Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Kainate‐induced excitotoxicity is dependent upon extracellular potassium concentrations that regulate the activity of AMPA/KA type glutamate receptors

In addition to well‐known N‐methyl‐d‐aspartate (NMDA) receptor‐mediated excitotoxicity, recent studies suggest that non‐NMDA type ionotropic glutamate receptors are also important mediators of excitotoxic neuronal death, and that their functional expression can be regulated by the cellular environment. In this study, we used cerebellar granule cells (CGCs) in culture to investigate kainate (KA)‐induced excitotoxicity. Although previous reports indicated that KA induces apoptosis of CGCs in culture, no KA‐induced excitotoxic cell death was observed in CGCs treated with KA when cells were maintained in high potassium media (24 mm K+). In contrast, when mature CGCs were shifted into low potassium media (3 mm K+), KA produced significant excitotoxicity. In electrophysiological studies, the KA‐induced inward current density was significantly elevated in CGCs shifted into low K+ media compared with those maintained in high K+ media. Non‐desensitizing aspects of KA currents observed in this study suggest that these responses were mediated by AMPA rather than KA receptors. In immunofluorescence studies, the surface expression of GluR1 subunits increased when mature CGCs were shifted into a low K+ environment. This study suggests that KA‐induced excitotoxicity in mature CGCs is dependent upon the extracellular potassium concentration, which modulates functional expression and excitability of AMPA/KA receptors.
Sonographic imaging of muscle contraction and fasciculations: A correlation with electromyography

Precise quantitation of fasciculations with EMG is difficult because of their random location and discharge frequency in muscle. We studied the clinical value of real‐time ultrasound in the study of normal voluntary muscle contraction and in the identification of fasciculations in 22 patients. Sonography effectively imaged fasciculations, demonstrating them in both resting and actively contracting extremity muscles and in less accessible muscles such as the tongue. In two instances ultrasound identified fasciculations not apparent on EMG. Analysis of the video images generated quantitative data of fasciculation duration (averaging 500 msec), size, and location and provided unique insight into the process of normal muscle contraction and motor unit physiology.
Meta materials in future wireless communication equipments

Wireless communication is still growing and demand for better systems is increasing. Some solutions for better systems are already introduced, and some are progressing very rapidly to become a product. Here, by looking at the digital wireless communication progress from 1980s, new challenges have been shown. Meta materials are offering solutions for those challenges in many different areas. Even though the road from research to product is long and laborious, with the new research outcomes, meta materials are getting closer to take part within wireless products.
Economic model predictive control of the electric arc furnace using data-driven multi-rate models

This work considers the problem of economic model predictive control (EMPC) of electric arc furnaces (EAF), subject to the limited availability of process measurements and noise. The key issues addressed are: (1) the multi-rate sampling of process variables; and (2) the requirement of optimized operation that achieves desired product specifications and also minimizes the operating costs. To this end, we identify data-driven models that capture the temporal dynamics of process measurements sampled at different rates. The resulting multi-rate models are used to design a two-tiered predictive controller that enables achieving the target end-point while minimizing the associated costs. The EMPC is implemented on the EAF process and the closed-loop simulation results illustrate the improvement in economic performance over existing trajectory-tracking approaches.
A review of clinical manifestations in adolescent and young adults after use of synthetic cannabinoids.

PURPOSE The purpose of this review is to heighten the awareness of the increased use and risks of synthetic cannabinoids (SCs) and associated clinical manifestations among adolescents and young adults. CONCLUSIONS Reviewed case studies suggest that the use of SCs have unpredictable negative psychological and physiological effects. Predominant manifestations reported were anxiety, agitation, paranoia, hallucinations, tachycardia, nausea and vomiting, and diaphoresis. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS Nurses provide the most direct and supportive care to patients who present for medical treatment after the use of SCs. Knowledge of clinical manifestations can facilitate supportive management of patients suspected of SCs use.
Rheumatoid Arthritis and Total Ankle Joint Replacement

Rheumatoid arthritis is a systemic autoimmune condition of unknown etiology which may present to the orthopedic surgeon with multi joint involvement. Rheumatoid arthritis can involve the ankle, hindfoot and forefoot. We review the historical surgical treatments for the rheumatoid ankle. We also discuss the results of the varying generations of total ankle replacement in rheumatoid arthritis. We conclude the results of the latest generation of ankle arthroplasties are limited in the rheumatoid population. This demands a frank discussion between patients and surgeons prior to embarking on surgery.
Syndromic Craniosynostosis in a Modern-Age Skeleton From Siena, Italy

