Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Regional differences in the arterial response to vasopressin: role of endothelial nitric oxide

1 . The isometric response to arginine‐vasopressin (10−10‐10−7 m) was studied in 2 mm long rabbit arterial segments isolated from several vascular beds (cutaneous, pial, renal, coronary, muscular, mesenteric and pulmonary). 2 . Vasopressin induced contraction in central ear (cutaneous), basilar (pial), renal, coronary and saphenous (muscular) arteries, but had no effect in mesenteric and pulmonary arteries; the order of potency for the contraction was: ear > basilar > renal > coronary > saphenous arteries. 3 . Treatment with the blocker of nitric oxide synthesis NG‐nitro‐L‐arginine methyl ester (L‐NAME; 10−6‐10−4 m) increased significantly (P < 0.05) the contraction to vasopressin in ear (148% of control), basilar (150% of control), renal (304% of control), coronary (437% of control) and saphenous (235% of control) arteries. Removal of the endothelium increased significantly (P < 0.05) the contraction to vasopressin in basilar (138% of control), renal (253% of control), coronary (637% of control) and saphenous (662% of control) arteries, but not in ear artery. Mesenteric and pulmonary arteries in the presence of L‐NAME or after endothelium removal did not respond to vasopressin, as occurred in control conditions. 4 . The specific antagonist for V1 vasopressin receptors d(CH2)5Tyr(Me)AVP (3 × 10−9‐10−7 m) was more potent (pA2 = 9.3–10.1) than the antagonist for both V1 and V2 vasopressin receptors desGly‐d(CH2)5‐D‐Tyr(Et)ValAVP (10−7‐10−6 m) (pA2 = 7.4–8.4) to block the contraction to vasopressin of ear, basilar, renal and coronary arteries. 5 . The specific V2 vasopressin agonist [deamino‐Cys1, D‐Arg8]‐ vasopressin (desmopressin) (10−10‐10−7 m) did not produce any effect in any of the arteries studied, with or without endothelium. 6 . In arteries precontracted with endothelin‐1, vasopressin or desmopressin did not produce relaxation. 7 . These results suggest: (a) most arterial beds studied (5 of 7) exhibit contraction to vasopressin with different intensity; (b) the vasoconstriction to this peptide is mediated mainly by stimulation of V1 vasopressin receptors, and (c) endothelial nitric oxide may inhibit the vasoconstriction to this peptide, especially in coronary and renal vasculatures.
Predicting temporal violations for parallel business cloud workflows

Workflow temporal violations, namely, intermediate workflow runtime delays, often occur and have a serious impact on the on‐time completion of massive concurrent requests. Therefore, accurate prediction of cloud workflow temporal violations is critical as its result can serve as an essential reference for temporal violation prevention and handling strategies. Conventional studies mainly focus on the time delays of a single workflow activity or a single workflow instance but overlook the propagation of time delays among them. This is a serious problem as time delays can propagate in cloud workflow system due to resource sharing and the dependencies among workflow activities. This paper first proposes a novel temporal violation transmission model inspired by an epidemic model to model the dynamics of time delay propagation. Afterward, a novel temporal violation prediction strategy is presented to estimate the number of temporal violations that may occur and determine the number of violations that must be handled to achieve the target service‐level agreement, namely, the on‐time completion rate. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to predict cloud workflow temporal violations at the workflow build‐time stage by analyzing the propagation of temporal violations. Experimental results demonstrate that our strategy can make highly accurate predictions and is scalable for a large batch of parallel workflows running in the cloud.
IMPACT OF OXIDATIVE STRESS ON NEURONAL SURVIVAL

1. Reactive oxygen species and oxidative state are slowly gaining acceptance in having a physiological relevance rather than just being the culprits in pathophysiological processes. The control of the redox environment of the cell provides for additional regulation in relation to signal transduction pathways. Conversely, aberrant regulation of oxidative state manifesting as oxidative stress can predispose a cell to adverse outcome.
Multimodal pain management strategies for office-based and ambulatory procedures.

