Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
[Effect of beta-adrenergic agonist on alveolar fluid clearance in acute lung injury: an experiment with rats].

OBJECTIVE To determine the effect of dobutamine, a beta-adrenergic agonist, on the alveolar fluid clearance (AFC) in acute lung injury (ALI). METHODS Thirty two male Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into four equal groups: normal control group; ALI group, infused with endotoxin to induce ALI; dobutamine control group, receiving sustained intravenous injection of dobutamine at the dose of 5 microg/kg/min, and dobutamine treatment group, receiving sustained intravenous injection of dobutamine at the dose of 5 microg/kg/min after the administration of endotoxin. Experiment began 45-60 minutes after the circulation was stable. Blood pressure was measured and blood gas analysis was conducted at the beginning of the experiment and one hour later. Perfusion fluid with (125)I-albumin with the radioactivity of 1.5 microCi/ml was perfused into the lung. One hour after the mechanical ventilation the mice were killed and their lungs were taken out. Alveolar fluid was taken out to calculate the AFC by single nuclide tracer technique. RT-PCR was used to detect the expression of alpha, beta, and gamma-rat epithelial sodium channel (rENaC) mRNA. RESULTS (1) The AFC of ALI group was 14.0 +/- 1.2%, significantly lower than that of the normal control group (21.0 +/- 3.9%, P < 0.05). (2) The AFC of the dobutamine control group was 26.6 +/- 1.6%, significantly higher than that of the normal control group (P < 0.05). and the AFC of the dobutamine treatment group was 20.0 +/- 3.9%, significantly higher than that of the ALI group (P < 0.05). (3) The expression of a-rENaC mRNA was 1.40 +/- 0.40 in the ALI group and was 1.38 +/- 0.13 in the dobutamine treatment group, both significantly higher than those in the dobutamine control group (1.01 +/- 0.14) and in the normal control group (0.44 +/- 0.11, all P < 0.05). The expression of beta-rENaC mRNA was 0.70 +/- 0.8 in the ALI group was 0.71 +/- 0.17 in the dobutamine treatment group, both significantly higher than those in the dobutamine control group (0.58 +/- 0.12) and in the normal control group (0.44 +/- 0.11, all P < 0.05). There were not significant differences in expression of alpha and beta-rENaC mRNA between the normal control group and dobutamine control group, and between the ALI group and dobutamine treatment group (both P > 0.05). (4) The gamma-rENaC mRNA expression was 0.90 +/- 0.19 in the dobutamine control group and was 0.97 +/- 0.15 in the dobutamine treatment group, both significantly higher than that in the normal control group (0.69 +/- 0.10) and in the ALI group (0.70 +/- 0.32) (all P < 0.05). CONCLUSION Able to upregulate the gamma-rENaC expression and improve the AFC in acute lung injury, beta-adrenergic agonist may be beneficial to reduce lung edema in ALI patients.
An Iterative Image Registration Technique Using a Scale-Space Model

Registration between two images is a key problem in computer vision. Current methods tend to separate the scale estimation process from translation and rotation estimation. This is due to the fact that the scale parameter is inherently related to the image resolution. In this paper, we present an area-based image registration technique that can simultaneously estimate translation, rotation, and scale parameters and take into account differences in resolution between two images. We first develop a scale-space model that relates the entire reference image pixels to a single observed image pixel with a scale parameter. This model is then easily generalized to include x-y translation and rotation parameters. By embedding this scale-space model into a non-linear least squares method, we can iteratively estimate the four registration parameters (x-y shift, rotation, and scale) in a unied manner. We test the validity of the proposed method on both simulated and real image data.
Understanding complex systems through examples: A framework for qualitative example finding

Many complex information systems in science, business and design have the characteristic that we can classify objects in the system in some way, but that these classifications are distributed through a parameter space in some complex fashion. In order for a human to get an understanding of the system, we would like to present this user with one example of an object for each class. Examples of such problems can be found in information retrieval, bioinformatics, computational geometry, computer-aided design, software testing and cellular automata. In this paper we will show how problems in all these areas can be put into a general framework of finding qualitative examples, and argue that general heuristic approaches to this type of problem are an important and neglected area of machine learning. We contrast this with some other well-studied problems, showing how this problem is distinct and investigating what we can learn from these problems. We then discuss some of the requirements for a heuristic to solve these problems, and mention some recent work on this using genetic algorithms.
Natural Evolution of Seroma in Abdominoplasty

