Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Induction of LTP and LTD in visual cortex neurones by intracellular tetanization

Neurones from supragranular layers of rat visual cortex slices were activated by intracellular tetanization (IT) without concomitant presynaptic stimulation. The effect of IT was examined on EPSPs evoked at low stimulation intensity from two subsets of afferents by electrodes positioned in layers II and IV, respectively. In 17 of 23 inputs to 15 cells IT led to changes in EPSP amplitudes which persisted throughout the recording period (from at least 40 min to 3 h). For 10 potentiated inputs (nine cells) and eight depressed inputs (seven cells), EPSP amplitudes measured 30 min after tetanization were 167 ± 14% and 55 ± 14% of the pretetanic controls, respectively. In seven cells both inputs changed, in five cases modifications were of the opposite and in two cases of the same polarity.
Surface expression of HLA-C antigen by human extravillous trophoblast.

In this paper definitive evidence that the classical class I product, HLA-C, is expressed on the surface of normal trophoblast cells is provided. HLA-C transcripts were sequenced from cDNA isolated from first trimester trophoblast cells obtained by flow cytometric sorting. Both paternal and maternal alleles were transcribed. HLA-C proteins were demonstrated by biochemical analysis and found on the cell surface in association with beta(2)-microglobulin. Upregulation of cell surface HLA-C but not HLA-G expression after interferon (IFN)-gamma treatment was demonstrated by flow cytometric analysis. Immunohistology has confirmed HLA-C is expressed by all extravillous subpopulations in vivo. The question of whether trophoblast HLA-C molecules interact with decidual NK cells expressing killer Ig-like receptors (KIR) has also been addressed. Our results demonstrate that extravillous trophoblast expresses at least two HLA class I molecules, HLA-G and HLA-C on the cell surface.
Augmented Reality Guidance with Multimodality Imaging Data and Depth-Perceived Interaction for Robot-Assisted Surgery

Image-guided surgical procedures are challenged by mono image modality, two-dimensional anatomical guidance and non-intuitive human-machine interaction. The introduction of Tablet-based augmented reality (AR) into surgical robots may assist surgeons with overcoming these problems. In this paper, we proposed and developed a robot-assisted surgical system with interactive surgical guidance using tablet-based AR with a Kinect sensor for three-dimensional (3D) localization of patient anatomical structures and intraoperative 3D surgical tool navigation. Depth data acquired from the Kinect sensor was visualized in cone-shaped layers for 3D AR-assisted navigation. Virtual visual cues generated by the tablet were overlaid on the images of the surgical field for spatial reference. We evaluated the proposed system and the experimental results showed that the tablet-based visual guidance system could assist surgeons in locating internal organs, with errors between 1.74 and 2.96 mm. We also demonstrated that the system was able to provide mobile augmented guidance and interaction for surgical tool navigation.
Potential usefulness of computerized nodule detection in screening programs for lung cancer.

RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVE To alert radiologists to possible nodule locations and subsequently to reduce the number of false-negative diagnoses, the authors are developing a computer-aided diagnostic (CAD) scheme for the detection of lung nodules in digital chest images. METHODS A computer-vision scheme was applied to photofluorographic films obtained in a mass survey for detection of asymptomatic lung cancer in Japan. Ninety-five patients with abnormal test results who had primary and metastatic lung cancers and 103 patients with normal test results were included. RESULTS The sensitivity of the computer output was comparable with that of physicians in this mass survey (62%). The computer detected approximately 40% of all nodules missed in the mass survey, but missed 17 true-positive results identified in the mass survey. The CAD scheme produced an average of 15 false-positive findings per image. CONCLUSION If the number of false-positive results can be significantly reduced, computer-vision schemes such as this may have a role in lung cancer screening programs.
Predicted responses of arctic and alpine ecosystems to altered seasonality under climate change

Global climate change is already having significant impacts on arctic and alpine ecosystems, and ongoing increases in temperature and altered precipitation patterns will affect the strong seasonal patterns that characterize these temperature‐limited systems. The length of the potential growing season in these tundra environments is increasing due to warmer temperatures and earlier spring snow melt. Here, we compare current and projected climate and ecological data from 20 Northern Hemisphere sites to identify how seasonal changes in the physical environment due to climate change will alter the seasonality of arctic and alpine ecosystems. We find that although arctic and alpine ecosystems appear similar under historical climate conditions, climate change will lead to divergent responses, particularly in the spring and fall shoulder seasons. As seasonality changes in the Arctic, plants will advance the timing of spring phenological events, which could increase plant nutrient uptake, production, and ecosystem carbon (C) gain. In alpine regions, photoperiod will constrain spring plant phenology, limiting the extent to which the growing season can lengthen, especially if decreased water availability from earlier snow melt and warmer summer temperatures lead to earlier senescence. The result could be a shorter growing season with decreased production and increased nutrient loss. These contrasting alpine and arctic ecosystem responses will have cascading effects on ecosystems, affecting community structure, biotic interactions, and biogeochemistry.
SLAM of View-based Maps using SGD

