Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Beneficial Effects of Hydrocortisone in a Model of Experimental Acute Pancreatitis

Background: Proinflammatory cytokines like TNF-α and IL-8 have been thought to play a pivotal role in the propagation of severe acute pancreatitis (AP) and the development of its systemic complications, particularly acute lung injury. Objective: To investigate the effects of pretreatment with hydrocortisone on the production of cytokines and the occurrence of acute lung injury in rabbits with AP. Methods: AP was induced in 17 rabbits by infusion of 5% chenodeoxycholic acid into the pancreatic duct, followed by ductal ligation. The rabbits were allocated to pretreatment with subcutaneous and intravenous hydrocortisone (25 mg/kg, respectively; n = 7) or 0.9% saline (n = 10) 30 min before induction of AP. Rabbits were observed for 12 h. Serum amylase, lipase, TNF-α, IL-8, glucose, calcium and leukocyte count were measured every 3 h. At the end of the experimental period, ascitic fluid was collected and tissue specimens from the pancreas, lungs and kidney were obtained. Results: Hydrocortisone pretreatment improved survival from 40 to 100%. Serum TNF-α and IL-8 were lower in the hydrocortisone group than in the control group at 6 h (p = 0.006 and p < 0.001, respectively). Hydrocortisone abolished leukopenia (p < 0.001), hyperamylasemia (p = 0.05), the occurrence of acute lung injury and reduced the volume of ascites. Conclusions: Our findings suggest a role for TNF-α and IL-8 in mediating the progress of AP from a local disease into a systemic illness. Hydrocortisone should be tested experimentally after the induction of AP and clinically as a prophylactic measure to avoid severe AP induced by endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreaticography.
Development and Characterization of Surface Micro-Machined MEMS Based Varactor

Abstract This paper presents complete behavioral analysis of a surface micro-machined MEMS varactor for frequency tuning application in voltage controlled oscillators in RF applications with high Quality factor and tunability. The dimensions of the MEMS device have been optimized with Finite Element Method based CoventorWare analysis and verified through lumped parameter analysis in Saber platform. The MEMS varactor has been fabricated with the PolyMUMPs process. The paper also describes the Mechanical and electrical characterization of the MEMS varactor to meet the designed specification.
The distribution of antibacterial agents between plasma and lymph in the dog

1 Plasma, peripheral and thoracic lymph concentrations of penicillin V, phenethicillin, carbenicillin, ampicillin, cloxacillin, penicillin G, chloramphenicol and sulphadiazine were determined at various time intervals up to 6 h following intramuscular administration of 50 mg/kg to dogs. 2 Peak plasma concentrations of the penicillins occurred within half an hour after administration with the peak lymphatic concentrations occurring 1.5 to 3 h afterwards. For the remaining period of the test the concentration in the lymph exceeded the corresponding concentration in the plasma. Sulphadiazine gave concentrations in thoracic lymph equal to the plasma concentration, but the peripheral lymph concentrations were lower while the concentrations of chloramphenicol in both peripheral and thoracic lymph were always lower than the plasma concentrations. 3 After the peak concentrations were reached, the concentration curves for penicillins in lymph followed the same pattern as found in plasma, the penicillin concentrations declining exponentially. Sulphadiazine produced more persistent levels both in lymph and in plasma while the concentrations of chloramphenicol were still rising 6 h after administration. 4 The free concentrations of penicillin in lymph were equal to the free concentrations in plasma, whereas the concentrations of free sulphadiazine and chloramphenicol in lymph were less than those in the plasma.
Crystallization of alkane melts induced by carbon nanotubes and graphene nanosheets: a molecular dynamics simulation study.

The crystallization of alkane melts on carbon nanotubes (CNT) and the surface of graphene nanosheets (GNS) is investigated using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. The crystallization process of the alkane melts is analyzed in terms of the bond-orientational order parameter, atomic radial distribution for the CNT/alkane, atomic longitudinal distribution for the GNS/alkane, and diffusion properties. The dimensional effects of the different carbon-based nanostructures on the crystallization of alkane melts are shown. It is found that one-dimensional CNT has a stronger ability to induce the crystallization of the polymer than that of two-dimensional GNS, which provides a support at molecular level for the experimental observation [Li et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc. , 2006, 128, 1692 and Xu et al., Macromolecules, 2010, 43, 5000]. From the MD simulations, we also find that the crystallization of alkane molecules has been completed with the highly cooperative processes of adsorption and orientation.
Decision‐making in chronic ecstasy users: a systematic review

