Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dietary fiber intake and glycemic index and incidence of diabetes in African-American and white adults: the ARIC study.

OBJECTIVE To determine the association of dietary fiber and glycemic index with incident type 2 diabetes in African-Americans and whites. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS We studied 12,251 adults aged 45-64 years and free of diabetes at baseline (1987-1989). A total of 1,447 cases of diabetes were reported between baseline and 9 years of follow-up. Diabetes status was determined by fasting glucose level > or =126 mg/dl (7.0 mmol/l), nonfasting glucose level > or =200 mg/dl (11.1 mmol/l), self-report of physician diagnosis, or use of diabetes medication. Usual dietary intake over the previous year was obtained at baseline using a 66-item food-frequency questionnaire. Nutrients were energy-adjusted using the residuals method. Proportional hazard regression analysis was used to examine dietary fiber intake and glycemic index as predictors of type 2 diabetes in both ethnic groups. RESULTS After adjustment for age, BMI, education, smoking status, physical activity, sex, and field center, there were no statistically significant associations of intake of total dietary fiber, fruit fiber, legume fiber, glycemic index, or glycemic load with incident diabetes. The hazard ratio for the fifth compared with the first quintile of cereal fiber was 0.75 (95% CI 0.60-0.92) in whites and 0.86 (0.65-1.15) in African-Americans. CONCLUSIONS This finding supports a protective role for cereal fiber in the development of diabetes in whites. More studies are needed to determine the role of dietary fiber and glycemic index in diabetes in African-Americans.
Degradation of metallic materials studied by correlative tomography

There are a huge array of characterization techniques available today and increasingly powerful computing resources allowing for the effective analysis and modelling of large datasets. However, each experimental and modelling tool only spans limited time and length scales. Correlative tomography can be thought of as the extension of correlative microscopy into three dimensions connecting different techniques, each providing different types of information, or covering different time or length scales. Here the focus is on the linking of time lapse X-ray computed tomography (CT) and serial section electron tomography using the focussed ion beam (FIB)-scanning electron microscope to study the degradation of metals. Correlative tomography can provide new levels of detail by delivering a multiscale 3D picture of key regions of interest. Specifically, the Xe+ Plasma FIB is used as an enabling tool for large-volume high-resolution serial sectioning of materials, and also as a tool for preparation of microscale test samples and samples for nanoscale X-ray CT imaging. The exemplars presented illustrate general aspects relating to correlative workflows, as well as to the time-lapse characterisation of metal microstructures during various failure mechanisms, including ductile fracture of steel and the corrosion of aluminium and magnesium alloys. Correlative tomography is already providing significant insights into materials behaviour, linking together information from different instruments across different scales. Multiscale and multifaceted work flows will become increasingly routine, providing a feed into multiscale materials models as well as illuminating other areas, particularly where hierarchical structures are of interest.
The effects of exercise on falls in elderly patients. A preplanned meta-analysis of the FICSIT Trials. Frailty and Injuries: Cooperative Studies of Intervention Techniques.

OBJECTIVE To determine if short-term exercise reduces falls and fall-related injuries in the elderly. DESIGN A preplanned meta-analysis of the seven Frailty and Injuries: Cooperative Studies of Intervention Techniques (FICSIT)--independent, randomized, controlled clinical trials that assessed intervention efficacy in reducing falls and frailty in elderly patients. All included an exercise component for 10 to 36 weeks. Fall and injury follow-up was obtained for up to 2 to 4 years. SETTING Two nursing home and five community-dwelling (three health maintenance organizations) sites. Six were group and center based; one was conducted at home. PARTICIPANTS Numbers of participants ranged from 100 to 1323 per study. Subjects were mostly ambulatory and cognitively intact, with minimum ages of 60 to 75 years, although some studies required additional deficits, such as functionally dependent in two or more activities of daily living, balance deficits or lower extremity weakness, or high risk of falling. INTERVENTIONS Exercise components varied across studies in character, duration, frequency, and intensity. Training was performed in one area or more of endurance, flexibility, balance platform, Tai Chi (dynamic balance), and resistance. Several treatment arms included additional nonexercise components, such as behavioral components, medication changes, education, functional activity, or nutritional supplements. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Time to each fall (fall-related injury) by self-report and/or medical records. RESULTS Using the Andersen-Gill extension of the Cox model that allows multiple fall outcomes per patient, the adjusted fall incidence ratio for treatment arms including general exercise was 0.90 (95% confidence limits [CL], 0.81, 0.99) and for those including balance was 0.83 (95% CL, 0.70, 0.98). No exercise component was significant for injurious falls, but power was low to detect this outcome. CONCLUSIONS Treatments including exercise for elderly adults reduce the risk of falls.
Thymic function recovery after unrelated donor cord blood or T-cell depleted HLA-haploidentical stem cell transplantation correlates with leukemia relapse

