Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Characterization of UHMWPE/POSS composite prepared by ball milling

The incorporation of polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) into polymeric materials may result in great improvements of polymer properties including electrical dielectric properties. However, the success of achieving such a material with improved properties relies on a proper dispersion and distribution of POSS within the polymer. In this paper, ball milling is used to prepare UHMWPE/POSS 95/5 wt% composites and proven to be an easy and effective method to disperse POSS within UHMWPE at a submicron to micron scale with acceptable distribution. Moreover, the morphological, thermal and electrical characteristics of the resulting composites are characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), broadband dielectric spectroscopy (BDS) and short-time breakdown.
Increased Uric Acid in the Developing Brain and Spinal Cord Following Cytomegalovirus Infection

Abstract: Tissue concentrations of uric acid were determined in the spinal cord, cerebellum, caudate‐putamen, and cerebral cortex of developing mice following intraventricular inoculation with murine cytomegalovirus (MCMV) on postnatal day 10. Transient signs of neurological impairment were observed in MCMV‐infected animals beginning on days 13–16 and continuing until days 19–21. At the onset of neurological impairment, uric acid concentrations in tissues from infected animals were 17–60‐fold greater than in control animals. On postnatal day 70, 60 days after inoculation and 40 days after resolution of neurological signs, uric acid levels were still two‐ to threefold greater in infected animals. Histological examination revealed signs of focal ischemia in the cerebral and cerebellar cortices of MCMV‐infected mice only at the onset of neurological impairment, with ischemic cell changes in some pyramidal neurons of the cerebral cortex. These results indicate that uric acid may be a sensitive marker of persistent vascular pathology resulting from cytomegalovirus infection of the developing nervous system
DNA nucleotide excision repair-dependent signaling to checkpoint activation

Eukaryotic cells respond to a variety of DNA insults by triggering a common signal transduction cascade, known as checkpoint response, which temporarily halts cell-cycle progression. Although the main players involved in the cascade have been identified, there is still uncertainty about the nature of the structures that activate these surveillance mechanisms. To understand the role of nucleotide excision repair (NER) in checkpoint activation, we analyzed the UV-induced phosphorylation of the key checkpoint proteins Chk1 and p53, in primary fibroblasts from patients with xeroderma pigmentosum (XP), Cockayne syndrome (CS), trichothiodystrophy (TTD), or UV light-sensitive syndrome. These disorders are due to defects in transcription-coupled NER (TC-NER) and/or global genome NER (GG-NER), the NER subpathways repairing the transcribed strand of active genes or the rest of the genome, respectively. We show here that in G0/G1 and G2/M phases of the cell cycle, triggering of the DNA damage cascade requires recognition and processing of the lesions by the GG-NER. Loss of TC-NER does not affect checkpoint activation. Mutations in XPD, XPB, and in TTDA, encoding subunits of the TFIIH complex, involved in both transcription and NER, impair checkpoint triggering. The only exception is represented by mutations in XPD, resulting in combined features of XP and CS (XP/CS) that lead to activation of the checkpoint cascade after UV radiation. Inhibition of RNA polymerase II transcription significantly reduces the phosphorylation of key checkpoint factors in XP/CS fibroblasts on exposure to UV damage.
Refining the phenotype of α‐1a Tubulin (TUBA1A) mutation in patients with classical lissencephaly

