Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Model-based assessment of cardiovascular autonomic control in children with obstructive sleep apnea.

STUDY OBJECTIVES To quantitatively assess daytime autonomic cardiovascular control in pediatric subjects with and without obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS). DESIGN Respiration, R-R intervals, and noninvasive continuous blood pressure were monitored in awake subjects in the supine and standing postures, as well as during cold face stimulation. SETTING Sleep disorders laboratory in a hospital setting. PARTICIPANTS Ten pediatric patients (age 11.4 +/- 3.6 years) with moderate to severe OSAS (obstructive apnea-hypopnea index = 21.0 +/- 6.6/1 h) before treatment and 10 age-matched normal control subjects (age 11.5 +/- 3.7 years). MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS Spectral analysis of heart rate variability revealed that high-frequency power was similar and the ratio of low- to high-frequency power was lower in subjects with OSAS vs control subjects. The closed-loop minimal model allowed heart rate variability to be partitioned into a component mediated by respiratory-cardiac coupling and a baroreflex component, whereas blood pressure variability was assumed to result from the direct effects of respiration and fluctuations in cardiac output. Baroreflex gain was lower in subjects with OSAS vs control subjects. Under orthostatic stress, respiratory-cardiac coupling gain decreased in both subject groups, but baroreflex gain decreased only in controls. The model was extended to incorporate time-varying parameter changes for analysis of the data collected during cold face stimulation: cardiac output gain increased in controls but remained unchanged in OSAS. CONCLUSIONS Our findings suggest that vagal modulation of the heart remains relatively normal in pediatric subjects with OSAS. However, baseline cardiovascular sympathetic activity is elevated, and reactivity to autonomic challenges is impaired.
Expanding Holistic Nursing to the Community-as-Client

Following the shocking events of September 11, 2001, many Americans became more aware of how much we are all connected to one another. Our country has a long history of developing communities where people work together for a common good while retaining their unique identities as individuals. Holistic nursing as we know it has had a tendency to focus a great deal on the health and well-being of the individual yet retain an awareness of the individual in perpetual interaction with the larger community and the environment. As I prepared the content for this issue of the journal, I began to think about the literature we have published in recent years. In the past 12 issues, we have read about everything from adolescent suicide to Shiatsu for low back pain; all have focused on the individual. However, since 1999, the Journal of Holistic Nursing has published only one article that focused primarily on the concept of community. In that article, which presents an integrative model for holistic community health nursing, Laffrey and Kulbok (1999) argued that the emerging health care system is one that requires an integration of care that goes beyond the individual and that requires a team approach. They continued to describe the need for holistic nursing care that addresses the “community-as-client” (p. 99). They added that when the community is viewed as client, much can be accomplished in the areas of disease prevention, illness care, and health promotion. In this issue, I am pleased to publish a unique article by Melissa Copeland (2002) entitled “e-Community Health Nursing. ” I think this is a very novel approach to practicing holistic nursing with an aggregate of underserved individuals. I hope this will encourage other holistic nurses to expand their view of client to include family
Performance investigation of SLICOT system identification toolbox

This paper summarizes the results obtained through a systematic and extensive investigation of the performance of the new system identification toolbox, SLIDENT, incorporated in the freely available Fortran 77 Subroutine Library in Control Theory (SLICOT). This toolbox provides drivers, computational routines, and Matlab or Scilab interfaces, which implement two algorithmic subspace-based approaches (MOESP and N4SID) and their combination, either standard or fast techniques for data compression, and offers abilities to process multiple data batches, connected or not. The input-output data sets considered in this investigation include those in the DAISY collection, freely available at the site www.esat. kuleuven.ac. be/sista/daisy, which contains several large data sets from various domains. Extensive comparisons with the available subspace techniques have been made. The results show that SLIDENT is reliable, efficient, and powerful enough to solve large identification problems.
Gender and risk behaviors for HIV and sexually transmitted infections among recently released inmates: A prospective cohort study

