Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Peripheral T-Cell Apoptosis is Not Differentially Affected by Antiretroviral Regimens in HIV-Infected Patients

Background HIV-induced CD4+ and CD8+ T-cell apoptosis decreases upon start of combination antiretroviral therapy (cART). Although in vitro evidence suggests an anti-apoptotic effect of protease inhibitors (PIs) as opposed to non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs), in vivo studies are inconclusive about effects of differential cART regimens on T-cell apoptosis. Methods Peripheral T-cell apoptosis was evaluated in a cross-sectional study including 20 patients on PI-and 19 on NNRTI-based combination antiretroviral therapy (cART), all with backbone therapy of tenofovir and emtricitabine and undetectable viral loads 6 months before inclusion. Spontaneous T-cell apoptosis was measured in freshly isolated peripheral blood mononuclear cells (<4 h after venipuncture) using annexin V, propidium iodide and staining for caspase activity and levels of the anti-apoptotic protein Bcl-2. Results The groups were comparable in general- and HIV-specific characteristics. In addition, T-cell activation was similar in both groups. We observed no difference in T-cell apoptosis as measured by annexin V, propidium iodide or caspase staining between PI- and NNRTI-treated patients. Interestingly, the level of anti-apoptotic protein Bcl-2 was higher in PI-treated than in NNRTI-treated patients. Conclusions In this cross-sectional study on HIV-infected patients, direct ex vivo spontaneous T-cell apoptosis rates are not differentially affected by NNRTI- or PI-based cART.
A “Geodetic Gap” in the Calabrian Arc: Evidence for a Locked Subduction Megathrust?

Subduction of old Ionian seafloor beneath the Calabrian Arc (southern Italy) is the geological process with the greatest mass flux in the central Mediterranean, yet its seismogenic behavior is largely obscured. No unambiguous evidence of subduction‐related earthquakes exists in historical times, and local GPS velocities indicate very low strain rates. Nevertheless, the region hosted some of the deadliest normal‐faulting earthquakes of the entire Mediterranean basin. We show that the low strain rates recorded in southern Calabria can be reconciled with the regional vigorous seismic moment release by assuming high interseismic coupling but low seismic coupling of the subduction interface. The alternative scenario of steadily creeping subduction cannot be ruled out but requires the historical seismicity record to be dismissed as unrepresentative. We refer to the peculiar spatial pattern of short‐term strain rates in southern Calabria as a “geodetic gap” resulting from destructive interference between upper‐plate extension and temporary compression due to locking along the subduction interface. Seismic hazard modelers must understand that within such gaps, the long‐term seismic hazard is greater than that suggested by the low geodetic strain rates.
Group B Streptococcus Late-Onset Disease: 2003–2010

BACKGROUND: There is insufficient population-based data on group B streptococcus (GBS) late-onset disease (LOD). Risk factors and routes of GBS transmission are poorly understood. METHODS: A prospective, cohort study was conducted to collect incidence data on LOD and evaluate GBS infections over an 8-year period (2003–2010). Starting from January 2007, maternal rectovaginal and breast milk cultures were routinely collected on confirmation of the LOD diagnosis to assess maternal GBS culture status. RESULTS: The incidence rate of LOD was 0.32 per 1000 live births (1.4 and 0.24 per 1000 live births for preterm and term newborns, respectively). The registered cases of LOD (n = 100) were classified as sepsis (n = 57), meningitis (n = 36), or focal infection (n = 7). Thirty neonates were preterm (2 had recurrent infection); 68 were term. Four infants died (3 early preterm, 1 term). At the time the LOD diagnosis was confirmed, 3 (6%) of 53 mothers had GBS mastitis, and 30 (64%) of 47 carried GBS at the rectovaginal site. Early (7–30 days) LOD presentation was associated with neonatal brain lesions or death (odds ratio: 0.96 [95% confidence interval: 0.93–0.99]). Intrapartum antibiotic exposure was significantly associated with mild (12 of 22) rather than severe (11 of 45; P = .03) LOD. CONCLUSIONS: Preterm neonates had the highest rates of LOD and mortality. Most mothers carried GBS at the time of the LOD diagnosis, whereas 6% had mastitis. Intrapartum antibiotics were associated both with delayed presentation of symptoms and milder LOD.
A preliminary investigation of some acoustic characteristics of ejectives in Waima’a: VOT and closure duration

