Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Comparison of the Effects of Prolonged (>10 Hour) Low-flow Sevoflurane, High-flow Sevoflurane, and Low-flow Isoflurane Anaesthesia on Hepatorenal Function in Orthopaedic Patients

This study compared the effects of low-flow sevoflurane, high-flow sevoflurane and low-flow isoflurane on hepatorenal function during and after more than 10 hours of anaesthesia. Twenty-five patients scheduled for elective orthopaedic surgery were categorized into three groups; low-flow sevoflurane (fresh gas flow at 1 litre/min, n=9), high-flow sevoflurane (5 l/min, n=7), or low-flow isoflurane (1 l/min, n=9). Inspiratory compound A concentrations were measured. The groups had similar duration of anaesthesia and exposure to anaesthetic agents. The area under the curve of concentration (mean, SD) of compound A in the low-flow sevoflurane group (359.8, 106.1 ppm.h) was greater than that in the high-flow sevoflurane group (61.1, 29.3 ppm.h; P<0.01). All groups showed normal plasma creatinine and creatinine clearance, and transient postoperative increases in plasma alanine aminotrans-ferase and alpha glutathione-S-transferase, as well as urinary glucose and alpha glutathione-S-transferase, with no significant differences between groups. There were no significant relationships between the area under the curve of concentration of compound A and the biomarkers. These findings suggest that prolonged anaesthesia with low-flow sevoflurane has similar effects on hepatorenal function to prolonged anaesthesia with high-flow sevoflurane and low-flow isoflurane.
Random Matrix Analysis of Future Multi Cell MU-MIMO Networks. (Analyse des réseaux multi-cellulaires multi-utilisateurs futurs par la théorie des matrices aléatoires)

Future wireless communication systems will need to feature multi cellular heterogeneous architectures consisting of improved macro cells and very dense small cells, in order to support the exponentially rising demand for physical layer throughput. Such structures cause unprecedented levels of inter and intra cell interference, which needs to be mitigated or, ideally, exploited in order to improve overall spectral efficiency of the communication network. Techniques like massive multiple input multiple output (MIMO), cooperation, etc., that also help with interference management, will increase the size of the already large heterogeneous architectures to truly enormous networks, that defy theoretical analysis via traditional statistical methods.Accordingly, in this thesis we will apply and improve the already known framework of large random matrix theory (RMT) to analyse the interference problem and propose solutions centred around new precoding schemes, which rely on large system analysis based insights. First, we will propose and analyse a new family of precoding schemes that reduce the computational precoding complexity of base stations equipped with a large number of antennas, while maintaining most of the interference mitigation capabilities of conventional close-to-optimal regularized zero forcing. Second, we will propose an interference aware linear precoder, based on an intuitive trade-off and recent results on multi cell regularized zero forcing, that allows small cells to effectively mitigate induced interference with minimal cooperation. In order to facilitate utilization of the analytic RMT approach for future generations of interested researchers, we will also provide a comprehensive tutorial on the practical application of RMT in communication problems.
Stability of Personality Traits in Patients Who Received Intensive Treatment for a Severe Eating Disorder

A longitudinal prospective design with four assessments was used to examine the stability of personality traits and their relation to recovery in patients with restrictive anorexia nervosa (N = 35), bingeing/purging anorexia nervosa (N = 37), bulimia nervosa (N = 47), and eating disorder not otherwise specified (N = 27). Recovery is associated with changes in personality traits in the direction of healthy control women. Recovered patients still show higher harm avoidance and higher persistence than healthy control women. These temperament factors seem to be a vulnerability factor for developing an eating disorder. Novelty seeking seems to define the type of eating disorder one is prone to develop. The character dimensions contribute the most to recovery. High self-directedness contributes to a favorable prognosis of bulimic symptomatology, whereas high cooperativeness contributes to an unfavorable prognosis in patients with anorexia nervosa.
Intracranial tumours after external fractionated radiotherapy for pituitary adenomas in northern Sweden

