Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Intrarenal Vascular Resistance in Glycerol‐ Induced Acute Renal Failure in the Rat

We measured mean afferent arteriolar diameter and renal blood flow with microsphere techniques in awake rats 24 hours after induction of acute renal failure by glycerol injection. Renal blood flow, mean arterial pressure, and total renal vascular resistance in rats with acute renal failure were not different from control levels, despite significantly elevated serum urea nitrogen. Mean afferent arteriolar diameter was decreased in rats with acute renal failure compared to controls (21.1 ± 0.10 vs. 22.0 ± 0.16 jun, mean ± SE, n – 5, respectively, P < 0.01). The percentage of renal intravascular microspheres (mean diameter of spheres « 22.3 ± 2.1 jim) entering the glomeruli also was decreased in rats with acute renal failure compared to control (75.9 ± 1.4 vs. 85.7 ± 0.8%, n – 7, respectively, P < 0.001). Blood viscosity values of rats injected with glycerol and measured at shear rates of 61.8/sec (4.36 ± 0.06 centipoise (cP, n - 6) and 123.6/sec [3.78 ± 0.05 cP, n - 6] were significantly higher than those of controls (3.84 ± 0.08 cP, n = 6, P < 0.005, and 3.36 ± 0.09 cP, n = 6, P < 0.005). Therefore, preglomerular resistance is increased during glycerol-induced acute renal failure due to a combination of afferent arteriolar vasoconstriction and increased blood viscosity. The increase in preglomerular resistance will cause a reduced glomerular capillary hydrostatic pressure in glycerol-induced acute renal failure. Ore Ret 45: 583-587, 1979
Transcriptome Analysis of the Chinese White Wax Scale Ericerus pela with Focus on Genes Involved in Wax Biosynthesis

Background The Chinese white wax scale, Ericerus pela Chavannes is economically significant for its role in wax production. This insect has been bred in China for over a thousand years. The wax secreted by the male scale insect during the second-instar larval stage has been widespread used in wax candle production, wax printing, engraving, Chinese medicine, and more recently in the chemical, pharmaceutical, food, and cosmetics industries. However, little is known about the mechanisms responsible for white wax biosynthesis. The characterization of its larval transcriptome may promote better understanding of wax biosynthesis. Methodology/Principal Findings In this study, characterization of the transcriptome of E. pela during peak wax secretion was performed using Illumina sequencing technology. Illumina sequencing produced 41,839 unigenes. These unigenes were annotated by blastx alignment against the NCBI Non-Redundant (NR), Swiss-Prot, KEGG, and COG databases. A total of 104 unigenes related to white wax biosynthesis were identified, and 15 of them were selected for quantitative real-time PCR analysis. We evaluated the variations in gene expression across different development stages, including egg, first/second instar larvae, male pupae, and male and female adults. Then we identified five genes involved in white wax biosynthesis. These genes were expressed most strongly during the second-instar larval stage of male E. pela. Conclusion/Significance The transcriptome analysis of E. pela during peak wax secretion provided an overview of gene expression information at the transcriptional level and a resource for gene mining. Five genes related to white wax biosynthesis were identified.
Classification of chronic hepatitis: Diagnosis, grading and staging

Di Bisceglie A et al. Long-erm clinical and histopathological follow-up of chronic posttransfusion hepatitis 14: 969-974 405 Tsubota A et al. Factors predictive of response to interferon alpha therapy in HCV infection 19: 1088-94 393 Marcellin P et al. Recombinant human alpha-interferon in patients with chronic nonA-nonB hepatitis. A multicenter randomized controlled trial from France 13: 393-397 354
Rapid and Sensitive Detection of Shigella spp. and Salmonella spp. by Multiple Endonuclease Restriction Real-Time Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification Technique

Shigella and Salmonella are frequently isolated from various food samples and can cause human gastroenteritis. Here, a novel multiple endonuclease restriction real-time loop-mediated isothermal amplification technology (MERT-LAMP) were successfully established and validated for simultaneous detection of Shigella strains and Salmonella strains in only a single reaction. Two sets of MERT-LAMP primers for 2 kinds of pathogens were designed from ipaH gene of Shigella spp. and invA gene of Salmonella spp. , respectively. Under the constant condition at 63°C, the positive results were yielded in as short as 12 min with the genomic DNA extracted from the 19 Shigella strains and 14 Salmonella strains, and the target pathogens present in a sample could be simultaneously identified based on distinct fluorescence curves in real-time format. Accordingly, the multiplex detection assay significantly reduced effort, materials and reagents used, and amplification and differentiation were conducted at the same time, obviating the use of postdetection procedures. The analytical sensitivity of MERT-LAMP was found to be 62.5 and 125 fg DNA/reaction with genomic templates of Shigella strains and Salmonella strains, which was consist with normal LAMP assay, and at least 10- and 100-fold more sensitive than that of qPCR and conventional PCR approaches. The limit of detection of MERT-LAMP for Shigella strains and Salmonella strains detection in artificially contaminated milk samples was 5.8 and 6.4 CFU per vessel. In conclusion, the MERT-LAMP methodology described here demonstrated a potential and valuable means for simultaneous screening of Shigella and Salmonella in a wide variety of samples.
Phytochemical screening, antimicrobial and antioxidant activities of Anabasis aphylla extracts

