Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Early glycoprotein IIb/IIIa inhibitor use for non-ST-segment elevation acute coronary syndrome: patient selection and associated treatment patterns.

OBJECTIVES The authors analyzed contemporary use of glycoprotein (GP) IIb/IIIa inhibitors in patients with non-ST-segment elevation acute coronary syndrome (NSTE ACS) to determine patient selection patterns with early (<24 hours) GP IIb/IIIa inhibitor use and the relationship between GP IIb/IIIa inhibitor therapy and use of other guidelines-recommended therapies for NSTE ACS. METHODS Using the CRUSADE Quality Improvement Initiative database, patient characteristics, in-hospital treatments, and outcomes for 65,424 patients with ischemic chest pain of <24 hours' duration and either positive cardiac markers or ischemic electrocardiographic changes were analyzed. Data were collected from 443 U.S. hospitals from January 2001 to June 2003. RESULTS Only 35% of eligible patients received GP IIb/IIIa inhibitors <24 hours after hospital admission. Approximately one third of patients received GP IIb/IIIa inhibitors in the emergency department, one third in the coronary care unit, and one third in the catheterization laboratory. Admission to a cardiologist's care was the most significant associated factor with early GP IIb/IIIa inhibitor use, along with elevated cardiac markers or ST-segment deviation. Patients at high risk for adverse cardiac events due to advanced age, congestive heart failure, or female gender were less likely to receive early GP IIb/IIIa inhibitor therapy. Patients who received early GP IIb/IIIa inhibitor therapy were more likely to receive other guidelines-recommended therapies. CONCLUSIONS Despite the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) guidelines recommendations, early GP IIb/IIIa inhibitor therapy remains underutilized in patients with NSTE ACS and administration of early GP IIb/IIIa inhibitors is directed toward lower-risk patients. Early GP IIb/IIIa inhibitor therapy is associated with improved overall adherence to the ACC/AHA guidelines.
HLA Genotype of Patients with Severe Haemophilia A due to Intron 22 Inversion with and without Inhibitors of Factor VIII

Summary Molecular genetic studies have shown that development of antibodies to factor VIII (inhibitors) occurs most frequently in patients with severe haemophilia due to major gene lesions including inversions, stop codons and large deletions. Previous studies of HLA type were performed on inhibitor and non-inhibitor patients with diverse uncharacterised mutations which may have confounded detection of significant associations. We therefore selected a group of patients with a single mutation type, the prevalent intron 22 inversion, with or without inhibitors, to determine HLA genotype. Seventy-one such patients, 42 without and 29 with inhibitors (13 high, 9 low and 7 transient responders) were genotyped for MHC Class I HLA-A, -B, -C and Class II HLA-DQA, -DQB and -DRB loci. No strong correlation of any HLA-allele to inhibitor or non-inhibitor status was found. However, alleles of the haplotype HLA-A3, HLA-B7, HLA-C7, HLA-DQA0102, HLA-DQB0602, HLA-DR15 occurred more often in inhibitor patients. Since the alleles of this extended haplotype are common in the North European population only a very strong association would achieve statistical significance. Further studies of groups of patients similar to those studied here will be needed to confirm or exclude this association.
Per-tone MMSE receiver for MIMO FBMC-QAM systems

We propose a novel per-tone minimum mean square error (MMSE) receiver for filter-bank multicarrier (FBMC) systems to transmit quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM). To mitigate the residual interference problem, we consider interference channels from the other subcarriers and symbol durations. Simulation results show that the proposed receiver can improve the bit error rate (BER) performance of FBMC systems in multipath fading channels compared to the conventional per-tone receiver with same size of receiver matrix.
Dietary Amino Acid Deficiency Reduces the Utilization of Amino Acids for Growth in Growing Pigs after a Period of Poor Health.

