Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pulmonary hypertension in patients with chronic myeloproliferative disorders

Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a severe haemodynamic disorder in which the pulmonary artery pressure is persistently elevated, leading to right-sided heart failure and death. Recently, chronic myeloproliferative diseases associated with pulmonary hypertension were included in the group 5 category, corresponding to PH for which the aetiology is unclear and/or multifactorial. In this review we will describe the distinct forms of PH in the context of the myeloproliferative diseases chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension and pre-capillary PH mimicking pulmonary arterial hypertension. The epidemiology, mechanisms and treatment approaches will be discussed.
Compression of pre-computed per-pixel texture features using MDS

There are many successful experiences employing texture analysis to improve the accuracy and robustness of image segmentation. Usually, per-pixel based texture analysis is required, which involves intensive computation especially for large images. Precomputation and storing of the texture features involves large file space which is not cost effective. To adopt to these novel needs, we propose the use of multidimensional scaling (MDS) technique to reduce the size of per-pixel texture features of an image while preserving the textural discrminiability for segmentation. Per-pixel texture features will create very large dissimilarity matrix, making the solving of MDS intractable. A sampling-based MDS is therefore introduced to tackle the problem with a divide-and-conquer approach. A compression ratio of 1:24 can be achieved with an average error rate lower than 7%. Preliminary experiments on segmentation using the compressed data show satisfactory results as good as using the uncompressed features. We foresee that such a method will allow texture features to be stored and transferred more efficiently on low processing power devices or embedded systems like mobile phones.
Effects of Lip Revision Surgery on Long-Term Orosensory Function in Patients with Cleft Lip/Palate

Objective To determine whether secondary lip revision surgery impacts sensitivity of the upper lip. Design A three-group, parallel, prospective, nonrandomized clinical trial. Setting University of North Carolina School of Dentistry. Patients, Participants Three groups: (1) patients with repaired cleft lip/palate who were scheduled for lip revision (revision; N = 20); (2) patients with repaired cleft lip/palate who did not receive a lip revision (non-revision; N = 13); and (3) non-cleft control subjects (non-cleft; N = 22). Interventions Lip revision surgery. Main Outcome Measures Measures of (1) two-point perception threshold (two-point), (2) warmth detection threshold (warm), and (3) cool detection threshold (cool) were obtained from two sites on the upper lip vermilion. The revision participants were tested approximately 1 week before surgery and then approximately 3 and 12 months after surgery. The non-revision and non-cleft participants were tested at similar times. Results There were no significant differences among the three groups at baseline for two-point, warm, or cool. The main effects of group, age, sex, and time were not statistically significant for the two-point or warm (p > .05). The mean differences between the 3- and 12-month follow-up visits and baseline for two-point and warm were small for all three groups. For cool, group was statistically significant (p = .04), the difference in the non-revision group between follow-up and baseline was 31% to 34% higher than in the non-cleft group (p = .01). Conclusions Although at postsurgery revision participants exhibited threshold values comparable to presurgical values, the sensory differences observed among subgroups of participants with cleft lip are complex.
A role for caveolae in cell migration

Caveolae are specialized plasma membrane subdomains capable of transport and sophisticated compartmentalization of cell signaling. Numerous cell functions, including cell type‐specific functions, involve caveolae and require caveolin‐1, the major protein component of these organelles. Caveolae are particularly abundant in endothelial cells and participate in endothelial transcytosis, vascular permeability, vasomotor tone control, and vascular reactivity. Caveolin‐1 drives the formation of plasma membrane caveolae and anchors them to the actin cytoskeleton, modulates cell interaction with the extracellular matrix, pulls together and regulates signaling molecules, and transports cholesterol. Via these functions, caveolin‐1 might play an important role in cell movement through control of cell membrane composition and membrane surface expansion, polarization of signaling molecules and matrix proteolysis, and/or cytoskeleton remodeling. Caveolae and caveolin‐1 are polarized in migrating endothelial cells, indicating they may play a role in cell motility. Several studies have shown that manipulation of caveolin‐1 expression affects cell migration in a complex way. We are reviewing the current data and hypotheses in favor of an essential role for caveolae in cell migration. —Navarro, A. , Anand‐Apte, B. , Parat, M. ‐O. A role for caveolae in cell migration. FASEBJ. 18, 1801‐1811 (2004)
6 Urea Biosensor based on Conducting Polymer Transducers

