pinecone/core-2020-05-10-deduplication huggingface dataset:
A nationwide study of acquired C1-inhibitor deficiency in France : Characteristics and treatment responses in 92 patients

International audienceAcquired angioedema (AAE) due to C1-inhibitor (C1INH) deficiency is rare. Treatment options for acute attacks are variable and used off-label. Successful treatment of the associated lymphoma with rituximab seems to prevent acute attacks in subjects with AAE. The aim of this study was to describe AAE manifestations, its associated diseases, and patients’ responses to treatments in a representative cohort.A retrospective nationwide study was conducted in France. The inclusion criteria were recurrent angioedema attacks and an acquired decrease in functional C1INH <50% of the reference value.A total of 92 cases were included, with a median age at onset of 62 years. Facial edema and abdominal pain were the most frequent symptoms. Fifteen patients were hospitalized in the intensive care unit because of laryngeal edema, and 1 patient died. Anti-C1INH antibodies were present in 43 patients. The associated diseases were primarily non-Hodgkin lymphoma (n = 44, with 24 splenic marginal zone lymphomas) and monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (n = 24). Three patients had myeloma, 1 had amyloid light-chain (of immunoglobulin) (AL) amyloidosis, 1 patient had a bronchial adenocarcinoma, and 19 patients had no associated disease. Icatibant relieved the symptoms in all treated patients (n = 26), and plasma-derived C1INH concentrate in 19 of 21 treated patients. Six patients experienced thromboembolic events under tranexamic acid prophylaxis. Rituximab prevented angioedema in 27 of 34 patients as a monotherapy or in association with chemotherapy. Splenectomy controlled AAE in 7 patients treated for splenic marginal zone lymphoma. After a median follow-up of 4.2 years, angioedema was on remission in 52 patients.AAE cases are primarily associated with indolent lymphoma—especially splenic marginal zone lymphoma—and monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance but not with autoimmune diseases or other conditions. Icatibant and plasma-derived C1INH concentrate control attacks; splenectomy and immunochemotherapy prevent angioedema in lymphoma setting
Detectability of Earth-like planets in circumstellar habitable zones of binary star systems with sun-like components

International audienceGiven the considerable percentage of stars that are members of binaries or stellar multiples in the solar neighborhood, it is expected that many of these binaries host planets, possibly even habitable ones. The discovery of a terrestrial planet in the α Centauri system supports this notion. Due to the potentially strong gravitational interaction that an Earth-like planet may experience in such systems, classical approaches to determining habitable zones (HZ), especially in close S-type binary systems, can be rather inaccurate. Recent progress in this field, however, allows us to identify regions around the star permitting permanent habitability. While the discovery of α Cen Bb has shown that terrestrial planets can be detected in solar-type binary stars using current observational facilities, it remains to be shown whether this is also the case for Earth analogs in HZs. We provide analytical expressions for the maximum and rms values of radial velocity and astrometric signals, as well as transit probabilities of terrestrial planets in such systems, showing that the dynamical interaction of the second star with the planet may indeed facilitate the planets' detection. As an example, we discuss the detectability of additional Earth-like planets in the averaged, extended, and permanent HZs around both stars of the α Centauri system
Evidence of frost-cracking inferred from acoustic emissions in a high-alpine rock-wall

International audienceIce formation within rock is known to be an important driver of near-surface frost weathering as well as of rock damage at the depth of several meters, which may play a crucial role for the slow preconditioning of rock fall in steep permafrost areas. This letter reports results from an experiment where acoustic emission monitoring was used to investigate rock damage in a high-alpine rock-wall induced by natural thermal cycling and freezing/thawing. The analysis of the large catalog of events obtained shows (i) robust power-law distributions in the time and energy domains, a footprint of rock micro-fracturing activity induced by stresses arising from thermal variations and associated freezing/thawing of rock; (ii) an increase in AE activity under sub-zero rock-temperatures, suggesting the importance of freezing-induced stresses. AE activity further increases in locations of the rock-wall that are prone to receiving melt water. These results suggest that the framework of further modeling studies (theoretical and numerical) should include damage, elastic interaction and poro-mechanics in order to describe freezing-related stresses
Advanced list scheduling heuristic for task scheduling with communication contention for parallel embedded systems

WOSInternational audienceModern embedded systems tend to use multiple cores or processors for processing parallel applications. This paper indeed aims at task scheduling with communication contention for parallel embedded systems and proposes three advanced techniques to improve the list scheduling heuristic. Five groups of node levels (two existing groups and three new groups) are firstly used as node priorities to generate node lists. Then the critical child technique improves the selection of a processor in the scheduling process. Finally, the communication delay technique enlarges the idle time intervals on communication links. We also propose an advanced dynamic list scheduling heuristic by combining the three techniques. Experimental results show that the combined advanced dynamic heuristic is efficient to shorten the schedule length for most of the randomly generated DAGs in the cases of medium and high communication. Our method accelerates an application up to 80% in the case of high communication and can also reduce the use of hardware resources
Irradiation effects in oxide glasses doped with transition and rare-earth elements

