Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Inflammation and matrix metalloproteinases in the enlarging abdominal aortic aneurysm.

The risk of rupture of an abdominal aortic aneurysm increases with aortic diameter. To obtain insight into the pathological processes associated with the vascular remodeling that accompanies aortic dilatation, we compared the histological features and the activity of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) in biopsies from 21 small (4.0 to 5.5 cm in diameter) and 45 larger abdominal aortic aneurysms. The histological feature most clearly associated with enlarging aneurysm diameter was a higher density of inflammatory cells in the adventitia, P = . 018. This inflammation was nonspecific, principally macrophages and B lymphocytes. Fibrosis of the adventitia provided compensatory thickening of the aortic wall as the aneurysm diameter increased. A combination of zymography and immunoblotting identified gelatinase A (MMP-2) as the principal metallogelatinase in small aneurysms, whereas zymography indicated an increasing activity of gelatinase B (MMP-9) in large aneurysms. Homogenates prepared from both small and large aneurysms had similar total activity against gelatin or type IV collagen. However, the concentration of gelatinase A, determined by immunoassay, was highest for small aneurysms: median concentrations, 385, 244, and 166 ng/mg protein for small aneurysms, large aneurysms, and atherosclerotic aorta, respectively. Immunolocalization studies indicated that gelatinase A was concentrated along fibrous tissue of both the acellular media and the atherosclerotic plaque. The recruitment of inflammatory cells into the adventitia, with subsequent elaboration of metalloproteinases, including gelatinase B, may contribute to the rapid growth and rupture of larger aneurysms.
Limitations of Surface EMG Signals of Extrinsic Muscles in Predicting Postures of Human Hand

This paper explores the limitations of sEMG (surface Electromyography) signals collected from the extrinsic muscles in the forearm in predicting the postures of human hand. Four subjects were asked to try ten extreme postures of hand which need high effort. Two of these four subjects were asked to try ten more normal postures which did not need effort During the experiments, muscle activity and static postures of the hand were measured. The data obtained were analyzed by principal component analysis. The results obtained revealed the limitations of sEMG signals of extrinsic muscles in reproducing the postures of the hand
INTRAOCULAR PRESSURE IN PATIENTS WITH NEOVASCULAR AGE-RELATED MACULAR DEGENERATION SWITCHED TO AFLIBERCEPT INJECTION AFTER PREVIOUS ANTI-VASCULAR ENDOTHELIAL GROWTH FACTOR TREATMENTS

Purpose: To assess for change in intraocular pressure (IOP) in neovascular age-related macular degeneration patients switched to aflibercept after receiving previous treatments of intravitreal bevacizumab or ranibizumab. Methods: This is a retrospective chart review of the first 53 patients (53 eyes) treated with at least 2 injections of 2 mg in 0.05 mL of aflibercept by March 6, 2013, after at least 2 previous injections of 0.5 mg in 0.05 mL of ranibizumab with or without previous injections of 1.25 mg in 0.05 mL of bevacizumab. The analysis was restricted to the first such sequence within each patient. The last previous anti-vascular endothelial growth factor injection before the switch to aflibercept was ranibizumab in all cases included in the study. Each person served as his or her own control. The pre-aflibercept IOP in the before state (treatment with bevacizumab or ranibizumab) was the preinjection IOP measure before dilation at the visit of the first aflibercept injection. Statistical analysis was performed using Microsoft Excel. Results: There were 41 patients who were first treated with ranibizumab followed by aflibercept and 12 patients treated with ranibizumab and bevacizumab followed by aflibercept. For each of these sequences, IOP in the treated eye during treatment with aflibercept (the after state) was computed in 3 different ways: the first IOP, the last IOP, and the mean IOP for the period when treated with aflibercept. The pooled data showed a mean pre-aflibercept (the before state) IOP of 14.87 that decreased to a mean first IOP of 14.57, mean last IOP of 13.79, and a mean IOP of 14.14 during aflibercept treatment. The inference is based on the pooled analysis. The 95% confidence interval for the differences (after minus before) were −0.30 (−1.12 to 0.52), −1.08 (−1.83 to −0.32), and −0.73 (−1.30 to −0.17) for the first, last, and mean IOPs, respectively. The corresponding P values were 0.46 for the first, 0.006 for the last, 0.01 for the mean IOP during the aflibercept treatment period. Conclusion: Intraocular pressure was found to be significantly lower in patients switched to aflibercept after previous treatments with ranibizumab and/or bevacizumab. Aflibercept may have a more favorable IOP safety profile in patients previously on other anti-vascular endothelial growth factor treatments.
Historical analysis of spanish competitiveness in the european framework: 19th and 20th centuries

