Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
FloSeal: a new hemostyptic agent in peripheral vascular surgery.

BACKGROUND Bleeding is a common and often severe side-effect in vascular surgery. The use of glue is widely accepted to achieve a dry surgical field. The application of sealant is limited when the surface is covered with blood. Aim of this study was to evaluate a new sealant (FloSeal) in patients undergoing vascular surgery. PATIENTS AND METHODS Between June 1998 and July 1999 a total of 17 patients with peripheral vascular interventions was included in this investigation. Effectiveness was measured by bleeding severity prior and after application, time to hemostasis, amount of fusion matrix necessary for hemostasis, the potential need for additional hemostatic measures, or the need for reoperations to control the bleeding. RESULTS In 15 out of 17 patients bleeding was controlled with FloSeal alone, two patients required further surgical or hemostatic treatment. There were no local or systemic complications after use of this product. CONCLUSION FloSeal is an advantageous hemostatic tool.
Hemiplegic atrophy

LOSS OF MUSCLE BULK may result from primary diseases of muscle (myopathy), disorders of the lower motor neuron (neural atrophy), disturbances of suprasegmental influences (“central” atrophy), and a heterogenous group of conditions in which debilitation or immobilization are present (“disuse” atrophy). Myopathy and neural atrophy are readily diagnosed by histological examination, and much is known about their pathophysiology. In contrast, the histological observations in central atrophy and disuse atrophy are sparse, and the two frequently are grouped together as possessing a common etiologic mechanism. The purpose of this report is to describe the histopathology of atrophy, secondary to hemiplegia, resulting from a cerebral vascular accident. This atrophy is usually considered to be the result of disuse of the paralyzed extremity. In some instances, parietal lobe dysfunction with a resulting loss of “trophic” influences on muscle is held as causal. Evidence is presented to question the importance of disuse as a major factor, and the literature concerning atrophy of suprasegmental origin is reviewed.
Control of mRNA stability by the virion host shutoff function of herpes simplex virus

vhs1 is a mutant of herpes simplex virus type 1 that is defective in the virion host shutoff function responsible for the degradation of cellular mRNAs and the concomitant shutoff of host protein synthesis. In this study, the effect of the vhs1 mutation on the metabolism of viral mRNAs was examined by measuring the half-lives and patterns of accumulation of 10 different viral mRNAs representing all kinetic classes. The vhs1 mutation had the effect of dramatically lengthening the cytoplasmic half-lives of all 10 mRNAs. In wild-type virus infections, the 10 mRNAs had similar half-lives, suggesting that little, if any, target mRNA selectivity was exhibited by the vhs function. The vhs1 mutation caused overaccumulation of a number of mRNAs. The effect was most dramatic for the alpha (immediate-early) mRNA for ICP27 and the beta (early) mRNAs encoding thymidine kinase, ICP8, and DNA polymerase. Whereas in wild-type infections these mRNAs increased to peak levels and subsequently declined in abundance, in vhs1 infections they continued to accumulate until late times. A significant but less dramatic overaccumulation was observed for several beta-gamma (delayed-early) and gamma (late) mRNAs. The results suggest that the vhs protein plays an important role in determining the half-lives of viral mRNAs belonging to all kinetic classes and in so doing is important in the normal downregulation at late times of alpha and beta gene expression.
Job Performance among Nurses at Mawar Renal Medical Centre

The paper shares the findings from a study on the influencing factors of job performance among career women at Mawar Renal Medical Centre. Data was collected using a survey questionnaire in a cross-sectional study. A questionnaire survey was distributed to 100 respondents among the staff nurses at Mawar Renal Medical Centre. Data from Pearson correlation and regression show that the three factors, namely job satisfaction, working environment and job discrimination are positively significant in regards to job performance. The working environment is the most influencing factor to the job performance at Mawar Renal Medical Centre. The results would help the hospital administration in developing a suitable policy particularly for their women nurses in enhancing job performance.
Co-movements Between the Real Economy and Financial Markets

