Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Oncotic pressure in solid tumors is elevated.

Oncotic and hydrostatic pressure differences control the movement of fluid and large molecules across the microvascular wall of normal and tumor tissues. Recent studies have shown that the interstitial fluid pressure in tumors is elevated and is approximately equal to the microvascular pressure. Whereas oncotic pressure in blood plasma of various species is known, no data are available on the oncotic pressure in the interstitial space of tumors. We hypothesize that because of the leaky nature of tumor vessels, oncotic pressure in tumor interstitium should be close to that in plasma. To this end, we first developed a chronic wick method for the direct measurement of oncotic pressures in the interstitial fluid of tumors grown in mice. We found interstitial oncotic pressures in four human tumor xenografts to be higher than in s.c. tissue and comparable to that in plasma [rhabdomyosarcoma (RD), 24.2+/-4.7; squamous cell carcinoma (FaDu), 19.9+/-1.9; small cell lung carcinoma (54A), 21.1+/-2.8; colon adenocarcinoma (LIS174T), 16.7+/-3.0 mm Hg; s.c. tissue, 8.2+/-2.3; plasma, 20.0+/-1.6 mm Hg]. These results support our hypothesis that the oncotic pressure difference across the tumor microvascular wall is low. The high oncotic pressure in tumors is consistent with the elevated interstitial fluid pressure, and it contributes to the suboptimal delivery of large therapeutic agents to neoplastic cells.
Species-Specific Variation in the B30.2(SPRY) Domain of TRIM5α Determines the Potency of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Restriction

ABSTRACT Retroviruses encounter dominant postentry restrictions in cells of particular species. Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) is blocked in the cells of Old World monkeys by TRIM5α, a tripartite motif (TRIM) protein composed of RING, B-box 2, coiled-coil, and B30.2(SPRY) domains. Rhesus monkey TRIM5α (TRIM5αrh) more potently blocks HIV-1 infection than human TRIM5α (TRIM5αhu). Here, by studying chimeric TRIM5α proteins, we demonstrate that the major determinant of anti-HIV-1 potency is the B30.2(SPRY) domain. Analysis of species-specific variation in TRIM5α has identified three variable regions (v1, v2, and v3) within the B30.2 domain. The TRIM5α proteins of Old World primates exhibit expansion, duplication, and residue variation specifically in the v1 region. Replacement of three amino acids in the N terminus of the TRIM5αhu B30.2 v1 region with the corresponding TRIM5αrh residues resulted in a TRIM5α molecule that restricted HIV-1 nearly as efficiently as wild-type TRIM5αrh. Surprisingly, a single-amino-acid change in this region of TRIM5αhu allowed potent restriction of simian immunodeficiency virus, a phenotype not observed for either wild-type TRIM5αhu or TRIM5αrh. Some of the chimeric TRIM5α proteins that are >98% identical to the human protein yet mediate a strong restriction of HIV-1 infection may have therapeutic utility. These observations implicate the v1 variable region of the B30.2(SPRY) domain in TRIM5αrh antiviral potency.
Automated Analysis of Data Is Inferior to Visual Analysis of Ambulatory Sleep Apnea Monitoring

