Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Segmental Anatomy of the Lungs

When the reviewer attempts to recall his experiences in gross anatomy as a medical student some thirty years ago, he recollects little if any time having been spent on the lungs beyond an enumeration of the five lobes and the fissures which define their borders. At this simple level the interests of both instructor and student appear to have been satisfied. However, thirty years is quite a long time. With increasing interest in thoracic surgery after World War I, anatomy of the thorax kept pace with clinical developments, and the study of the lungs themselves now is climaxed by this superb monograph of Edward A. Boyden, Professor Emeritus of Anatomy at the University of Minnesota. The most effective stimulus to systematic developments in anatomy has always been the needs of the surgeon. This is certainly true of bronchovascular anatomy. Boyden in the introduction to this monograph graciously acknowledges the impetus provided by his surgical colleagues at Minnesota. The modern era of dissection and resection of pulmonary segments begins in 1939 with Churchill and Belsey's description of lingulectomy. Today no segment is exempt from selective resection when the occasion requires; for example, in the treatment of localized bronchiectatic or tuberculous lesions. After an exhaustive eight-year study of dissection specimens numbering from 50 to 110 for each of the five lobes, Boyden and his colleagues have put the anatomical basis for segmental resections on a firm scientific footing by describing not only the prevailing bronchial and vascular patterns, but the recognized deviations as well. In the first chapter entitled, "Historical Review," the author does a great service by presenting a comparative analysis of previous attempts to systematize the inner anatomy of the pulmonary lobes. In the second chapter he defines an original and logical system of numerical classification for bronchi (B), pulmonary arteries (A), veins (V) and their divisions through the subsegmental levels. Thus, for example, the pulmonary arterial branch, designated as A2a2, is recognized by the initiated as a small branch accompanying the inferior subramus (B2a2) which arises from the posterior ramus (B2a) of the anterior segmental bronchus (B2) in the upper lobe. Each of the five pulmonary lobes is next the subject of an individual chapter in which the surface relationships, bronchial, arterial, and venous patterns are considered in this stated order, with attention to both prevailing and less usual patterns. Finally, a most interesting and illuminating chapter is presented on the embryology of the human lung, utilizing the microdissection method as a tool for the evaluation of congenital anomalies and variations in the adult pattern. Naturally a work of this inherent complexity and great detail in subject matter does not make easy reading, but the text is carefully edited and lucidly presented. The orderly arrangement of material by chapters and sections makes for ready reference on specific problems. The book is profusely illustrated with pen and ink drawings, color plates, and statistical tables.
Cracking Matrix Encryption Row by Row

Abstract The Hill Cipher, also known as matrix encryption, uses matrices to encipher and decipher text. Various attacks, such as those found by Jack Levine [2 3 5], have been published for this system. This article reviews a few previous results and presents a powerful new attack in which the rows of the matrix can be determined independent of one another, greatly reducing the amount of time needed for decipherment.
Pilot Studies: A Critical but Potentially Misused Component of Interventional Research.

Pilot intervention studies, commonly defined as small studies carried out in preparation for larger investigations,1 are essential precursors to high-quality clinical trials. Although not all trials are preceded by pilot investigations, when they are, pilot studies inform how subsequent trials are conducted and have an important role in controlling the pipeline of intervention development and dissemination by influencing which large-scale trials are ultimately carried out and which are never brought to fruition. However, pilot studies have often involved reporting inconsistencies, misapplication of research techniques, and misinterpretation of results, with significant implications for intervention research.1-3 These suboptimal research practices likely emanate from the understandable but methodologically unsound view of pilot studies as mechanisms to obtain preliminary answers to primary research questions.1-3 The risks of this approach may include unjustified and potentially misleading conclusions in the short term as well as misinformed decisions about how—and even whether—to proceed to more definitive studies.
Performance evaluation for aged environmentally adapted lubricants in bronze‐steel sliding contacts