The long-term relationship between financial markets and economic conditions is unclear. This paper aims to investigate how movements in the financial markets interact with the broader economy in the long term. Dynamic factor models are implemented to capture unobserved factors—common factor and sector factors. The common factor represents the co-movement between the real economy and the financial markets, and the sector factors indicate co-movements within the economy or within the financial markets. Variance decomposition is performed to show how much of variation in each variable can be explained by the co-movements. The results show that bond indexes are highly co-moved with money/credit related economic indicators, but stock indexes seem only to co-move with one another, and a big portion of variation in the stock market remains unexplained.
Carotid stents are not a source of microemboli late after deployment

Objectives– To evaluate the presence of microembolic signals (MES) in the middle cerebral artery distal to a stented carotid artery late after stent deployment. MES may be a signal of thrombus formation at the stent level. Patients and methods– Two patient groups were studied with transcranial Doppler at different intervals after deployment of Palmaz stents or Wallstents for stenosis of the internal or common carotid artery. Group 1: from 6 to 12 months after stent deployment; Group 2: >12 months after stenting. Results– One out of 19 patients in Group 1 showed MES (5.0%); however, this patient also had two mechanical heart valves. None out of 17 patients in Group 2 had MES. Conclusions– Carotid stents seem to have a very low emboligenic potential after the early post‐deployment period. This is a reassuring message for present and future patients harboring such stents.
Large margin nearest neighborhood metric learning for i-vector based speaker verification

A new large margin nearest neighborhood metric learning (LMNN) method for i-vector based speaker verification is proposed in this paper. In general, a verification decision is taken by computing the cosine distance between the i-vectors of the test utterance and the claimed identity. LMNN metric is learned from the examples and can be viewed as a linear transformation of the input i-vector space of the training and test utterance. In this work, the metric is learned with the objective of reducing the distance between the i-vectors of same class of speaker, while impostors are separated by a large margin. The metric learned in this manner leads to a better speaker verification performance. Speaker verification experiments are then conducted on the NIST 2008 and YOHO speaker verification databases. Experimental results indicate a reasonable improvement in performance, when compared to i-vector based speaker verification methods which use conventional cosine scoring.
Anticancer agent ellipticine combined with histone deacetylase inhibitors, valproic acid and trichostatin A, is an effective DNA damage strategy in human neuroblastoma.

OBJECTIVES Valproic acid (VPA) and trichostatin A (TSA) exert antitumor activity as histone deacetylase inhibitors, whereas ellipticine action is based mainly on DNA intercalation, inhibition of topoisomerase II and formation of cytochrome P450 (CYP)- and peroxidase-mediated covalent DNA adducts. This is the first report on the molecular mechanism of combined treatment of human neuroblastoma UKF-NB-3 and UKF-NB-4 cells with these compounds. METHODS HPLC with UV detection was employed for the separation and characterization of ellipticine metabolites formed by microsomes and peroxidases. Covalent DNA modifications by ellipticine in neuroblastoma cells and in incubations with microsomes and peroxidases were detected by 32P-postlabeling. Expression of CYP enzymes, peroxidases and cytochrome b5 was examined by Western blot. RESULTS The cytotoxicity of ellipticine to neuroblastomas was increased by pre-treating these cells with VPA or TSA. A higher sensitivity of cells to ellipticine correlated with an increase in formation of covalent ellipticine-derived DNA adducts in these cells. To evaluate the mechanisms of this finding, we investigated the modulation by VPA and TSA of CYP- and peroxidase-mediated ellipticine-derived DNA adduct formation in vitro. The effects of ellipticine in the presence of VPA and TSA on expression of CYPs and peroxidases relevant for ellipticine activation and levels of cytochrome b5 and P-glycoprotein in neuroblastoma cells were also investigated. Based on these studies, we attribute most of the enhancing effects of VPA and TSA on ellipticine cytotoxicity to enhanced ellipticine-DNA adduct formation caused by an increase in levels of cytochrome b5, CYP3A4 and CYP1A1 in neuroblastoma cells. A lower sensitivity of UKF-NB-4 cells to combined effects of ellipticine with VPA and TSA than of UKF-NB-3 cells is also attributable to high levels of P-glycoprotein expressed in this cell line. CONCLUSION The results found here warrant further studies and may help in the design of new protocols geared to the treatment of high risk neuroblastomas.
Development of a new software tool , based on ANN technology , in neutron spectrometry and dosimetry research