Urea is one of the final products of protein metabolism. In clinical analysis and dairy industry urea is a very significant parameter as excess in blood serum from its permissible range causes dysfunction of the kidney. Hence, its analysis is significant and is carried out frequently in various laboratories [1, 2]. Urea is an omnipresent compound present in blood and various organic fluids. It passes directly into milk through diffusion. Therefore, milk is the second major biological sample for the study of urea concentration [3]. A periodic monitoring of urea in milk can be used to predict the state of animal’s health and predict the protein requirement in its diet [4]. Besides milk, presence of urea in agricultural land as a pollutant due to excessive use fertilizers is also widely known. Various methods used for the determination of urea (without use of biocatalyst) are gas chromatography, calorimetric and flourimetric analysis etc [5]. However, these methods need sample pretreatment which stands as a major disadvantage in their versatility of applications. Alongside, these methods can not used for field monitoring. Therefore, devices developed based on biocatalyst “urease” to analyze urea also known as urea biosensors are of vital importance. The first urea biosensor was developed by Guilbault et al. [6] followed by many clinical and biochemical analysts. For the fabrication of the urea biosensor, urease is immobilized over a substrate. The immobilized urease there after catalyzes the urea conversion in to ammonium and bicarbonate ions based on enzyme substrate reaction. Many biosensors have been developed for the determination of urea in the biological samples namely spectrometry [79], potentiometry with application of pH sensitive electrode or an ion selective electrode or an ion sensitive field effective transistor [10-13], conductometry [14-16], coulometry [17], amperometry [18] and inductometry [19]. Amongst these methods, detection through electrochemical mode is highly adopted and versatile. This method involves the use of electrochemical urea biosensor. In the development of electrochemical urea biosensors, immobilization of urease over electrodes is the key parameter which decides the sensitivity and reproducibility of the sensor. Urea biosensors are collectively formed by biorecognition layer biocatalyst i.e. urease, a biotransducer – to read change in physical environment and convert into electronic signal. The complete working principle of the biotransducer component of urea biosensor is shown in Scheme 1. For making biotransducer and choice of substrate, conducting polymers are Source: Biosensors, Book edited by: Pier Andrea Serra, ISBN 978-953-7619-99-2, pp. 302, February 2010, INTECH, Croatia, downloaded from SCIYO.COM
Rheology, force transmission, and shear instabilities in frictional granular media from biaxial numerical tests using the contact dynamics method

[1] By means of the contact dynamics discrete element method, we investigate the quasi-static behavior of granular media composed of rigid frictional particles. Eluding specific modeling of the contact rheology, this method is suitable for numerical simulation of the plastic deformations of granular materials. We studied the macroscopic stress-strain and volume-change behavior, as well as force transmission and shear instabilities, in a two-dimensional biaxial geometry for dense samples composed of 5000 rigid disks. The peak and residual strengths and shear bands were analyzed by varying the confining pressure and the coefficient of friction between particles. The results are consistent with well-known features of the plasticity of noncohesive granular media. The mechanical behavior is rigid-plastic governed by a Mohr-Coulomb yield criterion and showing strain hardening and softening. Conjugated shear bands characterize plastic failure. The volumetric strain is globally dilatant with considerable expansion observed along shear bands. The macroscopic coefficient of friction, determined from peak and residual strengths, increases nonlinearly and saturates to a constant value as a function of contact friction. The strong force chains are mostly parallel to the major principal stress axis, yet deviations are observed near the shear bands. These chains are often composed of particles that are larger than the average. The deviatoric stress shows small fluctuations often in the form of rapid falls that are correlated with tiny contractional events. This behavior is interpreted in terms of the propagation of dynamic shear instabilities along the shear bands, in close analogy with stick-slip behavior.
A New ELOVL4 Mutation in a Case of Spinocerebellar Ataxia With Erythrokeratodermia.

