Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Differential ex vivo and in vivo endotoxin tolerance kinetics following human endotoxemia*

Objectives:Endotoxin (lipopolysaccharide) tolerance is characterized by a transient refractory state to a subsequent lipopolysaccharide challenge. Following human endotoxemia, ex vivo tolerance of circulating leukocytes to lipopolysaccharide resolves within 24 hrs. However, the duration of in vivo tolerance, assumed to be primarily mediated by tissue-resident macrophages, is unknown. Design, Setting, Subjects, and Interventions:Clinical experimental study in 16 healthy male volunteers at an intensive care research unit. To compare ex vivo and in vivo tolerance kinetics, whole blood from healthy volunteers was stimulated with lipopolysaccharide before, 4 hrs after, and 1, 2, 3, and 4 wks following in vivo endotoxin (2 ng/kg; lipopolysaccharide derived from Escherichia coli O:113) administration. Furthermore, we compared the inflammatory response during two subsequent endotoxemia experiments in healthy volunteers with an interval of 2 wks. The cytokines tumor necrosis factor-&agr;, interleukin-6, interleukin-10, interleukin-1 receptor antagonist, and transforming growth factor-&bgr; were measured. Measurements and Main Results:Four hours after in vivo lipopolysaccharide administration, production of tumor necrosis factor-&agr;, interleukin-6, and interleukin-10, but not interleukin-1 receptor antagonist in ex vivo lipopolysaccharide-stimulated whole blood was diminished. Ex vivo lipopolysaccharide tolerance completely resolved within 1 week. In contrast, in vivo lipopolysaccharide tolerance was still apparent after 2 wks. Compared to the first lipopolysaccharide administration, plasma peak levels of tumor necrosis factor-&agr;, interleukin-6, interleukin-10, interleukin-1 receptor antagonist, and transforming growth factor-&bgr; were attenuated by 46%, 36%, 45%, 10%, and 14%, respectively (all p < .05). Conclusions:While ex vivo lipopolysaccharide tolerance quickly resolves, in vivo lipopolysaccharide tolerance persists for at least 2 wks. These findings strengthen the notion that the in vivo response to lipopolysaccharide is mediated by tissue-resident macrophages and that ex vivo stimulation does not accurately reflect the in vivo innate immune response. Intervention studies utilizing the human endotoxemia model should be performed using parallel groups rather than a crossover design.
Use of bile-esculin agar for rapid differentiation of Enterobacteriaceae

Bile-esculin agar has been used for several years for the presumptive identification of group D streptococci. All members of the Enterobacteriaceae family will also grow on this medium, but only certain ones can hydrolyze esculin to 6,7-dihydroxycoumarin, which reacts with iron to produce a characteristic blackening of the medium. One thousand and six cultures from clinical specimens representing 20 genera were isolated and identified. Heavy inocula from fresh pure culture isolates on heart infusion agar were placed on bile-esculin agar slants and incubated at 35 C. The slants were examined at 4 h and again at 18 h for esculin hydrolysis. Shigella, Salmonella, Arizona, Proteus mirabilis, Proteus morganii, Providencia alcalifaciens, and Providencia stuartii all produced negative results. Klebsiella pneumoniae, Enterobacter aerogenes, Serratia marcescens, and Serratia rubidaea produced a positive reaction in 4 h. The other remaining eight genera exhibited varying results. The use of this medium in conjunction with triple sugar iron-lysine iron agar has been of great value in differentiating the Klebsiella-Enterobacter-Serratia group from other Enterobacteriaceae.
Extranodal Follicular Dendritic Cell Sarcoma with Rapid Growth in Parapharynx: A Case Report

Follicular dendritic cell sarcoma (FDCS) is a rare malignancy arising from the antigen-presenting cells in the lymph node and extranodal tissue. We describe a 31-year-old male patient who presented with a swelling of the left parapharynx. The radiologic findings showed a 4.7×4.5×1.9 cm-sized, ill-defined mass in the left parapharyngeal space. A fine-needle aspiration cytology was performed and it showed scattered, irregular, cohesive clusters of tumor cells with a spindle-to-ovoid shape with irregular contours in a background of lymphocytes. Based on these findings, a diagnosis of spindle cell neoplasm was made. The surgically resected tumor was composed of elongated, ovoid or polygonal cells showing positive immunohistochemistry for CD21, CD23, and CD35. Postoperatively, the residual tumor was observed to undergo a rapidly growth. There is an overlap in the cytologic and histologic findings between FDCS of the parapharynx and other tumors. Pathologists should therefore be aware of its characteristics not only to provide an accurate diagnosis but also to recommend the appropriate clinical management.
A note on order reduction in frequency selective systems