BACKGROUND During immune system activation, partitioning of amino acids (AAs) changes between protein gain and use by the immune system. OBJECTIVE We determined the effects of health status and dietary AA deficiency on nitrogen retention and AA utilization in pigs. METHODS Barrows (55 d of age) were obtained from good health (GH, n = 14) or poor health (PH, n = 14) status farms and allocated to a diet either adequate in essential amino acids (Adq) or 25% deficient in Met + Cys, Thr, and Trp (Def). Nitrogen balance was measured and AA irreversible loss rates (ILRs) were measured after an intravenous bolus of U-(13)C-labeled L-AAs. RESULTS On arrival at the experimental facilities, the PH pigs had 14% lower serum albumin and 50% greater serum haptoglobin and blood leukocyte counts than the GH pigs (P < 0.01), but the PH pigs showed signs of recovery during the trial. Total tract nitrogen digestibility was 3 percentage points lower in the PH pigs (P < 0.01). The PH-Adq pigs had compensatory body weight gain after arrival, coinciding with 7% greater nitrogen retention (P < 0.01) in the PH pigs than in the GH pigs. The PH pigs had a 24% greater ILR for Lys. Health status × diet interactions for Lys (P = 0.07), Val (P = 0.03), and Leu (P = 0.10) pool sizes and a greater urea pool size in the PH pigs (P = 0.01) support the observation that the increase in the ILR of Lys in the PH pigs was related to oxidation when feeding the Def diet, but to synthesis when feeding the Adq diet. Feeding Def diets increased monocyte counts by 30% (P < 0.01). CONCLUSIONS This study illustrates how the competition for AAs between protein synthesis associated with immune system activation and body protein deposition is greater when the dietary supply of Met + Cys, Thr, and Trp is limited in pigs during and after a period of poor health.
Robust adaptive control of robotic manipulators using neural networks: Application to a two link planar robot

A PD neural network (NN)-based adaptive controller design is presented in this paper for trajectory tracking of robotic manipulators subject to external disturbances and noise measurement. The neural networks are employed to approximate the nonlinearities in dynamic model of the robot to improve the performance of the classical PD controller based on the filtered error approach. The augmented Lyapunov function is used to guarantee the boundedness of the tracking error and derive the adaptation law for the neural network weights. This paper also presents the effect of robust modifications such as σ-modification and e-modification on the performance of adaptation laws in the approximation process and the performance of the controller. The effectiveness of the controller is demonstrated through computer simulation on the two-link planer robot.
CLINICAL EVALUATION OF UNILATERAL EST.

This study was an attempt to determine clinically the therapeutic efficacy and degree of memory impairment of unilateral ECT as compared to bilateral ECT. Two groups of 20 patients were given a course of 10 EST, one group unilaterally and the other bilaterally. The comparison of these two groups would indicate that the desirable benefit of ECT is the same for both types of treatment but with considerably less memory impairment with unilateral treatment. If these results are valid, unilateral ECT might be employed more effectively in the treatment of outpatients, patients who depend upon their memory to function professionally, patients wth some organic memory impairment, patients who show marked confusion and memory loss, or paranoid and phobic patients who become upset because of the memory loss and confusion of bilateral treatment. Possibly, with unilateral treatment, patients could be treated more rapidly and thus decrease time required in the hospital and time for the convalescence period necessitated.
Parameter Estimation of Single Phase Core Type Transformer Using Bacterial Foraging Algorithm

The electrical circuit equivalents of magnetic device structures such as transformer require an exact knowledge of its parameters. Efficient parameter estimation technique is essential to obtain the equivalent circuit parameters of transformer because the parameters are used to manipulate parasitic elements and to obtain the enhanced circuit performance. In this paper, Bacterial Foraging Algorithm (BFA) has been applied to estimate the equivalent circuit parameters of single phase core type transformer. The information of open Circuit (OC) and Short Circuit (SC) tests has been utilized in BFA algorithm. The effectiveness of the proposed approach has been tested with a sample transformer and the simulation results are compared against the conventional method. The numerical results show that the proposed approach outperforms the conventional method in the aspects of solution quality.
Random activation of a transgene under the control of a hybrid hCD2 locus control region/Ig enhancer regulatory element.

