Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ascending aortic dilatation associated with bicuspid aortic valve: pathophysiology, molecular biology, and clinical implications.

Ascending aortic dilatation occurs more frequently and at a younger age in patients with bicuspid aortic valves (BAV) than it does in patients with normal trileaflet aortic valves (TAV). The clinical significance of the correlation between BAV and dilatation of the ascending aorta is based on 2 factors. First, BAV is the most common congenital cardiac abnormality, occurring in 0.46% to 1.37% of the population.1–4 Second, aortic dilatation has a propensity for dissection and rupture, making it a potentially lethal disease. Ascending aortic dilatation with BAV warrants frequent monitoring, with possible early prophylactic surgical intervention to prevent dissection or rupture. The purpose of this article is to review the etiology and natural history and to make suggestions regarding management of the disease on the basis of the limited data available. ### Differential for Etiology of Ascending Aortic Aneurysms Most ascending aortic aneurysms have unknown etiology and are classified as idiopathic.5 In contrast to aneurysms of the descending aorta, ascending aortic aneurysms are not commonly a result of atherosclerosis.6,7 Among heritable connective tissue disorders such as Marfan syndrome and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, ascending aortic aneurysms are a clinical component of the syndrome. BAV disease, also a heritable disorder, is known to have an increased risk of ascending aortic aneurysm as well. Marfan syndrome and BAV aortic disease share common histopathological findings, including medial degeneration, increased matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) activity, and decreased fibrillin-1 in the aortic wall.8 ### Anatomic Boundaries of BAV Disease Development of a BAV is part of a larger spectrum of structural developmental abnormalities involving the great vessels. The aortic valve and ascending aorta share a common embryonic origin: they both develop from neural crest cells.9–12 The vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) that undergo apoptosis in the media of the ascending aorta are of neural crest origin.13 The pulmonary trunk demonstrates histopathological changes similar to those of the …
New Perspective on Parkinsonism in Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration

Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is the second most common type of presenile dementia. Three clinical prototypes have been defined; behavioral variant FTD, semantic dementia, and progressive nonfluent aphasia. Progressive supranuclear palsy, corticobasal degeneration, and motor neuron disease may possess clinical and pathological characteristics that overlap with FTD, and it is possible that they may all belong to the same clinicopathological spectrum. Frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) is a clinicopathological syndrome that encompasses a heterogenous group of neurodegenerative disorders. Owing to the advancement in the field of molecular genetics, diagnostic imaging, and pathology, FTLD has been the focus of great interest. Nevertheless, parkinsonism in FTLD has received relatively less attention. Parkinsonism is found in approximately 20–30% of patients in FTLD. Furthermore, parkinsonism can be seen in all FTLD subtypes, and some patients with familial and sporadic FTLD can present with prominent parkinsonism. Therefore, there is a need to understand parkinsonism in FTLD in order to obtain a better understanding of the disease. With regard to the clinical characteristics, the akinetic rigid type of parkinsonism has predominantly been described. Parkinsonism is frequently observed in familial FTD, more specifically, in FTD with parkinsonism linked to chromosome 17q (FTDP-17). The genes associated with parkinsonism are microtubule associated protein tau (MAPT), progranulin (GRN or PGRN), and chromosome 9 open reading frame 72 (C9ORF72) repeat expansion. The neural substrate of parkinsonism remains to be unveiled. Dopamine transporter (DAT) imaging revealed decreased uptake of DAT, and imaging findings indicated atrophic changes of the basal ganglia. Parkinsonism can be an important feature in FTLD and, therefore, increased attention is needed on the subject.
The psychosocial well-being of children with chronic disease, their parents and siblings: an overview of the research evidence base.

