Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Retention of erythrocytes in the spleen: a double-edged process in human malaria

Purpose of reviewSplenomegaly is frequent in acute or chronic forms of Plasmodium falciparum malaria, and splenectomy is associated with more frequent fever and parasitaemia. A novel role for the spleen in malaria is indicated by recent epidemiological and experimental data, bringing about a novel paradigm on severe malaria pathogenesis. Recent findingsIn Sudanese children, severe malarial anaemia was associated with larger spleen, longer fever duration, and lower parasitaemia than cerebral malaria. These findings are consistent with evolution toward severe malarial anaemia being linked to the presence of a spleen-dependent mechanism that is absent or inefficient in cerebral malaria. An isolated–perfused human spleen model revealed unexpected retention of numerous erythrocytes harbouring young parasite stages (rings), probably through an innate mechanical process. SummaryA new paradigm is discussed, whereby the extent of erythrocyte retention in the spleen conditions not only haemoglobin concentration and spleen size but also the rate of parasite load increase. The prediction is that, in nonimmune children, stringent splenic retention of rings and uninfected erythrocytes reduces the risk of cerebral malaria (a complication associated with high parasite loads) but increases the risk of severe malarial anaemia. This hypothesis casts new light on epidemiological, genetic, and experimental studies in malaria pathogenesis.
Mechanisms of Rad52-Independent Spontaneous and UV-Induced Mitotic Recombination in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

In wild-type diploid cells, heteroallelic recombination between his4A and his4C alleles leads mostly to His+ gene conversions that have a parental configuration of flanking markers, but ∼22% of recombinants have associated reciprocal crossovers. In rad52 strains, gene conversion is reduced 75-fold and the majority of His+ recombinants are crossover associated, with the largest class being half-crossovers in which the other participating chromatid is lost. We report that UV irradiating rad52 cells results in an increase in overall recombination frequency, comparable to increases induced in wild-type (WT) cells, and surprisingly results in a pattern of recombination products quite similar to RAD52 cells: gene conversion without exchange is favored, and the number of 2n − 1 events is markedly reduced. Both spontaneous and UV-induced RAD52-independent recombination depends strongly on Rad50, whereas rad50 has no effect in cells restored to RAD52. The high level of noncrossover gene conversion outcomes in UV-induced rad52 cells depends on Rad51, but not on Rad59. Those outcomes also rely on the UV-inducible kinase Dun1 and Dun1's target, the repressor Crt1, whereas gene conversion events arising spontaneously depend on Rad59 and Crt1. Thus, there are at least two Rad52-independent recombination pathways in budding yeast.
Some techniques for low-voltage continuous-time analog circuit operation

The drastic reduction in the supply voltages of CMOS VLSI systems driven by technological as well as power reduction constraints has forced analog designers to divert from conventional analog circuit architectures. These become nonfunctional in a reduced supply environment. New techniques for low voltage, high performance operation of analog CMOS circuits are required for the new generations of deep submicrometer fine line CMOS technologies. In this presentation a family of high performance low-voltage analog CMOS circuits is introduced. These circuits are based on the utilization of static, dynamic and switched floating voltage sources, on floating and quasi-floating gate transistors and on a new versatile cell denoted flipped voltage follower. These circuits operate in all cases with a single supply voltage close to a transistor's threshold voltage. Among the circuits discussed in this presentation we include: class AB op-amps, rectifiers, filters, linear transconductors, analog multipliers, oscillators, D-to-A and A-to-D converters, etc.
YBa2Cu3O7: A nearly antiferromagnetic Fermi liquid.

We have carried out strong-coupling calculations using the Eliashberg formalism, which provide strong evidence for the description of the planar quasiparticles in YBa 2 Cu 3 O 7 as a nearly antiferromagnetic Fermi liquid. We show that when one takes into account the full structure (in frequency and momentum space) of the spin-fluctuation-induced interaction between quasiparticles, a superconducting transition temperature of 90 K is obtained with a dimensionless coupling constant, λ=0.402N(0)g=0.83, for a hole concentration of 0.25, a quasiparticle spectrum characterized by nearest-neighbor hopping, t=0.25 eV, and a spin-fluctuation spectrum determined by experiment
Probabilistic and Deterministic Seismic Hazard Assessment: A Case Study in Babol

The risk of earthquake ground motion parameters in seismic design of structures and Vulnerability and risk assessment of these structures against earthquake damage are important. The damages caused by the earthquake engineering and seismology of the social and economic consequences are assessed. This paper determined seismic hazard analysis in Babol via deterministic and probabilistic methods. Deterministic and probabilistic methods seem to be practical tools for mutual control of results and to overcome the weakness of approach alone. In the deterministic approach, the strong-motion parameters are estimated for the maximum credible earthquake, assumed to occur at the closest possible distance from the site of interest, without considering the likelihood of its occurrence during a specified exposure period. On the other hand, the probabilistic approach integrates the effects of all earthquakes expected to occur at different locations during a specified life period, with the associated uncertainties and randomness taken into account. The calculated bedrock horizontal and vertical peak ground acceleration (PGA) for different years return period of the study area are presented.
Interprofessionality as the field of interprofessional practice and interprofessional education: An emerging concept