Women in prison have a higher prevalence of HIV than men. After release from prison, former inmates have the opportunity to engage in risk behaviors for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs). We sought to assess change in risk behaviors over time and the association of gender with risk behavior in the postrelease period. In this prospective cohort study, we interviewed 200 former inmates (51 women) approximately two weeks (baseline) and three months (follow-up) after release and tested them for HIV infection at follow-up. We examined the association of gender with unprotected vaginal or anal sex in the last seven days using chi-square and Fisher's exact tests and multivariable logistic regression. At baseline, 22% of men and 41% of women reported unprotected vaginal sex (p < 0.01) and 5% of men and 8% of women reported unprotected anal sex (p = 0.51). Being younger (OR for each decade increase 0.48, 95% CI = 0.29–0.80), being gay/lesbian or being bisexual (compared with being heterosexual, OR = 4.74, 95% CI = 1.01–22.17 and OR = 3.98, 95% CI = 1.41–11.26, respectively), or reporting a drug of choice of heroin/speedballs or cocaine/crack (compared with marijuana/no drug of choice, OR = 24.00, 95% CI = 5.15–111.81 and OR = 3.49, 95% CI = 1.20–10.18, respectively) was associated with unprotected vaginal or anal sex after adjusting for race, homelessness, and hazardous drinking. At follow-up, 21% of men and 44% of women reported unprotected sex (p = 0.005), and female gender (OR = 4.42, 95% CI = 1.79–10.94) and hazardous drinking (compared with not meeting criteria for hazardous drinking, OR = 3.64, 95% CI = 1.34–9.86) were associated with unprotected sex, adjusting for race and homelessness. In this population with a high prevalence of HIV, we demonstrated persistent engagement in sexual risk behavior during the postrelease period. Enhanced efforts to promote sexual health and reduced risk behavior among both male and female current and former prison inmates are needed, including improved access to preventive care and HIV and STI screening, testing, and treatment.
Hippocampal mossy fiber sprouting and synapse formation after status epilepticus in rats: Visualization after retrograde transport of biocytin

In complex partial epilepsy and in animal models of epilepsy, hippocampal mossy fibers appear to develop recurrent collaterals, that invade the dentate molecular layer. Mossy fiber collaterals have been proposed to subserve recurrent excitation by forming granule cell‐granule cell synapses. This hypothesis was tested by visualizing dentate granule cells and their mossy fibers after terminal uptake and retrograde transport of biocytin. Labeling studies were performed with transverse slices of the caudal rat hippocampal formation prepared 2.6–l70.0 weeks after pilocarpine‐induced or kainic acid‐induced status epilepticus. Light microscopy demonstrated the progressive growth of recurrent mossy fibers into the molecular layer; the densest innervation was observed in slices from pilocarpine‐treated rats that had survived 10 weeks or longer after status epilepticus. Thin mossy fiber collaterals originated predominantly from deep within the hilar region, crossed the granule cell body layer, and formed an axonal plexus oriented parallel to the cell body layer within the inner one‐third of the molecular layer. When sprouting was most robust, some recurrent mossy fibers at the apex of the dentate gyrus reached the outer two‐thirds of the molecular layer. The distribution and density of mossy fiber‐like Timm staining correlated with the biocytin labeling. When viewed with the electron microscope, the inner one‐third of the dentate molecular layer contained numerous mossy fiber boutons. In some instances, biocytin‐labeled mossy fiber boutons were engaged in synaptic contact with biocytin‐labeled granule cell dendrites. Granule cell dendrites did not develop large complex spines (“thorny excrescences”) at the site of synapse formation, and they did not appear to have been permanently damaged by seizure activity. These results establish the validity of Timm staining as a marker for mossy fiber sprouting and support the view that status epilepticus provokes the formation of a novel recurrent excitatory circuit in the dentate gyrus. Retrograde labeling with biocytin showed that the recurrent mossy fiber projection often occupies a considerably greater fraction of the dendritic region than previous studies had suggested. © 1995 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Optimizing resources on smartphone gait recognition