Artificial Intelligence is a branch of study which enhances the capability of computers by giving them human-like intelligence. The brain architecture has been extensively studied and attempts have been made to emulate it as in the Artificial Neural Network technology. A large variety of neural network architectures have been developed and they have gained wide-spread popularity over the last few decades. Their application is considered as a substitute for many classical techniques that have been used for many years, as in the case of neutron spectrometry and dosimetry research areas. In previous works, a new approach called Robust Design of Artificial Neural network was applied to build an ANN topology capable to solve the neutron spectrometry and dosimetry problems within the Matlab® programming environment. In this work, the knowledge stored at Matlab® ANN’s synaptic weights was extracted in order to develop for first time a customized software application based on ANN technology, which is proposed to be used in the neutron spectrometry and simultaneous dosimetry fields.
Hippocampal infolding angle changes during brain development assessed by prenatal MR imaging.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Epileptic syndromes or neurodevelopmental delay may be associated with congenital anomalies of the shape or the orientation of the hippocampus. Scarce data are available about quantitative hippocampal developmental changes during fetal life, in particular about the progressive rotational changes of the hippocampal infolding angle (HIA), which can be considered a hallmark of hippocampal development. We hypothesized that prenatal MR imaging could demonstrate the progressive rotation of the hippocampus, providing quantitative data by means of the HIA determination. METHODS We retrospectively selected 62 fetal MR imaging cases with normal brain at prenatal and postnatal imaging. The gestational age ranged from 20 to 37 weeks. The coronal section encompassing the pons was used to perform the measurement of HIA. HIA was defined as the angle between the line connecting the lateral margin of the cornu ammonis with the medial superior margin of the subiculum and the line passing through the midline structures. RESULTS A significant positive correlation was found between the HIA value and the gestational age. The HIA was generally below 70 degrees before the gestational week 25 and above 70 degrees after week 30. CONCLUSION Prenatal MR imaging allowed the progressive rotation of hippocampus to be detected during fetal life, providing normative data about HIA changes. These data could support further investigations to assess how fetal HIA anomalies might affect postnatal neurologic outcome.
Ribosomal RNA methyltransferases contribute to Staphylococcus aureus virulence

Post‐transcriptional modifications in rRNA, such as methylation, are observed in functionally important regions of the ribosome. The methyltransferases responsible for these modifications work as housekeeping enzymes to fine‐tune ribosomal function, and the roles of some methyltransferases become more evident under stress conditions. Recently, the 16S rRNA methyltransferases RsmI and RsmH, which are responsible for cytidine dimethylation at the decoding center of the ribosome, were identified in Escherichia coli. The physiological relevance of the rRNA modification, however, remains obscure. We identified rsmI and rsmH as novel virulence genes in Staphylococcus aureus using a silkworm infection model. These genes induced 2′‐O‐ and N4‐methylations, respectively, of m4Cm1412 of S. aureus 16S rRNA. Deletion of either rsmI or rsmH in S. aureus attenuated the virulence of S. aureus in silkworms, and led to its sensitivity to oxidative stress. Dual luciferase assay revealed that the double‐knockout strain exhibited decreased translational fidelity under oxidative stress conditions. In addition, administration of N‐acetyl‐l‐cysteine, a free‐radical scavenger, restored the killing ability of the double‐knockout strain against silkworms. These findings suggest that the methyl‐modifications of cytidine at position 1412 in 16S rRNA contribute to S. aureus animal killing by conferring resistance to oxidative stress in host animals.
Building XML-Based Unified User Interface System under J2EE Architecture