Use of alternative donors/sources of hematopoietic stem cells (HSC), such as cord blood (CB) or HLA-haploidentical (Haplo)-related donors, is associated with a significant delay in immune reconstitution after transplantation. Long-term T-cell immune reconstitution largely relies on the generation of new T cells in the recipient thymus, which can be evaluated through signal joint (sj) and beta T-cell-Receptor Excision Circles (TREC) quantification. We studied two groups of 33 and 24 children receiving, respectively, HSC Transplantation (HSCT) from an HLA-haploidentical family donor or an unrelated CB donor, for both malignant (46) and non-malignant disorders (11). Relative and absolute sj and beta-TREC values indicated comparable thymic function reconstitution at 3 and 6 months after the allograft in both groups. Compared to children with non-malignant disorders, those with hematological malignancies had significantly lower pre-transplantation TREC counts. Patients who relapsed after HSCT had a significantly less efficient thymic function both before and 6 months after HSCT with especially low beta-TREC values, this finding suggesting an impact of early intra-thymic T-cell differentiation on the occurrence of leukemia relapse.
Intracellular Accumulation of Rhodamine 110 in Single Living Cells

To gain a better understanding of the internalization of rhodamines, vital staining of living cells in situ by two different rhodamines, R110 and R123, was studied by microfluorometry. These dyes differ strongly in their lipophilic properties because of differences in charge distribution. Microspectrofluorometry was used to study the fluorescence emission spectra of R110-loaded cells to determine reliable loading conditions. Cell uptake and cell efflux studies of R110 were performed by numerical microfluorescence imaging. A slower uptake was observed for R110 (14 hr) vs R123 (2 hr), but the R110 efflux was much more rapid (30 min) than that of R123 (<24 hr). Although it appeared in the R110 and R123 co-localization study that R110 was able to accumulate in mitochondria, labeling with R110 was lower than with R123. Our results indicate that, rhodamine 110 in its acid cationic form is able to cross the plasma and mitochondrial membrane and to accumulate in cell compartments as does the cationic rhodamine 123. However, because of its acido-basic properties, R110 should be able to decrease the pH of cell compartments, depending on their ability to regulate pH. In such a model, mitochondrial pH should be more greatly decreased than cytosolic pH, leading to a lower mitochondrial accumulation of R110 than of R123. Surprisingly, these effects, which should affect the energetic state of mitochondria, do not influence cell growth, because no cytotoxic effect was observed. (J Histochem Cytochem 45:403–412, 1997)
The 308-nm excimer laser in the darkening of the white lines of striae alba

Abstract Objective: To evaluate the true efficacy of the 308-nm excimer laser for darkening striae alba using a modified approach. Methods: Ten subjects were treated using the excimer laser on the white lines of striae, while the normal skin near to and between the lines was covered with zinc oxide cream. Assessment of efficacy was performed by colorimetric scores based on mexameter measurement and also digital photographs showing before–after laser therapy, which were compared by two independent dermatologists. Results: The mexameter-based data analysis showed that the excimer laser was weakly effective in the repigmentation of the lines of striae. The analysis using before–after photographs showed that 80% of patients had a poor or moderate result. Conclusions: The results of this study showed the weakly positive effect of the 308-nm excimer laser in the repigmentation of striae alba; the splaying of pigment was a major side effect.
Web Semantics in the Clouds

