Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Intestinal Chemokine Thymus-expressed Chemokine (CCL25) Attracts IgA Antibody-secreting Cells

Immunoglobulin A (IgA) provides protection against pathogens at mucosal surfaces. Chemotactic responses have been hypothesized to target IgA plasma cells involved in mucosal immune responses. We show here that thymus-expressed chemokine (TECK, CCL25) is a potent and selective chemoattractant for IgA antibody-secreting cells (ASC), efficiently recruiting IgA-producing cells from spleen, Peyer's patches, and mesenteric lymph node. Cells secreting IgA antibody in response to rotavirus, an intestinal pathogen, also respond well. In contrast, IgG– and IgM–ASC respond poorly. Epithelial cells in the small intestines, a principal site of IgA–ASC localization and IgA production in the body, highly and selectively express TECK. The migration of IgA–ASC to the intestinal epithelial cell chemokine TECK may help target IgA-producing cells to the gut wall, thus helping define and segregate the intestinal immune response.
EVALUATING EFFECTIVENESS OF LINGUISTIC TECHNOLOGIES OF KNOWLEDGE IDENTIFICATION IN TEXT COLLECTIONS

The possibility of using integral coefficients of recall and precision to evaluate effectiveness of linguistic technologies of knowledge identification in texts is analyzed in the paper. An approach is based on the method of test collections, which is used for experimental validation of received effectiveness coefficients, and on methods of mathematical statistics. The problem of maximizing the reliability of sample results in their propagation on the general population of the tested text collection is studied. The method for determining the confidence interval for the attribute proportion, which is based on Wilson’s formula, and the method for determining the required size of the relevant sample under specified relative error and confidence probability, are considered.
Trends in the prevalence of hypertension, antihypertensive therapy, and left ventricular hypertrophy from 1950 to 1989.

BACKGROUND Men and women with hypertension are at increased risk for cardiovascular disease, especially when left ventricular hypertrophy is present. We examined temporal trends in the use of antihypertensive medications and studied the relation between their use, the prevalence of high blood pressure, and the presence of electrocardiographic evidence of left ventricular hypertrophy. METHODS A total of 10,333 participants in the Framingham Heart Study who were 45 to 74 years of age underwent a total of 51,756 examinations from 1950 to 1989. Data were obtained on blood pressure and the use of antihypertensive medications, and electrocardiograms were assessed for left ventricular hypertrophy. The generalized-estimating-equation method was used to test for trends over time. RESULTS From 1950 to 1989, the rate of use of antihypertensive medications increased from 2.3 percent to 24.6 percent among men and from 5.7 percent to 27.7 percent among women. The age-adjusted prevalence of systolic blood pressure of at least 160 mm Hg or diastolic blood pressure of at least 100 mm Hg declined from 18.5 percent to 9.2 percent among men and from 28.0 percent to 7.7 percent among women. This decline was accompanied by age-adjusted reductions in the prevalence of electrocardiographic evidence of left ventricular hypertrophy, from 4.5 percent to 2.5 percent among men and from 3.6 percent to 1.1 percent among women. CONCLUSIONS Our findings support the notion that the increasing use of antihypertensive medication has resulted in a reduced prevalence of high blood pressure and a concomitant decline in left ventricular hypertrophy in the general population. Our observations may in part explain the considerable decline in mortality from cardiovascular disease observed since the late 1960s.
Prinzmetal Angina in Major Hemophilia a Patient: A Case Report

