101 research outputs found
Dietary Supplementation with Homoarginine Preserves Cardiac Function in a Murine Model of Post-Myocardial Infarction Heart Failure
Low plasma homoarginine (HA) is an emerging biomarker for cardiovascular disease and an independent predictor of mortality in patients with heart failure. Plasma levels appear to reflect cardiac dysfunction, positively correlating with ejection fraction and inversely with circulating brain natriuretic peptide. However, whether this outcome is a bystander or cause-and-effect has yet to be established. Within the context of stroke, a direct causal relationship has been inferred because normal mice pretreated with 14 mg/L HA had a smaller stroke size. In the present study, we show for the first time that dietary supplementation with HA improves cardiac function in the setting of chronic heart failure, suggesting a novel preventive strategy and inferring that low HA levels may be inherently detrimental because of a loss of this effect
ShadowTutor: Distributed Partial Distillation for Mobile Video DNN Inference
Following the recent success of deep neural networks (DNN) on video computer
vision tasks, performing DNN inferences on videos that originate from mobile
devices has gained practical significance. As such, previous approaches
developed methods to offload DNN inference computations for images to cloud
servers to manage the resource constraints of mobile devices. However, when it
comes to video data, communicating information of every frame consumes
excessive network bandwidth and renders the entire system susceptible to
adverse network conditions such as congestion. Thus, in this work, we seek to
exploit the temporal coherence between nearby frames of a video stream to
mitigate network pressure. That is, we propose ShadowTutor, a distributed video
DNN inference framework that reduces the number of network transmissions
through intermittent knowledge distillation to a student model. Moreover, we
update only a subset of the student's parameters, which we call partial
distillation, to reduce the data size of each network transmission.
Specifically, the server runs a large and general teacher model, and the mobile
device only runs an extremely small but specialized student model. On sparsely
selected key frames, the server partially trains the student model by targeting
the teacher's response and sends the updated part to the mobile device. We
investigate the effectiveness of ShadowTutor with HD video semantic
segmentation. Evaluations show that network data transfer is reduced by 95% on
average. Moreover, the throughput of the system is improved by over three times
and shows robustness to changes in network bandwidth.Comment: Accepted at ICPP 202
Paramedics' perceptions and experiences of pelvic injuries in prehospital situations
In recent years there has been an increase in pelvic injuries due to an increase in road traffic collisions (RTCs) (Chesters 2017). Two thirds of pelvic injuries are due to RTCs and the remainder are made up of pedestrian collisions, motorcycle accidents and falls from heights. Patients with fatal pelvic injuries more than likely die of exsanguinations and/or associated severe injuries (ibid.). Lee & Porter (2007) undertook a literature review to analyse the current practice of assessing and managing pelvic injuries in pre-hospital situations. They write that the mortality rates of patients with pelvic fractures are estimated between 7% and 19%, upon their arrival at hospital. The mortality rates of patients with ‘open book’ fractures can be as high as 50%. An ‘open book’ fracture can be defined as any serious fracture that causes the pelvic ring to open like a book. This is commonly seen in anterior injuries to the pelvis widening the pubic symphysis (Gerecht, Larrimore & Steuerwald 2014). Lee and Porter (2007) argue that paramedics can help reduce the retroperitoneal space that a patient can haemorrhage into, and therefore lower the mortality rates for patients with ‘open-book’ pelvic fractures. Given the high mortality rates associated with pelvic injuries and the role paramedics can play in reducing these outcomes, the aim of this narrative review is to synthesize existing literature about pelvic injury recognition, assessment and management in pre-hospital situations. The authors will also conclude upon any new insights or recommendations found following the review
Degree of adaptive male mate choice is positively correlated with female quality variance
