julilili42/papers huggingface dataset:
In vitro study of iridium electrodes for neural stimulation
2012-08-01

Iridium is one of the main electrode materials for applications like neural stimulation. Iridium has a higher charge injection capacity when activated and transformed into AIROF (activated iridium oxide film) using specific electrical signals. Activation is not possible in stimulating devices, if they do not include the necessary circuitry for activation. We introduce a method for iridium electrode activation requiring minimum additional on-chip hardware. In the main part, the lifetime behavior of iridium electrodes is investigated. These results may be interesting for applications not including on-chip activation hardware, and also because activation has drawbacks such as worse mechanical properties and reproducibility of AIROF.
Differences in hemodynamic activations between motor imagery and upper limb FES with NIRS
2012-08-01

A brain-computer interface (BCI) based on near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) could act as a tool for rehabilitation of stroke patients due to the neural activity induced by motor imagery aided by real-time feedback of hemodynamic activation. When combined with functional electrical stimulation (FES) of the affected limb, BCI is expected to have an even greater benefit due to the contingency established between motor imagery and afferent, haptic feedback from stimulation. Yet, few studies have explored such an approach, presumably due to the difficulty in dissociating and thus decoding the hemodynamic response (HDR) between motor imagery and peripheral stimulation. Here, for the first time, we demonstrate that NIRS signals elicited by motor imagery can be reliably discriminated from those due to FES, by first performing a univariate analysis of the NIRS signals, and subsequently by multivariate pattern classification. Our results showing that robust classification of motor imagery from the rest condition is possible support previous findings that imagery could be used to drive a BCI based on NIRS. More importantly, we demonstrate for the first time the successful classification of motor imagery and FES, indicating that it is technically feasible to implement a contingent NIRS-BCI with FES.
Interactions of Photosystem I with Plasmonic nanostructures
2012-08-01

The plasmonic interaction eects of various nanostructures on the uorescence properties of photosystem I as found by single-molecule spectroscopy are summarized.The used nanostructures are spherical Au nanoparticles, silver island lms as well as hexagonal arrays of nanometer-sized Au-and Ag-triangles (the Fischer patterns).The uorescence emission of photosystem I is intensied due to coupling with these nanostructures.For single photosystem I complexes, enhancement factors of up to 37 were observed.The average enhancements vary between 2.2 for Au Fischer pattern and 9 for spherical Au nanoparticles.The enhancement of the uorescence of photosystem I demonstrates in all cases a strong wavelength dependence.This wavelength dependence can be explained by the spatially largely extended multichromophore composition of photosystem I complexes.From the viewpoint of the usability of these nanostructures for spectroscopic signal enhancement, the Fischer patterns are benecial, due to their very low autoluminescence.
Endometrial Cancer: Comparison of Patients with Synchronous Primary Carcinoma of the Endometrium and Ovary vs. Endometrial Carcinoma with Ovarian Metastases
2012-08-01

<b>Purpose:</b> The aim of our study was to investigate the rate of secondary carcinomas in patients with endometrial carcinoma (EC). In particular, we wanted to describe the subset of patients with endometrial and simultaneous ovarian carcinoma (OC), including outcomes. The study also compared patients with EC and ovarian metastasis with patients with EC and simultaneous OC. <b>Patients and Methods:</b> Data from 251 patients with primary endometrial carcinoma who underwent surgery in the years 2005-2009 at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of Tübingen, were analysed retrospectively. <b>Results:</b> A total of 28 patients (11.1 %) had a secondary carcinoma: 18 patients (7.1 %) had OC; 9 (3.5 %) patients had a history of breast cancer, and one patient (0.4 %) respectively had simultaneous carcinoma of the vulva or bladder. 14 patients (5.5 %) had advanced stage EC with ovarian metastasis or, in one case, metastasis to the ovarian tube. Patients with ovarian metastasis had a mean age of 71.2 ± 9.2 years at primary diagnosis, making them significantly older compared to patients with EC and simultaneous OC (55.3 ± 11.8 years, p < 0.001). Moreover, patients with ovarian metastasis significantly more often had EC with a higher tumour grade (grade 1: 0, grade 2: 21.4 %, grade 3: 78.6 %) compared to patients with simultaneous EC and OC (grade 1: 11.1 %, grade 2: 77.8 %, grade 3: 11.1 %; p < 0.001). <b>Conclusion:</b> Almost one in 10 patients with EC had a secondary carcinoma. The most common secondary carcinoma was OC followed by breast cancer. This should be taken into account in the diagnosis and therapy of patients with EC. Patients with simultaneous EC and OC were significantly younger than patients with EC and ovarian metastasis. In addition, their tumour had better prognostic features: thus, the tumour grade of the EC was significantly lower. Overall, the prognosis for patients with synchronous EC and OC is better than that for patients with EC and ovarian metastasis.
Oncolytic Viruses to Treat Ovarian Cancer Patients - a Review of Results From Clinical Trials
2012-08-01