Inertial gait recognition is a biometric modality with increasing interest. Gait recognition in smartphones could become one of the most user-friendly recognition systems. Some state-of-art algorithms need to perform cross-comparisons of gait cycles to obtain a comparison result. In this contribution, two facts are studied in order to reduce the computational cost: the influence of using representative gait cycles and the gait signals length. The results obtained show that cross-comparisons could be performed with representative gait cycles without heavily penalizing accuracy and reducing computational cost, and that selecting representative gait cycles from the end of the signal perform better that the ones on the beginning.
RELATIONSHIP OF SLEEP QUALITY AND COPETITVE ANXIETY IN A SAMPLE OF SWIMMING ATHLETES

Consistent specialists in the field of psychology that Anxiety has been one of the most extensively researched topics in sport psychology (Woodman & Hardy, 2003). Although there have been many theories and models in anxiety. There appears to be only consensus on the notion that anxiety is a multidimensional concept (Polman, Rowcliffe, Borkoles, & Levy, 2007). That is, anxiety consists of three independent: Cognitive concern is what is happening as a result of the negative impact on the expected success, or by the negative impact of self-assessment for the player of some individuals, such as the coach. The works of this kind of concern for the weakening of the ability of on attention and concentration during the competition due to increased negative thoughts spam. The concern physical is a reflection of the psychological aspects of the state of physical play, and characteristic features of this type of concern what happens to athletes from increased heart rate and increased respiratory rate and sweating hands and stomach disorders and muscle tension and the self-confidence, a positive dimension in the face of anxiety factor (Boudhiba, Moalla, Arfa, & Kridis, 2015).
Is there a structure equivalent to the mammalian basolateral amygdaloid complex in amphibians?

To the Editor: RE: ‘Evolution of the amygdaloid complex in vertebrates, with special reference to the anamnio-amniotic transition’ by Moreno and Gonzalez. Journal of Anatomy, Vol. 211, pp. 151–163. Moreno and Gonzalez, in their review on the evolution of the amygdala, omitted to mention that their consideration of the amphibian ‘lateral’ amygdala as a multisensorial structure equivalent to the basolateral amygdaloid complex of mammals is controversial. We have proposed elsewhere that the absence of dorsal thalamic input to the lateral portions of the amygdala in amphibians precludes its role as a multisensory associative region, as is expected from parts of the basolateral complex (Laberge et al., 2006). In a study of sensory responses in the toad telencephalon, responses to sensory modalities other than olfaction were only found in the medial parts of the amygdala (Laberge & Roth, 2007). Our recent results further show that intracellularly labeled thalamic neurons do not send axon branches to the lateral parts of the amygdala in the toad Bombina orientalis (F. Laberge, S. Muhlenbrock-Lenter, U. Dicke and G. Roth unpublished data). Species differences could exist, but we feel that the assertion by Moreno and Gonzalez that the lateral amygdala represents a structure equivalent to the basolateral amygdaloid complex of mammals is not yet supported by experimental observations of thalamic input and multimodal sensory responses in this region.
Anosognosia in mild cognitive impairment and mild Alzheimer's disease: frequency and neuropsychological correlates.

OBJECTIVES To evaluate severity of anosognosia and to identify its neuropsychological correlates in preclinical and clinical Alzheimer's Disease (AD). METHODS The Clinical Insight Rating Scale, the Anosognosia Questionnaire for Dementia (AQ-D), and the Mental Deterioration Battery were used to assess anosognosia and cognitive performances in mild AD (N = 38), amnesic mild cognitive impairment (a-MCI; N = 35), and multiple domain MCI (md-MCI; N = 38). RESULTS Patients with mild AD were more anosognosic than both MCI groups, which, however, did not differ from one other. A categorical diagnosis of anosognosia was made in 42% of patients with mild AD, 3% of md-MCI, but in no subjects with a-MCI. Reduced verbal episodic memory raw score was associated with decreased awareness of cognitive difficulties (AQ-D total and intellectual functioning scores) only in MCI. In mild AD, anosognosia was linked only to increased age and reduced basic activities of daily living performances. CONCLUSIONS The diagnosis of anosognosia is frequent in patients with mild AD but not in those with MCI. In the latter case, the authors cannot speak of true anosognosia but only of decreased awareness of illness. Furthermore, reduced awareness of cognitive difficulties is linked with verbal memory performances in patients with MCI but not in those with AD, suggesting for the latter the involvement of factors other than neuropsychological. Thus, neuropsychiatric dimensions commonly present in patients with AD should be investigated along with anosognosia.
Antidepressant-induced mania and cycle acceleration: a controversy revisited.

