Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Impact of Pulmonary Arteriovenous Malformations on Respiratory–Related Quality of Life in Patients with Hereditary Haemorrhagic Telangiectasia

Fifteen to fifty percent of patients with hereditary haemorrhagic telangiectasia have pulmonary arteriovenous malformations. The objective of this study was to measure the effect of the presence of pulmonary arteriovenous malformations and of their embolisation on respiratory-related quality of life (QoL). We prospectively recruited patients with a diagnosis of hereditary haemorrhagic telangiectasia based on the Curaçao criteria and/or the identification of a pathogenic mutation. Respiratory-related quality of life was measured using the Saint George’s Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ). Patients who underwent embolisation of pulmonary arteriovenous malformations completed the questionnaire before and 6–12 mo after the procedure. The 56 participants were divided into three groups: no pulmonary arteriovenous malformation (group A, n = 10), small pulmonary arteriovenous malformations not accessible to embolotherapy (group B, n = 19), and large pulmonary arteriovenous malformations accessible to embolotherapy (group C, n = 27). The SGRQ score was significantly higher in group C compared to the other groups, indicating a worse respiratory-specific QoL. There was no significant difference between groups A and B. Among the 17 patients who underwent an embolisation, the SGRQ score decreased significantly after the procedure, to a value similar to that in patients without pulmonary arteriovenous malformation. Our results indicate that the presence of large but not small pulmonary arteriovenous malformations negatively affects the respiratory-related quality of life and that embolisation of pulmonary arteriovenous malformations normalizes the respiratory-related quality of life.
Analysis of factorial time-course microarrays with application to a clinical study of burn injury

Time-course microarray experiments are capable of capturing dynamic gene expression profiles. It is important to study how these dynamic profiles depend on the multiple factors that characterize the experimental condition under which the time course is observed. Analytic methods are needed to simultaneously handle the time course and factorial structure in the data. We developed a method to evaluate factor effects by pooling information across the time course while accounting for multiple testing and nonnormality of the microarray data. The method effectively extracts gene-specific response features and models their dependency on the experimental factors. Both longitudinal and cross-sectional time-course data can be handled by our approach. The method was used to analyze the impact of age on the temporal gene response to burn injury in a large-scale clinical study. Our analysis reveals that 21% of the genes responsive to burn are age-specific, among which expressions of mitochondria and immunoglobulin genes are differentially perturbed in pediatric and adult patients by burn injury. These new findings in the body’s response to burn injury between children and adults support further investigations of therapeutic options targeting specific age groups. The methodology proposed here has been implemented in R package “TANOVA” and submitted to the Comprehensive R Archive Network at http://www.r-project.org/. It is also available for download at http://gluegrant1.stanford. edu/TANOVA/.
Failure of erythromycin ointment for postnatal ocular prophylaxis of chlamydial conjunctivitis

Chlamydia trachomatis is the most common pathogen associated with conjunctivitis during early infancy in the United States. During a 13-month interval at our medical center 4834 infants were born, 311 of whom (6.4%) had conjunctival specimens tested for chlamydial antigen before the age of 12 weeks. In 44 (14% of all tested infants, 0.9% of live births) chlamydial antigen was present. Because the rate of asymptomatic maternal chlamydial endocervical colonization is estimated to be 26% at our institution (previous prospective study), we calculated a minimal failure rate for erythromycin ocular prophylaxis of from 7 to 19.5%. A subsequent case-control study revealed that mothers of infants with chlamydial conjunctivitis were more likely to be primiparous (P = 0.03) and experience longer duration of rupture of membranes before delivery (P = 0.046). We conclude that a substantial percentage of infants exposed to Chlamydia develop chlamydial conjunctivitis despite receiving erythromycin ocular prophylaxis.
CD72 Negatively Regulates Signaling Through the Antigen Receptor of B Cells1

