Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Long Term Effect on Professionals’ Knowledge, Practice and Attitudes towards User Involvement Four Years after Implementing an Organisational Development Plan: A Controlled Study

Background Health service organisations are increasingly implementing user involvement initiatives according to requirements from governments, such as user representation in administrational boards, better information to users, and more involvement of the users during treatment. Professionals are vital in all initiatives to enhance user involvement, and initiatives to increase involvement should influence the professionals’ practice and attitudes. The implementation of a development plan intending to enhance user involvement in a mental health hospital in Central Norway had no effect on the professionals after 16 months. The objective was therefore to investigate the long term effect on the professionals’ knowledge, practice and attitudes towards user involvement after four years. Methods This was a non-randomized controlled study including professionals from three mental health hospitals in Central Norway. A development plan intended to enhance user participation was implemented in one of the hospitals, including establishing a patient education centre and a user office, purchasing of user expertise, appointing contact professionals for next of kin, and improving of the centre’s information and the professional culture. The professionals at two other hospitals constituted the control group. All professionals were invited to answer the Consumer Participation Questionnaire (CPQ) and additional questions, at a four year interval. Results A total of 399 professionals participated (43% response rate). Comparing the changes in the intervention group with the changes in the control group, the results showed that the plan had improved some aspects of the professionals’ knowledge about the user involvement taking place in the hospital. In addition, some parts of the professionals’ practice of providing information to the service users was improved, and the development plan might have raised their awareness about insufficient involvement of next of kin. Conclusions This is the first controlled study on the long term effect on professionals from implementing a development plan to enhance user participation in a mental health hospital. Since there was more effect after four years than after 16 months, this study indicates that it takes time before the effect of complex interventions to enhance patient participation in organisations can be detected among the professionals. More long-term studies are thus warranted.
Regional and global changes in cerebral diffusion with normal aging.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE We used quantitative diffusion MR imaging to investigate the microstructural changes that occur in white matter during normal aging in order to identify regional changes in anisotropy and to quantify global microstructural changes by use of whole-brain diffusion histograms. METHODS Full diffusion tensor MR imaging was performed in 20 healthy volunteers, 20 to 91 years old. Thirteen subjects also underwent high-resolution T1-weighted imaging, so that diffusion images could be coregistered and standardized to normal coordinates for statistical probability mapping. Relative anisotropy (RA) was calculated, as was linear regression of RA with age for each pixel; pixels with a significant correlation coefficient were displayed. For histographic analysis, the average apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) histograms were calculated on a pixel-by-pixel basis. Subjects were divided into two equal groups by the median age (55 years) of the population and plotted for statistical comparison. RESULTS Regional analysis showed statistically significant decreases in RA with increasing age in the periventricular white matter, frontal white matter, and genu and splenium of the corpus callosum, despite the absence of signal abnormalities on visual inspection of conventional images. Significant increases in RA were found in the internal capsules bilaterally. ADC histograms showed higher mean ADC and reduced peak height and skew in the older age group on group comparisons. CONCLUSION Quantitative diffusion histograms correlate with normal aging and may provide a global assessment of normal age-related changes and serve as a standard for comparison with neurodegenerative diseases.
Lifetime anorexia nervosa in young men in the community: five cases and their co-twins.

OBJECTIVE To describe patterns, comorbidity, and outcomes from a case series of anorexia nervosa (AN) among young men from the general population and their co-twins. METHOD Men (N = 2,122) born between 1975 and 1979 from Finnish twin cohorts were screened for lifetime eating disorders by questionnaire. The administration of the short version of the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV for screen positives led to a lifetime AN diagnosis in five participants, described here with their co-twins. RESULTS In males, overweight commonly predated AN, and symptoms of body dysmorphic disorder, particularly of muscle dysmorphia, were common among the anorexia-discordant co-twins. Affective and anxiety disorders were present in both the probands and their co-twins. CONCLUSION We found a strong familial clustering of AN, affective and anxiety disorders, and symptoms of muscle dysmorphia among men in the general population. In men, muscle dysmorphia may represent an alternative phenotype of AN.
Graphical Models for Structured Classification, with an Application to Interpreting Images of Protein Subcellular Location Patterns