This work presents a solution for the problem of Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) based on a Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) technique and using omnidirectional images. In the field of applications of mobile robotics, SGD has never been tested with visual information obtained from the environment. This paper suggests the introduction of a SGD algorithm into a SLAM scheme which exploits the benefits of omnidirectional images provided by a single camera. Several improvements have been introduced to the vanilla SGD in order to adapt it to the case of omnidirectional observations. This new SGD approach reduces the undesired harmful effects provoked by non-linearities which compromise the convergence of the traditional filter estimates. Particularly, we rely on an efficient map representation, conformed by a reduced set of image views. The first contribution is the adaption of the basic SGD algorithm to work with omnidirectional observations, whose nature is angular, and thus it lacks of scale. Former SGD approaches only process one constraint independently at each iteration step. Instead, we think of a strategy which employes several constraints simultaneously as system inputs, with the purpose of improving the convergence speed when estimating a SLAM solution. In this context, we present different sets of experiments which have been carried out seeking for validation of our new approach based on SGD with omnidirectional observations. In addition, we compare our approach with a basic SGD in order to prove the expected benefits in terms of efficiency.
Prevalence and correlates of anxiety in Alzheimer's disease

We assessed a consecutive series of 398 patients with probable Alzheimer's disease (AD) for the presence of Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) using a standardized neuropsychiatric evaluation. Five percent of patients showed GAD during the 4 weeks preceding the psychiatric evaluation. AD patients with GAD showed significantly higher scores of depression, irritability, overt aggression, mania, and pathological crying than AD patients without GAD. The most severe symptoms of anxiety were those of tension, fears, insomnia, and physical complaints. Depression and Anxiety 7:166–170, 1998. © 1998 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Antiepileptic Properties of Cerebrospinal Fluid After Activation of the Antiepileptic System of the Brain

Summary: Intraventricular injection of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) obtained from cats with chronic electrical stimulation of cerebellar vermal cortex resulted in suppression of epileptic foci activity in cat brain cortex, an increase in time to first seizure, and weakening of generalized seizures in rats. The CSF obtained from cats after electroshock seizures induced less pronounced, although significant antiepileptic action in comparison with the CSF of cats with cerebellar stimulation on the model of generalized seizures in rats. The antiepileptic action of CSF obtained from cats with electrostimulation of cerebellar vermis and from electroshock cats is due to appearance of peptide factors in CSF.
A Graph-based Text Similarity Measure That Employs Named Entity Information

Text comparison is an interesting though hard task, with many applications in Natural Language Processing. This work introduces a new text-similarity measure, which employs named-entities’ information extracted from the texts and the n-gram graphs’ model for representing documents. Using OpenCalais as a named-entity recognition service and the JINSECT toolkit for constructing and managing n-gram graphs, the text similarity measure is embedded in a text clustering algorithm (k-Means). The evaluation of the produced clusters with various clustering validity metrics shows that the extraction of named entities at a first step can be profitable for the time-performance of similarity measures that are based on the n-gram graph representation without affecting the overall performance of the NLP task.
Typing of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus by Ribosome Spacer and Arbitrarily Primed Polymerase Chain Reaction

Thirty-five methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) clinical isolates were collected from 3 hospitals in the northern and southern parts of Palestine between February and May 1998. These isolates were typed by ribosome spacer PCR (RS-PCR) and arbitrarily primed PCR (AP-PCR). RS-PCR generated 9 different genotypes. The use of AP-PCR provided a high resolution typing method and allowed us to define 11 different clusters. Three major clusters, however, based on the combination of both typing methods, spread throughout the neonatal and intensive care units of Rafidya Hospital during the entire period.
A scheme of multi-user reusing one slot on enhancing capacity of GSM/EDGE networks

GSM network is seeing its greatest expansion because of the growing demand for mobile voice services in emerging markets recently. A newly proposed technology, multiuser reusing one slot (MUROS), would help operators in densely populated cities to alleviate the strain on their networks. The concept of MUROS is based on multiplexing two or more users onto one time slot without degrading the speech quality. We improved one solution of MUROS, orthogonal sub channel (OSC) in this contribution. For the downlink (DL) OSC, we designed new training sequence codes (TSCs) which are low cross-correlated with legacy TSCs. For the uplink (UL) OSC, we adopted successive interference cancellation based on minimum mean square error (MMSE-SIC) algorithm. Theoretical analysis and simulation results shows that with proper TSC design, OSC is a promising scheme of MUROS due to its ability to double the capacity of GSM/EDGE networks without degrading the speech quality very much.
Low-frequency Raman scattering from CdS microcrystals embedded in a germanium dioxide glass matrix.

