Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Combinations of Maternal KIR and Fetal HLA-C Genes Influence the Risk of Preeclampsia and Reproductive Success

Preeclampsia is a serious complication of pregnancy in which the fetus receives an inadequate supply of blood due to failure of trophoblast invasion. There is evidence that the condition has an immunological basis. The only known polymorphic histocompatibility antigens on the fetal trophoblast are HLA-C molecules. We tested the idea that recognition of these molecules by killer immunoglobulin receptors (KIRs) on maternal decidual NK cells is a key factor in the development of preeclampsia. Striking differences were observed when these polymorphic ligand: receptor pairs were considered in combination. Mothers lacking most or all activating KIR (AA genotype) when the fetus possessed HLA-C belonging to the HLA-C2 group were at a greatly increased risk of preeclampsia. This was true even if the mother herself also had HLA-C2, indicating that neither nonself nor missing-self discrimination was operative. Thus, this interaction between maternal KIR and trophoblast appears not to have an immune function, but instead plays a physiological role related to placental development. Different human populations have a reciprocal relationship between AA frequency and HLA-C2 frequency, suggesting selection against this combination. In light of our findings, reproductive success may have been a factor in the evolution and maintenance of human HLA-C and KIR polymorphisms.
Effects of River Impoundment on Ecosystem Services of Large Tropical Rivers: Embodied Energy and Market Value of Artisanal Fisheries

Abstract: Applying the ecosystem services concept to conservation initiatives or in managing ecosystem services requires understanding how environmental impacts affect the ecology of key species or functional groups providing the services. We examined effects of river impoundments, one of the leading threats to freshwater biodiversity, on an important ecosystem service provided by large tropical rivers (i.e., artisanal fisheries). The societal and economic importance of this ecosystem service in developing countries may provide leverage to advance conservation agendas where future impoundments are being considered. We assessed impoundment effects on the energetic costs of fisheries production (embodied energy) and commercial market value of the artisanal fishery of the Paraná River, Brazil, before and after formation of Itaipu Reservoir. High‐value migratory species that dominated the fishery before the impoundment was built constituted a minor component of the contemporary fishery that is based heavily on reservoir‐adapted introduced species. Cascading effects of river impoundment resulted in a mismatch between embodied energy and market value: energetic costs of fisheries production increased, whereas market value decreased. This was partially attributable to changes in species functional composition but also strongly linked to species identities that affected market value as a result of consumer preferences even when species were functionally similar. Similar trends are expected in other large tropical rivers following impoundment. In addition to identifying consequences of a common anthropogenic impact on an important ecosystem service, our assessment provides insight into the sustainability of fisheries production in tropical rivers and priorities for regional biodiversity conservation.
Building a hybrid process model for a complex software system integration

In order to fulfill every project-specific requirement in software development today, and produce a software product with desired functionality and satisfactory quality attributes, adequate development and management processes ought to be designed, implemented, adopted, operated and/or improved. Mandatory requests on shorter time to market, staying within the budget limit and producing high quality software become even more stressful for project stakeholders when dealing with complex software systems, like the ones for enterprise resource planning or multidimensional drafting of complex models for technical and engineering products. Based on the real-life experience, that is thoroughly analyzed here, in integrating such two complex software systems, a hybrid process model for project management and software development in agile environment is proposed in this paper. The model attributes specially stressed out and analyzed are suitability for agile conditions and adaptive behavior. Conclusion gives usage perspective for such a hybrid model, with limitations discussed and future work proposed.
Characterization of Fatty Acid Digestion of Beijing Fatty and Arbor Acres Chickens

The aim of this experiment was to compare the characterization of fatty acid digestion of Beijing Fatty (BF) and Arbor Acres (AA) chickens. One-day-old male AA and BF chickens were raised in the same house, and fed with the same diet. We first evaluated utilization of dietary fatty acids in chickens by the total collection procedure, and chickens were then killed to compare the abundance of intestinal mRNA expression of liver-fatty acid binding protein (L-FABP) and intestinal-fatty acid binding protein (I-FABP) by Real-time PCR, and also the pH of intestinal mucosa at 3 and 6 weeks of age. Another group of chickens were sampled at 6 weeks of age to compare the total bile acid concentration in serum, and lipase activity in contents of the small intestine. Results showed that compared to AA chickens, BF chickens had higher lipase activity in the content of the small intestine (p<0.05), greater total bile acid content in portal vein blood (p<0.05) at 6 weeks of age, lower intestinal mucosal pH at both 3 weeks (p<0.05) and 6 weeks (p<0.05) of age, and higher abundance of liver-fatty acid binding protein (L-FABP) mRNA expression in intestine tissues at 6 weeks of age (p<0.05), and higher digestibility of fatty acids at both 3 and 6 weeks (p<0.05) of age. There was no difference in I-FABP mRNA expression between AA and BF chickens at either age. Thus, BF chickens had greater fatty acids utilization than AA chickens that was associated with L-FABP, lipase activity, bile acid content and intestinal mucosal pH.
Implanted user interfaces