En este articulo se analiza la evolucion de la competitividad y el crecimiento economico en Espana durante los siglos XIX y XX. Una vez definido el concepto de competitividad en relacion con otras variables como la productividad, el crecimiento economico, la ventaja comparativa o la competencia internacional, aplicamos este concepto a la experiencia espanola. El estudio incluye la evolucion del Producto Interior Bruto espanol en funcion de su convergencia o divergencia, la contribucion historica del trabajo, el capital y la productividad total de los factores en el desarrollo espanol, las contribuciones del marco institucional, y la evolucion de la competitividad en las regiones, clusters y empresas espanolas. Entre otras conclusiones, el articulo destaca la progresiva reduccion del proteccionismo y el intervencionismo economico desde 1959, politicas que habian sido introducidas a finales del siglo XIX, y cuya reforma y eliminacion permitieron un intenso crecimiento economico y un proceso de convergencia. Pero la economia espanola todavia mantiene algunas deficiencias institucionales que reducen el potencial de crecimiento economico y afecta a la competitividad y el espiritu empresarial en Espana.
The Increased Susceptibility of Women to Multiple Sclerosis

ABSTRACT: Many diseases with an auto-immune etiology have a skewed sex distribution. In the majority of instances, women are affected more frequently than men. A review of population studies demonstrates that the preponderance of women in multiple sclerosis (MS) is almost constant. We show that this preponderance is further increased in early as well as in late-onset cases, in familial cases as well as in MS twin pairs and that the HLA-DR2 allele, which has been associated with MS in Caucasian populations, is significantly more frequent in women than in men with MS. “Rules” have been established for multifactorial diseases; MS contravenes most of those rules. The skewed sex distribution in MS could be attributed to the known hormonal and gender influences on the immune response, as well as to genetic influences.
Ancient Drama Illuminated by Contemporary Stagecraft: Some Thoughts on the Use of Mask and Ekkyklema in Ariane Mnouchkine's Le Dernier Caravansérail and Sophocles' Ajax

in July 2005, the lincoln center Festival presented Théâtre du Soleil’s epic production of Le Dernier Caravansérail, a six-hour performance divided into two parts that articulated the plight of contemporary refugees from predominantly Muslim countries and their attempts to seek refuge in the West. Conceived and created by the French auteur Ariane Mnouchkine, the production split audiences, critics, and commentators.1 Always controversial, Mnouchkine’s bold theatricality and collaborative creative process with her metamorphic Théâtre du Soleil brought a work to New York with a sweeping sense of on-stage dynamics, scenic movement, and visual dexterity that evoked Athenian staging devices of the fifth century b.c.e. and created astute parallels between the ancient and modern stage. Focusing on the use of the mask and the ekkykle \ ma in the suicide scene of Sophocles’ Ajax, I will discuss the ways in which an understanding of the creative process of a contemporary dramatist such as Mnouchkine offers another paradigm for the comprehension of ancient texts. Mnouchkine’s connection to the dramatic form of ancient Greece seems, at first sight, to be marked. In 1992 the Brooklyn Academy of Music
Lethal Factor Active-Site Mutations Affect Catalytic Activity In Vitro

