Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evidence for a physiological role for membrane rafts in human platelets

We have investigated raft formation in human platelets in response to cell activation. Lipid phase separation and domain formation were detected using the fluorescent dye 1,1′‐dioctadecyl‐3,3,3′,3′‐tetramethyl‐indocarbocyanine perchlorate (diI‐C18) that preferentially partitions into gel‐like lipid domains. We showed that when human platelets are activated by cold and physiological agonists, rafts coalesce into visible aggregates. These events were disrupted by depletion of membrane cholesterol. Using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), we measured a thermal phase transition at around 30°C in intact platelets, which we have assigned as the liquid‐ordered to the liquid‐disordered phase transition of rafts. Phase separation of the phospholipid and the sphingomyelin‐enriched rafts could be observed as two phase transitions at around 15 and 30°C, respectively. The higher transition, assigned to the rafts, was greatly enhanced with removal of membrane cholesterol. Detergent‐resistant membranes (DRMs) were enriched in cholesterol (50%) and sphingomyelin (20%). The multi‐functional platelet receptor CD36 selectively partitioned into DRMs, whereas the GPI‐linked protein CD55 and the major platelet integrin αIIbβ3a did not, which suggests that the clustering of proteins within rafts is a regulated process dependent on specific lipid protein interactions. We suggest that raft aggregation is a dynamic, reversible physiological event triggered by cell activation. J. Cell. Physiol. 190: 117–128, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Broadband Transmission via Underground Medium-Voltage Power Lines—Part I: Transmission Characteristics

The transmission characteristics of underground medium-voltage/broadband over power line (MV/BPL) channels are examined analytically. By appropriately modifying multiconductor transmission-line theory, the bottom-up approach, already used to treat overhead MV/BPL transmission, is extended to analyze BPL transmission in three-phase underground MV lines with common shield and armor. ThIS analysis shows that these cables may support five modes, giving rise to five separate transmission channels which reduce to three if the shield and armor are grounded. The numerical results concerning attenuation in underground MV/BPL channels have been validated against relevant sets of measurements and compared to the relevant results of overhead MV/BPL channels. It has been verified that the attenuation in underground MV/BPL channels exhibits a lowpass behavior and is significantly higher than that of overhead ones.
Prevalence of BRAF V 600 E mutation in Asian patients with thyroid cancer

I read with interest the recent article of Navarro-Locsin et al from the Philippines on the local rate of BRAF mutation in thyroid cancer. BRAF is a key genetic event in the initiation and progression of papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC). It is a well-established diagnostic marker useful in the preoperative evaluation of indeterminate thyroid nodules. In addition, BRAF mutation attracts substantial interest as a therapeutic target and prognostic tool. It is believed that knowing the local BRAF mutation rate is of importance not only to the particular patient but also to health care providers. BRAF testing alone (opposite to multi-target gene panels) is deemed to be more cost-effective in regions with high prevalence of BRAF mutation. A rate of BRAF in PTC was extensively reported from Western countries (USA and Europe), with the consistent prevalence of 40-45% across different regions. Summary on BRAF mutation rate in Asian countries is shown in Fig. 1. Available data from South and Southeast Asia are very
Inhomogeneous band bending on MoS2(0001) arising from surface steps and dislocations

We study the observed inhomogeneous band bending effects on cleaved MoS2(0001) single-crystal surfaces. Both Mo 3d and S 2p core levels were found to shift to lower binding energy in regions of the MoS2 crystal with high step densities, as suggested by spot splitting of the LEED (low energy electron diffraction) pattern. Surface electronic band structure measurements also reveal a rigid shift of the valence bands in these regions, resulting from local Fermi level pinning effects. A surface electric field gradient on the MoS2 crystals caused by the charged dislocations from the regions of high step densities generated by the cleaving process is found to explain most of the experimental observations.
Accelerating Improvement and Narrowing Gaps: Trends in Patients' Experiences with Hospital Care Reflected in HCAHPS Public Reporting.