Background: Many ambulatory sleep apnea monitoring devices are equipped with software which allows an automated analysis of data as well as a visual analysis. Objective: The Merlin system which records heart rate, snoring sound, efforts, oronasal flow, body position and oxygen saturation was investigated to identify proper parameter settings for the automated analysis and to compare the automated with the visual analysis in patients with mild obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS). Sensitivity and specificity of the visual and automated analysis of ambulatory monitoring in comparison with visual polysomnographic (PSG) analysis were determined. Methods and Results: First, we tried to find the optimal parameters for the automated analysis, using 7 different settings in 17 OSAS patients. Furthermore, we applied the optimized setting to 66 OSAS patients who were admitted (age 50.9 ± 9.9 years, BMI 32.9 ± 5 kg/m2), and compared the results with the visual analysis of raw data. The patients slept for one night in the sleep laboratory with Merlin and PSG simultaneously to compare the visual and automated analysis of Merlin data with results from the visual analysis of PSG. Automated analysis leads to an underestimation of the respiratory disturbance index (RDI; p < 0.001) compared with both the visual analysis and results of PSG. Using a cutoff level of 5 apneas and hypopneas/h for the diagnosis of OSAS, the sensitivity of Merlin with the automated analysis is 40.6% and the specificity is 100%. With a cutoff level of 15/h, sensitivity and specificity rose to 91.3 and 100%, respectively, which is comparable to the visual analysis. Conclusion: Merlin is a reliable device for detection of sleep-related breathing disorders, but recordings should be analyzed visually, especially in patients with a low RDI.
[The effect of the introduction of pneumococcal vaccination for adults as a quality measure on vaccination rates in Clalit Health Services].

BACKGROUND The incidence of invasive pneumococcal infections in industrialized countries is above 50/100,000 annuaty in adults over the age of 65 years. The Israel Ministry of Health recommends 23-valent polysaccharide anti-pneumococcaL vaccination for patients with immune suppression or chronic diseases and citizens above the age of 65 years. METHODS in 1.1. 2008 pneumococcal vaccination for adults was introduced as a quality measure in CLalit Health Services (CHS). At the time of the introduction of pneumococcaL vaccination as a new quality measure in CHS, as one of 70 quality measures in community medicine, the target population included all CHS enrollees over 65 years of age and patients with specific chronic diseases. The relative weight of this quality measure within the set of CHS quality measures was set at 3.19%. The goal for the measure was set at 75%. Pneumococcal vaccination was paired with the influenza vaccination campaign. Mandatory copayment was reduced from NIS 57 to NIS 25 for enroLLees without supplementary medical insurance, and from NIS 11 to NIS 5 for enrollees with supplementary insurance. An alert for performing pneumococcaL vaccination for the target population was introduced into the medical software used by all CHS physicians. RESULTS During a period of two years foLLowing the introduction of pneumococcaL vaccination as a quality measure in CHS, approximately 400,000 CHS enrollees within the target population received pneumococcaL vaccination, and the rate of immunization increased 10-fold (with respect to August 2007). CONCLUSION The introduction of pneumococcal vaccination as a quality measure in CHS, coupled by other managerial and service-related actions, substantially increased the vaccination rates.
Breaking a tropical taboo.

Researchers have had stunning success analyzing ancient DNA from samples from northern latitudes. But much of the world“s biodiversity, including that in the human family tree, evolved in the tropics, where hot, moist conditions can attack fragile DNA. DNA is a notoriously weak molecule, vulnerable to water or oxygen that can rip apart its chemical bonds. Chemical processes can wreak havoc, chopping DNA into tiny strands, sometimes only a few bases long. A severely degraded sample is little more than alphabet soup. So for decades scientists have assumed that the only place to find viable ancient DNA was in cold, dry environments. But now a handful of researchers are trying to find places, such as the interior of caves, where ancient DNA can survive the tropical assault and so answer questions that once seemed beyond its ken.
Architecture de communication pour les réseaux d'instrumentation sans fil

Aujourd'hui les reseaux de capteurs sont devenus des systemes pouvant atteindre un tres grand nombre de noeuds, avec une zone de couverture determinee et deployes d'une maniere plus ou moins dense dans un environnement heterogene dont on mesure ainsi son etat global. La problematique de cette these consiste a concevoir une architecture pour les objets communicants a faible consommation en utilisant des antennes « intelligentes » pour l'instrumentation et la mesure. Integrant une approche pluridisciplinaire, cette architecture couvre les services offerts depuis les couches MAC jusqu'a celles de plus haut niveau. Bases sur une partie materielle completement reconfigurable (amplificateur de puissance et antennes a base de MEMS RF), les services des couches superieures sont definis en partie sur circuits numeriques pour la couche physique (bande de base) et la couche MAC, et de maniere logicielle pour les protocoles de routages adaptes et les services innovants. En resume, le travail consiste a concevoir un systeme autonome multi capteurs, d'acquisition et de traitement avec memorisation, communicant a travers un reseau sans fil. Les principaux problemes a resoudre seront : le controle de la topologie, la precision de la synchronisation, la consommation d'energie.
Smooth and sparsely‐spined stellate cells in the visual cortex of the rat: A study using a combined golgi‐electron microscope technique