Waima’a is a little known language spoken in East Timor. From a typological perspective, its stop system is unusual for an Austronesian language: it has a fourway stop system which includes a set of voiceless ejectives. In this paper, we report on the results of our first experimental investigation of Waima’a, in which ejectives and pulmonic voiceless aspirated and unaspirated stops are compared. After first presenting some qualitative observations about ejectives, we examine voice onset time (VOT) duration, closure duration and overall duration i.e. closure + VOT. We then turn to a cross-linguistic comparison, looking in particular at the behaviour of ejectives relative to other voiceless stop types, and at possible place of articulation dependencies concerning VOT and closure duration.
Experimental Estimation of the Turbulent Energy Dissipation Rate in the Sea Subsurface Layer at Storm Conditions

Rate of the turbulent energy dissipation arising due to the breaking surface waves is estimated based on the experimental data on near-surface turbulence. The studies were carried out on the oceanographic platform in the Black Sea coastal zone by the specialized measuring complex "Sigma1". To analyze the data, specific hydrometeorological conditions including high wind speed and significant number of breaking waves were chosen from the total data array. The turbulent energy dissipation rate per unit of volume ε is calculated using the spectra of velocity fluctuations based on the Kolmogorov hypotheses on the inertial-range spectrum of turbulence. The dissipation rate per unit of area of the sea surface is calculated by the over depth integrating the values of ε defined on all the measurement horizons with their extrapolation up to the surface and bottom. The results provided by the experimental data are compared to the wave energy losses due to breaking calculated by the Phillips model (1985). The values of the breaking parameter b calculated under the assumption on its model dependence upon the wave number are smaller than the estimates obtained by the other authors. The second method of calculation implies an assumption that the breaking parameter is constant in every single experiment and does not depend on the wave number. The obtained values of b are of moderate spread and also smaller (within one order of magnitude) than the estimates obtained by the other authors. In this case the values of b are satisfactorily approximated by the constant bc ≈ 1.31·10-4. Discrepancy between the obtained results and those in the other sources can be conditioned by the differing waves’ characteristics and methods for estimating the dissipation rate.
Expression of Semliki Forest virus proteins from cloned complementary DNA. I. The fusion activity of the spike glycoprotein

A complementary (cDNA) molecule encoding the structural proteins of Semliki Forest virus (SFV) has been inserted into a Simian virus 40- derived eucaryotic expression vector lacking introns. Introduction of the recombinant DNA into nuclei of baby hamster kidney cells results in the synthesis of authentic SFV membrane glycoproteins E1 and E2. The glycoproteins are both transported to the cell surface and induce cell- cell fusion after a brief treatment of the cells with low pH medium. The pH dependence of the fusion reaction was the same as that induced by virus particles (White, J., J. Kartenbeck, and A. Helenius, 1980, J. Cell Biol., 89:674-679). Transfection of cells with another recombinant DNA molecule in which the SFV cDNA is engineered into the same expression vector including an intron has been shown before to result in the expression of only the E2 protein on the cell surface, whereas the E1 protein is trapped in the rough endoplasmic reticulum (Kondor- Koch, C., H. Riedel, K. Soderberg, and H. Garoff, 1982, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 79:4525-4529). Such cells do not exhibit pH-dependent polykaryon formation, suggesting that the E1 protein is necessary for fusion activity. Immunoblotting experiments show that the RER-trapped E1 protein expressed from the DNA construction with an intron has a smaller apparent molecular weight than authentic E1, and that is has lost its amphipathic characteristics.
Mode of Inheritance of Hand Osteoarthritis in Ethnically Homogeneous Pedigrees