Cloud computing refers to the use of large-scale computer clusters often built from low-cost hardware and network equipment, where resources are allocated dynamically among users of the cluster. While the paradigm is not entirely novel, recent developments in software frameworks for cloud computing are making it increasingly easy for programmers to parallelize and thereby scale-up complex data-processing tasks. This article investigates how this trend is impacting the semantic Web field and shows how cloud computing can be used to analyze, query, and reason with the massive amounts of metadata handled by semantic search engines.
On the Benefit of a One-Bit Sampling Receiver and Hard Decoding in Impulse Radio Ultra Wide Band Communications With Multi-User Interferences

We propose in this paper to show how a one-bit sampling receiver can be more efficient in some cases than the classical correlation receiver for impulse radio ultra wide band (IR-UWB) communications with high multi user interferences (MUI). This one-bit sampling receiver can also be seen as a hard decoding process of the classical repetition code used in UWB IR. Thus hard decoding can be more efficient than soft decoding in some cases. Such a result is based on the special distribution of UWB MUI. It is known that MUI distribution is not Gaussian in several cases. The classical correlation receiver which is adapted to Gaussian noise, is not adapted to the particular form of UWB MUI. We show that modeling MUI by a generalized Gaussian distribution helps in deriving a receiver which in some cases is nearly equivalent to the one-bit sampling receiver
An Implementation Scheme of Relational Tables

A new implementation scheme for relational tables is proposed, and a prototype system based on the scheme is evaluated. The scheme implements a relational table by employing a multidimensional array like in MOLAP systems. Using multidimensional arrays provides many advantages, however uses suffer from some problems. In our scheme, these problems are solved by an efficient scheme of record encoding based on the notion of extendible array. Our scheme exhibits good performance in space and time costs compared with conventional implementation.
Use of aldehyde fixatives to determine the rate of synaptic transmitter release.

Aldehyde fixation continues to be useful to prepare synapses for freeze-fracture, but it may increase the rate of transmitter release. The effects of different aldehyde fixatives on spontaneous quantal release (m.e.p.p.s), and on the corresponding synaptic vesicle exocytosis at frog nerve-muscle synapses were investigated with the hope of finding a way to minimize side effects of fixation. Increases in m.e. p.p.s of up to 50 S-1 occurred during fixation, despite the species of aldehyde used in the fixative, and this fixative effect decreased only slightly as aldehyde concentration was increased. Increases in m.e. p.p frequency were not blocked by tetrodotoxin, by lowering external calcium and raising external magnesium concentration, or by lowering the total osmotic strength of the fixative. The smallest increase in m.e. p.p. frequency was in 3% glutaraldehyde and corresponded to the lowest level of synaptic vesicle exocytosis seen by freeze-fracture, 0.15 per micrometers of active zone. The effects of aldehyde fixation on m.e. p.p. frequency and synaptic vesicle exocytosis could not be avoided, but this study suggests how its effect on morphological changes in synapses might be minimized.
Three-Dimensional Shape-Structure Comparison Method for Protein Classification

In this paper, a 3D shape-based approach is presented for the efficient search, retrieval, and classification of protein molecules. The method relies primarily on the geometric 3D structure of the proteins, which is produced from the corresponding PDB files and secondarily on their primary and secondary structure. After proper positioning of the 3D structures, in terms of translation and scaling, the spherical trace transform is applied to them so as to produce geometry-based descriptor vectors, which are completely rotation invariant and perfectly describe their 3D shape. Additionally, characteristic attributes of the primary and secondary structure of the protein molecules are extracted, forming attribute-based descriptor vectors. The descriptor vectors are weighted and an integrated descriptor vector is produced. Three classification methods are tested. A part of the FSSP/DALI database, which provides a structural classification of the proteins, is used as the ground truth in order to evaluate the classification accuracy of the proposed method. The experimental results show that the proposed method achieves more than 99 percent classification accuracy while remaining much simpler and faster than the DALI method
Extracellular Signal-Regulated Kinase and p38 Subgroups of Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinases Regulate Inducible Nitric Oxide Synthase and Tumor Necrosis Factor-α Gene Expression in Endotoxin-Stimulated Primary Glial Cultures

