Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dose response to cerebrospinal fluid drainage on cerebral perfusion in traumatic brain-injured adults.

OBJECT Intracranial hypertension remains a common complication of traumatic brain injury (TBI). Ventriculostomy drainage is a recommended therapy to decrease intracranial pressure (ICP), but little empirical evidence exists to guide treatment. The authors conducted a study to examine systematically the effect of cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) drainage on ICP and indices of cerebral perfusion. METHODS Intracranial pressure, cerebral perfusion pressure (CPP), cerebral blood flow velocity (CBFV), and near-infrared spectroscopy-determined regional cerebral oxygenation (rSO2) were measured in 58 patients (with Glasgow Coma Scale scores < or = 8) before, during, and after ventriculostomy drainage. Three randomly ordered CSF drainage protocols varied in the volume of CSF removed (1 ml, 2 ml, and 3 ml). Physiological variables were time averaged in 1-minute blocks from baseline to 10 minutes after cessation of ventricular drainage. There was a significant dose-time interaction for ICP with the three-extraction volume protocol, with incremental decreases in ICP (F [20, 1055] = 6.10; p = 0.0001). There was a significant difference in the CPP depending on the amount of CSF removed (F [2, 1787] = 3.22; p = 0.040) and across time (F [10, 9.58] = 11.9; p = 0.0003) without a significant dose-time interaction. A 3-ml withdrawal of CSF resulted in a 10.1% decrease in ICP and a 2.2% increase in CPP, which were sustained for 10 minutes. There was no significant dose, time or dose-time interaction with CBFV or rSO2. CONCLUSIONS Cerebrospinal fluid drainage (3 ml) significantly reduced ICP and increased CPP for at least 10 minutes. Analysis of these findings supports the use of ventriculostomy drainage as a means of at least temporarily reducing elevated ICP in patients with TBI.
Use of lectins to evaluate the effects of GaAs softlaser on dog tendon.

1. Lectins labeled with colloidal gold particles were used for the ultrastructural evaluation of the biological effects of GaAs softlaser irradiation on the healing of dog tendon wounds. 2. Six dogs were submitted to tenotomy and tenorrhaphy on the right and left hind legs. All animals received laser irradiation (4 J/cm2) daily for ten days only on the left leg, and the right leg of the same animal was used as control. Biopsies were taken 11, 22 and 40 days after surgery. 3. Laser-irradiated and control tendon tissues were embedded in L.R. White resin and thin sections were incubated in the presence of gold-labeled Arachis hypogaea (PNA), Canavalia ensiformes (Con A) and Triticum vulgare (WGA). 4. In general, the control and laser-irradiated tissues presented homogeneous and similar labelling of heterochromatin, rough endoplasmic reticulum and extracellular matrix. 5. We conclude that GaAs softlaser irradiation does not produce significant changes in the glycosylation of healing tendons.
Mechanistics and photo‐energetics of macrocycles and photodynamic therapy: An overview of aspects to consider for research

Research within the field of photodynamic therapy has escalated over the past 20 years. The required conjunctional use of photosensitizers, particularly of the macrocycle structure, has lead to a vast repertoire of derivatives that branch classes and subclasses thereof. Each exhibits a differential range of physiochemical properties that influence their potential applications within the larger phototherapy field for use in either diagnostics, photodynamic therapy, both or none. Herein, we provide an overview of these properties as they relate to photodynamic therapy and to a lesser extent diagnostics. By summarizing the mechanistics of photodynamic therapy coupled to the photo‐energetics displayed by macrocycle photosensitizers, we aimed to highlight the critical aspects any researcher should be aware of and consider when selecting and performing research for therapeutic application purposes. These include photosensitizer, photophysical and structural properties, synthesis design and subsequent attributes, main applications within research, common shortcomings exhibited and the current methods practiced to overcome them.
Effect of Heat Treatment on Lipid Stability in Processed Oats