The visual cortex of the rat was impregnated by the rapid Golgi procedure. From these preparations, smooth (spine‐free) and sparsely‐spined multipolar stellate cells with well impregnated axons were selected and drawn in the light microscope using a camera lucida. Five suitably impregnated cells were then gold‐toned and deimpregnated by removal of the silver chromate produced by the Golgi impregnation, so that they could be examined in the electron microscope to determine both their cytological features and their pre‐ and postsynaptic relationships. A sixth neuron was not deimpregnated, and was examined in the electron microscope only to evaluate the types of synapses formed by its axons terminals. Five of these cells had extensive local axonal plexus and the sixth had a plexus which was less profuse.
SIMULATION & EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF PARTIAL DISCHARGE IN INSULATING MATERIALS FOR HIGH VOLTAGE POWER EQUIPMENTS

Insulators are the integral part of the high voltage power equipments, several types of insulators are used in high voltage electrical power system to protect the power equipments. For the purpose of safety and better efficiency, it is necessary to keep the insulators in a healthy condition during its operation. As the insulators are always in impure form due to presence of air bubbles (void) /other impurities inside the insulators, the local electrical breakdown is so called partial discharge (PD) takes place due to the high voltage stresses. Due to this, PD occurs and property of insulators deteriorates enormously. Therefore, detection of PD is the one of the important task for electrical engineers to keep the high voltage power equipment in healthy condition. In this paper an experimental and simulation model study of both solid and liquid insulators has been done. Perspex as a solid insulator and oil as a liquid insulator are taken for realization of actual PD activity inside the insulators with the application of high voltages. Electrical equivalent model of the insulators has been developed using MATLAB Simulink environment with a cubical void (air bubble) as an impurity is taken inside the insulator. In this study, the maximum amplitude of PD, partial discharge pulses at different applied voltages, and amplitude of PD breakdown voltages with frequency are studied for the analysis of partial discharge characteristics in the insulating materials.
Data-specific feature point descriptor matching using dictionary learning and graphical models

The identification of anatomical landmarks in medical images is an important task in registration and morphometry. The manual identification and labeling of these landmarks is very time consuming and prone to observer errors, especially when large datasets must be analyzed. Matching landmarks in a pair of images is a challenging task. Although off-the-shelf feature point descriptors are powerful at describing points in an image, they are generic by nature, as they have been usually developed for applications in a computer vision setting where there is little prior knowledge about the images. Leveraging on recent developments in the machine learning community, this paper aims to build feature point descriptors that are dataset-specific. The proposed approach describes landmarks as feature descriptors based on a sparse coding reconstruction of a patch surrounding the landmark (or any point of interest), using a dataset-specific learned dictionary. Since strong spatial constraints typically exist in medical images, we also combine spatial information of surrounding point descriptors into a graphical model that is built online. We show accurate results in matching one-to-one anatomical landmarks in brain MR images.
UTILIZACIÓN DE MICROMÉTODOS EN LAS PRUEBAS DE TIEMPO DE PROTROMBINA (TP) Y TIEMPO DE TROMBOPLASTINA PARCIAL (TTP)

For obvious reasons, the utilization of micromethods in clinical analysis is increasingly more frequent. We considered of importance to compare a new original capilar micromethod and a venous one, with the traditional reference methods for determination of prothrombin and partial throm boplastin times. The results show that the micromethods compare favorably from a satatistical point of view, with the traditional macromethods, since they are accurated and reproductible. The correlation coefficients are fairly good, when comparing the different methods for the prothrombin time (r=0. 99 to 0.83), and the ranges were practically the same for each determination. When comparing the parcial thromboplastin time methods, the coefficients were also satisfactory (r= 0.89 to 0.73), with similar ranges in alI the methods. We concluded that the micromethods presented in this article, are a good alternative for coagulation studies, with all their advantages.
Are the differences between estradiol and other estrogens, naturally occurring or synthetic, merely semantical?