Tumor necrosis factor-α (TNFα) and nitric oxide (NO), the product of inducible NO synthase (iNOS), mediate inflammatory and immune responses in the CNS under a variety of neuropathological situations. They are produced mainly by “activated” astrocytes and microglia, the two immune regulatory cells of the CNS. In this study we have examined the regulation of TNFα and iNOS gene expression in endotoxin-stimulated primary glial cultures, focusing on the role of mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase cascades. The bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS) was able to activate extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) and p38 kinase subgroups of MAP kinases in microglia and astrocytes. ERK activation was sensitive to PD98059, the kinase inhibitor that is specific for ERK kinase. The activity of p38 kinase was inhibited by SB203580, a member of the novel class of cytokine suppressive anti-inflammatory drugs (CSAIDs), as revealed by blocked activation of the downstream kinase, MAP kinase-activated protein kinase-2. The treatment of glial cells with either LPS alone (microglia) or a combination of LPS and interferon-γ (astrocytes) resulted in an induced production of NO and TNFα. The two kinase inhibitors, at micromolar concentrations, individually suppressed and, in combination, almost completely blocked glial production of NO and the expression of iNOS and TNFα, as determined by Western blot analysis. Reverse transcriptase-PCR analysis showed changes in iNOS mRNA levels that paralleled iNOS protein and NO while indicating a lack of effect of either of the kinase inhibitors on TNFα mRNA expression. The results demonstrate key roles for ERK and p38 MAP kinase cascades in the transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation of iNOS and TNFα gene expression in endotoxin-activated glial cells.
Induction of Terpene Biosynthesis in Berries of Microvine Transformed with VvDXS1 Alleles

Terpenoids, especially monoterpenes, are major aroma-impact compounds in grape and wine. Previous studies highlighted a key regulatory role for grapevine 1-deoxy-D-xylulose 5-phosphate synthase 1 (VvDXS1), the first enzyme of the methylerythritol phosphate pathway for isoprenoid precursor biosynthesis. Here, the parallel analysis of VvDXS1 genotype and terpene concentration in a germplasm collection demonstrated that VvDXS1 sequence has a very high predictive value for the accumulation of monoterpenes and also has an influence on sesquiterpene levels. A metabolic engineering approach was applied by expressing distinct VvDXS1 alleles in the grapevine model system “microvine” and assessing the effects on downstream pathways at transcriptional and metabolic level in different organs and fruit developmental stages. The underlying goal was to investigate two potential perturbation mechanisms, the former based on a significant over-expression of the wild-type (neutral) VvDXS1 allele and the latter on the ex-novo expression of an enzyme with increased catalytic efficiency from the mutated (muscat) VvDXS1 allele. The integration of the two VvDXS1 alleles in distinct microvine lines was found to alter the expression of several terpenoid biosynthetic genes, as assayed through an ad hoc developed TaqMan array based on cDNA libraries of four aromatic cultivars. In particular, enhanced transcription of monoterpene, sesquiterpene and carotenoid pathway genes was observed. The accumulation of monoterpenes in ripe berries was higher in the transformed microvines compared to control plants. This effect is predominantly attributed to the improved activity of the VvDXS1 enzyme coded by the muscat allele, whereas the up-regulation of VvDXS1 plays a secondary role in the increase of monoterpenes.
Smooth muscle membrane potential modulates endothelium‐dependent relaxation of rat basilar artery via myo‐endothelial gap junctions