Onkolytische Viren sind replikationsfähige "lebende" Viren. Sie infizieren hochselektiv Tumorzellen, vermehren sich in diesen und zerstören sie dabei. Aufgrund der enormen Fortschritte auf dem Gebiet der Gen- und Biotechnologie kommt die Virotherapie zunehmend in klinischen Studien zum Einsatz und erweist sich als äußerst sicher, nebenwirkungsarm und effektiv. Insbesondere findet sich bei der Behandlung von Ovarialkarzinompatientinnen ein wichtiger Forschungsschwerpunkt. Zum einen liegt dies an der schlechten Prognose der Erkrankung und der hieraus resultierenden Notwendigkeit neuer Therapiemodalitäten. Zum anderen breitet sich das Ovarialkarzinom typischerweise lokoregionär aus, woraus sich die spezielle Möglichkeit der intraperitonealen Applikation onkolytischer Viren ergibt. Die vorliegende Arbeit fasst die vielversprechenden Ergebnisse klinischer Studien zur Behandlung von Ovarialkarzinompatientinnen mit onkolytischen Viren zuammen.
Engines of Growth: Education and Innovation
2012-08-01

Summary The paper presents a dynamic general-equilibrium model of education, quality and variety innovation, and scale-invariant growth. We consider endogenous human-capital accumulation in an educational sector and quality and variety innovation in two separate R&amp;D sectors. In the balanced growth equilibrium education and innovation appear as in-line engines of growth and government can accelerate growth by subsidizing education or by enhancing the effectiveness of the educational sector.
Carbon nanotubes grown on polyimide by chemical vapour deposition
2012-08-01

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are ideal candidates as electrode materials for neuronal stimulation and monitoring devices, since they provide a high charge injection limit without significant Faradic reactions, and carbon nanotube electrodes have a high surface to volume ratio. CNTs are positioned at desired locations by chemical vapour deposition (CVD) growth from patterned catalysts. However, these processes typically require temperatures above 700 °C, which is unacceptable for many flexible substrate materials like polyimide, which looses its insulating properties around 400 °C and its stability at 600 °C. By proper selection of parameters such as catalyst material, gas composition, processing pressure and time, it is possible to grow CNTs at temperatures as low as 350 °C with a total CNT height of ~1 μm on silicon. On polyimide additional substrate and catalyst pretreatment is necessary at such low temperatures. This indicates that the substrate may influence the growth process of CNTs.
Constraining neutron star masses and radii using thermonuclear X-ray bursts
2012-08-01

Abstract Precisely measured neutron star masses and especially radii would provide unique constraints on the properties of cold matter at several times nuclear density. Observations using the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer suggest that such measurements might be possible using thermonuclear X-ray bursts. Here we discuss the prospects for mass and radius constraints, with a particular focus on potential systematic errors.
Spiritualität und spirituality in der Welt der Arbeit und der Welt der Gesundheit
2012-08-01

Abstract: This article explores the role of spirituality in the fields of health and work. Spirituality has become an integral part of the structures of workplaces. E.g., regarding health care not only the spirituality of those taken care of but also of those caring has come to the attention. Regarding other workplaces than hospitals, spirituality is recognised as integral part of the personality of people, therefore it must be cared about for the growth of efficiency.
[Detection of disseminated tumor cells in the bone marrow of breast cancer patients with a new molecular method].
2012-08-01

