Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Large granular lymphocytosis after transplantation

Post-transplant lymphoproliferative disorders (PTLD) represent a heterogeneous group of diseases that occur following transplantation. Large granular lymphocytic (LGL) lymphocytosis is one type of PTLD, ranging from reactive polyclonal self-limited expansion to oligo/monoclonal lymphocytosis or even to overt leukaemia. LGL lymphocytosis in transplant recipients may present as a relatively indolent version of the condition and may be more common than reported, but its natural history and clinical course have not been well described, and the lack of a reliable classification system has limited studies on this disease. Patients with unexplained cytopenias, autoimmune manifestations, or unexpected remissions may be mislabelled. The purpose of this review was to evaluate the clinical features, immunophenotypes, etiopathogenesis, diagnosis, outcomes and treatment of post-transplantation LGL lymphocytosis. In conclusion, LGL lymphocytosis is a frequent occurrence after transplantation that correlates with certain procedural variables and post-transplant events. LGL lymphocytosis should be considered in patients with unexplained lymphocytosis or when pancytopenia develops after transplantation. The diagnosis of LGL lymphocytosis requires a demonstration of monoclonality, but clonality does not indicate malignancy. Additional studies are necessary to further delineate the potential effects of large granular lymphocytes in the long-term prognosis of post-transplant patients.
Archetypes: Constraint-based Domain Models for Future-proof Information Systems

Most information systems today are built using “single-level” methodologies, in which both informational and knowledge concepts are built into one level of object and data models. In domains characterised by complexity, large numbers of concepts, and/or a high rate of definitional change, systems based on such models are expensive to maintain and usually have to be replaced after a few years. However, a two-level methodology is possible, in which systems are built from information models only, and driven at runtime by knowledge-level concept definitions, or “archetypes”. In this approach, systems can be built more quickly and last longer, whilst archetypes are authored directly by domain specialists, rather than IT personnel. Executed properly, the approach has the potential for creating future-proof systems and information. Work in the medical informatics domain on electronic health records (EHRs) has shown that a two-level methodology is implementable, makes for smaller systems, and empowers domain users.
Semi-automatic compound nouns annotation for data integration systems

Lexical annotation is the explicit inclusion of the “meaning” of a data source element according to a lexical resource. Accuracy of semi-automatic lexical annotator tools is poor on real-world schemata due to the abundance of non-dictionary compound nouns. It follows that a large set of relationships among different schemata is discovered, including a great amount of false positive relationships. In this paper we propose a new method for the annotation of non-dictionary compound nouns, which draws its inspiration from works in the natural language disambiguation area. The method extends the lexical annotation module of the MOMIS data integration system.
The first fossil cyphophthalmid harvestman from Baltic amber

The first fossil cyphophthalmid harvestman (Opiliones: Cyphophthalmi) from Palaeogene (Eocene) Baltic amber is described. This is only the third fossil example of this basal harvestman lineage; the others being from the probably slightly younger Bitterfeld amber and the much older, early Cretaceous, Myanmar (Burmese) amber. Although incomplete and lacking most of the appendages, the new Baltic amber fossil can be identified as a fe- male. The somatic characters preserved, especially spiracle morphology and the coxo-genital region, allow it to be assigned with some confidence to the extant genus Siro Latreille, 1796 (Sironidae). This fossil is formally described here as Siro balticus sp. nov. It resembles modern North American Siro species more than modern European ones, and can be distinguished principally on its relatively large size and the outline form of the body.
Electronic cigarettes : a survey of users ETTER

Little is known about users of electronic cigarettes, or their opinions, satisfaction or how and why they use such products. An internet survey of 81 ever-users of ecigarettes in 2009. Participants answered open-ended questions on use of, and opinions about, ecigarettes. ETTER, Jean-François. Electronic cigarettes: a survey of users. BMC Public Health, 2010, vol.
House Price Momentum and Strategic Complementarity