The release of endothelium‐derived relaxing factors, such as nitric oxide (NO), is dependent on an increase in intracellular calcium levels ([Ca2+]i) within endothelial cells. Endothelial cell membrane potential plays a critical role in the regulation of [Ca2+]i in that calcium influx from the extracellular space is dependent on membrane hyperpolarization. In this study, the effect of inhibition of vascular smooth muscle delayed rectifier K+ (KDR) channels by 4‐aminopyridine (4‐AP) on endothelium‐dependent relaxation of rat basilar artery to acetylcholine (ACh) was assessed. ACh‐evoked endothelium‐dependent relaxations were inhibited by N‐(Ω)‐nitro‐l‐arginine (l‐NNA) or 1H‐[1,2,4]oxadiazolo[4,3‐a]quinoxalin‐1‐one (ODQ), confirming a role for NO and guanylyl cyclase. 4‐AP (300 μm) also suppressed ACh‐induced relaxation, with the maximal response reduced from ≈92 to ≈33 % (n= 11; P < 0.01). However, relaxations in response to exogenous NO, applied in the form of authentic NO, sodium nitroprusside or diethylamineNONOate (DEANONOate), were not affected by 4‐AP treatment (n= 3‐11). These data are not consistent with the view that 4‐AP‐sensitive KDR channels are mediators of vascular hyperpolarization and relaxation in response to endothelium‐derived NO. Inhibition of ACh‐evoked relaxation by 4‐AP was reversed by pinacidil (0.5‐1 μm; n= 5) or 18β‐glycyrrhetinic acid (18βGA; 5 μm; n= 5), indicating that depolarization and electrical coupling of the smooth muscle to the endothelium were involved. 4‐AP caused depolarization of both endothelial and vascular smooth muscle cells of isolated segments of basilar artery (mean change 11 ± 1 and 9 ± 2 mV, respectively; n= 15). Significantly, 18βGA almost completely prevented the depolarization of endothelial cells (n= 6), but not smooth muscle cells (n= 6) by 4‐AP. ACh‐induced hyperpolarization of endothelium and smooth muscle cells was also reduced by 4‐AP, but this inhibition was not observed in the combined presence of 4‐AP and 18βGA. These data indicate that 4‐AP can induce an indirect inhibition of endothelium‐dependent relaxation in the rat basilar artery by electrical coupling of smooth muscle membrane depolarization to the endothelium via myo‐endothelial gap junctions.
Prognostic factors and clinical outcomes in children and adolescents with metastatic rhabdomyosarcoma--a report from the Intergroup Rhabdomyosarcoma Study IV.

PURPOSE To identify risk factors associated with outcomes in children with metastatic rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) treated on the fourth Intergroup Rhabdomyosarcoma Study (IRS-IV). PATIENTS AND METHODS Patients with metastatic RMS were treated with one of two regimens that incorporated a window of either ifosfamide and etoposide (IE) with vincristine, dactinomycin, and cyclophosphamide (VAC) or vincristine, melphalan (VM) and VAC. Study end points were failure-free survival (FFS) and overall survival (OS). Clinical factors including age, histology, sites of primary and metastatic disease, and number of sites of metastatic disease were correlated with those end points. RESULTS One hundred twenty-seven patients were eligible for analysis. The estimated 3-year OS and FFS for all patients were 39% and 25%, respectively. By univariate analysis, 3-year OS was significantly influenced by histology (47% for embryonal v 34% for all others, P =.026) and increasing number of metastatic sites (P =.028). By multivariate analysis, the presence of two or fewer metastatic sites was the only significant predictor (P =.007 and.006, respectively). The combination of embryonal histology with two or fewer metastatic sites identified a subgroup with 3-year FFS of 40% and OS of 47%. CONCLUSION Children with group IV RMS treated on the IRS-IV study had improved OS and FFS if they had two or fewer metastatic sites and embryonal histology. This favorable subset of patients has outcomes approaching those observed in selected patients with localized, nonmetastatic disease. Thus, these patients might not be appropriate candidates for regimens that include experimental agents with substantial toxicities or unproven antitumor activity.