Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Lymphocytic colitis: clinical presentation and long term course

Background—Lymphocytic colitis is characterised by chronic watery diarrhoea with normal endoscopic or radiological findings and microscopic evidence of pronounced infiltration of the colonic mucosa with lymphocytes. Aim—To investigate the long term clinical and histological evolution of the disease in a large group of patients with well characterised lymphocytic colitis. Methods—Between 1986 and 1995 the histological diagnosis of lymphocytic colitis was obtained in 35 patients; 27 of these agreed to a follow up examination. All clinical, endoscopic, and histopathological records were reviewed at that time and the patients had a second endoscopic examination with follow up biopsies. Results—The patients initially presented with the typical findings of lymphocytic colitis. After a mean (SD) follow up of 37.8 (27.5) months, diarrhoea subsided in 25 (93%) and histological normalisation was observed in 22 (82%) of the 27 patients. Progression from lymphocytic colitis to collagenous colitis was not observed. Conclusions—Lymphocytic colitis is characterised by a benign course with resolution of diarrhoea and normalisation of histology in over 80% of patients within 38 months. Considering the benign course of the disease, the potential benefit of any drug treatment should be carefully weighed against its potential side effects.
INCORPORATING TAPHONOMY INTO COMMUNITY-BASED PALEOENVIRONMENTAL RECONSTRUCTIONS: CAN DIATOM PRESERVATION DISCRIMINATE AMONG SHALLOW LAKE SUB-ENVIRONMENTS?

Abstract The value of taphonomic signatures as a source of paleoenvironmental information has been recognized at local and regional environmental scales. In environmentally heterogeneous shallow lakes, the habitat complexity provides an opportunity to evaluate the potential use of taphonomy to uncover environmental differences among within-lake sub-environments. In this contribution, the composition and preservation of diatom assemblages from five sub-environments (free-floating and attached macrophytes, water column, open waters, and littoral sediments) were analyzed in a Pampean shallow lake (Nahuel Rucá, Argentina). Sub-environments differed in depth, macrophyte coverage, and water composition, being these differences reflected both by the composition and preservation of diatom assemblages. Diversity, fragmentation, and dissolution were higher in planktonic and open-waters sedimentary assemblages, whereas fragmentation dominated in littoral sediments. Epiphytic assemblages were the least diverse and showed the best preservation. Compositional and taphonomic indices were significantly correlated, suggesting common environmental controls on the species composition and preservation at local scales. The joint analysis of compositional and taphonomic variations in the recent sedimentary record of Nahuel Rucá demonstrated the usefulness of taphonomic analyses to uncover subtle paleoenvironmental variations, which could be overlooked if only traditional compositional analyses are performed. We concluded that both taphonomic analyses and a holistic consideration of ecologically meaningful taxa should be considered in order to improve paleoenvironmental reconstructions in environmentally heterogeneous shallow lakes.
Challenges of Nutrition Intervention for Malnourished Dialysis Patients

Malnutrition, or protein energy wasting (PEW), is prevalent in patients with chronic kidney disease stage 5 dialysis (CKD-5). One criterion of PEW strongly associated with morbidity and mortality in CKD-5 dialysis patients is the serum albumin level. Serum albumin levels have not improved over the past 10 years. Typical intervention strategies need to be reevaluated. Intradialytic parenteral nutrition (IDPN) is a form of parenteral nutrition delivered during dialysis that is a convenient and assured route of nutrition alimentation for high-nutrition-risk PEW patients who cannot improve nutrition status by oral and enteral routes. Recent qualification criteria for IDPN changes in Medicare part D have made this therapy an available option for many more of these high-nutrition-risk PEW patients. Nutrition support knowledge in clinicians is essential to administer IDPN effectively and to optimize clinical response. An improved understanding of the milieu of uremia and PEW of CKD-5, as well as the study of nutrition interventions inclusive of IDPN, will allow for effective strategies toward improved outcomes in the future.
Dynamic regimes of hydrodynamically coupled self-propelling particles

