Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of levosimendan on right ventricular function and ventriculovascular coupling in open chest pigs*

ObjectiveLevosimendan is a promising calcium sensitizer that potentially could be useful in settings of pulmonary vasoconstriction and right ventricular dysfunction. There is a shortage of information concerning its effects on right ventricular function and ventriculovascular coupling. The aim of the present study was to characterize the effects of levosimendan on right ventricular and pulmonary vascular function by means of pressure-volume and pulsatile flow analysis. DesignProspective laboratory investigation. SettingUniversity hospital laboratory SubjectsEight landrace pigs (mean weight, 37 kg). InterventionsFollowing instrumentation with biventricular conductance catheters, pulmonary and right coronary artery flow probes, a high-fidelity pulmonary pressure catheter, and a right coronary venous catheter, hemodynamic measurements were performed in baseline conditions and during levosimendan infusion at three increasing plasma concentrations (mean values, 27.5, 67.6, and 142.5 ng/mL). Measurements and Main ResultsLevosimendan increased heart rate and cardiac output, reduced systemic vascular resistance, and had a positive inotropic effect on the left ventricle and increased left ventricular mechanical efficiency. Moreover, levosimendan increased right ventricular contractility and hydraulic power. However, total pulmonary vascular resistance and characteristic impedance did not change throughout the protocol, and right ventricular mechanical efficiency decreased slightly at the highest concentration of levosimendan. ConclusionsAt clinical concentrations in the present model, levosimendan increases right ventricular contractility and performance without significantly influencing pulmonary vascular tone. Further studies are required in a model of pulmonary vasoconstriction to disclose possible pulmonary vasodilator effects of levosimendan.
Phylogenetic diversity promotes ecosystem stability

Ecosystem stability in variable environments depends on the diversity of form and function of the constituent species. Species phenotypes and ecologies are the product of evolution, and the evolutionary history represented by co-occurring species has been shown to be an important predictor of ecosystem function. If phylogenetic distance is a surrogate for ecological differences, then greater evolutionary diversity should buffer ecosystems against environmental variation and result in greater ecosystem stability. We calculated both abundance-weighted and unweighted phylogenetic measures of plant community diversity for a long-term biodiversity–ecosystem function experiment at Cedar Creek, Minnesota, USA. We calculated a detrended measure of stability in aboveground biomass production in experimental plots and showed that phylogenetic relatedness explained variation in stability. Our results indicate that communities where species are evenly and distantly related to one another are more stable compared to c.
Increase by the ORL1 receptor (opioid receptor‐like1) ligand, nociceptin, of inwardly rectifying K conductance in dorsal raphe nucleus neurones

The actions of the endogenous ORL1‐receptor (opioid receptor‐like1) ligand, nociceptin, on the membrane properties of rat dorsal raphe nucleus neurones were examined by use of whole‐cell patch clamp recording in brain slices. Nociceptin produced an outward current in all neurones tested, with an EC50 of 12 ± 2 nM. Dynorphin A (100 nM to 1 μm) produced little outward current. Outward currents reversed polarity near the predicted K+ equilibrium potential in both 2.5 mM (measured/predicted = −105 mV/ −104 mV) and 6.5 mM (measured/predicted = −80 mV/ −77 mV) extracellular K+. The conductance increase was larger between −120 and −130 mV than between −70 and −80 mV, demonstrating that the nociceptin‐induced K current was due to an increased inwardly rectifying K conductance. The outward current produced by nociceptin was similar to, and occluded by, high concentrations of baclofen, demonstrating actions on the same population of K channels. Naloxone (1 μm) failed to inhibit outward currents produced by nociceptin. These results are consistent with the reported high density of ORL1 receptor mRNA in dorsal raphe nucleus and with inhibitory actions of nociceptin in cells expressing ORL1.
Bovine viral diarrhoea virus (BVDV) diversity and vaccination. A review

