterm, very low birth weight neonates are hemorrhage progressing to with ischemic brain damage, cystic periventricular leukomalacia and diffuse lesions of the cerebral white matter. All of these conditions have multiple causative factors, which may include vascular, hemodynamic, inflammatory and infectious factors. These are disorders that can cause significant neuropsychomotor sequelae and lead to cerebral palsy and/or cognitive and behavioral deficits. CONCLUSIONS Early diagnosis and adequate management of the patient can minimize long-term problems caused by cerebral ischemic injuries. Prevention of premature labor and delivery is the most important prophylactic measure.
Search for low-scale technicolor at the Tevatron

CDF and D0 each have more than 1 inverse femtobarn of data on tape, and their stores are increasing. This should be sufficient to carry out significant searches for low-scale technicolor in rho_T --> W pi_T and omega_T, rho_T --> gamma pi_T, processes whose cross sections may be as large as several picobarns. In this note we motivate and describe the Technicolor Straw Man framework for these processes and we urge that they be sought soon in the Run 2 data. (This paper is a contribution to the TeV4LHC Landscapes project.)
Early Childbearing, Human Capital Attainment, and Mortality Risk: Evidence from a Longitudinal Demographic Surveillance Area in Rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Using a rich longitudinal data set, we examine the relationship between teen fertility and both subsequent educational outcomes and HIV-related mortality risk in rural South Africa. Human capital deficits among teen mothers are large and significant, with earlier births associated with greater deficits. In contrast to many other studies from developed countries, we find no clear evidence of selectivity into teen childbearing in either schooling trajectories or prefertility household characteristics. Enrollment rates among teen mothers only begin to drop in the period immediately preceding the birth, and future teen mothers are not behind in their schooling relative to other girls. Older teen mothers and those further ahead in school for their age prebirth are more likely to continue schooling after the birth. In addition to adolescents’ higher biological vulnerability to HIV infection, pregnancy also appears to increase the risk of contracting HIV. Following women over an extended period, we document a higher HIV-related mortality risk for teen mothers that cannot be explained by household characteristics in early adulthood. Controlling for age at sexual debut, we find that teen mothers report lower condom use and older partners than other sexually active adolescents.
The seasonal activity of the tick, Ixodes ricinus L., in Wales

A consideration of the tick-activity data for South Wales reveals that there are usually two peaks of female activity in this region, one occurring in spring, the other in autumn. On an experimental area, divided into eight plots, on the Margam Moors, Glamorgan, significantly varying population levels are present on the different plots, although the peak of activity on all of them is attained around the same period. The seasonal activity of the nymphal and larval forms in South Wales is essentially comparable to that recorded by Milne (1945a) in the north of England. There is reason to believe that in mid-Wales a single summer peak of tick activity exists. The engorgement period of female ticks on cattle varies from 7 to 13 days. The tick shows a distinct preference for the hind region of cattle for feeding purposes. The differences in the mean populations of ticks on different breeds of cattle are not statistically significant, at least, on the six breeds tested in 1944 and 1945. In the case of cattle, tick density and fecundity of the female are not correlated with the physiological condition of the host. In South Wales, the populations of ticks on sheep are significantly lower than those on cattle, even where both hosts are pastured on the same ground for similar periods. The seasonal activity of female ticks on horses follows the same general trend as that noted on cattle.
Long-Term Outcomes With Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy in Patients With Mild Heart Failure With Moderate Renal Dysfunction