BACKGROUND Chronic disease of childhood may have implications for the psychosocial well-being of children and their families. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the current literature regarding the psychosocial well-being of children with chronic disease, their parents and siblings. METHODS Electronic searches were conducted using AMED, CINAHL, Cochrane Database, DARE, HTA, MEDLINE, NHS EED, PsycLIT, PsycINFO and PubMED (1990 to week 24, 2004). Inclusion criteria were systematic reviews, meta-analyses and overviews based on traditional reviews of published literature. The titles of papers were reviewed, abstracts were obtained and reviewed, and full copies of selected papers were obtained. RESULTS Six reviews of the psychosocial well-being of children were identified: three on chronic disease in general, one on asthma, one on juvenile idiopathic arthritis and one on sickle cell disease. Two reviews of psychosocial well-being among parents and two reviews of sibling psychosocial well-being were identified. Evidence from meta-analyses shows that children were at slightly elevated risk of psychosocial distress, although only a minority experience clinical symptomatology. The proportion that experience distress remains to be clarified, as do contributory risk factors. Few conclusions can be drawn from the two reviews of parents. However, a meta-analysis of siblings showed that they are at risk from a number of negative effects. CONCLUSION This overview has highlighted the need to extend the evidence base for psychosocial well-being of children, parents and siblings.
Comparison of nebulised magnesium sulphate and salbutamol combined with salbutamol alone in the treatment of acute bronchial asthma: a randomised study

Objective: To test the hypothesis that combined administration of multiple doses of nebulised salbutamol and magnesium sulphate provides additional benefit compared with salbutamol alone in adult patients with acute asthma. Design: Randomised, double blind, prospective study. Methods: A total of 100 patients presenting to an emergency department with an acute attack of bronchial asthma were randomised to two groups: nebulisation with a combination of salbutamol and magnesium sulphate (group A) and nebulisation with salbutamol only (group B). Both groups received nebulisation thrice at intervals of 20 minutes. Salbutamol and magnesium sulphate were administered in doses of 0.5 mg and 500 mg, respectively, and the solutions were made isotonic to plasma osmolality. Pulse rate, blood pressure, and peak expiratory flow rate (PEFR) were measured at baseline and at 15, 60, 75, and 120 minutes. Serum magnesium levels and blood gases were measured at 0 and 120 minutes in both groups. Results: All patients had either acute severe or life threatening asthma. The baseline characteristics were comparable in the two groups. Both groups showed significant rise in PEFR at all time intervals, however, there was no significant difference between the groups in rise in PEFR at any time point. Serum magnesium levels remained within normal limits, and there was no difference in requirement of additional medication during the study or hospital admission rates in both groups. No significant side effects were noted. Conclusion: This study suggests that there is no therapeutic benefit of adding magnesium sulphate to salbutamol nebulisation in the treatment of patients with acute severe or life threatening asthma.
Anti-Inflammatory Polymeric Coatings for Implantable Biomaterials and Devices

Synthetic polymer coatings are used extensively in modern medical devices and implants because of their material versatility and processability. These coatings are designed for specific applications by controlling composition and physical and chemical properties, and they can be formed into a variety of complex structures and shapes. However, implantation of these materials into the body elicits a strong inflammatory host response that significantly limits the integration and biological performance of devices. Biomaterial-mediated inflammation is a complex reaction involving protein adsorption, leukocyte recruitment and activation, secretion of inflammatory mediators, and fibrous encapsulation of the implant. Significant research efforts have focused on modifying material properties using various anti-inflammatory polymeric surface coatings to generate more biocompatible implants. This minireview provides a brief background on the events of biomaterial-mediated inflammation and highlights various approaches used for modifying material surfaces to modulate inflammatory responses. These include both passive and active strategies, such as nonfouling surface treatments and delivery of anti-inflammatory agents, respectively. Novel approaches will be needed to extend the in vivo lifetime and performance of devices and reduce the need for multiple implantation surgeries.
Can Microblogs Predict Music Charts? An Analysis of the Relationship Between #Nowplaying Tweets and Music Charts