Locus control regions such as those of human CD2 and beta‐globin differ from classical enhancers in that, whereas the former confer high level, copy‐dependent, position‐independent expression to linked genes in transgenic mice, the latter do not, expression levels being dependent on the site of integration. We report that the position independence of the CD2 locus control region is modified by coupling it to the immunoglobulin heavy chain enhancer. Whilst in the majority of transgenic lines the Ig heavy chain enhancer has little or no effect on T cell expression of the hCD2 transgene, in others transgene expression is non‐specifically extinguished in a proportion of lymphoid cells. The transgenic locus chromatin appears inaccessible to DNase I in these cells, which do not express the gene. Furthermore, mice homozygous for the hybrid hCD2‐Ig heavy chain enhancer construct contain T cells with both an active and an inactive transgene. The ‘decision’ to express or repress the gene appears to be a random process which involves each chromosome separately, occurs at early stages in differentiation and is heritable by daughter cells. These data suggest the possibility that stochastic decisions might control a number of biological processes.
Pentoxifylline in vivo and in vitro down‐regulates the expression of the intercellular adhesion molecule‐1 in monocytes

Since pentoxifylline (PTX) was recently recognized as a substance with antiinflammatory capacities, we studied the in vivo and in vitro effect of PTX on the expression of the intercellular adhesion molecule‐1 (ICAM‐1) on human monocytes. For this purpose four healthy volunteers were treated with PTX (5×400 mg/day) for 2 days. Monocytes were isolated before and after PTX treatment and ICAM‐1 expression was investigated. As shown by fluorescence‐activated cell sorter (FACS) analysis, cultured monocytes isolated after oral application of PTX expressed significantly decreased amounts of ICAM‐1 when compared with monocytes collected prior to oral PTX application. Northern blot analysis revealed reduced amounts of ICAM‐1 mRNA in monocytes derived from volunteers after oral PTX treatment in comparison with monocytes isolated before oral PTX administration. Similarly, in monocytes treated with PTX (200 μg/ml) in vitro ICAM‐1 was found decreased both at the protein and mRNA level in comparison with untreated cells. The inhibitory effect of PTX on ICAM‐1 expression in monocytes could be reversed by the addition of exogenous tumour necrosis factor‐α (TNF‐α; 200 U/ml) suggesting that ICAM‐1 down‐regulation is mediated secondary to TNF‐α suppression by PTX. The specific role of TNF‐α in mediating ICAM‐1 expression in cultured monocytes could be confirmed by the finding that a neutralizing anti‐TNF‐α antibody partially down‐regulated ICAM‐1 expression. The observed suppressive in vivo and in vitro effects of PTX on ICAM‐1 expression in monocytes may contribute to the recently described antiinflammatory effects of PTX, e.g. in sepsis or allergic contact dermatitis.
Flare‐up of experimental arthritis in mice with murine recombinant IL‐1

Intra‐articular injections of murine recombinant IL‐1 (mrIL‐1) during the chronic phase of antigen‐induced arthritis (AIA) induced a flare‐up of the smouldering inflammation. The exacerbation was characterized by acute and transient joint swelling and this coincided with the extravascular accumulation of neutrophils. IL‐1 injected into arthritic joints of neutropenic mice demonstrated that joint swelling was independent of the neutrophil influx into the joint. Both phenomena were absent when IL‐1 was injected into a naive joint. The IL‐1‐induced flare‐up was not T cell mediated as in the antigen‐induced flare‐up, and suggestive evidence is presented that IL‐1 sensitivity depended on the resident macrophage population. This explained why the hypersensitivity is not restricted to the immunologically mediated arthritis but reflects a more general hypersensitivily of previously injured joints, e.g. zymosan‐induced arthritis and IL‐l‐affected joints. In addition, IL‐1 could also potentiate the antigen‐specific flare‐up of chronic AIA and prolongs the duration of the exacerbation. Our data indicate that joints bearing a chronic infiltrate are at risk from exacerbations in two ways: a T cell mediated rechallenge with antigen, and a non‐specific reactivation by systemic and local IL‐1 generation.
D-serine treatment induces oxidative stress in rat brain

