Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Increased Risk of Fatal Infections in Women Starting Peritoneal Dialysis

♦ Background and Objectives: Although cardiovascular disease (CVD) is an important cause of morbidity and mortality in patients with end-stage renal disease, non-CVD causes account for more than 50% of total deaths. We previously showed that, compared with men, women starting dialysis— both hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis (PD)—have higher non-CVD mortality rates. Here, we evaluate sex-specific outcomes in a large cohort of incident PD patients. ♦ Methods: Incident de novo PD patients from the Andalusian SICATA Registry for 1999 - 2010, with follow-up until 31 December 2010 or up to 5 years, were investigated for fatal outcomes. Causes of death were extracted from medical records. The analysis used traditional and competing-risk Cox models for all-cause and cause-specific mortality in men and women, correcting in the competing-risk models for the events of kidney transplantation and transfer to hemodialysis. ♦ Results: A total of 1458 patients (57% men; mean overall age: 55.3 ± 17.0 years) initiated PD in Andalusia during the study period. During follow-up, 350 deaths, 355 renal transplantation procedures, and 331 transfers to hemodialysis were recorded. Vascular disease and diabetic nephropathy were the most frequent causes of kidney failure in men; other causes were more common in women. In the traditional Cox model, both sexes showed a similar all-cause mortality risk [crude hazard ratio (HR): 0.90; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.72 to 1.12]. However, with respect to specific causes of death, women showed a borderline lower risk of both CVD (crude HR: 0.71; 95% CI: 0.50 to 0.99) and non-CVD mortality from other than infection (crude HR: 0.81; 95% CI: 0.57 to 1.15). In contrast, the risk of death from infection was almost doubled in women compared with men (crude HR: 1.92; 95% CI: 1.15 to 3.20), a finding that held true after multivariate adjustment for age, primary renal disease, period of inclusion, and initial PD modality (adjusted HR: 1.76; 95% CI: 1.03 to 3.01). This result was confirmed even taking into consideration the competing events of kidney transplantation and transfer to hemodialysis. ♦ Conclusions: Compared with men starting PD, women starting PD are at higher risk of mortality from infection. More stringent screening measures and corrective efforts in women might be indicated.
The Properties of Terrestrial Laser System Intensity for Measuring Leaf Geometries: A Case Study with Conference Pear Trees (Pyrus Communis)

Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology can be a valuable tool for describing and quantifying vegetation structure. However, because of their size, extraction of leaf geometries remains complicated. In this study, the intensity data produced by the Terrestrial Laser System (TLS) FARO LS880 is corrected for the distance effect and its relationship with the angle of incidence between the laser beam and the surface of the leaf of a Conference Pear tree (Pyrus Commmunis) is established. The results demonstrate that with only intensity, this relationship has a potential for determining the angle of incidence with the leaves surface with a precision of ±5° for an angle of incidence smaller than 60°, whereas it is more variable for an angle of incidence larger than 60°. It appears that TLS beam footprint, leaf curvatures and leaf wrinkles have an impact on the relationship between intensity and angle of incidence, though, this analysis shows that the intensity of scanned leaves has a potential to eliminate ghost points and to improve their meshing.
Supernovae Types Ia/II and intracluster medium enrichment

We re-examine the respective roles played by supernovae (SNe) Types Ia and II in enriching the intracluster medium (ICM) of galaxy clusters, in light of the recent downward shift of the ASCA abundance ratios of �-elements to iron favoured by Ishimaru & Arimoto (1997, PASJ, 49, 1). Because of this shift, Ishimaru & Arimoto conclude that � 50% of the ICM iron must have originated from within Type Ia SNe progenitors. A point not appreciated in their study, nor in most previous analyses, is the crucial dependence of such a conclusion upon the adopted massive star physics. Employing several alternative Type II SN yield compilations, we demonstrate how uncertainties in the treatment of convection and mass-loss can radically alter our perception of the relative importance of Type Ia and II SNe as ICM polluters. If mass-loss of the form favoured by Maeder (1992, A&A, 264, 105) or convection of the form favoured by Arnett (1996, Supernovae and Nucleosynthesis) is assumed, the effect upon the oxygen yields would lead us to conclude that Type Ia SNe play no part in polluting the ICM, in contradiction with Ishimaru & Arimoto. Apparent dichotomies still exist (e.g., the mean ICM neon-to-iron ratio implies a � 100% Type II Fe origin, while the mean sulphur ratio indicates a � 100% Type Ia origin) that cannot be reconciled with the currently available yield tables.
Calvarial Suture-Derived Stem Cells and Their Contribution to Cranial Bone Repair