Background—We aimed to determine the impact of renal function on long-term outcomes with cardiac resynchronization therapy with defibrillator among patients with mild heart failure (HF). Methods and Results—We stratified 1820 Multicenter Automatic Defibrillator Implantation Trial–Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy patients by QRS morphology into those with and without left bundle-branch block. Subgroups within each QRS morphology category were created based on glomerular filtration rate (GFR): GFR <60 and ≥60 mL/min per 1.73 m2. Primary end point was death; secondary end points were HF/death and HF events alone during long-term follow-up. Among 1274 left bundle-branch block patients, 413 (32%) presented with GFR <60 (mean, 48.1±8.3) mL/min per 1.73 m2. Relative to the 861 (68%) patients with GFR ≥60 (mean, 79.6±16.0) mL/min per 1.73 m2, low-GFR patients experienced higher risk of death (hazard ratio [HR], 2.09; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.53–2.86; P<0.01) and HF/death (HR, 1.46; 95% CI, 1.17–1.82; P<0.01). In both GFR groups, cardiac resynchronization therapy with defibrillator was associated with reduction in death (GFR <60: HR, 0.66; 95% CI, 0.44–1.00; P=0.05 and GFR ≥60: HR, 0.68; 95% CI, 0.44–1.05; P=0.08) and HF/death (GFR <60: HR, 0.49; 95% CI, 0.36–0.67; P<0.01 and GFR ≥60: HR, 0.50; 95% CI, 0.38–0.66; P<0.01). In the low-GFR group, there was greater absolute reduction in risk of death (GFR <60: 14% and GFR ≥60: 6%) and HF/death (GFR <60: 25 and GFR ≥60: 15%). Among non–left bundle-branch block patients, low GFR predicted outcomes; however, no benefit from cardiac resynchronization therapy with defibrillator was observed. Conclusions—In patients with mild HF, moderate renal dysfunction is associated with higher risk of death and HF during long-term follow-up. Patients with left bundle-branch block, regardless of baseline renal function, derive long-term benefit from cardiac resynchronization therapy with defibrillator, with greater absolute risk reduction in death and HF among those with moderate renal dysfunction. Clinical Trial Registration—URL: http://www.clinicaltrials. gov. Unique identifiers: NCT00180271, NCT01294449, and NCT02060110.
Combining human acceptance and habitat suitability in a unified socio‐ecological suitability model: a case study of the wolf in Switzerland

Summary Habitat suitability models (HSMs) are commonly used in conservation practise to assess the potential of an area to be occupied and colonised. A major limitation of these models, however, is the omission of spatially explicit understanding of human acceptance towards the focal species. As wildlife is more and more subject to human-dominated landscapes, ignoring the sociological component will result in misrepresentation of the observed processes and inappropriate management. We distributed 10 000 questionnaires across Switzerland and identified key socio-demographical factors correlated with human acceptance of the wolf. We then created a spatially explicit acceptance model based on geo-referenced socio-demographical, social and geographical information. Finally, we combined our acceptance model with a HSM to obtain a unified socio-ecological suitability model, which included human and ecological components. We showed that the key factors associated with human acceptance were perception of how harmful the wolf is, interest in wolf-related issues, need for livestock protection, and fear of the wolf. Perceived harmfulness was in turn correlated with direct and indirect experience with the wolf, and level of education. Our acceptance map predicted decreasing acceptance with increasing altitude of residency and proximity to locations of confirmed wolf presence. This resulted in the overall opposition to the wolf for the Alpine region, albeit substantial regional differences. We found little spatial overlap (6% of Switzerland) between areas where the wolf was accepted and areas of suitable habitat. These areas of socio-ecological suitability were concentrated in the Jura Mountains and in the eastern and southern Alps, and were absent in the western and central Alps. Particularly in the Jura region, which is yet to be colonised, management of human acceptance will be a crucial conservation target. Synthesis and applications. We developed an integrative, socio-ecological approach that allowed us to accurately reproduce recent wolf recolonisation. We anticipate our framework to be a powerful tool to reliably evaluate overall suitable habitats and predict short to medium-term range expansion for species whose distribution is also dependent on human attitudes. Because our approach is sensitive to both the ecological and human component, it is ideally suited to identify key regions where proactive and targeted socio-ecological management plans are needed.
Solution structure of midkine, a new heparin‐binding growth factor