We discuss a substitution commonly used in selective electronic circuits aimed at replacing a third order characteristic polynomial with a second order one in order to put into evidence the intuitive concepts of resonance frequency and quality factor. The influence of the position of the real parts of the poles on the negative axis on the above parameters is analyzed. The results are illustrated by a case study of a novel simulated inductor/resonator schematic.
Analysis of clinical characteristics and prognostic factors of multiple myeloma: a retrospective single-center study of 787 cases

ABSTRACT Objective: This study aims to explore the clinical features of multiple myeloma (MM) and the influence of various prognostic factors on survival. Methods: A retrospective analysis, consisting of clinical characteristics analysis and laboratory examinations, was performed on 787 MM patients. Clinical and laboratory parameters were analyzed by multivariate process and compared across different groups. Results: Of the 787 patients enrolled (median age, 61 years old, range 29–89 years old), 491 (62.4%) were male. Two most common complaints were bone pain (51.2%) and fatigue (48.0%). Anemia (hemoglobin (Hb) ≤100 g/L in female, Hb ≤110 g/L in male) was present initially in 69.4% patients. IgG was the most common type (46.6%). 52.2% of the patients were diagnosed on stage IIIA according to Durie–Salmon (D–S) system, 44.6% are on stage III according to International Staging System (ISS). Multivariate analysis suggested that age, serum calcium, LDH, percentage of abnormal plasma cells in bone marrow were all independent prognostic factors for OS. Conclusion: The MM patients in China are relatively younger, have higher rate on stage III according to D–S system. Older age, high serum calcium, high LDH, high percentage of abnormal plasma cells in bone marrow were highly related to poor prognosis.
Effect of cervical cytologic status on the association between human papillomavirus type 16 DNA load and the risk of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade 3.

BACKGROUND Although correlations between cervical cytologic status and both human papillomavirus (HPV) load and histopathologic status are recognized, it is largely undetermined whether the association between the HPV DNA load and the risk of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade 3 (CIN-3) differs on the basis of cervical cytologic findings. METHODS Study subjects were 821 women enrolled in the ASCUS-LSIL Triage Study who tested positive for HPV-16 at entry. Women were followed semiannually for 2 years. The baseline HPV-16 load was measured by real-time polymerase chain reaction. RESULTS CIN-3 was confirmed in 286 (34.8%) of 821 women during the 2-year follow-up period. The adjusted odds ratio (OR) of the 2-year cumulative risk of CIN-3 was 1.46 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.29-1.64) per 1 log(10) increase in virus load. The ORs varied from 1.66 (95% CI, 1.16-2.37) for women with normal cytologic findings at enrollment to 0.86 (95% CI, 0.61-1.20) for those with high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions. Among women with normal cytologic findings at enrollment, the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve for detection of CIN-3 on the basis of the virus load was 0.70 (95% CI, 0.61-0.78). CONCLUSION The HPV-16 DNA load was associated with the risk of developing CIN-3, but the associations varied with cytologic findings at the time of virus load measurement. The clinical usefulness of measuring the HPV-16 load as a means to detect CIN-3 was minimal, even in women with normal cytologic findings.
ARSENIC‐INDUCED OXIDATIVE STRESS AND ITS REVERSIBILITY FOLLOWING COMBINED ADMINISTRATION OF N‐ACETYLCYSTEINE AND MESO 2,3–DIMERCAPTOSUCCINIC ACID IN RATS

1. The present study examined whether arsenic induces oxidative stress in liver, brain and erythrocytes (RBC) based on the investigation of certain selected parameters. It also explored the possibility that combined administration of N‐acetylcysteine (NAC) and meso 2,3‐dimercaptosuccinic acid (DMSA) was capable of achieving better reversibility in the parameters indicative of arsenic‐induced oxidative stress than individual treatment with either of these drugs.
The restrictive role of sialic acid in antigen presentation to a subset of human peripheral cd4+ t lymphocytes that requires antigen‐presenting dendritic cells

