Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Minimally invasive cardiac valve surgery improves patient satisfaction while reducing costs of cardiac valve replacement and repair.

OBJECTIVE This study compares the quality of valve replacement and repair performed through minimally invasive incisions as compared to the standard operation for aortic and mitral valve replacement. SUMMARY BACKGROUND DATA With the advent of minimally invasive laparoscopic approaches to orthopedic surgery, urology, general surgery, and thoracic surgery, it now is apparent that standard cardiac valve operations can be performed through very small incisions with similar approaches. METHODS Eighty-four patients underwent minimally invasive aortic (n = 41) and minimally invasive mitral valve repair and replacement (n = 43) between July 1996 and April 1997. Demographics, procedures, operative techniques, and postoperative morbidity and mortality were calculated, and a subset of the first 50 patients was compared to a 50-patient cohort who underwent the same operation through a conventional median sternotomy. Demographics, postoperative morbidity and mortality, patient satisfaction, and charges were compared. RESULTS Of the 84 patients, there were 2 operative mortalities both in class IV aortic patients from multisystem organ failure. There was no operative mortality in the patients undergoing mitral valve replacement or repair. The operations were carried out with the same accuracy and attention to detail as with the conventional operation. There was minimal postoperative bleeding, cerebral vascular accidents, or other major morbidity. Groin cannulation complications primarily were related to atherosclerotic femoral arteries. A comparison of the minimally invasive to the conventional group, although operative time and ischemia time was higher in minimally invasive group, the requirement for erythrocytes was significantly less, patient satisfaction was significantly greater, and charges were approximately 20% less than those in the conventional group. CONCLUSIONS Minimally invasive aortic and mitral valve surgery in patients without coronary disease can be done safely and accurately through small incisions. Patient satisfaction is up, return to normality is higher, and requirement for postrehabilitation services is less. In addition, the charges are approximately 20% less. These results serve as a paradigm for the future in terms of valve surgery in the managed care environment.
One‐on‐one contract game–based dynamic virtual machine migration scheme for Mobile Edge Computing

In the evolution toward fifth‐generation networks, Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) is an emerging paradigm, conceived to meet the ever‐increasing computational demands of mobile applications. Within the access range of mobile devices, the MEC technique promises the enablement of efficient Mobile Cloud Computing services. In an MEC system, virtual machine (VM) migration is a key issue; VM migration is the process of moving a VM from an edge node to another edge node. To improve service quality and system performance, the VM migration method has a dual focus on the MEC system's computation and communication resources. In this study, we formulate the VM migration problem as a one‐on‐one contract game model and develop a learning‐based price control mechanism to effectively handle the MEC's resource. By using the game methodology and learning process, our approach is able to capture the dynamics of MEC systems, and it interacts continually with an unknown system environment. Finally, extensive simulation results are provided to demonstrate the capability of the proposed approach in achieving, with respect to existing MEC schemes, both higher resource utilization and system throughput, as well as reduced service drop ratio and reduced service delay.
Nitrilase of Rhodococcus rhodochrous J1. Purification and characterization.

Nitrilase was purified from an extract of isovaleronitrile-induced cells of Rhodococcus rhodochrous J1 in seven steps. In the last step, the enzyme was crystallized by adding ammonium sulfate. The crystallized enzyme appeared to be homogeneous by polyacrylamide electrophoresis, ampholyte electrofocusing and double immunodiffusion in agarose. The enzyme has a molecular mass of about 78 kDa and consists of two subunits identical in molecular mass. The purified enzyme exhibits a pH optimum of 7.6 and a temperature optimum of 45 degrees C. The enzyme catalyzed stoichiometrically the hydrolysis of benzonitrile to benzoic acid and ammonia, and no formation of amide was detected. The enzyme required thiol compounds such as dithiothreitol, L-cysteine or reduced glutathione to exhibit maximum activity. The enzyme was specific for nitrile groups attached to an aromatic or heteroaromatic ring, e.g. benzonitrile, 3-chlorobenzonitrile, 4-tolunitrile, 2-furonitrile and 2-thiophenecarbonitrile. The comparison of the properties of the enzyme with other nitrilases and nitrile hydratases has been also discussed.
Handshakiness: Benchmarking for human-robot hand interactions