This paper proposes a new concept and a frame of reference that should permit the development of a better understanding of a phenomenon that is the development of a cohesive and integrated health care practice among professionals in response to clients' needs. The concept is named “interprofessionality” and aims to draw a clear distinction with another concept, that of interdisciplinarity. The utilization of the concept of interdisciplinarity, which originally concerns the development of integrated knowledge in response to fragmented disciplinary knowledge, has caused some confusion. We need a concept that will specifically concern the development of a cohesive practice among different professionals from the same organization or from different organizations and the factors influencing it. There is no concept that focuses clearly on this field. Interprofessionality concerns the processes and determinants that influence interprofessional education initiatives as well as determinants and processes inherent to interprofessional collaboration. Interprofessionality also involves analysis of the linkages between these two spheres of activity. An attempt to bridge the gap between interprofessional education and interprofessional practice is long overdue; the two fields of inquiry need a common basis for analysis. To this end, we propose a frame of reference, an interprofessional education for collaborative patient-centred practice framework. The framework establishes linkages between the determinants and processes of collaboration at several levels, including links among learners, teachers and professionals (micro level), links at the organizational level between teaching and health organizations (meso level) and links among systems such as political, socio-economic and cultural systems (macro level). Research must play a key role in the development of interprofessionality in order to document these linkages and the results of initiatives as they are proposed and implemented. We also believe that interprofessionality will not be pursued without the requisite political will.
Dietary Almonds Increase Serum HDL Cholesterol in Coronary Artery Disease Patients in a Randomized Controlled Trial.

BACKGROUND More than one-half of coronary artery disease (CAD) patients have low HDL cholesterol despite having well-managed LDL cholesterol. Almond supplementation has not been shown to elevate circulating HDL cholesterol concentrations in clinical trials, perhaps because the baseline HDL cholesterol of trial subjects was not low. OBJECTIVE This clinical trial was designed to test the effect of almond supplementation on low HDL cholesterol in CAD patients. METHODS A total of 150 CAD patients (50 per group), with serum LDL cholesterol ≤100 mg/dL and HDL cholesterol ≤40 mg/dL in men and ≤50 mg/dL in women, were recruited from the Aga Khan University Hospital. After recording vital signs and completing a dietary and physical activity questionnaire, patients were randomly assigned to 1 of the following 3 groups: the no-intervention group (NI), the Pakistani almonds group (PA), and the American almonds group (AA). The respective almond varieties (10 g/d) were given to patients with instructions to soak them overnight, remove the skin, and eat them before breakfast. Blood samples for lipid profiling, body weight, and blood pressure were collected, and assessment of dietary patterns was done at baseline, week 6, and week 12. RESULTS Almonds significantly increased HDL cholesterol. At weeks 6 and 12, HDL cholesterol was 12-14% and 14-16% higher, respectively, in the PA and AA than their respective baselines. In line with previous reports, serum concentrations of total cholesterol, triglycerides, LDL cholesterol, and VLDL cholesterol; total-to-HDL and LDL-to-HDL cholesterol ratios, and the atherogenic index were reduced in both the PA and AA at weeks 6 and 12 compared with baseline (P < 0.05). Effects on serum lipids did not differ between the 2 almond groups. Dietary patterns, body weight, and blood pressure did not change in any of the 3 groups during the trial. CONCLUSION A low dose of almonds (10 g/d) consumed before breakfast can increase HDL cholesterol, in addition to improving other markers of abnormal lipid metabolism in CAD patients with low initial HDL cholesterol. This trial was registered at the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trial Registry as ACTRN12614000036617.
Reducing the Common-Mode Voltage through Carrier Peak Position Modulation in an SPWM Three-Phase Inverter

High common-mode voltage (CMV) of an output will be produced in the conventional sinusoidal pulse width modulation three-phase inverter. Although the carrier phase-shift method can be used to reduce the peaks of CMV, it has the best suppression effect only when the SPWM modulation index is no more than 2/3. This letter presents a new scheme of carrier peak position modulation to break the limitation of modulation index. In this scheme, the peak positions of the triangular carriers are delayed or advanced to avoid the zero state. Thus, the peaks of CMV will be reduced under any modulation index. The feasibility and validity of this scheme are verified through the experiments.
Guaranteed cost PI control for uncertain discrete-time systems with additive gain