In addition to the natural turnover during life, the bones in the skeleton possess the ability to self-repair in response to injury or disease-related bone loss. Based on studies of bone defect models, both processes are largely supported by resident stem cells. In the long bones, the source of skeletal stem cells has been widely investigated over the years, where the major stem cell population is thought to reside in the perivascular niche of the bone marrow. In contrast, we have very limited knowledge about the stem cells contributing to the repair of calvarial bones. In fact, until recently, the presence of specific stem cells in adult craniofacial bones was uncertain. These flat bones are mainly formed via intramembranous rather than endochondral ossification and thus contain minimal bone marrow space. It has been previously proposed that the overlying periosteum and underlying dura mater provide osteoprogenitors for calvarial bone repair. Nonetheless, recent studies have identified a major stem cell population within the suture mesenchyme with multiple differentiation abilities and intrinsic reparative potential. Here we provide an updated review of calvarial stem cells and potential mechanisms of regulation in the context of skull injury repair.
Synthesis of combinational circuits with special fault-handling capabilities

In this paper we present a new approach to the design of circuits with special properties with regards to internal faults, such as self-checking and fault-tolerant circuits. The approach is based on introducing a minimal amount of redundancy during a multilevel logic optimization process. In this process, we take advantage of the degrees of freedom associated with internal don't care conditions, in order to minimize the amount of redundancy needed to achieve the desired fault-handling capabilities. Experimental results on several benchmark circuits are presented. They compare very favourably with traditional implementations based on topological augmentation rules.
VARIATION AND THE USE OF DISTANCE METRICS ON THE ARTICULATORY

This paper describes ongoing research on the relation between variation in speech in the articulatory-acoustic domain and the variation as represented in the symbolic domain. More specifically, we address variation in speech as represented by articulatory features, and the description of variation in phone annotation and segmentation. Variation in speech is quantified by using distance metrics defined on the space spanned by articulatory features. We will show a very good correspondence between locations of events in the articulatory feature trajectories on the one hand, and the phone boundary locations as defined by manual segmentation on the other. This indicates that the asynchronous articulatory representation at least captures the information in the segmentation on phone level. The proposed technique can be used for designing alternative representations of the speech signal to describe phonetic-linguistic phenomena, including intrinsic variation, and for automatic annotation and segmentation procedures.
Immunological considerations for developing antibody therapeutics for Influenza A

Influenza infection can give rise to serious illness leading to complications and hospitalization of patients. The efficacy of current standard of care is very limited and provides little relief for patients hospitalized with serious flu. Human monoclonal antibodies (mAb) against influenza are being developed as new treatment options for this patient population. When developing antibody therapeutics, it is important to consider all possible immunologic effects of the antibodies on viral infection and disease progression including those other than the postulated therapeutic mechanisms. An area of concern is the potential of antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE) of illness. ADE of viral infections has been extensively described for Dengue virus (DENV) but not for influenza. Recently, preliminary results from clinical viral challenge studies of anti-HA-stalk mAbs suggested the possibility of enhanced viral shedding, raising concerns for ADE when utilizing mAbs as therapeutic intervention for influenza although viral shedding was not enhanced in the clinical viral challenge of anti-M2 mAb TCN-032. We herein discuss the known mechanisms of ADE and their relevance to developing mAbs such as anti-HA and anti-M2 for influenza disease.
Japanese Encephalitis Virus Core Protein Inhibits Stress Granule Formation through an Interaction with Caprin-1 and Facilitates Viral Propagation

ABSTRACT Stress granules (SGs) are cytoplasmic foci composed of stalled translation preinitiation complexes induced by environmental stress stimuli, including viral infection. Since viral propagation completely depends on the host translational machinery, many viruses have evolved to circumvent the induction of SGs or co-opt SG components. In this study, we found that expression of Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) core protein inhibits SG formation. Caprin-1 was identified as a binding partner of the core protein by an affinity capture mass spectrometry analysis. Alanine scanning mutagenesis revealed that Lys97 and Arg98 in the α-helix of the JEV core protein play a crucial role in the interaction with Caprin-1. In cells infected with a mutant JEV in which Lys97 and Arg98 were replaced with alanines in the core protein, the inhibition of SG formation was abrogated, and viral propagation was impaired. Furthermore, the mutant JEV exhibited attenuated virulence in mice. These results suggest that the JEV core protein circumvents translational shutoff by inhibiting SG formation through an interaction with Caprin-1 and facilitates viral propagation in vitro and in vivo.
CART Peptides Regulate Psychostimulants and May be Endogenous Antidepressants

CART peptides are endogenous neurotransmitters that are involved in a variety of physiologic functions. Injection of CART 55-102 into the nucleus accumbens produces no effect, but when co-administered with cocaine, it reduces the locomotor and rewarding properties of cocaine. In a human study, subjects carrying a missense mutation of the CART gene exhibited increased anxiety and depression. Also, several animal studies support the idea that CART is involved in anxiety and depression, and they also suggest several possible mechanisms by which this may occur. Thus, there is interesting evidence that CART peptides play a role in anxiety and depression, and that CART peptides may be endogenous antidepressants.
Motion planning and control of ladder climbing on DRC-Hubo for DARPA Robotics Challenge