House prices exhibit substantially more momentum, positive autocorrelation in price changes, than existing theories can explain. I introduce an amplification mechanism to reconcile this discrepancy. Sellers do not set a unilaterally high or low list price because they face a concave demand curve: increasing the price of an above-average-priced house rapidly reduces its sale probability, but cutting the price of a below-average-priced house only slightly improves its sale probability. The resulting strategic complementarity amplifies frictions because sellers gradually adjust their price to stay near average. I provide empirical evidence for concave demand using a quantitative search model that amplifies momentum two- to threefold.
Small-molecule Inhibitors of Pseudomonas aeruginosa Biofilm Development

Shinerama is one of the hallmark events of McMaster’s Welcome Week. Through this student-led initiative, Mac students raised $60,000 last year for cystic fibrosis research. Interestingly, and as some undergraduates would agree, that money is being put to great use right here at McMaster’s laboratories. Here we present the exciting new discoveries of one such group: the laboratory of Dr. Lori Burrows. Matthew A. Chong is a third year student in the Bachelor of Health Sciences (Honours) Program. Funded by a generous studentship from the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, Matthew spent his summer researching biofilm development by opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The central focus of his project was to characterize the structure activity relationship of potent biofilm inhibitor palmitoyl-DL-carnitine.
Probing the etic vs. emic nature of consumer ethnocentrism: cross-national evidence

The consumer ethnocentrism concept and its measure, the CETSCALE, remain very popular in cross-national research chiefly because they serve as a means to understand consumer attitudes toward imports. But the usage of consumer ethnocentrism and its measure are based on the premise that they have universal or etic properties. Conflicting studies, however, find that the scale’s structure is far more complicated than initially believed, and that it may not be unidimensional as originally proposed. Is it possible that the consumer ethnocentrism concept and its measure are culture bound? The goal of this study is to resolve this ambiguity.
The Effect of Different Foot Orthosis Inverted Angles on Plantar Pressure in Children with Flexible Flatfeet

Although orthotic modification using the inverted technique is available for the treatment of flatfoot, empirical evidence for the biomechanical effects of inverted-angle foot orthoses (FOs) is lacking. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of different FO inversion angles on plantar pressure during gait in children with flatfoot. Twenty-one children with flexible flatfeet (mean age 9.9 years) were enrolled in this study. The plantar pressures were measured for the rearfoot; medial and lateral midfoot; and medial, central, and lateral forefoot as participants walked on a treadmill while wearing shoes only and shoes with the following 3 orthotic conditions: (i) orthosis with no inverted angle, (ii) orthosis with a 15° inverted angle, and (iii) orthosis with a 30° inverted angle. A one-way repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) with the Bonferroni-adjusted post-hoc test was used to compare the mean values of each orthotic condition. Compared with the shoe only condition, the peak pressure decreased significantly under the medial forefoot and rearfoot with all FOs (p <0.05). However, no significant differences in the peak pressure under the medial forefoot and rearfoot were observed between the FOs. The peak pressure under the medial midfoot increased significantly with all FOs, and a maximal increase in the peak pressure was obtained with a 30° inverted angle orthosis. Furthermore, the contact area under the medial midfoot and rearfoot increased significantly with all FOs, compared with the shoe only condition (p <0.05). Again, no significant differences were observed between the FOs. For plantar pressure redistribution, a FO with a low inverted angle could be effective, accommodative, and convenient for children with flatfoot.
Prognosis of Breast Cancer Patients Underwent Surgery in a Developing Country