Introduction: Prinzmetal angina is a special type of acute coronary syndrome ST+ wich correspond to a transient occlusion of a coronary vessel secondary to spasm. This type of acute coronary syndrome is very rare and is characterized by the presence of signs of myocardial ischemia on electrocardiogram but coronary angiography and coroscaner are frequently normals. Its management in hemophilia patients is difficult because of the use of anticoagulant and antiplatelet drugs wich increase bleeding risk. We report the case of a major hemophilia A patient which presented Prinzmetal angina. Observation : It is a 64 years old patient, hemophilia A major, chronic smoking (40 pack-year), not diabetic, not hypertensive, which had a retro sternal constrictive pain radiating to the shoulders. At admission he was consciousness. No breath in cardiac auscultation. The electrocardiography showed a heart rate at 61bpm, the axis of the heart was normal. ST-segment elevation was noticed in DIII and AVF : ischemia in the cardiac lower area. Echocardiography was normal. The coroscaner was normal. The troponin I level was at 0.03 µg / L (Normal : 0-0.1µg/L). This patient had a variant Prinzmetal angina. Treatement: Diltiazem Hydrochloride 60 mg 1 tablet / 8 hours. Acetylsalicylic acid 160 mg IV and Clopidogrel 300 mg IV the first day ; relay with acetylsalicylic acid 100 mg and clopidogrel 75 mg per day. Transfusion of factor VIII at the dose of 40UI / Kg. Simvastatin 20 mg 1 tablet per day. Perindopril 5 mg 1 tablet the day. The evolution was favorable. Discussion and conclusion: Coronary syndromes are not frequent in morocco hemophilia patients. Their management is complex and involves the presence of an hematologist.
Frame-angle-based direct torque controller for PMSM drives

This paper presents the development and performance evaluation of a direct torque controller (DTC) for permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) drives fed by a 3φ, 6-pulse wavelet modulated (WM) dc-ac power electronic converters (PECs). The developed DTC is designed to adjust the d — g-axis components of stator voltages (vd and vq) of a PMSM, in response to changes in load torque or drive speed. The desired adjustments in vd and Vq are achieved by changing the angle ê of a frame created by Vd and Vq. This frame is responsible for updating or changing the reference modulating signals that are required by the wavelet modulation technique to generate switching pulses. The complete PMSM drive system incorporating the developed DTC is implemented for a 10-hp PMSM drive system. The performance of the frame-angle-based DTC is investigated for different changes in the command torque and drive speed. Simulation test results demonstrate stable, fast, and accurate responses that are complimented by negligible sensitivity to variations in the system parameters.
The clinical features of takotsubo cardiomyopathy.

BACKGROUND Cardiologists have recently recognized a reversible form of heart failure of unknown origin characterized by a takotsubo-shaped hypokinesis of the left ventricle on left ventriculography. AIM To clarify the clinical features of this cardiomyopathy. DESIGN Observational study. METHODS Seven patients with reversible ventricular dysfunction were followed for 4.5 years. Clinical course, routine examinations, and cardiac catheterizations in each patient were documented. RESULTS The cardiomyopathy developed in six elderly female and one male patients (mean age 75.3 years), all of whom had been exposed to stress. Cardiac enzymes did not significantly increase, but serum norepinephrine increased remarkably (1.19 ng/ml). Coronary angiography revealed normal coronary arteries. However, left ventriculography showed akinesis in the apical segments, together with hyperkinesis in the basal segments (a takotsubo shape). The abnormal kinesis normalized within 17.4 hospital days without any treatment in five patients, and with haemodynamic support for 3 days in the other two. Endocardial biopsies did not suggest any specific pathology. The cardiac events did not recur over a 1-4 year follow-up. DISCUSSION Coronary vasospasm, myocarditis and other substantial diseases previously described were ruled out as the cause of takotsubo cardiomyopathy in our subjects. Prognosis was good without any form of treatment, provided that the patients survived the severe heart failure state. Catecholaminergic or adrenoceptor-hyperactive cardiomyopathy may be the cause of this cardiomyopathy.
Compositional Verification for Hierarchical Scheduling of Real-Time Systems

