Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Falsely elevated troponin I attributed to collection tubes using the Vitros ECiQ system

Cardio-specific troponins (i.e., cTnI and cTnT) have become the mainstay for diagnosing and monitoring myocardial damage (1, 2). However, false-positive results for cTnI have been reported, primarily caused by interferents, such as heterophilic antibodies, rheumatoid factor, macrocomplexes, hemolysis and fibrin (3–5). Recently, falsely elevated cTnI attributed to inadequate centrifugation have been reported (6). We have observed another potential source of false positive results attributed to collection tubes. Our study was performed in the Laboratory Medicine Center, Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University, and the ethical approval was obtained from the Research Ethical Committee, College of Medicine, Nantong University. Our objective was to assess whether serum/plasma samples were adequate for the assay of cTnI using the Vitros ECiQ Immunodiagnostic system (Ortho Clinical Diagnostics, Inc., USA). Blood samples were obtained from 86 apparently healthy volunteers and collected in separator gel clot activator tubes (cat no. 230811, lots L090315, KeHua, Shanghai, China), lithium heparin tubes (cat no. 230517, lots 090102, KeHua) and lithium heparin with gel separator tubes (cat no. 230911, lots 090408, KeHua). The blood collection tubes were inverted eight times to ensure thorough mixing. All samples were centrifugated at 2000 g for 10 min and analyzed using the Vitros ECiQ system with the manufacturer’s reagents. The cTnI concentration ranges were 0.000–2.257 mg/L (separator gel clot activator tube), 0.000–0.031 mg/L (lithium heparin tube) and
Feature article: Control theoretic approach to gyro-free inertial navigation systems

In general, an inertial navigation system (INS) consists of a navigation computer and an inertial measurement unit (IMU). Given initial conditions and IMU measurements, the INS provides the position, velocity, and orientation of its carrying platform. The inertial sensors, namely, the accelerometers and gyroscopes (gyros), are part of the IMU. A classical IMU architecture has three accelerometers (to measure specific force) and three gyros (to measure angular velocity) arranged in orthogonal triads.
Tunable stochastic computing using layered synthesis and temperature adaptive voltage scaling

With increasing computing power in mobile devices, conserving battery power (or extending battery life) has become crucial. This together with the fact that most applications running on these mobile devices are increasingly error tolerant, has created immense interest in stochastic (or inexact) computing. In this paper, we present a framework wherein, the devices can operate at varying error tolerant modes while significantly reducing the power dissipated. Further, in very deep sub-micron technologies, temperature has a crucial role in both performance and power. The proposed framework presents a novel layered synthesis optimization coupled with temperature aware supply and body bias voltage scaling to operate the design at various “tunable” error tolerant modes. We implement the proposed technique on a H.264 decoder block in industrial 28nm low leakage technology node, and demonstrate reductions in total power varying from 30% to 45%, while changing the operating mode from exact computing to inaccurate/error-tolerant computing.
Evidence for Local Eosinophil Differentiation Within Allergic Nasal Mucosa: Inhibition with Soluble IL-5 Receptor1