Summary BVDV is associated with a range of economically important clinical diseases including reproductive disorders and acute fatal haemorrhagic disease in cattle industry. Vaccination is still the most important control strategy for controlling BVDV infections in many countries of the world. The existence of great genetic and antigenic diversity of BVDV isolates is very important concern for BVDV vaccine development and protective efficacy of current vaccines. In this review, the protective efficacies of the selected examples of BVDV vaccines with regard to BVDV diversity and the novel marker vaccine development studies are discussed.
Why do young women have a much higher prevalence of HIV than young men? A study in Kisumu, Kenya and Ndola, Zambia

Objective: To examine the factors responsible for the disparity in HIV prevalence between young men and women in two urban populations in Africa with high HIV prevalence. Design: Cross-sectional survey, aiming to include 1000 men and 1000 women aged 15-49 years in Kisumu, Kenya and Ndola, Zambia. Methods: Participants were interviewed and tested for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. Analyses compared the marital and non-marital partnership patterns in young men and women, and estimated the likelihood of having an HIV-infected partner. Results: Overall, 26% of individuals in Kisumu and 28% in Ndola were HIV-positive. In both sites, HIV prevalence in women was six times that in men among sexually active 15-19 year olds, three times that in men among 20-24 year olds, and equal to that in men among 25-49 year olds. Age at sexual debut was similar in men and women, and men had more partners than women. Women married younger than men and marriage was a risk factor for HIV, but the disparity in HIV prevalence was present in both married and unmarried individuals. Women often had older partners, and men rarely had partners much older than themselves. Nevertheless, the estimated prevalence of HIV in the partners of unmarried men aged under 20 was as high as that for unmarried women. HIV prevalence was very high even among women reporting one lifetime partner and few episodes of sexual intercourse. Conclusions: Behavioural factors could not fully explain the discrepancy in HIV prevalence between men and women. Despite the tendency for women to have older partners, young men were at least as likely to encounter an HIV-infected partner as young women. It is likely that the greater susceptibility of women to HIV infection is an important factor both in explaining the male-female discrepancy in HIV prevalence and in driving the epidemic. Herpes simplex virus type 2 infection, which is more prevalent in young women than in young men, is probably one of the factors that increases women's susceptibility to HIV infection.
Corpus-based Automatic Text Expansion

The task of algorithmically expanding a textual content based on an existing corpus can aid in efficient authoring and is feasible if the desired additional materials are already present in the corpus. We propose an algorithm that automatically expands a piece of text, by identifying paragraphs from the repository as candidates for augmentation to the original content. The proposed method involves: extracting the keywords, searching the corpus, selecting and ranking relevant textual units while maintaining diversity in the overall information in the expanded content, and finally concatenating the selected text units. We propose metrics to evaluate the expanded content for diversity and relevance, and compare them against manual annotations. Results indicate viability of the proposed approach.
‘Coronate’ amacrine cells in the rabbit retina have the ‘starburst’ dendritic morphology

Acetylcholine-synthesizing cells in the rabbit retina are symmetrically distributed about the inner plexiform layer: one population of cholinergic amacrines has cell bodies in the inner nuclear layer and an equivalent population of displaced amacrines has cell bodies in the ganglion cell layer. It has been suggested that the morphological correlates of the acetylcholine-synthesizing cells are either coronate amacrine cells or starburst amacrine cells. Coronate cells have a characteristic nuclear morphology and can be selectively labelled by neurofibrillar methods or with the fluorescent dye 4' ,6-diamidino-2-phenyl-indole (DAPI). Starburst cells have a characteristic dendritic morphology but have only been described from Golgi-stained retinae. This paper bridges the gap between the previous studies. DAPI-labelled coronate cells were impaled with a micropipette under microscopic control and filled with Lucifer yellow by iontophoresis. The results show that the coronate amacrines in the ganglion cell layer are type b starburst cells, and that those DAPI-labelled neurones in the inner nuclear layer with a coronate-like nuclear morphology are type a starburst cells. At a given eccentricity the dendritic field diameter of type a starburst cells is about 1.13 times larger than that of type b starburst cells. The dendritic field coverage of coronate (type b starburst) cells increases linearly with decreasing coronate cell density and ranges from 25 on the peak visual streak to 70+ in the superior periphery.
Morphology and cytoarchitecture of the red nucleus of the domestic pig (sus scrofa)