Our newly established molecular assay for the detection of disseminated tumor cells, and thus minimal residual disease, is sensitive, fast and reproducible, and has a potential to be used as a confirmatory or alternative test for DTC detection.
Impersonalism in Bioethics
2012-08-01

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgments 1. Hope and McMillan do not use this terminology. Yet when they argue that our actions can fail to bring about the “best state of affairs” or the “best state of the world,” they argue from an impersonalist perspective. 2. There are actually distinct claims at stake here. One claim is about the person-affecting nature of value, and the other claim is about a specific comparative notion of harm. Even though it is worth distinguishing the two claims, I follow Hope and McMillan in not discussing them separately.
Constraints of the compactness of the isolated neutron stars via X-ray phase-resolved spectroscopy
2012-08-01

Abstract A model with a condensed iron surface and partially ionized hydrogen-thin atmosphere allows us to fit simultaneously the observed general spectral shape and the broad absorption feature (observed at 0.3 keV) in different spin phases of the isolated neutron star RBS 1223. We constrain some physical properties of the X-ray emitting areas, i.e. the temperatures (T pole1 ~ 105 eV, T pole2 ~ 99 eV), magnetic field strengths (B pole1 ≈ B pole2 ~ 8.6 × 10 13 G) at the poles, and their distribution parameters (a1 ~ 0.61, a2 ~ 0.29, indicating an absence of strong toroidal magnetic field component). In addition, we are able to place some constraints on the geometry of the emerging X-ray emission and the gravitational redshift (z ~ 0.16 0.03 −0.01 ) of the isolated neutron star RBS 1223.
Constraining neutron star EoS from cooling stages of X-ray bursts
2012-08-01

Abstract Thermal emission during X-ray bursts is a powerful tool to determine neutron star masses and radii, if the Eddington flux and the apparent radius in the cooling tail can be measured accurately, and distances to the sources are known. We propose here an improved method of determining the basic stellar parameters using the data from the cooling phase of long, photospheric radius expansion bursts covering a large range of luminosities. For this purpose, we computed a large set of atmosphere models for burst luminosities varying by two orders of magnitude and for various chemical compositions and surface gravities. We show that the variation of the inverse square root of the apparent blackbody radius with the flux, observed during the photospheric radius expansion bursts from a number of sources at low accretion rate is entirely consistent with the theoretical expectations of the color-correction factor evolution. However, for bursts happening at higher accretion rates the observed evolution is inconsistent with theory, implying that accretion strongly disturbs the neutron star atmosphere. These findings have profound implications for the recent claims on determination of the neutron star radii and masses from such bursts. Our method allows us to determine both the Eddington flux and the ratio of the stellar apparent radius to the distance much more reliably. For 4U 1724-307, we find a lower limit on the neutron star radius of 13 km, independently of the chemical composition. These results suggest that the matter inside neutron stars is characterized by a stiff equation of state.
Body dissatisfaction in female adolescents: TV exposure and paternal comments as important correlates
2012-08-01

Background: Body image distortion represents a central symptom in eating disorders like anorexia nervosa (American Psychiatric Association DSM-IV-TR). Body dissatisfaction plays a central role in the etiology of body image distortion. As eating disorders are considered to begin in adolescence – particular prevalent in girls – searching for correlates of even moderate forms of body dissatisfaction enables to identify risk groups and to initiate early prevention programs. The present study aimed at assessing the extent and the pattern of body dissatisfaction within female adolescents. Additionally, it identified potential correlates of body dissatisfaction.
Blockade of mineralocorticoid receptors enhances naïve T-helper cell counts during early sleep in humans
2012-08-02