We analyze the collective dynamics of self-propelling particles (spps) which move at small Reynolds numbers including the hydrodynamic coupling to the suspending solvent through numerical simulations. The velocity distribution functions show marked deviations from Gaussian behavior at short times, and the mean-square displacement at long times shows a transition from diffusive to ballistic motion for appropriate driving mechanism at low concentrations. We discuss the structures the spps form at long times and how they correlate to their dynamic behavior.
Epigenetic memory: the Lamarckian brain

Recent data support the view that epigenetic processes play a role in memory consolidation and help to transmit acquired memories even across generations in a Lamarckian manner. Drugs that target the epigenetic machinery were found to enhance memory function in rodents and ameliorate disease phenotypes in models for brain diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, Chorea Huntington, Depression or Schizophrenia. In this review, I will give an overview on the current knowledge of epigenetic processes in memory function and brain disease with a focus on Morbus Alzheimer as the most common neurodegenerative disease. I will address the question whether an epigenetic therapy could indeed be a suitable therapeutic avenue to treat brain diseases and discuss the necessary steps that should help to take neuroepigenetic research to the next level.
Tactical reproductive parasitism via larval cannibalism in Peruvian poison frogs

We report an unusual example of reproductive parasitism in amphibians. Dendrobates variabilis, an Amazonian poison frog, oviposits at the surface of the water in small pools in plants and deposits tadpoles within the pools. Tadpoles are highly cannibalistic and consume young tadpoles if they are accessible. Deposition of embryos and tadpoles in the same pool is common. Genetic analyses indicate that tadpoles are frequently unrelated to embryos in the same pool. A pool choice experiment in the field demonstrated that males carrying tadpoles prefer to place them in pools with embryos, facilitating reproductive parasitism via cannibalism.
Identification of the underlying factor structure of the Derriford Appearance Scale 24

Background. The Derriford Appearance Scale24 (DAS24) is a widely used measure of distress and dysfunction in relation to self-consciousness of appearance. It has been used in clinical and research settings, and translated into numerous European and Asian languages. Hitherto, no study has conducted an analysis to determine the underlying factor structure of the scale. Methods. A large (n = 1,265) sample of community and hospital patients with a visible difference were recruited face to face or by post, and completed the DAS24. Results. A two factor solution was generated. An evaluation of the congruence of the factor solutions on each of the the hospital and the community samples using Tucker’s Coefficient of Congruence (rc = .979) and confirmatory factor analysis, which demonstrated a consistent factor structure. A main factor, general self consciousness (GSC), was represented by 18 items. Six items comprised a second factor, sexual and body self-consciousness (SBSC). The SBSC scale demonstrated greater sensitivity and specificity in identifying distress for sexually significant areas of the body. Discussion. The factor structure of the DAS24 facilitates a more nuanced interpretation of scores using this scale. Two conceptually and statistically coherent sub-scales were identified. The SBSC sub-scale offers a means of identifying distress and dysfunction around sexually significant areas of the body not previously possible with this scale.
Upper‐level winds over eastern North America: A regional jet stream climatology

Although it is well known that jet streams play a vital role in everyday weather and long‐term climate variability, very few regional climatological studies on jet streams exist to date. Using the high‐resolution North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR), this study aims to create a preliminary jet stream, and more specifically a jet core, database for a relatively narrow region in eastern North America covering the period 1979 through 2016 inclusive. We use regional maxima in the smoothed horizontal wind field to locate both the latitudinal and vertical (pressure) location of jet cores along specific meridians. Results show that the median pressure level of all jet cores in the region of interest is 250 hPa and that two is the most likely number of distinct jet cores to occur along a given meridian at any given time. The jet cores are categorized into three bins based on their latitude in an attempt to capture the characteristics of the different tropopause‐level jet types. However, as the vertical and horizontal extents of the jet streams were not analysed, we cannot conclude for certain that each of the geographical bins corresponds to specific jet types. Statistically significant negative trends in the seasonal and overall mean pressure of the jet cores, implying an increased height, supports the findings of previous studies. Our analysis of NARR winds shows that jet core wind speeds increased in the region studied. This may be related to the increased height of jet cores through the thermal wind equation as well as increased baroclinicity across sections of the region studied. Jet core latitude and meridional circulation index (MCI) trends were generally negligible and not statistically significant. An absence of significant increases in |MCI| diverges from expectations and some theories of what to expect with Arctic amplification in a warming world.
Generating ultrafast pulses of light from quantum cascade lasers