Hierarchical Scheduling (HS) techniques achieve resource partitioning among a set of real-time applications, providing reduction of complexity, confinement of failure modes, and temporal isolation among system applications. This facilitates compositional analysis for architectural verification and plays a crucial role in all industrial areas where high-performance microprocessors allow growing integration of multiple applications on a single platform. We propose a compositional approach to formal specification and schedulability analysis of real-time applications running under a Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) global scheduler and preemptive Fixed Priority (FP) local schedulers, according to the ARINC-653 standard. As a characterizing trait, each application is made of periodic, sporadic, and jittering tasks with offsets, jitters, and nondeterministic execution times, encompassing intra-application synchronizations through semaphores and mailboxes and interapplication communications among periodic tasks through message passing. The approach leverages the assumption of a TDM partitioning to enable compositional design and analysis based on the model of preemptive Time Petri Nets (pTPNs), which is expressly extended with a concept of Required Interface (RI) that specifies the embedding environment of an application through sequencing and timing constraints. This enables exact verification of intra-application constraints and approximate but safe verification of interapplication constraints. Experimentation illustrates results and validates their applicability on two challenging workloads in the field of safety-critical avionic systems.
XYZ: a motion-enabled, power aware sensor node platform for distributed sensor network applications

This paper describes the XYZ, a new open-source sensing platform specifically designed to support our experimental research in mobile sensor networks. The XYZ node is designed around the OKI ML67Q500x ARM THUMB Microprocessor and the IEEE 802.15. 4 compliant CC2420 radio from Chipcon. Its new features include support for two different CPU sleep modes and a long-term ultra low power sleep mode for the entire node. This allows the XYZ and its peripheral boards to transition into deep sleep for extended time intervals. To support mobility hardware control and computations, XYZ supports a wide dynamic range and power options. In low power configuration the node resembles existing small low power nodes. When needed, the node can scale up its resources to perform more powerful computations. Mobility is enabled with an additional accessory board that allows the node to move along a horizontal string. In this paper we provide an overview of the XYZ architecture and provide an insightful power characterization of the different operational modes to allow the users to optimize their platforms for power.
Management of Ventricular Tachycardia in the Setting of a Dedicated Unit for the Treatment of Complex Ventricular Arrhythmias: Long-Term Outcome After Ablation

Background— We investigated the impact of catheter ablation on ventricular tachycardia (VT) recurrence and survival in a large number of patients with structural heart disease treated in the setting of a dedicated multiskilled unit. Methods and Results— Since January 2007, we have implemented a multidisciplinary model, aiming for a comprehensive management of VT patients. Programmed ventricular stimulation was used to assess acute outcome. Primary end points were VT recurrence and the occurrence of cardiac and sudden cardiac death. Overall, 528 patients were treated by ablation (634 procedures; 1–4 procedures per patient). Among 482 tested with programmed ventricular stimulation after the last procedure, a class A result (noninducibility of any VT) was obtained in 371 patients (77%), class B (inducibility of nondocumented VT) in 12.4%, and class C (inducibility of index VT) in 10.6%. After a median follow-up time of 26 months, VT recurred in 164 (34.1%) of 472 patients. VT recurrence was documented in 28.6% of patients with a class A result versus 39.6% of patients with class B and 66.7% with class C result (log-rank P<0.001). The incidence of cardiac mortality was lower in class A patients than in those with class B and class C (8.4% versus 18.5% versus 22%, respectively; log-rank P=0.002). On the basis of multivariate analysis, postprocedural inducibility of index VT was independently associated both with VT recurrence (hazard ratio, 4.030; P<0.001) and with cardiac mortality (hazard ratio, 2.099; P=0.04). Conclusions— Within a dedicated VT unit, catheter ablation prevents long-term VT recurrences, which may favorably affect survival in a large number of patients who have VT.
Object-Based Image Analysis of High-Resolution Satellite Images Using Modified Cloud Basis Function Neural Network and Probabilistic Relaxation Labeling Process