We investigate implanted user interfaces that small devices provide when implanted underneath human skin. Such devices always stay with the user, making their implanted user interfaces available at all times. We discuss four core challenges of implanted user interfaces: how to sense input through the skin, how to produce output, how to communicate amongst one another and with external infrastructure, and how to remain powered. We investigate these four challenges in a technical evaluation where we surgically implant study devices into a specimen arm. We find that traditional interfaces do work through skin. We then demonstrate how to deploy a prototype device on participants, using artificial skin to simulate implantation. We close with a discussion of medical considerations of implanted user interfaces, risks and limitations, and project into the future.
Total Cavopulmonary Connection Flow With Functional Left Pulmonary Artery Stenosis: Angioplasty and Fenestration In Vitro

Background— In our multicenter study of the total cavopulmonary connection (TCPC), a cohort of patients with long-segment left pulmonary artery (LPA) stenosis was observed (35%). The clinically recognized detrimental effects of LPA stenosis motivated a computational fluid dynamic simulation study within 3-dimensional patient-specific and idealized TCPC pathways. The goal of this study was to quantify and evaluate the hemodynamic impact of LPA stenosis and to judge interventional strategies aimed at treating it. Methods and Results— Simulations were conducted at equal vascular lung resistance, modeling both discrete stenosis (DS) and diffuse long-segment hypoplasia with varying degrees of obstruction (0% to 80%). Models having fenestrations of 2 to 6 mm and atrium pressures of 4 to 14 mm Hg were explored. A patient-specific, extracardiac TCPC with 85% DS was studied in its original configuration and after virtual surgery that dilated the LPA to 0% stenosis in the computer medium. Performance indices improved exponentially (R2>0.99) with decreasing obstruction. Diffuse long-segment hypoplasia was ≈50% more severe with regard to lung perfusion and cardiac energy loss than DS. Virtual angioplasty performed on the 3-dimensional Fontan anatomy exhibiting an 85% DS stenosis produced a 61% increase in left lung perfusion and a 50% decrease in cardiac energy dissipation. After 4-mm fenestration, TCPC baffle pressure dropped by ≈10% and left lung perfusion decreased by ≈8% compared with the 80% DS case. Conclusions— DS <60% and diffuse long-segment hypoplasia <40% could be considered tolerable because both resulted in only a 12% decrease in left lung perfusion. In contrast to angioplasty, a fenestration (right-to-left shunt) reduced TCPC pressure at the cost of decreased left and right lung perfusion. These results suggest that pre-Fontan computational fluid dynamic simulation may be valuable for determining both the hemodynamic significance of LPA stenosis and the potential benefits of intervention.
Non-linear thermoelectricity in disordered nanowires

The creation of efficient thermoelectric devices remains a technological challenge. Using nanoscaleengineered devices offers some potential advantages over bulk materials; however, they also present new problems. The microscopic Hamiltonian of a device which optimizes the efficiency and power output for a particular load and temperature profile is not necessarily optimum for another temperature difference and external load. Furthermore, one cannot necessarily manufacture a particular Hamiltonian. In this paper, we calculate the nonlinear thermoelectric transport through a gate-modulated one-dimensional disordered semiconducting nanowire connected to two large leads. The disorder is chosen to be Lorentzian, which allows exact results for transmission through the wire for all strengths of disorder. By tuning the gate voltage acting on the nanowire, we show that the thermodynamic efficiency can be made large enough to be industrially competitive. The gate voltage allows one to maximize the efficiency and power output for particular temperature differences between the leads as well as different external loads.
Improving speech intelligibility in perceptual wavelet packet-based speech coding for cochlear implants

Speech intelligibility for noise reduction algorithms which were integrated into perceptual wavelet packet-based speech coding strategy in cochlear implant (CI) processors was investigated in this study. The noise reduction algorithms including time-adaptive wavelet thresholding (TAWT) and time-frequency spectral subtraction (TFSS) were selected for this study due to simple and suitable for real-time implementation. The experiments were compared without and with noise reduction algorithms for fourteen normal-hearing (NH) listeners. The speech sentences were corrupted by babble noise in different levels of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) (i.e. 0, 5 and 10 dB). The experimental results showed that vocoded noisy speech with TAWT and TFSS provided higher intelligibility at 0 and 5 dB SNR but slightly lower intelligibility at 10 dB SNR when compared to vocoded noisy speech. CI listeners may benefit more than NH listeners in further study.
The Impact of Piped Water Provision on Infant Mortality in Brazil: a Quantile Panel Data Approach

