Language engineering - a champion for European culture

Language is key to culture. It is a direct cultural medium as well as a means of recording and providing access to non-lingual elements of culture. Language is also fundamental to a sense of cultural identity. For this reason, it is vital, in a changing Europe, that we preserve the multi-lingual character of our society in order to move successfully towards closer co-operation at a political, economic, and social level. Language engineering is the application of knowledge of language to the development of computer software which can recognise, understand, interpret, and generate human language in all its forms. The paper provides a high level view of the ‘state of the art’ in language engineering and indicates ways in which it will have a profound impact on our culture in the future. It shows how advances in language engineering are an important aid in maintaining cultural diversity in a multi-lingual European society, while enabling the development of social cohesion across cultural and national divides. It addresses issues raised by the prospect of the Multi-lingual Information Society, including education, human communication with technology and information management, as well as aspects of digital cities such as tele-presence in digital libraries, virtual art galleries and electronic museums. The paper raises the issue of language as a factor in cultural domination, showing the contribution that language engineering can make towards countering it. The paper also raises a number of controversial issues concerning the likely benefits arising from the ways in which language is likely to influence the culture of Europe

The ALEP platform for language research and engineering

This paper describes some of the aspects of the Advanced Linguistic Engineering Platform (ALEP) prototype system (ALEP-0) [SIM-93a]. ALEP is an initiative of the Commission of the European Communities (CEC) to provide the natural language research and engineering community in Europe with a versatile and flexible general purpose development environment. The lingustic formalism and tools of the current prototype, and development of a full more extensive and open environment are outlined. The architecture of the platform which is intended to support cooperation, exchange and re-use of results and resources, comparative evaluation and application prototyping, is also described

Door to relocation time for dislocated hip prosthesis: Multicentre comparison of emergency department procedural sedation versus theatre-based general anaesthesia

Background: Dislocation of a hip prosthesis is a painful event which has an incidence of 4% for primary total hip arthroplasty. Relocation is traditionally performed under general anaesthesia in the operating theatre, but relocation using sedation in the emergency department (ED) has been reported, with a limited success rate of 62%. A study was undertaken to compare door to relocation times for ED sedation and theatre general anaesthesia. Methods: The notes of all patients attending five centres in the south west of England with prosthetic hip dislocation over a 12-month period between 2005 and 2006 were retrospectively reviewed using standardised data collection forms. Results: Successful ED reduction was significantly quicker than failed ED reduction and theatre-based general anaesthesia (2 h 21 min vs 8 h 32 min;

Biomarker Application for Precision Medicine in Stroke

Stroke remains one of the leading causes of long-term disability and mortality despite recent advances in acute thrombolytic therapies. In fact, the global lifetime risk of stroke in adults over the age of 25 is approximately 25%, with 24.9 million cases of ischemic stroke and 18.7 million cases of hemorrhagic stroke reported in 2015. One of the main challenges in developing effective new acute therapeutics and enhanced long-term interventions for stroke recovery is the heterogeneity of stroke, including etiology, comorbidities, and lifestyle factors that uniquely affect each individual stroke survivor. In this comprehensive review, we propose that future biomarker studies can be designed to support precision medicine therapeutic interventions after stroke. The current challenges in defining ideal biomarkers for stroke are highlighted, including consideration of disease course, age, lifestyle factors, and subtypes of stroke. This overview of current clinical trials includes biomarker collection, and concludes with an example of biomarker design for aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage. With the advent of -omics studies, neuroimaging, big data, and precision medicine, well-designed stroke biomarker trials will greatly advance the treatment of a disease that affects millions globally every year

Mitochondrial Impairment in Cerebrovascular Endothelial Cells is Involved in the Correlation between Body Temperature and Stroke Severity