Handshakes are common greetings, and humans therefore have strong priors of what a handshake should feel like. This makes it challenging to create compelling and realistic human-robot handshakes, necessitating the consideration of human haptic perception in the design of robot hands. At its most basic level, haptic perception is encoded by contact points and contact pressure distributions on the skin. This motivates our work on measuring the contact area and contact pressure in human handshaking interactions. We present two benchmarking experiments in this regard, measuring the contact locations in human-human/human-robot handshaking and the contact pressure distribution for handshakes with a sensorized palm. We present results from human studies with the benchmarking experiments, providing a baseline for comparison with robot hands as well as presenting new insights into human handshaking. We also show initial work in using these results for the evaluation of robot hands, and progressing towards iterative design of robot hands optimized for social hand interactions.
Myocardial Regeneration via Progenitor Cell-Derived Exosomes

In the past 20 years, a variety of cell products has been evaluated in terms of their capacity to treat patients with acute myocardial infarction and chronic heart failure. Despite initial enthusiasm, therapeutic efficacy has overall been disappointing, and clinical application is costly and complex. Recently, a subset of small extracellular vesicles (EVs), commonly referred to as “exosomes,” was shown to confer cardioprotective and regenerative signals at a magnitude similar to that of their donor cells. The conceptual advantage is that they may be produced in industrial quantities and stored at the point-of-care for off-the-shelf application, ideally without eliciting a relevant recipient immune response or other adverse effects associated with viable cells. The body of evidence on beneficial exosome-mediated effects in animal models of heart diseases is rapidly growing. However, there is significant heterogeneity in terms of exosome source cells, isolation process, therapeutic dosage, and delivery mode. This review summarizes the current state of research on exosomes as experimental therapy of heart diseases and seeks to identify roadblocks that need to be overcome prior to clinical application.
Differential Selection of Acridine Resistance Mutations in Human DNA Topoisomerase IIβ Is Dependent on the Acridine Structure

Type II DNA topoisomerases are targets of acridine drugs. Nine mutations conferring resistance to acridines were obtained by forced molecular evolution, using methyl N-(4′-(9-acridinylamino)-3-methoxy-phenyl) methane sulfonamide (mAMSA), methyl N-(4′-(9-acridinylamino)-2-methoxy-phenyl) carbamate hydrochloride (mAMCA), methyl N-(4′-(9-acridinylamino)-phenyl) carbamate hydrochloride (AMCA), and N-[2-(dimethylamino)ethyl]acridines-4-carboxamide (DACA) as selection agents. Mutations βH514Y, βE522K, βG550R, βA596T, βY606C, βR651C, and βD661N were in the B′ domain, and βG465D and βP732L were not. With AMCA, four mutations were selected (βE522K, βG550R, βA596T, and βD661N). Two mutations were selected with mAMCA (βY606C and βR651C) and two with mAMSA (βG465D and βP732L). It is interesting that there was no overlap between mutation selection with AMCA and mAMSA or mAMCA. AMCA lacks the methoxy substituent present in mAMCA and mAMSA, suggesting that this motif determines the mutations selected. With the fourth acridine DACA, five mutations were selected for resistance (βG465D, βH514Y, βG550R, βA596T, and βD661N). βG465D was selected with both DACA and mAMSA, and βG550R, βA596T, and βD661N were selected with both DACA and AMCA. DACA lacks the anilino motif of the other three drugs but retains the acridine ring motif. The overlap in selection with DACA and mAMSA or AMCA suggests that altered recognition of the acridine moiety may be involved in these mutations. We used restriction fragment length polymorphisms and heteroduplex analysis to demonstrate that some mutations were selected multiple times (βG465D, βE522K, βG550R, βA596T, and βD661N), whereas others were selected only once (βH514Y, βY606C, βR651C, and βP732L). Here, we compare the drug resistance profile of all nine mutations and report the biochemical characterization of three, βG550R, βY606C, and βD661N.
Space-division multiplexed transmission

This article consists of a collection of slides from the author's conference presentation. Some of the specific areas/topics discussed include: multicore fibers; MIMO equalization and outage; few-mode fibers and couplers; impulse response characterization; MIMO digital signal processing (DSP); nonlinearity in few-mode fibers; and SMD transmission experiments.
Pain in neonatal intensive care: role of melatonin as an analgesic antioxidant

