Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
FRACTIONATION OF SERUM PROTEINS IN HYPERPROTEINEMIA, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO MULTIPLE MYELOMA.

Investigation of the serum proteins in disease is handicapped by lack of clinically applicable methods for resolving the complex system of proteins present in blood serum into homogeneous components. The only fractionation now possible is into groups of proteins having like solubility characteristics or electrophoretic mobilities or sedimentation constants (depending upon the method employed) but varying in other properties and in composition (1). However, these methods, if rigidly standardized, give reproducible results and, in certain diseases, characteristic divergencies from normal patterns. The separations therefore, though arbitrary, have at least empirical value. The present study -deals with the empirical application of Howe's method (2) and the electrophoretic technique (3, 4) to fractionation of the serum proteins in various diseases presenting hyperproteinemia. Multiple myeloma is of special interest in this connection. Not only is the incidence and degree of hyperproteinemia unusually high (5, 6, 7, 8), but there is extraordinary variability in the composition of the protein increment (7, 9), as indicated by fractional precipitation with neutral salts (5, 10, 11, 12), by electrophoresis (4, 13), and by ultracentrifugation (13). The significance of these peculiarities has not been made clear. To provide a common basis for consideration of our findings in hyperproteinemia, we have first cited results obtained in normal adult subjects. Serum protein partitions in a variety of chronic infections and in cirrhosis are then recorded to illustrate the uniform plan in distribution of globulin subfractions which characterizes hyperproteinemia of all such etiology. Some of our cases with elevated serum protein levels due to multiple myeloma likewise showed this conventional fractional distribution. Others, however, presented certain distinctive anomalies in both the Howe and electrophoretic patterns, which were found to be due in large part to BenceJones proteinemia and to be of value in diagnosis.
Interaction between periodontitis and liver diseases

Periodontitis is an oral disease that is highly prevalent worldwide, with a prevalence of 30–50% of the population in developed countries, but only ~10% present with severe forms. It is also estimated that periodontitis results in worldwide productivity losses amounting to ~54 billion USD yearly. In addition to the damage it causes to oral health, periodontitis also affects other types of disease. Numerous studies have confirmed the association between periodontitis and systemic diseases, such as diabetes, respiratory disease, osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease. Increasing evidence also indicated that periodontitis may participate in the progression of liver diseases, such as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma, as well as affecting liver transplantation. However, to the best of our knowledge, there are currently no reviews elaborating upon the possible links between periodontitis and liver diseases. Therefore, the current review summarizes the human trials and animal experiments that have been conducted to investigate the correlation between periodontitis and liver diseases. Furthermore, in the present review, certain mechanisms that have been postulated to be responsible for the role of periodontitis in liver diseases (such as bacteria, pro-inflammatory mediators and oxidative stress) are considered. The aim of the review is to introduce the hypothesis that periodontitis may be important in the progression of liver disease, thus providing dentists and physicians with an improved understanding of this issue.
The Influence of Markov Decision Process Structure on the Possible Strategic Use of Working Memory and Episodic Memory

Researchers use a variety of behavioral tasks to analyze the effect of biological manipulations on memory function. This research will benefit from a systematic mathematical method for analyzing memory demands in behavioral tasks. In the framework of reinforcement learning theory, these tasks can be mathematically described as partially-observable Markov decision processes. While a wealth of evidence collected over the past 15 years relates the basal ganglia to the reinforcement learning framework, only recently has much attention been paid to including psychological concepts such as working memory or episodic memory in these models. This paper presents an analysis that provides a quantitative description of memory states sufficient for correct choices at specific decision points. Using information from the mathematical structure of the task descriptions, we derive measures that indicate whether working memory (for one or more cues) or episodic memory can provide strategically useful information to an agent. In particular, the analysis determines which observed states must be maintained in or retrieved from memory to perform these specific tasks. We demonstrate the analysis on three simplified tasks as well as eight more complex memory tasks drawn from the animal and human literature (two alternation tasks, two sequence disambiguation tasks, two non-matching tasks, the 2-back task, and the 1-2-AX task). The results of these analyses agree with results from quantitative simulations of the task reported in previous publications and provide simple indications of the memory demands of the tasks which can require far less computation than a full simulation of the task. This may provide a basis for a quantitative behavioral stoichiometry of memory tasks.
Network Tomography of Binary Network Performance Characteristics