Stroke is the second leading cause of death worldwide. The prognostic influence of body temperature on acute stroke in patients has been recently reported; however, hypothermia has confounded experimental results in animal stroke models. This work aimed to investigate how body temperature could prognose stroke severity as well as reveal a possible mitochondrial mechanism in the association of body temperature and stroke severity. Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) compromises mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation in cerebrovascular endothelial cells (CVECs) and worsens murine experimental stroke. In this study, we report that LPS (0.1 mg/kg) exacerbates stroke infarction and neurological deficits, in the mean time LPS causes temporary hypothermia in the hyperacute stage during 6 hours post-stroke. Lower body temperature is associated with worse infarction and higher neurological deficit score in the LPS-stroke study. However, warming of the LPS-stroke mice compromises animal survival. Furthermore, a high dose of LPS (2 mg/kg) worsens neurological deficits, but causes persistent severe hypothermia that conceals the LPS exacerbation of stroke infarction. Mitochondrial respiratory chain complex I inhibitor, rotenone, replicates the data profile of the LPS-stroke study. Moreover, we have confirmed that rotenone compromises mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation in CVECs. Lastly, the pooled data analyses of a large sample size (n=353) demonstrate that stroke mice have lower body temperature compared to sham mice within 6 hours post-surgery; the body temperature is significantly correlated with stroke outcomes; linear regression shows that lower body temperature is significantly associated with higher neurological scores and larger infarct volume. We conclude that post-stroke body temperature predicts stroke severity and mitochondrial impairment in CVECs plays a pivotal role in this hypothermic response. These novel findings suggest that body temperature is prognostic for stroke severity in experimental stroke animal models and may have translational significance for clinical stroke patients - targeting endothelial mitochondria may be a clinically useful approach for stroke therapy

Air entrainment through free-surface cusps

In many industrial processes, such as pouring a liquid or coating a rotating cylinder, air bubbles are entrapped inside the liquid. We propose a novel mechanism for this phenomenon, based on the instability of cusp singularities that generically form on free surfaces. The air being drawn into the narrow space inside the cusp destroys its stationary shape when the walls of the cusp come too close. Instead, a sheet emanates from the cusp's tip, through which air is entrained. Our analytical theory of this instability is confirmed by experimental observation and quantitative comparison with numerical simulations of the flow equations

Estrogen Prevents Oxidative Damage to the Mitochondria in Friedreich's Ataxia Skin Fibroblasts

Estrogen and estrogen-related compounds have been shown to have very potent cytoprotective properties in a wide range of disease models, including an in vitro model of Friedreich's ataxia (FRDA). This study describes a potential estrogen receptor (ER)-independent mechanism by which estrogens act to protect human FRDA skin fibroblasts from a BSO-induced oxidative insult resulting from inhibition of de novo glutathione (GSH) synthesis. We demonstrate that phenolic estrogens, independent of any known ER, are able to prevent lipid peroxidation and mitochondrial membrane potential (ΔΨm) collapse, maintain ATP at near control levels, increase oxidative phosphorylation and maintain activity of aconitase. Estrogens did not, however, prevent BSO from depleting GSH or induce an increased expression level of GSH. The cytoprotective effects of estrogen appear to be due to a direct overall reduction in oxidative damage to the mitochondria, enabling the FRDA fibroblast mitochondria to generate sufficient ATP for energy requirements and better survive oxidative stress. These data support the hypothesis that phenol ring containing estrogens are possible candidate drugs for the delay and/or prevention of FRDA symptoms

Delayed Diagnosis in Cerebral Venous Thrombosis: Associated Factors and Clinical Outcomes.

Background Identifying factors associated with delayed diagnosis of cerebral venous thrombosis (CVT) can inform future strategies for early detection. Methods and Results We conducted a retrospective cohort study including all participants from ACTION-CVT (Anticoagulation in the Treatment of Cerebral Venous Thrombosis) study who had dates of neurologic symptom onset and CVT diagnosis available. Delayed diagnosis was defined as CVT diagnosis occurring in the fourth (final) quartile of days from symptom onset. The primary study outcome was modified Rankin Scale score of ≤1 at 90 days; secondary outcomes included partial/complete CVT recanalization on last available imaging and modified Rankin Scale score of ≤2. Logistic regression analyses were used to identify independent variables associated with delayed diagnosis and to assess the association of delayed diagnosis and outcomes. A total of 935 patients were included in our study. Median time from symptom onset to diagnosis was 4 days (interquartile range, 1-10 days). Delayed CVT diagnosis (time to diagnosis >10 days) occurred in 212 patients (23%). Isolated headache (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 2.36 [95% CI, 1.50-3.73]; P10 days after symptom onset. Delayed CVT diagnosis was associated with the symptom of isolated headache and was not associated with adverse clinical outcomes

Acarbose, 17‐α‐estradiol, and nordihydroguaiaretic acid extend mouse lifespan preferentially in males

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/106661/1/acel12170.pd