In structured classification problems, there is a direct conflict between expressive models and efficient inference: while graphical models such as Markov random fields or factor graphs can represent arbitrary dependences among instance labels, the cost of inference via belief propagation in these models grows rapidly as the graph structure becomes more complicated. One important source of complexity in belief propagation is the need to marginalize large factors to compute messages. This operation takes time exponential in the number of variables in the factor, and can limit the expressiveness of the models we can use. In this paper, we study a new class of potential functions, which we call decomposable k-way potentials, and provide efficient algorithms for computing messages from these potentials during belief propagation. We believe these new potentials provide a good balance between expressive power and efficient inference in practical structured classification problems. We discuss three instances of decomposable potentials: the associative Markov network potential, the nested junction tree, and a new type of potential which we call the voting potential. We use these potentials to classify images of protein subcellular location patterns in groups of cells. Classifying subcellular location patterns can help us answer many important questions in computational biology, including questions about how various treatments affect the synthesis and behavior of proteins and networks of proteins within a cell. Our new representation and algorithm lead to substantial improvements in both inference speed and classification accuracy.
The complete DNA sequence and analysis of the large virulence plasmid of Escherichia coli O157:H7.

The complete DNA sequence of pO157, the large virulence plasmid of EHEC strain O157:H7 EDL 933, is presented. The 92 kb F-like plasmid is composed of segments of putative virulence genes in a framework of replication and maintenance regions, with seven insertion sequence elements, located mostly at the boundaries of the virulence segments. One hundred open reading frames (ORFs) were identified, of which 19 were previously sequenced potential virulence genes. Forty-two ORFs were sufficiently similar to known proteins for suggested functions to be assigned, and 22 had no convincing similarity with any known proteins. Of the newly identified genes, an unusually large ORF of 3169 amino acids has a putative cytotoxin active site shared with the large clostridial toxin (LCT) family and proteins such as ToxA and B of Clostridium difficile . A conserved motif was detected that links the large ORF and the LCT proteins with the OCH1 family of glycosyltransferases. In the complete sequence, the mosaic form can be observed at the levels of base composition, codon usage and gene organization. Insights were obtained from patterns of DNA composition as well as the pathogenic and 'housekeeping' gene segments. Evolutionary trees built from shared plasmid maintenance genes show that even these genes have heterogeneous origins.
Structural and Functional Properties of Two Mutants of Lecithin-Cholesterol Acyltransferase (T123I and N228K)*

Two naturally occurring mutants of human lecithin-cholesterol acyltransferase (LCAT), T123I and N228K, were expressed in COS-1 and Chinese hamster ovary cells, overproduced, and purified to homogeneity in order to study the structural and functional defects that lead to the LCAT deficiency phenotypes of these mutations. The mutants were expressed and secreted by transfected cells normally and had molecular weights and levels of glycosylation similar to wild type LCAT. The purified proteins (>98% purity) had almost indistinguishable structures and stabilities as determined by CD and fluorescence spectroscopy. Enzymatic activities and kinetic analysis of the pure enzyme forms showed that wild type LCAT and both mutants were reactive with the water-soluble substrate, p-nitrophenyl butyrate, indicating the presence of an intact core active site and catalytic triad. Both the T123I and N228K mutants had markedly depressed reactivity with reconstituted HDL (rHDL), but T123I retained activity with low density lipoprotein. To determine whether defective binding to rHDL was responsible for the low activity of both mutants with rHDL, the equilibrium binding constants were measured directly with isothermal titration calorimetry and surface plasmon resonance (SPR) methods. The results indicated that the affinities of the mutants for rHDL were only about 2-fold lower than the affinity of wild type LCAT (K d = 2.3 × 10−7 m). Together, the activity and equilibrium binding results suggest that the T123I mutant is defective in activation by apolipoprotein A-I, and the N228K mutant has impaired binding of lipid substrate to the active site. In addition, the kinetic binding rate constants determined by the SPR method indicate that normal LCAT dissociates from rHDL, on average, after one catalytic cycle.
Age does not affect numbers of taste buds and papillae in adult rhesus monkeys