I n 1923, Allen and Doisy’ described a bioassay that detected estrogenic activity in extracts of biological materials.This test also enabled the determination of relative estrogenic potencies of many compounds and of inhomogeneous materials of natural origin. During the intervening 70 years this bioassay, or modifications of it, has been used to identify and characterize synthetic estrogens and those obtained from natural sources, e.g. mammalian tissues, excreta, and plants, and from chemical syntheses. The numerous chemical compounds and biological materials that have been labeled as estrogens because they responded positively in the above bioassay differ enormously from each other with respect to their chemical structures. The following abbreviated list will illustrate the point: estradiol, estriol, equilin, 17-ethynylestradiol, stilbesterol, xenoestrogens (DDT etc), phytoestrogens (coumestrol), clinically-useful extracts of horse urine (premarin), etc. Thus under one rubric a potpourri of chemical entities have been designated estrogens. Frequently investigators give no recognition to the differences that undoubtedly exist among members of the class. Focusing on only this one characteristic, i.e. a positive response in a bioassay and neglecting the many differences in biological activities that undoubtedly exist among these materials, cannot help but cause unnecessary confusion. In a subject as complex as reproductive endocrinology this lack of concern for the dissimilarities among various estrogens promotes neither understanding nor progress. To provide a common starting point for the view presented in this comment several propositions are presented below. These statements concentrate, in a simplistic way, upon the knowledge that is needed to address the question posed in the title. Ordinarily these theorems are taught early in the education of reproductive biologists but, as evidenced by many flawed publications, their reiteration here may have value. 1. A definition: estrogens are materials that, when administered (usually by injection im as solutions in some oil) into sexually immature or castrated female rodents, cause cornification of epithelial cells of the vagina. 2. Estradiol, the estrogenic hormone in mammals, is a member of this class of biologically active chemicals.
Effect of temperature upon solubilization by a series of nonionic surfactants.

The solubilization of benzoic acid by four n -alkylpolyoxyethylene surfactants as a function of temperature has been examined by the dialysis and solubility techniques. In addition to their use in formulation work, it is shown that evaluation of the equilibrium constants controlling the solubilization process can be of use in elucidating micellar properties. The calculation of the thermodynamic parameters controlling the solubilization process is discussed and some difficulties indicated.
Transient ischemic attacks at high altitude

The precise etiology of transient neurologic deficits at high altitude is unclear, particularly since the subjects are not investigated as they would be had the events occurred in an urban environment. This report describes two subjects who experienced transient ischemic attacks (TIAs) while ascending the northeast ridge route of Mt. Everest during the Ultima Thule Everest Expedition, and a third subject with TIAs during three separate high-altitude climbs. Possible etiologies and treatment for TIAs at high altitude are suggested.
Effect of dynamic magnetization manipulation on transient losses and magnet temperature in energy-saving VF-PMSM traction drives

Dynamic manipulation of magnetization state (MS) in variable flux permanent magnet synchronous machines (VF-PMSMs) during normal operation based on the torque-speed operating conditions has been shown to significantly reduce machine losses over urban driving cycles. However, the additional losses that are induced during the dynamic MS manipulation have not been evaluated. This paper presents a combination of finite element analysis (FEA) and experimental high bandwidth measurement techniques to estimate the transient losses during dynamic MS manipulation. The effect of these losses on the magnet temperature is analyzed experimentally and also by using a thermal equivalent circuit.
Rapid Knowledge Formation (RFK) Information & Transition Support

