Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pathophysiology of Vascular Calcification in Chronic Kidney Disease

Patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) on dialysis have 2- to 5-fold more coronary artery calcification than age-matched individuals with angiographically proven coronary artery disease. In addition to increased traditional risk factors, CKD patients also have a number of nontraditional cardiovascular risk factors that may play a prominent role in the pathogenesis of arterial calcification, including duration of dialysis and disorders of mineral metabolism. In histological specimens from the inferior epigastric artery of dialysis patients, we have found expression of the osteoblast differentiation factor core binding factor &agr;-1 (Cbfa1) and several bone-associated proteins (osteopontin, bone sialoprotein, alkaline phosphatase, type I collagen) in both the intima and medial layers when calcification was present. In cultured vascular smooth muscle cells, the addition of pooled serum from dialysis patients (versus normal healthy controls) accelerated mineralization and increased expression of Cbfa1, osteopontin, and alkaline phosphatase to a similar magnitude as does &bgr;-glycerophosphate alone. However, a lack of inhibitors of calcification may also be important. Dialysis patients with low levels of serum fetuin-A, a circulating inhibitor of mineralization, have increased coronary artery calcification and fetuin-A can inhibit mineralization of vascular smooth muscle cells in vitro. These data support that elevated levels of phosphorus and/or other potential uremic toxins may play an important role by transforming vascular smooth muscle cells into osteoblast-like cells, which can produce a matrix of bone collagen and noncollagenous proteins. This nidus can then mineralize if the balance of pro-mineralizing factors outweighs inhibitory factors.
Self-determination in surgical patients in five European countries.

OBJECTIVE To analyze the effects of informational support, desire for behavioral involvement in health decision-making (behavioral involvement), opportunities to make decisions, and independence on subjective health status in surgical patients. A theoretical model of self-determination was applied and tested. METHODS The data were collected by structured questionnaires with a sample of 1,454 surgical patients in five European countries. LISREL analyses were used to test the theoretical causal model of self-determination. RESULTS Patients' perceptions of informational support received from nursing professionals and their desired involvement in health decision-making affected patients' opportunities to make decisions and further their independence level, which in turn affected patients' subjective health status. CONCLUSIONS Understanding of factors that increase self-determination in patients can help health care professionals to promote patients' well-being.
Overeating among seriously overweight children seeking treatment: results of the children's eating disorder examination.

OBJECTIVE We sought to examine rates of eating disorder symptoms among seriously overweight children seeking treatment using the Eating Disorder Examination for Children (ChEDE) and to provide initial data about their association with treatment outcome. METHOD Overweight children (N = 27) 8-13 years old were interviewed using the ChEDE before participating in a family-based behavioral treatment program. Height and weight were measured pretreatment, posttreatment, and approximately 8 months posttreatment. RESULTS Fifteen percent of children reported subjective bulimic episodes (SBE). Weight loss did not differ for children with and without SBEs, but concerns about body shape were related to larger weight losses during treatment. CONCLUSION A considerable minority of treatment-seeking overweight children report an episodic sense of loss of control over eating. Loss of control is related to other disordered eating attitudes and behaviors, but does not appear to affect treatment outcome. Future studies are needed to replicate these initial findings.
No correlation of substantia nigra echogenicity and nigrostriatal degradation in Parkinson's disease

Substantia nigra hyperechogenicity assessed by transcranial sonography is a typical finding in up to 90% of patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease, although its value as a surrogate marker for disease progression in Parkinson's disease is controversial. 123I‐FP‐CIT–single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) represents an established paraclinical surrogate marker to quantify the nigrostriatal dopaminergic deficit in Parkinson's disease. Whereas most studies found no correlation between extent of substantia nigra echogenicity and the putaminal FP‐CIT binding ratio, a more recent analysis reported opposite results.
Pain Management Strategies for Thoracotomy and Thoracic Pain Syndromes

Pain after thoracic surgery can be severe and, in the acute phase, contribute to perioperative morbidity and mortality. Unfortunately, patients also incur a significant risk of chronic pain. Although there are guidelines for postoperative pain management in these patients, there is no widespread surgical or anesthetic “best practice. ” Here, we review the recent literature on techniques specific to perioperative pain control for thoracic patients, including medical management, neuraxial blockade, and other regional techniques, and suggest an algorithm for developing a multimodal pain management strategy.
Survey and proposal on packet classification algorithms