The shelf life of processed oat products and the usability of oats in modern food formulations are in many cases still limited by the lipid-associated deterioration. To elucidate the role of lipase inactivation in the development of rancidity in oats, heat treatments varying in severity were applied. Effects of these treatments on lipase activity and lipid oxidation were studied either directly after processing by mixing the fractions in water or after a long-term storage of dry fractions. A trend was found, that the lower the residual lipase activity in whole kernels or kernel fractions, the higher was the oxidation of lipids and evolution of volatile oxidation products during prolonged storage of the dry fractions. If bran was heat-treated to zero lipase activity, the amount of headspace hexanal detected after 12-month storage was 5 to 7 times larger than detected in non-heat treated bran. This formation of hexanal was linked to the oxidation of polar lipids. If the heat treatment was totally omitted, the oxidation of unsaturated fatty acids in polar lipids did not occur even during prolonged storage. The oxidation of polar lipids suggests heat-induced disintegration of membrane structures and inactivation of heat labile antioxidants. This study identifies heat treatments as critical control points in obtaining oat products with enhanced self-stability.
Maternal Thermal Environment Induces Plastic Responses in the Reproductive Life History of Oviparous Lizards

Adaptive plasticity may shift phenotypic traits close to a new optimum for directional selection and probably facilitates adaptive evolution in new environments. However, such plasticity has rarely been reported in life-history evolution, despite overwhelming evidence of life-history variation both among and within species. In this study, the temperatures experienced by gravid females of Scincella modesta were manipulated to identify maternally induced plasticity in reproductive traits and the significance of such changes in the evolution of life history. Consistent with the geographic pattern of life history, the study demonstrated that low temperatures delayed egg oviposition, resulting in a more advanced embryonic developmental stage at oviposition and shorter incubation periods compared with warm temperatures. In addition, females maintained at low temperatures produced larger eggs and hence heavier hatchlings than those at warm temperatures. This study demonstrated that environmental temperatures can induce plastic responses in egg retention and offspring size, and these maternally mediated changes in reproductive life history seem to be adaptive in the light of latitudinal clines of these traits in natural populations.
Breakdown of peripheral T-cell tolerance by chronic interleukin-15 elevation1

Thymic deletion purges the repertoire of most developing T cells with the potential for overt self-reactivity, but some self-specific cells do emerge into the peripheral pool. Under most conditions, these potentially autoaggressive cells remain in a quiescent state. However, in some circumstances, they become activated and acquire effector function, leading to immune disease. It is thus important to clarify the mechanism(s) responsible for determining the balance between such inappropriate T-cell activation and the normal state of peripheral tolerance. In this article, we show that chronic elevation of interleukin-15 levels interferes with the tolerant state of CD8+ T cells through a process that involves activation of nonlymphoid antigen-presenting cells by CD4+asialo-GM1+ (ASGM1) or both CD4+ASGM1− and CD4−ASGM1+ cells. These findings suggest a potential role for dysregulated interleukin-15 production in promoting tolerance breakdown. This new information may be of potential use in improving tumor vaccines to self-antigens and in ameliorating autoimmune or graft-versus-host disease.
Triple Prediction from Texts by Using Distributed Representations of Words

