Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Could lengthening minocycline therapy better treat early syphilis?

AbstractSyphilis is a sexually transmitted disease caused by Treponema pallidum. Minocycline, a representative tetracycline derivative, has the greatest antimicrobial activity among all tetracyclines. There are few reports about treating syphilis with minocycline because there is a lack of efficacy data from controlled trials. We compared the rates of serological cure in patients with early syphilis who were treated with minocycline or benzathine penicillin G (BPG). During the study period, a total of 40 syphilis patients received the BPG treatment, which was a single intramuscular dose of 2.4 million units of BPG, and 156 patients were treated with minocycline; 77 patients were placed in the 2-week, standard minocycline therapy group and received 100 mg of minocycline orally, twice daily for 14 days, and 79 patients were placed in the 4-week, lengthened minocycline therapy group and received 100 mg of minocycline orally, twice daily for 28 days. The outcome of interest was the rate of serological cure in these patients.At the end of the 2-year follow-up, the serological cure rate of the 4-week, lengthened minocycline therapy group (87.34%) was higher than that of both the 2-week, standard minocycline therapy group (72.73%) and the BPG treatment group (77.50%). In addition, the curative effect of the 4-week, lengthened minocycline therapy was significantly greater than that of the 2-week, standard minocycline therapy in patients who were aged >40 years; exhibited an initial rapid plasma reagin titer ≥1: 32; or exhibited secondary syphilis (P = 0.000, 0.008, 0.000; <0.05). Minocycline appears to be an effective agent for treating early syphilis, especially when applied as a 4-week, lengthened therapy.
Dynamically discovering likely program invariants to support program evolution

Explicitly stated program invariants can help programmers by identifying program properties that must be preserved when modifying code. In practice, however, these invariants are usually implicit. An alternative to expecting programmers to fully annotate code with invariants is to automatically infer invariants from the program itself. This research focuses on dynamic techniques for discovering invariants from execution traces. This paper reports two results. First, it describes techniques for dynamically discovering invariants, along with an instrumenter and an inference engine that embody these techniques. Second, it reports on the application of the engine to two sets of target programs. In programs from Cries's work on program derivation, we rediscovered predefined invariants. In a C program lacking explicit invariants, we discovered invariants that assisted a software evolution task.
BER of Overloaded Cellular DS-CDMA System with Imperfect Power Control

Overloading is a technique to accommodate more number of users than the spreading factor N. This is a bandwidth efficient scheme to increase the number users or data rate in a fixed bandwidth. These schemes can be used to avoid the orthogonal code shortage problem to provide broadband wireless access in cellular communication. One of the efficient schemes to overload a CDMA system is to use two sets of orthogonal signal waveforms (O/O). The first set is assigned to the N users and the second set is assigned to the additional users. An iterative multistage detection (IMSD) technique is used to cancel interference between the two sets of users. In this paper, the BER performance of a new overloading scheme using orthogonal Gold code (OG/OG) sets is evaluated with soft decision interference cancellation scheme (SDIC). It is observed that this scheme provides 25% channel overloading for synchronous DS-CDMA system in an AWGN channel for spreading factor length N = 64, assuming perfect power control. The SNR degradation is about 0.35 dB as compared to single user bound at a BER of 1e-5. With imperfect power control, the BER performance degrades considerably and we can only overload up to 11% with an SNR degradation of about 1.25 dB as compared to perfect power control single user bound at a BER of 1e-5.
Collaborative radio access of heterogeneous cloud radio access networks and edge computing networks