Midkine (MK) is a 13 kDa heparin‐binding polypeptide which enhances neurite outgrowth, neuronal cell survival and plasminogen activator activity. MK is structurally divided into two domains, and most of the biological activities are located on the C‐terminal domain. The solution structures of the two domains were determined by NMR. Both domains consist of three antiparallel β‐strands, but the C‐terminal domain has a long flexible hairpin loop where a heparin‐binding consensus sequence is located. Basic residues on the β‐sheet of the C‐terminal domain form another heparin‐binding site. Measurement of NMR signals in the presence of a heparin oligosaccharides verified that multiple amino acids in the two sites participated in heparin binding. The MK dimer has been shown to be the active form, giving signals to endothelial cells and probably to neuronal cells. We present a head‐to‐head dimer model of MK. The model was supported by the results of cross‐linking experiments using transglutaminase. The dimer has a fused heparin‐binding site at the dimer interface of the C‐terminal domain, and the heparin‐binding sites on MK fit the sulfate group clusters on heparin. These features are consistent with the proposed stronger heparin‐binding activity and biological activity of the dimer.
Core and Periphery in Free/Libre and Open Source Software Team Communications

The concept of the core group of developers is important and often discussed in empirical studies of FLOSS projects. This paper examines the question, "how does one empirically distinguish the core? " Being able to identify the core members of a FLOSS development project is important because many of the processes necessary for successful projects likely involve core members differently than peripheral members, so analyses that mix the two groups will likely yield invalid results. We compare 3 analysis approaches to identify the core: the named list of developers, a Bradford’s law analysis that takes as the core the most frequent contributors and a social network analysis of the interaction pattern that identifies the core in a core-and-periphery structure. We apply these measures to the interactions around bug fixing for 116 SourceForge projects. The 3 techniques identify different individuals as core members; examination of which individuals are identified leads to suggestions for refining the measures. All 3 measures though suggest that the core of FLOSS projects is a small fraction of the total number of contributors.
VERSION IFIC / 09-44 FTUV-09-0909 YITP-SB-09-27 Leptogenesis without violation of B −

We study the possibility of generating the observed baryon asymmetry via leptogenesis in the decay of heavy Standard Model singlet fermions which carry lepton number, in a framework without Majorana masses above the electroweak scale. Such scenario does not contain any source of total lepton number violation besides the Standard Model sphalerons, and the baryon asymmetry is generated by the interplay of lepton flavour effects and the sphaleron decoupling in the decay epoch.
Black Raspberries and Their Anthocyanin and Fiber Fractions Alter the Composition and Diversity of Gut Microbiota in F-344 Rats

ABSTRACT Natural compounds can alter the diversity and composition of the gut microbiome, potentially benefiting our health. We previously demonstrated chemopreventive effects of black raspberries (BRBs) in colorectal cancer, which is associated with gut dysbiosis. To investigate the effects of whole BRBs and their fractions on gut microbiota, we fed F-344 rats a control diet, 5% BRBs, the BRB anthocyanin fraction, or the BRB residue fraction for 6 weeks. Feces were collected at baseline and at weeks 3 and 6, and bacterial sequence counts were analyzed. We observed distinct patterns of microbiota from different diet groups. Beta diversity analysis suggested that all diet groups exerted time-dependent changes in the bacterial diversity. Hierarchical clustering analysis revealed that post-diet fecal microbiota was segregated from baseline fecal microbiota within each diet. It is interesting to note that fractions of BRBs induced different changes in gut bacteria compared to whole BRBs. The abundance of specific microbial species known to have anti-inflammatory effects, such as Akkermansia and Desulfovibrio, was increased by whole BRBs and their residue. Further, butyrate-producing bacteria, e.g., Anaerostipes, were increased by whole BRBs. Our results suggest that whole BRBs and their fractions alter the gut microbiota in ways that could significantly influence human health.
A survey of bargaining models for grid resource allocation