A New ELOVL4 Mutation in a Case of Spinocerebellar Ataxia With Erythrokeratodermia Spinocerebellar ataxia with erythrokeratodermia (SCA34; OMIM 133190) is an autosomal dominant complex form of ataxia. This condition was first described in 1972 with the report of a French-Canadian family with multiple affected individuals.1 Four decades later, a segregating locus was identified through linkage analysis of 32 individuals from this family. Subsequent whole-exome sequencing of 3 individuals revealed a mutation in the elongation of very long-chain fatty acids–like 4 gene (ELOVL4) (NM_022726.3 c.504G>C); this mutation produced a defective protein (p.Leu168Phe). 2 We report here the identification of a different ELOVL4 mutation in a single case who had signs consistent with SCA34. To our knowledge, our findings are the first to confirm ELOVL4 as the cause of SCA34.
EACVI/HFACardiacOncologyToxicityRegistry in breast cancer patients: rationale, study design, and methodology (EACVI/HFA COT Registry)— EURObservational Research Program of the European Society of Cardiology

Universityof Liège Hospital, GIGACardiovascular Science, Heart Valve Clinic, Imaging Cardiology, Belgium and GVM Care and Research,E.S. Health Science Foundation, Lugo (RA), Italy; Department of Innovative Clinical Trials, University Medical Center Göttingen (UMG), Göttingen, Germany; Cardiologie, CHU Rennes and LTSI-INSERM U 1099, Université Rennes 1, Rennes, France; Department of Cardiology, Oslo University Hospital, Rikshospitalet and University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway; Centre of Cardiological Innovation, Oslo, Norway; University of Medicine and Pharmacy ‘Carol Davila’—Euroecolab, ‘Prof. Dr C. C. Iliescu’ Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases, Bucharest, Romania; Heart Failure Unit, Department of Cardiology, University Hospital ‘Attikon’, Athens, Greece; Aix-Marseille Université, Marseille 13284, France; Department of Cardiology, La Timone Hospital, 13005 Marseille, France; ANMCO Research Center, Florence, Italy; EORP Team, European Society of Cardiology, Sophia Antipolis, France; Medical Oncology, CHU Sart Tilman Liege and Liege University, Liege, Belgium; and Department of Advanced Biomedical Sciences, Federico II University Hospital, Naples, Italy
Muscular ETB Receptors Develop Postnatally and Are Differentially Distributed in Specific Segments of the Rat Vasculature

The endothelin/endothelin-receptor system is a key player in the regulation of vascular tone in mammals. We raised and characterized an antiserum against rat ETB receptor and investigated the distribution of ETB receptors in different vascular beds during postnatal development (day 0 through day 28) and in the adult rat. We report the tissue-specific and age-dependent presence of vasoconstrictor ETB receptors. At the time of birth, vascular smooth muscle cells from all tissues examined did not exhibit ETB receptor immunoreactivity. The occurrence of ETB receptor immunoreactivity in the postnatal development was time dependent and started in small coronary and meningeal arteries at day 5, followed by small mesenteric arteries as well as brachial artery and vein at day 14. At day 21, ETB receptors were present in the media of muscular segments of pulmonary artery, large coronary arteries, and intracerebral arterioles. At day 28, ETB receptor immunoreactivity was evident in interlobular renal arteries, vas afferens, and efferens. Large renal arteries, mesenteric artery, and elastic segments of pulmonary arteries, as well as coronary and mesenteric veins, did not exhibit ETB receptor immunoreactivity. These data demonstrate the age-dependent and tissue-specific presence of ETB receptors, mainly on arterial smooth muscle cells in the vascular system of the rat.
Hybrid Recommender Systems using Social Network Analysis