Abstract: Endotracheal intubation is a common painful procedure in newborn care. Neonates are more sensitive to pain than older infants, children, and adults, and this hypersensitivity is further exacerbated in preterm neonates. The aim of this study was to evaluate the analgesic activity of melatonin during endotracheal intubation of the newborn by using the Neonatal Infant Pain Scale (NIPS) and Premature Infant Pain Profile (PIPP) score. Secondary outcome was an evaluation of melatonin as inflammatory responses. This was performed by measuring the levels of pro‐ and anti‐inflammatory cytokines implicated in the pain. Sixty preterm infants were enrolled in the study and were randomly divided into two groups: 30 infants treated with melatonin plus common sedation and analgesia recommended by Italian Society of Neonatology (group 1) and 30 infants treated with only common sedation and analgesia. The sedative and analgesic drugs included atropine, fentanyl, and vecuronium. The reduction in pain score (NIPS) was similar in both groups at an early phase, while it (PIPP score) was lower in melatonin‐treated group infants than the other newborns at a late phase, during intubation and mechanical ventilation. The differences were statistically significant at 12, 24, 48, and 72 hr (P < 0.001). Pro‐inflammatory and anti‐inflammatory cytokines (IL‐6, IL‐8, IL‐10 and IL‐12) were higher in the common sedation and analgesia group than in melatonin‐treated infants at 24, 48, 72 hr and 7 days (P < 0.001). This study suggests the use of melatonin as an adjunct analgesic therapy during procedural pain, especially when an inflammatory component is involved.
Docetaxel plus Oxaliplatin in Combination with Capecitabine as First-Line Treatment for Advanced Gastric Cancer

Objective: In the present phase II study, we evaluated the efficacy and safety of a docetaxel-oxaliplatin-capecitabine combination as a first-line treatment in patients with advanced gastric cancer. Patients and Methods: A total of 27 patients (18 males) with histologically confirmed inoperable gastric adenocarcinoma were recruited. Docetaxel was given (50 mg/m2 i.v.) on day 1 followed by oxaliplatin (75 mg/m2 i.v.) also on day 1. Capecitabine (2,750 mg/m2) was given orally as two daily divided doses from days 1 to 7. Cycles were repeated every 2 weeks. All patients had measurable disease and 18 of them had a performance status (WHO) of 0. Results: A total of 240 treatment cycles were administered. All patients were evaluable for toxicity. Four patients who discontinued treatment early (having received only 3 chemotherapy cycles) were included as non-responders in an intention-to-treat response analysis. Complete response, partial response, stable disease and progressive disease were observed in 4 (15%), 12 (44%), 3 (11%) and 8 (30%) patients, respectively. The observed response rate was 59%, and the disease control rate (complete response + partial response + stable disease) was 70%. At the time of analysis, 6 patients were still alive and the median survival was 18.0 months. The most common grade III/IV toxicities observed were neutropenia (5%), diarrhea (2%), palmar-plantar erythrodysesthesia (2%) and neurotoxicity (1%). All other toxicities were mostly of grade I/II and easily manageable. Conclusion: The combination of docetaxel, oxaliplatin and capecitabine in the described mode of administration represents a relatively active and well-tolerated regimen in patients with advanced gastric cancer and warrants further evaluation.
Spectrum sensing technology in the space network

With the development of radio services, available spectrum resources become more and more nervous. As the current wireless network usually adopts the static spectrum allocation policy, spectrum scarcity of space is an illusion. Spectrum sensing technology can detect primary user in the time domain, frequency domain and space domain, whereby the spectrum usage. Over dynamically detecting and using idle spectrum, the utilization of the spectrum can be greatly improved. The inter-satellite links signal transmission usually adopted spread spectrum signal mode. When the primary user signal is spread spectrum signal, it is difficult to perceive the presence of primary users by available Spectrum sensing technology. In this paper, establish the GPS navigation satellite signal based on Matlab and STK software, using wavelet transform (WT) spectrum to detect the GPS signal, getting the final conclusion.
Caractérisation expérimentale des plissements à petite échelle dans une flamme turbulente prémélangée : effets de la pression