International audienceThe effect of -irradiation on silicate and aluminoborosilicate glasses doped with transition metals (TM) and rare earth (RE) elements has been studied using Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR), Raman and luminescence spectroscopy. Irradiation leads to the reduction of both Cr and Mn ions in both types of glass matrix. It is shown that even small amounts of TM dopants completely block defect production, as occurs under irradiation in non-doped glasses. As well, TM doping results in the disappearance of structural changes in the glass (densification, polymerization increase and Na migration) for doses of ~ 10 Gy. Unlike TM-doped matrices, incorporation of RE ions into aluminoborosilicate glass blocks neither defect production nor structural changes in glass matrices during irradiation. Simultaneously, we observe a reduction of RE ions, most clearly demonstrated for Ce ions in aluminoborosilicate glasses. We propose that the relative stability of the different charge states of the RE ions is linked to the efficiency of the reduction process, and therefore to the evolution of the glass structure during irradiation
Kinetic Parameter Estimation of Solvent Free ReactionsMonitored by 13C NMR Spectroscopy. A Case Study: Mono andDi-(hydroxy)ethylation of Aniline with EthyleneCarbonate

The kinetics of solvent-free reactions can be followed in situ by 13C NMR spectroscopy, provided that the reaction mixture can be maintained liquid at the monitoring temperature. The pros and  cons of the technique and the correct translation of the signal\ud
intensities into concentrations are discussed. A good model for this investigation is the reaction of ethylene carbonate (1) with aniline (2): at 140 °C, two alkylation products of N-mono- and\ud
N,N-bis-(2-hydroxy)ethylation of aniline form (compounds 3 and 4, respectively). The overall reaction occurs with heavy volume shrinking, so that the physical as well as the chemical features evolve during the course of the process. The chemical evolution is described by the kinetic constants k1 and k2 of the two N-alkylation steps, the physical evolution by the time dependent activity coefficients α(t). Two complementary procedures are utilized for the determination of these parameters
Electrochemical Assay for deoxyribonuclease I Activity

A thiolated oligonucleotide having three ferrocenes was immobilized on a gold electrode through the sulfur–gold linkage. This electrode showed a current response based on the redox reaction of the ferrocene moieties and this response was decreased after treatment with deoxyribonuclease I (DNase I), suggesting the disappearance of the ferrocene moieties on the electrode by the DNase I digestion. A linear correlation between i0 and i, which are current peaks before and after DNase I treatment, respectively, was observed and this slope was decreased with increase in the amount of DNase I. No current decrease was observed in the presence of EDTA or RNase A instead of DNase I. These results suggested that the current decrease responded specifically to the amount of DNase I and this electrode could be used for an electrochemical DNase I assay. Under the optimum conditions of DNase I digestion at 37 °C for 30 min, a quantitative analysis could be achieved in the range of 10−4–10−2 units/μl of DNase I
The rapid atmospheric monitoring system of the Pierre Auger Observatory

The Pierre Auger Observatory is a facility built to detect air showers produced by cosmic rays above 10(17) eV. During clear nights with a low illuminated moon fraction, the UV fluorescence light produced by air showers is recorded by optical telescopes at the Observatory. To correct the observations for variations in atmospheric conditions, atmospheric monitoring is performed at regular intervals ranging from several minutes (for cloud identification) to several hours (for aerosol conditions) to several days (for vertical profiles of temperature, pressure, and humidity). In 2009, the monitoring program was upgraded to allow for additional targeted measurements of atmospheric conditions shortly after the detection of air showers of special interest, e. g., showers produced by very high-energy cosmic rays or showers with atypical longitudinal profiles. The former events are of particular importance for the determination of the energy scale of the Observatory, and the latter are characteristic of unusual air shower physics or exotic primary particle types. The purpose of targeted (or 'rapid') monitoring is to improve the resolution of the atmospheric measurements for such events. In this paper, we report on the implementation of the rapid monitoring program and its current status. The rapid monitoring data have been analyzed and applied to the reconstruction of air showers of high interest, and indicate that the air fluorescence measurements affected by clouds and aerosols are effectively corrected using measurements from the regular atmospheric monitoring program. We find that the rapid monitoring program has potential for supporting dedicated physics analyses beyond the standard event reconstruction
Hesitant Fuzzy Worth: an innovative ranking methodology for hesitant fuzzy subsets

