10,139 research outputs found
Differential contribution of electrically evoked dorsal root reflexes to peripheral vasodilatation and plasma extravasation
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Dorsal root reflexes (DRRs) are antidromic activities traveling along the primary afferent fibers, which can be generated by peripheral stimulation or central stimulation. DRRs are thought to be involved in the generation of neurogenic inflammation, as indicated by plasma extravasation and vasodilatation. The hypothesis of this study was that electrical stimulation of the central stump of a cut dorsal root would lead to generation of DRRs, resulting in plasma extravasation and vasodilatation.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Sprague-Dawley rats were prepared to expose spinal cord and L4-L6 dorsal roots under pentobarbital general anesthesia. Electrical stimulation of either intact, proximal or distal, cut dorsal roots was applied while plasma extravasation or blood perfusion of the hindpaw was recorded.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>While stimulation of the peripheral stump of a dorsal root elicited plasma extravasation, electrical stimulation of the central stump of a cut dorsal root generated significant DRRs, but failed to induce plasma extravasation. However, stimulation of the central stump induced a significant increase in blood perfusion.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>It is suggested that DRRs are involved in vasodilatation but not plasma extravasation in neurogenic inflammation in normal animals.</p
Technology-enhanced learning for improving complex problem-solving expertise
Learning through complex problem solving has received increased attention in educational areas. This is particularly the case in challenging domains such as medical education, where problem-based learning (PBL) is widely adopted and found to be effective in helping students to improve their abilities in clinical reasoning, problem solving, and self-directed and cooperative learning. However, there are concerns about PBLâs effects on development of systemic knowledge structures and efficient reasoning processes, which are critical for expertise development. To address the challenge, a technology-enhanced learning environment is proposed in this study, aiming to improve studentsâ complex problem-solving expertise by scaffolding their problem solving or reasoning processes as well as knowledge construction with support of expert knowledge.published_or_final_versio
Deep Learning towards Expertise Development in a Visualization-based Learning Environment
published_or_final_versio
Unbiased Comparative Evaluation of Ranking Functions
Eliciting relevance judgments for ranking evaluation is labor-intensive and
costly, motivating careful selection of which documents to judge. Unlike
traditional approaches that make this selection deterministically,
probabilistic sampling has shown intriguing promise since it enables the design
of estimators that are provably unbiased even when reusing data with missing
judgments. In this paper, we first unify and extend these sampling approaches
by viewing the evaluation problem as a Monte Carlo estimation task that applies
to a large number of common IR metrics. Drawing on the theoretical clarity that
this view offers, we tackle three practical evaluation scenarios: comparing two
systems, comparing systems against a baseline, and ranking systems. For
each scenario, we derive an estimator and a variance-optimizing sampling
distribution while retaining the strengths of sampling-based evaluation,
including unbiasedness, reusability despite missing data, and ease of use in
practice. In addition to the theoretical contribution, we empirically evaluate
our methods against previously used sampling heuristics and find that they
generally cut the number of required relevance judgments at least in half.Comment: Under review; 10 page
Antiarrhythmic and proarrhythmic effects of subcutaneous nerve stimulation in ambulatory dogs
Background
High output subcutaneous nerve stimulation (ScNS) remodels the stellate ganglia and suppresses cardiac arrhythmia.
Objective
To test the hypothesis that long duration low output ScNS causes cardiac nerve sprouting, increases plasma norepinephrine concentration and the durations of paroxysmal atrial tachycardia (PAT) in ambulatory dogs.
Methods
We prospectively randomized 22 dogs (11 males and 11 females) into 5 different output groups for 2 months of ScNS: 0 mA (sham) (N=6), 0.25 mA (N=4), 1.5 mA (N=4), 2.5 mA (N=4) and 3.5 mA (N=4).