OBJECTIVE Measure HCAHPS improvement in hospitals participating in the second and fifth years of HCAHPS public reporting; determine whether change is greater for some hospital types. DATA Surveys from 4,822,960 adult inpatients discharged July 2007-June 2008 or July 2010-June 2011 from 3,541 U.S. hospitals. STUDY DESIGN Linear mixed-effect regression models with fixed effects for time, patient mix, and hospital characteristics (bedsize, ownership, Census division, teaching status, Critical Access status); random effects for hospitals and hospital-time interactions; fixed-effect interactions of hospital characteristics and patient characteristics (gender, health, education) with time predicted HCAHPS measures correcting for regression-to-the-mean biases. DATA COLLECTION METHODS National probability sample of adult inpatients in any of four approved survey modes. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS HCAHPS scores increased by 2.8 percentage points from 2008 to 2011 in the most positive response category. Among the middle 95 percent of hospitals, changes ranged from a 5.1 percent decrease to a 10.2 percent gain overall. The greatest improvement was in for-profit and larger (200 or more beds) hospitals. CONCLUSIONS Five years after HCAHPS public reporting began, meaningful improvement of patients' hospital care experiences continues, especially among initially low-scoring hospitals, reducing some gaps among hospitals.
Exhaled breath temperature in children: reproducibility and influencing factors

Abstract Objective: This study will investigate the reproducibility and influencing factors of exhaled breath temperature measured with the tidal breathing technique in asthmatic patients and healthy children. Methods: Exhaled breath temperature, fractional exhaled nitric oxide, and spirometry were assessed in 124 children (63 healthy and 61 asthmatic), aged 11.2 ± 2.5 year, M/F 73/51. A modified version of the American Thoracic Society questionnaire on the child’s present and past respiratory history was obtained from parents. Parents were also asked to provide detailed information on their child’s medication use during the previous 4 weeks. Ear temperature, ambient temperature, and relative-ambient humidity were also recorded. Results: Exhaled breath temperature measurements were highly reproducible; the second measurement was higher than the first measurement, consistent with a test–retest situation. In 13 subjects, between-session within-day reproducibility of exhaled breath temperature was still high. Exhaled breath temperature increased with age and relative-ambient humidity. Exhaled breath temperature was comparable in healthy and asthmatic children; when adjusted for potential confounders (i.e. ambient conditions and subject characteristics), thermal values of asthmatic patients exceeded those of the healthy children by 1.1 °C. Normalized exhaled breath temperature, by subtracting ambient temperature, was lower in asthmatic patients treated with inhaled corticosteroids than in those who were corticosteroid-naive. Conclusion: Measurements of exhaled breath temperature are highly reproducible, yet influenced by several factors. Corrected values, i.e. normalized exhaled breath temperature, could help us to assess the effect of therapy with inhaled corticosteroids. More studies are needed to improve the usefulness of the exhaled breath temperature measured with the tidal breathing technique in children.
The Effect of Execution Policies on the Semantics and Analysis of Stochastic Petri Nets

Petri nets in which random delays are associated with atomic transitions are defined in a comprehensive framework that contains most of the models already proposed in the literature. To include generally distributed firing times into the model one must specify the way in which the next transition to fire is chosen, and how the model keeps track of its past history; this set of specifications is called an execution policy. A discussion is presented of the impact that different execution policies have on semantics of the mode, as well as the characteristics of the stochastic process associated with each of these policies. When the execution policy is completely specified by the transition with the minimum delay (race policy) and the firing distributions are of the phase type, an algorithm is provided that automatically converts the stochastic process into a continuous time homogeneous Markov chain. An execution policy based on the choice of the next transition to fire independently of the associated delay (preselection policy) is introduced, and its semantics is discussed together with possible implementation strategies. >
ACOG Practice Bulletin, Number 36, July 2002

This Practice Bulletin was developed by the ACOG Committee on Practice Bulletins— Obstetrics with the assistance of Laura M. Goetzl, MD, MPH. The information is designed to aid practitioners in making decisions about appropriate obstetric and gynecologic care. These guidelines should not be construed as dictating an exclusive course of treatment or procedure. Variations in practice may be warranted based on the needs of the individual patient, resources, and limitations unique to the institution or type of practice.
Polysialic acid affects pathophysiological consequences of status epilepticus