This paper investigates a novel design method for robust proportional-integral (PI) control that is based on the guaranteed cost control (GCC) problem for a class of uncertain discrete-time systems with additive gain. On the basis of linear matrix inequality (LMI), a class of fixed PI controller parameters is obtained, and some sufficient conditions for the existence of the GCC are derived. A novel concept is that the fixed PI controller parameters are combined with additive gain such as that in neural networks (NNs) to enhance the transient stability. Although the additive gain is included in the feedback systems, both the stability of closed-loop systems and desired transient response are obtained. Finally, the experimental result demonstrates that the transient response can be appropriately changed by adjusting the additive gain.
Définition et diffusion de signatures sémantiques dans les systèmes pair-à-pair

Resume. Les systemes pair-a-pair (peer-to-peer, P2P, egal-a-egal) se sont popularises ces dernieres annees avec les systemes de partage de fichiers sur Internet. De nombreuses recherches concernant l’optimisation de la localisation des donnees ont emerge et constituent un axe de recherche tres actif. La prise en compte de la semantique du contenu des pairs dans le routage des requetes permet d’ameliorer considerablement la localisation des donnees. Nous nous concentrons sur l’approche PlanetP, faisant usage de la notion de filtre de Bloom, qui consiste a propager une signature semantique des pairs (filtres de Bloom) a travers le reseau. Nous presentons cette approche et en proposons une amelioration : la creation de filtres de Bloom dynamiques, dans le sens ou leur taille depend de la charge des pairs (nombre de documents partages).
Polarized cultures of human airway epithelium from nasal scrapings and bronchial brushings

SummaryAirway epithelial cultures are generally derived from tracheas postmortem or from surgical specimens of nasal polyps or turbinates. Scrapings of the mucosal surface have been little used as starting material for cultures because of their low yield of epithelial cells and their contamination with mucous secretions, blood, and underlying connective tissue. For the first time, we report that human airway epithelial cells obtained from nasal scrapings or bronchial brushings can be grown in culture to produce polarized cell sheets suitable for studies of vectorial transport.
Evaluating 4H-SiC based commercial MOSFETs power modules

This work deals with static and dynamic measurements performed for 4H-SiC based commercial MOSFETs power modules with voltage rating of 1200 V and current rating of 120 A. First results from engineering samples from Rohm show overall good confidence level that resulted in an ON-resistance of 20-30 mΩ, blocking voltage of 1300-1500 V and threshold voltage of 3.0-3.5 V. Power modules have been tested upto 150 °C (recommended Tj was 125°C) where a threshold voltage shift (i.e., decreases) and decay in the peak transconductance is observed. Overall, energy losses remain approximately unchanged with variation in the device temperature. Turn on and turn off energy losses at 800 V and 190 A (120 A) of 102 (38) and 22 (12) mJ respectively, have been obtained at 300 K. Contrary to Si, SiC power modules did not show reverse recovery neither at different supply voltages nor at different temperatures. A short circuit withstand capability of over 10 μS is witnessed when tested under hard switch fault condition. A small current sharing unbalance has been observed for two parallel power modules as a result of either DC capacitor derating or quasi-symmetrical busbar design when the total current far exceeds the current rating of the power module (i.e., 120 A).
An electrostatic repulsive-force based micro actuator for capacitive RF MEMS switch

A novel electrostatic repulsive force based micro actuator was firstly proposed to drive the capacitive radio frequency (RF) micro-electromechanical (MEMS) switch. The charging effects, which normally take place in the traditional electrostatic attractive force based MEMS switches, can be theoretically mitigated by using the proposed micro actuator, where no electric field will be produced across the dielectric when the proposed structure is actuated by the electrostatic repulsive force. The analytical models related to dielectric charging respectively derived from the electrostatic repulsive force and the electrostatic attractive force were analyzed and compared. In order to optimize the proposed micro actuator for further switch design, the formation mechanism and the operating principle of the electrostatic repulsive force was firstly analyzed, and then the relationships between displacement of movable electrode and the applied voltage were investigated by using the COMSOL Multiphysics software with the different micro actuator structures. The simulation results show that the maximum displacements of three new structures are bigger than the basic structure.
Selection, dominance and atresia of follicles during the oestrous cycle of heifers.