Producción CientíficaWe introduce a novel methodology for ranking hesitant fuzzy sets. It builds on a recent, theoretically sound contribution in Social Choice. In order to justify the applicability of such analysis, we develop two real implementations: (i) new metarankings of world academic institutions that build on real data from three reputed agencies, and (ii) a new procedure for improving teaching performance assessments which we illustrate with real data collected by ourselves.Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (Project ECO2012-31933)Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (Project ECO2012-32178)Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (Project CGL2008-06003-C03-03/CLI)Junta de Andalucía (Project P09-SEJ-05404
Sitting-time, physical activity and depressive symptoms in mid-aged women

Background\ud
Associations of sitting-time and physical activity with depression are unclear.\ud
Purpose\ud
To examine concurrent and prospective associations between both sitting-time and physical activity with prevalent depressive symptoms in mid-aged Australian women.\ud
Methods\ud
Data were from 8950 women, aged 50–55 years in 2001, who completed mail surveys in 2001, 2004, 2007, and 2010. Depressive symptoms were assessed using the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression questionnaire. Associations between sitting-time (≤4 hours/day, >4–7 hours/day, >7 hours/day) and physical activity (none, some, meeting guidelines) with depressive symptoms (symptoms/no symptoms) were examined in 2011 in concurrent and lagged mixed-effect logistic modeling. Both main effects and interaction models were developed.\ud
Results\ud
In main effects modeling, women who sat >7 hours/day (OR=1.47, 95% CI=1.29, 1.67) and women who did no physical activity (OR=1.99, 95% CI=1.75, 2.27) were more likely to have depressive symptoms than women who sat ≤4 hours/day and who met physical activity guidelines, respectively. In interaction modeling, the likelihood of depressive symptoms in women who sat >7 hours/day and did no physical activity was triple that of women who sat ≤4 hours/day and met physical activity guidelines (OR 2.96, 95% CI=2.37, 3.69). In prospective main effects and interaction modeling, sitting-time was not associated with depressive symptoms, but women who did no physical activity were more likely than those who met physical activity guidelines to have future depressive symptoms (OR=1.26, 95% CI=1.08, 1.47).\ud
Conclusions\ud
Increasing physical activity to a level commensurate with guidelines can alleviate current depression symptoms and prevent future symptoms in mid-aged women. Reducing sitting-time may ameliorate current symptoms
Road environment modeling using robust perspective analysis and recursive Bayesian segmentation

Recently, vision-based advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) have received a new increased interest to enhance driving safety. In particular, due to its high performance–cost ratio, mono-camera systems are arising as the main focus of this ﬁeld of work. In this paper we present a novel on-board road modeling and vehicle detection system, which is a part of the result of the European I-WAY project. The system relies on a robust estimation of the perspective of the scene, which adapts to the dynamics of the vehicle and generates a stabilized rectiﬁed image of the road plane. This rectiﬁed plane is used by a recursive Bayesian classi- ﬁer, which classiﬁes pixels as belonging to different classes corresponding to the elements of interest of the scenario. This stage works as an intermediate layer that isolates subsequent modules since it absorbs the inherent variability of the scene. The system has been tested on-road, in different scenarios, including varied illumination and adverse weather conditions, and the results have been proved to be remarkable even for such complex scenarios
Study on the response of IFMIF fission chambers to mixed neutron-gamma fields: PH-2 experimental tests

The engineering design of fissionchambers as on-line radiation detectors for IFMIF is being performed in the framework of the IFMIF-EVEDA works. In this paper the results of the experiments performed in the BR2 reactor during the phase-2 of the foreseen validation activities are addressed. Two detectors have been tested in a mixedneutron-gamma field with high neutron fluence and gamma absorbed dose rates, comparable with the expected values in the HFTM in IFMIF. Since the neutron spectra in all BR2 channels are dominated by the thermal neutron component, the detectors have been surrounded by a cylindrical gadolinium screen to cut the thermal neutron component, in order to get a more representative test for IFMIF conditions. The integrated gamma absorbed dose was about 4 × 1010 Gy and the fast neutron fluence (E > 0.1 MeV) 4 × 1020 n/cm2. The fissionchambers were calibrated in three BR2 channels with different neutron-to-gamma ratio, and the long-term evolution of the signals was studied and compared with theoretical calculation
Exploring the logic of mobile search

After more than a decade of development work and hopes, the usage of mobile Internet has finally taken off. Now, we are witnessing the first signs of evidence of what might become the explosion of mobile content and applications that will be shaping the (mobile) Internet of the future. Similar to the wired Internet, search will become very relevant for the usage of mobile Internet. Current research on mobile search has applied a limited set of methodologies and has also generated a narrow outcome of meaningful results. This article covers new ground, exploring the use and visions of mobile search with a users' interview-based qualitative study. Its main conclusion builds upon the hypothesis that mobile search is sensitive to a mobile logic different than today's one. First, (advanced) users ask for accessing with their mobile devices the entire Internet, rather than subsections of it. Second, success is based on new added-value applications that exploit unique mobile functionalities. The authors interpret that such mobile logic involves fundamentally the use of personalised and context-based services
On the dynamics of innovators and imitators