Different cognitive impairments have been reported as a result of long‐term MDMA/ecstasy use. Increased impulsivity and altered decision‐making have been shown to be associated with the development and maintenance of addictive disorders pointing toward the necessity to understand a potential impairment of decision‐making due to MDMA use. Thus, assessing the long‐term effects of MDMA is crucial in order to evaluate its controversially discussed therapeutic use. The aim of this systematic review was to summarize the scientific literature on potential effects of chronic MDMA use on higher order decision‐making processes in humans. Therefore, a systematic search for controlled trials relevant to the topic has been performed. Only studies using specific tasks on decision‐making were included that involved subjects in the drug‐free interval with drug‐naïve, and/or polydrug control groups. A total of 12 studies could be identified that met the inclusion criteria, all of which were cross‐sectional studies. The findings on decision‐making disturbances in MDMA users were heterogeneous. Seven studies reported increased risky decisions, whereas five studies did not find MDMA‐specific influences on decision‐making. Increased impulsivity was observed both in MDMA groups and in (poly)drug control groups in almost all studies. Thus, the current state of research does not allow for the conclusion that long‐term use of MDMA affects decision‐making behavior in general. More detailed specifications as well as further investigations of the relevant processes are needed. Significant tendencies toward risky decision‐making among long‐term MDMA use have been observed, but need to be confirmed by studies using a longitudinal design.
Large Deviations Approximations for Fluid Queues Fed by a Large Number of On/Off Sources

A general logarithmic equivalent is given for the stationary complementary distribution function of a fluid queue fed by a large number of on/off sources. Close asymptotic approximations are also provided. These approximations are numerically validated and applied to the dimensioning of an ATM multiplexer offered variable bit rate sources of general on/off type. >
Longitudinal changes of associations between the preproghrelin Leu72Met polymorphism with depression in Chinese Han adolescents after the Wenchuan earthquake

Aim The present study aimed to investigate longitudinal associations of preproghrelin Leu72Met with depression in Chinese Han adolescents after the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008. Materials and methods A total of 709 volunteers were enrolled from a high school near the epicenter of the earthquake and 662, 643, and 510 students were finally included at 6, 12, and 18 months, respectively, after the earthquake. Depressive symptoms were assessed using the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). The genotypes were identified by PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism analyses and verified by DNA sequencing. Results Females had a higher prevalence of depression than males at 6 months after the earthquake in 72Leu/Leu homozygotes (&khgr;2-test, P=0.007), but not in 72Met allele carriers. 72Met allele carriers had lower prevalence (&khgr;2-test, P=0.025) and BDI scores (Kruskal–Wallis test, P=0.034) than 72Leu/Leu homozygotes only among males at 18 months, but not at 6 or 12 months. The prevalence was consecutively decreased in male 72Met allele carriers (&khgr;2-test, P=0.010), but not in male 72Leu/Leu homozygotes, female 72Met allele carriers, or female 72Leu/Leu homozygotes during follow-up. Potential factors of depression prevalence and predictors of BDI scores were different between 72Leu/Leu homozygotes and 72Met allele carriers at different time points during follow-up. Conclusion These results suggest that the 72Met allele of the preproghrelin Leu72Met polymorphism may be associated with rehabilitation of depression in male Chinese Han adolescents after the natural disaster.
Scattering of an E-polarized plane wave by a dielectric filled slotted cylinder

Studies scattering by a dielectric filled, slotted metal cylinder. The incident field is a plane wave with E-vector parallel to the axis of the cylinder. The problem is solved using a convergent low frequency solution as well as by the method of moments, and the two solutions are found to be in good agreement. They also agree quite well with experiment. Explicit expressions for the scattered far field are obtained in the low frequency limit, and many curves are presented in the range 1≤2π×radius/wavelength≤10.
A physiologically based in silico kinetic model predicting plasma cholesterol concentrations in humans[S]

Increased plasma cholesterol concentration is associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease. This study describes the development, validation, and analysis of a physiologically based kinetic (PBK) model for the prediction of plasma cholesterol concentrations in humans. This model was directly adapted from a PBK model for mice by incorporation of the reaction catalyzed by cholesterol ester transfer protein and contained 21 biochemical reactions and eight different cholesterol pools. The model was calibrated using published data for humans and validated by comparing model predictions on plasma cholesterol levels of subjects with 10 different genetic mutations (including familial hypercholesterolemia and Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome) with experimental data. Average model predictions on total cholesterol were accurate within 36% of the experimental data, which was within the experimental margin. Sensitivity analysis of the model indicated that the HDL cholesterol (HDL-C) concentration was mainly dependent on hepatic transport of cholesterol to HDL, cholesterol ester transfer from HDL to non-HDL, and hepatic uptake of cholesterol from non-HDL-C. Thus, the presented PBK model is a valid tool to predict the effect of genetic mutations on cholesterol concentrations, opening the way for future studies on the effect of different drugs on cholesterol levels in various subpopulations in silico.
How Seryl-Phosphorylated HPr Inhibits PrfA, a Transcription Activator of Listeria monocytogenes Virulence Genes