Sleep supports the formation of immunological memory as evidenced by a stronger immune response to vaccination if subjects sleep during the subsequent night than if they stay awake. One mechanism underlying this adjuvant-like action of sleep might be an enhanced homing of circulating naïve T cells to lymph nodes. Indeed, compared to nocturnal wakefulness, sleep acutely lowers T cell counts in peripheral blood during the early night, with the efflux of these cells to lymphoid tissues possibly mediated by sleep-associated release of the mineralocorticoid aldosterone. We show here that blocking mineralocorticoid receptors by spironolactone (200mg, orally at 23:00 h and again at 4:00 h) in 11 healthy men enhances naïve T-helper cell counts in blood during early nocturnal sleep. Effects in the same direction on naïve cytotoxic T cells and central memory T-helper cells were less consistent. Spironolactone did not influence T cell subsets not migrating to lymph nodes (i.e., CD62L(-) effector memory and effector T cells), or expression of CD62L and CXCR4. The typical circadian decrease in T cell numbers in the morning hours was not affected by the blockade of mineralocorticoid receptors, in line with the view that this decrease is mainly due to activation of glucocorticoid receptors during the circadian morning rise in cortisol. We assume that sleep-associated activation of mineralocorticoid receptors at a time of low cortisol levels contributes to an enhanced redistribution of circulating naïve T-helper cells to lymph nodes, as a mechanism that eventually promotes immunological memory formation.
The emergence of Eastern European English
2012-08-02

ABSTRACT: The status of English in the Expanding Circle has been of significant interest in recent years. The use of English by Slavic speakers in Post‐Communist space, especially in light of the EU enlargement, has nevertheless been largely ignored. This paper aims to present evidence of the emergence of Eastern European English (EEE) in European language contact situations. The questions addressed in the study are, first, how Slavic speakers of English render a temporal‐aspectual plane in a lingua franca discourse, and, second, what constitutes an authentic lexical mosaic of EEE. Spoken production data (Tübingen Corpus of EEE: 60,000 words) and introspective data were elicited from fifteen native speakers of Russian, Ukrainian, Polish and Slovak. The analyses suggest that EEE is indeed emerging. In contrast to native speakers of English, Slavic speakers possess a limited repertoire of English tenses. The English simple past and the past progressive, for example, are used to render Slavic categories of imperfective and perfective aspect. Eastern European English seems to be a product of an interrelation of various speaker‐specific dimensions, such as the speakers’ L1, and their communicative competence in L3.
All0809/8/7 is a DevBCA-like ABC-type efflux pump required for diazotrophic growth in Anabaena sp. PCC 7120
2012-08-02

Efflux pumps export a wide variety of proteinaceous and non-proteinaceous substrates across the Gram-negative cell wall. For the filamentous cyanobacterium Anabaena sp. strain PCC 7120, the ATP-driven glycolipid efflux pump DevBCA-TolC has been shown to be crucial for the differentiation of N(2)-fixing heterocysts from photosynthetically active vegetative cells. In this study, a homologous system was described. All0809/8/7-TolC form a typical ATP-driven efflux pump as shown by surface plasmon resonance. This putative exporter is also involved in diazotrophic growth of Anabaena sp. PCC 7120. A mutant in all0809 encoding the periplasmic membrane fusion protein of the pump was not able to grow without combined nitrogen. Although heterocysts of this mutant were not distinguishable from those of the wild-type in light and electron micrographs, they were impaired in providing the microoxic environment necessary for N(2) fixation. RT-PCR of all0809 transcripts and localization studies on All0807-GFP revealed that All0809/8/7 was initially downregulated during heterocyst maturation and upregulated at later stages of heterocyst formation in all cells of the filament. A substrate of the efflux pump could not be identified in ATP hydrolysis assays. We discuss a role for All0809/8/7-TolC in maintaining the continuous periplasm and how this would be of special importance for heterocyst differentiation.
Scripting and Cooperation for Interactive Web-based Courseware
2012-08-02

Highly interactive Web-based courseware allows for a more intuitive learning than nowadays textbooks. A high level of interaction and cooperation is crucial for the success in stirring up the participants&amp;apos; emotions and involving him into self-acting studies. The basic requirements for the underlying programming architecture are interdisciplinary. We describe a general framework for rapid development and easy enhancement of Web-based courseware with special focus on concepts that meet the task of providing scripting and cooperation for highly interactive content.
Nutritional status influences peripheral immune cell phenotypes in healthy men in rural Pakistan
2012-08-03