Le present travail est une etude experimentale sur l’interaction entre flamme et turbulence. L’effet de la pression sur le plissement de flammes turbulentes premelangees est caracterise a l’aide de diagnostics laser et fil chaud. Dans un premier temps, la caracterisation de la turbulence generee par un systeme multi-echelles a ete realisee. Il a ete demontre que ce dispositif amplifie le taux de turbulence de 40% par rapport a un dispositif mono-grille de maille equivalente. De meme, les petites echelles de turbulence sont trouvees experimentalement plus petites et plus energetiques pour le systeme multi-grilles. A partir de ces resultats, l’etude des interactions entre flamme premelangee et turbulence a ete effectuee. En utilisant le diagnostic par tomographie laser, le front de flamme de plusieurs premelanges a ete etudie. En modifiant les conditions de melange, l’effet des parametres comme le nombre de Lewis, les conditions de turbulence ou les petites echelles ont pu etre observes. Le faible impact des instabilites thermodiffusives sur la courbure du front de flamme et sur la dynamique de la flamme a ete demontre. En revanche, l’effet des conditions de turbulence a ete demontre comme important sur les caracteristiques du front de flamme. De plus, les resultats obtenus ont montre l’impact majeur de l’echelle de Taylor sur le plissement du front de flamme pour les conditions experimentales de la presente etude.
C--C bond formation reactions for biomass-derived molecules.

There has been a tremendous interest in the utilization of biomass as feedstock to produce renewable fuels and chemicals. The major monomer building blocks of biomass are carbohydrates which are typically 5 or 6 carbons in length. Petroleumderived jet and diesel fuels are between 8 to 15 carbons in length. Therefore, to produce jet and diesel fuel from biomass, there must be a C! C bond formation from the biomass-derived molecules. However, direct C! C bond formation from carbohydrates (C5 and C6) is difficult due to the polyhydroxy functionalities on the carbohydrates. These polyhydroxy functionalities make the carbonyl group of the carbohydrates less reactive toward C! C bond formation because of its hemiacetal form. To overcome this problem, several research groups have converted C5 and C6 carbohydrates to aromatic aldehydes (Figure 1) such as furfural 1 and hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) 2
Involvement of the Ras-Ras-activated Rab5 Guanine Nucleotide Exchange Factor RIN2-Rab5 Pathway in the Hepatocyte Growth Factor-induced Endocytosis of E-cadherin*

E-cadherin is a key cell-cell adhesion molecule at adherens junctions (AJs) and undergoes endocytosis when AJs are disrupted by the action of an extracellular signal, such as hepatocyte growth factor (HGF)/scatter factor. Rab5 small G protein has been implicated in the HGF-induced endocytosis of E-cadherin, but the molecular mechanism for the regulation of Rab5 activity remains unknown. We first studied this mechanism by using the cell-free assay system for the endocytosis of E-cadherin of the AJ-enriched fraction from rat livers. HGF induced activation of Ras small G protein, which then bound to RIN2, a Rab5 GDP/GTP exchange factor with the Vps9p-like guanine nucleotide exchange factor and Ras association domains, and activated it. Activated RIN2 then activated Rab5, eventually inducing the endocytosis of E-cadherin. We then studied whether RIN2 was involved in the HGF-induced endocytosis of E-cadherin in intact Madin-Darby canine kidney cells. RIN2 localized at the cell-cell adhesion sites, and its guanine nucleotide exchange factor activity was required for the HGF-induced endocytosis of E-cadherin in Madin-Darby canine kidney cells. These results indicate that RIN2 connects Ras to Rab5 in the HGF-induced endocytosis of E-cadherin.
Inferring User Interest

As the World Wide Web continues to grow, people find it impossible to access even a small portion of the information generated in a day from Usenet news, e-mail, and Web postings. Automated filters help us to prioritize and access only the information in which we're interested. Because opinions differ about the importance or relevance of information, people need personalized filters. Implicit indicators captured while users browse the Web can be as predictive of interest levels as explicit ratings.
HASTE MR imaging: Description of technique and preliminary results in the abdomen