The generation of ultrashort pulses from quantum cascade lasers (QCLs) has proved to be challenging. It has been suggested that the ultrafast electron dynamics of these devices is the limiting factor for mode locking and, hence, pulse formation. Even so, the clear mode locking of terahertz (THz) QCLs has been demonstrated recently, but the exact mechanism for pulse generation is not fully understood. Here we demonstrate that the dominant factor necessary for active pulse generation is in fact the synchronization between the propagating electronic modulation and the generated THz pulse in the QCL. By using the phase-resolved detection of the electric field in QCLs embedded in metal–metal waveguides, we demonstrate that active mode locking requires the phase velocity of the microwave round-trip modulation to equal the group velocity of the THz pulse. This allows the THz pulse to propagate in phase with the microwave modulation along the gain medium, permitting short-pulse generation. Mode locking was performed on QCLs employing phonon depopulation active regions, permitting the coherent detection of large gain bandwidths (500 GHz) and the generation of 11 ps pulses centered around 2.6 THz when the above “phase-matching” condition is satisfied. This work brings an enhanced understanding of QCL mode locking and will permit new concepts to be explored to generate shorter and more intense pulses from mid-infrared, as well as THz, QCLs.
Galactomannan antigen detection in the diagnosis of invasive aspergillosis

Invasive aspergillosis is a serious and lethal infection among immunocompromised patients, with reported mortality rates as high as 74–92%. The high mortality is related to the severe immunosuppression experienced by these patients as well as the difficulties for physicians in arriving at a timely diagnosis. Definitive diagnostic procedures (tissue biopsy for histopathology and culture) are often precluded by severe cytopenias and coagulation abnormalities. The development of minimally invasive, nonculture diagnostic methods is a major advance in the early diagnosis of invasive aspergillosis. Galactomannan is a heteropolysaccharide (mannan core and side residues of galactofuranosyl units) present in the cell wall of Aspergillus spp. The double sandwich enzyme immunoassay, which detects galactomannan in serum samples, has been available in Europe for almost a decade and in the USA since May 2003, for the diagnosis of invasive aspergillosis. However, availability of the double galactomannan enzyme immunoassay is center variable in the USA and, although its analytical performance in the diagnosis of invasive aspergillosis is well documented, its routine use in clinical practice is limited. As an adjunct in the diagnosis and management of invasive aspergillosis, incorporation of the galactomannan enzyme immunoassay into clinical trials will help to further define its role.
Uplift and exhumation of the Russell Fiord and Boundary blocks along the northern Fairweather transform fault, Alaska