OFFICE-BASED SURGICAL PROcedures account for up to 25% of all elective surgical procedures performed in the United States. Ambulatory surgical proceduresnowmakeup70%of the total volume of hospital-based elective surgical procedures. More major surgical procedures are being performed on an ambulatory or 23-hour hospital stay basis including intra-abdominal, intrathoracic, and major orthopedic procedures. Postoperative pain, nausea, and vomiting are the most common factors leading to delays in outpatient discharge and admissions to the hospital following ambulatory surgery. An understanding of the pharmacologic concepts and pain management techniques for those office-based procedures performedwithin the scopeof aprimarycare practice, and for patients undergoing hospital-based ambulatory (outpatient) surgical procedures, is a crucial component in the continuing education of the primary care physician. Opioid analgesics are the historical choice of primary analgesic medications for postoperative pain. It has been well documented that opioid analgesics are commonly associated with nausea, vomiting, sedation, dysphoria, pruritus, constipation, urinary hesitancy, and respiratory depression. Multimodal analgesia, or balanced analgesia, refers to the use of more than one medication or class of medication, or the use of more than one analgesic technique to produce analgesia through multiple mechanisms. Multimodal analgesic strategies for postoperative pain management, including the use of combinations of local anesthetic neural blockade techniques and nonopioid analgesic medications supplemented with opioid analgesics, have been shown to improve postoperative analgesia and reduce postoperative opioid requirements and opioid-related adverse effects. Multimodal postoperative pain management is applicable and equally important to both the pediatric and adult patient populations.
Proprioception, Tensegrity, and Motor Control

Movements for breathing, locomotion, and feeding are critical for survival, but how they are controlled by the CNS is poorly understood. It has long been recognized that sensory information from receptors in many tissues is required for accurate movements. Such information may be transduced by receptors in the skin, joint and muscles and their associated connective tissues. Additional information about the body’s relation to the external environment derives from the vestibular apparatus, while the eye and ear provide further data. This information is considered to be compiled into a fluid functional brain map or representation of the body and its parts, a map that is consulted to plan and execute movements. Multisensory inputs and planning are also involved in the deceptively simple task of standing (e.g., Loram, Magnaaris, & Lakie, 2005). In their special review, Turvey and Fonseca (2014) tackle the medium of haptic perception on a broad dimensional scale, from subcellar components to the whole organism. They go on to propose that tensigrity, a fundamental structural property based on efficient deployment of tension and compression elements, is a unifying concept, again over a broad scale of size. The review by Turvey and Fonseca (2014) performs the helpful task of suggesting some much-needed linkages across different fields, from structural biology to neuroscience. Not surprisingly, the attempt is fraught with dangers but nonetheless it raises some important questions. I consider briefly some of the linkages and some of the controversies.
Greater Omentum Flaps and Granulocyte Transfusions as Combined Therapy of Liver Abscess in Chronic Granulomatous Disease

We report the case of a 17-year-old boy with gp91phax-deficient chronic granulomatous disease who developed a liver abscess due to Staphylococcus aureus. Despite treatment with appropriate antibiotics and gamma interferon for three months as well as incision and drainage, the abscess persisted unchanged in size. After surgical debridement, the abscess cavity was filled with two pedunculated greater omentum flaps as a direct feeder road of granulocytes to the infectious focus. An average of 48.5 x 10(9) granulocytes a day harvested from G-CSF-prestimulated donors were transfused for a total of 8 days without side effects. Ultrasound 3 months later showed no residual abscess. Combination of greater omentum flaps and transfusion of G-CSF-prestimulated granulocytes may be the optimal treatment for liver abscesses refractory to conventional therapy.
Genetic linkage of streptomycin-dependence and resistance in Pneumococcus.