The skeleton of a female adult found in archaeological excavations carried out in Siena (central Italy) and dated back to the modern age showed a severe skull malformation due to the premature bilateral closure of the coronal suture, which determined a deformed brachycephalic skull. This craniosynostosis was associated with other malformations, such as shallow orbits, hypertelorism, mandibular prognathism, and consequent malocclusion, but there was absence of anomalies in the remaining bones of the extremities. These features did not seem to be related to an isolated condition but to a more complex genetic syndrome, suggesting a possible case of Crouzon syndrome. Besides representing a rare finding in archaeological material, the present case provides the opportunity to observe in an adult subject lesions typical of this congenital disorder, which is at present surgically corrected in infantile age.
Regulation of Adenovirus-Mediated Transgene Expression by the Viral E4 Gene Products: Requirement for E4 ORF3

ABSTRACT In a previous study we showed that multiple deletions of the adenoviral regulatory E1/E3/E4 or E1/E3/E2A genes did not influence the in vivo persistence of the viral genome or affect the antiviral host immune response (Lusky et al., J. Virol. 72:2022–2032, 1998). In this study, the influence of the adenoviral E4 region on the strength and persistence of transgene expression was evaluated by using as a model system the human cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) cDNA transcribed from the cytomegalovirus (CMV) promoter. We show that the viral E4 region is indispensable for persistent expression from the CMV promoter in vitro and in vivo, with, however, a tissue-specific modulation of E4 function(s). In the liver, E4 open reading frame 3 (ORF3) was necessary and sufficient to establish and maintain CFTR expression. In addition, the E4 ORF3-dependent activation of transgene expression was enhanced in the presence of either E4 ORF4 or E4 ORF6 and ORF6/7. In the lung, establishment of transgene expression was independent of the E4 gene products but maintenance of stable transgene expression required E4 ORF3 together with either E4 ORF4 or E4 ORF6 and ORF6/7. Nuclear run-on experiments showed that initiation of transcription from the CMV promoter was severely reduced in the absence of E4 functions but could be partially restored in the presence of either ORF3 and ORF4 or ORFs 1 through 4. These results imply a direct involvement of some of the E4-encoded proteins in the transcriptional regulation of heterologous transgenes. We also report that C57BL/6 mice are immunologically weakly responsive to the human CFTR protein. This observation implies that such mice may constitute attractive hosts for the in vivo evaluation of vectors for cystic fibrosis gene therapy.
Learning from E-Government: an Agenda for Social Media Research in is

Gamification aims at improving people's motivation and performance in certain tasks by introducing different mechanics taken from traditional games. Gamification has been successfully applied in different domains, such as education, marketing, and the workplace. In this paper we present an intelligent virtual assistant for gamified environments. This assistant will provide the players with help on the tasks they have to complete using natural language dialogues. The intelligent virtual assistant includes other advances technologies, such as sentiment analysis, and player's profile and interaction network analysis. This allows the assistant to analyze the sentiment polarity of each message submitted by the user, and to adapt its dialogues accordingly. It also allows the assistant to have knowledge about each player, including basic personal data and their social network. This allows the assistant to use those data in the dialogues to, for example, suggest players to ask for help to their friends, or even to suggest new friends to a player. We also present a case study in which the intelligent virtual assistant has been introduced in the gamified environment of a real company.
Development and Evaluation of an Adolescents' Depression Ontology for Analyzing Social Data

This study aims to develop and evaluate an ontology for adolescents' depression to be used for collecting and analyzing social data. The ontology was developed according to the 'ontology development 101' methodology. Concepts were extracted from clinical practice guidelines and related literatures. The ontology is composed of five sub-ontologies which represent risk factors, sign and symptoms, measurement, diagnostic result and management care. The ontology was evaluated in four different ways: First, we examined the frequency of ontology concept appeared in social data; Second, the content coverage of ontology was evaluated by comparing ontology concepts with concepts extracted from the youth depression counseling records; Third, the structural and representational layer of the ontology were evaluated by 5 ontology and psychiatric nursing experts; Fourth, the scope of the ontology was examined by answering 59 competency questions. The ontology was improved by adding new concepts and synonyms and revising the level of structure.
Effect of calcium supplementation on bone loss in postmenopausal women.