We examine the impact of piped water on the under-1 infant mortality rate (IMR) in Brazil using a novel econometric procedure for the estimation of quantile treatment effects with panel data. The provision of piped water in Brazil is highly correlated with other observable and unobservable determinants of IMR - the latter leading to an important source of bias. Instruments for piped water provision are not readily available, and fixed effects to control for time invariant correlated unobservables are invalid in the simple quantile regression framework. Using the quantile panel data procedure in Chen and Khan (2007), our estimates indicate that the provision of piped water reduces infant mortality by significantly more at the higher conditional quantiles of the IMR distribution than at the lower conditional quantiles (except for cases of extreme underdevelopment). These results imply that targeting piped water intervention in areas with higher conditional quantiles of the IMR, when accompanied by other basic public health inputs, can achieve significantly greater reductions in infant mortality.
Surgical site infection rates after minimally invasive spinal surgery.

OBJECT Postoperative surgical site infections (SSIs) have been reported after 2-6% of spinal surgeries in most large series. The incidence of SSI can be < 1% after decompressive procedures and > 10% after instrumented fusions. Anecdotal evidence has suggested that there is a lower rate of SSI when minimally invasive techniques are used. METHODS A retrospective review of prospectively collected databases of consecutive patients who underwent minimally invasive spinal surgery was performed. Minimally invasive spinal surgery was defined as any spinal procedure performed through a tubular retractor system. All surgeries were performed under standard sterile conditions with preoperative antibiotic prophylaxis. The databases were reviewed for any infectious complications. Cases of SSI were identified and reviewed for clinically relevant details. The incidence of postoperative SSIs was then calculated for the entire cohort as well as for subgroups based on the type of procedure performed, and then compared with an analogous series selected from an extensive literature review. RESULTS The authors performed 1338 minimally invasive spinal surgeries in 1274 patients of average age 55.5 years. The primary diagnosis was degenerative in nature in 93% of cases. A single minimally invasive spinal surgery procedure was undertaken in 1213 patients, 2 procedures in 58, and 3 procedures in 3 patients. The region of surgery was lumbar in 85%, cervical in 12%, and thoracic in 3%. Simple decompressive procedures comprised 78%, instrumented arthrodeses 20%, and minimally invasive intradural procedures 2% of the collected cases. Three postoperative SSIs were detected, 2 were superficial and 1 deep. The procedural rate of SSI for simple decompression was 0.10%, and for minimally invasive fusion/fixation was 0.74%. The total SSI rate for the entire group was only 0.22%. CONCLUSIONS Minimally invasive spinal surgery techniques may reduce postoperative wound infections as much as 10-fold compared with other large, modern series of open spinal surgery published in the literature.
Genetic algorithms for graph partitioning and incremental graph partitioning

Partitioning graphs into equally large groups of nodes, minimizing the number of edges between different groups, is an extremely important problem in parallel computing. This paper presents genetic algorithms for suboptimal graph partitioning, with new crossover operators (KNUX, DKNUX) that lead to orders of magnitude improvement over traditional genetic operators in solution quality and speed. Our method can improve on good solutions previously obtained by using other algorithms or graph theoretic heuristics in, minimizing the total communication cost or the worst case cost of communication for a single processor. We also extend our algorithm to incremental graph partitioning problems, in which the graph structure or system properties changes with time. <<ETX>>
Allosteric Regulation of Catalytic Activity:Escherichia coli Aspartate Transcarbamoylase versus Yeast Chorismate Mutase

SUMMARY Allosteric regulation of key metabolic enzymes is a fascinating field to study the structure-function relationship of induced conformational changes of proteins. In this review we compare the principles of allosteric transitions of the complex classical model aspartate transcarbamoylase (ATCase) from Escherichia coli, consisting of 12 polypeptides, and the less complicated chorismate mutase derived from baker's yeast, which functions as a homodimer. Chorismate mutase presumably represents the minimal oligomerization state of a cooperative enzyme which still can be either activated or inhibited by different heterotropic effectors. Detailed knowledge of the number of possible quaternary states and a description of molecular triggers for conformational changes of model enzymes such as ATCase and chorismate mutase shed more and more light on allostery as an important regulatory mechanism of any living cell. The comparison of wild-type and engineered mutant enzymes reveals that current textbook models for regulation do not cover the entire picture needed to describe the function of these enzymes in detail.
Efficient approximate thompson sampling for search query recommendation