Dendritic cells from human epidermis, i.e., Langerhans cells (LC), are more potent antigen‐presenting cells (APC) than APC from peripheral blood in proliferative in vitro responses of helper T lymphocytes to various soluble antigens. Analysis of antigen recognition by CD4+ T lymphocyte clones indicated that this increased potency of LC as APC results from a preferential requirement for LC of part of the T cell population. These T cells show a long‐lasting restoration of antigen responsiveness to peripheral blood APC after antigen‐specific restimulation in vitro, indicating that restrictive antigen recognition concerns T cells that are not fully differentiated. A similar restrictive antigen recognition was observed by treatment of the T cells or the APC with neuraminidase. This restoration of responsiveness is associated with the occurrence of nonspecific cell clustering between T cells and APC. These results suggest that the selective requirement for APC is regulated by the function of adhesion molecules that are functionally blocked by sialic acid groups on immature peripheral T cells but that are readily available on peripheral T cells at a later stage of differentiation.
A Signal Subspace Speech Enhancement Approach Based on Joint Low-Rank and Sparse Matrix Decomposition

Subspace-based methods have been effectively used to estimate enhanced speech from noisy speech samples. In the traditional subspace approaches, a critical step is splitting of two invariant subspaces associated with signal and noise via subspace decomposition, which is often performed by singular-value decomposition or eigenvalue decomposition. However, these decomposition algorithms are highly sensitive to the presence of large corruptions, resulting in a large amount of residual noise within enhanced speech in low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) situations. In this paper, a joint low-rank and sparse matrix decomposition (JLSMD) based subspace method is proposed for speech enhancement. In the proposed method, we firstly structure the corrupted data as a Toeplitz matrix and estimate its effective rank value for the underlying clean speech matrix. Then the subspace decomposition is performed by means of JLSMD, where the decomposed low-rank part corresponds to enhanced speech and the sparse part corresponds to noise signal, respectively. An extensive set of experiments have been carried out for both of white Gaussian noise and real-world noise. Experimental results show that the proposed method performs better than conventional methods in many types of strong noise conditions, in terms of yielding less residual noise and lower speech distortion.
Model-predictive-control-based distributed control scheme for bus voltage unbalance and harmonics compensation in microgrids

Power quality of ac bus voltage is a key issue for microgrids. A model-predictive-control (MPC)-based distributed bus voltage compensation methods using inverter-interfaced distributed generators (DGs) connected to the concerned bus is proposed. The presented method can compensate bus voltage unbalance and harmonics and share the compensated current between inverters autonomously, with neither communication nor upper-level controller. Moreover, direct bus voltage measurement is avoided in the proposed method considering field application feasibility. The proposed control scheme is verified by PSCAD/EMTDC simulation results.
Problem behaviors , intelligent quotient , and brain proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy in girls with idiopathic central precocious puberty

Objective: To evaluate the problem behaviors and intelligent quotation (IQ) in girls with idiopathic central precocious puberty (ICPP), and whether these are related to brain metabolic activity. Methods: Case-control study was adopted in the study. The study consisted of 42 ICPP girls and 41 healthy controls aged between 7-8 years old. All subjects were evaluated weight, height, and bone age. Brain metabolic products, N-acetylaspartate (NAA), choline-containing compounds (Cho), and combined creatine and phosphocreatine (Cr), were obtained through Proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS) from the brain frontal cortex. Conners Parent Rating Scales (PSQ) and Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Fourth Edition (WISC-IV) were used to evaluate the girls’ problem behaviors and IQ. Based on the above measures, we analyzed the correlation between problem behaviors, IQ and brain metabolic activity. Results: ICPP patients had significantly more advancement of bone age than the control (P=0.000). They had lower value of NAA/Cr and higher value of Cho/Cr compared to the control. But the difference was not significant (P>0.05). ICPP patients had more behavioral problems in psychosomatic problems, impulsivityhyperactivity, and hyperactivity index (P<0.05), and also had lower IQ of Processing Speed Index than the control (P<0.05). In correlation analysis, the psychosomatic problems and hyperactivity index were correlated with NAA/Cr (P<0.05), the others were no correlation. Conclusions: ICPP girls have more advancement of reproductive system and bone age, but their brain development is immature from 1H-MRS. They have more problem behaviors and lower IQ. Psychological supports should be given to these girls.
Function and regulation of the cyanobacterial genes lexA, recA and ruvB: LexA is critical to the survival of cells facing inorganic carbon starvation