The immunoreceptor tyrosine-based inhibition motif (ITIM) is found in various membrane molecules such as CD22 and the low-affinity Fc receptor for IgG in B cells and the killer cell-inhibitory receptor and Ly-49 in NK cells. Upon tyrosine phosphorylation at the ITIMs, these molecules recruit SH2 domain-containing phosphatases such as SH2-containing tyrosine phosphatase-1 and negatively regulate cell activity. The B cell surface molecule CD72 carries an ITIM and an ITIM-like sequence. We have previously shown that CD72 is phosphorylated and recruits SH2-containing tyrosine phosphatase-1 upon cross-linking of the Ag receptor of B cells (BCR). However, whether CD72 modulates BCR signaling has not yet been elucidated. In this paper we demonstrate that expression of CD72 down-modulates both extracellular signal-related kinase (ERK) activation and Ca2+ mobilization induced by BCR ligation in the mouse B lymphoma line K46μmλ, whereas BCR-mediated ERK activation was not reduced by the ITIM-mutated form of CD72. Moreover, coligation with CD72 with BCR reduces BCR-mediated ERK activation in spleen B cells of normal mice. These results indicate that CD72 negatively regulates BCR signaling. CD72 may play a regulatory role in B cell activation, probably by setting a threshold for BCR signaling.
A New Methodology for Performance-based Seismic Evaluation of Low-rise Reinforced Concrete Buildings Using Nonlinear Required Strengths

This study proposes a new methodology based on nonlinear required strengths for evaluating the seismic performance of low-rise reinforced concrete (RC) buildings composed of members controlled by both shear and flexure. The required strengths, which represent the relationships among the strength of members controlled by shear (Csu) and flexure (Cfy) as well as earthquake levels (α) in terms of ductility demand (μ), are equated using regression analysis to estimate α-levels applied to the structure corresponding to μ, Csu, and Cfy. The residual seismic performance (R, damage state) of RC buildings controlled by both shear and flexure is evaluated based on strength capacity in terms of ductility demand by applying the procedure outlined in the Japanese Standard for Damage Level Classification and the Japanese Standard for Seismic Evaluation. We propose a new methodology for performance-based seismic evaluation of low-rise RC buildings with dual lateral-load resisting systems on the basis of the relationships between the R-index and earthquake level evaluated in terms of the ductility ratio. We applied the proposed method to two existing low-rise RC buildings and compared the results to those of nonlinear dynamic analyses where each member was modeled with its flexure spring and shear spring serially connected. We also evaluated the seismic performance of eight actual buildings that suffered damage in the 1995 Hyogoken Nambu and the 1993 Nanseioki earthquakes to demonstrate the effectiveness of this proposed methodology and estimate the degree of damage. Furthermore, we applied the proposed method for seismic evaluation to ten low-rise RC buildings with seismic protection indices of ES = 0.6, which is the Japanese standard for the critical value required to prevent moderate or greater damage to structures under a rare earthquake with the ground motion acceleration level 0.23g like the 1968 Tokachi-oki EQ and 1978 Miyagiken-oki EQ and to prevent heavy damage under a very rare earthquake with the ground motion acceleration level much higher than 0.23g like 1995 Hyogoken-Nambu EQ. We also compared the relationship between the results of the proposed method and the seismic protection index. The proposed methodology reasonably predicted the earthquake damage sustained by actual buildings, and its results agreed closely with those from detailed nonlinear dynamic analyses and the second-level procedure in the Japanese standard based on ES = 0.6. The proposed seismic evaluation method was efficient; it provided a means to evaluate the seismic performance considering a specific level of desired structural performance for a specific level of earthquake demand. The new methodology presented in this study can thus be effectively used for performance-based seismic evaluation of low-rise RC buildings composed of members controlled by both shear and flexure.
Simplified gating in long short-term memory (LSTM) recurrent neural networks

