Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Delayed Arteriogenesis in Hypercholesterolemic Mice

Background— Hypercholesterolemia has been reported to inhibit ischemia-induced angiogenesis. To address its effects on arteriogenesis, we investigated arterial growth in hypercholesterolemic low-density lipoprotein receptor−/−/ApoB-48−/− (HCE) mice. Methods and Results— The extent and the time course of arteriogenesis after femoral artery ligation was evaluated in HCE and strain-matched control mice. Distal limb perfusion was measured by laser Doppler imaging, whereas MRI was used to visualize arterial flow and micro-computed tomography to assess vascular growth. After femoral artery ligation, serial laser Doppler imaging demonstrated significantly delayed restoration of perfusion in untreated HCE compared with control mice (day 3, 0.09 versus 0.19, P<0.05). Treatment with Ad-PR39 in control mice led to a significant restoration of arterial blood flow and tissue perfusion at day 3, whereas in HCE mice, hindlimb perfusion began increasing only by day 7. Micro-CT analysis confirmed increased growth of smaller arterioles (16 to 63 &mgr;m in diameter) in the Ad-PR39–treated control compared with HCE mice. The delay in arteriogenesis in HCE mice correlated with delayed tissue appearance of F4/80+ cells. Analysis of gene expression after Ad-PR39 treatment demonstrated that HCE mice had significantly reduced expression of FGF receptor 1, hypoxia-inducible factor-1α, vascular cell adhesion molecule-1, macrophage scavenger receptor-1, and cyclophilin A compared with controls 3 days after arterial ligation that equalized by day 7, mimicking relative changes in arteriogenesis and tissue perfusion. Conclusions— Hypercholesterolemia results in delayed native arteriogenesis because of reduced early monocyte/macrophage influx and delayed and impaired arterial growth response to growth factor therapy.
Competition, Market Coverage, and Quality Choice in Interconnected Platforms

We study duopoly competition between two interconnected Internet Service Providers (ISP) that compete in quality and prices for both Content Providers (CP) and consumers. We develop a game theoretic model using a two-sided market framework, where ISP’s are modeled as interconnected platforms with quality bottlenecks; a consumer on a low quality network accessing content on a high quality platform experiences low quality. Platforms first pick quality levels and in the subsequent stages compete in prices for both CP’s and consumers. CP’s are heterogenous in content quality which is uniformly distributed between [γ − 1, γ]. We first establish the existence of a price subgame perfect equilibrium (SPE) given any asymmetric pair of platform quality choices. We show that the higher the asymmetry the more likely the CP market is to be uncovered if the average content quality (represented by γ) is low. In contrast, if γ is high then the market is always covered. We then show that a SPE for the whole game exists and characterize all the equilibrium choices of the quality game. In particular, we show that the equilibria involve either maximal differentiation or partial differentiation depending on γ. Moreover, we characterize the resulting market configurations in the final stage and show that they depend on the content quality characteristic, γ, and the asymmetry between platforms represented by the ratio of the qualities, I.
Hybrid quantum computation in quantum optics

We propose a hybrid quantum computing scheme where qubit degrees of freedom for computation are combined with quantum continuous variables for communication. In particular, universal two-qubit gates can be implemented deterministically through qubit-qubit communication, mediated by a continuous-variable bus mode (“qubus”), without direct interaction between the qubits and without any measurement of the qubus. The key ingredients are controlled rotations of the qubus and unconditional qubus displacements. The controlled rotations are realizable through typical atom-light interactions in quantum optics. For such interactions, our scheme is universal and works in any regime, including the limits of weak and strong nonlinearities.
Explosion‐seismic tomography of a magmatic body beneath Etna: Volatile discharge and tectonic control of volcanism

To constrain the upper depth range of lateral heterogeneities beneath Mt Etna, a seismic tomography method with artificial sources is designed to undershoot the target and restrict the depth of seismic propagation by reflection at the top of the basement. A strong high velocity anomaly thus imaged southeast of the summit, interpreted as a magmatic body, is reliably constrained to reach at least as shallow as 2 km depth where exsolution of SO2 from magma may occur. The high gas output rate of Etna [Allard, 1997] hence appears as the normal complement of the huge magma body seismically imaged. This magma body is located beneath the volcanic edifice rather than within, which attests to the control of volcanism by extension. These volatile output and internal structure distinguish Mt Etna volcanism among current types and may relate to the peculiar context of a recent regional change from subduction‐related compression to extension.
On Capacity of the Writing Onto Fast Fading Dirt Channel