BACKGROUND The use of calcium supplements slows bone loss in the forearm and has a beneficial effect on the axial bone density of women in late menopause whose calcium intake is less than 400 mg per day. However, the effect of a calcium supplement of 1000 mg per day on the axial bone density of postmenopausal women with higher calcium intakes is not known. METHODS We studied 122 normal women at least three years after they had reached menopause who had a mean dietary calcium intake of 750 mg per day. The women were randomly assigned to treatment with either calcium (1000 mg per day) or placebo for two years. The bone mineral density of the total body, lumbar spine, and proximal femur was measured every six months by dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry. Serum and urine indexes of calcium metabolism were measured at base line and after 3, 12, and 24 months. RESULTS The mean (+/- SE) rate of loss of total-body bone mineral density was reduced by 43 percent in the calcium group (-0.0055 +/- 0.0010 g per square centimeter per year) as compared with the placebo group (-0.0097 +/- 0.0010 g per square centimeter per year, P = 0.005). The rate of loss of bone mineral density was reduced by 35 percent in the legs (P = 0.02), and loss was eliminated in the trunk (P = 0.04). Calcium use was of significant benefit in the lumbar spine (P = 0.04), and in Ward's triangle the rate of loss was reduced by 67 percent (P = 0.04). Calcium supplementation had a similar effect whether dietary calcium intake was above or below the mean value for the group. Serum parathyroid hormone concentrations tended to be lower in the calcium group, as were urinary hydroxyproline excretion and serum alkaline phosphatase concentrations. CONCLUSIONS Calcium supplementation significantly slowed axial and appendicular bone loss in normal post-menopausal women.
Optimising virtual machine allocation in MapReduce cloud for improved data locality

Big data is getting more attention in today’s world. Although MapReduce is successful in processing big data, it has some performance bottlenecks when deployed in cloud. Data locality has an important role among them. The focus of this paper is on improving data locality in MapReduce cloud by allocating adjacent VMs, for executing MapReduce jobs. Good data locality reduces cross network traffic and hence results in high performance. When a user requests for a set of virtual machines (VMs), VMs are chosen based on their physical distance between other VMs. We propose a greedy algorithm for creating cluster of VMs. Greedy methods do not give an optimal solution. The second method for the allocation of VMs is via partitioning around medoids method. Partitioning around medoids method always find a local minimum. This allocation may not be globally optimised. We also present a dynamic programming approach which is guaranteed to find an optimal solution from the users’ perspective.
PCNA and Ki-67 labelling indices in pre-irradiated and post-irradiated astrocytomas: a comparative immunohistochemical analysis for evaluation of proliferative activity.

AIM: To determine the tumour proliferative activity in a series of archival cerebral astrocytomas and compare proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) and Ki-67 labelling indices in the primary and recurring neoplasms following therapeutic radiation. METHOD: Twenty eight cases of pre-irradiated and post-irradiated astrocytomas (ranging from WHO grades I to IV) were stained immunohistochemically using the avidin-biotin horseradish peroxidase technique. Two antibodies, PC10 and MIB-1, were used to establish the proliferating labelling indices, PC10 identifies PCNA and MIB-1 recognises the Ki-67 antigen. RESULTS: Both antibodies showed significantly higher labelling indices in the post-irradiated specimens. However, in general, the Ki-67 indices were lower than those for PCNA. MIB-1 immunoreactivity showed less variation and was more intense than that seen with PC10. The discrepancy between the labelling indices of the pre-irradiated and post-irradiated samples raises questions about the evolution of astrocytomas and the effects of therapeutic intervention. CONCLUSIONS: The data may represent genetic alterations, the natural tumour course, and/or the effect of radiation. Although both of the antibodies reflected the state of growth of neoplastic cells in astrocytomas, MIB-1 was more reliable. A simple immunohistochemical method using proliferation markers does have an important role in the future care of patients with astrocytoma.
Hospital volume and 1-year mortality after treatment of intracranial aneurysms: a study based on patient registries in Scandinavia.

OBJECT The object of this study was to examine the relationship between hospital volume and long-term mortality after treatment of intracranial aneurysms. METHODS The authors identified patients treated for intracranial aneurysms between 2002 and 2010 from patient registries of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, and linked to data on 1-year mortality from the population registry of each country. Cox regression models were used to relate hospital volume to the risk of death and adjusted for potential confounders (age, sex, year of treatment, Charlson comorbidity index, country, and surgical treatment). RESULTS The authors identified 5773 patients with ruptured and 1756 patients with unruptured intracranial aneurysms, treated at 15 hospitals. One-year mortality rates were 15.6% for patients with ruptured aneurysms and 2.7% for patients with unruptured aneurysms. No consistent relationship was found between hospital volume and 1-year mortality for ruptured aneurysms in the unadjusted analyses, but higher hospital volume was associated with increased mortality in the analyses adjusted for potential confounders (hazard ratio [HR] per 10-patient increase 1.04, 95% CI 1.00-1.07). There was a trend toward a lower mortality rate in higher-volume hospitals after treatment for unruptured intracranial aneurysms, but this was not statistically significant after adjustment for potential confounders (HR per 10-patient increase 0.69, 95% CI 0.42-1.10). There were large variations in mortality after treatment for both ruptured and unruptured intracranial aneurysms across hospitals and between the Scandinavian countries (p < 0.01). CONCLUSIONS The findings in this study did not confirm a relationship between higher hospital volume and reduced long-term mortality after treatment of ruptured intracranial aneurysms. Prospective registries for evaluating outcomes after aneurysm treatment are highly warranted.
Neurosonology Accuracy for Isolated Acute Vestibular Syndromes