Listeria monocytogenes PrfA, a transcription activator for several virulence genes, including the hemolysin-encoding hly, is inhibited by rapidly metabolizable carbon sources (glucose, fructose, etc.). This inhibition is not mediated via the major carbon catabolite repression mechanism of gram-positive bacteria, since inactivation of the catabolite control protein A (CcpA) did not prevent the repression of virulence genes by the above sugars. In order to test whether the catabolite co-repressor P-Ser-HPr might be involved in PrfA regulation, we used a Bacillus subtilis strain (BUG1199) containing L. monocytogenes prfA under control of pspac and the lacZ reporter gene fused to the PrfA-activated hly promoter. Formation of P-Ser-HPr requires the bifunctional HPr kinase/phosphorylase (HprK/P), which, depending on the concentration of certain metabolites, either phosphorylates HPr at Ser-46 or dephosphorylates P-Ser-HPr. The hprKV267F allele codes for an HprK/P leading to the accumulation of P-Ser-HPr, since it has normal kinase, but almost no phosphorylase activity. Interestingly, introducing hprKV267F into BUG1199 strongly inhibited transcription activation by PrfA. Preventing the accumulation of P-Ser-HPr in the hprKV267F mutant by replacing Ser-46 in HPr with an alanine restored PrfA activity, while ccpA inactivation had no effect. Interestingly, disruption of ccpA in the hprK wild-type strain BUG1199 also led to inhibition of PrfA. The lowered lacZ expression in the ccpA strain is probably also due to elevated amounts of P-Ser-HPr, since it disappeared when Ser-46 in HPr was replaced with an alanine. To carry out its catalytic function in sugar transport, HPr of the phosphotransferase system (PTS) is also phosphorylated by phosphoenolpyruvate and enzyme I at His-15. However, P-Ser-HPr is only very slowly phosphorylated by enzyme I, which probably accounts for PrfA inhibition. In agreement with this concept, disruption of the enzyme I- or HPr-encoding genes also strongly inhibited PrfA activity. PrfA activity therefore seems to depend on a fully functional PTS phosphorylation cascade.
From cardiac repair to cardiac regeneration – ready to translate?

Cardiovascular disease is a major public health challenge in the western world. Mortality of acute events has improved, but more patients develop HF – a condition affecting up to 22 million people worldwide. Cell transplantation is the first therapy to attempt replacement of lost cardiomyocytes and vasculature to restore lost contractile function. Since the first reported functional repair after injection of autologous skeletal myoblasts into the injured heart in 1998, a variety of cell types have been proposed for transplantation in different stages of cardiovascular disease. Fifteen years of preclinical research and the rapid move into clinical studies have left us with promising results and a better understanding of cells as a potential clinical tool. Cell-based cardiac repair has been the first step, but cardiac regeneration remains the more ambitious goal. Promising new cell types and the rapidly evolving concept of adult stem and progenitor cell fate may enable us to move towards regenerating viable and functional myocardium. Meeting a multidisciplinary consensus will be required to translate these findings into safe and applicable clinical tools.
Preliminary Results of the South Vanuatu Archaeological Survey: Cultural Landscapes, Excavation, and Radiocarbon Dating

abstract:South Vanuatu was an important hub of settlement and interaction in the tropical southwestern Pacific. A recent field project, the South Vanuatu Archaeological Survey, has begun carrying out field research, focusing initially on the islands of Futuna, Aniwa, and Tanna. This work builds upon pioneering research carried out in the 1960s, which in these islands has not been followed up until the last five years or so. We present initial findings from survey and test excavations carried out in 2016, including new radiocarbon dates for the region and the discovery of pottery on Tanna.
Imaging findings in agenesis of the dorsal pancreas. Report of three cases.

CONTEXT Agenesis of the dorsal pancreas is rare. The dorsal pancreatic agenesis is described in two forms, the partial and the complete form. PATIENTS with this anomaly may be asymptomatic or may present with diabetes mellitus, epigastric pain, acute or chronic pancreatitis. CASE REPORT We report the computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatography (MRCP) findings in three cases with dorsal pancreatic agenesis, one with partial and the other two with complete form. Speckled calcification at pancreatic head was observed in one patient. Lateral contour lobulation of pancreatic head which is seen in one third of normal population is believed to be due to variation in fusion between ventral and dorsal pancreas. In contrast, we observed lateral contour lobulation of pancreatic head in a case of complete agenesis of the dorsal pancreas where structures derived from dorsal pancreas are undeveloped. The ventral and dorsal pancreatic duct lengths were measured on MRCP images and we observed that in partial agenesis, the duct of Wirsung was shorter in length, compared to the duct of Santorini. The duct of Wirsung was relatively longer in cases of complete agenesis of the dorsal pancreas. CONCLUSION The CT, MRI and MRCP findings in dorsal pancreatic agenesis and the relationship between the length of ventral duct with the type of dorsal pancreatic agenesis will provide a new insight into this particular anomaly.
Violence in stalking situations