Query suggestions have been a valuable feature for e-commerce sites in helping shoppers refine their search intent. In this paper, we develop an algorithm that helps e-commerce sites like eBay mingle the output of different recommendation algorithms. Our algorithm is based on "Thompson Sampling" --- a technique designed for solving multi-arm bandit problems where the best results are not known in advance but instead are tried out to gather feedback. Our approach is to treat query suggestions as a competition among data resources: we have many query suggestion candidates competing for limited space on the search results page. An "arm" is played when a query suggestion candidate is chosen for display, and our goal is to maximize the expected reward (user clicks on a suggestion). Our experiments have shown promising results in using the click-based user feedback to drive success by enhancing the quality of query suggestions.
Non-Blocking Algorithms and Preemption-Safe Locking on Multiprogrammed Shared Memory Multiprocessors

Most multiprocessors are multiprogrammed to achieve acceptable response time and to increase their utilization. Unfortunately, inopportune preemption may significantly degrade the performance of synchronized parallel applications. To address this problem, researchers have developed two principal strategies for concurrent, atomic update of shared data structures: (1) preemption-safe locking and (2) non-blocking (lock-free) algorithms. Preemption-safe locking requires kernel support. Non-blocking algorithms generally require a universal atomic primitive such as compareand-swap or load-linked/store-conditional, and are widely regarded as inefficient. We evaluate the performance of preemption-safe lock-based and non-blocking implementations of important data structures—queues, stacks, heaps, and counters—including non-blocking and lock-based queue algorithms of our own, in micro-benchmarks and real applications on a 12-processor SGI Challenge multiprocessor. Our results indicate that our non-blocking queue consistently outperforms the best known alternatives, and that data-structure-specific non-blocking algorithms, which exist for queues, stacks, and counters, can work extremely well. Not only do they outperform preemption-safe lock-based algorithms on multiprogrammed machines, they also outperform ordinary locks on dedicated machines. At the same time, since general-purpose non-blocking techniques do not yet appear to be practical, preemption-safe locks remain the preferred alternative for complex data structures: they outperform conventional locks by significant margins on multiprogrammed systems.
A control layer for a Peer-to-Peer middleware using behavior semantics

The increasing demand on networked virtual reality environments (VRE) is putting pressure to adopt scalable architecture capable to support new participants and deliver new services. Client/Server (C/S) architecture is showing different limitations especially in terms of scalability. Proposed solutions are based on a migration to a decentralized Peer-to-Peer (P2P) architecture that still lacks the control layer previously hosted by the server role. On the other hand, distributed data doesn't share same significance for maintaining synchronization between environments. Thus, controlling what data to distribute and when by defining interest on selected data according to certain criteria help in building generic strategies for the distribution process of VRE. In this paper, we propose a control layer for a P2P architecture based on behavior semantic-knowledge of VRE as a dynamic selection criteria for data of interest. Our proposal is presented using a semantic-rich framework named MASCARET distributed using a pure P2P middleware named Data Distribution Service (DDS).
Towards Building Open Knowledge Base From Programming Question-Answering Communities

In this paper, we propose the first system, so-called Open Programming Knowledge Extraction (OPKE), to automatically extract knowledge from programming Question-Answering (QA) communities. OPKE is the first step of building a programming-centric knowledge base. Data mining and Natural Language Processing techniques are leveraged to identify duplicate questions and construct structured information. Preliminary evaluation shows the effectiveness of OPKE.
Revised National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel Pressure Injury Staging System

Our understanding of pressure injury etiology and development has grown in recent years through research, clinical expertise, and global interdisciplinary expert collaboration. Therefore, the National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel (NPUAP) has revised the definition and stages of pressure injury. The revision was undertaken to incorporate the current understanding of the etiology of pressure injuries, as well as to clarify the anatomical features present or absent in each stage of injury. An NPUAP-appointed Task Force reviewed the literature and created drafts of definitions, which were then reviewed by stakeholders and the public, including clinicians, educators, and researchers around the world. Using a consensus-building methodology, these revised definitions were the focus of a multidisciplinary consensus conference held in April 2016. As a result of stakeholder and public input, along with the consensus conference, important changes were made and incorporated into the new staging definitions. The revised staging system uses the term injury instead of ulcer and denotes stages using Arabic numerals rather than Roman numerals. The revised definition of a pressure injury now describes the injuries as usually occurring over a bony prominence or under a medical or other device. The revised definition of a Stage 2 pressure injury seeks to clarify the difference between moisture-associated skin damage and injury caused by pressure and/or shear. The term suspected has been removed from the Deep Tissue Pressure Injury diagnostic label. Each definition now describes the extent of tissue loss present and the anatomical features that may or may not be present in the stage of injury. These important revisions reflect the methodical and collaborative approach used to examine the available evidence and incorporate current interdisciplinary clinical expertise into better defining the important phenomenon of pressure injury etiology and development.