Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Central Venous Catheters Revisited— Infection Rates and an Assessment of the New Fibrin Analysing System Brush

Sixty-one consecutive patients in the Intensive Care Unit requiring central venous lines (CVC) for five or more days were randomized to receive either a standard triple lumen CVC (STD/CVC) or a silver sulphadiazine and chlorhexidine impregnated CVC (SSD/CVC). Data from the 54 patients who completed the trial show a reduced infection rate (positive tip culture) in the SSD/CVC group (4 out of 28) compared to the STD/CVC group (10 out of 26) (P<0.05). In addition, the new Fibrin Analysing System (FAS) brush was evaluated and used to determine the presence of infection in all the CVCs (STD/CVC and SSD/CVC combined, n=54) at day 3 (i.e. early warning of CVC colonization/infection) and at the time of removal of the CVC. The FAS brush was able to detect an infected CVC on only one occasion on day 3 out of the 14 CVC tips which were later found to be colonized/infected at the time of removal. The sensitivity of the FAS brush in detecting colonized/infected CVCs at the time of CVC removal compared with CVC tip culture was 21% with a specificity of 100%. These findings would currently not support the routine use of the FAS brush in determining CVC infection/colonization.
Firing patterns of spontaneously active motor units in spinal cord‐injured subjects

Key points • Muscles below a human spinal cord injury start to contract involuntarily a few weeks after trauma. The basis for this spontaneous activity is still unclear. • We show motor units in these muscles exhibited regular or irregular activity for several minutes. The regularly firing motor units had longer estimated afterhyperpolarisation potentials, higher mean firing rates and generated weaker forces. • These observations suggest that regularly firing motor units are more excitable than those that fire irregularly. • Spontaneous firing of motor units at regular rates may reflect active properties (such as persistent currents) within motoneurones, visible here in the absence of voluntary drive. • This basic motor unit firing behaviour may underlie the firing patterns typically recorded during voluntary contractions.
The uncertainty of oil price forecasts

Laboratory of Energy Systems Research, Lithuanian Energy Institute, Breslaujos 3, LT-44403 Kaunas, Lithuania E-mail: kuprys@mail.lei. lt The Annual Energy Administration publication “Annual Energy Outlook” provides long-term oil price forecasts, which generally deny previous oil price forecasts. The purpose of this work was to assess the adequacy of oil price forecasts. A number of models used in oil price forecasts to assess and determine the indicators influencing the oil price change have been reviewed. In assessing long-term forecasts of oil prices, two different models were considered: multi-regressive and artificial neural networks. The resulting predicted oil prices were compared with the International Energy Agency oil price predictions.
Flourishing ocean drives the end-Permian marine mass extinction

Significance This study provides geochemical evidence that links some of the most important finds associated with the end-Permian mass extinction, including climate warming, enhanced weathering, increased primary productivity, and widespread marine anoxia under a common denominator: the linked biogeochemical sulfur and carbon cycles. Lethal marine conditions are likely the result of climate feedback mechanisms acting to increase nutrient input to the ocean, thereby stimulating global organic carbon production. With future projected climate change in mind, such climate feedback mechanisms could induce widespread eutrophication and expansion of anoxic and sulfidic zones, thereby fundamentally altering marine ecosystems. The end-Permian mass extinction, the most severe biotic crisis in the Phanerozoic, was accompanied by climate change and expansion of oceanic anoxic zones. The partitioning of sulfur among different exogenic reservoirs by biological and physical processes was of importance for this biodiversity crisis, but the exact role of bioessential sulfur in the mass extinction is still unclear. Here we show that globally increased production of organic matter affected the seawater sulfate sulfur and oxygen isotope signature that has been recorded in carbonate rock spanning the Permian−Triassic boundary. A bifurcating temporal trend is observed for the strata spanning the marine mass extinction with carbonate-associated sulfate sulfur and oxygen isotope excursions toward decreased and increased values, respectively. By coupling these results to a box model, we show that increased marine productivity and successive enhanced microbial sulfate reduction is the most likely scenario to explain these temporal trends. The new data demonstrate that worldwide expansion of euxinic and anoxic zones are symptoms of increased biological carbon recycling in the marine realm initiated by global warming. The spatial distribution of sulfidic water column conditions in shallow seafloor environments is dictated by the severity and geographic patterns of nutrient fluxes and serves as an adequate model to explain the scale of the marine biodiversity crisis. Our results provide evidence that the major biodiversity crises in Earth’s history do not necessarily implicate an ocean stripped of (most) life but rather the demise of certain eukaryotic organisms, leading to a decline in species richness.
Evaluation of transistor property variations within chips on 300-mm wafers using a new MOSFET array test structure