Modulation of the neural cell adhesion molecule by the attachment of polysialic acid residues through the polysialyl-transferase, ST8SiaIV, regulates neuronal plasticity and affects cellular alterations in the epileptic brain. Here, we determined the impact of ST8SiaIV deficiency on the pathophysiological consequences of status epilepticus (SE). ST8SiaIV deficiency reduced the latency to SE induction and increased SE-mediated mortality. Analysis of the doublecortin expression showed a reduced number of neuroblasts as a long-term consequence of SE in ST8SiaIV knockouts. Testing in a battery of different behavioral paradigms indicated that loss of ST8SiaIV affects the long-term behavioral consequences. In summary, the data suggest that the polysialic acid–neural cell adhesion molecule system is a putative target for the modulation of pathophysiological events and affects psychiatric comorbidities in epilepsies.
olving dynamic optimization infeasibility problems

Dynamic real-time optimization (DRTO) systems sometimes fail when solving intrinsic optimization problems. There are situations where the solution is infeasible due to the initial conditions, constraint changes during operation, or even the presence of conflicts on constraint specifications. By using a goal programming approach, this work proposes a method to solve these infeasibilities by reformulating the differential-algebraic optimization problem as a multi-objective dynamic optimization problem with eywords: ynamic optimization nfeasibility ulti-objective optimization path constraint relaxations. Three examples were solved exploring the characteristics of such infeasibility problems. The results demonstrate the ability of the proposed method in identifying and relaxing the constraint violations, increasing the robustness of DRTO systems. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. eal-time optimization onstraint relaxation
Assessing the vulnerability of DTN data relaying schemes to node selfishness

Delay tolerant networks rely on the mobility of their nodes and sequences of their contacts to transfer data. Proposed data forwarding mechanisms represent different trade offs between data transfer speed and network resource consumption, most of them assuming perfect cooperation among network nodes. Nevertheless, nodes may exhibit selfish behavior, in particular when they are constrained with respect to energy, computational power, and/or storage space. In this paper, we analytically assess the performance of two popular data relaying alternatives, the unrestricted and two-hop relay schemes, when nodes behave selfishly while forwarding data. Our results suggest that the performance advantage of unrestricted relaying over two-hop relaying decreases both with the number of selfish nodes and the intensity of their selfishness, irrespective of whether nodes defer from relaying deterministically or probabilistically. We use our model to quantify the vulnerability of the two relaying schemes to node selfishness but also drive remediation actions against it.
Excessive dosing and polypharmacy of antipsychotics caused by pro re nata in agitated patients with schizophrenia

It has been recommended that for patients with schizophrenia, antipsychotics should be prescribed simply, using an optimal dose. However, pro re nata (p.r.n., meaning to use on an as‐needed basis) antipsychotics may increase the risk of excessive dosing (defined as mean chlorpromazine‐equivalent doses above 1000 mg) and polypharmacy (combination use of different antipsychotics). This study aimed to investigate the increased risk caused by p.r. n. antipsychotics.
State‐dependent modulation of sensory feedback

By tradition ‐ and for historical reasons ‐ reflex pathways and interneurones have been named by their dominating sensory input. Later studies have demonstrated that each individual interneurone, as a rule, receives a broad convergence from a large variety of sensory modalities, as well as inputs from one or more descending tracts. It is thus possible that the traditional nomenclature inadvertently has served as a ‘straightjacket’ for conceptual development in this field. Indeed, there is now much evidence in favour of the view that the many classes of spinal interneurones may be seen as ‘functional units’ representing different levels of muscle synergies, parts of movements, or even more integrated motor behaviour. Such ‘functional units’ may be used by (different) descending pathways to mediate the motor commands from the brain and integrate the appropriate (multimodal) sensory feedback into the central command. A given sensory stimulus would then be able to affect the motor output through a number of parallel, or alternative, segmental pathways belonging to different ‘functional units’. If this were correct it would indeed be predicted, rather than coming as a surprise, that a given sensory stimulus can result in different outputs ‐ even with a different sign ‐ depending on the preceding selection of active ‘functional units’, i.e. the type of motor activity initiated by the brain.
Improving Adherence to Diabetes Self-Management Recommendations