The aim of the present study was to investigate the extent and mode of inheritance of hand osteoarthritis (OA) using a large sample of ethnically homogeneous pedigrees. Two types of segregation analysis (SA) models were examined. Type I models used the data adjusted for potential significant covariates, particularly age and sex, prior to genetic analysis. Type II models incorporated effects of the potential covariates into major gene penetrance functions, permitting an account of the genotype covariate-specific effect on study variables. The results of this study strongly supported the hypothesis of a major gene effect and additional multifactorial component. The best-fitting model was the Mendelian one with an additive type of inheritance. The estimates obtained using the standard three-factor variance decomposition analysis suggest that age (72.8%) and major gene (14.5%) are the main sources of interindividual differences in the development of hand OA. The contribution of the putative major gene on age- and sex-adjusted OA phenotype variation was 55% in the present study.
Open Access Research Article Socioeconomic Inequalities in Cause Specific Mortality among Older People in France

Background: European comparative studies documented a clear North-South divide in socioeconomic inequalities with cancer being the most important contributor to inequalities in total mortality among middle aged men in Latin Europe (France, Spain, Portugal, Italy). The aim of this paper is to investigate educational inequalities in mortality by gender, age and causes of death in France, with a special emphasis on people aged 75 years and more. Methods: We used data from a longitudinal population sample that includes 1% of the French population. Risk of death (total and cause specific) in the period 1990-1999 according to education was analysed using Cox regression models by age group (45-59, 60-74, and 75+). Inequalities were quantified using both relative (ratio) and absolute (difference) measures. Results: Relative inequalities decreased with age but were still observed in the oldest age group. Absolute inequalities increased with age. This increase was particularly pronounced for cardiovascular diseases. The contribution of different causes of death to absolute inequalities in total mortality differed between age groups. In particular, the contribution of cancer deaths decreased substantially between the age groups 60-74 years and 75 years and more, both in men and in women. Conclusions: This study suggests that the large contribution of cancer deaths to the excess mortality among low educated people that was observed among middle aged men in Latin Europe is not observed among French people aged 75 years and more. This should be confirmed among other Latin Europe countries. Background Socioeconomic inequalities in total and cause specific mortality have been consistently reported throughout Europe [1,2]. Within this general pattern, large differences are observed between countries both in the magnitude of these inequalities and in the weight of different causes of death in inequalities in total mortality. In particular , a specific situation is found regarding cancer mortality. Among men, studies have shown larger inequalities in cancer mortality in France, Belgium and Switzerland. Moreover, the main contributor to inequalities in total mortality was cancer in Latin Europe countries (France, Spain, Portugal and Italy), and cardiovascular diseases in Northern Europe, especially in Nordic countries [1,3]. The picture was less contrasted among women. Moderate
Effects of Intracoronary Infusion of Escalating Doses of Cardiac Stem Cells in Rats With Acute Myocardial Infarction

Background—Although c-kitpos cardiac stem cells (CSCs) preserve left ventricular (LV) function and structure after myocardial infarction, CSC doses have been chosen arbitrarily, and the dose–effect relationship is unknown. Methods and Results—Rats underwent a 90-minute coronary occlusion followed by 35 days of reperfusion. Vehicle or CSCs at 5 escalating doses (0.3×106, 0.75×106, 1.5×106, 3.0×106, and 6.0×106 cells/heart) were given intracoronarily 4 h after reperfusion. The lowest dose (0.3×106) had no effect on LV function and morphology, whereas 0.75, 1.5, and 3.0×106 significantly improved regional and global LV function (echocardiography and hemodynamic studies). These 3 doses had similar effects on echocardiographic parameters (infarct wall thickening fraction, LV end-systolic and end-diastolic volumes, LV ejection fraction) and hemodynamic variables (LV end-diastolic pressure, LV dP/dtmax, preload adjusted maximal power, end-systolic elastance, preload recruitable stroke work) and produced similar reductions in apoptosis, scar size, infarct wall thinning, and LV expansion index and similar increases in viable myocardium in the risk region (morphometry). Infusion of 6.0×106 CSCs markedly increased postprocedural mortality. Green fluorescent protein and 5-bromo-2′-deoxyuridine staining indicated that persistence of donor cells and formation of new myocytes were negligible with all doses. Conclusions—Surprisingly, in this rat model of acute myocardial infarction, the dose–response relationship for intracoronary CSCs is flat. A minimal dose between 0.3 and 0.75×106 is necessary for efficacy; above this threshold, a 4-fold increase in cell number does not produce greater improvement in LV function or structure. Further increases in cell dose are harmful.
Discriminative Reranking for Machine Translation