Taste buds and papillae in tongues of rhesus monkeys were examined and counted to determine if there are age‐related differences in general morphology or numbers of receptor organs. Tongues from 15 monkeys in five groups aged 4–31 years were studied with light microscopy. Fungiform, circumvallate, and foliate papillae were examined and taste buds in each papilla type were counted. Numbers of papillae did not differ with age through 31 years; however, at 24 years and older, fungiform papillae were reduced in number in some animals that had lost tongue tips due to trauma. There were no age‐related differences in numbers of taste buds in any of the three gustatory papilla types, nor did taste bud diameter alter with age. From data on each papilla type, estimates were made of total numbers of lingual taste buds. Totals ranged from about 8,000 to 10,000 and there were no agerelated differences. These results support other recent reports that taste buds are not decreased in number in old rats or humans. Since taste bud numbers and general morphology are maintained even in old age, any age‐related differences in taste behavior cannot be attributed to gross degenerative changes in lingual taste buds.
Leaky modes of slab waveguides-asymptotic solutions

Approximate analytic solutions of the leaky modes in two-dimensional slab waveguides are derived through an asymptotic analysis. General slab waveguides with three layers of possibly different refractive indexes are studied for both the transverse electric (TE) and transverse magnetic (TM) cases. The results are useful in the eigenmode expansion method, where the leaky modes appear if a perfectly matched layer (PML) is used to terminate the transverse directions of optical waveguides
Classical electromagnetism as a consequence of Coulomb's law, special relativity and Hamilton's principle and its relationship to quantum electrodynamics

It is demonstrated how all the mechanical equations of classical electromagnetism (CEM) may be derived from only Coulomb's inverse square force law, special relativity and Hamilton's principle. The instantaneous nature of the Coulomb force in the centre-of-mass frame of two interacting charged objects, mediated by the exchange of space-like virtual photons, is predicted by quantum electrodynamics (QED). The interaction Lagrangian of QED is shown to be identical, in the appropriate limit, to the potential energy term in the Lorentz-invariant Lagrangian of CEM. A comparison is made with the Feynman–Wheeler action-at-a-distance formulation of CEM.
An Investigation of Age-Related Iron Deposition Using Susceptibility Weighted Imaging

Aim To quantify age-dependent iron deposition changes in healthy subjects using Susceptibility Weighted Imaging (SWI). Materials and Methods In total, 143 healthy volunteers were enrolled. All underwent conventional MR and SWI sequences. Subjects were divided into eight groups according to age. Using phase images to quantify iron deposition in the head of the caudate nucleus and the lenticular nucleus, the angle radian value was calculated and compared between groups. ANOVA/Pearson correlation coefficient linear regression analysis and polynomial fitting were performed to analyze the relationship between iron deposition in the head of the caudate nucleus and lenticular nucleus with age. Results Iron deposition in the lenticular nucleus increased in individuals aged up to 40 years, but did not change in those aged over 40 years once a peak had been reached. In the head of the caudate nucleus, iron deposition peaked at 60 years (p<0.05). The correlation coefficients for iron deposition in the L-head of the caudate nucleus, R-head of the caudate nucleus, L-lenticular nucleus and R-lenticular nucleus with age were 0.67691, 0.48585, 0.5228 and 0.5228 (p<0.001, respectively). Linear regression analyses showed a significant correlation between iron deposition levels in with age groups. Conclusions Iron deposition in the lenticular nucleus was found to increase with age, reaching a plateau at 40 years. Iron deposition in the head of the caudate nucleus also increased with age, reaching a plateau at 60 years.
Bees Swarm Optimization for Real Time Ontology Based Information Retrieval