Mutations in the α‐1a Tubulin (TUBA1A) gene have recently been found to cause cortical malformations resemblant of classical lissencephaly but with a specific combination of features. To date, TUBA1A mutations have been described in five patients and three foetuses. Our aims were to establish how common TUBA1A mutations are in patients with lissencephaly and to contribute to defining the phenotype associated with TUBA1A mutation. We performed mutation analysis in the TUBA1A gene in 46 patients with classical lissencephaly. In 44 of the patients, mutations in the LIS1 and/or DCX genes had previously been excluded; in 2 patients, mutation analysis was only performed in TUBA1A based on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings. We identified three new mutations and one recurrent mutation in five patients with variable patterns of lissencephaly on brain MRI. Four of the five patients had congenital microcephaly, and all had dysgenesis of the corpus callosum and cerebellar hypoplasia, and variable cortical malformations, including subtle subcortical band heterotopia and absence or hypoplasia of the anterior limb of the internal capsule. We estimate the frequency of mutation in TUBA1A gene in patients with classical lissencephaly to be approximately 4%, and although not as common as mutations in the LIS1 or DCX genes, mutation analysis in TUBA1A should be included in the molecular genetic diagnosis of classical lissencephaly, particularly in patients with the combination of features highlighted in this paper.
Analysis of the MyLifeLine.org Cancer Foundation user database: Does a cancer patient website for internet communication between cancer patients and their wellwisher community assist in cancer patient support?

e20700 Background: The MyLifeLine.org Cancer Foundation established a website (MyLifeLine.org) in 2007 to provide a dedicated home base for communication between a cancer patient and his/her support circle. The premise of this program is the assumption that internet messaging fosters support and communication between patients and wellwishers in a more convenient format than use of standard communication, such as telephone use. METHODS In October, 2008, an email survey was conducted among the 250 individuals that made use of this home base for communication. Survey respondents were informed that the information tallied would be used anonymously for analysis of pattern use, and for publication. All data was collected anonymously. RESULTS Thirty-three percent of users submitted survey answers. Users were in all phases of cancer treatment. By age and gender, 64% of users were female, and 80% of users were between the ages of 30 and 70. Forty-one percent of respondents used this communication tool at least once a week. Seventy-one percent of users reported an improved sense of communication through use of this web-based tool. Forty-four percent of users felt this tool limited the number of phone calls they received. Sixty-six percent of users felt that their supporting community were better informed of their health status by mutual use of this home base internet site. CONCLUSIONS This survey demonstrates that internet communication through a dedicated cancer patient home page for two-way messaging provides a number of benefits for support and communication. This tool limited the number of phone calls that would burden a patient receiving cancer care, and improved the sense of connectedness between a cancer patient and his/her support community . Demographics of this web tool user base demonstrate that the majority of users are female, and that its users span the ages of 30-70, which shows the acceptance of internet use by younger and older populations. The survey confirms the premise that initiated the website's inception. Use of this web based tool can be a valuable form of communication for cancer patients and their supporting community. [Table: see text].
Mannose‐binding lectin (MBL) therapy in an MBL‐deficient patient with severe cystic fibrosis lung disease

Deficiency of mannose‐binding lectin has been shown to be a risk factor for cystic fibrosis (CF) patients. We, therefore, decided to treat a patient with CF, mannose‐binding lectin deficiency, severe bronchopulmonary Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection, and rapid deterioration of lung function with purified mannose‐binding lectin in an attempt to ameliorate the course of the lung disease. The mannose‐binding lectin used originated from pooled human donor plasma and was given as an intravenous infusion twice a week for a period of 3 months.
Deadline constrained cloud computing resources scheduling for cost optimization based on dynamic objective genetic algorithm

Cloud computing resources scheduling is significant for executing the workflows in cloud platform because it relates to both the execution time and execution cost. In order to take both the time and cost into consideration, Rodriguez and Buyya have proposed a cost-minimization and deadline-constrained workflow scheduling model on cloud computing. Their model has great applicability but the solution of their particle swarm optimization (PSO) approach is not good enough and cannot meet a tight deadline condition. In this paper, we propose a genetic algorithm (GA) approach to solve this model. In order to tackle with the tight deadline condition, a dynamic objective strategy is further proposed to let GA focus on optimize the execution time objective to meet the deadline constraint when the feasible solution hasn't been obtained. After obtaining a feasible solution, the GA focuses on optimizing the execution cost within the deadline constraint. Therefore, the proposed dynamic objective GA (DOGA) has adaptive ability to the search environment to different objectives. We have conduct extensive experiments based on workflows with different scales and different cloud resources. Experimental results show that DOGA can find better solution with smaller cost than PSO does on different scheduling scales and different deadline conditions. DOGA approach is more applicable to be used in commercial activities.
Kinetics of Ischemia-Modified Albumin Following Exercise-Induced Myocardial Ischemia.