This paper describes the application of discriminative reranking techniques to the problem of machine translation. For each sentence in the source language, we obtain from a baseline statistical machine translation system, a ranked best list of candidate translations in the target language. We introduce two novel perceptroninspired reranking algorithms that improve on the quality of machine translation over the baseline system based on evaluation using the BLEU metric. We provide experimental results on the NIST 2003 Chinese-English large data track evaluation. We also provide theoretical analysis of our algorithms and experiments that verify that our algorithms provide state-of-theart performance in machine translation.
The problem-based learning integrated with simulation to improve nursing students’ self-efficacy

Introduction: The purposes of this study were to describe the simulation integrated with problem-based learning (SIM-PBL) module to educate the nursing process for clients with hypertension and to evaluate its effectiveness on nursing students’ self-efficacy (SE). Methods: This study was a one group pre- and post-test design. Twenty five students received a 5-hour SIM-PBL program focused on nursing care of clients with hypertension. A newly developed self-report questionnaire was used to assess SE in four areas of the nursing process with a scale of 0 (not at all confident) to 10 (totally confident). The four areas were subjective data assessment, physical examination, prioritizing nursing care and health promotion advices. Results: At baseline, students’ SE ranged from 5.5 ± 1.4 (prioritizing nursing care) to 7.6 ± 1.4 (subjective data assessment). After SIM-PBL education, all areas of nursing process presented statistically significant improvements of SE. The improvements were most noticeable in prioritizing nursing care. Conclusion: The SIM-PBL module was effective in improving the students’ self-efficacy in the nursing process for patients with hypertension. Further studies are recommended in developing SIM-PBL modules for diverse nursing topics and evaluating their effectiveness in various aspects of students’ competency.
Emotional benefit of cosmetic camouflage in the treatment of facial skin conditions: personal experience and review

Background Recent studies highlighting the psychological benefits of medical treatment for dermatological skin conditions have demonstrated a clear role for medical therapy in psychological health. Skin conditions, particularly those that are overtly visible, such as those located on the face, neck, and hands, often have a profound effect on the daily functioning of those affected. The literature documents significant emotional benefits using medical therapy in conditions such as acne, psoriasis, vitiligo, and rosacea, but there is little evidence documenting similar results with the use of cosmetic camouflage. Here we present a review highlighting the practical use of cosmetic camouflage makeup in patients with facial skin conditions and review its implications for psychological health. Methods A search of the Medline and Scopus databases was performed to identify articles documenting the emotional benefit of cosmetic camouflage. Results Cosmetic camouflage provides a significant emotional benefit for patients with facial skin conditions, and this is substantiated by a literature review and personal experience. More clinical studies are needed to assess and validate the findings reported here. Conclusion Patients with visible skin conditions have increased rates of depression, anxiety, and decreased self-esteem. It is prudent for us to consider therapies that can offer rapid and dramatic results, such as cosmetic camouflage.
Type 1 deiodinase activity and generation of triiodothyronine (T3) in prostate of sexually active rats

Thyroxine (T4) and triiodothyronine (T3) are involved in the development and function of the male reproductive system. The type 1 deiodinase enzyme (D1) plays a major role in the intracellular conversion of T4 to the active form, T3. D1 is expressed in the prostate of pubescent rats, but it is unknown whether locally generated T3 is involved in the development and function of this gland.
Biometric identification system by lip shape