ABSTRACT The lethal factor (LF) protein of Bacillus anthracislethal toxin contains the thermolysin-like active-site and zinc-binding consensus motif HEXXH (K. R. Klimpel, N. Arora, and S. H. Leppla, Mol. Microbiol. 13:1093–1100, 1994). LF is hypothesized to act as a Zn2+ metalloprotease in the cytoplasm of macrophages, but no proteolytic activities have been previously shown on any target substrate. Here, synthetic peptides are hydrolyzed by LF in vitro. Mass spectroscopy and peptide sequencing of isolated cleavage products separated by reverse-phase high-pressure liquid chromatography indicate that LF seems to prefer proline-containing substrates. Substitution mutations within the consensus active-site residues completely abolish all in vitro catalytic functions, as does addition of 1,10-phenanthroline, EDTA, and certain amino acid hydroxamates, including the novel zinc metalloprotease inhibitor ZINCOV. In contrast, the protease inhibitors bestatin and lysine CMK, previously shown to block LF activity on macrophages, did not block LF activity in vitro. These data provide the first direct evidence that LF may act as an endopeptidase.
College Campus Sexual Assault: The Contribution of Peers’ Proabuse Informational Support and Attachments to Abusive Peers

Since the mid-1980s, researchers across the United States have uncovered high rates of sexual assault among female college students. However, to advance a better understanding of this gendered type of victimization, and to both prevent and control this problem, the research community needs to identify its major correlates. One that is consistently uncovered in North American campus survey work is negative peer support, especially that provided by male peers. Yet, some earlier studies have found that mixed-sex negative peer support, too, contributes to campus sexual assault. Using recent data from the Campus Quality of Life Survey conducted at a large residential school in the South Atlantic region of the United States, the main objectives of this article are to examine the role of mixed-sex negative peer support in campus sexual assault and to identify the groups of women most at risk of having friends who offer such support.
Reconfiguration algorithm for degradable processor arrays based on row and column rerouting

This paper discusses the reconfiguration problem of two-dimensional degradable VLSI/WSI processor arrays under the row and column rerouting constraints. Some algorithms have been proposed for this problem; however they are not designed to be implemented in hardware for self-reconfigurable systems. In this paper we propose an efficient reconfiguration algorithm for degradable processor arrays based on the simple schemes of row and column rerouting. For the aim of realizing self-reconfiguration, the new rerouting schemes employed in our method are designed to be executed using only local information from neighboring processors. The performances of proposed algorithm are compared with previous studies and it indicates that the proposed algorithm achieves better results in terms of harvest and degradation.
Quantification in Data Streams: Initial Results

In the last decades, learning from data streams has attracted the attention of researchers and practitioners due to its large number of applications. These applications have motivated the research community to propose a significant number of methods that can be used to solve problems in diverse tasks, more prominently in classification, prediction, and clustering. However, a relevant task known as quantification has remained largely unexplored. The quantification goal is to provide an estimate of the class prevalence in an unlabeled set. In this paper, we discuss the relevance and challenges of quantification for data streams and compare how it differs from the batch setting, in which quantification has attracted more attention from the research community. We propose an algorithm to estimate the class distribution in a data stream and frame our algorithm in the active learning framework. In addition, we define two other approaches as baseline and topline strategies for this problem. The experimental results demonstrate that our algorithm has significantly higher quantification accuracy than the baseline and almost as large as the topline while requiring a fraction of the true labels requested by the latter approach.
The Internationalization of a C 2 C E-commerce Platform Provider , Case : Trendsales ApS

