Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Role of the Medullary Collecting Ducts in Postobstructive Diuresis

A B S T R A C T Medullary collecting duct function was studied by direct microcatheterization techniques in rats undergoing postobstructive diuresis. Significant net addition of water and sodium to the duct was demonstrated during postobstructive diuresis after relief of 24-h bilateral ureteral ligation. This striking abnormality in function was associated with reduced delivery of sodium and water to the collecting duct compared to sham-operated controls. To examine the role of circulating factors in this phenomenon, another group of rats was studied that underwent 24 h of total urine reinfusion into the femoral vein. Natriuresis and diuresis were similar to the postobstructive group, but absolute collecting duct reabsorption of sodium and water was normal. The natriuresis and diuresis in rats with urine reinfusion resulted from increased delivery of fluid and sodium to the medullary collecting duct. A third group of rats was studied with 24-h unilateral ureteral ligation as well as urine reinfusion from the contralateral normal kidney. Without urine reinfusion there was no diuresis-natriuresis but with urine reinfusion the diuresis and natriuresis after relief of unilateral obstruction was similar to that after relief of bilateral obstruction. More-over, net addition of sodium and no significant water reabsorption were demonstrated in the medullary collecting duct of such animals. The results indicate that the medullary collecting duct the critical nephron segment affected by obstruction, mal nephron; (b) the net addition of sodium to the medullary collecting duct observed during postobstructive diuresis is probably a direct effect of obstruction, since it was found during postobstructive diuresis after relief of bilateral or unilateral ureteral ligation, but not with urine reinfusion alone; and (c) blood-borne factors are important in the development of postobstructive natriuresis and diuresis, and probably act by increasing the fraction of filtered sodium and water delivered from the proximal and distal tubule to the collecting duct. The results indicate that the marked diuresis-natriure-sis after relief of bilateral ureteral ligation is associated re- maining at the collection site. Linear regression and t test analyses were used for statistical evaluation of data.
Disability and Perceptions of Work and Management

Matched employee–employer data from the 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey are used to examine differences in work-related perceptions between disabled and non-disabled employees. Even after accounting for differences in personal, job and workplace characteristics, disabled employees are found to hold more negative views on the treatment of workers by managers and, consistent with this, they express less job satisfaction and commitment towards their organization. The influence of disability is also examined across workplaces defined by sector, the presence of disability-related policies and practices, and employee views of management to explore the role of corporate culture.
Symptoms associated with adverse dengue fever prognoses at the time of reporting in the 2015 dengue outbreak in Taiwan

Background Tainan experienced the most severe dengue epidemic in Taiwan in 2015. This study investigates the association between the signs and symptoms at the time of reporting with the adverse dengue prognoses. Methods A descriptive study was conducted using secondary data from the Dengue Disease Reporting System in Tainan, Taiwan, between January 1 and December 31, 2015. A multivariate stepwise logistic regression was used to identify the risk factors for the adverse prognoses: ICU admissions and mortality. Results There were 22,777 laboratory-confirmed reported cases (mean age 45.6 ± 21.2 years), of which 3.7% were admitted to intensive care units (ICU), and 0.8% were fatal. The most common symptoms were fever (92.8%), myalgia (26.6%), and headache (22.4%). The prevalence of respiratory distress, altered consciousness, shock, bleeding, and thrombocytopenia increased with age. The multivariate analysis indicated that being in 65–89 years old age group [Adjusted Odds Ratio (aOR):4.95], or the 90 years old and above age group (aOR: 9.06), and presenting with shock (aOR: 8.90) and respiratory distress (aOR: 5.31) were significantly associated with the risk of ICU admission. While old age (aOR: 1.11), respiratory distress (aOR: 9.66), altered consciousness (aOR: 7.06), and thrombocytopenia (aOR: 2.55) were significantly associated with the risk of mortality. Conclusions Dengue patients older than 65 and those with severe and non-specific signs and symptoms at the time of reporting were at a higher risk of ICU admission and mortality. First-line healthcare providers need to be aware of the varied presentations between the different age groups to allow early diagnosis and in-time management, which would prevent ICU admissions and fatalities in dengue patients.
MiR-34a affects hepatocyte proliferation during hepatocyte regeneration through regulating Notch/HIF-1α signaling pathway.