In network performance tomography, characteristics of the network interior, such as link loss and packet latency, are inferred from correlated end-to-end measurements. Most work to date is based on exploiting packet level correlations, e.g., of multicast packets or unicast emulations of them. However, these methods are often limited in scope-multicast is not widely deployed-or require deployment of additional hardware or software infrastructure. Some recent work has been successful in reaching a less detailed goal: identifying the lossiest network links using only uncorrelated end-to-end measurements. In this paper, we abstract the properties of network performance that allow this to be done and exploit them with a quick and simple inference algorithm that, with high likelihood, identifies the worst performing links. We give several examples of real network performance measures that exhibit the required properties. Moreover, the algorithm is sufficiently simple that we can analyze its performance explicitly
WHO European Childhood Obesity Surveillance Initiative: health-risk behaviours on nutrition and physical activity in 6–9-year-old schoolchildren

Abstract Objective To assess to what extent eight behavioural health risks related to breakfast and food consumption and five behavioural health risks related to physical activity, screen time and sleep duration are present among schoolchildren, and to examine whether health-risk behaviours are associated with obesity. Design Cross-sectional design as part of the WHO European Childhood Obesity Surveillance Initiative (school year 2007/2008). Children’s behavioural data were reported by their parents and children’s weight and height measured by trained fieldworkers. Descriptive statistics and logistic regression analyses were performed. Setting Primary schools in Bulgaria, Lithuania, Portugal and Sweden; paediatric clinics in the Czech Republic. Subjects Nationally representative samples of 6–9-year-olds (n 15 643). Results All thirteen risk behaviours differed statistically significantly across countries. Highest prevalence estimates of risk behaviours were observed in Bulgaria and lowest in Sweden. Not having breakfast daily and spending screen time ≥2 h/d were clearly positively associated with obesity. The same was true for eating ‘foods like pizza, French fries, hamburgers, sausages or meat pies’ >3 d/week and playing outside <1 h/d. Surprisingly, other individual unhealthy eating or less favourable physical activity behaviours showed either no or significant negative associations with obesity. A combination of multiple less favourable physical activity behaviours showed positive associations with obesity, whereas multiple unhealthy eating behaviours combined did not lead to higher odds of obesity. Conclusions Despite a categorization based on international health recommendations, individual associations of the thirteen health-risk behaviours with obesity were not consistent, whereas presence of multiple physical activity-related risk behaviours was clearly associated with higher odds of obesity.
Localization and Speech Understanding by a Patient With Bilateral Cochlear Implants and Bilateral Hearing Preservation

Objectives: The authors describe the localization and speech-understanding abilities of a patient fit with bilateral cochlear implants (CIs) for whom acoustic low-frequency hearing was preserved in both cochleae. Design: Three signals were used in the localization experiments: low-pass, high-pass, and wideband noise. Speech understanding was assessed with the AzBio sentences presented in noise. Results: Localization accuracy was best in the aided, bilateral acoustic hearing condition, and was poorer in both the bilateral CI condition and when the bilateral CIs were used in addition to bilateral low-frequency hearing. Speech understanding was best when low-frequency acoustic hearing was combined with at least one CI. Conclusions: The authors found that (1) for sound source localization in patients with bilateral CIs and bilateral hearing preservation, interaural level difference cues may dominate interaural time difference cues and (2) hearing-preservation surgery can be of benefit to patients fit with bilateral CIs.
Experimental And Numerical Investigations On Bond Durability Of Cfrp Strengthened Concrete Members Subjected To Environmental Exposure

Fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composites have become an attractive alternative to conventional methods for external-strengthening of civil infrastructure, particularly as applied to flexural strengthening of reinforced concrete (RC) members. However, durability of the bond between FRP composite and concrete has shown degradation under some aggressive environments. Although numerous studies have been conducted on concrete members strengthened with FRP composites, most of those studies have focused on the degradation of FRP material itself, relatively few on bond behavior under repeated mechanical and environmental loading. This thesis investigates bond durability under accelerated environmental conditioning of two FRP systems commonly employed in civil infrastructure strengthening: epoxy and polyurethane systems. Five environments were considered under three different conditioning durations (3 months, 6 months, and 1 year). For each conditioning environment and duration (including controls), the following were laboratory tested: concrete cylinders, FRP tensile coupons, and FRP-strengthened concrete flexural members. Numerical investigations were performed using MSC MARC finite element software package to support the outcomes of durability experimental tests. Precise numerical studies need an accurate model for the bond between FRP and concrete, a linear brittle model is proposed in this work that is calibrated based on nonlinear regression of existing experimental lap shear data. Results of tensile tests on FRP coupons indicate that both epoxy and polyurethane FRP systems do not degrade significantly under environmental exposure. However, flexural tests on the FRP strengthened concrete beams indicate that bond between FRP and concrete shows significant degradation, especially for aqueous exposure. Moreover, a protective coating suppresses the measured degradation. Also, experimental load-displacement curves for control beams show excellent agreement with numerical load-displacement curves obtained using the proposed bond model. Finally, a bond-slip model is predicted for concrete leachate conditioned beams by matching load-displacement curves for those beams with numerical load-displacement curves.
Intrinsic Functional Brain Architecture Derived from Graph Theoretical Analysis in the Human Fetus

The human brain undergoes dramatic maturational changes during late stages of fetal and early postnatal life. The importance of this period to the establishment of healthy neural connectivity is apparent in the high incidence of neural injury in preterm infants, in whom untimely exposure to ex-uterine factors interrupts neural connectivity. Though the relevance of this period to human neuroscience is apparent, little is known about functional neural networks in human fetal life. Here, we apply graph theoretical analysis to examine human fetal brain connectivity. Utilizing resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data from 33 healthy human fetuses, 19 to 39 weeks gestational age (GA), our analyses reveal that the human fetal brain has modular organization and modules overlap functional systems observed postnatally. Age-related differences between younger (GA <31 weeks) and older (GA≥31 weeks) fetuses demonstrate that brain modularity decreases, and connectivity of the posterior cingulate to other brain networks becomes more negative, with advancing GA. By mimicking functional principles observed postnatally, these results support early emerging capacity for information processing in the human fetal brain. Current technical limitations, as well as the potential for fetal fMRI to one day produce major discoveries about fetal origins or antecedents of neural injury or disease are discussed.
Effectiveness of Omega-3 Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids in Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease: A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials

Background Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a clinical syndrome with the main characteristic of diffuse liver cells with fatty changes. The clinical evolution of NAFLD includes simple non-alcoholic fatty liver, non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), liver fibrosis and cirrhosis, and even hepatocellular carcinoma. Methods and Findings We conducted this review to identify the effectiveness of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (ω-3 PUFA) in NAFLD. We searched PubMed, Cochrane Library and Embase. All randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of ω-3 PUFA treatment for NAFLD were considered. Two reviewers assessed the quality of each study and collected data independently. Disagreements were resolved by discussion among the reviewers and any of the other authors of the paper. We performed a meta-analysis and reported summary estimates of outcomes as inverse variance (IV), fixed or random, with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). We included seven RCTs involving 442 patients (227 for the experimental group and 215 for the control group). All the patients were divided into two groups: one treated with ω-3 PUFA and the other was the control group (generally placebo). The demographics of the ω-3 PUFA and control groups were comparable. Beneficial changes in alanine aminotransferase (ALT) (IV 95% CI: −7.61 [−12.83 to −2.39], p = 0.004), total cholesterol (TC) (IV 95% CI: −13.41 [−21.44 to −5.38], p = 0.001), triglyceride (TG) (IV 95% CI: −43.96 [−51.21 to −36.71], p<0.00001) and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) (IV 95% CI: 6.97 [2.05 to 11.90], p = 0.006) favored ω-3 PUFA treatment. Omega-3 PUFA tended towards a beneficial effect on aspartate aminotransferase (AST) (IV 95% CI: −6.89 [−17.71 to 3.92], p = 0.21), γ-glutamyl transferase (GGT) (IV 95% CI: −8.28 [−18.38 to 1.83], p = 0.11) and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) (IV 95% CI: −7.13 [−14.26 to 0.0], p = 0.05). Conclusions Supplementation with ω-3 PUFA is a practical and effective treatment for NAFLD to decrease ALT, TC and increase HDL-C, especially to decrease TG. Omega-3 PUFA also has a tendency toward a beneficial effect on AST, GGT and LDL-C. More high-quality, large RCTs are needed to validate our findings.
Rest Unemployment and Unionization ∗

This paper examines the impact of unions on unemployment and wages in a dynamic equilibrium search model. Unions impose a minimum wage on employers and ration jobs to ensure that their most senior members are employed. A minimum wage policy is optimal for a utilitarian union that cares equally about its employed and unemployed members. The combination of a minimum wage and rationing by seniority generates rest unemployment, where following a downturn in their labor market, unionized workers are willing to wait for jobs to reappear rather than search for a new labor market. Introducing unions into a dynamic equilibrium model has two implications, which others have argued are features of the data: the hazard of exiting unemployment at long unemployment durations is very low when the union-imposed minimum wage is high; and a high union-imposed minimum wage generates a compressed wage distribution and a high turnover rate of jobs. ∗We are grateful for research assistance by Ezra Oberfield. Shimer’s research is supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation.
Relationship among Shigella spp. and enteroinvasive Escherichia coli (EIEC) and their differentiation

Shigellosis produces inflammatory reactions and ulceration on the intestinal epithelium followed by bloody or mucoid diarrhea. It is caused by enteroinvasive E. coli (EIEC) as well as any species of the genus Shigella, namely, S. dysenteriae, S. flexneri, S. boydii, and S. sonnei. This current species designation of Shigella does not specify genetic similarity. Shigella spp. could be easily differentiated from E. coli, but difficulties observed for the EIEC-Shigella differentiation as both show similar biochemical traits and can cause dysentery using the same mode of invasion. Sequencing of multiple housekeeping genes indicates that Shigella has derived on several different occasions via acquisition of the transferable forms of ancestral virulence plasmids within commensal E. coli and form a Shigella-EIEC pathovar. EIEC showed lower expression of virulence genes compared to Shigella, hence EIEC produce less severe disease than Shigella spp. Conventional microbiological techniques often lead to confusing results concerning the discrimination between EIEC and Shigella spp. The lactose permease gene (lacY) is present in all E. coli strains but absent in Shigella spp. , whereas β-glucuronidase gene (uidA) is present in both E. coli and Shigella spp. Thus uidA gene and lacY gene based duplex real-time PCR assay could be used for easy identification and differentiation of Shigella spp. from E. coli and in particular EIEC.
Hindlimb venous distention evokes a pressor reflex in decerebrated rats