Background: We aim to review different factors associated with the relapse and the mortality in breast cancer patients in restricted-resource settings over a five-year period. Method: A retrospective cohort study including 133 women underwent breast cancer surgery was performed at the Surgical Oncology Unit of the Conakry University Hospital in Guinea. Socio-demographical characteristics, clinical information, treatment and data on relapse and survival were retrieved from medical files. Predictor factors of relapse were analyzed by using univariate and multivariate logistic regression. Factors associated with mortality were analyzed by Kaplan Meier survival and Cox models. Results: Breast cancer surgery was conservative in 13 cases (9.8%) and radical in 120 cases (90.2%). Five-year relapse was 33.8% ± 8.0% and the predictor factors of this relapse were age and stage III (p = 0.005). The overall 5-year mortality was 42.1% and the risk factors independently associated with death were body mass index (p = 0.01), origin of patients (p = 0.02), radiotherapy (p = 0.01) and cancer relapse (p = 0.001). Conclusion: The proportions of relapse and death were higher in breast cancer patients. The age and the stage of cancer at the time of surgery were the predictor factors of relapse. Body mass index, origin of patients, radiotherapy and cancer relapse were associated with death.
Natural selection on thermal performance in a novel thermal environment

Significance Tropical ectotherms are considered especially vulnerable to climate change because they have narrow thermal tolerance ranges, such that even small increases in environmental temperature are likely to be detrimental. Although evolutionary adaptation may prevent extinction, it is unclear whether climate change generates selection on thermal physiology in nature or whether the strength of this selection is sufficient for rapid evolution to occur. When we transplanted lizards from their preferred habitat to a warmer and more thermally variable site, strong natural selection favored individuals that ran faster at warmer temperatures and across a broader range of temperatures. If thermal performance traits are heritable, some tropical species may be capable of rapid evolutionary adaptation to changing climates. Tropical ectotherms are thought to be especially vulnerable to climate change because they are adapted to relatively stable temperature regimes, such that even small increases in environmental temperature may lead to large decreases in physiological performance. One way in which tropical organisms may mitigate the detrimental effects of warming is through evolutionary change in thermal physiology. The speed and magnitude of this response depend, in part, on the strength of climate-driven selection. However, many ectotherms use behavioral adjustments to maintain preferred body temperatures in the face of environmental variation. These behaviors may shelter individuals from natural selection, preventing evolutionary adaptation to changing conditions. Here, we mimic the effects of climate change by experimentally transplanting a population of Anolis sagrei lizards to a novel thermal environment. Transplanted lizards experienced warmer and more thermally variable conditions, which resulted in strong directional selection on thermal performance traits. These same traits were not under selection in a reference population studied in a less thermally stressful environment. Our results indicate that climate change can exert strong natural selection on tropical ectotherms, despite their ability to thermoregulate behaviorally. To the extent that thermal performance traits are heritable, populations may be capable of rapid adaptation to anthropogenic warming.
Expanding the Clinical Indications for α1-Antitrypsin Therapy

Abstractα1-Antitrypsin (AAT) is a 52-kDa circulating serine protease inhibitor. Production of AAT by the liver maintains 0.9-1.75 mg/mL circulating levels. During acute-phase responses, circulating AAT levels increase more than fourfold. In individuals with one of several inherited mutations in AAT, low circulating levels increase the risk for lung, liver and pancreatic destructive diseases, particularly emphysema. These individuals are treated with lifelong weekly infusions of human plasma-derived AAT. An increasing amount of evidence appears to suggest that AAT possesses not only the ability to inhibit serine proteases, such as elastase and proteinase-3 (PR-3), but also to exert antiinflammatory and tissue-protective effects independent of protease inhibition. AAT modifies dendritic cell maturation and promotes T regulatory cell differentiation, induces interleukin (IL)-1 receptor antagonist and IL-10 release, protects various cell types from cell death, inhibits caspases-1 and -3 activity and inhibits IL-1 production and activity. Importantly, unlike classic immunosuppressants, AAT allows undeterred isolated T-lymphocyte responses. On the basis of preclinical and clinical studies, AAT therapy for nondeficient individuals may interfere with disease progression in type 1 and type 2 diabetes, acute myocardial infarction, rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, cystic fibrosis, transplant rejection, graft versus host disease and multiple sclerosis. AAT also appears to be antibacterial and an inhibitor of viral infections, such as influenza and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and is currently evaluated in clinical trials for type 1 diabetes, cystic fibrosis and graft versus host disease. Thus, AAT therapy appears to have advanced from replacement therapy, to a safe and potential treatment for a broad spectrum of inflammatory and immune-mediated diseases.
Updated meta-analysis of the role of APOE ε2/ε3/ε4 alleles in frontotemporal lobar degeneration