OBJECTIVE To explore the influences of micro ribonucleic acid (miR)-34a on liver function and hepatocyte proliferation during hepatocyte regeneration in rats and its mechanism. MATERIALS AND METHODS A total of 80 Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into 4 groups: Sham-2 d group (2 days after hepatectomy), Sham-10 d group (10 days after hepatectomy), miR-34a siRNA-2d group (miR-34a knockdown + 2 days after hepatectomy) and miR-34a siRNA-10 d group (miR-34a knockdown + 10 days after hepatectomy), with 20 rats in each group. Serum levels of alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) were detected at 2 d and 10 d after the operation. The rat liver was harvested for calculating the liver/body weight ratio. In addition, the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) content in rat hepatocytes was detected via Feulgen staining. The pathological changes in rat liver were detected via hematoxylin-eosin (H&E) staining. Moreover, the hepatocyte apoptosis in each group was detected via terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP nick end labeling (TUNEL) staining. Expression levels of proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA), Notch1 intracellular domain (NICD), and hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α) in liver tissues of each group were detected via immunohistochemistry and Western blotting. RESULTS No significant differences in the liver/body weight ratio, serum levels of ALT, AST, LDH, pathological structure of the liver, hepatocyte apoptosis level, and PCNA expression in hepatocytes were found between miR-34a siRNA-2 d group and Sham-2 d group. However, the expression levels of NICD and HIF-1α in the liver significantly increased in miR-34a siRNA-2 d group compared with those in Sham-2 d group (p<0.05). On the contrary, compared with those in Sham-10 d group, the liver function and hepatocyte regeneration level significantly increased in miR-34a siRNA-10 d group. Increased liver/body weight ratio, remarkable decline in serum levels of ALT, AST, and LDH, significant alleviation of pathological injury of liver tissues, decreased the apoptosis level and upregulated PCNA protein were observed in miR-34a siRNA-10 d group than those of Sham-10 d group. The Notch/HIF-1α signaling pathway was also significantly activated. CONCLUSIONS MiR-34a knockdown can significantly enhance the liver function and hepatocyte regeneration ability in rats at 10 d after hepatectomy through activating the Notch/HIF-1α signaling pathway.
Large Scale Experiments of Multihop Networks in Mobile Scenarios

This paper presents the latest advances in our research work focused on VIRMANEL and SILUMOD, a couple of tools developed for research in wireless mobile multihop networks. SILUMOD is a domain specific language dedicated to the definition of mobility models. This language contains keywords and special operators that make it easy to define a mobility model and calculate the positions of a trajectory. These positions are sent to VIRMANEL, a tool that manages virtual machines corresponding to mobile nodes, emulates their movements and the resulting connections and disconnections, and displays the network evolution to the user, thanks to its graphical user interface. The virtualization approach we take here allows to run real code and to test real protocol implementations without deploying an important experimental platform. For the experimentation of a large number of virtual mobile nodes, we defined and implemented a new algorithm for the nearest neighbor search to find the nodes that are within communication range. We then carried out a considerable measurement campaign in order to evaluate the performance of this algorithm. The results show that even with an experiment using a large number of mobile nodes, our algorithm make it possible to evaluate the state of connectivity between mobile nodes within a reasonable time and number of operations.
1 Supplementary Information : Low loss Plasmon-assisted electro-optic modulator

Supplementary Information: Low loss Plasmon-assisted electro-optic modulator Christian Haffner, Daniel Chelladurai, Yuriy Fedoryshyn, Arne Josten, Benedikt Baeuerle, Wolfgang Heni, Tatsuhiko Watanabe, Tong Cui, Bojun Cheng, Soham Saha, Delwin L. Elder, Larry. R. Dalton, Alexandra Boltasseva, Vladimir Shalaev, Nathaniel Kinsey, and Juerg Leuthold ETH Zurich, Institute of Electromagnetic Fields (IEF), 8092 Zurich, Switzerland University of Washington, Department of Chemistry, Seattle, WA 98195-1700, USA Purdue University, School of Electrical & Computer Engineering and Brick Nanotechnology Center, West Lafayette, WIN 47909, USA Virginia Commonwealth University, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Richmond, VA 23284, USA
C-Reactive Protein as an Independent Cardiovascular Risk Predictor in HIV+ Patients: A Focused Review of Published Studies