OBJECTIVE The longitudinal course of 51 patients with treatment-refractory bipolar disorder was examined to assess possible effects of heterocyclic antidepressants on occurrence of manic episodes and cycle acceleration. METHOD Using criteria established from life charts, investigators rated the patients' episodes of mania or cycle acceleration as likely or unlikely to have been induced by antidepressant therapy. Discriminant function analyses were performed to assess predictors of vulnerability to antidepressant-induced mania or cycle acceleration. Further, the likelihood of future antidepressant-induced episodes in persons who had had one such episode was assessed. RESULTS Thirty-five percent of the patients had a manic episode rated as likely to have been antidepressant-induced. No variable was a predictor of vulnerability to antidepressant-induced mania. Cycle acceleration was likely to be associated with antidepressant treatment in 26% of the patients assessed. Younger age at first treatment was a predictor of vulnerability to antidepressant-induced cycle acceleration. Forty-six percent of patients with antidepressant-induced mania, but only 14% of those without, also showed antidepressant-induced cycle acceleration at some point in their illness. CONCLUSIONS Mania is likely to be antidepressant-induced and not attributable to the expected course of illness in one-third of treatment-refractory bipolar patients, and rapid cycling is induced in one-fourth. Antidepressant-induced mania may be a marker for increased vulnerability to antidepressant-induced cycle acceleration. Antidepressant-induced cycle acceleration (but not antidepressant-induced mania) is associated with younger age at first treatment and may be more likely to occur in women and in bipolar II patients.
A NOVEL TECHNIQUE FOR SCALABLE, EFFICIENT DEPLOYMENT OF SOFTWARE IN CLOUD COMPUTING ENVIRONMENTS

In modern computing environments (Clouds, Data Centers, multi-tiered applications, etc.) deployment of software encounters the obstacle of handling heterogeneity. Real-world solutions are built by combining various technologies, programming languages, platforms, Operating Systems, and applications. The deployment mechanism not only has to adapt to a changing environment but it has to also respond gracefully to unanticipated demand surges by scaling-out and scaling-in to meet performance requirements. For these reasons, deployment of software in heterogeneous environment is a challenging task. Efficient resource provisioning plays a key role in ensuring that global service providers (like Google) adequately accomplish their performance obligations to customers while maximizing the utilization of the underlying environment. In this paper, we propose a novel deployment mechanism which can efficiently provision, de-provision and maintain services in heterogeneous environments. Our approach creates software packages by embedding parameter values within binaries in a way which is compatible with most target environments allowing for seamless provisioning, tracking, maintenance and de-provisioning of services in a robust manner without requiring specialized agents deployed in target environments. We have validated our mechanism by constructing prototypes and the results demonstrated that it is possible to scale-out and scale-in rapidly in response to the demand fluctuations by automating deployment mechanism in a heterogeneous environment.
Drug-Induced Nephrotoxicity In The Newborn : The State Of The Art

The kidney is vulnerable to drugs because of its high blood flow and large capillary surface area, its role as the excretory route for many drugs and its detoxifying action. Glomeruli, tubules, interstitium and arterioles may be altered. It is important for the nenatologist to recognize the problem of drug-induced kidney injury because the causative agents are very commonly prescribed, nephrotoxicity is frequent and reversible in many patients. Drug-induced renal failure is often non-oliguric. Early diagnosis of nephrotoxicity is essential since dosage adjustment or discontinuation of renally excreted drugs may prevent further iatrogenic damage. Thus monitoring of renal function is essential and prevention is mandatory.
Nitric Oxide Donor, (±)-S-Nitroso-N-acetylpenicillamine, Stabilizes Transactive Hypoxia-Inducible Factor-1α by Inhibiting von Hippel-Lindau Recruitment and Asparagine Hydroxylation