Cooling ages of tectonic blocks between the Yakutat microplate and the Fairweather transform boundary fault reveal exhumation due to strike-slip faulting and subsequent collision into this tectonic corner. The Yakutat and Boundary faults are splay faults that define tectonic panels with bounding faults that have evidence of both reverse and strike-slip motion, and they are parallel to the northern end of the Fairweather fault. Uplift and exhumation simultaneous with strike-slip motion have been significant since the late Miocene. The blocks are part of an actively deforming tectonic corner, as indicated by the ~14–1.5 m of coseismic uplift from the M 8.1 Yakutat Bay earthquake of 1899 and 4 m of strike-slip motion in the M 7.9 Lituya Bay earthquake in 1958 along the Fairweather fault. New apatite (U-Th-Sm)/He (AHe) and zircon (U-Th)/He (ZHe) data reveal that the Boundary block and the Russell Fiord block have different cooling histories since the Miocene, and thus the Boundary fault that separates them is an important tectonic boundary. Upper Cretaceous to Paleocene flysch of the Russell Fiord block experienced a thermal event at 50 Ma, then a relatively long period of burial until the late Miocene when initial exhumation resulted in ZHe ages between 7 and 3 Ma, and then very rapid exhumation in the last 1–1.5 m.y. Exhumation of the Russell Fiord block was accommodated by reverse faulting along the Yakutat fault and the newly proposed Calahonda fault, which is parallel to the Yakutat fault. The Eocene schist of Nunatak Fiord and 54–53 Ma Mount Stamy and Mount Draper granites in the Boundary block have AHe and ZHe cooling ages that indicate distinct and very rapid cooling between ca. 5 Ma and ca. 2 Ma. Rocks of the Chugach Metamorphic Complex to the northeast of the Fairweather fault and in the fault zone were brought up from 10–12 km at extremely high rates (>5 km/m.y.) since ca. 3 Ma, which implies a significant component of dip-slip motion along the Fairweather fault. The adjacent rocks of the Boundary block were exhumed with similar rates and from similar depths during the early Pliocene, when they may have been located 220–250 km farther south near Baranof Island. The profound and significant exhumation of the three tectonic blocks in the last 5 m.y. has probably been driven by uplift and erosional exhumation due to contraction as rocks collide into this tectonic corner. The documented spatial and temporal pattern of exhumation is in agreement with the southward shift of focused exhumation at the St. Elias syntaxial corner and the southeast propagation of the fold-and thrust belt. LITHOSPHERE GSA Data Repository Item 2019033 https://doi.org/10.1130/L1011.1
Spike-Timing Theory of Working Memory

Working memory (WM) is the part of the brain's memory system that provides temporary storage and manipulation of information necessary for cognition. Although WM has limited capacity at any given time, it has vast memory content in the sense that it acts on the brain's nearly infinite repertoire of lifetime long-term memories. Using simulations, we show that large memory content and WM functionality emerge spontaneously if we take the spike-timing nature of neuronal processing into account. Here, memories are represented by extensively overlapping groups of neurons that exhibit stereotypical time-locked spatiotemporal spike-timing patterns, called polychronous patterns; and synapses forming such polychronous neuronal groups (PNGs) are subject to associative synaptic plasticity in the form of both long-term and short-term spike-timing dependent plasticity. While long-term potentiation is essential in PNG formation, we show how short-term plasticity can temporarily strengthen the synapses of selected PNGs and lead to an increase in the spontaneous reactivation rate of these PNGs. This increased reactivation rate, consistent with in vivo recordings during WM tasks, results in high interspike interval variability and irregular, yet systematically changing, elevated firing rate profiles within the neurons of the selected PNGs. Additionally, our theory explains the relationship between such slowly changing firing rates and precisely timed spikes, and it reveals a novel relationship between WM and the perception of time on the order of seconds.
On KM, KMS and ontology-based KMS in the domain of SwE standards and models of processes: A conceptual survey

Standards and models of processes - such as ISO/lEC 9000 standard for deploying quality management systems - have been developed for international organizations to promote the utilization of best managerial and engineering practices. However, given their conceptual density, a large number of concepts, composite concepts, and interrelationships, understanding them cannot be considered a trivial cognitive task for new readers and decision makers. Consequently, some IT-supported systems have been used to improve such an understanding. These tools provide basic searching services via keywords or catalog indices on monolithic text-based, hypertext technology, or multimedia documents. As a result, their system performance, correctness, user satisfaction, and lately understanding metrics, are still unsatisfactory. In this paper, we support the hypothesis that IT systems, where knowledge structures are explicitly codified, such as ontology-based knowledge management systems (o-KMS), can provide a plausible better solution. To support this hypothesis, we firstly report a conceptual survey on KMS and KM foundations (IT for KMS, KM Processes) to describe the capabilities of KMS and supporting needs for KM processes. Secondly, we describe the profiles of standards and models of process, and review related research on KMS. Finally, we present the problem-solution links, and discuss how o-KMS might provide a better support. We conclude that research results to date require further advance.
Cardiovascular Responses Evoked by Leptin Acting on Neurons in the Ventromedial and Dorsomedial Hypothalamus