Abstract We analysed the incidence of second primary intracranial tumours in patients with pituitary adenomas treated with radiotherapy compared to the risk of patients not exposed to irradiation and to the general population. Materials and methods. This retrospective cohort study includes 298 patients with pituitary adenomas that received radiotherapy to the pituitary from 1960 to 2007. The patients were recruited from the Cancer Registry of northern Sweden and the local radiotherapy-registry of the University Hospital in Umeå. Only patients with ≥12 months follow-up after diagnosis of pituitary adenoma were included. A cohort of 131 patients with pituitary adenomas not treated with radiotherapy was used as reference. Standard incidence ratios (SIR) between observed and expected number of second primary intracranial tumours were calculated. Results. The median observation time after diagnosis of pituitary adenoma in 298 patients treated with radiotherapy was 14 years, and the total number of person-years at risk was 4 784. Six (2.0%) of the patients developed second primary intracranial tumours between 7 and 31 years after radiotherapy. Two patients had gliomas and four had meningiomas. The expected number of intracranial tumours was 1.15 giving a SIR of 5.20 (95% CI 1.90–11.31). No significant correlations were found between radiation technique or administered dose and the risk of developing a second primary intracranial tumour. The cumulative risk for second intracranial tumours at 10 and 20 years was 1.3%. Patients not treated with radiotherapy were followed 1 601 years and no second primary intracranial tumour occurred. Discussion. The results indicate an increased risk of second primary intracranial tumours in patients treated with radiotherapy for pituitary adenomas, compared to patients not exposed to irradiation and to the general population. Meningiomas were more frequent than gliomas and the median time interval between radiotherapy and second intracranial tumour was 17 years.
Orientational ordering of solution derived epitaxial Gd-doped ceria nanowires induced by nanoscratching

When one-dimensional nanostructures are epitaxially grown on a substrate a key goal is to control the nanowire’s position and orientation. Nanoscratching of single crystalline (001)- LaAlO3 substrates is demonstrated to be extraordinarily effective in directing the self-assembly of Ce0.9Gd0. 1O2−y epitaxial nanowires grown by chemical solution deposition. The local anisotropic elastic strain field imposed by the indentation lines is responsible for the breaking of the pre-existing orientation energy degeneracy and selects the nanowires’ orientation parallel to the lines to an extent that can reach 100%.
Electrochemical concentration cell (ECC) ozonesonde pump efficiency measurements and tests on the sensitivity to ozone of buffered and unbuffered ECC sensor cathode solutions

[1] On the basis of extensive laboratory and field tests of electrochemical concentration cell (ECC) ozonesondes, a height-dependent artifact in ozone profile measurements was found that is primarily due to side reactions of the phosphate buffers used in the “standard” 1% potassium iodide sensing solution. The influence of the buffers was revealed as a result of new, direct measurements of the ozonesonde pump flow rate efficiency made in an environmental chamber using an oil bubble flowmeter developed at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory (NOAA/CMDL). The new flow rate measurements give pump efficiency correction factors that are 2 and 15% greater at 100 and 5 hPa, respectively, than those used in currently recommended procedures. Profile measurements using ozonesondes with differing ECC sensor solutions, on dual-sonde balloons and experiments in a simulation chamber, show that the impact of the buffers is most pronounced above the ozone partial pressure maximum. The effect is about a 10–15% overmeasurement of ozone at an altitude of 30 km. Careful consideration must be given to the combination of the sensing solution composition and pump efficiency correction if representative ozone profiles are to be obtained from ozonesonde measurements.
Centrosomal components immunologically related to tektins from ciliary and flagellar microtubules.

Centrosomes are critical for the nucleation and organization of the microtubule cytoskeleton during both interphase and cell division. Using antibodies raised against sea urchin sperm flagellar microtubule proteins, we characterize here the presence and behavior of certain components associated with centrosomes of the surf clam Spisula solidissima and cultured mammalian cells. A Sarkosyl detergent-resistant fraction of axonemal microtubules was isolated from sea urchin sperm flagella and used to produce monoclonal antibodies, 16 of which were specific- or cross-specific for the major polypeptides associated with this microtubule fraction: tektins A, B and C, acetylated alpha-tubulin, and 77 and 83 kDa polypeptides. By 2-D isoelectric focussing/SDS polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis the tektins separate into several polypeptide spots. Identical spots were recognized by monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies against a given tektin, indicating that the different polypeptide spots are isoforms or modified versions of the same protein. Four independently derived monoclonal anti-tektins were found to stain centrosomes of S. solidissima oocytes and CHO and HeLa cells, by immunofluorescence microscopy. In particular, the centrosome staining of one monoclonal antibody specific for tektin B (tekB3) was cell-cycle-dependent for CHO cells, i.e. staining was observed only from early prometaphase until late anaphase. By immuno-electron microscopy tekB3 specifically labeled material surrounding the centrosome, whereas a polyclonal anti-tektin B recognized centrioles as well as the centrosomal material throughout the cell cycle. Finally, by immunoblot analysis tekB3 stained polypeptides of 48-50 kDa in isolated spindles and centrosomes from CHO cells.
Enhanced Hidden Markov Models for accelerating medical volumes segmentation

A fully automated unsupervised image segmentation method using Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) is proposed to segment medical volumes. The application of this system to medical volumes has been evaluated using NEMA IE body phantom and a comparison study has been carried out to evaluate HMM and other segmentation techniques which reveal thatHMMdelivers promising results in terms of accurate region of interest detection. Computational time is the main issue to tackle in HMMs, a solution has been proposed and evaluated with respect to the effects of the accelerators on the system accuracy.
Invariant NKT Cells Promote CD8+ Cytotoxic T Cell Responses by Inducing CD70 Expression on Dendritic Cells1