Environmentally adapted lubricants (EALs) are becoming of increasing interest to the industry as legislation demands the replacement of mineral oil lubricants. However, little or nothing is known about the infl uence of ageing on the performance of these fl uids in mixed and boundary lubricated tribological contacts. In this study, samples of three fully formulated lubricating oils, both in their ‘unaged’ form and ‘aged’ by means of an oxidation process in the laboratory, were utilized in a detailed study whereby variations in relative lubrication performance were examined. Standard laboratory pin-on-disc equipment was utilized in order to allow comparisons to be made and the defi nition of conclusions for a sliding tin bronze on steel contact. This simulated the interaction between an oil-lubricated bronze bushing and steel shaft as found in the vane adjustment mechanism of a Kaplan turbine. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis was employed to assess the effect on surface layer structural chemistry. Results showed, for the specifi c application being investigated, that EALs continue to function well in terms of their friction and wear performance even at high acid numbers.
Epidemiology of biliary tract cancers: an update.

BACKGROUND Biliary tract cancer (BTC) is a rare cancer in Europe and North America, characterized by wide geographic variation, with high incidence in some areas of Latin America and Asia. MATERIALS AND METHODS BTC mortality and incidence have been updated according to recent data, using joinpoint regression analysis. RESULTS Since the 1980s, decreasing trends in BTC mortality rates (age-standardized, world standard population) were observed in the European Union as a whole, in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Israel, New Zealand, and the United States, and high-risk countries such as Japan and Venezuela. Joinpoint regression analysis indicates that decreasing trends were more favorable over recent calendar periods. High-mortality rates are, however, still evident in central and eastern Europe (4-5/100,000 women), Japan (4/100,000 women), and Chile (16.6/100,000 women). Incidence rates identified other high-risk areas in India (8.5/100,000 women), Korea (5.6/100,000 women), and Shanghai, China (5.2/100,000 women). CONCLUSIONS The decreasing BTC mortality trends essentially reflect more widespread and earlier adoption of cholecystectomy in several countries, since gallstones are the major risk factor for BTC. There are, however, high-risk areas, mainly from South America and India, where access to gall-bladder surgery remains inadequate.
In Vivo Reinsertion of Excised Episomes by the V(D)J Recombinase: A Potential Threat to Genomic Stability

It has long been thought that signal joints, the byproducts of V(D)J recombination, are not involved in the dynamics of the rearrangement process. Evidence has now started to accumulate that this is not the case, and that signal joints play unsuspected roles in events that might compromise genomic integrity. Here we show both ex vivo and in vivo that the episomal circles excised during the normal process of receptor gene rearrangement may be reintegrated into the genome through trans-V(D)J recombination occurring between the episomal signal joint and an immunoglobulin/T-cell receptor target. We further demonstrate that cryptic recombination sites involved in T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia–associated chromosomal translocations constitute hotspots of insertion. Eventually, the identification of two in vivo cases associating episomal reintegration and chromosomal translocation suggests that reintegration events are linked to genomic instability. Altogether, our data suggest that V(D)J-mediated reintegration of episomal circles, an event likely eluding classical cytogenetic screenings, might represent an additional potent source of genomic instability and lymphoid cancer.
Gender Disparity in the Relationship between Prevalence of Thyroid Nodules and Metabolic Syndrome Components: The SHDC-CDPC Community-Based Study

The study is aimed to investigate the pathogenesis underlying the increased prevalence of thyroid nodule (TN) in different levels of metabolic syndrome (MetS) components and analyze the relationships between TN and MetS components. A total of 6,798 subjects, including 2201 patients with TN, were enrolled in this study. Anthropometric, biochemical, thyroid ultrasonographic, and other metabolic parameters were all measured. There was obviously sexual difference in the prevalence of TN (males 26.0%, females 38.5%, resp.). The prevalence of TN in hyperuricemia (45.7% versus 37.4%, P = 0.001), NAFLD (41.2% versus 36.4%, P < 0.05), and MetS (41.4% versus 35.4%, P < 0.001) groups was significantly increased only in females. Insulin resistance [OR = 1.31 (1.15, 1.49)], MetS [OR = 1.18 (1.03, 1.35)], and diabetes [OR = 1.25 (1.06, 1.48)] were all independent risk factors for TN in total subjects, whereas, after stratified analysis of gender, MetS [OR = 1.29, (1.09, 1.53)] and diabetes [OR = 1.47, (1.17, 1.84)] are still strongly and independently associated with the higher risks of TN in female subjects, but not in males. Our results suggest that the components of MetS might associate with the higher risks of TN in women than in men, but further cohort study of this gender disparity in the association between TN and MetS is required.
Multicast with cache (Mcache): an adaptive zero-delay video-on-demand service