Patients infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV+) are living longer and at heightened risk for developing cardiovascular events (CVEs). Commonly used prediction tools appear to misrepresent their CVE risk to varying degrees and in varying directions. Inclusion of markers of cellular infection, chronic immune activation and/or systemic inflammation into risk models might provide better predictive accuracy. Observational studies assessing the relationship of high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) to CVE in HIV+ patients have reported inconsistent findings. This review of published studies attempted to determine if the available evidence supports its potential use in new models for stable, treated HIV+ patients. We searched the PubMed database using keywords and combinations of “HIV” AND “cardiovascular risk” AND “CRP”. Papers presenting original analyses, associating hs-CRP concentration as an independent variable to hard cardiovascular outcomes (myocardial infarction and cardiovascular death), or to hard CVE as part of a composite endpoint, were included. Five observational studies met inclusion/exclusion criteria for review. Three papers identified an association between elevated hs-CRP and CVE, while two others failed to find any significant association. All reports were heterogeneous in terms of independent variables, controls, and designs. The larger and more rigorous studies, employing higher rates of confounder controls and more objective endpoints in their composites, showed positive associations. Though not conclusive, the preponderance of the evidence at this time supports CRP as a potentially valuable factor to be studied in prospective cardiovascular risk prediction investigations in HIV+ patients.
Talking about autism—thoughts for researchers

At the 2019 strategic planning meeting the International Society for Autism Research (INSAR) board discussed the question of appropriate language to be used when speaking or writing about autism or affected individuals. Board members articulated a wide range of views on this subject, making clear that there is no single simple answer. This commentary was inspired by that discussion. It is by John Elder Robison who is both an INSAR board member and an individual diagnosed with autism. Autism Res 2019, 12: 1004–1006. © 2019 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
NCC-Net: Normalized Cross Correlation Based Deep Matcher with Robustness to Illumination Variations

The task of matching image patches is a fundamental problem in computer vision. When sufficiently textured patches are normalized up to similarity transformation, a simple Normalized Cross Correlation (NCC) of corresponding patches will give a high value. In practice, using it on patches per se may not perform well due to the noisy variations of pixel intensities. A more prudent approach will be to apply it to the abstract features extracted by a deep convolutional network. We study the applicability of an NCC based convolutional network for the task of Patch Matching. Further, there may be cases where the network may fail due to insufficient textures. In those cases, a simple pixel difference based method will be beneficial. To this end, we propose to improve the two basic architectures, Siamese networks and Central-Surround stream networks, using robust matching layers for learning the similarities of patches, assisted by a simple cross-entropy loss function. We empirically verify the performance of the proposed models on the challenging UBC Patches dataset and show that they are close to the state-of-the-art. Further, we evaluate their resilience to large illumination changes in two experimental scenarios: 1) by manually varying the patches of UBC Patches by an affine model 2) by using the publicly available Webcam dataset. We demonstrate that our models are indeed very resilient to illumination variations; they reduce the false positive rate to nearly 10%, and improve over the popular methods by nearly 5%. Further, we demonstrate the generalisability of the proposed NCC based matching layer by applying it to Face Recognition and show that it improves the performances of well known networks on a real-world, surveillance dataset.
An Improvement of Speech Synthesis in Acoustic Simulation Model of Cochlear Implants with CIS Strategy

A cochlear implant is a new device to be implanted in the inner ear and restore partial hearing to profoundly deaf people. This article first presents the acoustic simulation principle based on CIS speech processing strategy, and then proposes an improved speech synthesis model of this acoustic simulation. Finally, on the basis of acoustic simulation experiments' results on normally hearing listeners, we get a close speech recognition to the result of implants patients, and suggest that our improvement be effective on evaluating cochlea processing strategies
Patients' depression treatment preferences and initiation, adherence, and outcome: a randomized primary care study.