This paper introduced an XML-based unified user interface system which implemented under Sun Microsystems's J2EE architecture. It is a multiple user interface system that user can access through Web browsers, PDA, and even cellular phones. First, we will dilate the main idea of this system and we will introduce XML technology and J2EE architecture that used in this system, and then a brief introduction in WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) technology. Second, we will introduce our related work. Third, we will introduce our work in the system. Finally, express our conclusions, and future work.
REMOVAL OF PESTICIDE RESIDUES FROM WATER BY ORGANO-BENTONITES

Contamination of water resources with pesticides residues becomes a pressing problem in Gaza due to the frequent application of pesticides in the intensive agricultural system. This study tests the potential of using organo-bentonite as a porous material to remove bromoxynil residues from contaminated water. Bentonite surfaces were activated for removal of bromoxynil residues from water by simple ion exchange reaction using Hexadecyl tributyl phosphonium (HDTBP + ) or N-cetylperidinium (NCP) salts. HPLC results showed that raw bentonite is a poor material for removing bromoxynil residues, whereas NCP + -/HDTBP + -bentonite are powerful materials for removing bromoxynil residues due to changing bentonite surfaces from hydrophilic to hydrophobic. Reducing the temperature or the pH of the solution further enhanced the removal process. These results suggest that NCP + -/HDTBP + -Bentonite are promising porous material for removing bromoxynil residues from water. The application of these materials in water filter may be a promising and economically feasible technology for water purification.
Structural, bonding, dynamical, and electronic properties of liquid silicon: An ab initio molecular-dynamics study.

We report an extensive first-principles molecular-dynamics study of metallic liquid silicon. Our description of the local order is in excellent agreement with x-ray- and neutron-diffraction experiments. The difference in internal energy between the simulated liquid phase and the crystal agrees well with the experimental enthalpy of melting. Analysis of the valence-electronic-charge density shows persistence of some covalent bonds in the melt. These bonds give rise in the power spectrum of the system dynamics to a well-identifiable feature associated with stretching vibrations. Unlike the case in the crystal, in the liquid the covalent bonds are continuously forming and breaking in response to atomic motion. The majority of bonds are broken on average, leading to fast diffusion and to metallic behavior of the melt. The calculated electronic conductivity shows good agreement with available experimental data.
The Competitive Advantage of Sanctioning Institutions

Understanding the fundamental patterns and determinants of human cooperation and the maintenance of social order in human societies is a challenge across disciplines. The existing empirical evidence for the higher levels of cooperation when altruistic punishment is present versus when it is absent systematically ignores the institutional competition inherent in human societies. Whether punishment would be deliberately adopted and would similarly enhance cooperation when directly competing with nonpunishment institutions is highly controversial in light of recent findings on the detrimental effects of punishment. We show experimentally that a sanctioning institution is the undisputed winner in a competition with a sanction-free institution. Despite initial aversion, the entire population migrates successively to the sanctioning institution and strongly cooperates, whereas the sanction-free society becomes fully depopulated. The findings demonstrate the competitive advantage of sanctioning institutions and exemplify the emergence and manifestation of social order driven by institutional selection.
Characterization of Reverse Transcriptase Activity and Susceptibility to Other Nucleosides of AZT‐Resistant Variants of HIV‐1

‘McGill AIDS Centre, McGill University, Montreal, Canada. dToronto General Hospital, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada. eSt. Paul’s Hospital, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. fFederal Centre for AIDS, Ottawa, Canada. gMontreal General Hospital, Montreal, Canada. h IAF Biochem, Montreal, Canada. ‘Address correspondence to Dr. Mark A. Wainberg, Jewish General Hospital, 3755 Cote Ste-Catherine Road, Montreal, Canada H3T 1E2. /This paper is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Bernard Belleau, Emeritus Professor of Chemistry, McGill University, who synthesized certain of the novel nucleoside structures described in this paper. Dr. Belleau died suddenly on July 2, 1989 and will be remembered by all who worked with him as a colleague and friend. Jewish General Hospital.
Evolving molecular diagnostics for familial cardiomyopathies: at the heart of it all