Abstract—Leptin, a circulating hormone produced by adipose tissue, is believed to act on the hypothalamus to increase sympathetic vasomotor activity, in addition to its well-known effects on appetite and energy expenditure. In this study, we determined the cardiovascular effects of direct application of leptin to specific cell groups within the hypothalamus that are known to be activated by circulating leptin. In rats anesthetized with urethane, microinjections of leptin (16 ng in 20 nL solution) were made into the ventromedial hypothalamic nucleus, dorsomedial hypothalamic nucleus, and paraventricular nucleus. Compared with vehicle solution, microinjections of leptin into the ventromedial hypothalamic nucleus evoked significant increases in arterial pressure and renal sympathetic nerve activity, but not heart rate. In contrast, microinjections of leptin into the dorsomedial hypothalamic nucleus evoked significant increases in arterial pressure and heart rate but not renal sympathetic nerve activity, whereas microinjections of leptin into the paraventricular nucleus had no significant effect on any of the measured cardiovascular variables. These results indicate that the ventromedial and dorsomedial hypothalamic regions might be important sites at which leptin activation leads to increases in sympathetic vasomotor activity and heart rate, as occurs in obesity-related hypertension.
The role of intra-arterial chemotherapy as an adjuvant treatment for glioblastoma

Abstract Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is an aggressive tumor with poor survival outcomes and limited treatment options. We conducted a literature review to compare the survival outcomes of intra-arterial (IA) and intravenous (IV) chemotherapy delivery for GBM. Nine studies of IA chemotherapy infusion with 301 total patients met our criteria for inclusion and three studies contained IV treatment groups for comparison (n = 230 for IA, n = 71 for IV). The studies were grouped by either using newly diagnosed or recurrent GBM patients. In the newly diagnosed group, IV chemotherapy produced a statistically higher median overall survival (MOS; 16.3 months) compared with IA treatment (14.02 months). However, the total number of adverse events in IA chemotherapy was 1.08 per patient whereas for IV it was higher at 1.54 events per patient. Our recurrent GBM group includes only patients treated with IA chemotherapy which resulted in an average MOS of 10.84 months. This group had 2.7 adverse events per patient but no IV group is available for comparison. Historically, the survival of patients with recurrent GBM ranges from 3 to 9 months (Gil-Gil et al. Bevacizumab for the treatment of glioblastoma. Clin Med Insights Oncol 2013;7:123–35). For this reason, we believe IA chemotherapy to be a viable methodology in recurrent GBM patients to prolong survival at the risk of procedure-related complications and in newly diagnosed patients with the benefit of decreased complications.
Do we need demographic data to forecast plant 1 population dynamics ?

1Department of Wildland Resources and the Ecology Center, 5230 Old Main Hill, Utah State University, 4 Logan, Utah 84322, USA; 2U.S. Geological Survey, Colorado Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, 5 Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA; 3Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology, Colorado State 6 University, Fort Collins, CO 80523 USA; 4Department of Statistics, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, 7 CO 80523 USA 8
Unique Retrieval of Complex Permittivity and Permeability of Dispersive Materials From Reflection and Transmitted Fields by Enforcing Causality

The electromagnetic properties of general classes of materials can be obtained by inverting the measured or numerically simulated reflection ( S 11) and transmission ( S 21) coefficients through a known thickness of a planar slab of the material. The major difficulty is the uncertainty in the change of phase of the transmitted field, if the phase change exceeds 2mpi, m=0,1,2,. This happens for thick samples as well as for highly dispersive materials. An infinite number of solutions are generated for the imaginary part of the complex wavenumber gamma = alpha + jbeta for different choices of m. The choice of m can be made unique by noting that for a causal medium, gamma is an analytic function of frequency and this results in a Kramers-Kronig-type relation between alpha and beta. Since alpha is independent of the choice of m and, hence, uniquely determined, a Kramers-Kronig reconstruction of beta using alpha will provide a guideline for the correct choice of m. This is a "foolproof" approach even for totally unknown materials since no initial guess is required. Indeed, this approach will work in optics and ultrasonics, and should also be effective for determining the effective refractive index of photonic-bandgap structures that are also highly dispersive.