Eosinophil differentiation occurs within the bone marrow in response to eosinopoietic cytokines, particularly IL-5. Recently, however, eosinophil precursors (CD34/IL-5Rα+ cells) and IL-5 mRNA+ cells have been identified within the lungs of asthmatics, indicating that a population of eosinophils may differentiate in situ. In this report, we examined the presence of eosinophil precursors within allergic nasal mucosa and examined whether they undergo local differentiation following ex vivo stimulation. We cultured human nasal mucosa obtained from individuals with seasonal allergic rhinitis with either specific allergen, recombinant human IL-5 (rhIL-5), or allergen + soluble IL-5Rα (sIL-5Rα), shown to antagonize IL-5 function. Simultaneous immunocytochemistry and in situ hybridization demonstrated that there were fewer cells coexpressing CD34 immunoreactivity and IL-5Rα mRNA following culture with allergen or rhIL-5, compared with medium alone. Immunostaining revealed that the number of major basic protein (MBP) immunoreactive cells (eosinophils) was higher within tissue stimulated with allergen or rhIL-5, compared with unstimulated tissue. In situ hybridization detected an increase in IL-5 mRNA+ cells in sections from tissue cultured with allergen, compared with medium alone. These effects were not observed in tissue cultured with a combination of allergen and sIL-5Rα. Colocalization analysis indicated this expression to be mainly, but not exclusively, T cell (44%) and eosinophil (10%) derived. Our findings suggest that a subset of eosinophils may differentiate locally within allergic nasal mucosa, in what appears to be a highly IL-5-dependent fashion, and imply that this process might be regulated in vivo by endogenous production of sIL-5Rα.
Liveness Detection for Fingerprint Biometrics

Biometrics refers to automated recognition of individuals based on their biological and behavioral characteristics. Biometric systems are widely used for security. They are used in forensic and commercial applications. Among all biometric techniques, fingerprint recognition is the most widely used for personal identification systems due to its permanence and uniqueness. But biometric systems are vulnerable to certain type of attacks. Spoofing refers to the fraudulent action by an unauthorized person into biometric systems using fake input that reproduces one of the authorized person’s biometric input. Liveness detection provides extra level of authentication to biometrics. It is used to prevent forgeries. The fingerprint Liveness detection is performed by measuring the following quality features of fingerprint. They are Spatial Coherence, Gabor Features, Ridge frequency. This approach is based on fingerprint image quality. This technique is software based as it requires no external hardware. This approach is inexpensive.
Morphine-Based Cardiac Anesthesia Provides Superior Early Recovery Compared with Fentanyl in Elective Cardiac Surgery Patients

BACKGROUND: Experimental and clinical data suggest that morphine possesses unique cardioprotective and antiinflammatory properties. In this clinical investigation, we sought to determine whether the choice of intraoperative opioid (morphine or fentanyl) influences early recovery after cardiac surgery. METHODS: Ninety patients undergoing cardiac surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass were randomized to receive either morphine (40 mg) or fentanyl (600 &mgr;g) as part of a standardized opioid-isoflurane anesthetic. Quality of recovery was assessed using the QoR-40 questionnaire administered preoperatively and daily on postoperative days 1-3. During the first three postoperative days, pain was measured using a 100-mm visual analog scale, and the use of IV and oral pain medications (morphine or acetaminophen/hydrocodone) was quantified. Hemodynamic variables, duration of tracheal intubation, postoperative febrile reactions, organ morbidities, and intensive care unit (ICU) and hospital length of stay were evaluated. RESULTS: Compared with patients given fentanyl, those receiving morphine had higher global QoR-40 scores on postoperative days 1 (173 vs 160, P < 0.0001), 2 (174 vs 164, P < 0.0001), and 3 (177 vs 167, P < 0.001). Differences between the groups were observed in the QoR-40 dimensions of emotional state, physical comfort, and pain (all P < 0.01-0.0001). Postoperative visual analog scale pain scores, use of pain medication in the ICU and surgical ward, and postoperative febrile reactions were reduced significantly in the morphine group (all P < 0.01). No differences between the groups were noted in duration of tracheal intubation, ICU and hospital length of stay, or postoperative complications. CONCLUSIONS: In patients undergoing elective cardiac surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass, postoperative quality-of-life measures and pain control during recovery were enhanced when morphine (40 mg) was administered intraoperatively as part of a balanced anesthetic technique compared with fentanyl.
A Shape System and Loop Invariant Inference