Presents a collection of slides covering the following topics: packet classification; ternary CAM; linear search; rule set characteristics; hierarchical trie; grid of tries; performance evaluation; hierarchical set pruning binary search tree; refined HSP-BST; performance simulation; bit vector; cross product; tuple space search; rectangle search; tuple pruning; bloom filter; area based quad trie; and hierarchical intelligent cutting.
A Taxonomy of Information Retrieval Models and Tools

Information retrieval is attracting significant attention due to the exponential growth of the amount of information available in digital format. The proliferation of information retrieval objects, including algorithms, methods, technologies, and tools, makes it difficult to assess their capabilities and features and to understand the relationships that exist among them. In addition, the terminology is often confusing and misleading, as different terms are used to denote the same, or similar, tasks. This paper proposes a taxonomy of information retrieval models and tools and provides precise definitions for the key terms. The taxonomy consists of superimposing two views: vertical taxonomy, that classifies IR models with respect to a set of basic features, and horizontal taxonomy, which classifies IR systems and services with respect to the tasks they support. Theaimistoprovideaframeworkforclassifyingexisting information retrieval models and tools and a solid point to assess future developments in the field.
Continuance use intention of enterprise instant messaging: a knowledge management perspective

Instant messaging has been widely utilised by a variety of types of organisations to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of internal communication and knowledge management (KM). To date, though, the continuance use of enterprise instant messaging (EIM) and its impact on KM outcomes have not been well understood in both academia and practice. This paper uses the decomposed theory of planned behaviour to explore factors that influence continual usage of EIM applications within organisations, as well as the impact of the continuance use decisions on knowledge creation, transfer, and retention within organisations. Our results are useful in developing guidelines and strategies to increase the likelihood of the continuance use of EIM and to improve the potential outcome of its use within organisations.
Effect of propargyl bromide and 1,3-dichloropropene on microbial communities in an organically amended soil.

Abstract In this study we investigated the response of microbial communities in unamended and manure-amended soil treated with the fumigants propargyl bromide (PBr) and 1,3-dichloropropene (1,3-D). The soil fumigants were applied at a rate of 10, 100, and 500 mg kg(-1). After treatment of the soils, the metabolic activity was assessed by monitoring the dehydrogenase activity (DHA). PBr and 1,3-D initially inhibited the DHA when applied at 500 mg kg(-1); however, after 8 weeks, recovery of the DHA only occurred in amended soil. Bacterial community level changes were monitored over a 12-week period after fumigation using denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis of polymerase chain reaction-amplified 16S rDNA fragments. Band numbers were drastically reduced upon application of the fumigants, but reestablished more rapidly in the amended soil. To determine changes in the community diversity, the Shannon-Weaver index of diversity, H, was calculated for all treatments. In unamended and amended soil, the community diversity decreased with increasing fumigant concentration. In the PBr-treated soils, the diversity was higher in amended soil at all concentrations throughout the study, while in the 1,3-D treatments, the results were mixed. At 1, 4, 8, and 12 weeks after fumigation, major bands were excised from the gels and the DNA was cloned for sequence analysis. The bacterial communities in the fumigated amended soils were dominated by Streptomyces spp. , other genera of actinomycetales, including Frankia, Cytophagales, Actinomadura, and Geodermatophilus, and a number of unidentified bacteria. Our results suggest that it may be feasible to reduce the impact of fumigant pesticides on soil microbial populations by stimulating microbial community structure, diversity and activity through the addition of organic amendments.
Addressing the digital divide in teaching information retrieval: A theoretical view on taking students from ICT access to knowledge sharing

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to help students to move from ICT access to knowledge sharing.Design/methodology/approach – An overview of the literature on information literacy skills and the digital divide, an analysis of information seeking research, as well as experience in teaching a course in advanced information retrieval at the Department of Information Science, University of Pretoria, South Africa, inspired a theoretical model for addressing different layers of the digital divide.Findings – The digital divide concerns more than just ICT access and information skills. Individual commitment, group work, and intellectual and academic support from the institution might contribute to bringing people to higher levels of knowledge generation and communication.Research limitations/implications – At this stage it is a theoretical model that needs to be tested in practice.Practical implications – The model should hold possibilities for information literacy programs, programs in information retriev.
The ampakine, Org 26576, bolsters early spatial reference learning and retrieval in the Morris water maze: a subchronic, dose-ranging study in rats