This video presents our preliminary work towards addressing the ladder climbing event in DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC) using DRC-Hubo robot. A ladder-climbing motion planner is developed which generates a collision-free, stable quasi-static trajectory for execution. Compliance control is enabled on arm joints to compensate for the calibration error, modeling error and control error. We have demonstrated that DRC-Hubo can robustly climb a variety of ladders in simulation and successfully climb a ship ladder on the hardware.
Ultrathin and easy-processing photonic crystal absorbing layers to enhance light absorption efficiency of solar cells

We report the design and optimization of photonic crystal (PhC) structures within a GaAs or InAs absorption layer in thin film solar cells. In the PhC structure, hexagonal cylinder hole scatterers with the same upper and lower surfaces are used, and the cases of air and silica filled within these hexagonal hole scatterers are discussed, respectively. We designed and optimized the PhC absorption layer structures with four different conditions: the bulk materials comprising the absorption layer are either GaAs or InAs, and the hexagonal hole PhC scatterers are filled with either air or silica. The simulation results indicate that the absorptivity of the absorption layer can be greatly improved by using a PhC structure within the absorption layer. For height H = 0.20 µm, the maximum absorptivity of the GaAs absorption layer is 79.51%, while the maximum absorptivity of the InAs absorption layer is 96.57%. In addition, the absorptivity of the PhC structured absorption layer is less affected by the light incident angle, as the absorptivity of the structure is above 65% even when the light incident angle is 70°. Meanwhile, the porous PhC structure within the absorption layer is ideal for the filling of quantum dots, which has little effect on the absorptivity of light but can greatly improve the photoelectric conversion efficiency.We report the design and optimization of photonic crystal (PhC) structures within a GaAs or InAs absorption layer in thin film solar cells. In the PhC structure, hexagonal cylinder hole scatterers with the same upper and lower surfaces are used, and the cases of air and silica filled within these hexagonal hole scatterers are discussed, respectively. We designed and optimized the PhC absorption layer structures with four different conditions: the bulk materials comprising the absorption layer are either GaAs or InAs, and the hexagonal hole PhC scatterers are filled with either air or silica. The simulation results indicate that the absorptivity of the absorption layer can be greatly improved by using a PhC structure within the absorption layer. For height H = 0.20 µm, the maximum absorptivity of the GaAs absorption layer is 79.51%, while the maximum absorptivity of the InAs absorption layer is 96.57%. In addition, the absorptivity of the PhC structured absorption layer is less affected by the light incide.
Brugada Phenocopy: New Terminology and Proposed Classification

Brugada syndrome is a channelopathy characterized on ECG by coved ST‐segment elevation (≥2 mm) in the right precordial leads and is associated with an increased risk of malignant ventricular arrhythmias. The term Brugada phenocopy is proposed to describe conditions that induce Brugada‐like ECG manifestations in patients without true Brugada syndrome. An extensive review of the literature identified case reports that were classified according to their suspected etiological mechanism. Future directions to learn more about these intriguing cases is discussed.
Changes in Electroencephalography Complexity using a Brain Computer Interface-Motor Observation Training in Chronic Stroke Patients: A Fuzzy Approximate Entropy Analysis

Entropy-based algorithms have been suggested as robust estimators of electroencephalography (EEG) predictability or regularity. This study aimed to examine possible disturbances in EEG complexity as a means to elucidate the pathophysiological mechanisms in chronic stroke, before and after a brain computer interface (BCI)-motor observation intervention. Eleven chronic stroke subjects and nine unimpaired subjects were recruited to examine the differences in their EEG complexity. The BCI-motor observation intervention was designed to promote functional recovery of the hand in stroke subjects. Fuzzy approximate entropy (fApEn), a novel entropy-based algorithm designed to evaluate complexity in physiological systems, was applied to assess the EEG signals acquired from unimpaired subjects and stroke subjects, both before and after training. The results showed that stroke subjects had significantly lower EEG fApEn than unimpaired subjects (p < 0.05) in the motor cortex area of the brain (C3, C4, FC3, FC4, CP3, and CP4) in both hemispheres before training. After training, motor function of the paretic upper limb, assessed by the Fugl-Meyer Assessment-Upper Limb (FMA-UL), Action Research Arm Test (ARAT), and Wolf Motor Function Test (WMFT) improved significantly (p < 0.05). Furthermore, the EEG fApEn in stroke subjects increased considerably in the central area of the contralesional hemisphere after training (p < 0.05). A significant correlation was noted between clinical scales (FMA-UL, ARAT, and WMFT) and EEG fApEn in C3/C4 in the contralesional hemisphere (p < 0.05). This finding suggests that the increase in EEG fApEn could be an estimator of the variance in upper limb motor function improvement. In summary, fApEn can be used to identify abnormal EEG complexity in chronic stroke, when used with BCI-motor observation training. Moreover, these findings based on the fApEn of EEG signals also expand the existing interpretation of training-induced functional improvement in stroke subjects. The entropy-based analysis might serve as a novel approach to understanding the abnormal cortical dynamics of stroke and the neurological changes induced by rehabilitation training.
Control of CA3 Output by Feedforward Inhibition Despite Developmental Changes in the Excitation–Inhibition Balance