This study examined the correlation between measurement of follicle growth by ultrasound, and measurement of intrafollicular ratios of oestradiol and progesterone concentrations and the serum concentrations of FSH during selection, dominance and atresia or ovulation of dominant follicles in heifers. Heifers were ovariectomized on days 0 (before LH surge), 1 (after LH surge, preovulation), 1 (postovulation), 3, 6 and 12 of the oestrous cycle. Blood samples were collected at 4-6 h intervals. After ovariectomy all follicles > or = 5 mm were measured and follicular fluid was aspirated. Follicles were classified by size according to ultrasound (F1, largest; F2, second largest; F3, all remaining follicles > or = 5 mm) and by the ratio of oestradiol:progesterone concentrations. During the follicular phase, a single dominant oestrogen-active follicle increased in diameter while serum concentrations of LH increased and FSH decreased (P < 0.05). On day 1 (after LH surge, preovulation), serum LH and FSH decreased to pre-surge concentrations (P < 0.0001), while follicle size and intrafollicular progesterone concentration increased and oestradiol concentration decreased (P < 0.05). A dominant nonovulatory follicle, classified as oestrogen-active on days 1, 3 and 6 and oestrogen-inactive on day 12, increased in size from day 1 to day 7 and lost dominance during days 10-12, coincident with the growth of multiple oestrogen-active follicles. The serum FSH concentration increased transiently (P < 0.05) before each new wave of dominant follicular growth. The overall correlation of ultrasound measurements of follicle diameter with measures of follicle size after ovariectomy was high. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Noninvasive Assessment of Changes in Cytochrome-c Oxidase Oxidation in Human Subjects during Visual Stimulation

In this study the authors used a whole-spectrum near-infrared spectroscopy approach to noninvasively assess changes in hemoglobin oxygenation and cytochrome-c oxidase redox state (Cyt-Ox) in the occipital cortex during visual stimulation. The system uses a white light source (halogen lamp). The light reflected from the subject's head is spectrally resolved by a spectrograph and dispersed on a cooled charge-coupled device camera. The authors showed the following using this approach: (1) Changes in cerebral hemoglobin oxygenation (increase in concentration of oxygenated hemoglobin, decrease in concentration of deoxygenated hemoglobin) in the human occipital cortex during visual stimulation can be assessed quantitatively. (2) The spectral changes during functional activation cannot be completely explained by changes in hemoglobin oxygenation solely; Cyt-Ox has to be included in the analysis. Only if Cyt-Ox is considered can the spectral changes in response to increased brain activity be explained. (3) Cytochrome-c oxidase in the occipital cortex of human subjects is transiently oxidized during visual stimulation. This allows us to measure vascular and intracellular energy status simultaneously.
Assessing recurrence risk following acute venous thromboembolism: use of algorithms

Purpose of review Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a chronic disease, associated with a significant rate of recurrence, lower in patients with events provoked by transient risk factors and higher in unprovoked cases. Short-term treatment is indicated for provoked VTE, long-term treatment should be considered for unprovoked. The aim of this review is to evaluate the risk factors for recurrence and the decisional algorithms available to guide patients’ management. Recent findings To identify patients who carry a high recurrent risk and require long-term treatment, three algorithms have been proposed: the HERDOO2, the Vienna prediction model, and the DASH score. All identify male sex and elevated D-dimer levels as important risk factors for recurrence. However, important differences among the models should be outlined: in the HERDOO2 model, D-dimer levels are measured during anticoagulation and not after its withdrawal; furthermore, it indicates age greater than 65 as a risk factor for recurrence, whereas the DASH score attributes a higher risk to age less than 50. The Vienna model is complex for routine use. Summary Further studies are needed to clarify these discrepancies. A management study based on D-dimer levels after anticoagulation withdrawal is ongoing and could indicate a simple way to safely manage these patients.
Métricas de sumarização automática de texto em tarefas de um Ambiente Virtual de Aprendizagem

Este artigo propoe um metodo de sumarizacao de texto para automatizar parte do processo de correcao das atividades dissertativas de um Ambiente Virtual de Aprendizagem (AVA). Para testar o metodo foi criado um corpus de textos. Os testes foram conduzidos para avaliar o desempenho e o impacto da sumarizacao. A precisao do metodo foi a melhor entre as ferramentas comparadas e o impacto da sumarizacao no contexto de um AVA foi considerado positivo pelos professores.
The Male Facelift: Considerations and Techniques

Facelift in the male patient presents unique challenges with respect to maintenance of normal hairline and management of bearded skin. With careful psychological preparation, surgical planning, and attention to detail, these male characteristics can be retained with a good rejuvenative result. The combination of a deep-plane rhytidectomy technique with modified incisions and endoscopic brow intervention has provided the authors with consistent surgical results. Complications have been minimal, with no significant hematomas, skin loss, or nerve injuries to date.
How Viruses Enter Animal Cells

Viruses replicate within living cells and use the cellular machinery for the synthesis of their genome and other components. To gain access, they have evolved a variety of elegant mechanisms to deliver their genes and accessory proteins into the host cell. Many animal viruses take advantage of endocytic pathways and rely on the cell to guide them through a complex entry and uncoating program. In the dialogue between the cell and the intruder, the cell provides critical cues that allow the virus to undergo molecular transformations that lead to successful internalization, intra-cellular transport, and uncoating.