The standard LSTM recurrent neural networks while very powerful in long-range dependency sequence applications have highly complex structure and relatively large (adaptive) parameters. In this work, we present empirical comparison between the standard LSTM recurrent neural network architecture and three new parameter-reduced variants obtained by eliminating combinations of the input signal, bias, and hidden unit signals from individual gating signals. The experiments on three sequence datasets show that the three new variants, called simply as LSTM1, LSTM2, and LSTM3, can achieve comparable performance to the standard LSTM model with less (adaptive) parameters.
Treatment of resectable gastric cancer

Stomach cancer is one of the most common cancers worldwide, despite its declining overall incidence. Although there are differences in incidence, etiology and pathological factors, most studies do not separately analyze cardia and noncardia gastric cancer. Surgery is the only potentially curative treatment for advanced, resectable gastric cancer, but locoregional relapse rate is high with a consequently poor prognosis. To improve survival, several preoperative and postoperative treatment strategies have been investigated. Whereas perioperative chemotherapy and postoperative chemoradiation (CRT) are considered standard therapy in the Western world, in Asia postoperative monochemotherapy with S-1 is often used. Several other therapeutic options, although generally not accepted as standard treatment, are postoperative combination chemotherapy, hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy and preoperative radiotherapy and CRT. Postoperative combination chemotherapy does show a statistically significant but clinically equivocal survival advantage in several meta-analyses. Hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy is mainly performed in Asia and is associated with a higher postoperative complication rate. Based on the currently available data, the use of postoperative radiotherapy alone and the use of intraoperative radiotherapy should not be advised in the treatment of resectable gastric cancer. Western randomized trials on gastric cancer are often hampered by slow or incomplete accrual. Reduction of toxicity for preoperative and especially postoperative treatment is essential for the ongoing improvement of gastric cancer care.
The immunoprophylaxis of of rotavirus infections in lambs

The effect of colostrum or serum feeding on subsequent rotavirus infections was investigated in neonatal gnotobiotic lambs. Immunity after feeding colostrum did not depend on absorption of passively acquired antibody into the circulation. Protection against clinical disease depended on the volume of colostrum ingested. The protection afforded by feeding serum was specific, since serum free of rotavirus antibody failed to confer protection. Immune serum fed at a rate of 2.5 ml per kg twice daily protected against rotavirus infection. Also, it was shown by intraperitoneal inoculation of immune serum that protection could occur in the absence of ingested antibody, presumably by transfer of antibody into the gut. The implications of these findings for immunoprophylaxis of rotavirus diarrhoea in lambs and calves are discussed.
GROVER'S QUANTUM SEARCHING ALGORITHM IS OPTIMAL

I show that for any number of oracle lookups up to about {pi}/4thinsp{radical} (N) , Grover{close_quote}s quantum searching algorithm gives the maximal possible probability of finding the desired element. I explain why this is also true for quantum algorithms which use measurements during the computation. I also show that unfortunately quantum searching cannot be parallelized better than by assigning different parts of the search space to independent quantum computers. {copyright} {ital 1999} {ital The American Physical Society}
Effect of carbon content on the oxidation behaviour of FeCrAlY alloys in the temperature range 1200–1300°C

Abstract Two FeCrAlY alloys with different carbon contents (90 and 500 ppm respectively) were investigated in respect to their oxidation behaviour at 1200 and 1300°C in air. Oxidation tests, with exposure times ranging from a few hundred to several thousands of hours, revealed that the growth rate of the protective alumina scale was hardly affected by the alloy C-content. However, the time to occurrence of breakaway oxidation for the specimens (1 mm thickness) was substantially shorter for the high-than for the low-C alloy. This was primarily caused by poorer oxide scale adherence but additionally by a higher critical Al-content for occurrence of breakaway of the high-C alloy compared to the low-C alloy. Extensive microstructural studies revealed formation of Cr-carbides at the grain boundaries in both alloys. The high-C alloy additionally showed carbide formation at the scale/metal interface, thus deteriorating scale adhesion. Furthermore, inter- and intra-granular carbide precipitation is considered to induce strengthening of the metal, thus hindering relaxation of the thermally-induced oxide stresses by substrate creep. In a series of experiments with variations in the cooling rates, it was verified that carbide formation very likely occurs during specimen cooling.
Polymorphism of the angiotensin I converting enzyme gene in essential hypertensive patients.