— This study proposes novel hybrid social network analysis and collaborative filtering approach to enhance the performance of recommender systems. The proposed model selects subgroups of users in Internet community through social network analysis (SNA), and then performs clustering analysis using the information about subgroups. Finally, it makes recommendations using cluster-indexing CF based on the clustering results. This study tries to use the cores in subgroups as an initial seed for a conventional clustering algorithm. This model chooses five cores which have the highest value of degree centrality from SNA, and then performs clustering analysis by using the cores as initial centroids (cluster centers). Then, the model amplifies the impact of friends in social network in the process of cluster-indexing CF.
Estimación y comparación de tasas de rendimiento de la educación en España.

En este articulo se calculan y comparan tasas de rendimiento de la educacion para hombres asalariados espanoles empleando diferentes procedimientos. En concreto, los rendimientos se obtienen a partir de la estimacion, considerando o no la endogeneidad de la educacion, de tres modelos alternativos de capital humano asi como mediante el calculo de la TIR de las inversiones en educacion. Los rendimientos obtenidos con cada uno de estos modelos de capital humano son distintos cuando se estiman por minimos cuadrados. Sin embargo, al considerar la endogeneidad de la educacion se igualan, alcanzandose un rendimiento que se aproxima al 9%. Por otro lado, los rendimientos obtenidos a traves del computo de la TIR recogen unas tasas de rendimiento social aproximadamente los puntos menores a las privadas.
Treatment of skin papillomas with topical alpha-lactalbumin-oleic acid.

BACKGROUND We studied the effect on skin papillomas of topical application of a complex of alpha-lactalbumin and oleic acid (often referred to as human alpha-lactalbumin made lethal to tumor cells [HAMLET]) to establish proof of the principle that alpha-lactalbumin-oleic acid kills transformed cells but not healthy, differentiated cells. METHODS Forty patients with cutaneous papillomas that were resistant to conventional treatment were enrolled in a randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind study, in which alpha-lactalbumin-oleic acid or saline placebo was applied daily for three weeks and the change in the volume of each lesion was recorded. After this first phase of the study, 34 patients participated in the second phase, an open-label trial of a three-week course of alpha-lactalbumin-oleic acid. Approximately two years after the end of the open-label phase of the study, 38 of the original 40 patients were examined, and long-term follow-up data were obtained. RESULTS In the first phase of the study, the lesion volume was reduced by 75 percent or more in all 20 patients in the alpha-lactalbumin-oleic acid group, and in 88 of 92 papillomas; in the placebo group, a similar effect was evident in only 3 of 20 patients (15 of 74 papillomas) (P<0.001). After the patients in the initial placebo group had been treated with alpha-lactalbumin-oleic acid in the second phase of the study, a median reduction of 82 percent in lesion volume was observed. At follow-up two years after the end of the second phase, all lesions had completely resolved in 83 percent of the patients treated with alpha-lactalbumin-oleic acid, and the time to resolution was shorter in the group originally assigned to receive alpha-lactalbumin-oleic acid than among patients originally in the placebo group (2.4 vs. 9.9 months; P<0.01). No adverse reactions were reported, and there was no difference in the outcomes of treatment between immunocompetent and immunosuppressed patients. CONCLUSIONS Treatment with topical alpha-lactalbumin-oleic acid has a beneficial and lasting effect on skin papillomas.
Performance of an eleven-phase induction machine under fault conditions