HASTE (HAlf fourier Single‐shot Turbo spin‐Echo) is a single‐section T2‐weighted sequence that acquires images in less than 1 second. Images are breathing independent and possess a variety of other features useful for imaging the abdomen. The design of this technique is described. Clinical studies of 38 consecutive patients were performed using this technique. HASTE images were considered good in 28 and fair in 10 patients, including five patients who could not suspend respiration. Definition of liver and bowel was particularly clear.
Smokescreens in the Provenance Investigation of Early Formative Mesoamerican Ceramics

Abstract We are glad that Sharer et al. (this issue) have dropped their original claim that the INAA data demonstrate multidirectional movement of Early Formative pottery. Beyond this, however, they offer nothing that might enhance understanding of Early Formative ceramic circulation or inspire new insights into Early Formative cultural evolution in Mesoamerica. Instead, their response contains fresh distortions, replications of mistakes made in their PNAS articles, and lengthy passages that are irrelevant to the issues raised by Neff et al. (this issue). We correct and recorrect their latest distortions and misunderstandings here. Besides showing why their discussion of ceramic sourcing repeatedly misses the mark, we also correct a number of erroneous assertions about the archaeology of Olmec San Lorenzo. New evidence deepens understanding of Early Formative Mesoamerica but requires that some researchers discard cherished beliefs.
istributed reedy lgorith for Satellite ssign ent roble ith Sub odular tility Function

Recent advances in spacecraft technology allow a large number of smaller and cheaper satellites to fulfill useful Earth monitoring roles. An emerging challenge is to coordinate those satellites to monitor the Earth’s surface and atmosphere. In this paper, we study the satellite assignment problem for a large constellation of Earth observing satellites, where a set of satellites assign themselves to observe a set of locations. The objective is to maximize a global utility function that is associated with the assignment profile. Due to the communication constraints of the space system, we develop a distributed assignment algorithm where each satellite makes its choice based on local information and local communication. We show that the efficiency ratio of the distributed solution to the optimal one is lower bounded by 1/2. Moreover, this bound is proven to be tight in the sense that there exist scenarios where the bound 1/2 is approached as close as possible.
Study of LSP arrangement schemes in label switch networks

Label switch paths (LSP) are regarded as the routing components of an end‐to‐end connection in label switching network from the traffic engineering point of view. Thus, an end‐to‐end connection may travel more than one LSP. The QoS of this end‐to‐end connection relies on the performance of each LSP it travels. Therefore, to carefully arrange LSP is an essential step towards QoS networks. Generally speaking, the capacity of a specific link is not allocated for high‐priority LSP because it will cause inflexibility in the scheduling process. In this paper, the best‐fit shortest path (BSP) assignment and the worst shortest path (WSP) assignment schemes are proposed for the arrangement of label switch paths. In order to provide flexibility in packet scheduling, we propose that the BSP scheme to be applied for allocation of low‐priority LSP and the WSP scheme is used for the arrangement of LSP with high priority. Based on these two schemes, we extend them with elastic bandwidth allocation to prevent the bandwidth of the link from being occupied by the higher priority LSP. The experimental results indicate that, compared to the BSP‐only scheme, the proposed hybrid scheme demonstrates a more efficient way of arranging prioritized LSP. Moreover, the proposed elastic constrained bandwidth allocation scheme also illustrates a rather good performance in smoothing the link utilization of high‐priority LSP. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
L1 elements, processed pseudogenes and retrogenes in mammalian genomes

Long interspersed nuclear elements 1 (L1 elements or LINE1) are the most active autonomous retrotransposons in mammalian genomes. In addition to L1 elements themselves, other protein‐coding mRNAs can also be reverse transcribed and integrated into the genome through the L1‐mediated retrotransposition, leading to the formation of processed pseudogenes (PPs) and retrogenes, both of which are characterized by the lack of introns and the presence of a 3' polyA tract and flanking direct repeats. PPs are unable to encode a functional protein and have accumulated frameshift mutations and premature stop codons during evolution. A few of PPs are transcriptionally active. Retrogenes preserve undisrupted coding frames and are capable of encoding a functional protein that is identical or nearly identical to that of the progenitor gene. There is a significant excess of retrogenes that originate from the X chromosome and are retrotransposed into autosomes, and most of these retrogenes are specially expressed in male germ cells, suggesting the inactivation of X‐linked genes during male meiosis provides a strong selection pressure on retrogenes originating from the X chromosome. iubmb Life, 58: 677‐685, 2006