Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Three-dimensional positron emission tomography imaging with 124I and 86Y

BackgroundImpure positron emitters have physical characteristics that degrade image quality compared to conventional positron emitters like 18F. Two impure positron emitters with potentially interesting applications are 124I and 86Y. The degradation in image quality due to the imperfection of these isotopes is quantified for a human three-dimensional (3-D) positron emission tomography (PET) system. An acquisition protocol to obtain similar image quality as for 18F imaging is determined by Monte Carlo simulations. MethodsThe effects of larger positron range, associated singles and the other decay modes on image quality are determined by extensive Monte Carlo simulations of the Allegro scanner. Spatial resolution was evaluated for both isotopes and compared to spatial resolution of 18F. The loss in sensitivity due to triple coincidences was determined as a function of the axial acceptance angle of the PET scanner. The performance of the scanner at low count rates was studied by determining the noise equivalent count (NEC) values for different upper energy thresholds. The image degrading effect of spurious coincidences is taken into account by adding another factor to the NEC calculation. This allowed the contribution of spurious coincidences to be minimized by using a setting for the appropriate energy window. For this optimal energy window the amount of spurious and scattered coincidences was quantified. Simulations of count rate performance were also done to determine the peak NEC and the activity at which the maximum occurred. ResultsSpatial resolution degradation, compared to 18F, is about 0.5 mm for 86Y and 1 mm for 124I. Associated singles have a similar effect as scattered coincidences, as they also add a background to the image. The effect, however, is less important than the effect of scatter. The fraction of triple coincidences is quite small for a 3-D PET scanner used for humans as the axial acceptance angle is still moderate. For the Allegro with an energy resolution of 18% the optimal upper energy threshold was determined at 600 keV. For 124I this leads to 2.5% extra contamination that needs to be added to the scatter fraction. For 86Y this fraction is about 5.5%. Conclusion3-D PET images of 124I and 86Y have lower spatial resolution. For PET scanners used for humans the difference is not as important as for scanners used for animals. The limited positron decay fraction of both isotopes can be compensated by increasing the imaging time by a factor of 3–5 (same activity). A short coincidence window limits the contamination from other decay modes. Good energy resolution allows setting a selective upper energy threshold to limit the effect of spurious coincidences. With an appropriate setting of the energy window it should be possible to obtain good image quality in a relatively short time because of the high sensitivity of 3-D PET scanners.
Endothelial nitric oxide synthase expression in neurogenic urinary bladders treated with intravesical resiniferatoxin

To investigate endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) immunoreactivity in bladder biopsies from patients with neurogenic detrusor overactivity (NDO) before and after treatment with intravesical resiniferatoxin, and compare this with control material; the distribution of two other vascular markers, von Willebrand Factor (vWF) and the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), was also studied.
Plasma endotoxin and immune responses during a 21-km road race under a warm and humid environment.

INTRODUCTION This study investigated the responses of plasma endotoxin and pro- and antiinflammatory cytokines during a 21-km road race in warm and humid conditions. The influence of carbohydrate-electrolyte (CE)-water (WA) drink mix ingested on leukocyte subset responses and the association between plasma lipopolysaccharide (LPS) concentration and fluid balance, exercise intensity, and body core temperature (Tc) were also studied. MATERIALS AND METHODS Thirty runners provided blood samples before and after the half-marathon for leukocyte, LPS and cytokine analyses. Tc was measured by the ingestible telemetric temperature sensor and fluid intake and split-times were recorded at 3 km intervals. Exercise intensity was determined by matching running speed and heart rate during the race with the corresponding speed-oxygen uptake relationship and heart rate measured in the laboratory 2 to 6 weeks before the race. RESULTS Plasma LPS concentration increased from 1.9 +/- 1.9 pg/mL before, to 2.5 +/- 1.9 pg/mL after running (P <0.05). Peak plasma LPS concentration was 7.5 pg/mL. Plasma IL-1beta and TNF-concentration did not change significantly, whereas significant increases in IL-10 (50%), IL-1ra (23.2%) and IL-6 (65.2%) were observed after the race. No significant correlation between plasma LPS concentration and exercise intensity, hydration and Tc was observed. CONCLUSION Leukocyte subset responses were not related to the ratio of CE and water drink mix ingested. Running a half-marathon can induce mild endotoxaemia, which is not related to exercise intensity, fluid balance, and Tc responses. Mixing CE drink with water did not mitigate postexercise leukocytosis and lymphopenia.
Late Endovascular Revascularization in Acute Ischemic Stroke Based on Clinical-Diffusion Mismatch