BACKGROUND Ischemia-modified albumin (IMA) is a potentially valuable biochemical marker of myocardial ischemia. The aim of our study was to define the kinetics and to determine the diagnostic value of IMA in detection of myocardial ischemia by using a model of exercise-stress induced transitory ischemia. METHODS The study included 43 consecutive patients with positive exercise stress test and coronary artery disease confirmed by coronary angiography (ischemic group) and 22 healthy volunteers with negative exercise stress test (control group). IMA plasma levels were measured before and at nine time points after exercise over a 6-hour period. RESULTS IMA kinetics was significantly different between the ischemic and control group (p = 0.03). In the ischemic group, IMA plasma levels peaked between the 3rd and 4th hour after exercise. However, due to large interindividual differences in the time-to-peak IMA values, a standard IMA kinetics curve could not be defined for the patients with transitory myocardial ischemia. On the other hand, with the cutoff value of a 10.6% relative increase, sensitivity and specificity of IMA for the detection of myocardial ischemia were sufficiently high at 81% and 82%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS Although an optimum time for the detection of recent myocardial ischemia by a single IMA sampling could not be defined, serial measurements of IMA can be a useful biochemical tool for the detection of myocardial ischemia in patients with doubtful exercise stress test results.
Head and neck control varies with perturbation acceleration but not jerk: implications for whiplash injuries

Recent studies have proposed that a high rate of acceleration onset, i.e. high jerk, during a low‐speed vehicle collision increases the risk of whiplash injury by triggering inappropriate muscle responses and/or increasing peak head acceleration. Our goal was to test these proposed mechanisms at realistic jerk levels and then to determine how collision jerk affects the potential for whiplash injuries. Twenty‐three seated volunteers (8 F, 15 M) were exposed to multiple experiments involving perturbations simulating the onset of a vehicle collision in eyes open and eyes closed conditions. In the first experiment, subjects experienced five forward and five rearward perturbations to look for the inappropriate muscle responses and ‘floppy’ head kinematics previously attributed to high jerk perturbations. In the second experiment, we independently varied the jerk (∼125 to 3 000 m s−3) and acceleration (∼0.65 to 2.6 g) of the perturbation to assess their effect on the electromyographic (EMG) responses of the sternocleidomastoid (SCM), scalene (SCAL) and cervical paraspinal (PARA) muscles and the kinematic responses of the head and neck. In the first experiment, we found neither inappropriate muscle responses nor floppy head kinematics when subjects had their eyes open, but observed two subjects with floppy head kinematics with eyes closed. In the second experiment, we found that about 70% of the variations in the SCM and SCAL responses and about 95% of the variations in head/neck kinematics were explained by changes in perturbation acceleration in both the eyes open and eyes closed conditions. Less than 2% of the variation in the muscle and kinematic responses was explained by changes in perturbation jerk and, where significant, response amplitudes diminished with increasing jerk. Based on these findings, collision jerk appears to have little or no role in the genesis of whiplash injuries in low‐speed vehicle crashes.
Neuroprotective properties of different anesthetics on axotomized rat retinal ganglion cells in vivo.