This paper presents a closed-loop (demand-driven) approach towards VoD services, called multicast with caching (Mcache). Servers use multicast to reduce bandwidth usage by serving multiple requests using a single data stream. However, this requires clients to delay receiving the movie until the multicast starts. Using regional cache servers, Mcache removes initial playout delays at the clients, because the clients can receive the prefix of a requested clip from regional caches while waiting for the multicast to start. In addition, the multicast containing the later portion of the movie can wait until the prefix is played out. While this use of caches has been proposed before, the novelty of our scheme lies in that the requests coming after the multicast starts can still be batched together to be served by multicast patches without any playout delays. The use of patches has been proposed to be used either with unicast or with playout delays. Mcache effectively hires the idea of a multicast patch with caches to provide a truly adaptive VoD service whose bandwidth usage is up to par with the best known open-loop schemes under high request rates while using only minimal bandwidth under low request rates. In addition, efficient use of multicast and caches removes the need for a priori knowledge of client request rates and client disk storage requirements which some of the existing schemes assume. This makes Mcache ideal for the current heterogeneous Internet environments where those parameters are hard to predict.
Drug-induced inactivation or gene silencing of class I histone deacetylases suppresses ovarian cancer cell growth: Implications for therapy

Abstract There is an urgent need to develop new strategies to treat ovarian cancer, the most deadly gynecologic malignancy. Histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors are emerging as novel therapeutic drugs in the treatment of a variety of cancers, including those resistant to standard chemotherapy. Since there are multiple HDAC isoforms, determining the precise role of individual HDAC isoenzymes in the growth and progression of ovarian cancer has the potential to influence the use of selective HDAC inhibitors as strategic therapeutic agents that elicit fewer undesirable side effects. Unfortunately, there is limited information about the expression of HDAC isoforms in human ovarian tissues. This report provides evidence for the first time that Class I HDACs are expressed at significantly higher levels in ovarian cancers in comparison to normal ovarian tissues, with no significant difference in Class II HDAC expression between the two groups. Furthermore, ovarian cancer cells are far more sensitive than normal ovarian cells to the potent HDAC inhibitor romidepsin (FK228), a drug that displays greater inhibitory selectivity for Class I HDACs over Class II isoforms. Using small interfering RNA (siRNA) methodology, we demonstrate that knocking down the gene expression of HDAC3 and other members of the Class I HDAC family suppresses ovarian cancer cell growth. Taken together, the present studies offer several novel findings that have direct relevance for the strategic use of inhibitors that target Class I HDACs, particularly HDAC3, in the treatment of ovarian cancer.
Components of Executive Functioning in Metamemory

This study examined metamemory in relation to three basic executive functions (set shifting, working memory updating, and response inhibition) measured as latent variables. Young adults (Experiment 1) and middle-aged adults (Experiment 2) completed a set of executive functioning tasks and the Prospective and Retrospective Memory Questionnaire (PRMQ). In Experiment 1, source recall and face recognition tasks were included as indicators of objective memory performance. In both experiments, analyses of the executive functioning data yielded a two-factor solution, with the updating and inhibition tasks constituting a common factor and the shifting tasks a separate factor. Self-reported memory problems showed low predictive validity, but subjective and objective memory performance were related to different components of executive functioning. In both experiments, set shifting, but not updating and inhibition, was related to PRMQ, whereas source recall showed the opposite pattern of correlations in Experiment 1. These findings suggest that metamemorial judgments reflect selective effects of executive functioning and that individual differences in mental flexibility contribute to self-beliefs of efficacy.
Genetic and Biochemical Characterization of OXA-63, a New Class D β-Lactamase from Brachyspira pilosicoli BM4442