Whereas it is noted that various types of auctions, commodity market models, and contract-net (tendering) model are more widely used for managing Grid resources, this paper focuses on discussing bargaining (negotiation) models for Grid resource management. To this end, this survey supplements and complements existing surveys by reviewing, comparing, and highlighting the very few extant research initiatives on applying bargaining as a mechanism for managing Grid resources. The contributions of this paper are (i) discussing the motivations for considering bargaining models for Grid resource management, (ii) discussing the issues in building bargaining mechanisms for Grid resource management, (iii) comparing the strategies and protocols of state-of-the-art bargaining models for Grid resources, and (iv) discussing possible new directions.
Trends in Anesthesia-related Death and Brain Damage: A Closed Claims Analysis

Background:The authors used the American Society of Anesthesiologists Closed Claims Project database to determine changes in the proportion of claims for death or permanent brain damage over a 26-yr period and to identify factors associated with the observed changes. Methods:The Closed Claims Project is a structured evaluation of adverse outcomes from 6,894 closed anesthesia malpractice claims. Trends in the proportion of claims for death or permanent brain damage between 1975 and 2000 were analyzed. Results:Claims for death or brain damage decreased between 1975 and 2000 (odds ratio, 0.95 per year; 95% confidence interval, 0.94–0.96; P < 0.01). The overall downward trend did not seem to be affected by the use of pulse oximetry and end-tidal carbon dioxide monitoring, which began in 1986. The use of these monitors increased from 6% in 1985 to 70% in 1989, and thereafter varied from 63% to 83% through the year 2000. During 1986–2000, respiratory damaging events decreased while cardiovascular damaging events increased, so that by 1992, respiratory and cardiovascular damaging events occurred in approximately the same proportion (28%), a trend that continued through 2000. Conclusion:The significant decrease in the proportion of claims for death or permanent brain damage from 1975 through 2000 seems to be unrelated to a marked increase in the proportion of claims where pulse oximetry and end-tidal carbon dioxide monitoring were used. After the introduction and use of these monitors, there was a significant reduction in the proportion of respiratory and an increase in the proportion of cardiovascular damaging events responsible for death or permanent brain damage.
Brain covariance selection: better individual functional connectivity models using population prior

Spontaneous brain activity, as observed in functional neuroimaging, has been shown to display reproducible structure that expresses brain architecture and carries markers of brain pathologies. An important view of modern neuroscience is that such large-scale structure of coherent activity reflects modularity properties of brain connectivity graphs. However, to date, there has been no demonstration that the limited and noisy data available in spontaneous activity observations could be used to learn full-brain probabilistic models that generalize to new data. Learning such models entails two main challenges: i) modeling full brain connectivity is a difficult estimation problem that faces the curse of dimensionality and ii) variability between subjects, coupled with the variability of functional signals between experimental runs, makes the use of multiple datasets challenging. We describe subject-level brain functional connectivity structure as a multivari-ate Gaussian process and introduce a new strategy to estimate it from group data, by imposing a common structure on the graphical model in the population. We show that individual models learned from functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) data using this population prior generalize better to unseen data than models based on alternative regularization schemes. To our knowledge, this is the first report of a cross-validated model of spontaneous brain activity. Finally, we use the estimated graphical model to explore the large-scale characteristics of functional architecture and show for the first time that known cognitive networks appear as the integrated communities of functional connectivity graph.
EGF-R signaling through Fyn kinase disrupts the function of integrin α6β4 at hemidesmosomes