Background: Abdominoplasty is one of the most performed aesthetic surgical procedures, and seroma is a common local complication. The aim of this study was to investigate the beginning of seroma formation after abdominoplasty and its progression. Methods: Twenty-one female patients underwent standard abdominoplasty. To investigate seroma formation, abdominal ultrasound was performed in five regions of the abdominal wall (i.e., epigastric, umbilical, hypogastric, right iliac fossa, and left iliac fossa regions) at five different time points: postoperative days 4, 11, 18, 25, and 32. Results: The incidence of seroma was 4.8 percent on postoperative day 4, 38.1 percent on postoperative day 11, 33.3 percent on postoperative day 18, 23.8 percent on postoperative day 25, and 19 percent on postoperative day 32. The left iliac fossa region had the highest relative volume of fluid collection on postoperative day 4, as did both the right iliac fossa and left iliac fossa regions on postoperative day 11. At other time points, the relative volume of fluid collection was significantly higher in the right iliac fossa region. Conclusion: The highest incidence of seroma occurred on postoperative day 11, and the iliac fossae were the most common locations of seroma. CLINICAL QUESTION/LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Therapeutic, IV.
J3-crystallin of the jellyfish lens: Similarity to saposins

J3-crystallin, one of the three major eye-lens proteins of the cubomedusan jellyfish (Tripedalia cystophora), shows similarity to vertebrate saposins, which are multifunctional proteins that bridge lysosomal hydrolases to lipids and activate enzyme activity. Sequence alignment of deduced J3-crystallin indicates two saposin-like motifs arranged in tandem, each containing six cysteines characteristic of this protein family. The J3-crystallin cDNA encodes a putative precursor analogous to vertebrate prosaposins. The J3-crystallin gene has seven exons, with exons 2–4 encoding the protein. Exon 3 encodes a circularly permutated saposin motif, called a swaposin, found in plant aspartic proteases. J3-crystallin RNA was found in the cubomedusan lens, statocyst, in bands radiating from the pigmented region of the ocellus, in the tentacle tip by in situ hybridization, and in the embryo and larva by reverse transcription–PCR. Our data suggest a crystallin role for the multifunctional saposin protein family in the jellyfish lens. This finding extends the gene sharing evolutionary strategy for lens crystallins to the cnidarians and indicates that the putative primordial saposin/swaposin J3-crystallin reflects both the chaperone and enzyme connections of the vertebrate crystallins.
Basic rationale, current methods and future directions for molecular typing of human enterovirus

Enterovirus is a genus of the Picornaviridae family including more than 80 serotypes belonging to four species designed Human enterovirus A to D. The antigens of the structural proteins support the subdivision of enteroviruses into multiple serotypes. Comparative phylogeny based on molecular typing methods has been of great help to classify former and new types of enterovirus, and to investigate the diversity of enteroviruses and the evolutionary mechanisms involved in their diversity. By now, molecular typing methods of enterovirus rely mainly on the sequencing of an amplicon targeting a variable part of the region coding for the capsid proteins (VP1 and, alternatively, VP2 or VP4), either from a strain recovered by cell culture or, more recently, by direct amplification of a clinical or environmental specimen. In the future, microarrays are thought to play a major role in enterovirus typing and in the analysis of the determinants of virulence that support the puzzling diversity of the pathological conditions associated with human infection by these viruses.
Use and usefulness of guidelines for sickness certification: results from a national survey of all general practitioners in Sweden

Objectives Diagnoses-specific sickness certification guidelines were recently introduced in Sweden. The aim of this study was to investigate to which extent general practitioners (GPs) used these guidelines and how useful they found them, 1 year after introduction. Design A cross-sectional questionnaire study. A comprehensive questionnaire about sickness certification practices in 2008 was sent to all physicians living and working in Sweden (n=36 898, response rate 60.6%). In all, 19.7% (n=4394) of the responders worked as GPs. Setting Primary healthcare in all Sweden. Participants The participating GPs who had consultations concerning sickness certification at least a few times a year (n=4278, 97%). Main outcome measures Descriptive statistics and prevalence ratios for the 11 questionnaire items about the use and usefulness of the sickness certification guidelines. Results A majority (76.2%) of the GPs reported that they used the guidelines. In addition, 65.4% and 43.5% of those GPs reported that the guidelines had facilitated their contacts with patients and social insurance officers, respectively. The guidelines also helped nearly one-third (31.5%) of the GPs to develop their competence and improve the quality of their management of sickness certification consultations (33.5%). About half experienced some problems when using the guidelines and 43.7% wanted better competence in using them. A larger proportion of non-specialists and of GPs with fewer sickness certification consultations had benefitted from the guidelines. Conclusions The national sickness certification guidelines implemented in Sweden were widely used by GPs already a year after introduction. Also, the GPs consider the guidelines useful in several respects, for example, in patient contacts and for competence development.
RAID0.5: Active Data Replication for Low Cost Disk Array Data Protection