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: A clinical-diffusion mismatch (CDM) among stroke patients presenting within 12–24 hours has been correlated with neurologic deterioration and infarct expansion. We sought to study the feasibility and safety of reperfusion therapy in a series of 11 consecutive patients fulfilling this criterion. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Patients presenting with large vessel syndromes were considered for revascularization therapy. Of these patients, we identified those presenting beyond 8 hours who scored ≥8 on the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) and had limited abnormalities on diffusion-weighted MR imaging. One- and 7-day NIHSS scores were obtained. Rates of early neurologic deterioration (END, increase in NIHSS score by ≥4 points) and early neurologic improvement (ENI, decrease in NIHSS score by ≥4 points) at 1 week were determined. Follow-up imaging was obtained to evaluate intracranial hemorrhage (ICH). RESULTS: Eleven patients were identified, 8 of whom were successfully revascularized. The mean age of all patients was 55 years with mean initial, 24-hour, and 1-week NIHSS scores of 14 ± 4, 11 ± 7, and 6 ± 5, respectively, with lower scores at 24 hours and 1 week (8 ± 5 and 4 ± 3, respectively) among patients successfully revascularized. Eight of the treated patients (72% of the total, 100% of those successfully revascularized) experienced ENI. No patient had END or ICH. CONCLUSIONS: Endovascular treatment for acute ischemic stroke beyond 8 hours is feasible and may prevent END and promote ENI in patients fulfilling the criteria of a CDM. A prospective study is planned.
Thermal analysis of a high-speed PM machine using numerical and thermal-network method

Different methods for thermal analysis of a high-speed permanent-magnet machine are presented. The first implemented method is a numerical method which couples computational fluid dynamics and heat-transfer equations. This method gives simultaneous solutions for the thermal and turbulent properties of the cooling fluid in a 2D axi-symmetric geometry and a 3D solution of the temperature distribution in the solid domain of the machine. This method uses the properties of the turbulent flow from the 2D model such as the temperature rise of the fluid and the coefficients of thermal convection and implements them in the boundary conditions of the 3D model. The traditional thermal-network method that is based on analytical and empirical equations is also implemented in this paper and its results are compared with the results of the numerical method. The aforementioned methods are validated with measurements using thermocouples at different spots of the stator winding.
Endometrial precancer diagnosis by histopathology, clonal analysis, and computerized morphometry

Management of endometrial precancers is compromised by longstanding debate over the natural history of endometrial hyperplasias and inconsistencies in their diagnosis. The recent demonstration that some hyperplasias, like cancers, are phenotypically monoclonal is useful in recognizing biological precancers. A clonal analysis has been undertaken of a series of 93 endometrial tissues and their morphology has been evaluated by subjective diagnostic classification and computerized morphometric analysis. A pathologist's diagnosis of atypical endometrial hyperplasia was highly associated with monoclonal growth. Both microsatellite‐stable and microsatellite‐unstable precancers were classified as atypical hyperplasias, indicating overlapping morphologies for these two groups. Diagnosis of non‐atypical endometrial hyperplasias was not reproducible and identified a group of lesions equally likely to be monoclonal as polyclonal. Computerized morphometry resolved these lesions into monoclonal and polyclonal subgroups with a high degree of accuracy and reproducibility. The predictive value of morphometry was dominated by that fraction of the sample which consisted of stroma (volume percentage stroma). This can be measured manually and used to predict monoclonality when below the threshold value of 55%. This study shows that morphometric analysis reproducibly and precisely identifies monoclonal endometrial precancers from histological sections. It may serve, furthermore, to classify accurately lesions judged by pathologists as indeterminate (non‐atypical hyperplasias). The material from this study (available at www.endometrium.org from March 1, 2000) and precisely defined architectural diagnostic criteria provide new tools for diagnostic standardization of endometrial precancers. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Multilingual signature-verification by generalized combined segmentation verification

We propose a combined segmentation-verification technique for Multilingual signature verification. One limitation of original segmentation verification method is that it is not applicable for such signatures which are difficult in segmentation like Latin-scripts signatures. To overcome this limitation, we employ signature segmentation using the position of gravity center of whole signature strokes instead of an interval space between names in the signature image. Three grayscale-gradient features are extracted from whole signature image and two segmented signature images, left-hand and right-hand side and evaluated the Mahalanobis distances from reference samples. The on-line feature based technique employs dynamic programming (DP) matching for time series data of the two segmented and one whole signatures. Three resultant distance values from off-line verification and three resultant dissimilarity values are input to SVM to make final decision of genuine or forgery. We evaluated the performance of the proposed method on SigComp2011 dataset which consists of Chinese and Dutch signatures. In the results of evaluation, the proposed technique achieved 1.02% and 4.29% EER(Equal Error Rate)for Chinese and Dutch signatures respectively, which are significantly lower than and comparable to those of the best performances in SigComp2011 competition. These results confirm that the proposed generalized combined segmentation-verification by gravity center is effective for accuracy improvement of multi-script signature verification.
Reflective Practice and Teacher Professional Learning