OBJECTIVE The authors examined the association of treatment preferences with treatment initiation, adherence, and clinical outcome among nonsenior adult and senior primary care patients with depression. METHODS Sixty primary care participants meeting DSM-IV criteria for major depression were randomly assigned to receive treatment congruent or incongruent with their primary stated preference. Participants received either 20 weeks of escitalopram, with monitoring by a care manager, or 12 weekly sessions of interpersonal psychotherapy followed by two monthly booster sessions. Adherence to treatment and depression severity were reassessed at weeks 4, 8, 12, and 24. RESULTS Participants expressed stronger preferences for psychotherapy than for antidepressant medication. Preference strength was a more sensitive measure of outcome than was congruence versus incongruence of preference with the assigned treatment. Across age groups, preference strength was significantly associated with treatment initiation and 12-week adherence rate but not with depression severity or remission. CONCLUSIONS A continuous measure of preference strength may be a more useful measure in clinical practice than preferences per se. Future research should focus on whether and how greater facilitation of the treatment decision-making process between patient and clinician influences clinical outcome.
Design of high-efficiency millimeter-wave microstrip antennas for silicon RFIC applications

This paper presents the design information for a W-band high-efficiency, electromagnetically-coupled on-chip silicon microstrip antenna. The antenna is composed of a quartz substrate placed on top of a commercial low-resistivity SiGe BiCMOS silicon chip. Design criteria for the microstrip antenna taking into account the dielectric and metal-density rules for the different layers of the BiCMOS silicon chip are presented. The antenna results in a measured S11 bandwidth of 91.5–98.5 GHz, a measured gain of 0.7–3.9 dB and a radiation efficiency of 48 +/−8% at 91–100 GHz. The design is scalable to N×M elements and to wafer-scale arrays. The application areas are in wafer-scale phased arrays, on-chip low-power sensors, communication systems, and mm-wave collision avoidance radars. To our knowledge, this is the highest gain and efficiency silicon on-chip antenna at mm-wave frequencies.
Diffusion of Calcium Chloride in a Modified Bentonite: Impact on Osmotic Efficiency and Hydraulic Conductivity

Chemically modified bentonites are being developed with the aim of preserving low hydraulic conductivity in the presence of potentially aggressive permeants in pollutant-containment applications. ‘Multiswellable’ bentonite (MSB) has been obtained by treating standard sodium bentonite with propylene carbonate. Research on the engineering properties of MSB has focused mainly on permeability and chemical compatibility. Solute diffusion and membrane behavior in MSB have not yet been investigated. A combined chemico-osmotic/diffusion test was performed on a MSB specimen using a 5 mM CaCl2 solution. Permeability with distilled water and with the 5 mM CaCl2 solution was measured prior to and after the chemico-osmotic/diffusion tests. The material exhibited time-dependent membrane behavior with a peak osmotic efficiency value (ω) of 0.172 that gradually shifted to zero upon breakthrough of calcium ions. Effective diffusion coefficients of calcium and chloride ions were in the range commonly described for untreated bentonite at similar porosities. After the chemico-osmotic/diffusion stage and permeation with 5 mM CaCl2, the hydraulic conductivity of MSB increased from 1.1 × 10−11 m/s to 7.0 × 10−11 m/s. The MSB was apparently converted into a calcium-exchanged bentonite at the end of the test. Prehydration and subsequent permeation might have contributed to elution of the organic additive from the clay. Further investigation is recommended to clarify the effect of prehydration on the hydraulic performance of MSB in the presence of potentially aggressive permeants.
Proteome-wide Analysis of Lysine Acetylation Suggests its Broad Regulatory Scope in Saccharomyces cerevisiae*