A new test structure has been designed to evaluate fluctuations of transistor properties, both within a chip and across a 300-mm wafer. The evaluation system was established with a conventional parametric tester and dc power supplies suitable for application on production lines. It was observed that threshold voltage (V/sub th/) variations increased with the reduction of the channel area. A difference was also observed in the standard deviation (/spl sigma//sub vt/) between NMOS and PMOS. From statistical evaluations, controlling CDs and improving rolloff characteristics were found to be important to reduce V/sub th/ variations.
Immunohistochemical localization of components of the immune barrier in the olfactory mucosae of salamanders and rats

Immunohistochemical techniques were used to investigate the cellular distribution of components of the secretory immune system, including secretory immunoglobulin, secretory piece, and J chain, as well as other immunoglobulins and nonspecific defense factors in the olfactory mucosae of salamanders and rats.
Cloning and Expressional Characterization of a Novel Galanin Receptor

Galanin, a 29–30 amino acid neuropeptide, is found in the central and peripheral nervous systems and displays several important physiological activities. The actions are believed to be mediated through distinct G protein-coupled receptors. To date, two galanin receptor subtypes have been cloned. In this report, we describe the cloning and expression of a cDNA encoding a novel galanin receptor (GalR3). The receptor has 370 amino acids and shares 36 and 54% homology with the rat GalR1 and GalR2 receptors.125I-Porcine galanin binds the rat GalR3 receptor expressed in COS-7 cells with high affinity (K d = 0.6 nm) and could be displaced by galanin and galanin fragments and galanin-chimeric peptides. The pharmacological profile of this novel receptor is distinct from those of GalR1 and GalR2, revealing different pharmacophores within galanin for the three galanin receptor subtypes. Northern blot analysis showed expression in heart, spleen, and testis. Unlike GalR1 and GalR2, no expression of GalR3 was detectable in the brain, suggesting that GalR3 may mediate some of the peripheral functions of galanin.
LIVER CIRRHOSIS AND HEPATOCELLULAR CARCINOMA Incidence and clinical outcome of icteric type hepatocellular carcinoma

Background: To elucidate the incidence of the rare cases of icteric type hepatocellular carcinoma (IHCC), we conducted a retrospective study. The clinical outcomes of IHCC cases were also analyzed. Methods: From January 1986 to December 1997, newly diagnosed HCC cases were evaluated and reviewed from an admission registration database in a medical center. Patients who had HCC tumors which were located within biliary tracts, and caused obstructive jaundice as the initial clinical manifestation of HCC, were defined as cases of IHCC. Besides clinical manifestations, the outcomes and survival times of various treatment strategies among the IHCC cases were compared retrospectively. Results:The incidence of IHCC was 0.53% (10/1897). The median age of the 10 IHCC patients (seven men, three women) was 56.1 years (range = 41–72 years). Most primary HCC lesions (80%) were of expansive type: either single nodular type or multinodular type. All the patients eventually died of cholangitis and sepsis. Besides biliary drainage, seven patients of moderate to good liver reserve function received transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) for palliative treatment, and three of these received additional radiotherapy (R/T) because of the limited effect of TACE (total dosage ranged from 1600 to 5000 cGy). One patient received only radiotherapy (total dosage 1600 cGy) because of having a single tumor and poor liver reserve function. The median survival time among those eight patients who received palliative treatment was 13.4 months (range = 8–26 months), which was significantly longer than for the other two patients without treatment (2 and 4 months). Conclusions: Icteric type hepatocellular carcinoma (IHCC) is a rare presentation of HCC. Palliative treatment strategies, including TACE and/or R/T showed a beneficial effect in improving the survival time. © 2002 Blackwell Science Asia Pty Ltd
Identification of a New Simian Immunodeficiency Virus Lineage with a vpu Gene Present among Different Cercopithecus Monkeys (C. mona, C. cephus, and C. nictitans) from Cameroon