Twitter is one of the leading social media platforms, where hundreds of millions of tweets cover a wide range of topics, including the music a user is listening to. Such #now-playing tweets may serve as an indicator for future charts, however, this has not been thoroughly studied yet. Therefore, we investigate to which extent such tweets correlate with the Billboard Hot 100 charts and whether they allow for music charts prediction. The analysis is based on #now-playing tweets and the Billboard charts of the years 2014 and 2015. We analyze three different aspects in regards to the time series representing #nowplaying tweets and the Billboard charts: (i) the correlation of Twitter and the Bill-board charts, (ii) the temporal relation between those two and (iii) the prediction performance in regards to charts positions of tracks. We ﬁnd that while there is a mild correlation between tweets and the charts, there is a temporal lag between these two time series for 90% of all tracks. As for the predictive power of Twitter, we ﬁnd that incorporating Twitter information in a multivariate model results in a signiﬁcant decrease of both the mean RMSE as well as the variance of rank predictions.
A Late Pleistocene (MIS3) ungulate mammal assemblage (Los Rincones, Zaragoza, Spain) in the Eurosiberian–Mediterranean boundary

The Late Pleistocene archaeo-palaeontological sites in the Iberian Peninsula are located mainly on the coasts. Here, we present for the first time a palaeoenvironmental proxy for Upper Pleistocene locality (Marine Isotope Stage 3 MIS3) that is in the interior peninsular, in the Moncayo massif (Zaragoza). This is actually the boundary between Mediterranean and Eurosiberian climatic regions. This study is based in the site ungulates: Capra pyrenaica, which is larger in size than the current and fossil Capra from the Mediterranean area of the Iberian Peninsula. The horses have a small size, which is similar to that of the horses from Fontainhas and Casares. Significantly lesser in the number of specimens are the roe deer, the southern chamois and the auroch. The study and comparison of the faunal assemblage of the locality of Los Rincones with other sites of the Iberian MIS3 show a cluster of sites in the southern Peninsular, though separated, due to the abundance of Capra pyrenaica. The association of Los Rincones is similar to the southern peninsular sites such as Nerja, Gorham Cave, Cova Beneito and Zafarraya. The ungulate assemblage of Los Rincones represents a landscape with temperate climate, presence of steppe and patches of forest, similar to the current landscape surrounding the cavity today.
Maximizing non-linear concave functions in fixed dimension

Consider a convex set P in R/sup d/ and a piece wise polynomial concave function F: P to R. Let A be an algorithm that given a point x in IR/sup d/ computes F(x) if x in P, or returns a concave polynomial p such that p(x) <0 but for any y in P, p(y) >or= 0. The author assumes that d is fixed and that all comparisons in A depend on the sign of polynomial functions of the input point. He shows that under these conditions, one can find max/sub P/ F in time which is polynomial in the number of arithmetic operations of A. Using this method he gives the first strongly polynomial algorithms for many nonlinear parametric problems in fixed dimension, such as the parametric max flow problem, the parametric minimum s-t distance, the parametric spanning tree problem and other problems. In addition he shows that in one dimension, the same result holds even if one only knows how to approximate the value of F. Specifically, if one can obtain an alpha -approximation for F(x) then one can alpha -approximate the value of maxF. He thus obtains the first polynomial approximation algorithms for many NP-hard problems such as the parametric Euclidean traveling salesman problem. <<ETX>>
An interactive out-of-core rendering framework for visualizing massively complex models

With the tremendous advances in both hardware capabilities and rendering algorithms, rendering performance is steadily increasing. Even consumer graphics hardware can render many million triangles per second. However, scene complexity seems to be rising even faster than rendering performance, with no end to even more complex models in sight.In this paper, we are targeting the interactive visualization of the "Boeing 777" model, a highly complex model of 350 million individual triangles, which - due to its sheer size and complex internal structure - simply cannot be handled satisfactorily by today's techniques. To render this model, we use a combination of real-time ray tracing, a low-level out of core caching and demand loading strategy, and a hierarchical, hybrid volumetric/lightfield-like approximation scheme for representing not-yet-loaded geometry. With this approach, we are able to render the full 777 model at several frames per second even on a single commodity desktop PC.
Contextual risk factors for the common mental disorders in Britain: a multilevel investigation of the effects of place

