Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cytokine-Induced S-Nitrosylation of Soluble Guanylyl Cyclase and Expression of Phosphodiesterase 1A Contribute to Dysfunction of Longitudinal Smooth Muscle Relaxation

The effect of proinflammatory cytokines on the expression and activity of soluble guanylyl cyclase (sGC) and cGMP–phosphodiesterases (PDEs) was determined in intestinal longitudinal smooth muscle. In control muscle cells, cGMP levels are regulated via activation of sGC and PDE5; the activity of the latter is regulated via feedback phosphorylation by cGMP-dependent protein kinase. In muscle cells isolated from muscle strips cultured with interleukin-1β (IL-1β) or tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α) or obtained from the colon of TNBS (2,4,6-trinitrobenzene sulfonic acid)-treated mice, expression of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) was induced and sGC was S-nitrosylated, resulting in attenuation of nitric oxide (NO)–induced sGC activity and cGMP formation. The effect of cytokines on sGC S-nitrosylation and activity was blocked by the iNOS inhibitor 1400W [N-([3-(aminomethyl)phenyl]methyl)ethanimidamide dihydrochloride]. The effect of cytokines on cGMP levels measured in the absence of IBMX (3-isobutyl-1-methylxanthine), however, was partly reversed by 1400W or PDE1 inhibitor vinpocetine and completely reversed by a combination of 1400W and vinpocetine. Expression of PDE1A was induced and was accompanied by an increase in PDE1A activity in muscle cells isolated from muscle strips cultured with IL-1β or TNF-α or obtained from the colon of TNBS-treated mice; the effect of cytokines on PDE1 expression and activity was blocked by MG132 (benzyl N-[(2S)-4-methyl-1-[[(2S)-4-methyl-1-[[(2S)-4-methyl-1-oxopentan-2-yl]amino]-1-oxopentan-2-yl]amino]-1-oxopentan-2-yl]carbamate), an inhibitor of nuclear factor κB activity. NO-induced muscle relaxation was inhibited in longitudinal muscle cells isolated from muscle strips cultured with IL-1β or TNF-α or obtained from the colon of TNBS-treated mice, and this inhibition was completely reversed by the combination of both 1400W and vinpocetine. Inhibition of smooth muscle relaxation during inflammation reflects the combined effects of decreased sGC activity via S-nitrosylation and increased cGMP hydrolysis via PDE1 expression.
The Impact of the Family on Health: The Decade in Review

The weighing device comprises a tension load cell including an upper liquid chamber and a lower air chamber which has a volume much greater than the volume of the liquid chamber. The weight of a suspended load and the load supporting structure on the load cell are applied on both chambers. A gauge reads the liquid pressure in the upper chamber and a valve unit connectible to a source of air under pressure is connected to the air chamber. The load cell is tared by initially adjusting the air pressure in the lower chamber to produce a zero reading on the gauge. When a load is applied on the device, the volume displacement of the air chamber is small relative to the volume displacement of the liquid in the upper chamber. The volume of the air chamber thus remains substantially constant so that the gauge indicates directly the net weight of the applied load.
Staff Turnover and Quality of Care in Nursing Homes

Purpose:In this work, the association between nurse aide (NA) plus licensed practical nurse (LPN) and registered nurse (RN) turnover and quality indicators in nursing homes is examined. Design and Methods:Indicators of care quality used are the rates of physical restraint use, catheter use, contractures, pressure ulcers, psychoactive drug use, and certification survey quality of care deficiencies. In addition, we used a quality index combining these indicators. Turnover information came from primary data collected from 354 facilities in 4 states and other information came from the 2003 Online Survey, Certification and Reporting data. The turnover rates were grouped into 3 categories, low, medium, and high, defined as 0% to 20%, 21% to 50%, and greater than 50% turnover, respectively. Results:The average 1-year turnover rates identified in this study were high at 85.8% for NAs and LPNs and 55.4% for RNs. Multivariate analysis shows that decreases in quality are associated with increases in RN turnover, especially increases from low-to-moderate levels of turnover, and with increases in NA and LPN turnover, especially increases from moderate-to-high levels of turnover. Implications:These findings are significant because the belief that staff turnover influences quality is pervasive. The cross-sectional results are only able to show associations, nonetheless, few empirical studies in the literature have shown this relationship.
T/R modules front-end integration in GaN technology