Ampakines have shown beneficial effects on cognition in selected animal models of learning. However, their ability to modify long-term spatial memory tasks has not been studied yet. This would lend credence to their possible value in treating disorders of cognition. We evaluated the actions of subchronic Org 26576 administration on spatial reference memory performance in the 5-day Morris water maze task in male Sprague–Dawley rats, at doses of 1, 3 and 10 mg/kg twice daily through intraperitoneal injection over 12 days. Org 26576 exerted a dose and time-dependent effect on spatial learning, with dosages of 3 and 10 mg/kg significantly enhancing acquisition on day 1. Globally, escape latency decreased significantly as the training days progressed in the saline and Org 26576-treated groups, indicating that significant and equal learning had taken place over the learning period. However, at the end of the learning period, all doses of Org 26576 significantly improved spatial memory storage/retrieval without confounding effects in the cued version of the task. Org 26576 offers early phase spatial memory benefits in rats, but particularly enhances search accuracy during reference memory retrieval. These results support its possible utility in treating disorders characterized by deficits in cognitive performance.
Investigating dependence in packet queues with the index of dispersion for work

The authors continue an investigation of the way diverse traffic from different data applications affects the performance of packet queues. This traffic often exhibits significant dependence among successive interarrival times, among successive service times, and between interarrival times and service times, which can cause a significant degradation of performance under heavy loads (and often even under moderate loads). This dependence and its effects on performance (specifically, the mean steady-state workload) are partially characterized here by the cumulative correlations in the total input process of work, which is referred to as the index of dispersion for work (IDW). The authors evaluate approximations for the mean steady-state workload based on the IDW by making comparisons with computer simulations. >
Target-Pathogen: a structural bioinformatic approach to prioritize drug targets in pathogens

Abstract Available genomic data for pathogens has created new opportunities for drug discovery and development to fight them, including new resistant and multiresistant strains. In particular structural data must be integrated with both, gene information and experimental results. In this sense, there is a lack of an online resource that allows genome wide-based data consolidation from diverse sources together with thorough bioinformatic analysis that allows easy filtering and scoring for fast target selection for drug discovery. Here, we present Target-Pathogen database (http://target.sbg.qb.fcen.uba.ar/patho), designed and developed as an online resource that allows the integration and weighting of protein information such as: function, metabolic role, off-targeting, structural properties including druggability, essentiality and omic experiments, to facilitate the identification and prioritization of candidate drug targets in pathogens. We include in the database 10 genomes of some of the most relevant microorganisms for human health (Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Mycobacterium leprae, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Plasmodium vivax, Toxoplasma gondii, Leishmania major, Wolbachia bancrofti, Trypanosoma brucei, Shigella dysenteriae and Schistosoma Smanosoni) and show its applicability. New genomes can be uploaded upon request.
Toll‐like receptor activation and hypoxia use distinct signaling pathways to stabilize hypoxia‐inducible factor 1α (HIF1A) and result in differential HIF1A‐dependent gene expression

HIF1A is a transcription factor that plays a central role for the adaptation to tissue hypoxia and for the inflammatory response of myeloid cells, including DCs. HIF1A is stabilized by hypoxia but also by TLR ligands under normoxic conditions. The underlying signaling events leading to the accumulation of HIF1A in the presence of oxygen are still poorly understood. Here, we show that in contrast to hypoxic stabilization of HIF1A, normoxic, TLR‐mediated HIF1A accumulation in DCs follows a different pathway that predominantly requires MYD88‐dependent NF‐κB activity. The TLR‐induced HIF1A controls a subset of proinflammatory genes that are insufficiently induced following hypoxia‐mediated HIF1A induction. Thus, TLR activation and hypoxia stabilize HIF1A via distinct signaling pathways, resulting in differential HIF1A‐dependent gene expression.
Reactive oxygen species and sperm DNA fragmentation

Dr. Dada demonstrated her extensive knowledge about sperm DNA fragmentation (SDF) in her elegantly written commentary with a comprehensive discussion on issues such as genetic health of offspring, value of SDF testing in lifestyle factors, modification of SDF by oocyte, role of sperm preparation, concept of reductive stress, methodology of SDF testing, and use of antioxidant and testicular sperm (1). In our response, we have elaborated on the association between reactive oxygen species (ROS) and SDF which has been mentioned repeatedly in Dr. Dada's commentary.
Conformational preference functions for predicting helices in membrane proteins