The clinical approach to acute vestibular syndromes is often complex for the physician. Neurosonology offers a noninvasive method to study the cervicocephalic circulation when a vascular etiology is suspected. We aim to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of a vascular neurosonological exam in isolated acute vestibular syndrome.
It's all in the timing: Interpersonal synchrony increases affiliation

The tendency to mimic and synchronize with others is well established. Although mimicry has been shown to lead to affiliation between co-actors, the effect of interpersonal synchrony on affiliation remains an open question. The authors investigated the relationship by having participants match finger movements with a visual moving metronome. In Experiment 1, affiliation ratings were examined based on the extent to which participants tapped in synchrony with the experimenter. In Experiment 2, synchrony was manipulated. Affiliation ratings were compared for an experimenter who either (a) tapped to a metronome that was synchronous to the participant's metronome, (b) tapped to a metronome that was asynchronous, or (c) did not tap. As hypothesized, in both studies, the degree of synchrony predicted subsequent affiliation ratings. Experiment 3 found that the affiliative effects were unique to interpersonal synchrony.
Estimates of the Global Water Budget and Its Annual Cycle Using Observational and Model Data

Abstract A brief review is given of research in the Climate Analysis Section at NCAR on the water cycle. Results are used to provide a new estimate of the global hydrological cycle for long-term annual means that includes estimates of the main reservoirs of water as well as the flows of water among them. For precipitation P over land a comparison among three datasets enables uncertainties to be estimated. In addition, results are presented for the mean annual cycle of the atmospheric hydrological cycle based on 1979–2000 data. These include monthly estimates of P, evapotranspiration E, atmospheric moisture convergence over land, and changes in atmospheric storage, for the major continental landmasses, zonal means over land, hemispheric land means, and global land means. The evapotranspiration is computed from the Community Land Model run with realistic atmospheric forcings, including precipitation that is constrained by observations for monthly means but with high-frequency information taken from atmosphe.
EFFECT OF NON VOLATILE COMPOUNDS OF TRICHODERMA SPP. AGAINST FUSARIUM GRAMINEARUM, RHIZOCTONIA SOLANI AND PYTHIUM ULTIMUM

Biological control represents an important approach of agricultural biotechnology for controlling many fungal plant pathogens. Trichoderma spp. are the most promising and effective bioagents against many plant pathogenic fungi. In present paper, two strains of Trichoderma aspellerum isolated from soil were screened for their efficacy against some common soil borne plant pathogens by dual culture technique. Trichoderma strains were grown in potato dextrose broth and collected metabolites were amended to PDA medium to obtain 5, 10, 25 and 50% concentration in Petri plates. The solidified agar plates were inoculated with pathogen and incubated at 25 ± 2oC for 7 days. The colony diameter was measured and percentage inhibition of radial growth was calculated. Both antagonists’ strains produced non-volatile metabolites and inhibit the mycelial growth of Fusarium graminearum, Rhizoctonia solani and Pythium umtimum.
Considering Packet Loss Probability in Fault-Tolerant OSPF Routing

Interior gateway protocols such as OSPF associate a weight with each network link and then compute shortest paths. The weights optimization is done by solving the Weight Setting Problem (WSP). One drawback of current approaches is that they disregard factors like packet loss probability. Most approaches also ignore network dynamics. When a router or link fails, there is a redistribution of traffic to alternate paths, increasing the network load and thus resulting in congestion. This paper presents a strategy for solving the WSP considering link congestion, packet loss and fault tolerance. Two meta-heuristics (simulated annealing and harmony search) are applied to yield good quality and high performance solutions. Applications under different scenarios show the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
Uniocular macular oedema and reduced vision in a patient with uveitis

Macular oedema is the commonest cause of visual loss in patients with uveitis. The management of macular oedema and visual loss is relatively straightforward when it involves either both eyes or when there is only one seeing eye. In such patients maximum medical therapy is indicated to ensure that the best possible visual result is obtained. In patients where one eye has easily controlled intraocular inflammation and no vision-threatening macular oedema, and the other eye has reduced vision from macular oedema, the management options are by no means clearly defined and one can easily argue that either aggressive or conservative treatment is indicated. To illustrate the management dilemmas seen in such patients, the following patient scenario has been constructed and two world leaders in inflammatory eye disease have been asked to comment and to take different approaches to the management of this patient.