The distention of small vessels caused by an increase in blood flow to dynamically exercising muscles has been proposed as a stimulus that activates the thin fiber (groups III and IV) afferents evoking the exercise pressor reflex. This theory has been supported by evidence obtained from both humans and animals. In decerebrated unanesthetized rats with either freely perfused femoral arteries or arteries that were ligated 3 days before the experiment, we attempted to provide evidence in support of this theory by measuring arterial pressure, heart rate, and renal sympathetic nerve discharge while retrogradely injecting Ringer's solution in increasing volumes into the femoral vein just as it excited the triceps surae muscles. We found that the pressor response to injection was directly proportional to the volume injected. Retrograde injection of volumes up to and including 1 mL had no significant effect on either heart rate or renal sympathetic nerve activity. Cyclooxygenase blockade with indomethacin attenuated the reflex pressor response to retrograde injection in both groups of rats. In contrast, gadolinium, which blocks mechanogated channels, attenuated the reflex pressor response to retrograde injection in the “ligated rats,” but had no effect on the response in “freely perfused” rats. Our findings are consistent with the possibility that distension of small vessels within exercising skeletal muscle can serve as a stimulus to the thin fiber afferents evoking the exercise pressor reflex.
Rapamycin together with herceptin significantly increased anti‐tumor efficacy compared to either alone in ErbB2 over expressing breast cancer cells

The objective of this study was to assess the anti‐tumor efficacy of rapamycin alone or in combination with herceptin in breast cancer. A total of 20 human breast cancer lines were examined for expression of various receptor tyrosine kinases and activation of their down stream signaling molecules, as well as for their invasion and colony forming ability. The ErbB2 and PI3 kinase pathway inhibitors were tested for the inhibition on breast cancer cell growth and tumor development. Seven of the 20 lines displayed an elevated level of ErbB2, others had varying level of EGF, IGF‐1 or insulin receptor. Over 30% of the lines also had constitutive activation of Akt and MAP kinase. The lines displayed a wide range of colony forming and invasion ability. The PI3 kinase pathway inhibitors LY294002 and rapamycin inhibited the colony forming ability of all of the lines with the ErbB2 overexpressing lines having a higher sensitivity. A similar trend was observed for inhibition of invasion by LY294002. Rapamycin alone and additively together with herceptin inhibited the breast cancer cell growth especially in ErbB2 overexpressing cells. Rapamycin and herceptin synergistically inhibited tumor growth and endpoint tumor load in a xenograft model using a MCF‐7 subline and in a MMTV‐ErbB2 transgenic model. Rapamycin and herceptin significantly reduced the level of cyclin D1 and D3 and increased the cleavage of caspase 3 suggesting an increased apoptosis. Our results suggest that rapamycin together with herceptin has an enhanced anti‐cancer effect and could be developed as an improved therapeutic regimen for breast cancer. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Proteomics Analysis to Identify and Characterize the Molecular Signatures of Hepatic Steatosis in Ovariectomized Rats as a Model of Postmenopausal Status

Postmenopausal women are particularly at increased risk of developing non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Here we aimed to determine the impact of postmenopausal-induced NAFLD (PM-NAFLD) in an ovariectomized rat model. Sixteen six-week-old Sprague-Dawley female rats were randomly divided into two groups (eight per group), for sham-operation (Sham) or bilateral ovariectomy (Ovx). Four months after surgery, indices of liver damage and liver histomorphometry were measured. Both serum aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and alanine aminotranferease (ALT) levels were significantly higher in the Ovx than Sham group. We performed quantitative LC-MS/MS-based proteomic profiling of livers from rats with PM-NAFLD to provide baseline knowledge of the PM-NAFLD proteome and to investigate proteins involved in PM-NAFLD by ingenuity pathways analysis (IPA) to provide corroborative evidence for differential regulation of molecular and cellular functions affecting metabolic processes. Of the 586 identified proteins, the levels of 59 (10.0%) and 48 (8.2%) were significantly higher and lower, respectively, in the Ovx group compared to the Sham group. In conclusion, the changes in regulation of proteins implicated in PM-NAFLD may affect other vital biological processes in the body apart from causing postmenopause-mediated liver dysfunction. Our quantitative proteomics analysis may also suggest potential biomarkers and further clinical applications for PM-NAFLD.