Following transection of the optic nerve (ON) in the adult rat, 85% of axotomized retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) undergo degeneration within 14 days. Here, we examined the effects of various anesthetic and analgesic compounds on the number of RGCs surviving ON lesion. Five different protocols for rodent anesthesia were used (A, chloral hydrate; B, chloral hydrate/carprofen; C, chloral hydrate/buprenorphine; D, ketamine/xylazine; E, fentanyl/medetomidin/midazolam), and the numbers of RGCs surviving 14 days after ON axotomy were compared to evaluate if the agents used may affect numbers of surviving RGCs. In many laboratories, rodent ON surgery is performed with chloral hydrate anesthesia, and this condition was used as baseline, with 343.7 +/- 29.1 RGCs/mm(2) surviving after 14 days. The addition of carprofen to chloral hydrate did not affect RGC numbers (382.7 +/- 15.2 RGCs/mm(2); n.s. ), while chloral hydrate with buprenorphine (421.1 +/- 25.1 RGCs/mm(2); p < 0.05), ketamine and xylazine (403.6 +/- 36.1 RGCs/mm(2); p < 0.05), or fentanyl with medetomidine and midazolam (481.3 +/- 10.4 RGCs/mm(2); p < 0.05) all increased RGC survival. In a second series of experiments, ON axotomized rats were treated with an adenoviral vector expressing GDNF (Ad.GDNF) that rescues injured RGCs, to study if the anesthetics (A, B, E; see above) would influence the degree of RGC neuroprotection afforded by GDNF. Intravitreal injection of Ad.GDNF at a low titre rescued approximately 10% of RGCs that would have degenerated without treatment using either of the three different anesthesia protocols, yet GDNF did not exert synergistic neuroprotection with any of the anesthetics tested. Our results indicate that in combination carprofen and chloral hydrate, while affording safe and reliable anesthesia and analgesia for rat ON surgery, does not affect the numbers of surviving RGCs. Therefore, data obtained with this combination may be related to experimental data obtained previously with only chloral hydrate anesthesia. All other protocols afforded some degree of RGC neuroprotection that may be utilized for experimental therapies of neurodegeneration, yet needs to be taken into careful consideration when mechanisms of neurodegeneration or approaches towards neuroprotection of RGCs are examined.
The 12th Annual Report of the North American Pediatric Renal Transplant Cooperative Study: Renal transplantation from 1987 through 1998

Abstract: The North American Pediatric Renal Transplant Cooperative Study (NAPRTCS) presents an annual report for all transplants registered from January 1987 onwards. In this report we reviewed 6,534 renal transplants recorded for 5,958 patients who had entered the study by January 1999, and attempted to identify changes in practice patterns that had led to improved graft survival. There has been a steady decline in cadaver source transplants nationally and our accrual for 1996 and 1997 reflected this trend. There has also been a decrease in the number of infants and young children receiving a transplant in recent years. From a peak of 23.3% in the 1987–91 cohort, the current report shows that children under 6 yr of age now account for only 20.4% of all transplants. Changing disease patterns and rates of progression of disease have decreased the percentage of Caucasian children in the transplant registry, from 68.5% in the first 5 yr to 62.9% in the most recent cohort. Changing practice patterns have markedly reduced the use of cadaver donor (CD) kidneys (recovered from donors younger than 10 yr of age) from 35% in 1991 to 22% in the current report. Acute rejection patterns are identical for CD and living donor (LD) grafts for the first 2 weeks post‐transplant. The comparative percentages on days 30 and 45 are 36% and 44% for CD, and 26% and 32% for LD recipients respectively. By the end of the first year post‐transplant, 45% of LD and 60% CD recipients have had an acute rejection. There has been a marked improvement in our ability to reverse the initial episode of rejection; in 1987, 52% were completely reversed in LD recipients, and in 1997 61% were reversed. Rejection percentages continued to be lower in patients maintained on cyclosporin A (CsA) doses of > 6.4 mg/kg. One‐, 3‐, and 5‐yr graft survival probabilities were 91%, 85%, and 80%, respectively, for LD recipients, and 83%, 73%, and 65% for CD recipients. Comparative 1‐ and 3‐yr figures from 1987 to 1991 were 88% and 81% for LD and 74% and 63% for CD recipients. When short‐term graft survival (1 yr) results were compared, a significant improvement was demonstrated from 71.7% in 1987/88 to 92.6% in 1998/1999 for CD transplants. Hence, changing practice patterns have gradually brought the short‐term graft survival of CD transplants very close to that of LD transplants. The continuing decrease in the incidence of acute rejections in more recent years should translate into a further delay in the onset of chronic rejection, thus improving graft longevity.
Pedestrian Detection Based on Informed Haar-like Features and Switchable Deep Network