RAID has long been established as an effective way to provide highly reliable as well as high-performance disk subsystems. However, reliability in RAID systems comes at the cost of extra disks. In this paper, we describe a mechanism that we have termed RAID0.5 that enables striped disks with very high data reliability but low disk cost. We take advantage of the fact that most disk systems use backup systems for disaster recovery. With the use of these backup systems, the disk system needs to only replicate data since the last backup, thus drastically reducing the storage space requirement. Though RAID0.5 has the same data loss characteristics of traditional mirroring, the lower storage space comes at the cost of lower availability. Thus, RAID0.5 is a tradeoff between lower disk cost and lower availability while still preserving very high data reliability. We present analytical reliability models and experimental results that demonstrate the enhanced reliability and performance of the proposed RAID0.5 system.
Moving target detection using super‐resolution algorithms with an ultra wideband radar

We present subspace based detection algorithms for detecting moving targets applied to the data collected by an ultra wideband radar system. Combining the results of time reversal MUSIC algorithm and delay estimation MUSIC methods resulted in successful localization of targets. We have investigated methods to resolve the ambiguities in target detection and we performed experiments using two targets to test the effectiveness of the algorithms. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Imaging Syst Technol, 20, 237–244, 2010
Role of Regulatory T Cells in Pathogenesis and Biological Therapy of Multiple Sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an inflammatory disease in which the myelin sheaths around the axons of the brain and spinal cord are damaged, leading to demyelination and scarring as well as a broad spectrum of signs and symptoms. It is caused by an autoimmune response to self-antigens in a genetically susceptible individual induced by unknown environmental factors. Principal cells of the immune system that drive the immunopathological processes are T cells, especially of TH1 and TH17 subsets. However, in recent years, it was disclosed that regulatory T cells took part in, too. Subsequently, there was endeavour to develop ways how to re-establish their physiological functions. In this review, we describe known mechanisms of action, efficacy, and side-effects of contemporary and emerging MS immunotherapeutical agents on Treg cells and other cells of the immune system involved in the immunopathogenesis of the disease. Furthermore, we discuss how laboratory immunology can offer physicians its help in the diagnosis process and decisions what kind of biological therapy should be used.
The Epidemiology of Helicobacter pylori and Public Health Implications

This article presents a review of the literature on the epidemiology and public health implications of Helicobacter pylori infection published from April 2008 through to March 2009. The authors used MeSH terms “Helicobacter infections epidemiology,”“Helicobacter infections prevention and control” to search multiple databases (PubMed, Embase, Cochrane, Cochrane Library, EBMR, BIOSIS), and independently searched PubMed using the term “Helicobacter” with “Epidemiology,”“Transmission,”“Prevalence” or “Environment. ” Articles without topical relevance were excluded. Two additional papers known to the authors were added. The identified literature is summarized by subtopic: reviews; prevalence; incidence; transmission; risk factors; and public health policy.
Probabilistic edge detection in 3D optical microscopy images of tissue samples

Inspired by a state of the art 2D algorithm for edge detection in natural images, in this work we report the development of an accurate 3D probabilistic edge detector for fluorescence optical microscopy images of tissue samples. The method utilizes multi-orientation and multi-scale brightness, textural and spectral properties of the data to compute a probabilistic edge map. To demonstrate the strengths and accuracy of the proposed algorithm, comparisons of the edge maps produced by our algorithm and several other popular edge detectors on simulated and real 3D microscopic volumes are provided.
Longitudinal gray matter changes in multiple sclerosis—Differential scanner and overall disease‐related effects

Voxel‐based morphometry (VBM) has been used repeatedly in single‐center studies to investigate regional gray matter (GM) atrophy in multiple sclerosis (MS). In multi‐center trials, across‐scanner variations might interfere with the detection of disease‐specific structural abnormalities, thereby potentially limiting the use of VBM. Here we evaluated longitudinally inter‐site differences and inter‐site comparability of regional GM in MS using VBM. Baseline and follow up 3D T1‐weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data of 248 relapsing‐remitting (RR) MS patients, recruited in two clinical centers, (center1/2: n = 129/119; mean age 42.6 ± 10.7/43.3 ± 9.3; male:female 33:96/44:75; median disease duration 150 [72–222]/116 [60–156]) were acquired on two different 1.5T MR scanners. GM volume changes between baseline and year 2 while controlling for age, gender, disease duration, and global GM volume were analyzed. The main effect of time on regional GM volume was larger in data of center two as compared to center one in most of the brain regions. Differential effects of GM volume reductions occured in a number of GM regions of both hemispheres, in particular in the fronto‐temporal and limbic cortex (cluster P corrected <0.05). Overall disease‐related effects were found bilaterally in the cerebellum, uncus, inferior orbital gyrus, paracentral lobule, precuneus, inferior parietal lobule, and medial frontal gyrus (cluster P corrected <0.05). The differential effects were smaller as compared to the overall effects in these regions. These results suggest that the effects of different scanners on longitudinal GM volume differences were rather small and thus allow pooling of MR data and subsequent combined image analysis. Hum Brain Mapp, 2011. © 2011 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Craft labour and creative industries