A suite of FORTRAN programs, PREF, is described for calculating preference functions from the data base of known protein structures and for comparing smoothed profiles of sequence‐dependent preferences in proteins of unknown structure. Amino acid preferences for a secondary structure are considered as functions of a sequence environment. Sequence environment of amino acid residue in a protein is defined as an average over some physical, chemical, or statistical property of its primary structure neighbors. The frequency distribution of sequence environments in the data base of soluble protein structures is approximately normal for each amino acid type of known secondary conformation. An analytical expression for the dependence of preferences on sequence environment is obtained after each frequency distribution is replaced by corresponding Gaussian function. The preference for the α‐helical conformation increases for each amino acid type with the increase of sequence environment of buried solvent‐accessible surface areas. We show that a set of preference functions based on buried surface area is useful for predicting folding motifs in α‐class proteins and in integral membrane proteins. The prediction accuracy for helical residues is 79% for 5 integral membrane proteins and 74% for 11 α‐class soluble proteins. Most residues found in transmembrane segments of membrane proteins with known α‐helical structure are predicted to be indeed in the helical conformation because of very high middle helix preferences. Both extramembrane and transmembrane helices in the photosynthetic reaction center M and L subunits are correctly predicted. We point out in the discussion that our method of conformational preference functions can identify what physical properties of the amino acids are important in the formation of particular secondary structure elements. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Integration of theoretical and the empirical deformations by KALMAN-Filtering in the North Anatolia Fault Zone

Abstract. Earthquakes occur in regions with intense seismic activities and cause life and property losses. Predicting earthquakes, identifying deformations and decreasing earthquake effects have been major subjects for scientists, engineers, and authorities. One of the theories used for identifying location changes during an earthquake is the elastic half-space model. Recently, the Global Navigation Satellite System has also been used for the same purpose. In this work, the deformations caused by the earthquake across the Marmara Region on 17 August 1999 are determined by theoretical and empirical methods. The data retrieved from the half elastic-space model and GPS measurements were filtered with the Kalman filter technique. The difference between the half elastic-space model and GPS measurements increases in the area close to the fault zone. The study results showed that the fault line is actually not a line but an area within the earthquake region which can be called a deformation zone. To increase the efficiency of the Kalman filter, differences between the theoretical and empirical models were modeled using the Kriging technique. Using the theoretical model which was calibrated by the Kriging griding, forecast values were retrieved for deformations occurred across the earthquake region after the earthquake.
The Use of Uniaxial and Triaxial Accelerometers to Measure Children’s “Free-Play” Physical Activity

In order to effectively measure the physical activity of children, objective monitoring devices must be able to quantify the intermittent and nonlinear movement of free play. The purpose of this study was to investigate the validity of the Computer Science and Applications (CSA) uniaxial accelerometer and the TriTrac-R3D triaxial accelerometer with respect to their ability to measure 8 “free-play” activities of different intensity. The activities ranged from light to very vigorous in intensity and included activities such as throwing and catching, hopscotch, and basketball. Twenty-eight children, ages 9 to 11, wore a CSA and a heart rate monitor while performing the activities. Sixteen children also wore a Tritrac. Counts from the CSA, Tritrac, and heart rates corresponding to the last 3 min of the 5 min spent at each activity were averaged and used in correlation analyses. Across all 8 activities, Tritrac counts were significantly correlated with predicted MET level (r = 0.69) and heart rate (r = 0.73).
Evaluation of a new effect‐site controlled, patient‐maintained sedation system in dental patients *

We have designed a new effect‐site controlled, patient‐maintained sedation system for delivering propofol. In the previous systems we developed, the patients retained the use of the handset throughout the procedure and were able to increase the level of sedation. However, it was found that this could potentially lead to oversedation. In the present system, the patients were able to increase their level of sedation until a level was reached that was judged by the patients as being adequate to allow them to tolerate the injection of dental local anaesthetic. The handset was then taken from the patients and the effect site concentration of propofol was maintained at that level for the remainder of the procedure. To assess its safety and efficacy, the system was used to sedate 40 patients presenting for dental procedures under sedation. The system was used successfully and treatment was completed in 39 patients. The system was found to be safe. Both surgeon and patient approval scores were high. Although this study demonstrates the efficacy of effect‐site controlled, patient‐maintained propofol sedation in this group of patients, further work is required to confirm its safety.
A new simplification method for terrain model using discrete particle swarm optimization

In this paper, we put forward a fast simplification method for the terrain model by integrating the discrete particle swarm optimization with the hierarchical structure. In this method, each particle is represented as a hierarchical structure and corresponds to a candidate solution of the simplified terrain model. In order to acquire an optimal simplified model, we proposed a new model error evaluation function based on the terrain features. Thereby the terrain model yielded by this method has high self-adaptability and optimal simplification ratio. Furthermore, the velocity of the particle is redefined as the probability of the model being simplified superiorly. Therefore, the particles can converge to the optimal simplified model rapidly. The experimental results performed on benchmark terrain data show that the efficiency and the precision of our algorithm are improved greatly and the detailed features in the simplified model are preserved, compared with the others common simplification method.