Activation of invariant NK T (iNKT) cells with the glycolipid α-galactosylceramide promotes CD8+ cytotoxic T cell responses, a property that has been used to enhance the efficacy of antitumor vaccines. Using chimeric mice, we now show that the adjuvant properties of iNKT cells require that CD40 triggering and Ag presentation to CD8+ T cells occur on the same APCs. We demonstrate that injection of α-galactosylceramide triggers CD70 expression on splenic T cell zone dendritic cells and that this is dependent on CD40 signaling. Importantly, we show that blocking the interaction between CD70 and CD27, its costimulatory receptor on T cells, abrogates the ability of iNKT cells to promote a CD8+ T cell response and abolishes the efficacy of α-GalCer as an adjuvant for antitumor vaccines. These results define a key role for CD70 in linking the innate response of iNKT cells to the activation of CD8+ T cells.
CopY Is a Copper-inducible Repressor of the Enterococcus hirae Copper ATPases*

The cop operon of Enterococcus hirae effects copper homeostasis in this organism. It encodes a repressor, CopY, an activator, CopZ, and two P-type copper ATPases, CopA and CopB. Expression of all four genes is regulated by the ambient copper. In this regulation, CopY apparently acts as a copper-inducible repressor. By DNase I footprinting, it was shown that purified CopY protected two discrete sites in the region encompassing nucleotides −71 to −11 relative to the translational start site and containing hyphenated inverted repeats. Transcription is initiated between these repeats at nucleotide −42, in a domain that remained accessible to DNase I in the DNA-repressor complex. Chemical cross-linking revealed that CopY exists as a dimer in solution. In DNA band-shift assays, it was apparent that the CopY-DNA interaction occurred in two discrete steps. Half-maximal binding of repressor to the two operator sites was observed at 2 × 10−9 M and 5 × 10−9 M CopY, respectively. Copper ions released CopY from the promoter/operator with an apparent half-binding constant for Cu(I) of 20 μM. The site-directed mutations A−61T and A−30T essentially abolished the binding of CopY to the respective binding sites, and the double mutation A−61T/A−30T inactivated both binding sites. Thus, CopY is a copper-inducible repressor of the cop operon of E. hirae, exhibiting highly specific DNA-protein interactions with two sites on the cop promoter/operator and playing a key role in copper homeostasis in E. hirae
PERFIL MICROBIOLÓGICO E PARASITOLÓGICO DE ALFACES-CRESPA (Lactuca sativa L) VENDIDAS EM TRÊS SUPERMERCADOS DA CIDADE DE SOBRAL CEARÁ

Currently has increased the concern of the population with quality and food safety, the lettuce to be eaten fresh, it is a means of transmission of various diseases associated with contamination both by microorganisms and by parasites. Therefore the current study aimed to analyze the microbiological profile and parasitological lettuces, curled sold in three supermarkets in the city of Sobral Ceará. To perform the
Systems of concepts and their extraction from text

A method that could be used to populate, or more accurately to seed, terminology collections, and subsequently to seed models of specific domains, latterly called ontologies, is proposed, demonstrated and evaluated based on analysis of text collections, and with reference to recent work in international standards for terminology. The activity of populating ontologies is referred to elsewhere as ontology learning. Ontologies are considered by some as vital to the development of the Semantic Web and its Grid counterpart, and to the development of the emerging, yet elusive, "Knowledge Grids". Results of this work could be used to support activities of terminologists, document managers, developers of intelligent systems, and other language researchers. The research investigates the population of knowledge bases with systems of concepts extracted from texts in arbitrary domains. Such population is normally undertaken manually by domain experts. The method relies on identifying evidence of key domain concepts, expressed through terms used in place of these concepts, in the definition of these concepts and to express relationships between concepts. The work presented may contribute to the Semantic Web and related initiatives by helping to overcome the well-documented and unsolved AI problem of producing an initial model of an arbitrary specialist domain from background resources without significant hand-crafting effort and involvement of a domain expert: the so-called "Knowledge Acquisition Bottleneck". This bottleneck is usually overcome through extensive interactions with domain experts, involving a number of expert interviews. The research explores issues of terminology extraction from domain texts, the need for and use of knowledge representation, and the means by which terminology extraction and knowledge representation can be combined with international standards for terminology to produce such an initial model of an arbitrary specialist domain. The result of applying the presented method, the initial domain model, can be validated by domain experts, reducing the need for expert involvement in the creation of this model.
Biomécanique et contrôle moteur en natation course : Application des nouvelles techniques de calibration de caméra à l’analyse cinématique en natation et identification des coordinations motrices lors des phases sous-marines de départs chez des nageurs de haut niveau