The morphology and cytoarchitecture of the red nucleus was studied in 17 pigs of different ages and breeding. Transverse, sagittal and horizontal sections were stained by cresyl violet, Weil's method and the Klüver and Barrera method. The length of the red nucleus of the pig was about 6.09 mm and the width was 2.66 mm on horizontal section, while the height of the nucleus was approximately 2.87 mm on both transverse and sagittal sections.
Natural Interaction in Freehand Pointing: Designing the mapping of interaction space.

Distant pointing using freehand is usually applied in interaction environments where the visual interface is out of a user's arm reach [1]. One example is a user sitting on a couch who is controlling a smart television (TV) across the room. This kind of method is becoming more popular because of the rapid development of large-screen intelligent terminals in recent years. The visual freehand pointing technique is one kind of interaction method using gestures to control the computer.
Polynomial Implementation of the Taylor–Fourier Transform for Harmonic Analysis

Recently, the Taylor-Fourier transform (TFT) was proposed to analyze the spectrum of signals with oscillating harmonics. The coefficients of this linear transformation were obtained through the calculation of the pseudoinverse matrix, which provides the classical solution to the normal equations of the least-squares (LS) approximation. This paper presents a filtering design technique that obtains the coefficients of the filters at each harmonic by imposing the maximally flat conditions to the polynomials defining their frequency responses. This condition can be used to solve the LS problem at each particular harmonic frequency, without the need of obtaining the whole set, as in the classical pseudoinverse solution. In addition, the filter passband central frequency can follow the fluctuations of the fundamental frequency. Besides, the method offers a reduction of the computational burden of the pseudoinverse solution. An implementation of the proposed estimator as an adaptive algorithm using its own instantaneous frequency estimate to relocate its bands is shown, and several tests are used to compare its performance with that of the ordinary TFT.
Model-based control of a novel planar tendon-driven joint having a soft rolling constraint on a plane

This paper proposes a planar tendon-driven joint with a soft cylinder contacting a rigid plane and its modelbased controller. In previous studies of planar tendon-driven joints with soft materials, those angles were only controlled despite the position displacement due to material deformation. Concurrently, position and angle displacements are addressed in the field of the robotic hand. Although some of the studies designed controllers using soft rolling contact models, their models cannot be applied in practical cases simply due to the effect of the property of the soft material. Even if it can be modeled, their feedback controllers also cannot be applied to the joint if the model is different from theirs. Although a controller design based on the obtained model is required, this realization is difficult because a constraint due to the soft rolling contact becomes a non-holonomic one. To resolve those problems, we set the soft rolling contact as a gray-box model and design the controller based on this modeled constraint. In the controller, the modeled constraint is used to generate a reference path. A soft rolling contact model is constructed through experiments, and then we validate the proposed controller by simulation using the modeled constraint.
Adaptive digital watermarking using RDWT and SVD

This paper proposes a new scheme for secure digital watermarking and copyright protection of videos. The approach presented here is based on redundant discrete wavelet transform (RDWT) and singular value decomposition (SVD). The video frames and the watermark are decomposed by RDWT, and the watermark is embedded into the subbands of the I-frames. The singular values of the I-frames are modified with the singular values of the visual watermark. Meanwhile, the watermark embedding strength is adjusted adaptively using the noise visibility function (NVF) with local properties. The approach is efficient and appropriate for real-time applications. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach has good performance in preserving high quality of the video, and the watermark can be extracted accurately after various attacks.
Light Pen Use and Practice Minimize Age and Hand Performance Differences in Pointing Tasks