ABSTRACT Brachyspira pilosicoli BM4442, isolated from the feces of a patient with diarrhea at the Hospital Saint-Michel in Paris, was resistant to oxacillin (MIC > 256 μg/ml) but remained susceptible to cephalosporins and to the combination of amoxicillin and clavulanic acid. Cloning and sequencing of the corresponding resistance determinant revealed a coding sequence of 807 bp encoding a new class D β-lactamase named OXA-63. The blaOXA-63 gene was chromosomally located and not part of a transposon or of an integron. OXA-63 shared 54% identity with FUS-1 (OXA-85), an oxacillinase from Fusobacterium nucleatum subsp. polymorphum, and 25 to 44% identity with other class D β-lactamases (DBLs) and contained all the conserved structural motifs of DBLs. Escherichia coli carrying the blaOXA-63 gene exhibited resistance to benzylpenicillin and amoxicillin but remained susceptible to amoxicillin in combination with clavulanic acid. Mature OXA-63 consisted of a 31.5-kDa polypeptide and appeared to be dimeric. Kinetic analysis revealed that OXA-63 exhibited a narrow substrate profile, hydrolyzing oxacillin, benzylpenicillin, and ampicillin with catalytic efficiencies of 980, 250, and 150 mM−1 s−1, respectively. The enzyme did not apparently interact with oxyimino-cephalosporins, imipenem, or aztreonam. Unlike FUS-1 and other DBLs, OXA-63 was strongly inhibited by clavulanic acid (50% inhibitory concentration [IC50] of 2 μM) and tazobactam (IC50 of 0.16 μM) and exhibited low susceptibility to NaCl (IC50 of >2 M). OXA-63 is the first DBL described for the anaerobic spirochete B. pilosicoli.
Frequency of Yoga Practice Predicts Health: Results of a National Survey of Yoga Practitioners

Background. Yoga shows promise as a therapeutic intervention, but relationships between yoga practice and health are underexplored. Purpose. To examine the relationship between yoga practice and health (subjective well-being, diet, BMI, smoking, alcohol/caffeine consumption, sleep, fatigue, social support, mindfulness, and physical activity). Methods. Cross-sectional, anonymous internet surveys distributed to 4307 randomly selected from 18,160 individuals at 15 US Iyengar yoga studios; 1045 (24.3%) surveys completed. Results. Mean age 51.7 (± 11.7) years; 84.2% female. Frequency of home practice favorably predicted (P < .001): mindfulness, subjective well-being, BMI, fruit and vegetable consumption, vegetarian status, sleep, and fatigue. Each component of yoga practice (different categories of physical poses, breath work, meditation, philosophy study) predicted at least 1 health outcome (P < .05). Conclusions. Home practice of yoga predicted health better than years of practice or class frequency. Different physical poses and yoga techniques may have unique health benefits.
Long Working Hours and Subsequent Use of Psychotropic Medicine: A Study Protocol