The present contribution summarizes the activities performed towards the realization of a Single-Chip Front-End (SCFE) operating in C Band, integrating the High Power, Low Noise amplification and switching functionalities to be provided in modern T/R modules' Front-Ends for space SAR applications. The technologies adopted in this project are provided by United Monolithic Semiconductors (UMS) and Selex Electronic Systems (SLX), the GH25-10 0.25 μm gate length and the GaN technology featured by 0.5 μm gate length for UMS and SLX respectively. At the completion of the design phase two SCFEs have been designed in the two technologies, each in two slightly different versions, featured by state-of-the-art performance. In particular, in Tx-mode, both are featured by approximately 40 W power output, with 36 dB large-signal gain and 38 % / 27 % PAE for UMS and SLX versions respectively, while in Rx-mode 2.5 dB noise figure resulted, with robust operation. The two dies are featured by 6.9 × 5.4 mm2 and 7.28 × 5.40 mm2 for UMS and SLX versions respectively.
Rab8A and Rab13 are activated by insulin and regulate GLUT4 translocation in muscle cells

Skeletal muscle is the primary site of dietary glucose disposal, a function that depends on insulin-mediated exocytosis of GLUT4 vesicles to its cell surface. In skeletal muscle and adipocytes, this response involves Akt signaling to the Rab-GAP (GTPase-activating protein) AS160/TBC1D4. Intriguingly, the AS160-targeted Rabs appear to differ, with Rab8A participating in GLUT4 exocytosis in muscle cells and Rab10 in adipocytes, and their activation by insulin is unknown. Rabs 8A, 10, and 13 belong to the same subfamily of Rab-GTPases. Here we show that insulin promotes GTP loading of Rab13 and Rab8A but not Rab10 in rat L6 muscle cells, Rab8A activation preceding that of Rab13. siRNA-mediated Rab13 knockdown blocked the insulin-induced increase of GLUT4 at the muscle cell surface that was rescued by a Rab13 ortholog but not by Rab8A. Constitutively active AS160 lowered basal and insulin-stimulated levels of surface GLUT4, effects that were reversed by overexpressing Rab8A or Rab13, suggesting that both Rabs are targets of AS160-GAP activity in the context of GLUT4 traffic. Rab13 had a broader intracellular distribution compared with the perinuclear restriction of Rab8A, and insulin promoted Rab13 colocalization with GLUT4 at the cell periphery. We conclude that Rab13 and Rab8A are Rab-GTPases activated by insulin, and that downstream of AS160 they regulate traffic of GLUT4 vesicles, possibly acting at distinct steps and sites. These findings close in on the series of events regulating muscle GLUT4 traffic in response to insulin, crucial for whole-body glucose homeostasis.
Comparative Effectiveness of Health Centers as Regular Source of Care: Application of Sentinel ACSC Events as Performance Measures

A 4-state (Alabama, California, Georgia, Pennsylvania) retrospective analysis of claims data from 1.6 million Medicaid beneficiaries to assess the performance of community health centers compared with other Medicaid providers (office-based and hospital-based practices) served as a regular source of care to Medicaid beneficiaries, each with at least one diagnosed ambulatory care–sensitive condition (ACSC). The health centers compared with the other Medicaid providers experienced one third fewer sentinel ACS events: 5.7 and 8.2 ACS admissions and 26.1 and 37.7 ACS emergency visits, respectively, per 100 persons. Controlling for case mix and other factors, the logistic regression results for sentinel events indicated that Medicaid beneficiaries who relied on health centers for primary care were significantly less likely to experience an ACS admission (OR = 0.89, P < .0001) or an ACS emergency visit (OR = 0.81, P < .0001) than the Medicaid beneficiaries who relied on other Medicaid providers. Sentinel ACS events can serve as efficient measures for assessing provider performance and comparing effectiveness of regular sources for primary care.
Certain death in uncertain time: informing hope by quantifying a best case scenario.