Although the technical merits of the heterogeneous cloud radio access networks (H-CRAN) architecture have been well demonstrated in terms of data rate enhancement and ubiquitous wireless service provisioning, solely relying on the H-CRAN may not be sufficient to further support full automation and everything-to-everything (X2X) connection for the next generation wireless applications. Recently, the edge computing network (EdgeNet) architecture exploiting socially-aware information and edge/fog computing technology has emerged to promisingly enhance the front-haul throughput and end-to-end latency performance. However, the EdgeNet architecture suffers from lacking of prosperous resource coordination. Although the spirits of the H-CRAN and EdgeNet appear opposite with each other, this two networking technologies actually complement each other in engineering practice. In this paper, we analytically derive the sufficient conditions for the optimum collaborative radio access. Our results thus suggest a harmonization between the H-CRAN adopting a scheduling based radio access and the EdgeNet applying a random access.
Repression of Essential Chloroplast Genes Reveals New Signaling Pathways and Regulatory Feedback Loops in Chlamydomonas[W]

Conditional repression of two essential chloroplast genes involved in plastid transcription and translation in the alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii leads to cell growth arrest and overaccumulation of many plastid transcripts. It also identifies multiple negative regulatory chloroplast feedback loops and alters expression of nuclear genes implicated in chloroplast biogenesis, protein turnover, and stress. Although reverse genetics has been used to elucidate the function of numerous chloroplast proteins, the characterization of essential plastid genes and their role in chloroplast biogenesis and cell survival has not yet been achieved. Therefore, we developed a robust repressible chloroplast gene expression system in the unicellular alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii based mainly on a vitamin-repressible riboswitch, and we used this system to study the role of two essential chloroplast genes: ribosomal protein S12 (rps12), encoding a plastid ribosomal protein, and rpoA, encoding the α-subunit of chloroplast bacterial-like RNA polymerase. Repression of either of these two genes leads to the arrest of cell growth, and it induces a response that involves changes in expression of nuclear genes implicated in chloroplast biogenesis, protein turnover, and stress. This response also leads to the overaccumulation of several plastid transcripts and reveals the existence of multiple negative regulatory feedback loops in the chloroplast gene circuitry.
Accurate Serodetection of Asymptomatic Leishmania donovani Infection by Use of Defined Antigens

ABSTRACT Infection with Leishmania donovani is typically asymptomatic, but a significant number of individuals may progress to visceral leishmaniasis (VL), a deadly disease that threatens 200 million people in areas where it is endemic. While diagnosis of acute VL has been simplified by the use of cost-effective confirmatory serological tests, similar standardized tools are not widely available for detecting asymptomatic infection, which can be 4 to 20 times more prevalent than active disease. A simple and accurate serological test that is capable of detecting asymptomatic L. donovani infection will be useful for surveillance programs targeting VL control and elimination. To address this unmet need, we evaluated recombinant antigens for their ability to detect serum antibodies in 104 asymptomatic L. donovani-infected individuals (qualified as positive for L. donovani-specific antibodies by direct agglutination test [DAT]) from the Mymensingh district of Bangladesh where VL is hyperendemic. The novel proteins rKR95 and rTR18 possessed the greatest potential and detected 69% of DAT-positive individuals, with rKR95 being more robust in reactivity. Agreement in results for individuals with high DAT responses, who are more likely to progress to VL disease, was 74%. When considered along with rK39, a gold standard antigen that is used to confirm clinical diagnosis of VL but that is now becoming widely used for surveillance, rKR95 and rTR18 conferred a sensitivity of 84% based on a theoretical combined estimate. Our data indicate that incorporating rKR95 and rTR18 with rK39 in serological tests amenable to rapid or high-throughput screening may enable simple and accurate detection of asymptomatic infection. Such tests will be important tools to measure L. donovani infection rates, a primary goal in surveillance and a critical measurement with which to assess elimination programs.
DNA Methylation Profiles and Their Relationship with Cytogenetic Status in Adult Acute Myeloid Leukemia