Knowledge graphs have been shown to be useful to many tasks in artificial intelligence. Triples of knowledge graphs are traditionally structured by human editors or extracted from semi-structured information; however, editing is expensive, and semi-structured information is not common. On the other hand, most such information is stored as text. Hence, it is necessary to develop a method that can extract knowledge from texts and then construct or populate a knowledge graph; this has been attempted in various ways. Currently, there are two approaches to constructing a knowledge graph. One is open information extraction (Open IE), and the other is knowledge graph embedding; however, neither is without problems. Stanford Open IE, the current best such system, requires labeled sentences as training data, and knowledge graph embedding systems require numerous triples. Recently, distributed representations of words have become a hot topic in the field of natural language processing, since this approach does not require labeled data for training. These require only plain text, but Mikolov showed that it can perform well with the word analogy task, answering questions such as, “a is to b as c is to ? ” This can be considered as a knowledge extraction task from a text for finding the missing entity of a triple. However, the accuracy is not sufficiently high when applied in a straightforward manner to relations in knowledge graphs, since the method uses only one triple as a positive example. In this paper, we analyze why distributed representations perform such tasks well; we also propose a new method for extracting knowledge from texts that requires much less annotated data. Experiments show that the proposed method achieves considerable improvement compared with the baseline; in particular, the improvement in HITS@10 was more than doubled for some relations. key words: distributed representations of words, knowledge extraction, knowledge graph completion
Observer-based compensation of discontinuous friction

This paper presents an observer-based friction compensation design for a class of frictional systems guaranteeing global exponential stability of the closed-loop system in the absence of velocity measurements. The friction compensation scheme allows a fairly general discontinuous friction model that is able to describe stiction and the Stribeck effect, and which can fit experimentally obtained velocity-friction maps. The design method is based on passivity theory. It only involves well-known linear design criteria: strictly positive real (SPR) and Hurwitz conditions, and it preserves the separation and the certainty equivalence principles. The effectiveness of the design method is tested on an experimental setup.
Ontology enrichment with causation relations

Ontology learning is considered a potential approach that can help to reduce the bottleneck of knowledge acquisition. However it suffers from a lack of standards to define concepts, besides the lack of fully automatic knowledge acquisition methods. In performing this learning process, the discovery of non-taxonomic relationships has been identified as being the most difficult. This study is then an attempt to create an enhanced framework for discovering and classifying ontological relationships by using a machine learning strategy. We take into consideration the context of the input text in performing the classification of the semantic relations, in particular, causation relations. The proposed framework extracts initial semantic patterns for causation relation from the input samples, then filters these patterns using two novel algorithms, namely, the “Purpose Based Word Sense Disambiguation” which helps in determining the causation senses for input pair of words and the “Graph Based Semantics” which determines the existence of the causation relations in the sentence and to extract their cause-effect parts. The results show a good performance and the implemented framework cut off many steps of the usual process to produce the final results.
Energy minimization method using automata network for sequence and side‐chain conformation prediction from given backbone geometry

Globular proteins have high packing densities as a result of residue side chains in the core achieving a tight, complementary packing. The internal packing is considered the main determinant of native protein structure. From that point of view, we present here a method of energy minimization using an automata network to predict a set of amino acid sequences and their side‐chain conformations from a desired backbone geometry for de novo design of proteins. Using discrete side‐chain conformations, that is, rotamers, the sequence generation problem from a given backbone geometry becomes one of combinatorial problems. We focused on the residues composing the interior core region and predicted a set of amino acid Sequences and their side‐chain conformations only from a given backbone geometry. The kinds of residues were restricted to six hydrophobic amino acids (Ala, Ile, Met, Leu, Phe, and Val) because the core regions are almost always composed of hydrophobic residues. The obtained sequences were well packed as was the native sequence. The method can be used for automated sequence generation in the de novo design of proteins. © 1994 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Nadolol plus spironolactone in the prophylaxis of first variceal bleed in nonascitic cirrhotic patients: A preliminary study