Post-translational modification of proteins by lysine acetylation plays important regulatory roles in living cells. The budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a widely used unicellular eukaryotic model organism in biomedical research. S. cerevisiae contains several evolutionary conserved lysine acetyltransferases and deacetylases. However, only a few dozen acetylation sites in S. cerevisiae are known, presenting a major obstacle for further understanding the regulatory roles of acetylation in this organism. Here we use high resolution mass spectrometry to identify about 4000 lysine acetylation sites in S. cerevisiae. Acetylated proteins are implicated in the regulation of diverse cytoplasmic and nuclear processes including chromatin organization, mitochondrial metabolism, and protein synthesis. Bioinformatic analysis of yeast acetylation sites shows that acetylated lysines are significantly more conserved compared with nonacetylated lysines. A large fraction of the conserved acetylation sites are present on proteins involved in cellular metabolism, protein synthesis, and protein folding. Furthermore, quantification of the Rpd3-regulated acetylation sites identified several previously known, as well as new putative substrates of this deacetylase. Rpd3 deficiency increased acetylation of the SAGA (Spt-Ada-Gcn5-Acetyltransferase) complex subunit Sgf73 on K33. This acetylation site is located within a critical regulatory domain in Sgf73 that interacts with Ubp8 and is involved in the activation of the Ubp8-containing histone H2B deubiquitylase complex. Our data provides the first global survey of acetylation in budding yeast, and suggests a wide-ranging regulatory scope of this modification. The provided dataset may serve as an important resource for the functional analysis of lysine acetylation in eukaryotes.
Ordol: Obfuscation-Resilient Detection of Libraries in Android Applications

Android apps often include libraries supporting certain features, or allowing rapid app development. Due to Android's system design, libraries are not easily distinguishable from the app's core code. But detecting libraries in apps is needed especially in app analysis, e.g., to determine if functionality is executed in the app, or in the code of the library.Previous approaches detected libraries in ways which are susceptible to code obfuscation. For some approaches, even simple obfuscation will cause unrecognised libraries.Our approach - Ordol - builds upon approaches from plagiarism detection to detect a specific library version inside an app in an obfuscation-resilient manner. We show that Ordol can cope well with obfuscated code and can be easily applied to real life apps.
Estonian labor market institutions within a general equilibrium framework

The implications of the Estonian labor market policy reforms, such as changes to the minimum wage, social benefits and tax allowance, will be analysed using a simple applied general equilibrium model. The model used in the paper is from Bovenberg et al (2000), with the addition of an efficiency wage section based on Shapiro and Stiglitz (1984). The model integrates union bargaining and efficiency wage theory into a traditional CGE model framework.
Incidence of Metabolic Syndrome in Young Japanese Adults in a 6-Year Cohort Study: The Uguisudani Preventive Health Large-Scale Cohort Study (UPHLS)

Introduction To clarify the incidences of metabolic syndrome (MS) and risks in young Japanese adults by gender. Methods A total of 58,901 adults who had undergone annual health check-ups in 2010 without a diagnosis of MS or missing data were divided into three age groups (20s through 40s) by gender. Participants were followed up for 6 years for new-onset MS according to Japanese criteria. The incidences of MS and risks were analyzed using the Cox proportional hazards model to adjust for confounding factors. Results The incidences of MS per 1,000 person-years were 2.2, 5.5, and 10.2 for women aged in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, respectively, and 26.3, 40.5, and 57.4 in the respective men groups. Compared with the group aged in their 40s, the hazard ratios of new MS were 0.19 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.13–0.29) for women in their 20s and 0.50 (95% CI, 0.41–0.61) for women in their 30s, and 0.46 (95% CI, 0.42–0.50) and 0.70 (95% CI, 0.66–0.73) for men in their 20s and 30s, respectively, after adjustment for lifestyle factors. For women, MS was associated with smoking in their 20s and 30s, and eating speed in their 30s, and for men, was associated with physical activity, eating speed, alcohol intake in their 20s and 30s, and smoking in their 30s. Conclusion Our findings suggest that the incidences of MS in the 20s and 30s are lower, but account for about 20–50% of women with MS and 50–70% of men with MS in their 40s. However, the data are not negligible and early lifestyle intervention for MS is necessary in young adults.