The cyanobacterial genes lexA, recA and ruvB were analysed in Synechocystis PCC6803, which is shown here to be more radiation resistant than the other unicellular model strain Synechococcus PCC7942. We found that cyanobacteria do not have an Escherichia coli‐type SOS regulon. The Synechocystis lexA and recA promoters were found to be strong and UV insensitive, unlike the ruvB promoter, which is weak and UV‐C inducible. Yet, lexA and recA are regulated by UV‐C, but the control is negative and occurs at the post‐transcriptional level. Two novel conserved elements were characterized in the lexA promoter: (i) an unusually long crucial box 5′‐TAAAATTTTGTATCTTTT‐3′ (−64, −47); and (ii) a negatively acting motif 5′‐TAT GAT‐3′ (−42, −37). These elements were not found in the recA promoter, which appeared to be unusually simple in harbouring only a single crucial element (i.e. the canonical −10 box). RuvB, operating in recombination‐dependent cellular processes, was found to be dispensable to cell growth, whereas LexA and RecA appeared to be critical to cell viability. Using DNA microarrays, we have identified 57 genes with expression that is altered, at least twofold, in response to LexA depletion. None of these genes is predicted to operate in DNA metabolism, arguing against the involvement of LexA in the regulation of DNA repair. Instead, most of the LexA‐responsive genes were known to be involved in carbon assimilation or controlled by carbon availability. Consistently, the growth of the LexA‐depleted strain was found to be strongly dependent on the availability of inorganic carbon.
Malestar docente y afrontamiento focal

Esta tesis esta dividida en tres partes, la primera se basa en hacer un recorrido por las diversas investigaciones que se han realizado en Espana, resto de Europa y Estados Unidos, acerca del malestar, estres, ansiedad y burnout docente. Tambien se explican las principales teorias de la escuela psicoanalitica de la "psicologia del yo", puesto que es el sustento principal de las variables que despues se manejan en el modelo de la investigacion. Despues se explica el procedimiento, el cual se realizo con una poblacion de profesores de secundaria de Salamanca para estudiar su grado de malestar docente. Para ello se utilizan cinco test distintos entre los que destacan el MISPE. , cuestionario de naturaleza psicodinamica que estudia la vivencia de las relaciones consigo mismo y con los demas del entramado docente. Es tambien interesante el que entre las hipotesis se trabaje con una comparacion de una investigacion de los anos 90 en la misma poblacion y con los mismos test, para averiguar en que aspectos ha cambiado la fisionomia grupal de los docentes Salmantinos. En la ultima parte, a traves de los analisis estadisticos pertinentes y con los resultados se obtiene por un lado que la muestra esta en mejores condiciones psicologicas que la estudiada anteriormente en Salamanca, aun asi se hallan varios indicadores de malestar docente y ansiedad que son cuidadosamente especificados y sometidos a discusion. En ultimo termino como funcion meramente practica se crea un modelo a traves de los datos obtenidos de psicoterapia focal y dinamica (PFDD) dirigida a poder paliar esta problematica en los docentes. En ella se especifican las areas de intervencion, asi como los elementos fundamentales que han de tenerse en cuenta en una psicoterapia de estas condiciones.
EmotiGAN : Emoji Art using Generative Adversarial Networks

We investigate a Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) approach to generating emojis from text. We focus on two interesting research areas related to GANs: training stability and mode collapse. In doing so, we explore a novel GAN training approach that involves training a generator with different images with the same conditional label in order to produce more varying kinds of images with Conditional GANs.
Snap. Share. (Don't) Care? Ephemerality, Privacy Concerns, and the Use of Ephemeral Social Network Sites