Research informs us that the majority of patients with metastatic cancer desire information about their likely survival duration. The literature also recommends that prognostic information be communicated to those who request it in a manner that is meaningful and realistic, but maintains hope. Knowing these general principles is different than applying them in practice, and when confronted by versions of “how long have I got? ” we struggle to find suitable answers. Although patients, caregivers, and health care professionals have identified hope as an integral part of prognostic discussions, the key practical questions of how to define, quantify, and convey realistic hope remain unanswered. The following edited extract from Edward Kennedy’s memoir conveys the importance of trying to answer these questions. “A biopsy the following Monday confirmed that I had a brain tumor—malignant glioma in my left parietal lobe. My wife Vicki and I privately were told that the prognosis was bleak—a few months at most. I respect the seriousness of death—I’ve had many occasions to meditate on its intrusions. But I wasn’t willing to accept the doctor’s prognosis for two reasons. The first was my own obstinate will to carry on in the face of adversity, one of the many habits of discipline that my father instilled in me. The second was the way the message was delivered. Frankly, it made me furious. I am a realist, and I have heard bad news in my life. I don’t expect or need to be treated with kid gloves. But I do believe in hope. And I believe that approaching adversity with a positive attitude at least gives you a chance for success. Approaching it with a defeatist attitude predestines the outcome: defeat. And a defeatist’s attitude is just not in my DNA. ” Kennedy did not receive the hope he desired from his doctors and was left feeling defeated. It may have been that knowing the median survival time, his doctors did indeed feel hopeless. We need to believe hope exists before we can convey it. But how do oncologists find hope? A potential source of hope stems from our experiences with patients who manage to defy the odds and become long-term survivors. Such experiences can help us envision, and therefore convey, hope. A recent example is instructive.
State Complexity of Finite Tree Width NFAs

We consider nondeterministic finite automata having finite tree width (ftw-NFA) where the computation on any input string has a constant number of branches. We give effective characterizations of ftw-NFAs and a tight worst-case state size bound for determinizing an ftw-NFA $A$ as a function of the tree width and the number of states of $A$. We also introduce a lower bound technique for ftw-NFAs.
Management of baseline and new sub-solid nodules in CT lung cancer screening

While reading thoracic CT examinations, three different subtypes of pulmonary nodules are differentiated based on the nodule’s density. Until now, most existing evidence concentrated on solid lung nodules. However, in recent years gradually more studies are published focusing on subsolid nodules including pure ground-glass (nonsolid) nodules (GGNs) and part-solid nodules. A GGN is defined as a circumscribed area of increased pulmonary attenuation with preservation of the bronchial and vascular margins. When part of the groundglass opacity completely obscures the parenchyma, the nodule is defined as part solid. In baseline rounds of CT lung cancer screening, part-solid nodules comprise a higher risk of malignancy than do solid nodules [1]. Management of subsolid nodules in lung cancer screening trials and incidentally detected subsolid nodules in clinical practice is based on nodule size and growth [2]. In most guidelines, no differentiation is made between subsolid nodules already present at a previous CT examination and new subsolid nodules. Recently, it was shown that new solid nodules detected in CT lung cancer screening have a significantly higher lung cancer probability at smaller nodule size compared to baseline solid nodules and need lower size cutoffs [3]. Some guidelines, such as the British Thoracic Society (BTS) guideline and Lung-RADS, have incorporated the higher malignancy risk in solid new nodules [4,5]. However, the question remains whether new subsolid nodules should be followed more aggressively as well.
A Novel Architecture of Multi-GPU Computing Card