After deriving a model describing the law of evolution of innovators and imitators the article focuses on their relationships under two different scenarios: prey-predator, in which innovators are regarded as preys, and competing species. Analytic results show that among the feasible equilibria the coexistence equilibrium is the only stable equilibrium under the fi�rst scenario. We also �find conditions on the parameters allowing local stability of the coexistence equilibrium in the second scenario. Such conditions imply the existence of an inverse-U shaped relationship between innovation and imitation.
Dendritic-branching angles of pyramidal neurons of the human\ud
cerebral cortex

In this article, we analyze branching angles of\ud
the basal dendrites of pyramidal neurons of layers III and V\ud
of the human temporal cortex. For this, we use a novel\ud
probability directional statistical distribution called truncated\ud
von Mises distribution that is able to describe more\ud
accurately the dendritic-branching angles than the previous\ud
proposals. Then, we perform comparative studies using this\ud
statistical method to determine similarities and/or differences\ud
between branches and branching angles that belong\ud
to different cortical layers and regions. Using this\ud
methodology, we found that common design principles\ud
exist and govern the patterns found in the different branches\ud
that compose the basal dendrites of human pyramidal\ud
cells of the temporal cortex. However, particular differences\ud
were found between supra and infragranular cells.\ud
Furthermore, we compared the branching angles of human\ud
layer III pyramidal neurons with data obtained in the previous\ud
studies in layer III of both the rat somatosensory\ud
cortex and of several cortical areas of the mouse. Finally,\ud
we study the branching angle differences between the\ud
humans that compose our data
Analysis of the deformation paths and thermomechanical parameter identification of a shape memory alloy using digital image correlation over heterogeneous tests

With the design of new devices with complex geometry and to take advantage of their large recoverable strains, shape memory alloys components (SMA) are increasingly subjected to multiaxial loadings. The development process of SMA devices requires the prediction of their thermomechanical response, for which the calibration of the material parameters for the numerical model is an important step. In this work, the parameters of a phenomenological model are extracted from tests performed on specimens with non-uniform geometry, which induce heterogeneous strain fields carried out on specimens with the same thermomechanical loading history. The digital image correlation technique is employed to measure the strain fields on the surface of the specimen and to analyze the strain paths of chosen points. Finite element analysis enables the computation of numerical strain fields using a thermodynamical
constitutive model for shape memory alloys previously implemented in a finite element code. The strain fields computed numerically are compared with experimental ones obtained by DIC to find the model parameters which best match experimental measurements using a newly developed parallelized mixed genetic/gradient-based optimization algorithm. These numerical simulations are carried out in parallel using a supercomputer to reduce the time necessary to identify the set of model parameters. The major features of this new algorithm is its ability to identify the material parameters which describe the thermomechanical behavior of shape memory alloys from full-field measurements for various loading conditions (different temperatures, multiaxial behavior, heterogeneous test configurations). It is demonstrated that model parameters for the simulation of SMA structures are thus obtained based on a reduced number of heterogeneous tests at different temperatures.IIME
Characterisation of polyphenols by HPLC-PAD-ESI/MS and antioxidant activity in Equisetum telmateia

The antioxidant activity of an aqueous extract (infusion) and respective ethyl acetate fraction of Equisetum telmateia Ehrh. (Equisetaceae), a plant used in traditional medicine for its anti-inflammatory and diuretic properties, has been evaluated by DPPH, TEAC and TBARS assays. A high and significant antioxidant activity was detected in the ethyl acetate fraction. Analysis of the aqueous extract and the ethyl acetate fraction by HPLC-PAD-ESI/MS allowed the identification of the major phenolic compounds as flavan-3-ol, kaempferol and phenolic acid derivatives. Among the flavan-3-ols, A-type proanthocyanidins and afzelechin derivatives were detected as well as the more common B-type procyanidins, B2 and C1, whose identification was further confirmed by HPLC using detection involving chemical reaction with p-dimethylamino-cinnamaldehyde. The results suggest that the anti-inflammatory activity of E. telmateia could be due, at least in part, to the presence of compounds with antioxidant activity. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/pca.86
Hornification—its origin and interpretation in wood pulps

Although perfectly diagnosed in terms of the occurrence of physical changes, the hornification phenomenon, in its origin, has frequently been associated with the formation of irreversible or partially reversible hydrogen bonding in wood pulps or paper upon drying or water removal. Its characterisation has therefore been confusing and unsatisfactory. The authors propose that a sufficiently varied source of experimental data already exists to show that hornification is only a particular case of lactone bridge formation in lignocellulosic materials.http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00226-003-0216-