In Brief Improved health outcomes for individuals with diabetes depend on integrating self-management into daily life. A wide variety of educational, behavioral, and affective interventions are available that individually produce modest improvements in patient adherence to treatment recommendations in diabetes and related chronic illnesses and that work somewhat better when used in combination. A summary of selected successful interventions is presented.
Phenylalanine flux, oxidation, and conversion to tyrosine in humans studied with L-[1-13C]phenylalanine.

Phenylalanine metabolism was determined in 41 studies of adult males (n = 10) consuming an energy-sufficient diet and receiving graded levels of dietary phenylalanine and excess tyrosine (40 mg.kg-1.day-1). After a dietary adaptation period to either 4.2 or 14.0 mg.kg-1.day-1 of phenylalanine; flux, plasma concentration, oxidation, and conversion to tyrosine were measured at test phenylalanine intakes of 5, 7, 10, 14, 21, 28, or 60 mg.kg-1.day-1. Oxidation was low and constant (1.3 mumol.kg-1.h-1) at intakes at or below 10 mg.kg-1.day-1 and increased linearly above this level. Conversion to tyrosine was minimal (2.1%) at these intakes. Breakpoint analysis showed the phenylalanine requirement with excess tyrosine to be 9.1 mg.kg-1.day-1. Plasma phenylalanine concentrations confirmed this estimate of requirement. Prior adaptation did not significantly affect overall flux, plasma concentration, or oxidation nor did it affect the requirement estimate. With the assumption that tyrosine can supply two-thirds of the aromatic amino acid requirement, these data suggest that the aromatic amino acid requirement should be 30 mg.kg-1.day-1 and the World Health Organization recommendation of 14 mg.kg-1.day-1 is an underestimate.
Thyrotropin-releasing Hormone Stimulates MAP Kinase Activity in GH 3 Cells by Divergent Pathways

Regulation of the mitogen-activated protein ( M A P ) kinase by thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH) in GH3 rat pituitary tumor cells was investigated. Both TRH and epidermal growth factor (EGF) acutely activated this enzyme, via tyrosine and serinelthreonine phosphorylation. Down-regulation of cellular protein kinase C (PKC) only partly inhibited the phosphorylation of MAP kinase by TRH, suggesting both PKC-dependent and -independent pathways. Both TRH and EGF similarly increased the phosphorylation of raf-1, by a PKCindependent mechanism. Both TRH and EGF stimulated the formation of a ras-GTP complex. This activation of ras by growth factors is thought to involve the tyrosine phosphorylation of Shc. EGF stimulated the tyrosine phosphorylation of three Shc proteins and their subsequent association with its receptor. TRH stimulated the tyrosine phosphorylation of the StkDa Shc protein, although neither phorbol esters nor the calcium ionophore A23187 had any effect, indicating that this effect of TRH was not dependent on PKC. Both TRH and EGF induced the association of tyrosine phosphorylated Shc proteins with a fusion protein containing SH2 and SH3 domains of Grb2, another important component in rm activation. These results provide evidence that MAP kinase is acutely activated by TRH through a PKC-dependent pathway as well as a second pathway possibly involving tyrosine phosphorylation.
Transient Spatial Attention Degrades Temporal Resolution