Abstract : The prime objective of this effort was to create and maintain the Rapid Knowledge Formation (RKF) community web site. This site was operative for the entire RKF project. This effort also investigated development of the SCOOP-System for Collaborative Open Ontology Production. The SCOOP system manipulates logic expressions and checks for redundancies or contradictions between the products developed by different engineers. SCOOP also includes an automated workflow process that supports recommendations for changes and voting to agree on changes. Future work needs to investigate more flexible and powerful methods for specifying interest and relevance in knowledge products. When a simple keyword matching scheme is employed, the presence of formally encoded knowledge provides a rich basis for more powerful methods. This can potentially provide full logical queries to specify interest, where employing theorem-provers can pose the query against new knowledge products. As a result, this employs techniques where alternate encoding of knowledge may facilitate knowledge sharing.
Lymphocyte Accumulation in the Spleen of Retinoic Acid Receptor-Related Orphan Receptor γ-Deficient Mice1

The hormone nuclear receptor retinoic acid receptor-related orphan receptor γ (RORγ) plays important roles in thymocyte development and lymphoid organogenesis. RORγ and its thymus-specific isoform RORγt are expressed in the thymus, but not in the spleen and bone marrow (BM). However, RORγ−/− mice have 2- to 3-fold more splenocytes than wild-type controls due to an accumulation of conventional resting B lymphocytes. The increase in B lymphocytes in RORγ−/− mice is caused neither by abnormal B cell development in the BM nor by an obvious defect in the peripheral T cell compartment. Furthermore, analyses of BM chimeras using either RORγ−/− or recombinase-activating gene-2−/− mice as recipients and wild-type or RORγ−/− mice as donors, respectively, demonstrate that the splenic microenvironment of RORγ−/− mice is defective, since wild-type T and B lymphocytes accumulated in these chimeric mice. In addition, T lymphocyte homeostasis was altered due to a lowered thymic output in RORγ−/− mice. Collectively, these results suggest that RORγ regulates lymphocyte homeostasis at multiple levels.
Postmeningitis Headache

Acute meningitis is associated with headache, but the natural history of the headache following recovery is unknown. We addressed this issue in 141 patients admitted during 1990 to 1993 with laboratory‐confirmed meningitis. We excluded patients younger than 5 years (n=44), elderly demented patients (n=6), and those with potential causes of headache other than meningitis (n=4). Seventeen candidates could not be traced. The remaining 70 patients were interviewed using a semistructured questionnaire that documented age, sex, type of meningitis, time of headache onset after infection, and headache description as well as any past and/or family history of headache. These patients were compared to age‐ and sex‐matched controls (n=70).
Investigation of an optimal distance between the microstrip patch antenna and the surrounding electromagnetic bandgap structure

Microstrip patch antennas are the most common form of printed antennas in antenna community. Besides the advantages of the microstrip patch antennas they have some unwanted features as surface wave excitation. Similarly, electromagnetic bandgap (EBG) structures are drawn major attraction with their interesting features in electromagnetics and antenna community. These structures are periodic in nature that prevent the propagation of unwanted surface waves consequently reduce side-lobe levels and increase front to back (F/B) ratios of the antennas within a particular frequency band. In this study, mushroom like EBG structures are used with a microstrip patch antenna operating at 10 GHz and the influence of the distance between the EBG structures and the antennas radiating edge is studied. By investigating the obtained results from full-wave numerical electromagnetic simulations and comparing the antenna performance parameters like gain, directivity and bandwidth, the optimal distances for placing the EBG structures are concluded.
THE CLINICAL APPLICATION OF CRRT—CURRENT STATUS: Complications of Continuous Renal Replacement Therapy

Continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT) is commonly used in critically ill patients with acute kidney injury. Many studies show that compared with intermittent hemodialysis, continuous therapy has superior hemodynamic stability, metabolic clearance, and volume control. Despite these benefits, no survival advantage can be demonstrated with its use. Although study design explains much of this paradox, it is also quite plausible that the complications associated with CRRT negate its potential benefits in the critically ill patient. We summarize the common complications associated with the use of CRRT.