We report here results from experiments on low-frequency Raman scattering from CdS microcrystals of various sizes embedded in a germanium dioxide glass matrix. We observed peaks in the low-frequency region in the tail parts of the Rayleigh lines and we found that the frequencies of these peaks were proportional to the inverse microcrystal diameters and that the size dependences of the peak shifts agreed fairly well with the calculated results based on Lamb's theory. Furthermore, we found that these Raman-scattering spectra had the characteristic polarization properties. Our results show that the observed low-frequency Raman scattering originates from confined acoustic vibrations of a spherical CdS microcrystal
Children with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia have high plasma levels of total homocysteine at time of diagnosis

Objective. Cancer can induce venous thromboembolic complications for various reasons. As part of a greater study, acquired and congenital prothrombotic risk factors were investigated in children with leukaemia or non‐Hodgkin's lymphoma and compared with similar investigations in children with congenital heart defects. Material and methods. Blood samples were taken from 60 children with newly diagnosed leukaemia or lymphoma and 133 children with congenital heart defects in the course of a scheduled cardiac catheterization. When children with cancer were in remission, analyses of acquired prothrombotic risk factors were repeated. Children with cancer were observed for symptoms of thromboembolism throughout their treatment period. Results. Total homocysteine levels were significantly raised in children with cancer (median value 10.0 µmol/L) as compared with the levels in children with congenital heart diseases (5.0 µmol/L) (p<0.001), while children with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia had the highest values. The median level of lipoprotein(a) was slightly increased in children with newly diagnosed leukaemia or lymphoma (105 mg/L versus 100 mg/L, p<0.001), and levels of coagulation inhibitors were higher (p<0.001). Total homocysteine levels normalized when children attained remission of cancer disease. Two children had symptoms of acute thrombosis. Conclusions. Raised concentrations of total homocysteine were frequent in children with newly diagnosed cancer, but this normalized when the children were in remission. The clinical significance of our observations and the impact on venous thromboembolism have yet to be defined.
Coronary artery imaging with multidetector CT: visualization issues.

Noninvasive imaging of the coronary arteries has attracted growing interest in the past few years. One of the possible acquisition techniques is multidetector computed tomography (CT) that produces large three-dimensional (3D) data sets that require visualization techniques for data evaluation. The objective of this article is to increase knowledge of possible 3D visualization techniques together with their advantages and disadvantages for the routine evaluation of cardiac data sets. Common imaging techniques available to the radiologist at standard workstations are multiplanar reformation (MPR), oblique MPR, curved MPR, maximum-intensity projection (MIP), shaded-surface display, and direct volume rendering. Each of these techniques has its advantages and disadvantages for the visualization of the coronary artery tree. Several additions to the basic techniques have been developed to overcome some of their shortcomings. Different clinical examinations, such as stent evaluation, stenosis evaluation, and bypass evaluation, require different visualization techniques. The choice of preferred technique for each clinical study depends on the advantages and disadvantages of the various techniques as described in the literature. Because of the large number of possible settings and projection angles, it is important for users to interactively manipulate the images and review the whole vessel volume rather than just looking at static reformatted images. Errors such as findings of false stenoses can be avoided by means of accurate and appropriate use of software features. This requires training of users both with regard to the capabilities of the software and the background of the different techniques and their possible pitfalls. The authors believe that volume rendering of the whole heart is useful for anatomic evaluation of the coronary arteries. For more detailed observation of specific lesions, slab imaging with volume rendering or MIP is required.
Changes in brain levels of N‐acylethanolamines and 2‐arachidonoylglycerol in focal cerebral ischemia in mice

The N‐acylethanolamines (NAEs) and 2‐arachidonoylglycerol (2‐AG) are bioactive lipids that can modulate inflammatory responses and protect neurons against glutamatergic excitotoxicity. We have used a model of focal cerebral ischemia in young adult mice to investigate the relationship between focal cerebral ischemia and endogenous NAEs. Over the first 24 h after induction of permanent middle cerebral artery occlusion, we observed a time‐dependent increase in all the investigated NAEs, except for anandamide. Moreover, we found an accumulation of 2‐AG at 4 h that returned to basal level 12 h after induction of ischemia. Accumulation of NAEs did not depend on regulation of N‐acylphosphatidylethanolamine‐hydrolyzing phospholipase D or fatty acid amide hydrolase. Treatment with the fatty acid amide hydrolase inhibitor URB597 (cyclohexyl carbamic acid 3′‐carbamoyl‐biphenyl‐3‐yl ester; 1 mg/kg; i.p.) 1.5 h before arterial occlusion decreased the infarct volume in our model system. Our results suggest that NAEs and 2‐AG may be involved in regulation of neuroprotection during focal cerebral ischemia in mice.
A new memory allocation method for shared memory multiprocessors with large virtual address space