In somatosensory cortex, the relative balance of excitation and inhibition determines how effectively feedforward inhibition enforces the temporal fidelity of action potentials. Within the CA3 region of the hippocampus, glutamatergic mossy fiber (MF) synapses onto CA3 pyramidal cells (PCs) provide strong monosynaptic excitation that exhibit prominent facilitation during repetitive activity. We demonstrate in the juvenile CA3 that MF-driven polysynaptic IPSCs facilitate to maintain a fixed EPSC-IPSC ratio during short-term plasticity. In contrast, in young adult mice this MF-driven polysynaptic inhibitory input can facilitate or depress in response to short trains of activity. Transgenic mice lacking the feedback inhibitory loop continue to exhibit both facilitating and depressing polysynaptic IPSCs, indicating that this robust inhibition is not caused by the secondary engagement of feedback inhibition. Surprisingly, eliminating MF-driven inhibition onto CA3 pyramidal cells by blockade of GABAA receptors did not lead to a loss of temporal precision of the first action potential observed after a stimulus but triggered in many cases a long excitatory plateau potential capable of triggering repetitive action potential firing. These observations indicate that, unlike other regions of the brain, the temporal precision of single MF-driven action potentials is dictated primarily by the kinetics of MF EPSPs, not feedforward inhibition. Instead, feedforward inhibition provides a robust regulation of CA3 PC excitability across development to prevent excessive depolarization by the monosynaptic EPSP and multiple action potential firings.
Weaned piglets prefer feed with hydroxychloride trace minerals to feed with sulfate minerals

Abstract The aim of this study was to determine whether newly weaned piglets had a preference for diets containing hydroxychloride trace minerals (HTM). To test this, two preference tests were set up. In Exp. 1, the piglets could choose between HTM or inorganic, originating from sulfate trace minerals (STM) in the form of sulfates. Two treatments were applied with high Cu levels (160 ppm Cu added) or low Cu levels (15 ppm Cu added). All diets contained 110 ppm added Zn from the same source as Cu in the respective diet. The pigs could choose between a diet with hydroxychloride Cu and Zn or with Cu and Zn originating from sulfates at the same mineral levels. The piglets were included in the study from weaning until 34 d after weaning. In Exp. 2, the piglets could also choose between HTM and STM. However, automated feeding stations were used to collect individual feed intake data. Similarly two treatments were applied, one with high Cu levels (160 ppm added Cu) and one with slightly lower Cu levels (140 ppm added Cu until 28 d after weaning, thereafter 15 ppm added Cu). All diets contained 110 ppm added Zn from the same source as Cu in the respective diet. The piglets were followed until 35 d after weaning. The current studies showed that when piglets were given a choice, they preferred diets with HTM. This effect resulted only in a significant (P < 0.05) preference for HTM at high dietary Cu levels (160 ppm) ranging from 76% to 81% in the first and second week of Exp. 1 to between 53.4% and 57.8% in the overall experiment period of Exp. 2. This preference was less pronounced at levels of 140 ppm added or less. Individual feed intake and gain measurements did not show any link between the preference and the performance.
Two-Dimensional Evidence Reliability Amplification Process Model for Digital Forensics

Being related to law and state-of-the-art technology, digital forensics needs more discipline than traditional forensics. The variety of types of crimes, distribution of networks and complexity of information and communication technology, add to the complexity of the process of digital investigations. A rigorous and flexible process model is needed to overcome challenges and obstacles in this area. In this paper we propose a digital forensics process, called "two-dimensional evidence reliability amplification process model", which presents a detailed digital forensic process model in five main phases and different roles to perform it. At the same time, this iterative process addresses four essential tasks as the umbrella activities that are applicable across all phases and sub-phases. We have also developed a hypothetical solution based on intersection of events and exploit mathematical operations and symbols for making an algorithm to increase the reliability of evidence. This process model is detailed enough to describe the investigation process so that it could possibly provide a guideline that investigators can take advantage of it during a forensics investigation process.