Active participation is crucial for any successful social network site. However, privacy concerns may keep individuals from actively using these networks. Ephemerality—a new technical feature—may counteract privacy concerns while driving active usage. The recent success of ephemeral social network sites (ESNS), which build on ephemerality presumably owes to this technical peculiarity. Despite its high practical relevance, little is known about the concept of ephemerality and about how it affects ESNS usage intention. In this paper, we investigate the effect of ephemerality on two crucial determinants of ESNS usage—privacy concerns and enjoyment—and ultimately on the intention to use an ESNS. Drawing on the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) framework and the privacy calculus approach, we develop a research model and test it based on an online survey with 429 participants. We find that perceived ephemerality drives individuals’ ESNS usage intentions by lowering privacy concerns while raising perceived enjoyment
Processes regulating short‐lived species in the tropical tropopause layer

[1] A one-dimensional model of vertical transport in the tropical tropopause layer (TTL) is developed. The model uses vertical advection, a convective source, and a chemical sink to simulate the profiles of very short lived substances in the TTL. The model simulates evanescent profiles of short-lived hydrocarbon species observed by satellite and is also used to simulate short-lived bromine species. Tracers with chemical lifetimes of 25 days or longer have significant concentrations in the stratosphere, and vertical advection is critical. Convection is important up to its peak altitude, nearly 19 km. Convection dominates the distribution of species with lifetimes less than 25 days. The annual cycle of species with lifetimes longer than 25 days is governed primarily by the variations of vertical velocity, not convection. This is particularly true for carbon monoxide, where a seasonal cycle in the lower stratosphere of the right phase is produced without variations in tropospheric emissions. An analysis of critical short-lived bromine species (CH 2 Br 2 and CHBr 3 ) indicates that substantial amounts of these tracers may get advected into the lower stratosphere as source gases at 18 km, and are estimated to contribute 2.8 pptv (1.1-4.1) to stratospheric bromine.
Polysaccharide Capsule and Sialic Acid-Mediated Regulation Promote Biofilm-Like Intracellular Bacterial Communities during Cystitis

ABSTRACT Uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC) is the leading cause of urinary tract infections (UTIs). A murine UTI model has revealed an infection cascade whereby UPEC undergoes cycles of invasion of the bladder epithelium, intracellular proliferation in polysaccharide-containing biofilm-like masses called intracellular bacterial communities (IBC), and then dispersal into the bladder lumen to initiate further rounds of epithelial colonization and invasion. We predicted that the UPEC K1 polysaccharide capsule is a key constituent of the IBC matrix. Compared to prototypic E. coli K1 strain UTI89, a capsule assembly mutant had a fitness defect in functionally TLR4+ and TLR4− mice, suggesting a protective role of capsule in inflamed and noninflamed hosts. K1 capsule assembly and synthesis mutants had dramatically reduced IBC formation, demonstrating the common requirement for K1 polysaccharide in IBC development. The capsule assembly mutant appeared dispersed in the cytoplasm of the bladder epithelial cells and failed to undergo high-density intracellular replication during later stages of infection, when the wild-type strain continued to form serial generations of IBC. Deletion of the sialic acid regulator gene nanR partially restored IBC formation in the capsule assembly mutant. These data suggest that capsule is necessary for efficient IBC formation and that aberrant sialic acid accumulation, resulting from disruption of K1 capsule assembly, produces a NanR-mediated defect in intracellular proliferation and IBC development. Together, these data demonstrate the complex but important roles of UPEC polysaccharide encapsulation and sialic acid signaling in multiple stages of UTI pathogenesis.
Physical-Layer Security in MCF-Based SDM-EONs: Would Crosstalk-Aware Service Provisioning be Good Enough?

In this paper, we consider a multicore fiber (MCF)-enabled elastic optical network, in which certain nodes have a lower trust level than the others, and study how to provision lightpaths with considerations of the impairments and security vulnerabilities caused by intercore crosstalk. We propose attack-aware routing, spectrum, and core assignment algorithms that give priority to avoiding physical-layer security threats and then try to reduce the crosstalk-induced impairments. Specifically, both static network planning and dynamic network provisioning are investigated. For static planning, we first formulate an integer linear programming (ILP) model to optimize the spectrum utilization and intercore crosstalk level jointly and then propose a time-efficient heuristic. Simulation results confirm that the proposed heuristic can approximate the ILP's performance with much higher time efficiency in a small-scale network and outperform an existing benchmark in large networks. For dynamic provisioning, we design a heuristic to balance the tradeoff between blocking probability and crosstalk and conduct extensive simulations to verify its effectiveness.