Background Mental ill health is the most frequent cause of long-term sickness absence and disability retirement in Denmark. Some instances of mental ill health might be due to long working hours. A recent large cross-sectional study of a general working population in Norway found that not only “very much overtime”, but also “moderate overtime” (41-48 work hours/week) was significantly associated with increased levels of both anxiety and depression. These findings have not been sufficiently confirmed in longitudinal studies. Objective The objective of the study is to give a detailed plan for a research project aimed at investigating the possibility of a prospective association between weekly working hours and use of psychotropic medicine in the general working population of Denmark. Methods People from the general working population of Denmark have been surveyed, at various occasions in the time period 1995-2010, and interviewed about their work environment. The present study will link interview data from these surveys to national registers covering all inhabitants of Denmark. The participants will be followed for the first occurrence of redeemed prescriptions for psychotropic medicine. Poisson regression will be used to analyze incidence rates as a function of weekly working hours (32-40; 41-48; > 48 hours/week). The analyses will be controlled for gender, age, sample, shift work, and socioeconomic status. According to our feasibility studies, the statistical power is sufficient and the exposure is stable enough to make the study worth the while. Results The publication of the present study protocol ends the design phase of the project. In the next phase, the questionnaire data will be forwarded to Statistics Denmark where they will be linked to data on deaths, migrations, socioeconomic status, and redeemed prescriptions for psychotropic medication. We expect the analysis to be completed by the end of 2014 and the results to be published mid 2015. Conclusions The proposed project will be free from hindsight bias, since all hypotheses and statistical models are completely defined, peer-reviewed, and published before we link the exposure data to the outcome data. The results of the project will indicate to what extent and in what direction the national burden of mental ill health in Denmark has been influenced by long working hours.
Liposome-Coupled Peptides Induce Long-Lived Memory CD8+ T Cells Without CD4+ T Cells

CD8+ T cells provide broad immunity to viruses, because they are able to recognize all types of viral proteins. Therefore, the development of vaccines capable of inducing long-lived memory CD8+ T cells is desired to prevent diseases, especially those for which no vaccines currently exist. However, in designing CD8+ T cell vaccines, the role of CD4+ T cells in the induction and maintenance of memory CD8+ T cells remains uncertain. In the present study, the necessity or not of CD4+ T cells in the induction and maintenance of memory CD8+ T cells was investigated in mice immunized with liposome-coupled CTL epitope peptides. When OVA-derived CTL epitope peptides were chemically coupled to the surfaces of liposomes and inoculated into mice, both primary and secondary CTL responses were successfully induced. The results were further confirmed in CD4+ T cell-eliminated mice, suggesting that CD4+ T cells were not required for the generation of memory CD8+ T cells in the case of immunization with liposome-coupled peptides. Thus, surface-linked liposomal antigens, capable of inducing long-lived memory CD8+ T cells without the contribution of CD4+ T cells, might be applicable for the development of vaccines to prevent viral infection, especially for those viruses that evade humoral immunity by varying their surface proteins, such as influenza viruses, HIV, HCV, SARS coronaviruses, and Ebola viruses.
Hypovitaminosis D in Healthy Schoolchildren

Background. Vitamin D is essential for skeletal growth, but there are currently no guidelines for vitamin D supplementation after infancy. This study investigates vitamin D insufficiency in healthy children. Methods. Children ages 10 to 16 years from 3 private schools in Beirut, Lebanon, with differing socioeconomic status (SES) were studied: 169 in the spring of 1999 and 177 in the following fall; 83 students participated in both study phases. They had a physical examination, answered a dietary questionnaire, and blood was drawn for calciotropic hormones and indices of bone turnover. Results. Overall, 52% of the students were vitamin D-insufficient; the proportion of insufficiency was 65% in the winter and 40% at the end of the summer. During both seasons, girls had lower vitamin D levels than did boys; those who followed the dress code of covered head, arms, and legs had the lowest levels. Students in the mid-SES school had lower 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25-OHD) levels than did the ones from the high-SES school. After adjusting for confounders, gender, SES, and body mass index remained the significant predictors of vitamin D levels in both seasons (R 2 = 0.53, for spring and 0.28 for fall). There was a significant inverse correlation between 25-OHD levels and parathyroid hormone levels that was best fitted by a curvilinear model (R 2 = 0.19). Conclusion. Even in a sunny country, hypovitaminosis D is common in schoolchildren, more so in the winter. Girls, especially those with a lower SES, are at particular risk. The inverse changes in parathyroid hormone suggest that insufficient vitamin D levels may deleteriously affect skeletal metabolism in healthy adolescents. Vitamin D insufficiency may be prevalent in many other countries where supplementation of milk with vitamin D is not mandatory. Our results call to a reconsideration of vitamin D supplementation in high-risk adolescents to further optimize skeletal health. vitamin D insufficiency, bone metabolism, nutrition, gender, socioeconomic status.