When the cost of reproduction for males and variance in female quality are high, males are predicted to show adaptive mate choice. Using Drosophila melanogaster, we test this prediction and show that sperm limited males preferentially mated with young and/or well fed females. The preferred females had higher reproductive output – direct evidence of adaptive precopulatory male mate choice. Our most striking finding is the strong positive correlation between the degree of mating bias showed by the males and the variance in the fitness of the females. We discuss the possible mechanism for such adaptive male mate choice and propose that such choice has important consequences with respect to the existing understanding of the mating system and the evolution of aging
Rasiowa–Sikorski deduction systems in computer science applications
AbstractA Rasiowa-Sikorski system is a sequence-type formalization of logics. The system uses invertible decomposition rules which decompose a formula into sequences of simpler formulae whose validity is equivalent to validity of the original formula. There may also be expansion rules which close indecomposable sequences under certain properties of relations appearing in the formulae, like symmetry or transitivity. Proofs are finite decomposition trees with leaves having “fundamental”, valid labels. The author describes a general method of applying the R-S formalism to develop complete deduction systems for various brands of C.S and A.I. logic, including a logic for reasoning about relative similarity, a three-valued software specification logic with McCarthy's connectives and Kleene quantifiers, a logic for nondeterministic specifications, many-sorted FOL with possibly empty carriers of some sorts, and a three-valued logic for reasoning about concurrency
Defensin-Like ZmES4 Mediates Pollen Tube Burst in Maize via Opening of the Potassium Channel KZM1
Species-preferential osmotic pollen tube burst and sperm discharge in maize involve induced opening of the pollen tube-expressed potassium channel KZM1 by the egg apparatus-derived defensin-like protein ZmES4
Recent developments in genetics and medically assisted reproduction : from research to clinical applications
Two leading European professional societies, the European Society of Human Genetics and the European Society for Human Reproduction and Embryology, have worked together since 2004 to evaluate the impact of fast research advances at the interface of assisted reproduction and genetics, including their application into clinical practice. In September 2016, the expert panel met for the third time. The topics discussed highlighted important issues covering the impacts of expanded carrier screening, direct-to-consumer genetic testing, voiding of the presumed anonymity of gamete donors by advanced genetic testing, advances in the research of genetic causes underlying male and female infertility, utilisation of massively parallel sequencing in preimplantation genetic testing and non-invasive prenatal screening, mitochondrial replacement in human oocytes, and additionally, issues related to cross-generational epigenetic inheritance following IVF and germline genome editing. The resulting paper represents a consensus of both professional societies involved.Peer reviewe
Measurement of global polarization of {\Lambda} hyperons in few-GeV heavy-ion collisions
The global polarization of {\Lambda} hyperons along the total orbital angular
momentum of a relativistic heavy-ion collision is presented based on the high
statistics data samples collected in Au+Au collisions at \sqrt{s_{NN}} = 2.4
GeV and Ag+Ag at 2.55 GeV with the High-Acceptance Di-Electron Spectrometer
(HADES) at GSI, Darmstadt. This is the first measurement below the strangeness
production threshold in nucleon-nucleon collisions. Results are reported as a
function of the collision centrality as well as a function of the hyperon
transverse momentum (p_T) and rapidity (y_{CM}) for the range of centrality
0--40%. We observe a strong centrality dependence of the polarization with an
increasing signal towards peripheral collisions. For mid-central (20--40%)
collisions the polarization magnitudes are (%) = 6.0 \pm 1.3
(stat.) \pm 2.0 (syst.) for Au+Au and (%) = 4.6 \pm 0.4 (stat.)
\pm 0.5 (syst.) for Ag+Ag, which are the largest values observed so far. This
observation thus provides a continuation of the increasing trend previously
observed by STAR and contrasts expectations from recent theoretical
calculations predicting a maximum in the region of collision energies about 3
GeV. The observed polarization is of a similar magnitude as predicted by 3D
fluid dynamics and the UrQMD plus thermal vorticity model and significantly
above results from the AMPT model.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure
Study of patterns of inheritance of premature ovarian failure syndrome carrying maternal and paternal premutations
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