The data transmission between GPUS in the existing multi_GPU computing card is often through PCIE which is in relative low speed, so the PCIE has become bottleneck of Overall performance. A novel architecture of multi_GPU computing card have been proposed in this paper: A multi-channel memory which have multiple interfaces is added, including one common interface shared by different GPUs, which is connected with a FPGA arbitration circuit and several other interfaces connected with dedicated GPUs frame buffer independently, and this multi-channel memory is called "global shared memory". The result of a simulation of accelerating computer tomography algebraic reconstruction on multi-GPU demonstrates effectiveness of this approach. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.11591/telkomnika.v11i8. 3038
Modified FOA Applied to Parameter Extraction of Flux-Gate Core

The accuracy of the magnetic core model is important to the analysis and design of the flux-gate sensor. The Jiles-Atherton model (J-A model) is the mostly used model to describe the hysteresis characteristics of the flux-gate core. But the parameters of J-A model are difficult to identify. In this paper, Fruit Fly Optimization Algorithm (FOA) is proposed to identify the parameters of the J-A model. In order to enhance the performance of the identification, a Modified Fruit Fly Optimization Algorithm (MFOA) is applied to extract the parameters of the flux-gate core. The effectiveness of MFOA is verified through five typical test functions. The influence of variation factor on the performance of MFOA is discussed. The impact of variation factor on parameters extraction of hysteresis loop is studied. It is shown that MFOA with appropriate selection of variation factor will get better performance in the accuracy, stability, and simulation time compared to those of PSO and FOA.
A practical optimization method for designing large PV plants

Nowadays Photovoltaic (PV) plants have multi MW sizes, the biggest plants reaching tens of MW of capacity. Such large-scale PV plants are made up of several thousands of PV panels, each panel being in the range of 150–350W. This means that the design of a Large PV power plant is a big challenge and configuring such a plant should be implemented taking into consideration not only the cost of the installation, but also the Annual Energy Production, the Performance Ratio and the Levelized Cost Of Energy. In this paper, an algorithm is presented including the most important models of the PV system, that optimizes the structure of the plant based on predefined targets, such as the minimum Levelized Cost Of Energy.
Interstitial matrix proteins determine hyaluronan reflection and fluid retention in rabbit joints: effect of protease

Hyaluronan (HA) retention inside the synovial cavity of joints serves diverse protective roles. We tested the hypothesis that HA retention is mediated by the network of extracellular matrix proteins in the synovial lining. Cannulated rabbit knee joints were infused with HA solution with or without pretreatment by chymopapain, a collagen‐sparing protease. Trans‐synovial fluid escape rate was measured and, after a period of trans‐synovial filtration, samples of intra‐articular fluid and subsynovial fluid were analysed for HA to assess its trans‐synovial ultrafiltration. In control joints, HA ultrafiltration was confirmed by postfiltration increases in intra‐articular HA concentration (259 ± 17% of infused concentration) and reduced subsynovial concentration (30 ± 8%; n= 11). The proportion of HA molecules reflected by the synovium was 57–75%. Chymopapain treatment increased the hydraulic permeability of the synovial lining ∼13‐fold, almost abolished the trans‐synovial difference in HA concentration and reduced the HA reflected fraction to 3–7% (n= 6; P < 0.001, ANOVA). Structural studies confirmed that chymopapain treatment depleted the matrix of proteoglycans but preserved its collagen. The findings thus demonstrate that HA ultrafiltration and synovial hydraulic permeability are determined by the network of non‐collagen, extracellular matrix proteins. This may be important clinically, since protease activity is raised in rheumatoid arthritis, as are HA and fluid escape.
Cloud capacity planning and HSI based optimal resource provisioning