D-serine plays a significant role in neuronal activity, including learning, memory, neuronal migration at developmental stages, and cell-death signaling. It has been also suggested that D-serine can potantiate the neurotoxicity induced by N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor activation due to its coagonist function. However, little is known about the role of D-serine in oxidative stress mechanisms. The aim of this study was to determine the possible neurotoxic or oxidative effects of the dose- (50–200 mg/kg) and time-dependent (2 or 6 hours) D-serine administration on lipid, protein, DNA, mitochondrial integrity (i.e., function), levels of antioxidant enzyme activities (e.g., catalase, glutathione peroxidase, and superoxide dismutase), and glutathione (GSH) in the rat brain. Our results showed that D-serine significantly increases the levels of lipid peroxidation, protein carbonyls, and DNA damage. In addition, D-serine treatment changes cellular antioxidant status due to the decreased levels of antioxidant enzymes, GSH, and mitochondrial function. Therefore, it is concluded that the regulation of D-serine levels in the brain may be an important target for the development of neuroprotective strategies against neurodegenerative processes where excitotoxicity is involved.
Filtration leukocytapheresis therapy in rheumatoid arthritis: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial.

OBJECTIVE To determine the efficacy and safety of filtration leukocytapheresis (LCP) for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). METHODS Twenty-five patients with drug-resistant RA were randomly assigned to undergo filtration LCP and 7 to undergo sham apheresis (control group) in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study. Three apheresis procedures were performed, with 1-week intervals between procedures. The efficacy of filtration LCP was evaluated according to the American College of Rheumatology definition of improvement in RA. Medications for each patient were unchanged for at least 6 months prior to enrollment and throughout the study. RESULTS Tender joint counts, swollen joint counts, patient assessment of pain and global severity, physician assessment of global severity, and Health Assessment Questionnaire Disability Index were significantly improved in the LCP group compared with the control group (P < 0.05 for patient assessment of pain; P < 0.01 for all others). Seventy-nine percent of the patients in the LCP group exhibited significant overall improvement, while none of the patients in the control group were improved (P < 0.001). CONCLUSION The results indicate that filtration LCP is an effective and well-tolerated treatment for patients with drug-resistant RA.
A maximum degree and negotiation strategy based clustering algorithm for wireless sensor networks

Clustering algorithm is one of the hotspots for studying routing protocol in wireless sensor networks, which can help to enlarge the network topology and utilize the capacity of channel efficiently. In this paper, we present a maximum degree and negotiation strategy based clustering algorithm to solve the cluster overlapping problem. It selects candidate according to maximum degree and determines the Cluster-Head according to the negotiation strategy. The negotiation strategy can also be applied to the weighted clustering algorithm. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithms can remove the cluster overlapping phenomenon of the original algorithms and prolong the lifetime of the wireless sensor networks.
Complexity of Coloring Reconfiguration under Recolorability Constraints

For an integer k \ge 1, k-coloring reconfiguration is one of the most well-studied reconfiguration problems, defined as follows: In the problem, we are given two (vertex-)colorings of a graph using k colors, and asked to transform one into the other by recoloring only one vertex at a time, while at all times maintaining a proper coloring. The problem is known to be PSPACE-complete if k \ge 4, and solvable for any graph in polynomial time if k \le 3. In this paper, we introduce a recolorability constraint on the k colors, which forbids some pairs of colors to be recolored directly. The recolorability constraint is given in terms of an undirected graph R such that each node in R corresponds to a color and each edge in R represents a pair of colors that can be recolored directly. We study the hardness of the problem based on the structure of recolorability constraints R. More specifically, we prove that the problem is PSPACE-complete if R is of maximum degree at least four, or has a connected component containing more than one cycle.
Self and other Ratings of Canadian and Korean Groups of Mental Health Professionals and Their Clients

Taylor and Brown's concept of positive illusions (1988) was examined in two studies. It was predicted that more mentally healthy professional helpers (n = 103) than less mentally healthy clients (n = 89) (a) view themselves in more self-aggrandizing, positive terms and (b) hold a more optimistic view of their future. Two groups of participants from two culturally different settings, i.e., Canada and Korea, completed questionnaires assessing self-description of personality and view of their own futures. Analysis supported predictions for both Canadian and Korean samples. Implications of the study are discussed.
Stabilizing Operations on the Foot: A Study of the Indications, Techniques Used, and End Results∗

At The Hospital for Special Surgery in New York, over 1,300 operations for stabilization of the foot were performed between the years 1935 and 1947, inclusive. During the past year, 305 of these procedures were studied, as carried out on 233 patients. No patient was examined less than one year after operation. Since other members of our Staff have reported the results of astraqalectomy! ", of posterior bone block! ", and of stabilization of the medial border of the foot for congenital flat-foot! ", these findings have been omitted from the present study. The patients who returned for re-examination were those who had one or more of the following eight procedures:
[Echocardiographic evaluation of ventricular septal defect haemodynamics].