Study objective: To test hypotheses about associations between area level exposures and the prevalence of the most common mental disorders (CMD) in Britain. A statistically significant urban-rural gradient was predicted, but not a socioeconomic gradient, in the prevalence of CMD after adjusting for characteristics of individual respondents. The study tested the hypothesis that the effects of area level exposures would be greatest among those not in paid employment. Design: Cross sectional survey, analysed using multilevel logistic and linear regression. CMD were assessed using the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ). Electoral wards were characterised using the Carstairs index, the Office of National Statistics (ONS) Classification of Wards, and population density. Setting: England, Wales, and Scotland. Participants: Nearly 9000 adults aged 16–74 living in 4904 private households, nested in 642 electoral wards. Main results: Little evidence was found of statistically significant variance in the prevalence of CMD between wards, which ranged from 18.8% to 29.5% (variance 0.035, SE 0.026) (p=0.11). Associations between CMD and characteristics of wards, such as the Carstairs index, only reached statistical significance among those who were economically inactive (adjusted odds ratio for top v bottom Carstairs score quintile 1.58, 95% CI 1.08 to 2.31) (p<0.05). Conclusions: There may be multiple pathways linking socioeconomic inequalities and ill health. The effects of place of residence on mental health are greatest among those who are economically inactive and hence more likely to spend the time at home.
Histologic evaluation of skin‐derived and collagen‐based substrates implanted in palatal wounds

Tissue shortage complicates the surgery of cleft lip and palate anomalies and the healing of defects on the palate impairs growth of the dento‐alveolar complex due to scar tissue formation. Implantation of substitutes into the wound area might overcome this adverse effect. The aim of this study was to compare the tissue response to three collagen‐based (collagen type I substrate alone, or collagen coated with elastin or chondroitin‐6‐sulfate) and two skin‐derived substrates (unprocessed dermis and AlloDerm) after implantation into 12 dogs. Histology was performed at 3, 10, and 20 days postsurgery. We showed that all substrates were well tolerated. However, it is unclear whether AlloDerm was rapidly degraded or if it was sequestrated. There was no elastin or collagen present in these wounds. All collagen‐based substrates showed good epithelial regeneration, although heparan sulfate (JM 403) was absent. Wounds treated with the collagen‐based substrates contained fewer myofibroblasts at 20 days postsurgery and the type III collagen fibers in the immature scar tissue were more randomly oriented than in an untreated wound. In conclusion, palatal wounds with a dermal substrate heal with fewer indications of scar tissue formation and evoke only a mild inflammatory reaction, which is preferred over the tissue reaction in an untreated wound.
Turner syndrome in Albania and the efficacy of its treatment with growth hormone

Abstract The aim of this study was the evaluation of Turner syndrome inside the Albanian population, its clinical, cytological and genetic characteristics, the accompanying pathologies, and the efficacy of the treatment with the growth hormone. We performed a retrospective analysis of 59 patients suffering from this syndrome (aging from 5 to 23 years old). The diagnosis of female patients suffering from Turner syndrome is delayed, with a mean age at the moment of diagnosis of 13.74 years (5–23 years). The main reason for seeking medical advice was the growth retardation or a delayed puberty. Available data for 52 patients showed that the most frequent accompanying pathologies were the following: thyroid autoimmune disorders (59%), cardiovascular anomalies (43%), renal pathologies (41%), hearing impairment (4.3%) and hypertension (3.3%). Follow-up for the growth rate was possible for 52 patients out of the total of 59 patients. Twenty-five of the female patients suffering Turner syndrome and forming part of our study sample were treated with growth hormone for a period averaging 3 years and 4 months. A variety of reasons was identified as responsible for the missed treatment in 27 patients. We saw an enhanced growth (in terms of body height) within the treated subgroup, when compared with the untreated subgroup (27 patients), especially during the first 3 years of the follow-up. No side effects of this treatment were reported. Both groups of patients initiated as well a sexual hormone therapy (estrogens and progesterone) for inducing puberty at the age of 12 years. Further work is needed for an early diagnosis of this syndrome, the prompt treatment with growth hormone and the monitoring of accompanying disorders. This will ensure a better quality of life and an improvement of the longevity of patients suffering from the Turner syndrome.
Rationale and current perspective for early rhythm control therapy in atrial fibrillation