A spontaneous mutation conferring dependence upon streptomycin for growth was found in a Group A strain of streptococcus, and was successfully transferred into pneumococcus ( RAVIN and MISHRA 1965). Subsequently, a dependence-conferring mutation was discovered in a streptomycin-resistant strain of pneumococcus (MISHRA and RAVIN 1966). These discoveries were fortunate for several reasons. First of all, although streptomycin-dependence mutations are not at all rare in wild-type (streptomycin-sensitive) strains of many species of bacteria, they are practically nonexistent in the sensitive strain of pneumococcus ( RAVIN and MISHRA 1965). Secondly, the genetic property of streptomycindependence lends itself to reciprocal transformations, for sensitive cells can be selected in the presence of a predominantly dependent population, and dependent cells can be selected in the presence of a predominantly sensitive population. Reciprocal transformations, in turn, make possible multi-factor crosses in which the complete variety of recombinant types can be selected. Finally, a number of streptomycin-resistance mutations have already been mapped in the pneumococcus (ROTHEIM and RAVIN 1961, 1964), so that the opportunity exists for determining the position of the dependence-conferring mutations in relation to the resistance-conferring mutations. The results of a genetic investigation of the two dependence-conferring mutations, str-dl and str-d2, are presented in this report.
VT ETD-db 2.0: Rewriting the ETD-db System

This paper describes a new version of Virginia Tech’s ETD digital library system. ETD-db 2.0 is a Web application using the Ruby on Rails framework. It continues to work with any database (e.g., MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, etc.) and is hosted by a Web server. The objectives of rewriting ETD-db are (1) to improve the original powerful functionalities of the current ETD-db, and (2) to provide new reliable and secure features to handle ETD collections. We decided to use Ruby on Rails, a state of the art agile Web development framework, for the sake of improved maintenance. To strengthen the original ETD-db, the current ETD-db system was analyzed and additional needs also collected to be improved in the requirement specification process. To provide new, reliable and secure features, system administrators, managers, authors, catalogers and graduate school reviewers using ETD-db were interviewed to describe their maintenance/usage experiences. Collected requirements were analyzed using the Use Case-Based Requirement Engineering approach. According to the functional/non-functional requirements drawn through use case analysis, an ETD-db 2.0 prototype was designed and implemented rapidly and then a test driven development (TDD) approach was employed to ensure safer and more reliable code. As a result, we have designed additional safer and more reliable features for a new ETD-db system. We currently have an ETD-db 2.0 system prototype, being developed for release in the near future. It includes an integrated directory system using a secured LDAP protocol to authenticate users.
The use of acarbose in the prevention and treatment of hypoglycaemia

This paper reviews the use of acarbose in the prevention and treatment of hypoglycaemia. In diet‐or sulfonylurea‐treated patients, acarbose may reduce the incidence of late postprandial hypoglycaemia. In insulin‐treated patients, acarbose treatment usually requires reduction of the insulin dose; one study has shown that 100 mg acarbose at night significantly reduces the incidence of mid‐evening and nocturnal hypoglycaemia. Several studies have suggested acarbose to be a useful adjunct to the management of reactive hypoglycaemia in the non‐diabetic patients. Long‐term prospective studies are still needed to document this last indication of acarbose or other α‐glycosidase inhibitors.
Estimation of the Pedestrians on a Crosswalk

The estimation of the pedestrians on a crosswalk is a challenging job due to the occluded pedestrians and its complicated background. Here, an efficient method to estimate approximately the number of pedestrians on a crosswalk is presented. Foregrounds are extracted from an incoming image by using the constructed background, and then elaborately processing to remove unwanted pixels. With the aid of perspective transformation, the relation between the number of remaining foreground pixels and the number of pedestrians can be linearized, thus the estimation can be done. Instead of segmenting each pedestrian in the scene, our system counts foreground pixels, so it demands low computational power. Furthermore, this system doesn't need to be trained. The experimental results show that it works well in different scenes
Mutually Exclusive Interactions between Factors Binding to Adjacent Sp1 and AT-rich Elements Regulate Gastrin Gene Transcription in Insulinoma Cells (*)