Pointer programs remain a major challenge for program analysis and verification. Shape analysis can discover the shape invariants of data structures in the heap and detect errors about manipulating pointers in a program. This paper presents a shape analysis for linked list programs based on a new shape graph representation. Our shape graphs could describe unbounded data structures without loss of pointer information. A novel shape system is designed to help the shape analysis. The shape system contains a set of shape inference rules to deduce the shapes of the heap contents at each program point and a set of shape checking rules to find shape errors in pointer programs. In the shape system, programmers are expected to declare the shapes of the data structures constructed by recursive data types and to annotate each pointer variable with the shape of the objects which it should point to, so that compilers or other tools can check whether the programs have shape errors and generate loop invariants and even pre/post conditions for program verification. Keywords-Shape Graph, Loop Invariant Inference, Shape Analysis, Program Analysis, Pointer Logic
Identification of a Gs Coupling Domain in the Amino Terminus of the Third Intracellular Loop of the α2A-Adrenergic Receptor

α2-Adrenergic receptors (α2AR) functionally couple not only to Gi but also to Gs. We investigated the amino-terminal portion of the third intracellular loop of the human α2AAR (α2C10) for potential Gs coupling domains using site-directed mutagenesis and recombinant expression in several different cell types. A deletion mutant and four chimeric receptors consisting of the α2AAR with the analogous sequence from the 5-HT1A receptor (a Gi-coupled receptor) and the β2AR (a Gs-coupled receptor) were expressed in Chinese hamster ovary cells, Chinese hamster fibroblasts, or COS-7 cells and examined for their ability to mediate stimulation or inhibition of membrane adenylyl cyclase activity or whole cell cAMP accumulation. In stably expressing Chinese hamster ovary cells, deletion of amino acids 221-231, which are in close proximity to the fifth transmembrane domain, eliminated α2C10-mediated stimulation of adenylyl cyclase activity, while α2C10-mediated inhibition was only moderately affected. This suggested that this region is important for Gs coupling, prompting construction of the chimeric receptor mutants. Substitution of amino acids 218-235 with 5-HT1A receptor sequence entirely ablated agonist-promoted Gs coupling, as compared with a 338 ± 29% stimulation of adenylyl cyclase activity observed with the wild-type α2C10. In contrast, Gi coupling for this mutant remained fully intact (57 ± 2% versus 52 ± 1% inhibition for wild-type α2C10). Similar substitution with β2AR sequence had no effect on Gi coupling but did reduce Gs coupling. Two additional mutated α2C10 containing smaller substitutions of the amino-terminal region with 5-HT1A receptor sequence at residues 218-228 or 229-235 were then studied. While Gi coupling remained intact with both mutants, Gs coupling was ablated in the former but not the latter mutant receptor. Similar results were obtained using transfected Chinese hamster fibroblasts (which exclusively display α2AR-Gi coupling) and COS-7 cells (which exclusively display α2AR-Gs coupling). Thus, a critical determinant for Gs coupling is contained within 11 amino acids(218-228) of the amino-terminal region of the third intracellular loop localized directly adjacent to the fifth transmembrane domain. Taken together, these studies demonstrate the presence of a discrete structural determinant for agonist-promoted α2AR-Gs coupling, which is distinct and separable from the structural requirements for α2AR-Gi coupling.
Boundary Layer Depth, Entrainment, and Decoupling in the Cloud-Capped Subtropical and Tropical Marine Boundary Layer

Abstract Estimates of marine boundary layer (MBL) depth and degree of decoupling for two regions of the subtropical and tropical east Pacific are presented using satellite observations from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Microwave Imager (TMI). These data are combined in a novel way with NCEP reanalysis data and a mixing line parameterization to estimate the mean entrainment rate we over the two regions. Mean entrainment rates vary geographically and have maxima just downwind of the Californian coast (we ≈ 4–5 mm s−1), and also in the core of the equatorial east Pacific cold tongue where mean we exceeds 6 mm s−1. Entrainment exceeds subsidence by 30% or less in the subtropical stratocumulus regions. North of the equatorial cold tongue entrainment greatly exceeds subsidence, producing a rapid deepening of the MBL as air flows over a marked SST gradient. Shallow MBLs (zi < 500–700 m) are found to be well mixed in general. The deco.
Amyloidosis of Alzheimer's Aβ peptides: solid‐state nuclear magnetic resonance, electron paramagnetic resonance, transmission electron microscopy, scanning transmission electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy studies