Results
As compared with baseline, the changes of the durations of PAT episodes per 48 hours were significantly different among different groups (sham, -5.0±9.5 s; 0.25 mA 95.5±71.0 s; 1.5 mA, -99.3±39.6 s; 2.5 mA, -155.3±87.8 s and 3.5 mA, -76.3±44.8 s, p<0.001). The 3.5 mA group had greater reduction of sinus heart rate than the sham group (-29.8±15.0 bpm vs -14.5±3.0 bpm, p=0.038). Immunohistochemical studies showed that the 0.25 mA group had a significantly increased while 2.5 mA and 3.5 mA stimulation had a significantly reduced growth-associated protein 43 nerve densities in both atria and ventricles. The plasma Norepinephrine concentrations in 0.25 mA group was 5063.0±4366.0 pg/ml, which was significantly higher than other groups of dogs (739.3±946.3, p=0.009). There were no significant differences in the effects of simulation between males and females.
Conclusions
In ambulatory dogs, low output ScNS causes cardiac nerve sprouting, increases plasma norepinephrine concentration and the duration of PAT episodes while high output ScNS is antiarrhythmic
Quark energy loss and shadowing in nuclear Drell-Yan process
The energy loss effect in nuclear matter is another nuclear effect apart from
the nuclear effects on the parton distribution as in deep inelastic scattering
process. The quark energy loss can be measured best by the nuclear dependence
of the high energy nuclear Drell-Yan process. By means of three kinds of quark
energy loss parameterizations given in literature and the nuclear parton
distribution extracted only with lepton-nucleus deep inelastic scattering
experimental data, measured Drell-Yan production cross sections are analyzed
for 800GeV proton incident on a variety of nuclear targets from FNAL E866. It
is shown that our results with considering the energy loss effect are much
different from these of the FNAL E866 who analysis the experimental data with
the nuclear parton distribution functions obtained by using the deep inelastic
lA collisions and pA nuclear Drell-Yan data . Considering the existence of
energy loss effect in Drell-Yan lepton pairs production,we suggest that the
extraction of nuclear parton distribution functions should not include
Drell-Yan experimental data.Comment: 12 page
Image processing methods to elucidate spatial characteristics of retinal microglia after optic nerve transection
published_or_final_versio
Multi-view multi-instance learning based on joint sparse representation and multi-view dictionary learning
In multi-instance learning (MIL), the relations among instances in a bag convey important contextual information in many
applications. Previous studies on MIL either ignore such relations or simply model them with a fixed graph structure so that the overall
performance inevitably degrades in complex environments. To address this problem, this paper proposes a novel multi-view
multi-instance learning algorithm (M2IL) that combines multiple context structures in a bag into a unified framework. The novel aspects
are: (i) we propose a sparse "-graph model that can generate different graphs with different parameters to represent various context
relations in a bag, (ii) we propose a multi-view joint sparse representation that integrates these graphs into a unified framework for bag
classification, and (iii) we propose a multi-view dictionary learning algorithm to obtain a multi-view graph dictionary that considers cues
from all views simultaneously to improve the discrimination of the M2IL. Experiments and analyses in many practical applications prove
the effectiveness of the M2IL
The role of the outer boundary condition in accretion disk models: theory and application
The influence of the outer boundary condition (OBC) on the dynamics and
radiation of optically thin accretion flow is investigated. Bremsstrahlung and
synchrotron radiations amplified by Comptonization are taken into account and
two-temperature plasma assumption is adopted. The three OBCs we adopted are the
temperatures of the electrons and ions and the specific angular momentum of the
accretion flow at a certain outer boundary. We find that when the general
parameters such as the mass accretion rate and the viscous parameter are fixed,
the peak flux at various bands such as radio, IR and X-ray, can differ by as
large as several orders of magnitude under different OBCs in our example. Our
results indicate that OBC is both dynamically and radiatively important
therefore should be regarded as a new ``parameter'' in accretion disk models.
We apply the above results to the compact radio source Sgr A* and find that the
discrepancy between the mass accretion rate favored by ADAF models in the
literature and that favored by the three dimensional hydrodynamical simulation
can be naturally resolved by seriously considering the outer boundary condition
of the accretion flow.Comment: 23 pages, 9 figures,accepted by the Astrophysical Journa
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