The gastrin gene is transiently expressed in fetal pancreatic islets during islet neogenesis but then switched off after birth when islet cells become fully differentiated. Previous studies identified a cis-regulatory sequence between −109 and −75 in the human gastrin promoter which binds islet cell-specific activators and a nonspecific repressor and thus may act as a molecular switch. The present study identified another cis-regulatory sequence (ACACTAAATGAAAGGGCGGGGCAG) which bound two islet nuclear proteins in a mutually exclusive manner, as defined by gel shift competition, methylation interference, and DNase I footprinting assays. The general transactivator Sp1 recognized the downstream GGGCGGGG sequence, but Sp1 binding was prevented when another islet factor bound to the adjacent AT-rich sequence (CTAAATGA). This gastrin AT-rich element is nearly identical to the binding site (ATAAATGA) for the islet-specific transcription factor βTF-1. However, the gastrin AT-binding factor appeared to differ from βTF-1 in its gel mobility shift pattern. Transfections of rat insulinoma cells revealed that mutations which blocked binding to the AT-rich element but allowed Sp1 binding up-regulated transcriptional activity. These results suggest that the gastrin AT-binding factor blocks transactivation by Sp1 and may have a role in the repression of gastrin transcription seen at the end of islet differentiation.
continuous sitting force measurements with differ- ent support surfaces in the spinal cord injured and able-bodied

Able-bodied, paraplegic, and quadriplegic subjects sat for 30-minute intervals on various surfaces in a wheelchair with a forceplate mounted on the seat in order to determine factors that could contribute to the formation of decubitus ulcers. All three groups of subjects sat on ROHO and Jay cushions; in addition to sitting on the two cushions, the able-bodied subjects sat on a hard surface. Factors studied were: normal and shear seat forces, the location of the center of mass, and armrest force. The forceplate was under the cushions; therefore, the values reflect average forces over the buttocks and posterior thighs. These factors were compared between disability levels as well as between surface types. Larger, normal, and forward shear forces and a more anterior position of the center of mass were observed with the ROHO cushion. More frequent and larger lateral weight shifts occurred with the Jay cushion. The armrests tended to support from 5 percent of the body weight for quadriplegics to 9 percent for paraplegics. The results suggest that armrests reduce seat forces by carrying some of the body weight.
The Relationship Among Distortion‐Product Otoacoustic Emissions, Evoked Potential Thresholds, and Outer Hair Cells Following Interrupted Noise Exposures

Distortion-product otoacoustic emissions (DPOAEs) are gaining popularity as indicators of the status of the cochlea. The efficacy of DPOAEs as indicators of changes in thresholds and the status of outer hair cells (OHCs) were examined using an animal model. Monaural chinchillas were exposed to an octave band noise (OBN) centered at 0.5 kHz at 95 dB SPL for 6 hr/day for 10 days. DPOAEs and evoked potential thresholds were recorded before, during, and after the exposures. The animals were sacrificed 5 days after the last exposure, and the status of OHCs was assessed using scanning electron microscopy. Results indicate that both evoked potential thresholds and DPOAEs effectively track the temporary changes associated with interrupted noise exposures. However, DPOAEs often recovered to their baseline even when there was a threshold shift of >25 dB. Furthermore, at 5 days post exposure, both evoked potential thresholds and DPOAEs were normal despite considerable OHC pathology. The findings suggest that normal DPOAEs may not guarantee normal cochlear status and, therefore, results of DPOAE measurements should be interpreted cautiously.
A microstrip delay line with periodically-loaded shunt inductors for waveguide-fed array antennas

A low-profile planar delay line is proposed for waveguide-fed array antennas. It consists of a compact microstrip line with periodically-loaded inductors, and can realize the same frequency-dispersion characteristics as those of waveguides, resulting in a miniaturization of a waveguide feeding network. The delay line has a similar structure to a composite right/left-handed transmission line, which is one of the latest and hottest topics in RF communities. In our case, though, it is used just as a frequency-dispersive right-handed transmission line.
Short and long term comparison (24 months) of an alternative sirolimus-coated stent with bioabsorbable polymer and a bare metal stent of similar design in chronic coronary occlusions: the CORACTO trial.