As pedestrians usually appear up-right in image or video data, we therefore employ a statistical model of the up-right human body where the head, the upper body, and the lower body are treated as three distinct components. As we incorporate different kinds of low-level measurements, the resulting multi-modal & multi-channel Haar-like features represent characteristic differences between parts of the human body yet are robust against variations in clothing or environmental settings. Then we use a Switchable Deep Network(SDN) for pedestrian detection. The SDN automatically learns features of different body parts. Experimental results on many pedestrian datasets show that the proposed algorithm significantly improves the detection rates at 0.1FPPI compared with the state-of-the-art domain adaptation methods and that it is robust and accurate against cluttered dynamical background, occlusion and the object deformation.
Corticogeniculate neurons, corticotectal neurons, and suspected interneurons in visual cortex of awake rabbits: receptive-field properties, axonal properties, and effects of EEG arousal.

The intrinsic stability of the rabbit eye was exploited to enable receptive-field analysis of antidromically identified corticotectal (CT) neurons (n = 101) and corticogeniculate (CG) neurons (n = 124) in visual area I of awake rabbits. Eye position was monitored to within 1/5 degrees. We also studied the receptive-field properties of neurons synaptically activated via electrical stimulation of the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus (LGNd). Whereas most CT neurons had either complex (59%) or motion/uniform (15%) receptive fields, we also found CT neurons with simple (9%) and concentric (4%) receptive fields. Most complex CT cells were broadly tuned to both stimulus orientation and velocity, but only 41% of these cells were directionally selective. We could elicit no visual responses from 6% of CT cells, and these cells had significantly lower conduction velocities than visually responsive CT cells. The median spontaneous firing rates for all classes of CT neurons were 4-8 spikes/s. CG neurons had primarily simple (60%) and concentric (9%) receptive fields, and none of these cells had complex receptive fields. CG simple cells were more narrowly tuned to both stimulus orientation and velocity than were complex CT cells, and most (85%) were directionally selective. Axonal conduction velocities of CG neurons (mean = 1.2 m/s) were much lower than those of CT neurons (mean = 6.4 m/s), and CG neurons that were visually unresponsive (23%) had lower axonal conduction velocities than did visually responsive CG neurons. Some visually unresponsive CG neurons (14%) responded with saccadic eye movements. The median spontaneous firing rates for all classes of CG neurons were less than 1 spike/s. All neurons synaptically activated via LGNd stimulation at latencies of less than 2.0 ms had receptive fields that were not orientation selective (89% motion/uniform, 11% concentric), whereas most cells with orientation-selective receptive fields had considerably longer synaptic latencies. Most short-latency motion/uniform neurons responded to electrical stimulation of the LGNd (and visual area II) with a high-frequency burst (500-900 Hz) of three or more spikes. Action potentials of these neurons were of short duration, thresholds of synaptic activation were low, and spontaneous firing rates were the highest seen in rabbit visual cortex. These properties are similar to those reported for interneurons in several regions in mammalian central nervous system. Nonvisual sensory stimuli that resulted in electroencephalographic arousal (hippocampal theta activity) had a profound effect on the visual responses of many visual cortical neurons. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
Good practices for sustainable implementation of e-learning

Nowadays universities have to prepare their graduates for the technology-driven digital information era. A transition toward e-learning, ranging from a technologically oriented face-to-face classroom to fully online setting and blended courses becomes necessary. In this paper, we share our experience in introducing e-learning at New Bulgarian University. Good practices in conducting regular and distance training are presented.