Background Aberrant promoter DNA methylation has been shown to play a role in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) pathophysiology. However, further studies to discuss the prognostic value and the relationship of the epigenetic signatures with defined genomic rearrangements in acute myeloid leukemia are required. Methodology/Principal Findings We carried out high-throughput methylation profiling on 116 de novo AML cases and we validated the significant biomarkers in an independent cohort of 244 AML cases. Methylation signatures were associated with the presence of a specific cytogenetic status. In normal karyotype cases, aberrant methylation of the promoter of DBC1 was validated as a predictor of the disease-free and overall survival. Furthermore, DBC1 expression was significantly silenced in the aberrantly methylated samples. Patients with chromosome rearrangements showed distinct methylation signatures. To establish the role of fusion proteins in the epigenetic profiles, 20 additional samples of human hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells (HSPC) transduced with common fusion genes were studied and compared with patient samples carrying the same rearrangements. The presence of MLL rearrangements in HSPC induced the methylation profile observed in the MLL-positive primary samples. In contrast, fusion genes such as AML1/ETO or CBFB/MYH11 failed to reproduce the epigenetic signature observed in the patients. Conclusions/Significance Our study provides a comprehensive epigenetic profiling of AML, identifies new clinical markers for cases with a normal karyotype, and reveals relevant biological information related to the role of fusion proteins on the methylation signature.
Adding Insulin Glargine Versus Rosiglitazone

OBJECTIVE—We sought to assess health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in patients with type 2 diabetes treated with insulin glargine or rosiglitazone as add-on therapy to sulfonylurea plus metformin. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS—HRQOL was evaluated in 217 subjects uncontrolled with sulfonylurea plus metformin, enrolled in a 24-week, multicenter, randomized, open-label, parallel-group trial of add-on insulin glargine versus rosiglitazone. A 40-item, self-administered questionnaire at baseline and at weeks 2, 6, 12, 18, and 24 was given, including the 34-item Diabetes Symptom Checklist-Revised (DSC-R), a 5-item mental health scale from the 36-item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36), and a single-item health rating from the SF-36. These assessments do not specify route of therapy. RESULTS—Both treatment groups showed similar improvements in glycemic control from baseline to week 24 (change in A1C: −1.66% in the insulin glargine group, −1.51% in the rosiglitazone group, P = 0.1446). Both groups also showed improvement in HRQOL, although subjects treated with insulin glargine experienced significantly greater improvements compared with rosiglitazone in the DSC-R total symptom score (P = 0.005), total symptom distress score (P = 0.03), individual domain scores for mood symptoms (P = 0.007), ophthalmologic symptoms (P = 0.007), ophthalmologic distress (P = 0.013), fatigue distress (P = 0.033), and SF-36 perception of general health (P = 0.047). CONCLUSIONS—Although addition of insulin glargine and rosiglitazone achieved comparable improvements in glycemic control, insulin glargine was associated with greater improvements in HRQOL, indicating that other factors (e.g., safety profile and nonglycemic actions) may further enhance HRQOL in patients with type 2 diabetes.
Effect Of Source Water Blending On Copper Release In Pipe Distribution System: Thermodynamic And Empirical Models

This dissertation focuses on copper release in drinking water. Qualitative and quantitative assessment of Cu and Fe corrosion by process water quality was assessed over one year in a field study using finished waters produced from seven different treatment process and eighteen pilot distribution systems (PDSs) that were made from unlined cast iron and galvanized steel pipes, and lined cement and PVC pipes taken from actual distribution systems. Totally seven different waters were studied, which consisted of three source waters: groundwater, surface, and simulated brackish water designated as G1, S1, and RO. With certain preestablished blending ratios, these three waters were blended to form another three waters designated as G2, G3, and G4. Enhanced surface water treatment was CFS, ozonation and GAC filtration, which was designated as S1. The CFS surface water was nanofiltered, which is S2. All seven finished waters were stabilized and chloraminated before entering the PDSs. Corrosion potential was compared qualitatively and quantitatively for all seven waters by monitoring copper and iron release from the PDSs. This dissertation consists of four major parts. (1) Copper corrosion surface characterization in which the solid corrosion products formed in certain period of exposure to drinking water were tried to be identified with kinds of surface techniques. Surface characterization indicated that major corrosion products consists of cuprite (Cu2O) as major underneath corrosion layer and tenorite (CuO), cupric hydroxide (Cu(OH)2) on the top surface. In terms of dissolution/precipitation mechanism controlling the copper concentration in bulk solution, cupric hydroxide thermodynamic model was developed.
Feed Me, Feed Me: An Exemplar for Engineering Adaptive Software