The Writing onto Fast Fading Dirt (WFFD) channel is investigated to study the effect of partial channel knowledge on the performance of interference pre-cancellation. The WFFD channel is the Gel’fand-Pinsker channel in which the channel output is the sum of the channel input, white Gaussian noise, and a fading-times-state term. The fading-times-state term is obtained as the product of the channel state sequence, known only at the transmitter, and a fast fading process, known only at the receiver. We consider the case of Gaussian-distributed channel states and derive an approximate characterization of capacity for different classes of fading distributions, both continuous and discrete. In particular, we prove that if the fading distribution concentrates in a sufficiently small interval, then capacity is approximately equal to the AWGN capacity times the probability of such interval. We also show that there exists a class of fading distributions for which having the transmitter treat the fading-times-state term as additional noise closely approaches capacity.
An OPC UA Sleepy Proxy Mechanism for Wireless Field Devices

As a data exchange specification for industrial communication, OPC Unified Architecture (OPC UA) solves the access uniformity and standardization problem of data communication between the plant floor and the enterprise, and meets the needs of enterprise information in a high degree of connectivity. OPC UA protocol can be extending to the low-layer of the industrial wireless network systems, and then the industrial Internet of Things (IoT) can be seamlessly integrated with the Internet, as well as the information integration between the field devices and the background management systems. However, considering the sensitivity of the wireless field devices for power consumption and the OPC UA protocol does not support the sleep proxy function, an OPC UA sleep proxy mechanism is designed. The proposed OPC UA sleep proxy mechanism can meet the sleep needs of wireless field devices, which prolongs the network lifetime and solves the data acquisition problem of sleepy devices.
The supplementation effects of peanut sprout on reduction of abdominal fat and health indices in overweight and obese women

BACKGROUD/OBJECTIVES This study was conducted in order to investigate the effect of peanut sprout extracts (PSE) on health indices in overweight and obese women (BMI ≥ 23 kg/m2). SUBJECTS/METHODS Subjects were divided into three groups by double-blind randomized trial; the Placebo group (n = 15) and the Low PSE group (2.6 g PSE/day, n = 15), and the High PSE group (5.8 g PSE/day, n = 15). Subjects consumed 12 capsules per day, three times a day, 30 min before meals, for 4 weeks. Anthropometric data, blood biochemical variables, and dietary intake were evaluated before and after the experiments. RESULTS In the Low and High PSE group, the waist circumference showed a significant decrease between pre- and post-test. In the Low PSE group, the reduction of systolic blood pressure between pre- and post-test was statistically significant. Serum LDL or triglyceride levels in both Low and High PSE groups were significantly decreased, and serum alanine transaminase and aspartate transaminase were significantly decreased only in the Low PSE group. The parameters regarding erythrocyte and leucocyte counts showed no significant differences between pre- and post-test among groups, which suggested the safety of intake of peanut sprouts as a dietary supplement. CONCLUSIONS This study indicates that PSE supplementation improves abdominal obesity and overall health indices. Therefore, an appropriate amount of peanut sprouts may be a plausible effective agent for obesity and obesity related health problems in obese women.
Electrophysiologic and Functional Evaluations of Regenerated Facial Nerve Defects with a Tube Containing Dental Pulp Cells in Rats

Background: Dental pulp tissue contains Schwann and neural progenitor cells. Tissue-engineered nerve conduits with dental pulp cells promote facial nerve regeneration in rats. However, no nerve functional or electrophysiologic evaluations were performed. This study investigated the compound muscle action potential recordings and facial functional analysis of dental pulp cell regenerated nerve in rats. Methods: A silicone tube containing rat dental pulp cells in type I collagen gel was transplanted into a 7-mm gap of the buccal branch of the facial nerve in Lewis rats; the same defect was created in the marginal mandibular branch, which was ligatured. Compound muscle action potential recordings of vibrissal muscles and facial functional analysis with facial palsy score of the nerve were performed. Results: Tubulation with dental pulp cells showed significantly lower facial palsy scores than the autograft group between 3 and 10 weeks postoperatively. However, the dental pulp cell facial palsy scores showed no significant difference from those of autograft after 11 weeks. Amplitude and duration of compound muscle action potentials in the dental pulp cell group showed no significant difference from those of the intact and autograft groups, and there was no significant difference in the latency of compound muscle action potentials between the groups at 13 weeks postoperatively. However, the latency in the dental pulp cell group was prolonged more than that of the intact group. Conclusion: Tubulation with dental pulp cells could recover facial nerve defects functionally and electrophysiologically, and the recovery became comparable to that of nerve autografting in rats.
Effects of noisy feedback on the performance of HARQ schemes over multipath block fading channels for DS-SSS