De par la nature et le nombre des contraintes environnementales, l’etude de la performance motrice en natation est particulierement complexe. Les techniques d’analyse cinematique traditionnelles sont souvent peu adaptees et certains des fondements de la motricite (notamment sous-marine) du nageur restent encore meconnus. Face a cela, le croisement de champs d’investigation aussi varies que le controle moteur, les neurosciences cognitives, la biomecanique, ou encore les sciences de vision par ordinateur, permet aujourd’hui d’envisager de nouvelles methodes d’analyse de la performance ainsi que de proposer des modeles theoriques adaptes a la comprehension des coordinations motrices mises en place par un nageur en action. Dans ces conditions, les objectifs de la presente these ont donc ete doubles. Ainsi, dans un premier temps, differentes techniques de calibration de camera susceptibles de faciliter l’analyse cinematique en natation ont ete proposees et leurs precisions respectives ont ete evaluees. Dans un second temps, l’efficacite propulsive de nageurs de haut niveau lors de la phase sous-marine des departs plonges (phases de glisse et de propulsion) a ete analysee. Parallelement, les coordinations motrices ainsi que les modes de controle des mouvements realises lors de cette phase ont ete identifies et mis en relation notamment avec l’efficacite propulsive du nageur.
PUCHEROS: a cost-effective solution for high-resolution spectroscopy with small telescopes

We present PUCHEROS, the high-resolution echelle spectrograph, developed at the Center of Astro-Engineering of Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile to provide an effective tool for research and teaching of astronomy. The instrument is fed by a single-channel optical fibre and it covers the visible range from 390 to 730 nm in one shot, reaching a spectral resolution of about 20 000. In the era of extremely large telescopes our instrument aims to exploit the capabilities offered by small telescopes in a cost-effective way, covering the observing needs of a community of astronomers, in Chile and elsewhere, which do not necessarily need large collecting areas for their research. In particular the instrument is well suited for long-term spectroscopic monitoring of bright variable and transient targets down to a V magnitude of about 10. We describe the instrument and present a number of text case examples of observations obtained during commissioning and early science.
What Factors Influence General Practice Specialist Trainees’ Engagement with their E-portfolio?

This article was migrated. The article was marked as recommended. Background:E-portfolio is the primary strategy for the development and assessment of general practice trainees. Literature indicates that trainees often resist engaging fully, undermining its validity in assessing trainee competence and performance. Aim:To identify and explore conditions influencing engagement with e-portfolio within a local training programme. Design:A constructivist grounded theory design was used to conceptualise the factors that influence trainee engagement. Method: Twelve semi-structured trainee interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed and coded. Aided by Nvivo Pro version 11, initial codes were developed, revised and raised to focused codes. Through constant comparison, diagramming and memo-writing, theoretical categories were generated. Results:Data analysis conceptualised a theory of engagement incorporating three conceptual categories: “Conceptualising the e-portfolio”, “Developing and maintaining trust” in e-portfolio and its processes and “Deciding upon investment worth”. Decisions to invest personal resources in e-portfolio engagement depended upon trainees’ appraisal of its personal worth and value. Conclusions:E-portfolio valuation was contingent upon trainees’ conceptualisation of its purpose, and the trustworthiness of the learning and assessment processes prescribed by its structure. This has implications for trainees, supervisors, and training programmes related to implementation and ownership of e-portfolio, and the credibility and transparency of its role in the assessment of professional performance.
The extracellular matrix in multiple sclerosis pathology

The extracellular matrix (ECM) is a substrate upon which cells migrate, proliferate and differentiate. It is involved in the maintenance of cytoarchitecture, regulation of homeostasis, and it influences interactions between cells and molecules via specific receptors. Although a substantial body of knowledge has accumulated concerning the role of the ECM in peripheral tissues, little is known of the structure and function of the ECM in the CNS. However, marked changes in the expression of ECM constituents have been documented in various neurological disorders, including multiple sclerosis. This review focuses on the structure and function of the ECM in the CNS and in particular on the occurrence and involvement of ECM changes in the pathology of multiple sclerosis. Increased knowledge of the expression and functional role of ECM proteins in the CNS can lead to a better understanding of complex neurobiological processes both under normal as well as pathological conditions.
Diagnosis of Helicobacter pylori Infection

A large number of studies on diagnostic tests have been published this year. New tests were proposed for the detection of Helicobacter pylori antigens in stools and new molecular methods (real‐time polymerase chain reaction) to look for antimicrobial susceptibility. The other standard tests have been applied in different situations to improve the diagnosis of the infection.