The Internet of Things (IoT) promises to deliver improved quality of life for citizens, through pervasive connectivity and quantified monitoring of devices, people, and their environment. As such, the IoT presents a major new opportunity for research in adaptive software engineering. However, there are currently no shared exemplars that can support software engineering researchers to explore and potentially address the challenges of engineering adaptive software for the IoT, and to comparatively evaluate proposed solutions. In this paper, we present Feed me, Feed me, an exemplar that represents an IoT-based ecosystem to support food security at different levels of granularity: individuals, families, cities, and nations. We describe this exemplar using animated videos which highlight the requirements that have been informally observed to play a critical role in the success or failure of IoT-based software systems. These requirements are: security and privacy, interoperability, adaptation, and personalisation. To elicit a wide spectrum of user reactions, we created these animated videos based on the ContraVision empirical methodology, which specifically supports the elicitation of end-user requirements for controversial or futuristic technologies. Our deployment of ContraVision presented our pilot study subjects with an equal number of utopian and dystopian scenarios, derived from the food security domain, and described them at the different level of granularity. Our synthesis of the preliminary empirical findings suggests a number of key requirements and software engineering research challenges in this area. We offer these to the research community, together with a rich exemplar and associated scenarios available in both their textual form in the paper, and as a series of animated videos (http://sead1.open.ac.uk/fmfm/)
Sodium regulation in the freshwater mollusc Limnaea stagnalis (L.) (Gastropoda: Pulmonata).

1. Sodium regulation in normal, sodium-depleted and blood-depleted snails has been investigated. 2. Limnaea stagnalis has a sodium uptake mechanism with a high affinity for sodium ions, near maximum influx occurring in external sodium concentrations of 1.5-2 mM-Na/l and half maximum influx at 0.25 mM-Na/l. 3. L. stagnalis can maintain sodium balance in media containing 0.025 mM-Na/l. Adaptation to this concentration is achieved mainly by an increased rate of sodium uptake and a fall of 37 % in blood sodium concentration, but also by a reduction of the sodium loss rate and a decrease in blood volume. 4. A loss of 23% of total body sodium is necessary to stimulate increased sodium uptake. This loss causes near maximal stimulation of the sodium uptake mechanism. 5. An experimentally induced reduction of blood volume in L. stagnalis increases sodium uptake to three times the normal level. 6. About 40% of sodium influx from artificial tap water containing 0.35 mM-Na/l into normal snails is due to an exchange component. Similar exchange components of sodium influx were also observed in sodium-depleted and blood-depleted snails in the same external sodium concentration.
Realistic perspective projections for virtual objects and environments

Computer graphics systems provide sophisticated means to render virtual 3D space to 2D display surfaces by applying planar geometric projections. In a realistic viewing condition the perspective applied for rendering should appropriately account for the viewer's location relative to the image. As a result, an observer would not be able to distinguish between a rendering of a virtual environment on a computer screen and a view “through” the screen at an identical real-world scene. Until now, little effort has been made to identify perspective projections which cause human observers to judge them to be realistic. In this article we analyze observers' awareness of perspective distortions of virtual scenes displayed on a computer screen. These distortions warp the virtual scene and make it differ significantly from how the scene would look in reality. We describe psychophysical experiments that explore the subject's ability to discriminate between different perspective projections and identify projections that most closely match an equivalent real scene. We found that the field of view used for perspective rendering should match the actual visual angle of the display to provide users with a realistic view. However, we found that slight changes of the field of view in the range of 10-20% for two classes of test environments did not cause a distorted mental image of the observed models.
Prevalence of Mental Disorders in a Canadian Household Population with Dementia