Object-based image analysis is quickly gaining acceptance among remote sensing community, and object-based image classification methods are increasingly being used for classification of land use/cover units from high-resolution satellite images with results closer to human interpretation compared to per-pixel classifiers. The problem of nonlinear separability of classes in a feature space consisting of spectral/spatial/textural features is addressed by kernel-based nonlinear mapping of the feature vectors. This facilitates use of linear discriminant functions for classification as used in artificial neural networks (ANNs). In this paper, performance of a recently introduced kernel called cloud basis function (CBF) is investigated with some modification for classification. The CBF has demonstrated superior performance to the tune of about 4% higher classification accuracy compared to conventional radial basis function used in ANN. The results are further improved by using probabilistic relaxation labeling as a postprocessing step. This paper has potential applications in urban planning and urban studies.
The role of low energy availability in predicting an energy deficiency and menstrual disturbances in recreational and competitive female athletes

The Female Athlete Triad is a syndrome of three int rrelated conditions: amenorrhea, osteoporosis, and low energy availabili ty (EA). These conditions, either alone or in combination, pose significant health ri sks to exercising women. The overall goal of this dissertation was to help increase our understanding of EA, defined as the difference between dietary energy intake and exerci s energy expenditure, normalized to kilograms of lean body mass, as a tool for assessin g energy and menstrual status in a field setting. Short-term laboratory studies in sedentar y women have identified a threshold of EA below which reproductive hormone secretion is di srupted, i.e., < 30 kcal/kg lean body mass but no studies have thoroughly examined the as sociation of low EA and menstrual disturbances in trained women using more convention al methods to assess EA. We therefore assessed the prevalence of low EA (< 30 k cal/kg lean body mass) and its association with menstrual status and other indices of nergy balance in exercising women outside controlled laboratory conditions. Study 1 was designed to assess the risk of low EA i n Division I female soccer players during the pre, mid, and post season. We de monstrated that although the mean EA of the group was not low, a concerning percentag e of these athletes exhibited low EA at some point during the season and that negative e ating attitudes were also observed in athletes with low EA. Study 2 was designed to test whether EA discriminates disruptions in menstrual function in exercising premenopausal w omen. In contrast to our hypothesis, we demonstrated that EA did not discriminate menstr ual status in a large sample of exercising women when using conventional methods to assess EA including self-reported diet logs, exercise logs, and heart rate monitors. The purpose of Study 3 was to determine
The CAG and GGC microsatellites of the androgen receptor gene are in linkage disequilibrium in men with prostate cancer.

The androgen receptor genotype was determined in the white blood cell DNA of 45 African-American, 39 non-Hispanic white, and 39 Asian (Chinese, Japanese) normal subjects and 68 patients with prostate cancer (57 whites), all of whom were residents of Los Angeles County. For each subject, we measured the number of repeats in the polymorphic CAG and GGC microsatellites of exon 1 of the androgen receptor gene. In normal subjects, the distributions of CAG and GGC microsatellites differed significantly among the races (two-sided P = 0.046 and < 0.0005, respectively). The prevalence of short CAG alleles (< 22 repeats) was highest (75%) in African-American males with the highest risk for prostate cancer, intermediate (62%) in intermediate-risk non-Hispanic whites, and lowest (49%) in Asians at very low risk for prostate cancer. High-risk African-Americans also had the lowest frequency (20%) of the GGC allele with 16 repeats; the comparable values for intermediate-risk whites and low-risk Asians were 57% and 70%, respectively. Consistent with the interracial variation in CAG and GGC distributions, there was an excess of white patients with < 22 CAG and not-16 GGC repeats relative to white controls (relative risk, 2.1; one-sided P = 0.08). We observed no association (linkage) between the two microsatellites among normal subjects. On the other hand, there was a statistically significant negative association between the numbers of CAG and GGC repeats among the prostate cancer patients studied (two-sided P = 0.008). Among the 47 subjects with short CAG alleles (< 22 repeats), 43% had long GGC alleles (> 16 repeats) whereas only 15% of the 20 subjects with long CAG alleles (> or = 22 repeats) had long GGC alleles. Overall, our data suggest a possible association between CAG and GGC microsatellites of the androgen receptor gene and prostate cancer development.
T1 mapping and survival in systemic light-chain amyloidosis