Biometrics systems based on lip shape recognition are of great interest, but have received little attention in the scientific literature. This is perhaps due to the belief that they have little discriminative power. However, a careful study shows that the difference between lip outlines is greater than that between shapes at different lip images of the same person. So, biometric identification by lip outline is possible. In this paper the lip outline is obtained from a color face picture: the color image is transformed to the gray scale using the transformation of Chang et al. (1994) and binarized with the Ridler and Calvar threshold. Considering the lip centroid as the origin of coordinates, each pixel lip envelope is parameterized with polar (ordered from -/spl pi/ to +/spl pi/) and Cartesian coordinates (ordered as heights and widths). To asses identity, a multilabeled multiparameter hidden Markov model is used with the polar coordinates and a multilayer neural network is applied to Cartesian coordinates. With a database of 50 people an average classification hit ratio of 96.9% and equal error ratio (EER) of 0.015 are obtained.
Housework Reduces All-Cause and Cancer Mortality in Chinese Men

Background Leisure time physical activity has been extensively studied. However, the health benefits of non-leisure time physical activity, particular those undertaken at home on all-cause and cancer mortality are limited, particularly among the elderly. Methods We studied physical activity in relation to all-cause and cancer mortality in a cohort of 4,000 community-dwelling elderly aged 65 and older. Leisure time physical activity (sport/recreational activity and lawn work/yard care/gardening) and non-leisure time physical activity (housework, home repairs and caring for another person) were self-reported on the Physical Activity Scale for the Elderly. Subjects with heart diseases, stroke, cancer or diabetes at baseline were excluded (n = 1,133). Results Among the 2,867 subjects with a mean age of 72 years at baseline, 452 died from all-cause and 185 died from cancer during the follow-up period (2001–2012). With the adjustment for age, education level and lifestyle factors, we found an inverse association between risk of all-cause mortality and heavy housework among men, with the adjusted hazard ratio (HR) of 0.72 (95%CI = 0.57–0.92). Further adjustment for BMI, frailty index, living arrangement, and leisure time activity did not change the result (HR = 0.71, 95%CI = 0.56–0.91). Among women, however, heavy housework was not associated with all-cause mortality. The risk of cancer mortality was significantly lower among men who participated in heavy housework (HR = 0.52, 95%CI = 0.35–0.78), whereas among women the risk was not significant. Men participated in light housework also were at lower risk of cancer mortality than were their counterparts, however, the association was not significant. Leisure time physical activity was not related to all-cause or cancer mortality in either men or women. Conclusion Heavy housework is associated with reduced mortality and cancer deaths over a 9-year period. The underlying mechanism needs further study.
Combining features in a graphical model to predict protein binding sites

Large efforts have been made in classifying residues as binding sites in proteins using machine learning methods. The prediction task can be translated into the computational challenge of assigning each residue the label binding site or non‐binding site. Observational data comes from various possibly highly correlated sources. It includes the structure of the protein but not the structure of the complex. The model class of conditional random fields (CRFs) has previously successfully been used for protein binding site prediction. Here, a new CRF‐approach is presented that models the dependencies of residues using a general graphical structure defined as a neighborhood graph and thus our model makes fewer independence assumptions on the labels than sequential labeling approaches. A novel node feature “change in free energy” is introduced into the model, which is then denoted by ΔF‐CRF. Parameters are trained with an online large‐margin algorithm. Using the standard feature class relative accessible surface area alone, the general graph‐structure CRF already achieves higher prediction accuracy than the linear chain CRF of Li et al. ΔF‐CRF performs significantly better on a large range of false positive rates than the support‐vector‐machine‐based program PresCont of Zellner et al. on a homodimer set containing 128 chains. ΔF‐CRF has a broader scope than PresCont since it is not constrained to protein subgroups and requires no multiple sequence alignment. The improvement is attributed to the advantageous combination of the novel node feature with the standard feature and to the adopted parameter training method. Proteins 2015; 83:844–852. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.