In this paper, we propose an extended IR vector space model by introducing some semantics concepts inherent to YAGO ontology (A large ontology derived from Wikipedia and Word Net), then an adaptation of Bees Swarm Optimization algorithm (BSO) that was developed previously for classical IR, to the new context. In the offline indexing step we define a representation based on semantics annotations taken from YAGO ontology, for the documents and the queries. Afterwards, we integrate the appropriate structures obtained at the first stage in the online interrogation process. The experimental tests have been performed on Reuter's corpus and compared to those previously obtained. The preliminary results clearly show that this pathway promises to provide efficient results for real time IR and deserve to be further deepened.
Nucleon-Nucleon Scattering Parameters in the Limit of SU(3) Flavor Symmetry

The scattering lengths and effective ranges that describe low-energy nucleon-nucleon scattering are calculated in the limit of SU(3)-flavor symmetry at the physical strange-quark mass with Lattice Quantum Chromodynamics. The calculations are performed with an isotropic clover discretization of the quark action in three volumes with spatial extents of L ~ 3.4 fm, 4.5 fm and 6.7 fm, and with a lattice spacing of b ~ 0.145 fm. With determinations of the energies of the two-nucleon systems both of which contain bound states at these light-quark masses at rest and moving in the lattice volume, Luschers method is used to determine the low-energy phase shift in each channel, from which the scattering length and effective range are obtained. The scattering parameters in the {sup 1}S{sub 0} channel are found to be m{sub π}a{sup ({sup 1}S{sub 0})} = 9.51+/-0.74+/-1.00 and m{sub π}r{sup ({sup 1}S{sub 0})} = 4.76+/-0.37+/-0.40, and in the {sup 3}S{sub 1} channel are m{sub π}a{sup ({sup 3}S{sub 1})} = 7.45+/-0.57+/-0.71 and m{sub π}r{sup ({sup 3}S{sub 1})} = 3.71+/-0.28+/-0.28. These values are consistent with the two-nucleon system exhibiting Wigners supermultiplet symmetry, which becomes exact in the limit of large-N{sub c}.
Selected Factors of Innate Immunity in Healthy Individuals with S. aureus Nasal Carriage

Nasal carriage of Staphylococcus aureus represents a well-defined factor of risk involving community and hospital-acquired infections. Recently a significance of several host factors has been pointed out and, in particular, of immune determinants in nasal S. aureus colonization. Therefore, this study aimed at analysis of manifestation involving manifestation in the nasal secretions of important components of the host innate immunity – human beta-defensin-2 (HBD-2), lysozyme (Ly), and interferon-gamma (IFN-γ) in healthy individuals and in persons with persistent carriage of S. aureus. The studies were conducted in two groups of healthy volunteers, encompassing non-carriers (group 1) or persistent carriers of S. aureus (group 2). Elisa assays were employed to evaluate levels of HBD-2, Ly, and IFN-γ in nasal secretions of the examined donors. In S. aureus carriers a significant variability of HBD-2 levels was detected, corresponding to, respectively, the high (averaging at 1.46 ng/ml) and the low (averaging at 0.13 ng/ml) secretory response of the defensin. The level of Ly in S. aureus carriers averaged at 1.46 μg/ml and it manifested no significant difference as compared to that noted in non-carriers. In turn, concentrations of IFN-γ in nasal secretions in the group of carriers of S. aureus amounted on the average to 81.7 pg/ml and they were 1.3-fold higher that in the group of non-carriers. The obtained results allow to conclude that IFN-γ secretion by the nasal cavity-colonizing S. aureus remains quantitatively insufficient to eliminate the pathogen. Nevertheless, a significant increase in levels of this host factor may be important for restriction of the staphylococcal colonization and protection against development of an invasive infection. In turn, the role of HBD-2 and Ly in inactivation of the colonizing S. aureus remains doubtful.
The Comparison of Biodistribution, Efficacy and Toxicity of Two PEGylated Liposomal Doxorubicin Formulations in Mice Bearing C-26 Colon Carcinoma: a Preclinical Study