Abstract: This paper addresses the utilisation of reflective practice to foster teacher professional learning by critically reviewing recent research and other relevant literature. The paper concludes that reflection and reflective practice are vital to teacher professional learning owing to the theory-practice gap, the research-practice gap, limitations of the managerialist approach to professional development, and the unstable nature of the teaching career. Appropriate models and frameworks for reflection are available for application, accompanied by the suggestions to extend reflective practice beyond its private mode.Keywords: Reflection, reflective practice (RP), professional learning.
On the performance of OFDM systems over a Cartesian clipping channel: a theoretical approach

We introduce an accurate theoretical approach for computing the symbol-error rate (SER) of an M-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (M-QAM) orthogonal frequency division-multiplexing (OFDM) system in the Nyquist rate Cartesian clipping channel. The Cartesian clipper clips the high peak values of the Nyquist rate in-phase/quadrature (I/Q) components of the complex baseband OFDM signal separately. In contrast to previous works that approximate the nonlinear noise, in the frequency domain, as a Gaussian additive random process, an accurate expression is derived for the probability density function (pdf) of the clipping noise at the output of the OFDM demodulator on each subcarrier. The inverse Fourier transform of the characteristic function of the noise is used to derive this accurate pdf. Using this pdf, we can evaluate the performance of the OFDM system for each subcarrier with high accuracy, especially at high backoffs where the Gaussian approximation of the nonlinear noise is no longer valid. The proposed method has the accuracy and validity of the simulation while being comparatively much less time consuming.
The Spatial Structure of Antagonistic Species Affects Coevolution in Predictable Ways

A current challenge in evolutionary ecology is to assess how the spatial structure of interacting species shapes coevolution. Previous work on the geographic mosaic of coevolution has shown that coevolution depends on the spatial structure, the strength of selection, and gene flow across populations. We used spatial subgraphs and coevolutionary models to evaluate how spatial structure and the location of coevolutionary hotspots (sites in which reciprocal selection occurs) and coldspots (sites in which unidirectional selection occurs) contribute to the dynamics of coevolution and the maintenance of polymorphisms. Specifically, we developed a new approach based on the Laplacian matrices of spatial subgraphs to explore the tendency of interacting species to evolve toward stable polymorphisms. Despite the complex interplay between gene flow and the strength of reciprocal selection, simple rules drive coevolution in small groups of spatially structured interacting populations. Hotspot location and the spatial organization of coldspots are crucial for understanding patterns in the maintenance of polymorphisms. Moreover, the degree of spatial variation in the outcomes of the coevolutionary process can be predicted from the network pattern of gene flow among sites. Our work provides us with novel tools that can be used in the field or the laboratory to predict the effects of spatial structure on coevolutionary trajectories.
PRICE'S TEXTBOOK OF THE PRACTICE OF MEDICINE

THIS is yet another excellent book by Professor Meschan. Although primarily for the student radiographer, it is possibly the best reference book for the trainee radiologist or doctor, working in an accident and emergency department, to learn radiological anatomy and to have at hand a book, of reasonable size, which is easily used for reference should he have any doubt regarding either the quality or the diagnosis of a film.
Produtividade total de fatores no Brasil: impacto de investimentos em infraestrutura, efeitos do IDE e comparação internacional

Esta dissertacao analisa os efeitos dos investimentos em infraestrutura e do Investimento Direto Estrangeiro (IDE) na Produtividade Total de Fatores (PTF) com base em comparacao internacional. Foram usados dados de painel para 50 paises, divididos em tres diferentes categorias - BRIC, paises de crescimento rapido e paises desenvolvidos - para o periodo de 1990 a 2010. Para esta analise, os impactos na Produtividade Total de Fatores (PTF) foram estimados em duas etapas. Em primeiro lugar, investigamos o papel dos investimentos de infraestrutura sobre o crescimento da PTF e, em seguida, examinamos como o Investimento Direto Estrangeiro (IDE) afeta o desenvolvimento da PTF no mundo. Os resultados indicam que a relacao entre o os dados analisados e significativa, embora aumentos nos investimentos em infraestrutura tenham maior impacto na produtividade dos paises do que incrementos nos fluxos de IDE
Delivering CRL with Low Bit Rate Network Coded Communication for ITS

The application of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) transmits data with road-to-vehicle communication (RVC) and intervehicle communication (IVC). Digital signature is essential to provide security for RVC and IVC. The public key certificate is used to verify that a public key belongs to an individual prover such as user or terminal. A certificate revocation list (CRL) is used for verifying validity of the public key certificate. A certificate authority (CA) publishes a CRL and distributes it to vehicles. CRL distribution traffic disturbs ITS application traffic because of sharing wireless channel between them. To distribute it on low bit rate will help to ease the disturbance. Although multiplex transmitting is effective in reliable communication, a duplication of received packets is waste of bandwidth as a consequence. This paper proposes a CRL distribution scheme based on random network coding which can reduce duplicate packets. The simulation results show that the number of duplicate packets of the proposed scheme is less than that of a simple error correction (EC)based scheme and the proposed one can distribute CRL to more vehicles than EC-based ones. key words: intelligent transport system, road-to-vehicle communication, inter-vehicle communication, network coding, public key infrastructure, certificate revocation list
Metal substitution of Neurospora copper metallothionein.