ABSTRACT During a large serosurvey of wild-caught primates from Cameroon, we found 2 mona monkeys (Cercopithecus mona) out of 8 and 47 mustached monkeys (Cercopithecus cephus) out of 302 with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) cross-reactive antibodies. In this report, we describe the full-length genome sequences of two novel SIVs, designated SIVmon-99CMCML1 and SIVmus-01CM1085, isolated from one mona (CML1) and one mustached (1085) monkey, respectively. Interestingly, these viruses displayed the same genetic organization (i.e., presence of a vpu homologue) as members of the SIVcpz-HIV type 1 lineage and SIVgsn isolated from greater spot-nosed monkeys (Cercopithecus nictitans). Phylogenetic analyses of SIVmon and SIVmus revealed that these viruses were genetically distinct from other known primate lentiviruses but were more closely related to SIVgsn all across their genomes, thus forming a monophyletic lineage within the primate lentivirus family, which we designated the SIVgsn lineage. Interestingly, mona, mustached, and greater spot-nosed monkeys are phylogenetically related species belonging to three different groups of the genus Cercopithecus, the C. mona, C. cephus, and Cercopithecus mitis groups, respectively. The presence of new viruses closely related to SIVgsn in two other species reinforces the hypothesis that a recombination event between ancestral SIVs from the family Cercopithecinae is the origin of the present SIVcpz that is widespread among the chimpanzee population.
Predicting Human Intentions from Motion Cues Only: A 2D+3D Fusion Approach

In this paper, we address the new problem of the prediction of human intentions. There is neuro-psychological evidence that actions performed by humans are anticipated by peculiar motor acts which are discriminant of the type of action going to be performed afterwards. In other words, an actual intention can be forecast by looking at the kinematics of the immediately preceding movement. To prove it in a computational and quantitative manner, we devise a new experimental setup where, without using contextual information, we predict human intentions all originating from the same motor act. We posit the problem as a classification task and we introduce a new multi-modal dataset consisting of a set of motion capture marker 3D data and 2D video sequences, where, by only analysing very similar movements in both training and test phases, we are able to predict the underlying intention, i.e., the future, never observed action. We also present an extensive experimental evaluation as a baseline, customizing state-of-the-art techniques for either 3D and 2D data analysis. Realizing that video processing methods lead to inferior performance but show complementary information with respect to 3D data sequences, we developed a 2D+3D fusion analysis where we achieve better classification accuracies, attesting the superiority of the multimodal approach for the context-free prediction of human intentions.
New Pap test technologies hit heavy seas but sales keep flying.

If you go by the headlines, it has not been a good year for the new Pap test technologies. In February the longawaited "TEC report" from the Technical Evaluation Center of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association turned thumbs down on all three of the hightech cervical cancer screening tools now on the market a novel slide preparation technique and two automated slide readers. "Not cost effective" and "minimal advancement" said the headlines. The TEC report had evaluated the technologies in terms of mortality and concluded that they would have little impact on life expectancy for women who were screened regularly, despite their relatively high cost. Then in July, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists issued an official ACOG Committee Opinion and a press release stating that the same three technologies were "not standard of care. " Like the TEC report, the ACOG Opinion acknowledged that the technologies were more sensitive than the conventional Pap smear, but said they could not be considered standard of care because of the lack of data on incidence and survival rates. Most recently, a front-page article in The Wall Street Journal focused on the difficulties besetting ThinPrep®, the new slide preparation technique. "A New Pap Test Costs More," said the headline, "But Is It Worth It? Some Think Not. " The article described the challenges that Cytyc Corp., Boxborough, Mass. , has encountered in getting third-party payers to cover ThinPrep. It is not only bad publicity that has plagued Cytyc and its two competitors, NeoPath, Inc., in Redmond, Wash. , and Neuromedical Systems, Inc., Suffern, N.Y. Their reports to the Security and Exchange Commission show that all three companies continue to post losses in 1998. Moreover, all three have seen their stock prices fall this year to well below their 1997 levels. So, is the 50-year-old Pap smear in which cervical cells are smeared on a slide and then examined under a microscope destined to stay low-tech? There are several signs that the answer maybe no. For one thing, sales ofthe new screening tools have grown, if not boomed. Cytyc now counts as customers more than 450 U.S. laboratories, said chief
Seen but not heard: battered women's perceptions of the ED experience.