Aims To assess the prognostic value of myocardial pre-contrast T1 and extracellular volume (ECV) in systemic amyloid light-chain (AL) amyloidosis using cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) T1 mapping. Methods and results One hundred patients underwent CMR and T1 mapping pre- and post-contrast. Myocardial ECV was calculated at contrast equilibrium (ECVi) and 15 min post-bolus (ECVb). Fifty-four healthy volunteers served as controls. Patients were followed up for a median duration of 23 months and survival analyses were performed. Mean ECVi was raised in amyloid (0.44 ± 0.12) as was ECVb (mean 0.44 ± 0.12) compared with healthy volunteers (0.25 ± 0.02), P < 0.001. Native pre-contrast T1 was raised in amyloid (mean 1080 ± 87 ms vs. 954 ± 34 ms, P < 0.001). All three correlated with pre-test probability of cardiac involvement, cardiac biomarkers, and systolic and diastolic dysfunction. During follow-up, 25 deaths occurred. An ECVi of >0.45 carried a hazard ratio (HR) for death of 3.84 [95% confidence interval (CI): 1.53–9.61], P = 0.004 and pre-contrast T1 of >1044 ms = HR 5.39 (95% CI: 1.24–23.4), P = 0.02. Extracellular volume after primed infusion and ECVb performed similarly. Isolated post-contrast T1 was non-predictive. In Cox regression models, ECVi was independently predictive of mortality (HR = 4.41, 95% CI: 1.35–14.4) after adjusting for E:E′, ejection fraction, diastolic dysfunction grade, and NT-proBNP. Conclusion Myocardial ECV (bolus or infusion technique) and pre-contrast T1 are biomarkers for cardiac AL amyloid and they predict mortality in systemic amyloidosis.
Moderation of antidepressant response by the serotonin transporter gene

Background There have been conflicting reports on whether the length polymorphism in the promoter of the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTTLPR) moderates the antidepressant effects of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). We hypothesised that the pharmacogenetic effect of 5-HTTLPR is modulated by gender, age and other variants in the serotonin transporter gene. Aims To test the hypothesis that the 5-HTTLPR differently influences response to escitalopram (an SSRI) compared with nortriptyline (a noradrenaline reuptake inhibitor). Method The 5-HTTLPR and 13 additional markers across the serotonin transporter gene were genotyped in 795 adults with moderate-to-severe depression treated with escitalopram or nortriptyline in the Genome Based Therapeutic Drugs for Depression (GENDEP) project. Results The 5-HTTLPR moderated the response to escitalopram, with long-allele carriers improving more than short-allele homozygotes. A significant three-way interaction between 5-HTTLPR, drug and gender indicated that the effect was concentrated in males treated with escitalopram. The single-nucleotide polymorphism rs2020933 also influenced outcome. Conclusions The effect of 5-HTTLPR on antidepressant response is SSRI specific conditional on gender and modulated by another polymorphism at the 5' end of the serotonin transporter gene.
Hsp72 Inhibits Fas-mediated Apoptosis Upstream of the Mitochondria in Type II Cells*

Heat shock protein 72 (Hsp72) inhibits apoptosis induced by some stresses that trigger the intrinsic apoptosis pathway. However, with the exception of TNFα-induced apoptosis, a role for Hsp72 in modulating the extrinsic pathway of apoptosis has not been clearly established. In this study, it was demonstrated that Hsp72 could inhibit Fas-mediated apoptosis of type II CCRF-CEM cells, but not type I SW480 or CH1 cells. Similar results were obtained when Fas ligand or an agonistic Fas antibody initiated the Fas apoptosis pathway. In CCRF-CEM cells, Hsp72 inhibited mitochondrial membrane depolarization and cytochrome c release but did not alter surface Fas expression or processing of caspase-8 and Bid, indicating that Hsp72 acts upstream of the mitochondria to inhibit Fas-mediated apoptosis. Thus, the ability of Hsp72 to inhibit Fas-mediated apoptosis is limited to type II cells where involvement of the intrinsic pathway is required for efficient effector caspase activation.