Cardiomyopathies are an important and heterogeneous group of common cardiac diseases. An increasing number of cardiomyopathies are now recognized to have familial forms, which result from single-gene mutations that render a Mendelian inheritance pattern, including hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, dilated cardiomyopathy, restrictive cardiomyopathy, arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy and left ventricular noncompaction cardiomyopathy. Recently, clinical genetic tests for familial cardiomyopathies have become available for clinicians evaluating and treating patients with these diseases, making it necessary to understand the current progress and challenges in cardiomyopathy genetics and diagnostics. In this review, we summarize the genetic basis of selected cardiomyopathies, describe the clinical utility of genetic testing for cardiomyopathies and outline the current challenges and emerging developments.
Cervical Spine Alignment in the Immobilized Football Player

We investigated the effect of football helmet removal on the sagittal alignment of the cervical spine. A quan titative radiographic assessment of relative cervical spine position in subjects immobilized to a standard backboard wearing shoulder pads either with or with out a helmet was performed. Comparison was made to a control situation with subjects on a backboard wear ing no equipment. Ten subjects were studied using lateral computed tomographic scout films; each subject served as his own control. Radiographs were meas ured for overall sagittal cervical alignment and the amount of lordosis or kyphosis present within specific segments of the cervical spine. Mean values for each of the three defined situations (no equipment, shoulder pads and helmet, shoulder pads alone after helmet removal) were calculated and subjected to statistical analysis. No statistically significant difference in cervi cal sagittal alignment was noted when either no equip ment or both shoulder pads and helmet were worn. In contrast, a statistically significant increase in cervical lordosis (extension) was found when comparing the control situation to that when only shoulder pads were worn after the helmet had been removed. The majority of this increase occurred in the subaxial spine. There fore, the authors recommend that football players with a potential cervical spine injury be immobilized for transport with both their helmet and shoulder pads left in place, thereby maintaining the neck in a position most closely approximating "normal. "
Analysis and Design of a Wide-Tuning-Range VCO With Quadrature Outputs

A quadrature voltage-controlled oscillator (QVCO) with a wide tuning range is proposed and implemented in the TSMC 0.18- mum CMOS process. The said QVCO uses a cross-coupled structure and a current-reuse technology to produce the quadrature signal and to save power consumption and area, respectively. Based on our measurement, the phase noise with 1-MHz offset from the carrier frequency of 3.6 GHz is - 114 dBc/Hz and the proposed QVCO has a wide-band tuning range of 3.6-4.9 GHz. Also, the maximal phase error and power imbalance are less than 5deg and 1.5 dB, respectively, and the power consumption is 8 mW at 2-V power supply voltage.
3D Modeling of Street Buildings from Panoramic Video Sequences and Google Map Image

A semi-automatic image-based framework for modeling of street buildings is proposed in this paper. Two types of image sources are used, one is a sequence of ground-level spherical panoramic images captured by panoramic video recorder, and the other is an aerial image of the desired area obtained from Google Map. The advantages of our approach are first that the camera trajectory recovery result is more accurate and stable due to that the spherical panoramic images are used if compared to multiview planar images. Second, since each face texture of a building is extracted from a single panoramic image, there is no need to deal with color blending problem while textures overlapped.
research paper series China and the World Economy Research Paper 2011 / 12 Political affiliation and trade credit extension by Chinese firms By

This paper examines the role of political affiliation in the extension of trade credit by Chinese firms. Using a dataset of over 70,000 firms over the period 2000-2007, we find that, because they benefit from easier access to short-term external funding, politically affiliated firms can extend more trade credit to their business partners than their non-affiliated counterparts. In other words, politically affiliated firms redistribute bank funding via trade credit. Furthermore, the sensitivity of trade credit extension to short-term debt is largest for non-affiliated private firms producing differentiated goods, which are more constrained in their access to external funding. JEL Classification: G31, K0, P2.