Insertion/deletion (I/D) polymorphism of the angiotensin I converting enzyme (ACE) gene has been associated with ischemic heart disease and hypertension. The D allele reportedly correlates with myocardial infarction and it has been suggested that it may serve as the basis of population-based risk assessment. Similarly, determining whether there is an ACE allele pattern associated with hypertension could be useful in developing screening strategies. Previous reports have not shown consistent findings in Caucasian and Japanese population groups, some having a predominance of the I allele. Although African Americans have the highest prevalence of hypertension in the world, their ACE gene polymorphism frequencies have not been clearly defined. We studied the allele and genotype frequencies in this group, consisting of 133 essential hypertensive subjects, and compared their findings with those reported from normotensive African Americans and from other racial groups. The black patients had a different allele distribution than the other populations in that the D was more common than the I allele, occurring at a rate of 59.7%. The most common genotype was DD and it was present in 42.5% of the hypertensive subjects in contrast to the ID genotype which was the most commonly reported genotype in normotensive individuals. The genotype pattern (frequencies of II, ID, DD) was significantly different (p < 0.005, 2 df) from Japanese and Caucasian (Scotland and Australia) populations. There was no common allele or genotype distribution amongst these diverse hypertensive groups. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Characterization and Endocytic Internalization of Epith-2 Cell Surface Glycoprotein during the Epithelial-to-Mesenchymal Transition in Sea Urchin Embryos

The epithelial cells of the sea urchin Hemicentrotus pulcherrimus embryo express an Epith-2, uncharacterized glycoprotein, on the lateral surface. Here, we describe internalization of Epith-2 during mesenchyme formation through the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT). Epith-2 was first expressed on the entire egg surface soon after fertilization and on the blastomeres until the 4-cell stage, but was localized to the lateral surface of epithelial cells at and after the 16-cell stage throughout the later developmental period. However, primary mesenchyme cells (PMC) and secondary mesenchyme cells (SMC) that ingress by EMT lost Epith-2 from their cell surface by endocytosis during dissociation from the epithelium, which was associated with the appearance of cytoplasmic Epith-2 dots. The cytoplasmic Epith-2 retained a similar relative molecular mass to that of the cell surface immediately after ingression through the early period of the spreading to single cells. Then, Epith-2 was completely lost from the cytoplasm. Tyrosine residues of Epith-2 were phosphorylated. The endocytic retraction of Epith-2 was inhibited by herbimycin A (HA), a protein tyrosine kinase (PTK) inhibitor, and suramin, a growth factor receptor (GFR) inhibitor, suggesting the involvement of the GFR/PTK (GP) signaling pathway. These two GP inhibitors also inhibited PMC and SMC spreading to individual cells after ingression, but the dissociation of PMC and SMC from the epithelium was not inhibited. In suramin-treated embryos, dissociated mesenchyme cells migrated partially by retaining their epithelial morphology. In HA-treated embryos, no mesenchyme cells migrated. Thus, the EMT occurs in relation to internalization of Epith-2 from presumptive PMC and SMC.
IMMUNOPATHOLOGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES Impact of Bacterial and Viral Challenge on Multidrug Resistance in First-and Third-Trimester Human Placenta

From the Departments of Physiology,* Obstetrics and Gynecology,{ and Medicine,k University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; the Laboratory of Translational Endocrinology,y Carlos Chagas Filho Biophysics Institute, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; the Departments of Cellular and Molecular Medicinez and Obstetrics and Gynecology,x University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; and the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute,** Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Human CST abundance determines recovery from diverse forms of DNA damage and replication stress