To better understand the interplay between the temporal and spatial components of visual perception, we studied the effects of transient spatial attention on temporal resolution. Given that spatial attention sharpens spatial resolution, can it also affect temporal resolution? To assess temporal resolution, we measured the two-flash fusion threshold. When two flashes of light are presented successively to the same location, the two-flash fusion threshold is the minimal interval between the flashes at which they are still perceived as two flashes, rather than a single flash. This assessment of temporal resolution was combined with peripheral precuing—a direct manipulation of transient spatial attention. This allowed us to demonstrate, for the first time, that spatial attention can indeed affect temporal resolution. However, in contrast to its effect on spatial resolution, spatial attention degrades temporal resolution. Two attentional mechanisms that could account for both attentional effects—enhanced spatial resolution and reduced temporal resolution—are discussed.
Reducing instruction memory energy consumption by using Instruction Buffer and after scheduling analysis

Use of Instruction Buffers (also named Repeat Buffers), and caches is common way to avoid memory speed bottleneck in presence of memory hierarchies. Once the instruction resides in a cache or a buffer, repeated execution of the same instruction does not require separate memory access and possible cache miss. Use of the instruction buffers offer also an advantage when low energy consumption is an issue. Reading instruction from the buffer requires order of magnitude less energy then fetch from instruction memory. Keeping memories in the deselect mode and fetching data from the buffer takes roughly half of the power compared to the reading from the memory. In this work, we analyze effects of adding instruction buffer to an existing ASIP architecture. We analyze already generated code of an application, to find the often executed loops, and augment instructions with instruction buffer control information. We show, that for many of embedded applications, storing kernels of execution in the instruction buffer saves between 60 to 87% of instruction memory, even with most trivial loops. This savings can translate to up to 47% reduction of memory energy.
Arrays of dual-band printed dipoles loaded with metamaterial particles

Arrays of printed dipoles loaded with metamaterial particles are presented in this paper. The use of these loaded dipoles can improve the features of the arrays. Two applications are proposed: the miniaturization of the array and the bandwidth broadening. Moreover, a novel implementation of the dipoles loaded with metamaterial particles is proposed. In this case, the dipoles are loaded with a modified version of the Omega particles. An example of a dual-band miniaturized dipole is shown. Finally, a log-periodic array of two Omega-loaded dipoles is designed, simulated, manufactured and measured. Experimental results show that the bandwidth is increased from 52.4 %, which is obtained with the conventional array, to 62.8%.
Cholecystectomy in Patients With Crohn’s Ileitis

AbstractPURPOSE: Gallstone disease is reported to be higher in patients with Crohn’s disease than in the general population. This study was designed to determine the prevalence of cholecystectomy in patients with Crohn’s ileitis, attempt to identify any associated risk factors, and determine whether it is justified to perform prophylactic cholecystectomy during ileocolic resection. METHODS: A total of 191 patients with Crohn’s ileitis who were treated medically or who had an ileocolic resection were retrospective reviewed. A questionnaire survey was performed. Telephone interviews were conducted for the nonrespondents. Further review of medical records was performed to determine the details of admissions for any gallstone disease and/or subsequent cholecystectomy. A control group matched for age and gender was obtained. RESULTS: A total of 191 questionnaires were mailed, and the overall response rate was 70.2 percent (134/191) after telephone interview follow-up. There were 2 of 45 medical and 18 of 89 surgical patients with symptomatic cholelithiasis, i.e., 14.9 percent (20/134) of respondents. As a result, 2 patients (1.5 percent) required endoscopic sphincterotomy, 17 patients (12.7 percent) needed cholecystectomy, and 1 patient (0.7 percent) did not have any intervention. Only five patients had a cholecystectomy after their ileal resections. In the control group of 150 patients, 15 patients (14 females; mean age, 51.9 years; range, 34–78 years) had previous cholecystectomy. There was no significant difference with prevalence of cholecystectomy in Crohn’s patients compared with controls (17/134 vs. 15/150; P = not significant). Furthermore, the number of ileal resections did not affect the cholecystectomy rate, but patients who had >30 cm of ileum resected were more likely to have cholecystectomy (P = 0.056). CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence of gallstone disease in Crohn’s ileitis requiring cholecystectomy is similar to that of the general population with a female predominance. In addition, the number of patients requiring cholecystectomy after ileal resection was low. Thus, synchronous prophylactic cholecystectomy during ileocolic resection for Crohn’s ileitis is not justified.