AIMS We studied a novel sirolimus eluting stent with a bioabsorbable coating (SES) in >3 months old chronic total coronary occlusions (CTO). METHODS AND RESULTS Ninety-five patients were randomised to either BMS (n=47) or SES (n=48). The primary endpoints were late lumen loss (LLL) and in-segment restenosis (ISR) after six months. Secondary endpoints were target vessel revascularisation after six and 24 months. Occlusion length (37.6 mm), reference diameter (2.8 mm) as well as the stented segment (45.5 mm) were similar in both groups. Up until six months no death, myocardial infarction or stent thrombosis occurred in either group. Angiographic follow-up (45BMS/46SES): LLL 1.8 mm/0.77 mm (p<0.0001), ISR 60%/17.4% (p<0.0001). In-segment re-occlusion 15.5%/0% and TVR 53.3%/10.8% (p<0.0001). After 24 months: 1 BMS, 2 SES patients died; 0 BMS, 0 SES infarction; 0 BMS, 0 SES stent thrombosis and 3 BMS, 0 SES TVR between six and 24 months. Thus total TVR after 24 months was 60% for BMS and 10.8% for SES (p<0.0001). CONCLUSIONS The alternative sirolimus-coated stent was shown to reduce the relative risk of restenosis after six months by 71%, and of TVR after 24 months by 82%. Between six and 24 months, neither stent thrombosis occurred, nor repeat revascularisation was required in patients who received a SES.
Erythrocytes anion transport and oxidative change in β‐thalassaemias

β‐Thalassaemia is characterized by a decrease in globin β‐chain synthesis and an excess in free α‐globin chains. This induces alterations in membrane lipids and proteins resulting from a reduction in spectrin/band 3 ratio, partial oxidation of band 4.1 and clustering of band 3. The membrane injury provokes hyperhaemolysis and bone marrow hyperplasia. The pathophysiology of thalassaemia is associated with iron overload that generates oxygen free radicals and oxidative tissue injury with ocular vessel alterations. The aim of this research is to investigate the influence of oxidative stress on band 3 efficiency, which is an integral membrane protein of RBCs (red blood cells). Band 3 protein, of which there are more than 1 million copies per cell, is the most abundant membrane protein in human RBCs. It mediates the anion exchange and acid–base equilibrium through the RBC membrane. Some experiments were performed on thalassaemic cells and β‐thalassaemia‐like cells and tested for sulfate uptake. To test the antioxidant effect of Mg2+, other experiments were performed using normal and pathological cells in the presence of Mg2+. The oxidant status in thalassaemic cells was verified by increased K+ efflux, by lower GSH levels and by increased G6PDH (glucose‐6‐phosphate dehydrogenase) activity. The rate constant of SO4 2− uptake decreases in thalassaemic cells as well as in β‐thalassaemia‐like cells when compared with normal cells. It increases when both cells are incubated with Mg2+. Our data show that oxidative stress plays a relevant role in band 3 function of thalassaemic cells and that antioxidant treatment with Mg2+ could reduce oxidative damage to the RBC membrane and improve the anion transport efficiency regulated by band 3 protein.
Suppressor T‐Lymphocytes in Pregnancy

ABSTRACT: Primiparous and multiparous healthy pregnant women were tested at the end of the gestation period, or immediately after delivery, for their lymphocyte reactivity to paternal or neonatal cells in mixed lymphocyte culture and in cell‐mediate cytotoxicity assays. Freshly isolated maternal lymphocytes had no spontaneous cytotoxic activity against PHA‐activated neonatal or paternal lymphocytes. In conventional 6‐day mixed lymphocyte cultures and in cytotoxicity assays, maternal lymphocytes displayed a response similar to that of paternal or third party lymphocytes when stimulated with neonatal, paternal, or third party lymphocytes. By contrast, in 3‐day mixed lymphocyte cultures maternal cells had a selectively lower response to paternal antigens (expressed either on cord blood cells or on paternal lymphocytes), than to unrelated alloantigens. Removal of T‐lymphocytes with IgG receptors (T), or of T‐lymphocytes reacting with OKT8 monoclonal antibody, corrected the depressed response of maternal cells in these 3‐day cultures. It is suggested that circulating maternal lymphocytes contain antigenspecific suppressor cells characterized by their membrane receptors for IgG and the T8 antigen.
Feedback and Feedforward LQG Controller Design

A solution for the LQG stochastic optimal control problem is obtained in the z-domain for systems where both feedforward and feedback control may be used. A two degrees of freedom feedback structure is employed and the system includes both coloured measurement noise and both measurable and unmeasurable disturbances The solution is obtained in a simple form which is particularly appropriate in self-tuning systems. This involves the solution of diophantine equations, associated with each controller input (from the feedback, reference and feedforward signals) and the calculation of spectral factors.