This paper proposes a new memory allocation method for shared memory multiprocessors with large virtual address spaces. An evaluation of its performance is also presented. For effective use of shared memory multiprocessors, it is important that no processor's execution is blocked. If several processors simultaneously access a shared variable, their processes are blocked and access to the variable is serialized. Thus, frequent access to shared variables reduces the parallelism. In particular, the parallelism is significantly reduced when a special shared variable – the ‘allocation pointer’ – is frequently accessed in the dynamic object allocation by an application program. In this paper, we propose a new method for allocating physical memory pages where the allocation pointer is monotonically increased in the virtual address space in contrast to the conventional method. This allows the critical sections for access to the allocation pointer to be executed effectively and atomically by using the fetch-and-add primitive. Our method improves the application program's parallelism by access to the allocation pointer with considerably short blocking time to the process. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Investigating Esophageal Stent-Placement Outcomes in Patients with Inoperable Non-Cervical Esophageal Cancer

Background: Esophageal stent insertion in patients with inoperable esophageal cancer is usually accompanied with relatively high adverse symptoms and even mortality. The current study aims at investigating the outcomes of esophageal stenting in patients with inoperable non-cervical esophageal cancer. Materials and Methods: The current descriptive-analytical research evaluates 25 patients with esophageal cancer. The stent was placed in esophagus based upon endoscopy analysis with or without fluoroscopy and then the stent position and its opening was investigated by making use of CXRand Gastrografin studies. Demographic characteristics, dysphagia scores, stent placement side effects and the dysphagia-related indices were recorded and examined by taking advantage of a questionnaire which was administered pre and post stent insertion. Results: The study population was comprised of 15 women and 10 men. The individuals' average age was 69.20 ± 11.25 years. Dysphagia mean score was lowered from a value of 4.32 ± 0.80 to 2.00 ± 1.22 (P-value<0.05). The prevalent side effects were chest pain (64%), dysphagia recurrence (40%), stent blockage (20%), stent migration (16%), GI bleeding (8%), and malposition (8%). Also, it was found out that 64% of the patients survived for 6 months. Conclusion: The results indicated that although esophageal stenting is accompanied with side effects in patients with inoperable esophageal cancer, but it is the most frequently used and the most reliable method in relieving dysphagia and improving dysphagia-related life indices.
Forums for management information systems scholars

hat is " scholarly nzsearch " and which pub& cation outlets are considered 'best " ? In any academic discipline, the answers to these questions ate sought by:. Selection, promotion, and tenure committees as they seek to secure and retain the best possible individuals for thar faculty [5,151; l Researchers, as they seek to determme appropriate outlets for their research findings [5,6, 151; l Individuals seelung to identify the significant research streams in an academxc disciphne [25]; l Journal editors and assoaates as they seek to raise the quality of their journal to the highest possible l&l; I l The academic discipline in question as it seeks to gain an identity of its own, especially if it is a relatively young field [ 11, 251; l Students of the discipline as they seek to gain an understanding of what the discipline encompasses [6, 11,251; and l Librarians as they seek to wisely invest their ever-decreasing funds. Borrowing from the vernacular of consumer behavior theory, these constituents all have an interest in the " consumption " of knowledge. As with any consumption decision, limited resources dictaw that decisions be made concerning which " products " to consume. Thus, in the academic setting, this consumption decision concerns determining the bestjournals to further the discipline [15]. From the demand perspective, consumers of knowledge (e.g., researchers, individuals interested in the field, libraries) wish to invest their time and money economically, consuming the best material possible. On the supply side, producers of knowledge (e.g., researchers,journal editors, associates) wish to produce material that best meets consumer demand. Thus, many constituents have a definite interest in the determination of the relevance of publication outlets in a particular discipline. This study was undertaken to determine the important publishing journals and/or other outlets for management information systems (MIS) faculty. The MIS faculty were viewed as expert consumers of MIS research. In particular, three dimensions of each expert's background were considered important: the expert's education, role orientation, and academic lifestyle. The impact of these dimensions was studied to determine their influence on MIS faculty perception of publishing journals. Finally, presenting the results within an analytically sound framework will permit future researchers in MIS forums to use this study's model to better present their findings. Previous pertinent research done on potential MIS research forums and factors influencing their results are assessed and discussed in the following subsections. In 1983, Hamilton and …
Stages of Neurotransmitter Development in Autonomic Neurons

The ontogeny of neurotransmitters in autonomic neurons proceeds through the successive stages of early expression, definitive expression, modulation, and regulation, extending from embryonic life to maturity. Although different extracellular signals influence development at different stages, a number of signals that influence development continue to govern transmitter function during maturity. The sequential ontogenetic stages parallel the progressive restriction of mutability of phenotypic expression; however, some degree of neuronal mutability appears to persist through maturity.