Internationalization of firms is a widely studied business phenomenon, which, after several decades of study, still persists as an important interest among International Business scholars. This master’s thesis examines the internationalization process of a company, which offers an internet-based fashion trading platform for private consumers, and can, thus, be defined as a customer-to-customer (C2C) e-commerce platform provider. This case company, Denmark based Trendsales ApS, has to date expanded its operations to Finland, Sweden and Norway. The main objective of this study is to provide a rich description of the case company’s internationalization process, and to thereby suggest how the internet-based C2C strategy affects internationalization. The underlying motivation for this study is the relatively scarce academic literature concerning the internet and the C2C strategy in relation to firm internationalization. The study is conducted based on a single case study design, which focuses on the international undertakings of the case company. A traditional internationalization model, the POM-model by Reijo Luostarinen (1979), is used as a framework for the examination in order to form a holistic view on the studied phenomenon. The main output of this thesis is a model combining three strategic aspects (concept, operations and markets) in Trendsales’ internationalization. The main findings conclude that the company has to date internationalized in a step-wise manner and has not captured all the advantages offered by the internet. The C2C strategy has demanded for increased local adaptation, which is why a fully global internationalization strategy has not been utilized. Although Web 2.0 based technologies are the bases of Trendsales’ business model, social exchange was found to play a supportive role in this strategy. The supporting findings of this thesis study relate to the internet as an operational environment.
Congenital toxoplasmosis: clinical, laboratory, and therapeutic considerations, with special reference to subclinical disease.

S INCE the original description of congenital toxoplasmosis by Wolf, Cowen, and Paige in 1939, chorioretinitis, hydrocephalus, and intracranial calcification have been accepted among clinicians as the "classical triad" of symptoms of intrauterine toxoplasmosis.1' 2 Unless these findings appear in neonates, congenital toxoplasmosis is usually not considered as a cause of disease in spite of the fact that variability in clinical manifestations has been demonstrated repeatedly.3-9 Eichenwald, after a longitudinal study of i56 congenitally infected infants summarized in i959, stated that "congenital toxoplasmosis is a disease with an extraordinarily wide range of manifestations, so wide in fact that it must be considered in the differential diagnosis of nearly all types of obscure illness occurring during early infancy. "2 His data are summarized in Table i in order to illustrate clinically apparent disease. Two types of disease were described in symptomatic infants. The more common had a dominant neurologic component and was seen in 69% of his patients. The other, a generalized disease, occurred in 28%. The latter was recognized earlier in life, usually within the first four weeks, because disease was more obvious, whereas months generally elapsed before the former was diagnosed. Clearly, when the dominant involvement was in the central nervous system or eye, as is
When Does Coevolution Promote Diversification?

Coevolutionary interactions between species are thought to be an important cause of evolutionary diversification. Despite this general belief, little theoretical basis exists for distinguishing between the types of interactions that promote diversification and those types that have no effect or that even restrict it. Using analytical models and simulations of phenotypic evolution across a metapopulation, we show that coevolutionary interactions promote diversification when they impose a cost of phenotype matching, as is the case for competition or host‐parasite antagonism. In contrast, classical coevolutionary arms races have no tendency to promote or inhibit diversification, and mutualistic interactions actually restrict diversification. Together with the results of recent phylogenetic and ecological studies, these results suggest that the causes of diversification in many coevolutionary systems may require reassessment.
Assessing food safety and associated food handling practices in street food vending

Abstract Street vendors in the city of Bloemfontein were investigated in order to assess the microbiological quality of the food being sold as well as the level of hygiene conditions under which these food stalls operate. The food samples which were collected included beef, chicken and gravy, while surface samples were taken from the food preparation tables and the hands of the vendors. A structured questionnaire and checklist were used in interviews to determine the status of the vending sites and associated food handling practices. The overall microbiological quality of the foods served by the street vendors was found to be within acceptable safety limits, although the presence of specific microorganisms such as Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella and yeasts is indicative of a degree of ignorance on the part of the food handlers towards proper hygienic practices.
Application Profile Based MIMO Link Adaptation in LTE System Networks

As the demand for mobile broadband services are growing, cellular networks are heading towards their fourth generation (4G). Long Term Evolution (LTE) is emerging as a major candidate for 4G cellular networks. 4G networks are to support a myriad of applications which have different error tolerance and delay requirements. MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) technology combined with OFDMA and more efficient modulation/coding schemes (MCS) are key physical layer technologies in LTE networks. However, in order to fully utilize the benefits of the advances in physical layer technologies MIMO configuration and MCS need to be dynamically adjusted to derive the promised gains of 4G at the application level. This paper proposes an application-profile based link adaptation architecture that adapts the physical layer transmission parameters based not only on channel conditions but also on application-specific requirements to transfer physical layer gains to the application layer.
Combined modality radioimmunotherapy