Aggregation cascade for Alzheimer's amyloid‐β peptides, its relevance to neurotoxicity in the course of Alzheimer's disease and experimental methods useful for these studies are discussed. Details of the solid‐phase peptide synthesis and sample preparation procedures for Alzheimer's β‐amyloid fibrils are given. Recent progress in obtaining structural constraints on Aβ‐fibrils from solid‐state NMR and scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) data is discussed. Polymorphism of amyloid fibrils and oligomers of the ‘Arctic’ mutant of Aβ(1–40) was studied by 1H,13C solid‐state NMR, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM), and a real‐time aggregation of different polymorphs of the peptide was observed with the aid of in situ AFM. Recent results on binding of Cu(II) ions and Al–citrate and Al–ATP complexes to amyloid fibrils, as studied by electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) and solid‐state 27Al NMR techniques, are also presented. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Influence of position of the context sensitive graphemes and word frequency effect on reading speed: a performance analysis of developmental dyslexics and fluent readers.

Several studies have reported how the presence of contextual letter-sound conversion rules influences both reading speed and accuracy and the effect of rule complexity holds for low frequency words only. We aimed to investigate the role of orthography complexity and, in particular, of context sensitive graphemes position and frequency of use on reading speed, analyzing the performance of developmental dyslexics and fluent readers. With regard to speed (reading speed of word lists), context sensitive graphemes position had an effect only for dyslexic children, who showed the worst performance if the context sensitive graphemes were in first position, regardless of word frequency. On the other hand, we found a frequency effect (in particular worst performance in the case of low frequency words) for both groups.
Generation of architectural documentation using XML

Documentation generation is the process of creating the system documentation at different levels of abstraction from the source code for a legacy system. The main goal is to help the stakeholders to understand the system with representations at the appropriate abstraction level. We follow an architecture reconstruction method to create an architectural model of the system and we use a documentation generation technique to re-document its architecture. In this article, we present our XML based approach for generating the architectural documentation of a software system.
Resolving the fine‐scale density structure of shallow oceanic mantle by Bayesian inversion of localized geoid anomalies

We present a new approach to estimate the density structure of shallow oceanic mantle by inversion of localized geoid anomalies. Our method is based on Bayesian statistics and is implemented by combining forward modeling with Markov Chain Monte Carlo sampling. The inherent nonuniqueness of such inversion is reduced by using spectral localization, reference models, and a priori bounds on the amplitude of density perturbations expected within the convecting mantle. We apply this approach to the geoid anomalies around the Mendocino Fracture Zone that have recently been revealed by wavelet analysis. The depth and vertical extent of density anomalies derived from our inversion indicate that they are intimately related to the structure of the lowermost lithosphere. The amplitude of density perturbations and their spatial organization suggest the occurrence of small‐scale convection induced by a lateral temperature gradient across the fracture zone. As its applicability is not limited to the vicinity of fracture zones, the new inversion method should allow us to resolve the fine‐scale density structure of shallow oceanic mantle beneath the world's oceans.
Non-farm enterprises and poverty reduction amongst households in rural Nigeria: a propensity score matching approach

The data of nationally representative household survey from rural Nigeria was used to examine the effect of non-farm enterprise activities on improvement in the welfare of households in rural Nigeria, using total annual household consumption expenditure as a measure of their welfare. Propensity score matching approach was used for the analysis, and the result shows that rural households that engage in non-farm enterprise activities are having higher consumption expenditure than those that did not diversify into such activities. This suggests that, non-farm enterprises could be a pathway for improving the wellbeing of rural households in Nigeria and in the remaining sub-Saharan African countries.
Metabolism of roquinimex in mouse and rat: an in vitro/in vivo comparison