Abstract Background: Over the past several years, the considerable attention has been progressively given to liposomal formulations of anthracyclines. SinaDoxosome® (Exir Nano Sina Company, Iran) is a pegylated liposomal doxorubicin (DOX) which approved by Food and Drug Administration of IRAN for treatment of some types of cancer. The aim of this study was to compare the biodistribution, efficacy, cardiotoxicity and hepatotoxicity of SinaDoxosome® with Caelyx® in mice bearing C-26 colon carcinoma. Methods and results: Mice tumor size evaluation during the experimental period (28 days) showed comparable therapeutic efficacy of nano-formulations. The biodistribution studies showed no significant difference in DOX tissue concentration between Caelyx® and SinaDoxosome®. DOX induced-ECG changes were not detected in nano-formulations. No significant alteration was found in biochemical indexes of myocardial injury in mice exposed to nano-formulations in comparison with control mice. The tissue oxidative parameters such as lipid peroxidation, glutathione, catalase and superoxide dismutase was significantly changed as the results of free DOX treatment. However, the oxidative status of Caelyx® and SinaDoxosome® treated animals did not showed any changes. The experiment also revealed that apoptotic pathway was not activated in the heart of mice exposed to nano-formulations. Conclusions: Although this investigation showed that Caelyx® and SinaDoxosome® are similar in terms of biodistribution, efficacy and toxicity, appropriate clinical evaluations in patients should be considered.
The pro-apoptotic gene Bax is required for the death of ectopic primordial germ cells during their migration in the mouse embryo

In the mouse embryo, significant numbers of primordial germ cells (PGCs) fail to migrate correctly to the genital ridges early in organogenesis. These usually die in ectopic locations. In humans, 50% of pediatric germ line tumors arise outside the gonads, and these are thought to arise from PGCs that fail to die in ectopic locations. We show that the pro-apoptotic gene Bax, previously shown to be required for germ cell death during later stages of their differentiation in the gonads, is also expressed during germ cell migration, and is required for the normal death of germ cells left in ectopic locations during and after germ cell migration. In addition, we show that Bax is downstream of the known cell survival signaling interaction mediated by the Steel factor/Kit ligand/receptor interaction. Together, these observations identify the major mechanism that removes ectopic germ cells from the embryo at early stages.
Optimization of Trap Color for Emerald Ash Borer (Coleoptera: Buprestidae)

ABSTRACT Field assays were performed to determine the optimal color for Agrilus planipennis Fairmaire (Coleoptera; Buprestidae) traps. Previous studies have found that more A. planipennis are caught on purple or green traps than traps of other colors. In three studies, we evaluated various shades of purple, wavelengths of green (500–570 nm), and greens of different reflectance (from 9 to 66%). In all tests, traps of corrugated plastic in standard, commercially available purple (currently used to survey A. planipennis) and a customized green color were used as bases for comparison. Among purple traps, a paint color previously shown to be generally attractive to buprestids caught significantly more A. planipennis adults than traps coated with paints containing more blue or red, or traps constructed of the standard purple plastic. Among traps with maximum reflectance at varying green wavelengths, those ranging in wavelength from 525 to 540 nm caught significantly more adult A. planipennis than traps of other wavelengths. In the 530–540 nm range of the electromagnetic spectrum, there was no significant difference among traps in the 23–66% reflectance range, but traps painted with a peak reflectance of 49% caught more beetles than purple or the custom green plastic traps. Male to female ratio was highest on green traps.