We have confirmed that the NO donor (±)-S-nitroso-N-acetylpenicillamine (SNAP) stabilizes the transactive form of hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α), leading to the induction of HIF-1α target genes such as vascular endothelial growth factor and carbonic anhydrase 9. Activation of HIF-1α should require inhibition of the dual system that keeps it inactive. One is ubiquitination, which is triggered by hydroxylation of HIF-1α-proline and the subsequent binding of E3 ubiquitin ligase, the von Hippel Lindau (VHL) protein. The other is hydroxylation of HIF-1α-asparagine, which reduces the affinity of HIF-1α for its coactivator, cAMP responsive element binding protein/p300. We examined the effects of the NO donor SNAP on proline and asparagine hydroxylation of HIF-1α peptides by measuring the activities of the corresponding enzymes, HIF-1α-specific proline hydroxylase 2 (PHD2) and the HIF-1α-specific asparagine hydroxylase, designated factor inhibiting HIF-1α (FIH-1), respectively. We found that the SNAP did not prevent PHD2 from hydroxylating the proline of HIF-1α. Instead, it blocked the interaction between VHL and the proline-hydroxylated HIF-1α, but only when the reducing agents Fe(II) and vitamin C were limiting. The fact that the absence of cysteine 520 of HIF-1α abolishes its responsiveness to SNAP suggests that this residue mediates the inhibition by SNAP of the interaction between VHL and HIF-1α, presumably by S-nitrosylation of HIF-1α. Un-like PHD2, asparagine hydroxylation by FIH-1 was directly inhibited by SNAP, but again only when reducing agents were limiting. Substitution of cysteine 800 of HIF-1α with alanine failed to reverse the inhibitory effects of SNAP on asparagine hydroxylation, implying that FIH-1, not its substrate HIF-1α, is inhibited by SNAP.
Multitarget tracking with the Cubature Kalman probability hypothesis density filter

In this paper we investigate the problem of jointly estimating a time varying number of targets and their locations from sets of noisy range measurements received at fixed anchor nodes in presence of association uncertainty and clutter measurements. To do so we use the Probability Hypothesis Density (PHD) filter, a recent approximation to the generalized Bayesian formulation of the multitarget tracking (MTT) problem in which both targets states Xk and measurements Yk at the generic time k are modeled as Random Finite Sets (RFS). A closed-form solution to the PHD recursion for linear Gaussian systems exists in the form of a Gaussian Mixture (GM), however, due to the nonlinearity existing between observations and state model in the scenario under consideration, we propose to incorporate the Cubature Kalman Filter (CKF) inside the GM-PHD filter. The performance for the proposed CKF-GM-PHD filter is compared against the linearized (EKF-based) version of the PHD recursion. The results show that the CKF-based solution is far more robust than the other solutions both in terms of cardinality as well as in terms of location estimates.
The Ectromelia Virus SPI-2 Protein Causes Lethal Mousepox by Preventing NK Cell Responses

ABSTRACT Ectromelia virus (ECTV) is a natural pathogen of mice that causes mousepox, and many of its genes have been implicated in the modulation of host immune responses. Serine protease inhibitor 2 (SPI-2) is one of these putative ECTV host response modifier proteins. SPI-2 is conserved across orthopoxviruses, but results defining its mechanism of action and in vivo function are lacking or contradictory. We studied the role of SPI-2 in mousepox by deleting the SPI-2 gene or its serine protease inhibitor reactive site. We found that SPI-2 does not affect viral replication or cell-intrinsic apoptosis pathways, since mutant viruses replicate in vitro as efficiently as wild-type virus. However, in the absence of SPI-2 protein, ECTV is attenuated in mousepox-susceptible mice, resulting in lower viral loads in the liver, decreased spleen pathology, and substantially improved host survival. This attenuation correlates with more effective immune responses in the absence of SPI-2, including an earlier serum gamma interferon (IFN-γ) response, raised serum interleukin 18 (IL-18), increased numbers of granzyme B+ CD8+ T cells, and, most notably, increased numbers and activation of NK cells. Both virus attenuation and the improved immune responses associated with SPI-2 deletion from ECTV are lost when mice are depleted of NK cells. Consequently, SPI-2 renders mousepox lethal in susceptible strains by preventing protective NK cell defenses.