INTRODUCTION A plethora of studies describe helping professionals' responses to and actions directed toward battered women in the emergency department. However, research that yields data regarding the clients' perceptions about their actual experiences in the ED setting is sorely needed. The aim of this study was to describe battered women's perceptions of their ED experience. METHOD A qualitative design, namely a phenomenologic approach, was used for this inquiry to enable the women to express themselves in their own voices. Informants were recruited from shelters for battered women. Women who had sought help for abuse-related injuries at a hospital emergency department within the past 12 months were asked to participate. Methods used to collect data were in-depth, individual, audiotaped interviews and demographic data sheets. Data analysis was conducted using Colaizzi's (1978) procedural steps. RESULTS Several categories emerged as being descriptive of the women's perceptions of their ED experience. Themes identified included the women's feelings during the visit, such as fear of their partner, concern for children, and loneliness; the women's belief that the ED staff do not understand abuse; satisfaction with treatment of physical injuries but dissatisfaction with how the issue of abuse is managed; the difficulty of disclosing the abuse because of fear, embarrassment, and a lack of resources; and a request that health care professionals display compassion, provide referrals, and offer options. DISCUSSION The women's narratives explicate their feelings during the ED visit and sensitize nurses to their experience. The reports of dissatisfaction with the care they received in the emergency department add to the validity of findings from previous studies that have documented similar results and point to the need to examine and reshape the delivery of care to abused women in the emergency department.
Mixed time-triggered and event-triggered controller for industrial IoT applications

A smart industrial controller is essential for industrial real-time control in IoT environment. However, in the IoT environment, many industrial controllers have complex timing constrains and have flexibility requirement for reducing system resource consumption. In this paper, in order to reducing complexity and guarantee reliability, we propose a new design method about a mixed time-triggered and event-triggered industrial controller for industrial real-time control in IoT environment. This design integrated the mixed time-triggered and event-triggered mode with RTX embedded operating system to manage the multi-tasks. A practical application verifies the performance of the proposed system, which achieves good effects for polycarboxylate superplasticizer manufacturing.
The Inducible Tissue-Specific Expression of the Human IL-3/GM-CSF Locus Is Controlled by a Complex Array of Developmentally Regulated Enhancers

The closely linked human IL-3 and GM-CSF genes are tightly regulated and are expressed in activated T cells and mast cells. In this study, we used transgenic mice to study the developmental regulation of this locus and to identify DNA elements required for its correct activity in vivo. Because these two genes are separated by a CTCF-dependent insulator, and the GM-CSF gene is regulated primarily by its own upstream enhancer, the main objective in this study was to identify regions of the locus required for correct IL-3 gene expression. We initially found that the previously identified proximal upstream IL-3 enhancers were insufficient to account for the in vivo activity of the IL-3 gene. However, an extended analysis of DNase I-hypersensitive sites (DHSs) spanning the entire upstream IL-3 intergenic region revealed the existence of a complex cluster of both constitutive and inducible DHSs spanning the −34- to −40-kb region. The tissue specificity of these DHSs mirrored the activity of the IL-3 gene, and included a highly inducible cyclosporin A-sensitive enhancer at −37 kb that increased IL-3 promoter activity 40-fold. Significantly, inclusion of this region enabled correct in vivo regulation of IL-3 gene expression in T cells, mast cells, and myeloid progenitor cells.
Multistep Finite Control Set Model Predictive Control for Power Electronics

For direct model predictive control with reference tracking of the converter current, we derive an efficient optimization algorithm that allows us to solve the control problem for very long prediction horizons. This is achieved by adapting sphere decoding principles to the underlying optimization problem. The proposed algorithm requires only few computations and directly provides the optimal switch positions. Since the computational burden of our algorithm is effectively independent of the number of converter output levels, the concept is particularly suitable for multilevel topologies with a large number of voltage levels. Our method is illustrated for the case of a variable speed drive system with a three-level voltage source converter.
[The mucosal changes and influencing factors in upper gastrointestinal anisakiasis: analysis of 141 cases].