Immune status is influenced by malnutrition, but how this factor interacts in developing countries and whether these differences are similar to those determined in industrialized countries, is unclear. To establish whether malnutrition-associated immune profiles in a developing country are similar to those in industrialized countries we analyzed peripheral blood immune cell phenotypes by polychromatic flow cytometry in 50 young and 50 elderly subjects. Data on anthropometrics and diet were collected through interviews. Plasma samples were analyzed for common clinical chemistry variables. Subjects in 4 BMI categories differed in their immune parameters demonstrating influence of nutritional status on immunity. This was greater within the young group and affected the CD4 subset more profoundly than the CD8 subset. No nutrition-associated differences were seen in B or NK cells. CD8+ cells as a percentage of CD3+ T cells were positively associated with plasma CRP levels but not other factors. We conclude that there are differences in the immune signatures of obese, overweight and underweight versus normal-weight young and elderly, which seem broadly similar to the more extensively-documented state reported in industrialized countries, despite the marked societal, nutritional and many other differences.
Left ventricular functional assessment in murine models of ischemic and dilated cardiomyopathy using [18 F]FDG-PET: comparison with cardiac MRI and monitoring erythropoietin therapy
2012-08-03

Abstract Background We performed an initial evaluation of non-invasive ECG-gated [ 18 F]FDG-positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) for serial measurements of left ventricular volumes and function in murine models of dilated (DCM) and ischemic cardiomyopathy (ICM), and then tested the effect of erythropoietin (EPO) treatment on DCM mice in a preliminary FDG-PET therapy monitoring study. Methods Mice developed DCM 8 weeks after injection with Coxsackievirus B3 (CVB3), whereas ICM was induced by ligation of the left anterior descending artery. LV volumes (EDV and ESV) and the ejection fraction (LVEF) of DCM, ICM and healthy control mice were measured by FDG-PET and compared with reference standard results obtained with 1.5 T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). In the subsequent monitoring study, LVEF of DCM mice was evaluated by FDG-PET at baseline, and after 4 weeks of treatment, with EPO or saline. Results LV volumes and the LVEF as measured by FDG-PET correlated significantly with the MRI results. These correlations were higher in healthy and DCM mice than in ICM mice, in which LVEF measurements were somewhat compromised by absence of FDG uptake in the area of infarction. LV volumes (EDV and ESV) were systematically underestimated by FDG-PET, with net bias such that LVEF measurements in both models of heart disease exceeded by 15% to 20% results obtained by MRI. In our subsequent monitoring study of DCM mice, we found a significant decrease of LVEF in the EPO group, but not in the saline-treated mice. Moreover, LVEF in the EPO and saline mice significantly correlated with histological scores of fibrosis. Conclusions LVEF estimated by ECG-gated FDG-PET significantly correlated with the reference standard MRI, most notably in healthy mice and mice with DCM. FDG-PET served for longitudinal monitoring of effects of EPO treatment in DCM mice.
Immortalization of neuronal progenitors using SV40 large T antigen and differentiation towards dopaminergic neurons
2012-08-03

Abstract Transplantation is common in clinical practice where there is availability of the tissue and organ. In the case of neurodegenerative disease such as P arkinson's disease ( PD ), transplantation is not possible as a result of the non‐availability of tissue or organ and therefore, cell therapy is an innovation in clinical practice. However, the availability of neuronal cells for transplantation is very limited. Alternatively, immortalized neuronal progenitors could be used in treating PD . The neuronal progenitor cells can be differentiated into dopaminergic phenotype. Here in this article, the current understanding of the molecular mechanisms involved in the differentiation of dopaminergic phenotype from the neuronal progenitors immortalized with SV 40 LT antigen is discussed. In addition, the methods of generating dopaminergic neurons from progenitor cells and the factors that govern their differentiation are elaborated. Recent advances in cell‐therapy based transplantation in PD patients and future prospects are discussed.