Mammalian CST (CTC1-STN1-TEN1) is a telomere-associated complex that functions in telomere duplex replication and fill-in synthesis of the telomeric C-strand following telomerase action. CST also facilitates genome-wide replication recovery after HU-induced fork stalling by increasing origin firing. CTC1 and STN1 were originally isolated as a DNA polymerase α stimulatory factor. Here we explore how CST abundance affects recovery from drugs that cause different types of DNA damage and replication stress. We show that recovery from HU and aphidicolin induced replication stress is increased by CST over-expression. Elevated CST increases dNTP incorporation and origin firing after HU release and decreases the incidence of anaphase bridges and micronuclei after aphidicolin removal. While the frequency of origin firing after HU release is proportional to CST abundance, the number of cells entering S-phase to initiate replication is unchanged by CST overexpression or STN1 depletion. Instead the CST-related changes in origin firing take place in cells that were already in S-phase at the time of HU addition, indicating that CST modulates firing of late or dormant origins. CST abundance also influences cell viability after treatment with HU, aphidicolin, MMS and camptothecin. Viability is increased by elevated CST and decreased by STN1 depletion, indicating that endogenous CST levels are limiting. However, CST abundance does not affect viability after MMC treatment. Thus, CST facilitates recovery from many, but not all, forms of exogenous DNA damage. Overall our results suggest that CST is needed in stoichiometric amounts to facilitate re-initiation of DNA replication at repaired forks and/or dormant origins.
Building a sustainable supply chain: an analysis of corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices in the Chinese textile and apparel industry

This study aims to analyze the development, achievements, and challenges of corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices in the Chinese textile and apparel industry. The determinants of CSR movement in the industry are discussed. The World Bank CSR Diamond Model based on stakeholder theory provides an analytical framework to address this complex issue in a systematic way. The relevant information and data were gathered from an extensive literature review of governmental, industrial and academic publications, and interviews. Overall, the tightening legal environment for CSR development has raised the cost of doing business in China in a short time. While forward‐looking companies are already taking CSR into account in their daily operations and strategic plans, some resistance to the execution and enforcement of CSR‐related laws and regulations have been witnessed. However, from a long‐term perspective, the CSR movement will benefit towards upgrading the industry and the healthy growth of China's economy, and contribute to the sustainable global textile and apparel supply chain.
Cyclic Causal Models with Discrete Variables: Markov Chain Equilibrium Semantics and Sample Ordering

We analyze the foundations of cyclic causal models for discrete variables, and compare structural equation models (SEMs) to an alternative semantics as the equilibrium (stationary) distribution of a Markov chain. We show under general conditions, discrete cyclic SEMs cannot have independent noise; even in the simplest case, cyclic structural equation models imply constraints on the noise. We give a formalization of an alternative Markov chain equilibrium semantics which requires not only the causal graph, but also a sample order. We show how the resulting equilibrium is a function of the sample ordering, both theoretically and empirically.
Exploiting Leishmania tarentolae cell-free extracts for the synthesis of human solute carriers

Abstract Cell-free protein production offers a versatile alternative to complement in vivo expression systems. However, usage of prokaryotic cell-free systems often leads to non-functional proteins. We modified a previously designed cell-free system based on the protozoan Leishmania tarentolae, a parasite of the Moorish gecko Tarentola mauritanica, together with a species-independent translational sequences-based plasmid to produce human membrane proteins in 2 hours reaction time. We successfully established all four commonly used expression modes for cell-free synthesis of membrane proteins with a human organic anion transporter, SLC17A3, as a model membrane protein: (i) As precipitates without the addition of any hydrophobic environment, (ii) in the presence of detergents, (iii) with the addition of liposomes, and (iv) supplemented with nanodiscs. We utilized this adapted system to synthesize 22 human solute carriers from 20 different families. Our results demonstrate the capability of the Leishmania tarentolae cell-free system for the production of a huge variety of human solute carriers in the precipitate mode. Furthermore, purified SLC17A3 shows the formation of an oligomeric state.