BACKGROUND/AIMS Anisakiasis is a well known parasitosis resulted from eating raw seafoods and there were many reports of cases. However, its endoscopic and clinical characteristics have not been reviewed well. The aim of this study was to clarify the gastric mucosal changes and influencing factors of upper gastrointestinal (UGI) anisakiasis. METHODS We analyzed retrospectively the endoscopic and clinical characteristics of 141 cases with UGI anisakiasis diagnosed during UGI endoscopy, based on the review of medical records. The patients' data were collected consecutively from October 1999 through September 2006. RESULTS In the 141 patients with UGI anisakiasis, the peak age was the 40s (44.7%). The female to male ratio was 1.82:1. The most prevailed season was winter (41.1%). The most frequent symptom was acute epigastric pain and 76.6% of the patients developed symptoms within 12 hours after the ingestion of raw seafoods. The greater curvature of body was the most preferred site of anisakid larvae. The median time from meal to symptom onset was shortest in esophageal location and longest in fundus location (3 vs. 18.7 hours). The various mucosal changes were observed and the most frequent mucosal change was edema (90.8%). Submucosal tumor was also found in 31.9% of the patients. The severity of mucosal change was related inversely with the time interval from meal to endoscopy (p=0.048). CONCLUSIONS Anisakiasis presented various mucosal changes depending on the time interval from ingestion of raw seafood to endoscopy. Delayed endoscopy may lead chronic mucosal change and cause difficulty in the detection of anisakiasis. Therefore, the prompt endoscopic examination is required for the patients presenting acute gastrointestinal symptoms after taking raw fish.
Genetic analysis of neuroendocrine tumor cells in prostatic carcinoma

Neuroendocrine differentiated tumor cells can be found in the majority of prostatic adenocarcinomas. During antiandrogen or androgen‐withdrawal therapy the neuroendocrine differentiation is often increased but its prognostic value is discussed controversially. The origin of neuroendocrine tumor cells is under discussion. While double staining experiments suggest a non‐neoplastic pluripotent stem cell, in vitro studies demonstrate a transdifferentiation of exocrine tumor cells to a neuroendocrine phenotype.
Abnormal immunophenotype of the T‐cell‐receptor beta Chain in follicular‐helper T cells of angioimmunoblastic T‐cell lymphoma

Analysis for 24 variable regions of the T‐cell‐receptor beta chain by flow cytometry (Vbeta) is a new technique to detect clonal alpha‐beta T lymphocytes and is characteristically performed on peripheral blood. Angioimmunoblastic T‐cell lymphoma (AITL) has increased neoplastic follicular‐helper T cells (FHT), which often express CD10; but nonneoplastic, CD10‐positive T cells may be associated with reactive lymphadenopathy and with B‐cell lymphomas. This study documents the utility of Vbeta analysis of FHT in specimens of AITL from blood, from marrow, and from lymph nodes.
An evaluation of mental workload with frontal EEG

Using a wireless single channel EEG device, we investigated the feasibility of using short-term frontal EEG as a means to evaluate the dynamic changes of mental workload. Frontal EEG signals were recorded from twenty healthy subjects performing four cognitive and motor tasks, including arithmetic operation, finger tapping, mental rotation and lexical decision task. Our findings revealed that theta activity is the common EEG feature that increases with difficulty across four tasks. Meanwhile, with a short-time analysis window, the level of mental workload could be classified from EEG features with 65%–75% accuracy across subjects using a SVM model. These findings suggest that frontal EEG could be used for evaluating the dynamic changes of mental workload.