We performed an updated meta-analysis to assess the role of the ε2/ε3/ε4 alleles of Apolipoprotein E gene (APOE) in frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD). The relevant articles were retrieved from PubMed, CENTRAL, EMBASE and Web of Science databases, and 51 eligible case-control studies with 5123 cases and 20566 controls were selected after screening according to inclusion and exclusion criteria. Our analysis demonstrated that APOE ε4 was associated with increased FTLD risk in all genetic models (ε4 vs. ε3 allele, ε4 vs. ε2 allele, ε4 vs. ε2+ε3+ε4 allele, ε4 vs. ε2+ε3+ε4 carrier, ε4ε4 vs. ε3ε3, ε3ε4 vs. ε3ε3, ε3ε4+ε4ε4 vs. ε3ε3, ε4ε4 vs. ε3ε3+ε3ε4, all P < 0.01, odds ratio [OR] > 1). Subgroup analysis revealed significant association between APOE ε4 and FTLD (P < 0.01, OR > 1) for the Caucasian, Italian, population based (PB), P > 0.05 value of the Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium (HWE), Newcastle-Ottawa scale score > 6, and behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) subgroups. However, there was no significant association between the APOE ε2 allele and FTLD (P > 0.05) in most genetic models and sub-group analyses. Begg's and Egger's tests also revealed no publication bias, and sensitivity analysis showed that our data analysis was robust. Thus our meta-analyses suggest that APOE ε4 is a genetic risk factor in patients with FTLD.
The Tell-Tale Heart: Population-Based Surveillance Reveals an Association of Rofecoxib and Celecoxib with Myocardial Infarction

Background COX-2 selective inhibitors are associated with myocardial infarction (MI). We sought to determine whether population health monitoring would have revealed the effect of COX-2 inhibitors on population-level patterns of MI. Methodology/Principal Findings We conducted a retrospective study of inpatients at two Boston hospitals, from January 1997 to March 2006. There was a population-level rise in the rate of MI that reached 52.0 MI-related hospitalizations per 100,000 (a two standard deviation exceedence) in January of 2000, eight months after the introduction of rofecoxib and one year after celecoxib. The exceedence vanished within one month of the withdrawal of rofecoxib. Trends in inpatient stay due to MI were tightly coupled to the rise and fall of prescriptions of COX-2 inhibitors, with an 18.5% increase in inpatient stays for MI when both rofecoxib and celecoxib were on the market (P<0.001). For every million prescriptions of rofecoxib and celecoxib, there was a 0.5% increase in MI (95%CI 0.1 to 0.9) explaining 50.3% of the deviance in yearly variation of MI-related hospitalizations. There was a negative association between mean age at MI and volume of prescriptions for celecoxib and rofecoxib (Spearman correlation, −0.67, P<0.05). Conclusions/Significance The strong relationship between prescribing and outcome time series supports a population-level impact of COX-2 inhibitors on MI incidence. Further, mean age at MI appears to have been lowered by use of these medications. Use of a population monitoring approach as an adjunct to pharmacovigilence methods might have helped confirm the suspected association, providing earlier support for the market withdrawal of rofecoxib.
Pavement Recycling: Literature Review on Shrinkage Crack Mitigation in Cement-Stabilized Pavement Layers