In this paper, we study the performance of ARQ, HARQ I and HARQ II with code combining in the presence of feedback errors over multipath block fading channels. The performance of HARQ schemes in the presence of coded feedback is also investigated. In addition, it is shown that the derived analytical results are in excellent agreement with those obtained by computer simulations
Targeting Oxidative Stress for Treatment of Glaucoma and Optic Neuritis

Glaucoma is a neurodegenerative disease of the eye and it is one of the leading causes of blindness. Glaucoma is characterized by progressive degeneration of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) and their axons, namely, the optic nerve, usually associated with elevated intraocular pressure (IOP). Current glaucoma therapies target reduction of IOP, but since RGC death is the cause of irreversible vision loss, neuroprotection may be an effective strategy for glaucoma treatment. One of the risk factors for glaucoma is increased oxidative stress, and drugs with antioxidative properties including valproic acid and spermidine, as well as inhibition of apoptosis signal-regulating kinase 1, an enzyme that is involved in oxidative stress, have been reported to prevent glaucomatous retinal degeneration in mouse models of glaucoma. Optic neuritis is a demyelinating inflammation of the optic nerve that presents with visual impairment and it is commonly associated with multiple sclerosis, a chronic demyelinating disease of the central nervous system. Although steroids are commonly used for treatment of optic neuritis, reduction of oxidative stress by approaches such as gene therapy is effective in ameliorating optic nerve demyelination in preclinical studies. In this review, we discuss oxidative stress as a therapeutic target for glaucoma and optic neuritis.
Are medical students influenced by preceptors in making career choices, and if so how? A systematic review.

INTRODUCTION Increasingly medical students undertake clinical training in distributed learning environments. The driving factor for this is predominantly to address medical workforce shortages. In these environments students are often taught by private practitioners, residents, house staff and registrars, as well as faculty. Through a mix of short- and long-term preceptorships, clerkships and rotations, medical students are exposed to a wider range of preceptors, mentors and role models than has traditionally been the case. The aim of this systematic review was to understand if and how medical students' career choices are influenced by their interactions with preceptors. METHOD A search of Ovid Medline, Scopus, ISI Web of Science, PubMed, Eric and CIHNAL was undertaken. The search was structured around the key terms: Medical Student, Career Choice and Preceptor, and variants of these terms. Search limits were set to English-language publications between 1995 and 2010. RESULTS A total of 36 articles met the selection criteria from the 533 citations sourced from the search. Required preceptorships as short as 3 weeks' duration influence the career choice of students when they rate the preceptor as a high quality teacher. Preceptors who are judged (by students) as high quality teachers have the greatest influence on student career choice by up to four-fold. When students judged a preceptor as being a negative role model, a poor teacher or lacking discipline specific knowledge they will turn away from that field. The positive influence of relationships between preceptors and students on career choice is strongest where there is continuity of preceptors, continuity of care, and continuity of patient interactions. The longer the duration of the preceptorship the greater the influence on student career choice, particularly in primary cares environments. CONCLUSION This review adds to the literature by identifying how differing components and combinations of components of a preceptorship influence medical student career choices. Multiple components of the preceptorship combined have a greater influence. In free choice, longitudinal integrated clerkships' duration of placement and continuity relationships with preceptors have the greatest influence on medical students in pursuing a primary care career. This information informs medical schools, curriculum designers and policy-makers in reforming medical education to address workforce shortages.
A model for long‐term climatic effects of impacts

[1] We simulated climatic changes following the impacts of asteroids of different sizes on the present surface of Earth. These changes are assumed to be due to the variations of the radiation energy budget as determined by the amount of dust globally distributed in the atmosphere following the impact. A dust evolution model is used to determine the dust particle size spectra as a function of time and atmospheric altitude. We simulate radiation transfer through the dust layer using a multiple scattering calculation scheme and couple the radiative fluxes to an ocean circulation model in order to determine climatic changes and deviations over 2000 years following the impact. Resulting drops in sea surface temperatures are of the order of several degrees at the equator and decrease toward the poles, which is deduced from the increasing importance of infrared insulation of the dust cover at high latitudes. While gravitational settling reduces the atmospheric amount of dust significantly within 6 months, temperature changes remain present for roughly 1 year irrespective of impactor size. Below 1000 m ocean depth, these changes are small, and we do not observe significant modifications in the structure of the ocean circulation pattern. For bodies smaller than 3 km in diameter, climatic effects increase with impactor size. Beyond this threshold, there is enough dust in the atmosphere to block almost completely solar radiation; thus additional dust does not enhance climatic deviations anymore. In fact, owing to interaction in the infrared, we even observe smaller effects by going from a 5 km impactor to larger diameters.
On the Capacity of p2p Multipoint Video Conference