Single‐agent radioimmunotherapy (RIT), although potentially useful for slowing solid tumor growth, has not been effective in curing aggressive tumors, such as breast cancer. These cancers typically have p53 mutations and are less susceptible to apoptosis, the apparent mechanism of cell death from low dose‐rate radiation. Thus, synergistic or combined modality radioimmunotherapy (CMRIT) agents are needed to increase radiosensitivity for therapeutic enhancement without additive toxicity.
Enhancing workplace learning by augmented reality

The aim of the poster is to highlight the opportunities of augmented reality (AR) for enhancing workplace learning. The poster presents a concept for workplace learning by incorporating the digital twin (DT) concept to support the operator during the machining task. By providing in-depth information about the workpiece and the machine, the operator will be supported in fulfilling the proposed task intime and at the defined level of quality. Preliminary data indicated, that visual support by AR technology reduces the processing time of simple tasks. The challenges when applying AR technology to industrial tasks were investigated in an additional case study.
Model predictions of long-lived storage of organic carbon in river deposits

Abstract. The mass of carbon stored as organic matter in terrestrial systems is sufficiently large to play an important role in the global biogeochemical cycling of CO2 and O2. Field measurements of radiocarbon-depleted particulate organic carbon (POC) in rivers suggest that terrestrial organic matter persists in surface environments over millennial (or greater) timescales, but the exact mechanisms behind these long storage times remain poorly understood. To address this knowledge gap, we developed a numerical model for the radiocarbon content of riverine POC that accounts for both the duration of sediment storage in river deposits and the effects of POC cycling. We specifically target rivers because sediment transport influences the maximum amount of time organic matter can persist in the terrestrial realm and river catchment areas are large relative to the spatial scale of variability in biogeochemical processes. Our results show that rivers preferentially erode young deposits, which, at steady state, requires that the oldest river deposits are stored for longer than expected for a well-mixed sedimentary reservoir. This geometric relationship can be described by an exponentially tempered power-law distribution of sediment storage durations, which allows for significant aging of biospheric POC. While OC cycling partially limits the effects of sediment storage, the consistency between our model predictions and a compilation of field data highlights the important role of storage in setting the radiocarbon content of riverine POC. The results of this study imply that the controls on the terrestrial OC cycle are not limited to the factors that affect rates of primary productivity and respiration but also include the dynamics of terrestrial sedimentary systems.
Rat Antizyme Inhibits the Activity but Does Not Promote the Degradation of Mouse Ornithine Decarboxylase in Trypanosoma brucei(*)

Ornithine decarboxylase (ODC) of African trypanosomes is an important target for anti-trypanosomal chemotherapy because of its remarkable stability in vivo. The in vivo activity and stability of mammalian ODC are regulated by polyamines. Polyamines induce antizyme, which inactivates ODC by tight association and promotes degradation of ODC by the mammalian 26 S proteasome. Here we found, in contrast to mammalian cells, that polyamines caused no reduction of ODC activity in Trypanosoma brucei. Mouse ODC expressed in T. brucei was also unaffected by exogenous polyamines, suggesting that a mammalian antizyme equivalent may be absent in T. brucei. The rat antizyme expressed in T. brucei was found capable of inhibiting mouse ODC activity by the formation of rat antizyme-mouse ODC complex. However, complex formation did not lead to degradation of mouse ODC in T. brucei. Further in vitro experiments suggested the presence of an inhibitory factor(s) in trypanosome, which interferes with the degradation of mouse ODC. We also demonstrated the presence of proteasomes in T. brucei. But the mobility of the trypanosomal proteasome on native gel is different from that of the mammalian proteasome. Thus, the absence of antizyme, the presence of inhibitory factor(s), and the differences between trypanosomal and mammalian proteasome may account for the stability of mouse ODC in T. brucei cells.