Most full-depth reclamation (FDR) projects in California to date have used a combination of foamed asphalt and portland cement as the stabilizing agent. The increasing cost of asphalt binder coupled with the relatively complex mix-design procedure for foamed asphalt has generated interest in the use of portland cement alone as an alternative stabilizing agent. However, shrinkage cracking associated with the hydration and curing of the cement-stabilized layers remains a concern, especially with regard to crack reflection through asphalt concrete surfaces. One of the most promising crack mitigation measures, used in conjunction with appropriate mix designs, is that of microcracking the cement-treated layer. In practice, microcracking has not always been successful in preventing cracking and additional research is necessary to better understand the microcracking mechanism. Research into the use of hybrid stabilizers (cement with small amounts of asphalt emulsion, foamed asphalt, or synthetic polymer emulsions) indicates that these, in conjunction with appropriate mix designs, may further limit the severity of shrinkage cracks on projects that include cement-treated layers.
Novel DNA targeted therapies for head and neck cancers: clinical potential and biomarkers

Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma is the sixth most common cancer worldwide and despite advances in treatment over the last years, there is still a relapse rate of 50%. New therapeutic agents are awaited to increase the survival of patients. DNA repair targeted agents in combination with standard DNA damaging therapies are a recent evolution in cancer treatment. These agents focus on the DNA damage repair pathways in cancer cells, which are often involved in therapeutic resistance. Interesting targets to overcome these cancer defense mechanisms are: PARP, DNA-PK, PI3K, ATM, ATR, CHK1/2, and WEE1 inhibitors. The application of DNA targeted agents in head and neck squamous cell cancer showed promising preclinical results which are translated to multiple ongoing clinical trials, although no FDA approval has emerged yet. Biomarkers are necessary to select the patients that can benefit the most from this treatment, although adequate biomarkers are limited and validation is needed to predict therapeutic response.
A constant modulus factorization technique for smart antenna applications in mobile communications

A fundamental problem in sensor array signal processing is to separate and retrieve all independent co-channel signals that arrive at the antenna array. Such problems arise in smart antenna applications for mobile wireless communication, such as interference reduction and in-cell frequency reuse. In a mobile environment, the presence of large delay multipath makes the array manifold poorly defined, and spatial model methods are not applicable. However, in case the signals have a constant modulus property (as in FDMA/FM systems like AMPS or TACS), iterative algorithms such as Godard and CMA have been used to retrieve the signals. Because of a non-convex optimization criterion, these algorithms suffer from local minima and random convergence behavior, with no satisfactory remedy known as yet. In this paper, we present an algorithm to compute the exact solution to the underlying constant modulus (CM) factonzation problem. With this new approach, it is possible to detect the number of CM signals present at the array, and to retrieve all of them exactly, rejecting other, non-CM signals. Only a modest amount of samples are required. The algorithm is robust in the presence of noise, and is tested on real data, collected from an experimental set-up.
Teachers' Attitudes toward Mobile Learning in Korea.

Mobile devices have become ubiquitous, and their uses are various. In schools, many discussions about mobile devices are ongoing as more and more teachers are adopting the technology for use in their classrooms. Teachers’ attitudes toward mobile learning takes an important role in initiating its usage in schools. This study aims to investigate the attitudes toward mobile learning among Korean teachers. The authors’ primary focus lies on the teachers’ attitudes toward mobile learning in view of their differences in gender, school level, teaching experience, and subjects taught. In order to find out teachers’ attitudes toward mobile learning, the Mobile Learning Perception Scale (MLPS) developed by Uzunboylu and Özdaml ı was utilized. The results of this study showed Korean teachers’ mobile learning attitudes was low in general. Female teachers were more positive than male teachers in their attitudes. Secondary school teachers’ attitudes on the Forms of Mobile Learning Application and Tools’ Sufficient Adequacy of Communication (FMA&TSAC) was significantly higher than elementary school teachers. The group with more than 15 years of teaching experience showed higher attitudes toward mobile learning than those groups that were less experienced. Language teachers showed higher attitudes toward FMA&TSAC domain than all other subjects’ teachers.