In this paper, The structure of video conference is formulated and the peer-assisted distribution scheme is constructed to achieve optimal video delivery rate in each sub-conference. The capacity of conference is proposed to referee the video rate that can be supported in every possible scenario. We have proved that, in case of one user watching only one video, 5/6 is a lower bound of the capacity which is much larger than 1/2, the achievable rate of chained approach in [2]. Almost all proofs in this paper are constructive. They can be applied into real implementation directly with a few modifications. Keywords-video conference
Development of a distributed agricultural drought prediction model based on TOPMODEL and GIS

Drought disasters occur frequently in eastern China and are typical in China and even in the world. Severe droughts seriously affect the agricultural production, social and economic development, ecology and human life. In this paper, a new agricultural drought prediction model was developed based on GIS technology and TOPMODEL, which is a physically based watershed hydrological model that simulates the variable-source-area concept of stream-flow generation and has been widely used to study a variety of research areas. In this study, the original TOPMODEL was extended to be a distributed hydrological model. The watershed is divided into a number of regular grids, corresponding to the grids of DEM, and each grid is viewed as a sub-basin. So the surface runoff production was calculated at each grid. The runoff at each grid is routed along the stream flow direction to the main watershed outlet respectively at different velocity depending on the slop of this grid and watershed-average routing velocity. The soil moisture is predicted using the new distributed hydrological model. Finally, drought prediction is conducted by combining the predicted soil moisture and drought indices. The new model was tested in Linyi watershed, Shandong province, China. The results show that the model performs well in agricultural drought prediction.
Free Riding in Peer-to-Peer Networks

Free riding in peer-to-peer (P2P) networks poses a serious threat to their proper operation. Here, the authors present a variety of approaches developed to overcome this problem. They introduce several unique aspects of P2P networks and discuss free riding's effects on P2P services. They categorize proposed solutions and describe each category's important features and implementation issues together with some sample solutions. They also discuss open issues, including common attacks and security considerations.
Integrating changes of register into automatic intonation analysis

While current tools for the automatic analysis and modeling of intonation are satisfactory for laboratory or isola ted sentences, they appear insufficient for the study of longer st retches of authentic speech, which are in general marked by sy stematic changes of register. This study shows that implemen ting automatically detected register changes significant ly improves the accuracy of the automatic coding of intonation patterns with the INTSINT algorithm. This implies, upstream, to define a reliable measurement of register and a way to det ect i s changes automatically.
Percepção parental do ambiente de residência e obesidade infantil no Distrito de Coimbra

Obesity is one of the most important health problems in many developed countries. Besides individual factors, neighbourhoods in which people live can influence their behaviour, and health, providing (or not) environmental opportunities to living healthy lives. The aim of this study was to analyse whether parent’s perceptions of local neighbourhood attributes were associated with overweight and obesity among 1885 children aged 3-10 years old living in Coimbra. Data was collected between March to July 2009. Height and weight were measured and IOTF cutoffs to define overweight and obesity were used. Environmental features were assessed through questionnaire (IPS). A Categorical Principal Component Analysis was performed, allowing the extraction of two neighbourhood dimensions which were subsequently used as independent variables in a multinomial logistic regression: one related with physical environment; other related with social environment. Significant associations with parent’s neighbourhood perceptions were found for girls, after adjustment for sex, age and socioeconomic level. These have implications for health and social policy. Enhancing the community’s physical and social environment, e.g., by providing and maintaining safe places for walking and cycling (through supportive infrastructures, social organization and social control) may provide effective ways to shape childrens weight and their current and future health, specially the girls, the most vulnerable group considering weigh gain.
On the Linear Behaviour of the Throughput of IEEE 802.11 DCF in Non-Saturated Conditions

We propose a linear model of the throughput of the IEEE 802.11 distributed coordination function (DCF) protocol at the data link layer in non-saturated traffic conditions. We show that the throughput is a linear function of the packet arrival rate (PAR) lambda with a slope depending on both the number of contending stations and the average payload length. We also derive the interval of validity of the proposed model by showing the presence of a critical lambda, above which the station begins operating in saturated traffic conditions. The analysis is based on the multi-dimensional Markovian state transition model proposed by Liaw et al. with the aim of describing the behaviour of the MAC layer in unsaturated traffic conditions. Simulation results closely match the theoretical derivations, confirming the effectiveness of the proposed linear model.