INTRODUCTION Ventricular septal defect (VSD) is an opening in the interventricular septum. 30-50% of patients with congenital heart disease have VSD. OBJECTIVE The aim of the study was to determine the dependence of the left ventricular diastolic dimension (LVD), left ventricular systolic dimension (LVS), shortening fraction (SF), left atrium (LA), pulmonary artery truncus (TPA) on the body surface and compare their values among experimental, control and a group of healthy children. Values of maximal systolic gradient pressure (Pvsd) of VSD were compared with children from one experimental and control group. METHOD Children were divided into three groups: experimental (32 children with VSD that were to go to surgery), control (20 children with VSD who did not require surgery) and 40 healthy children. Measurements of LVD, LVS, SF, LA, TPA were performed in accordance to recommendations of the American Echocardiographic Association. The value of Pvsd was calculated from the maximal flow velocity (V) in VSD using the following formula: Pvsd = 4 x V2 (mm Hg). RESULTS For children from the experimental group, the relationship between the body surface and the variability of the LVD was explained with 56.85%, LVS with 66.15%, SF with 4.9%, TPA with 58.92%. For children from the control group, the relationship between the body surface and the variability of LVD was explained with 88.8%, LVS with 72.5%, SF with 0.42%, PA with 58.92%. For healthy children, the relationship between the body surface and the variabilitiy of the LVD was explained with 88.8%, LVS with 88.78%, SF with 5.25% and PA with 84.75%. There was a significant statistical difference between average values of Pvsd in the experimental and control group (p < 0.02). CONCLUSION The presence of the large VSD has an influence on the enlargement of LVD, LVS, SF,TPA. The enlargment of the size of the pulmonary artery depends on the presence of VSD and there is a direct variation in the magnitude of the shunt. There is a relationship and significant dependence of the LVS and LVD on the body surface. There is no statistically significant dependence between SF and body surface.
The role played by key transcription factors in activated mast cells

Summary: The network of transcription factors in mast cells has not been investigated as widely as it has been in other differentiated hematopoietic cells. There are still many mechanisms of transcriptional regulation that need to be fully elucidated to understand how mast cell external stimuli lead to the appropriate physiological responses. Such information could be used to determine potential therapeutic targets for the control of mast cell activation in inflammatory diseases, allergy, and asthma. The aim of this article is to review hallmark studies in the field of transcription factor regulation in mast cells. We elaborate especially on several transcription factors studied in our laboratory in the past decade, including activator protein‐1, microphthalmia‐associated transcription factor, upstream stimulating factor‐2, and signal transducer and activator of transcription 3.
Speech Emotion Recognition Using Segmental Level Prosodic Analysis

In this paper, prosodic analysis of speech segments is performed to recognise emotions. Speech signal is segmented into words and syllables. Energy and pitch parameters are extracted from utterances, words and syllables separately to develop emotion recognition models. Eight emotions (anger, disgust, fear, happy, neutral, sad, sarcastic and surprise) of simulated emotion speech corpus, IITKGP-SESC \cite{koolagudi2009} are used in this work for recognition of emotions. Word boundaries are manually marked for 15 utterances of IITKGP-SESC. Syllable boundaries are detected using vowel onset points (VOPs) as anchor locations. Recognition performance of emotions using segmental level prosodic features is not found to be appreciable, but by combining spectral features along with prosodic features, emotion recognition performance is considerably improved. Support vector machines (SVM) and Gaussian mixture models (GMM) are used to develop emotion models to analyse different speech segments for emotion recognition.