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common sustained arrhythmia and an important source for mortality and morbidity on a population level. Despite the clear association between AF and death, stroke, and other cardiovascular events, there is no evidence that rhythm control treatment improves outcome in AF patients. The poor outcome of rhythm control relates to the severity of the atrial substrate for AF not only due to the underlying atrial remodelling process but also due to the poor efficacy and adverse events of the currently available ion-channel antiarrhythmic drugs and ablation techniques. Data suggest, however, an association between sinus rhythm maintenance and improved survival. Hypothetically, sinus rhythm may also lead to a lower risk of stroke and heart failure. The presence of AF, thus, seems one of the modifiable factors associated with death and cardiovascular morbidity in AF patients. Patients with a short history of AF and the underlying heart disease have not been studied before. It is fair to assume that abolishment of AF in these patients is more successful and possibly also safer, which could translate into a prognostic benefit of early rhythm control therapy. Several trials are now investigating whether aggressive early rhythm control therapy can reduce cardiovascular morbidity and mortality and increase maintenance of sinus rhythm. In the present paper we describe the background of these studies and provide some information on their design.
Lobectomy for Non–Small Cell Lung Cancer Differences in Morbidity and Mortality between Thoracotomy and Thoracoscopy

Objective Until the last decade, lobectomy by thoracotomy (TL) was the “gold standard” for treatment of patients with operable lung carcinoma. Today, video-assisted thoracic surgery lobectomy (VATS-L) has become accepted as a safe and effective procedure to treat early-stage lung cancer. We analyzed and compared postoperative complications, hospital stay, morbidity, and mortality after TL and VATS-L in patients with non–small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC). Methods Between February 1998 and December 2007, we performed 326 TLs in patients with NSCLC. From December 2007, VATS-L was preferentially performed, and 63 cases of NSCLC patients underwent surgery using this method. Comorbidities were scaled according to the Charlson Comorbidity Index, and propensity scores between the TL and VATS-L patients were compared. Results Postoperative complications occurred in 142 TL patients (43.6%) and 17 VATS-L patients (27%), with 3.6% and 1.6% intra-hospital mortality, respectively. There were no significant differences between the TL and VATS-L patients in Charlson Comorbidity Index or propensity scores, which led us to compare complications between TL and VATS-L groups and discovered that VATS-L patients had a shorter median length of stay (P < 0.001) and VATS-L was associated with a reduction in the occurrence of atrial fibrillation (P = 0.011) and offered benefits for patients with more significant comorbidities, for example, congestive heart failure patients (P = 0.042). Conclusions Our clinical impression is that VATS-L offers advantages over TL in terms of lower morbidity, fewer and less serious complications, shorter hospital stays, and the possibility to operate on patients with more comorbidities.
Early Intraprosthetic Dislocation of A Dual Mobility Acetabular Construct

Dislocations represent one of the more common postoperative complications seen after total hip arthroplasty (THA) with estimates ranging from 0.2 to 7% in primary cases and as high as 25% in revision surgeries [1]. In the early 1970s, Giles Bousquet developed a dual mobility (DM) acetabular cup with the goal of reducing dislocation rates. The dual mobility (DM) design consists of two articulations: a large diameter polyethylene articulation with a metal cup and a smaller articulation between a modular femoral head and the polyethylene liner [2]. In a dual mobility (DM) construct, when impingement of the smaller articulation occurs, additional range of motion is available through the articulation of the polyethylene liner within the metal cup. Thus, DM constructs increase the head-neck ratio, and also increase the jump distance; this effectively decreases the dislocation rate of total hip arthroplasty with this construct [3].