1.1. In vitro studies with roquinimex, animmuno-modulator, in liver microsomes from mouse and rat were conducted to evaluate the primary metabolism and compare the metabolite pattern as well as the rate of metabolismwith the in vivo pharmacokinetics of the compound in these two species. 2. In the presence ofNADPH, roquinimex wasmetabolized to six primary metabolites (R1-6) by liver microsomes from mouse and rat. The formation of these metabolites was qualitatively similar in both species, and was greatly enhanced by pretreatment with PCN, an inducer of cytochrome P4503A. 3. The identification of the R1-6 demonstratedthat roquinimex had been hydroxylated and demethylated. Hydroxylation at different sites of the quinoline moiety was the dominating reaction in both species. 4. Comparison of the resulting microsomal intrinsic clearance of 0.3 μmol mg−1 protein min−1 in mouse liver microsomes, versus 0.03 μmol mg−1 protein min−1 in rat liver microsomes demonstrated that the mouse possesses about a 10-fold greater metabolic capacity for roquinimex than the rat. 5. The in vivo pharmacokinetics of roquinimex demonstrated a 7-fold higher clearance in mouse than in the rat (82 ml h−1 kg−1 in mouse, 10.6 ml h−1 kg−1 in rat), which is in concordance with the in vitro findings.
Exploration of therapeutic interventions that accompany the administration of p.r.n. ('as required') psychotropic medication within acute mental health settings: a retrospective study.

Within acute mental health settings, pro re nata (p.r.n.) 'as required' medication is a widely used adjunct to regular treatment plans, and is administered at the discretion of a registered nurse. However, there is concern that some orders may benefit staff more than patients by providing a 'quick fix' to compensate for inadequate therapeutic programmes. Previous authors assert that p.r. n. medication administration should not be the first line of action, but should be used when other less invasive interventions such as de-escalation, talking, or separation from the group are unsuccessful. This project explored the occurrence of p.r. n. medication administration and the type of alternative therapeutic interventions that are documented as accompanying its administration. A retrospective 1-month chart audit was undertaken for a cohort of inpatients in a 20-bed mental health facility attached to a regional hospital in New South Wales, Australia. Forty-seven patients (73.4%) received p.r. n. medication at least once, with a total of 309 doses of p.r. n. medication administered during this time. There were wide variations in the documented rationales, and for nearly three-quarters (73%) of p.r. n. medication administrations, no other therapeutic intervention was documented as occurring prior to administration.
Do we need approximate-aware cache in dark silicon era?

Some driving technologies of the digital system design have faced a number of physical limits in the last 20 years. A promising technique to mitigate the effects of the limits is Approximate Computing or Adequate Precision Computing. The memory hierarchy and processor architecture have played key roles in the microprocessor system development. However, the major focus in approximate computing has been on the processor and few research projects have been carried out on the role of memory. This paper attempts to describe how the memory hierarchy and more specifically the cache memory tailored for approximate computing can enhance the performance and power.
A Modern African Perspective on the Role of the Clinical Nurse Specialist

In Africa, there is an overwhelming and increasing prevalence of illnesses such as HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. This constitutes a "burden of disease" facing Africa. Nursing must evolve accordingly to the changing needs of clients, many of whom have chronic illnesses. In achieving desirable outcomes, it is essential to adopt and adapt the clinical nurse specialist (CNS) role so that expert and specialist practice is available to clients in a cost-effective manner. The role of the CNS singles out clinical responsibilities in a hospital setting so that nurse administrators can concentrate on the provision of resources. A CNS position in the hospital structure would offer a clinical career pathway for advanced practice nurses who wish to remain "by-the-bedside. " Regional initiatives are already beginning to show a need for master's-prepared, advanced practice nurses in the clinical areas so as to reduce maternal mortality.