In this paper, an experimental eleven-phase induction machine is simulated when operating at fault conditions using Finite Element (FE) analysis. Two fault cases representing one phase and two phases open are considered. Two optimization techniques are employed to calculate the optimum phase currents under phase(s) loss to maintain the same Magneto-Motive Force (MMF) distribution as with the healthy case. As the Conventional optimization method requires solving complex nonlinear equations, Genetic Algorithm (GA) is proposed to solve this problem. Comparison between the conventional optimization technique and GA is carried out using finite element analysis which simulates the machine flux corresponding to each optimum solution and the output machine torque.
Neuroleptic malignant syndrome in a patient with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome

ABSTRACT A patient with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome treated with prochlor‐perazine and droperidol developed neuroleptic malignant syndrome, characterized by akinetic mutism, resting tremor, cogwheel rigidity, and elevated serum creatine phosphokinase. An identical syndrome reappeared with subsequent administration of haloperidol. Neuroleptic malignant syndrome has not been previously reported in acquired immunodeficiency syndrome.
Lung lamellar body amphiphilic topography: A morphological evaluation using the continuum theory of liquid crystals: II. Disclinations, edge dislocations, and irregular defects

The bilayers in normal mammalian and human lung multilamellar bodies (LMB) are parallel, equally spaced, and continuous—a configuration that minimizes the large elastic strain energy associated with changing the equilibrium bilayer separation and the hydrophobic–hydrophilic repulsion energy between the hydrocarbon tails of phospholipid and the aqueous phase. This ideal behavior is disrupted at a limited population of large Burgers vector edge dislocations dissociated into ± 1/2 disclination pairs. The configuration and interaction of the defects are explained by the continuum theory of liquid crystals and shown to be identical to defects observed in in vitro surfactant liposomes and bilayers. We report the first observations with molecular resolution of the core structure of a liquid crystal dislocation. Defect cores are shown to be located between both headgroups and tailgroups in human LMB, suggesting that both types of core are similar in energy. This may be the result of partitioning of proteins or other nonlipid impurities in the LMB to the defect cores, which might also change the stability of the dislocations to favor their preservation. The edge dislocation defects interact in ways that minimize their overall strain energy. A population of edge dislocations may play an important role in the transport or localization of certain molecules through the lamellar body. Certain defects were observed in lung multilamellar bodies that have not been observed in in vitro systems; these are probably due to the complex, multicomponent nature of the LMB surfactant and the dynamic, in vivo environment of the LMB.
Organizational culture and knowledge creation capability

Purpose – Organizational culture comprises a firm's climate that informally and tacitly defines how the firm develops and uses knowledge, thus it has a significant effect on knowledge creation capability. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of organizational culture on knowledge creation capability.Design/methodology/approach – The data of 212 Chinese firms collected through face‐to‐face interview is used to empirically test the hypotheses.Findings – This study finds that organizational culture plays a critical role in knowledge creation capability. Specially, collectivism has a positive impact on knowledge creation capability, while power distance and uncertainty avoidance have negative effects.Originality/value – This study not only contributes to knowledge management research by identifying a key antecedent of knowledge creation capability – organizational culture – but also is of importance to organizational culture literature by demonstrating the proper organizational culture for k.
Investigation of scalar dissipation rate fluctuations in non-premixed turbulent combustion using a stochastic approach

Turbulent fluctuations of the scalar dissipation rate are well known to have a strong impact on ignition and extinction in non-premixed combustion. In the present study the influence of stochastic fluctuations of the scalar dissipation rate on the solution of the flamelet equations is investigated. A one-step irreversible reaction is assumed. The system can thereby be described by the solution of the temperature equation. By modelling the diffusion terms in the flamelet equation this can be written as an ordinary stochastic differential equation (SDE). In addition, an SDE is derived for the scalar dissipation rate. From these two equations, a Fokker-Planck equation can be obtained describing the joint probability of temperature and the scalar dissipation rate. The equation is analysed and integrated numerically using a fourth-order Runge-Kutta scheme. The influence of the main parameters, which are the Damköhler number, the Zeldovich number, the heat release parameter and the variance of the scalar dissipation rate fluctuations, are discussed.