Cloud service providers offer spot instances through highest bidding plans that are at a very economical price compared to other pricing plans, namely on-demand and reservation. The usage of spot instance enables utilization of idle resources and provide service for cost sensitive tasks. However, this approach introduces the problem of cloud capacity allocation to different pricing plans that will have impact on the task completion time. To address these issues and improve the providers revenue, in this paper a capacity planning has been carried out based on the prediction of resource requirements for each of the different resource pricing pools. The paper also presents a solution to overcome the burden faced by the service provider due to the free issue of last hour at the time of out-of-bid situation. Simulation carried out based on capacity planning along with hybrid spot instance using Amazon EC2's price show that the resource utilization is improved across the different resource pricing pools with increased number of task completion and improved provider's revenue.
Scanning tunneling microscopy studies of carbon-oxygen reactions on highly oriented pyrolytic graphite

The oxidation of highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) in air at elevated temperatures was studied by examination of the oxidized HOPG by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). Etch pits of uniform size and monolayer depth were readily formed on preexisting defects or generated vacancies in the HOPG basal plane by heating freshly cleaved HOPG samples in air at 650 OC. The density of the pits in different samples of H O E varied from 0.1 to 13 pm-2. When the oxidized HOPG samples were reheated and reexamined by STM, the original etch pits had grown and new, smaller etch pits were found. Therefore, pit growth initiation occurred during each cooling-reheating cycle, and consecutive heating cycles could control the pit density. At higher temperatures, above 700 'C, carbon abstraction occurred on the basal plane of graphite, which generated additional vacancies and initiated new etch pits continuously throughout the period of heating at this temperature. The rates of carbon abstraction in both cases depended on the vacancy-density of the HOPG. On HOPG samples treated with different materials, both those expected to be chemically active (e.g., FeCI3, CdS, H2PtCI6) or inert (e.g., NaCI, AI2O3), numerous etch channels were found on the surfaces after oxidation, representing the paths of randomly moving particles. Because similar channels are formed with all of these materials, these channels are probably mainly produced by mechanical interactions by the particles on the graphite surface.
A digital PLL control method based on the FIR filter for a grid-connected single-phase power conversion system

A digital phase-locked loop (PLL) based on a fictitious two-phase transformation for a grid-connected single-phase power conversion system is described in detail. It is proposed that two voltage vectors valpha , vbeta are implemented by a finite impulse response (FIR) filter in this paper. The proposed method is verified by simulation and experiment. In the simulation, besides the steady state response, the influence of the changes of some parameters such as voltage magnitude, grid frequency, the filter order, the 3rd harmonic injection, on the proposed method is simulated. The fast phase track is realized in the experiment.
Community Intelligence in Knowledge Curation: An Application to Managing Scientific Nomenclature

Harnessing community intelligence in knowledge curation bears significant promise in dealing with communication and education in the flood of scientific knowledge. As knowledge is accumulated at ever-faster rates, scientific nomenclature, a particular kind of knowledge, is concurrently generated in all kinds of fields. Since nomenclature is a system of terms used to name things in a particular discipline, accurate translation of scientific nomenclature in different languages is of critical importance, not only for communications and collaborations with English-speaking people, but also for knowledge dissemination among people in the non-English-speaking world, particularly young students and researchers. However, it lacks of accuracy and standardization when translating scientific nomenclature from English to other languages, especially for those languages that do not belong to the same language family as English. To address this issue, here we propose for the first time the application of community intelligence in scientific nomenclature management, namely, harnessing collective intelligence for translation of scientific nomenclature from English to other languages. As community intelligence applied to knowledge curation is primarily aided by wiki and Chinese is the native language for about one-fifth of the world’s population, we put the proposed application into practice, by developing a wiki-based English-to-Chinese Scientific Nomenclature Dictionary (ESND; http://esnd.big.ac.cn). ESND is a wiki-based, publicly editable and open-content platform, exploiting the whole power of the scientific community in collectively and collaboratively managing scientific nomenclature. Based on community curation, ESND is capable of achieving accurate, standard, and comprehensive scientific nomenclature, demonstrating a valuable application of community intelligence in knowledge curation.