The binding of diamagnetic Zn(II), Cd(II), and Hg(II) and paramagnetic Co(II) and Ni(II) ions to the apo form of Neurospora metallothionein (MT) was investigated by various spectroscopic techniques. In contrast to native copper MT, which was shown to bind 6 mol of Cu(I)/mol of protein (Lerch, 1980), all substituted forms reveal an overall metal to protein stoichiometry of 3. The charge-transfer (CT) transitions of the complexes containing diamagnetic metal ions as well as the d-d transitions of those with paramagnetic metal ions are indicative of a distorted Td coordination. Electron paramagnetic resonance and absorption measurements of the Co(II) derivative are in agreement with the presence of a metal-thiolate cluster in this protein. Metal titration studies of the apoprotein reveal characteristic spectral features for the derivatives containing two metal equivalents as compared to those with a full complement of three metal ions. The former features are indicative of an exclusive Td type of metal-sulfur coordination whereas the latter suggest that the third metal ion is coordinated in a different fashion. This finding is in agreement with the presence of only seven cysteine residues in Neurospora MT as opposed to nine cysteine residues in the three-metal cluster of the mammalian MT's [Winge, D.R. , & Miklossy, K. -A. (1982) J. Biol. Chem. 257, 3471].
A complex role for distal-less in crustacean appendage development.

The developing leg of Drosophila is initially patterned by subdivision of the leg into proximal and distal domains by the activity of the homeodomain proteins Extradenticle (Exd) and Distal-less (Dll). These early domains of gene expression are postulated to reflect a scenario of limb evolution in which an undifferentiated appendage outgrowth was subdivided into two functional parts, the coxapodite and telopodite. The legs of most arthropods have a more complex morphology than the simple rod-shaped leg of Drosophila. We document the expression of Dll and Exd in two crustacean species with complex branched limbs. We show that in these highly modified limbs there is a Dll domain exclusive of Exd but there is also extensive overlap in Exd and Dll expression. While arthropod limbs all appear to have distinct proximal and distal domains, those domains do not define homologous structures throughout arthropods. In addition, we find a striking correlation throughout the proximal/distal extent of the leg between setal-forming cells and Dll expression. We postulate that this may reflect a pleisiomorphic function of Dll in development of the peripheral nervous system. In addition, our results confirm previous observations that branch formation in multiramous arthropod limbs is not regulated by a simple iteration of the proximal/distal patterning module employed in Drosophila limb development.
SLEEP BEHAVIOUR STUDIED LONGITUDINALLY

ABSTRACT. Data on sleep behaviour have been extracted from a prospective longitudinal study of growth in a random sample of, originally, about 200 children, with annual examinations. The purpose was to assess to what extent data at 4 years on duration of sleep, night‐awakening and habitual sharing of the parents’bed can predict conditions in these respects at 8, 12 and 16 years. The predictive power is slight in general concerning the first two variables, while the habit of sharing the parents’bed is rather more difficult to shake off, above all when the child has reached school age (6–7 years in Sweder).
Resveratrol attenuates hepatic complications associated with insulin resistance: Implications on hepatic HAIR, LAIR, cell energy and DNA fragmentation. -

Resveratrol (RSV) is a naturally occurring polyphenol recently postulated to be a powerful antioxidant, hepatoprotective and a potential anti-hyperglycemic. Our research aimed to investigate some possible mechanisms of action that may contribute to the efficacy of RSV to reverse the IR and hepatic complications associated with metabolic syndrome experimentally induced in rats using high fat-high fructose (HFHF) diet model. Results revealed that RSV treatment (40 mg/kg p.o) for ten days protected against IR and hepatic insult as demonstrated by reduction in HOMA-IR, hepatic HAIR and LAIR expression, total cholesterol (TC), triglycerides (TG), TNF-α levels, oxidative and nitrosative stresses, serum AST and ALT. Furthermore; increasing serum albumin and total protein levels and improving hepatic tissue; cell energy status by increasing adenylate energy charge (AEC) and reducing AMP/ATP ratio and preserving hepatic tissue cellular integrity represented by lowering 8-hydroxy-2-deoxyguanosine (8-OHDG); the results were comparable to those of metformin. As a conclusion; using RSV could be valuable in treatment of hepatic complications associated with metabolic syndrome.