We have examined the mechanism and functional significance of hemidesmosome disassembly during normal epithelial cell migration and squamous carcinoma invasion. Our findings indicate that a fraction of EGF receptor (EGF-R) combines with the hemidesmosomal integrin α6β4 in both normal and neoplastic keratinocytes. Activation of the EGF-R causes tyrosine phosphorylation of the β4 cytoplasmic domain and disruption of hemidesmosomes. The Src family kinase inhibitors PP1 and PP2 prevent tyrosine phosphorylation of β4 and disassembly of hemidesmosomes without interfering with the activation of EGF-R. Coimmunoprecipitation experiments indicate that Fyn and, to a lesser extent, Yes combine with α6β4. By contrast, Src and Lck do not associate with α6β4 to a significant extent. A dominant negative form of Fyn, but not Src, prevents tyrosine phosphorylation of β4 and disassembly of hemidesmosomes. These observations suggest that the EGF-R causes disassembly of hemidesmosomes by activating Fyn, which in turn phosphorylates the β4 cytoplasmic domain. Neoplastic cells expressing dominant negative Fyn display increased hemidesmosomes and migrate poorly in vitro in response to EGF. Furthermore, dominant negative Fyn decreases the ability of squamous carcinoma cells to invade through Matrigel in vitro and to form lung metastases following intravenous injection in nude mice. These results suggest that disruption of hemidesmosomes mediated by Fyn is a prerequisite for normal keratinocyte migration and squamous carcinoma invasion.
Analyzing metabolomics data for association with genotypes using two-component Gaussian mixture distributions

Standard approaches to evaluate the impact of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) on quantitative phenotypes use linear models. However, these normal-based approaches may not optimally model phenotypes which are better represented by Gaussian mixture distributions (e.g., some metabolomics data). We develop a likelihood ratio test on the mixing proportions of two-component Gaussian mixture distributions and consider more restrictive models to increase power in light of a priori biological knowledge. Data were simulated to validate the improved power of the likelihood ratio test and the restricted likelihood ratio test over a linear model and a log transformed linear model. Then, using real data from the Framingham Heart Study, we analyzed 20,315 SNPs on chromosome 11, demonstrating that the proposed likelihood ratio test identifies SNPs well known to participate in the desaturation of certain fatty acids. Our study both validates the approach of increasing power by using the likelihood ratio test that leverages Gaussian mixture models, and creates a model with improved sensitivity and interpretability.
Designing an IoT Smart Parking Prototype System

To take advantage of modern wireless connectivity, we designed and developed a new parking system based on (USP CCTV camera) which provides drivers with a simple parking service. This design solution for any car park in any busy city does not require extensive, if any, infrastructural adjustments. Our approach is based on User Centered Design (UCD); The prototype design process started by involving the stakeholders. Several approaches were planned, with in-depth interviews and diaries to collect data from stakeholders. As the participants (stakeholders) where 15 people, each five represent as category as mentioned above, staff, students and visitors worked together to develop the prototype. The investigation sheds light on users’ challenges and issues experienced in everyday parking in practice. It offers a description and reflection on methods to better understand their role and the role of the participant in developing IT tools. Also, it provides discussion on the practical aspects of UCD while organising and conducting co-design with stakeholders.
On the optimal asymptotic performance of universal ordering and discrimination of individual sequences

The authors consider the problem of ordering of strings of a fixed length over a discrete alphabet, according to decreasing probabilities of having been emitted by an unknown finite-state source. Data compression is applied to derive a universal algorithm that solves this problem with an optimal asymptotic performance. The result is applied to discriminate an individual sequence as emitted by an i.i. d. random source or as a signal corrupted by noise. Tight lower and upper bounds on the asymptotic performance of finite-state discriminators are given. <<ETX>>
Research on E-commerce Entrepreneurship Environment in Wuhan

This thesis analyzes the environment of e-commerce in Wuhan from four aspects: the analysis of Wuhan's policy environment, the economic environment of Wuhan, the social and cultural environment of Wuhan, and the geographical environment of Wuhan, and establish an intuitive understanding of the environmental analysis model of the creation of the electronic commerce in Wuhan, and find out the model from the model. The shortcomings of e-commerce environment in Wuhan city are found, and Countermeasures to solve the deficiencies are found to promote the rapid development of e-commerce in Wuhan. Keywords—Entrepreneurship entrepreneurial environment, -commerce, uhan