Treatment with β‐blockers fails to decrease portal pressure in nearly 40% of cirrhotic patients. Recent studies have suggested that treatment with spironolactone reduces pressure and flow in the portal and variceal systems. This trial was designed to assess if nadolol plus spironolactone is more effective than nadolol alone to prevent the first variceal bleeding. One hundred patients with medium and large varices who had never bled and were without ascites were included in a prospective, randomized, multicenter, double‐blind, placebo‐controlled trial. The patients were randomized into 2 groups: 51 received nadolol plus placebo (N + P) and 49 received nadolol plus spironolactone 100 mg/d (N + S). Hepatic venous pressure gradient (HVPG) and activity of the renin‐aldosterone system (plasma renin activity/plasma aldosterone levels) were measured in 24 patients. There were no significant differences in the appearance of variceal bleeding and ascites between groups at a mean follow‐up of 22 ± 16 months. However, analyzing both complications together, the incidence was significantly higher in the N + P group than in the N + S group (39% vs. 20%; P < .04). Clinical ascites was also higher in patients in the N + P group than in the N + S group (21% vs. 6%; P < .04). Significant increases in plasma renin activity and plasma aldosterone levels were only observed in patients in the N + S group (P < .01). The cumulative probabilities of remaining free of bleeding and ascites were similar in both groups after 70 months of follow‐up. In conclusion, these results suggest that nadolol plus spironolactone does not increase the efficacy of nadolol alone in the prophylaxis of the first variceal bleeding. However, when bleeding and ascites were considered together, the combined therapy effectively reduced the incidence of both portal‐hypertensive complications.
On the analysis of G-queues under heavy traffic

It is a fait accompli that heavy traffic analysis is a very powerful technique, which allows us to model the number of customers of a queueing system via a reflected diffusion (or a reflected Levy process). In this paper, we derive heavy traffic type theorems for queueing systems that receive either Markov modulated or independent positive and negative arrivals with general service and inter-arrival time processes.
Embedded software performance estimations at different compiler optimisation levels

Tools for performance estimation based on instruction set simulators (ISS) are mostly available and show good results. However when the need arises to choose a different platform or to estimate performance without having the ISS the developer needs all the different software suits and devices and also must be able to work with them. In this case we propose an estimation method based on physical measurement for generating performance models. This paper extends our previous work on source-code level performance estimations for microcontrollers. We compare two proposed estimation methods to find the most suitable for estimating embedded software performance for C source-code level on microcontrollers with higher compiler optimisation levels than −O0. As a result we show that both methods could be applied with some exceptions.
Wagner's Law revisited: cointegration and causality tests for New Zealand

Wagner's Law states that the share of government expenditure in Gross National Product (GNP) will increase with economic development; many associated empirical studies substitute GNP with Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This article presents an empirical investigation into the validity of Wagner's Law for New Zealand over the period 1960 to 2007 and compares the results obtained using these two measures of output. Application of the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds test suggests a cointegrating relationship between either output measure and the share of government spending, and further application of General to Specific (GETS), Engle and Granger (EG), Phillip Hansen's Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares (FMOLS) and Johansen's time series techniques illustrate statistical robustness and an income elasticity between 0.56 and 0.84. The results suggest that output measures Granger cause the share of government expenditure in the long run, thereby providing support for Wagner's Law, and these results are stable irrespective of the chosen output measure.
Role of the Cys Loop and Transmembrane Domain in the Allosteric Modulation of α4β2 Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptors*

Allosteric modulators of pentameric ligand-gated ion channels are thought to act on elements of the pathways that couple agonist binding to channel gating. Using α4β2 nicotinic acetylcholine receptors and the α4β2-selective positive modulators 17β-estradiol (βEST) and desformylflustrabromine (dFBr), we have identified pathways that link the binding sites for these modulators to the Cys loop, a region that is critical for channel gating in all pentameric ligand-gated ion channels. Previous studies have shown that the binding site for potentiating βEST is in the C-terminal (post-M4) region of the α4 subunit. Here, using homology modeling in combination with mutagenesis and electrophysiology, we identified the binding site for potentiating dFBr on the top half of a cavity between the third (M3) and fourth transmembrane (M4) α-helices of the α4 subunit. We found that the binding sites for βEST and dFBr communicate with the Cys loop, through interactions between the last residue of post-M4 and Phe170 of the conserved FPF sequence of the Cys loop, and that these interactions affect potentiating efficacy. In addition, interactions between a residue in M3 (Tyr309) and Phe167, a residue adjacent to the Cys loop FPF motif, also affect dFBr potentiating efficacy. Thus, the Cys loop acts as a key control element in the allosteric transduction pathway for potentiating βEST and dFBr. Overall, we propose that positive allosteric modulators that bind the M3-M4 cavity or post-M4 region increase the efficacy of channel gating through interactions with the Cys loop.
Fitness of early life stages in F1 interspecific hybrids between Dicentrarchus labrax and D. punctatus