We contrasted performance with mouse and light pen input devices for younger, middle-aged, and older adults (N = 72) who were experienced mouse users. Participants used both preferred and nonpreferred hands to perform a menu target selection task. The light pen minimized age differences in performance relative to the mouse. Older adults were more lateralized on a handedness test than young adults and were less efficient using their nonpreferred hand. With practice, older adults improved their response time more than other age groups did. The mouse was rated as more acceptable and easier to use than the light pen across trials, despite the performance advantage of the light pen for all age groups. Usability ratings correlated moderately with performance. A benefit-cost analysis indicated that the more efficient light pen might cover its greater initial cost within 11 months for an older adult and within 23 months for a younger adult. Actual or potential applications of this research include advising older adults to persist with practice for new input devices, advising those who must switch to their nonpreferred hand to select a direct positioning device, and providing a methodology for determining the potential payback interval when switching to a faster, though more expensive, input device.
Cellular response of the rat brain to single doses of 137Cs γ rays does not predict its response to prolonged ‘biologically equivalent’ fractionated doses

Abstract Purpose: To determine if the brain's response to single doses predicts its response to ‘biologically equivalent’ fractionated doses. Methods: Young adult male Fischer 344 rats were whole-brain irradiated with either single 11, 14, or 16.5 Gy doses of 137Cs γ rays or their ‘biologically equivalent’ 20, 30, or 40 Gy fractionated doses (fWBI) delivered in 5 Gy fractions, twice/week for 2, 3, or 4 weeks, respectively. At 2 months post-irradiation, cellular markers of inflammation (total, activated, and newborn microglia) and neurogenesis (newborn neurons) were measured in 40 μm sections of the dentate gyrus (DG). Results: Although the total number of microglia in the DG/hilus was not significantly different (p > 0.7) in unirradiated, single dose, and fWBI rats, single doses produced a significant (p < 0.003) increase in the percent-activated microglia; fWBI did not (p > 0.1). Additionally, single doses produced a significant (p < 0.002) dose-dependent increase in surviving newborn microglia; fWBI did not (p < 0.8). Although total proliferation in the DG was reduced equally by single and fWBI doses, single doses produced a significant dose-dependent (p < 0.02) decrease in surviving newborn neurons; fWBI did not (p > 0.6). Conclusions: These data demonstrate that the rat brain's cellular response to single doses often does not predict its cellular response to ‘biologically equivalent’ fWBI doses.
Molluscum Contagiosum in a Red Kangaroo

Natural infection of a red kangaroo (Megaleia rufa) with molluscum contagiosum pox‐virus is reported. Large lesions up to 2 cm diameter were present on the back, elbow and lip. Histopathology and electron‐microscopy confirmed that the disease was identical to human molluscum contagiosum.
The Beneficial Effect of Chronic Graft-versus-Host Disease on the Clinical Outcome of Transplantation with Fludarabine/Busulfan-Based Reduced-Intensity Conditioning for Patients with De Novo Myelodysplastic Syndrome

Allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation following reduced-intensity stem cell transplantation (RIST) has enabled the treatment of older or medically infirm patients with myeloid malignancies; however, determining the value of RIST outcomes for myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) is difficult because of the heterogeneity of the diseases included in most trials. To define the role of RIST in MDS, we performed RIST for 22 consecutive patients who had de novo MDS as classified by World Health Organization (WHO) criteria and who received an allograft with fludarabine/busulfan (Busulfex) or fludarabine/Busulfex/antithymocyte globulin (ATG) conditioning. Nineteen patients (86.4%) achieved engraftment. At a median follow-up of 18.9 months (range, 13.1–24.8 months), the estimated 2-year rates of overall survival, event-free survival (EFS), transplantation-related mortality, and relapse were 78.7%, 67.7%, 12.6%, and 22.5%, respectively. Acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) greater than grade II developed in 3 patients (15.8%). Chronic GVHD developed in 10 patients (55.6%), none of whom received ATG as a conditioning regimen. Variables influencing EFS were chronic GVHD, marrow blasts before transplantation, and the WHO criteria. The present study clarifies the benefits of the fludarabine/Busulfex-based conditioning regimen for de novo MDS diagnosed according to the WHO criteria and shows that chronic GVHD appears to have a beneficial effect on survival rates, which are strongly associated with graft-versus-tumor effects.
Parallelizing the Weighted Lossy Counting Algorithm in High-speed Network Monitoring