This article examines the role and status of craft labour in the creative industries. While it tends to be overlooked, craft labour is an integral part of what is ostensibly an artist‐led and ‘creative’ work process. The article highlights the necessity of craft in the creative industry ‘workshop’, and the relative autonomy enjoyed by its practitioners. However, while craft labour is depicted as vital, it is also subordinate to artistic labour, and amenable to reform through rational management and refinement of the division of labour – thus a series of likely threats to future craft production are outlined. The article concludes by appealing for further scrutiny of the conditions of craft labour in creative work, not only to reveal its particular and specific qualities, but to extend the somewhat limited scope of contemporary analyses of cultural and creative industry labour and politics.
Nitric oxide synthase in neurons and nerve fibers of lower airways and in vagal sensory ganglia of man. Correlation with neuropeptides.

The mediator accounting for the major relaxant responses to electrical field stimulation of human airways was previously identified as nitric oxide (NO). In the present study, we examined the distribution of the neuronal isoform of the NO-generating enzyme, nitric oxide synthase (bNOS, type I NOS) in nerve fibers of the human airways (trachea, large and small bronchi, bronchioli) as well as in human intrinsic and sensory ganglia of airway innervation by means of quantitative histochemistry (NADPH-diaphorase technique) and immunohistochemistry. Correlation with substance P (SP) and vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) was performed by double-labeling immunohistochemistry. NOS-containing nerve fibers were found to be present in the airway smooth muscle, around submucosal glands, around blood vessels and, very rarely, in the lamina propria. The innervation density of airway smooth muscle by NOS-containing nerve fibers decreased significantly from trachea to large-diameter bronchi to small-diameter bronchi, whereas NOS-containing nerve fibers were completely absent from bronchioli. Colocalization of NOS with VIP but not with SP was frequent in these nerve fibers. In airway intrinsic ganglia, the number of NOS-containing neuronal cell bodies increased from 57% in the trachea up to 83% in small bronchi. Around these perikarya, many nerve fibers displaying VIP-immunoreactive (VIP-IR) or SP-IR were found. In the superior vagal sensory (i.e., jugular) ganglion most of the neuronal cell bodies contained either NOS-IR or SP-IR; a colocalization of both was not as frequent. These data contribute to the understanding of the morphologic basis underlying the functional differences of the neural relaxant responses mediated by NO at different levels of the airway tree.
Emotional cascades and self-injury: investigating instability of rumination and negative emotion.

OBJECTIVE Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) is a public health concern and risk factor for suicide. The Emotional Cascade Model (ECM) proposes that NSSI partially functions as a distraction from cascades of negative affect and rumination. The purpose of this study was to examine the roles of trait rumination, and momentary instability of rumination and negative emotion, in NSSI. METHOD Experience sampling methods were used to monitor thoughts, emotions, and behaviors in 47 individuals reporting dysregulated behaviors including NSSI. Instability indices were generated for rumination and negative emotion using the momentary assessments. RESULTS Twenty-five episodes of NSSI were reported during monitoring. Trait rumination prospectively predicted NSSI episodes, and the instability indices interacted to predict NSSI. CONCLUSIONS Consistent with the ECM, the interaction between rumination instability and negative affect instability during monitoring significantly predicted NSSI, with the strongest effects occurring for sadness and rumination about past. These findings may enhance conceptualization and treatment of patients with NSSI.
Mineral Specific Biofilm Formation of “Acidibacillus ferrooxidans” Huett2

Recently, a novel acidophilic heterotrophic iron oxidizing bacterium belonging to the newly described genus Acidibacillus (formerly Alicyclobacillus) was isolated from a water drainage ditch in Freiberg, Germany. Bioleaching tests showed that Acidibacillus ferrooxidans Huett2 contributes to the dissolution of minerals. As microbe-mineral interactions play a crucial role in nature and enhance the reaction kinetics of the mineral dissolution, attachment of Ab. ferrooxidans Huett2 on the sulfide minerals pyrite (FeS2), chalcopyrite (CuFeS2), and chalcocite (Cu2S) is in the focus of our current investigations.
Prismatic Algorithm for Discrete D.C. Programming Problem

In this paper, we propose the first exact algorithm for minimizing the difference of two submodular functions (D.S.), i.e., the discrete version of the D.C. programming problem. The developed algorithm is a branch-and-bound-based algorithm which responds to the structure of this problem through the relationship between submodularity and convexity. The D.S. programming problem covers a broad range of applications in machine learning. In fact, this generalizes any set-function optimization. We empirically investigate the performance of our algorithm, and illustrate the difference between exact and approximate solutions respectively obtained by the proposed and existing algorithms in feature selection and discriminative structure learning.