Inter- and intraspecific crossbreeding experiments were conducted to evaluate the aquaculture potential of hybrids in the genus Dicentrarchus, focusing on fertilisation and hatching success. The experimental design consisted of 24 controlled crosses in which individual and pooled fertilisations were made between wild D. labrax individuals (8 dams and 5 sires originating from West Mediterranean and Atlantic populations) and wildD.punctatus (6 sires). Three experiments were successively performed: (1) dams from the Mediterranean population, individually considered to have good egg quality, (2) dams from Mediterranean population, individually considered to have poor egg quality and (3) crossbreeding using pooled eggs from the Atlantic population. In each case, batches of these eggs were fertilized by sperm from males of the two species. Sperm cell quality (concentration and motility) was verified before experimentation in all cases and equal numbers of sperm cells from each male were used to individually (without inter-sire competition) fertilise egg batches. Through the repeated artificial crosses between female common sea bass Dicentrarchus labrax (Linnaeus 1758) and male spotted sea bass D. punctatus (Block 1792), these experiments showed that no post-zygotic reproductive barriers exist to interspecific hybridisation between these two species when using D. labrax as dams and D. punctatus as sires. Phenotypically, the F1 hybrids were easily recognisable: they inherited the characteristic black spots of D. punctatus. Furthermore, embryo survival was significantly higher in interspecific crosses compared with intraspecific controls, showing increased fitness for this trait (increased performance at early life stage). Then, the experimental breeding design validates the observation that West Mediterranean and Atlantic common sea bass populations are different. Indeed, the inter-population crosses (between West Mediterranean dams and Atlantic sires) also revealed increased fitness at early life stages in comparison with the progeny of intra-Atlantic population crosses. However, these individuals were still smaller than their interspecific counterparts. The ability to produce viable F1 hybrids will have significant implications for the practical improvement of sea bass aquaculture.
Rates of Surgical-Site Infection: An International Comparison

Abstract Objectives: To quantify the occurrence of surgical-site infections (SSIs) in an Italian region and to estimate the proportion of potentially avoidable infections through benchmarking comparison. Design: Prospective study during 1 month based on a convenience sample of surgical patients admitted to 31 public hospitals. All of the patients undergoing an intervention included among the 44 operative procedures of the National Nosocomial Infections Surveillance (NNIS) System were enrolled. Ninety-five percent of the patients were actively observed after discharge for up to 30 days for all of the operations and for up to 1 year for operations involving implantation. Results: Among the 6,167 operative procedures studied, 290 infections were recorded (4.7 per 100 procedures), 206 (71%) of which were SSIs (3.3 per 100 procedures; 95% confidence interval, 2.9–3.9). One hundred thirty-five SSIs (65.5%) were superficial infections, 53 (25.7%) were deep infections, and 12 (5.8%) were organ–space infections; in 6 cases (2.9%), the type of SSI was not recorded. The frequency of SSIs observed in this study was significantly higher for several procedures than that expected when the NNIS System rates (standardized infection ratio [SIR] ranging from 1.77 to 6.42) or the Hungarian rates (SIR ranging from 1.28 to 3.04) were applied to the study population. Conclusions: The high intensity of postdischarge surveillance can in part explain the differences observed. To allow for meaningful benchmarking comparison, in addition to intrinsic patient risk, data on the intensity of postdischarge surveillance should be included in published reports.