Background: Medical and mental health comorbidity in Alzheimer's disease and other dementias presents difficult challenges for health service delivery. However, existing studies have been conducted in clinical samples and may not be informative for planning community services. The Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) provides an opportunity to characterize associations between dementias and mental and physical comorbidity in a household population aged 55 and over. Methods: Data were obtained from the 2005 CCHS-cycle 3.1. Weighted estimates for mood and anxiety disorders and other characteristics in Canadian population with dementia were calculated and were compared to those in people without the condition. Results: According to the CCHS, the prevalence of Alzheimer's disease and other dementia increases with age, more or less doubling every decade. The increase among women is monotonic, whereas among men in the household population the rate of dementia peaks at age 85-89 and falls thereafter. Mood and anxiety disorders were found to be substantially more frequent among people with Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia compared to those without the disease (mood disorders: 19.5% vs. 5.3% and anxiety disorders: 16.3% vs. 4.0%). Heart disease, stroke and obesity were associated with dementia as was a lower level of education. Furthermore, people with dementia were more likely than those without the disease to report activity restrictions. Conclusions: The high prevalence of mood and anxiety disorders in household population with Alzheimer's disease and other dementia demonstrates the burden of disease that is likely to worsen quality of life over time.
Reproducibility of the Oral Glucose Tolerance Test

Results are presented of a study undertaken to explore the reproducibility of the 100 gm. oral glucose tolerance test. Over 400 male volunteers from an institutional population, who were not known to be diabetic, participated in a program which included a series of six tests for each individual over a period of one year. Ten men were tested daily, and each retested at intervals of approximately two months. Bloods were drawnat fasting, one, two and three hours after the administration of a 100-gm. glucose drinkand duplicate determinations were obtained on the Auto- Analyzer. Average blood glucose levels for the total group remained stable over time. However, blood glucose levels for individuals varied considerably. On single tests, some of the men exhibited borderline or diagnostic test readings, but in no case was this consistent over all tests. Some of the factors which contribute to individual variance are considered briefly. Implications of the data on interpretation of the results of oral glucose tolerance tests are presented.
The Levels of CD16/Fcγ Receptor IIIA on CD14+ CD16+ Monocytes Are Higher in Children with Severe Plasmodium falciparum Anemia than in Children with Cerebral or Uncomplicated Malaria

ABSTRACT Fc gamma receptor IIIA (CD16/FcγRIIIA) on monocytes/macrophages may play an important role in the pathogenesis of severe malarial anemia (SMA) by promoting phagocytosis of IgG-coated uninfected red cells and by allowing the production of tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) upon cross-linking by immune complexes (ICs). However, not much is known about the differential expression of this receptor on monocytes of children with severe malaria and uncomplicated malaria. Therefore, we investigated the expression of CD16/FcγRIIIA on monocytes of children with SMA, cerebral malaria (CM), and their age-matched uncomplicated malaria controls by flow cytometry. Since CD14low (CD14+) monocytes are considered more mature and macrophage-like than CD14high (CD14++) monocytes, we also compared the level of expression of CD16/FcγRIIIA according to the CD14 level and studied the relationship between CD16/FcγRIIIA expression and intracellular TNF-α production upon stimulation by ICs. CD16/FcγRIIIA expression was the highest overall on CD14+ CD16+ monocytes of children with SMA at enrollment. At convalescence, SMA children were the only ones to show a significant decline in the same parameter. In contrast, there were no significant differences among groups in the expression of CD16/FcγRIIIA on CD14++ CD16+ monocytes. A greater percentage of CD14+ CD16+ monocytes produced TNF-α upon stimulation than any other monocyte subset, and the amount of intracellular TNF-α correlated positively with CD16/FcγRIIIA expression. Furthermore, there was an inverse correlation between hemoglobin levels and CD16/FcγRIIIA expression in children with SMA and their controls. These data suggest that monocytes of children with SMA respond differently to Plasmodium falciparum infection by overexpressing CD16/FcγRIIIA as they mature, which could enhance erythrophagocytosis and TNF-α production.