With the ever increasing of network traffic and link bandwidth, parallel frequent item mining becomes more and more important in high-speed network traffic engineering and monitoring. The advent of multi-core processors calls for efficient parallel designs which can effectively utilize the parallelism of multi-cores. In this paper, we present a novel precision integrated frame work (PRIF) to parallelize the famous Lossy Counting algorithm in the context of multi-core processors. PRIF achieves near-linear speedup and is capable of continuously monitoring the frequent items all along. Experiments with three real traffic traces demonstrate the excellent performance of PRIF.
Using Graphic History in Browsing the World Wide Web

Users of hypertext systems often find themselves eagerly following hypertext links deeper and deeper into a hypertext web, only to find themselves "lost" and unable find their way back to previously visited pages. As navigation aids to help users orient themselves in the Web, browsers often provide a list of the documents a user has visited, a way to move forward and backward along previously traversed links, and a quick way to return to a home document. Still, users often have trouble revisiting a page that was previously viewed in a session, especially after many invocations of the backtracking shortcuts. MosaicG is derivative work of NCSA Mosaic version 2.5 which enhances the history-keeping facility of the browser by providing a two-dimensional view of the documents a user has visited in a session. It is intended as an easy-to-use aid in navigating a collection of hypertext documents. By presenting titles, URLs, and thumbnail images of the documents a user has visited in a session, the Graphic History View allows a user to easily recognize a previously visited document and provides an easy way for the user to revisit that document and analyze the structure of a set of hypertext documents.
Categorizing urgency of infant emergency department visits: agreement between criteria.

BACKGROUND The lack of valid classification methods for emergency department (ED) visit urgency has resulted in large variation in reported rates of nonurgent ED utilization. OBJECTIVES To compare four methods of defining ED visit urgency with the criterion standard, implicit criteria, for infant ED visits. METHODS This was a secondary data analysis of a prospective birth cohort of Medicaid-enrolled infants who made at least one ED visit in the first six months of life. Complete ED visit data were reviewed to assess urgency via implicit criteria. The explicit criteria (adherence to prespecified criteria via complete ED charts), ED triage, diagnosis, and resources methods were also used to categorize visit urgency. Concordance and agreement (kappa) between the implicit criteria and alternative methods were measured. RESULTS A total of 1,213 ED visits were assessed. Mean age was 2.8 (SD +/- 1.78) months, and the most common diagnosis was upper respiratory infection (21.0%). Using implicit criteria, 52.3% of ED visits were deemed urgent. Urgent visits using other methods were as follows: explicit criteria, 51.8%; ED triage, 60.6%; diagnosis, 70.3%; and resources, 52.7%. Explicit criteria had the highest concordance (78.3%) and agreement (kappa = 0.57) with implicit criteria. Of limited data methods, resources demonstrated the best concordance (78.1%) and agreement (kappa = 0.56), while ED triage (67.9%) and diagnosis (71.6%) exhibited lower concordance and agreement (kappa = 0.35 and kappa = 0.42, respectively). Explicit criteria and resources equally misclassified urgency for 11.1% of visits; ED triage and diagnosis tended to overclassify visits as urgent. CONCLUSIONS The explicit criteria and resources methods best approximate implicit criteria in classifying ED visit urgency in infants younger than six months of age. If confirmed in further studies, resources utilized has the potential to be an inexpensive, easily applicable method for urgency classification of infant ED visits when limited data are available.