Background Stalking is often viewed as a precursor to violence, but determining which stalkers might attack is a difficult task. This study overcomes shortfalls in previous investigations by adopting a pseudo-prospective design and examining potential risk factors for different types of stalker. Method Demographic, behavioural and diagnostic information was collected from stalkers referred to a community forensic mental health service (n=211). Potential risk factors for stalking violence were identified using odds ratios and χ2 tests, and entered into logistic regression models. Model utility was assessed using receiver operating characteristic curves. Results Amongst Rejected ex-intimate stalkers, violence was best predicted by previous violence, making threats and being employed (area under the curve=0.75), while for stalkers with other motives and relationships to the victim, being aged less than 30 years, substance use at the time of stalking and prior violence best predicted stalking violence (area under the curve=0.80). Conclusions Stalkers at increased risk of violence can be accurately identified by examining motivational and relationship type in conjunction with specific relevant risk factors. Previous violence is a particularly important risk factor, as are threats amongst ex-intimate stalkers. Approach behaviours and psychosis were shown to be less useful in predicting violence.
Side-Channel Attacks on BTree

An increasing need for parallelism have pushed the CPU designers to let different processes running at the same time on a shared hardware resource. This can be both beneficial in terms of doing more computation in fixed amount of time but can potentially introduce new challenges which has not been considered before. Another increasing service offered today is cloud computing. Similar to the idea of parallelism, a hardware is shared with different users allowing them to run their process independently. There has been efforts to secure each process in software space, however the possible leakages in micro-architecture has been ignored. Since processes basically share same resource, one process can act a spy process and track the usage of the shared resource and gain some information about the other process which we call it victim process. One example of this shared resource is a cache. Two processes run on a same core share L1/L2/L3 cache while two processes running on different core share L3 cache. Caches were identified as a possible source of leakage as early as 2005 in a work by Percival [1]. This is one of the preliminary works in the area which mentioned that the caches are possible source of side-channel attacks in a processor. Zhang et al. [? ] showed an attack which could retrieve cryptographic key by an attacker which is running on separate VM from victim. In another work Yarom and Falkner [3] showed Flush and Reload attack on L3 cache. In this work the attacker and victim are using shared library which gives an ability to attacker to flush a line which is being used by victim. Acıiçmez [? ] showed for the first time that instruction cache can also be a source of leakage and attacked OpenSSL’s RSA implementation. There is a timing difference between cache hit and cache miss. As it can be seen in Figure 1 the blue distribution is for the case when the accessed data is loaded from memory, hence slow access, and the red distribution is for the case where data is loaded from cache, hence fast access. In other word, based on the location of data the amount of time it takes to load the data varies. The attack scenario works as following. Two process will share a cache. Attacker monitors one line of the shared cache. Based on the time it takes for the attacker
PHOTOREVERSIBILITY OF INDUCED MUTATIONS IN A NONPHOTOREACTIVABLE STRAIN OF ESCHERICHIA COLI.

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Compact High-Isolation LTCC Diplexer Using Common Stub-Loaded Resonator With Controllable Frequencies and Bandwidths

In this paper, a low-temperature co-fired ceramic (LTCC) diplexer is presented with compact size and high isolation. By using the common stub-loaded resonator shared by two channel filters, combining and matching networks are eliminated and only three resonators are used to design the two second-order channel filters, resulting in simple structure and miniaturized size. A novel transmission path is utilized to not only realize the higher channel filter but also prevent the signal at the lower frequency band. And a specific coupling region is selected to simultaneously realize the coupling strength required by lower channel filter and a transmission zero at higher-band frequency. In this way, each channel filter can generate a transmission zero at the passband frequency of the other channel filter, resulting in high isolation. Moreover, the bandwidths and center frequencies of the two channel filters can be individually controlled due to the design flexibility of the multilayer LTCC structure. For demonstration, a diplexer operating at 3.5 and 5.5 GHz is fabricated. The core circuit has the compact size of 1.9 mm <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\times1.7$ </tex-math></inline-formula> mm <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\times2$ </tex-math></inline-formula> mm or <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$0.054~\lambda _{g} \times 0.048 \lambda _{g} \times 0.057~\lambda _{g}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>. Within the 3-dB passbands of the lower and higher channel filters, the measured isolation levels are better than 40 and 45 dB, respectively.