The present study was designed to evaluate the phytochemical screening, antimicrobial and antioxidant activities of Anabasis aphylla L. extracts. Phytochemical screening revealed the presence of alkaloid, flavonoid, saponin, terpenoid, steroid and sterols in the extracts of aerial parts of A. aphylla. The dry aerial part of A. aphylla was extracted with methanol, then further fractioned with n-hexan, ethyl acetate, n-butanol, and water. Four fractions (methanol, ethyl acetate, n- butanol, and water) were examined for antimicrobial activity by using disc diffusion assay. The microbial strains were exposed to the following four different concentrations of extracts: 1, 10, 25 and 100 mg/ml. There has been an increasing effect on microbial growth inhibition with increasing concentration of the extracts. The largest zone of inhibition was obtained with n-butanol extract against Aspergillus niger (20mm). The antimicrobial activity of extracts was compared with the standard antibiotics like amoxicillin and ketoconazol (100 µg/disc). Furtheremore, the antioxidant activity of two fractions (methanol and ethyl acetate) were tested by 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and β-carotene/linoleic acid assays. The extracts showed no antioxidant activity in DPPH method. In β- carotene/linoleic acid test, the ethyl acetate (100 mg/ml) showed higher antioxidant activity (81.8%).
Distinct biological subtypes and patterns of genome evolution in lymphoma revealed by circulating tumor DNA

Circulating tumor DNA reveals patterns of clonal evolution and allows classification of tumor subtypes in lymphoma. The telltale DNA in lymphoma Diffuse large B cell lymphoma is a relatively common type of tumor that can exhibit a wide range of behaviors, from indolent and curable cancers to ones that are very aggressive and difficult to treat. By analyzing DNA in tumor samples and blood of lymphoma patients, Scherer et al. have shown that specific genetic characteristics can determine each tumor’s cell of origin and identify tumors that are going to transform into more aggressive subtypes and may require more intensive treatment. The authors also demonstrated that circulating tumor DNA in the patients’ blood is suitable for this analysis, allowing for periodic monitoring of each patient without repeated invasive biopsies. Patients with diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) exhibit marked diversity in tumor behavior and outcomes, yet the identification of poor-risk groups remains challenging. In addition, the biology underlying these differences is incompletely understood. We hypothesized that characterization of mutational heterogeneity and genomic evolution using circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) profiling could reveal molecular determinants of adverse outcomes. To address this hypothesis, we applied cancer personalized profiling by deep sequencing (CAPP-Seq) analysis to tumor biopsies and cell-free DNA samples from 92 lymphoma patients and 24 healthy subjects. At diagnosis, the amount of ctDNA was found to strongly correlate with clinical indices and was independently predictive of patient outcomes. We demonstrate that ctDNA genotyping can classify transcriptionally defined tumor subtypes, including DLBCL cell of origin, directly from plasma. By simultaneously tracking multiple somatic mutations in ctDNA, our approach outperformed immunoglobulin sequencing and radiographic imaging for the detection of minimal residual disease and facilitated noninvasive identification of emergent resistance mutations to targeted therapies. In addition, we identified distinct patterns of clonal evolution distinguishing indolent follicular lymphomas from those that transformed into DLBCL, allowing for potential noninvasive prediction of histological transformation. Collectively, our results demonstrate that ctDNA analysis reveals biological factors that underlie lymphoma clinical outcomes and could facilitate individualized therapy.
Benchmarking Java against C and Fortran for scientific applications

Increasing interest is being shown in the use of Java for scientific applications. The Java Grande benchmark suite was designed with such applications primarily in mind. The perceived lack of performance of Java still deters many potential users, despite recent advances in just‐in‐time and adaptive compilers. There are, however, few benchmark results available comparing Java to more traditional languages such as C and Fortran. To address this issue, a subset of the Java Grande benchmarks has been re‐written in C and Fortran allowing direct performance comparisons between the three languages. The performance of a range of Java execution environments, C and Fortran compilers have been tested across a number of platforms using the suite. These demonstrate that on some platforms (notable Intel Pentium) the performance gap is now quite small. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Current Pharmacological Advances in the Treatment of Cardiac Arrest

Cardiac arrest is defined as the sudden cessation of spontaneous ventilation and circulation. Within 15 seconds of cardiac arrest, the patient loses consciousness, electroencephalogram becomes flat after 30 seconds, pupils dilate fully after 60 seconds, and cerebral damage takes place within 90–300 seconds. It is essential to act immediately as irreversible damage can occur in a short time. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is an attempt to restore spontaneous circulation through a broad range of interventions which are early defibrillation, high-quality and uninterrupted chest compressions, advanced airway interventions, and pharmacological interventions. Drugs should be considered only after initial shocks have been delivered (when indicated) and chest compressions and ventilation have been started. During cardiopulmonary resuscitation, no specific drug therapy has been shown to improve survival to hospital discharge after cardiac arrest, and only few drugs have a proven benefit for short-term survival. This paper reviews current pharmacological treatment of cardiac arrest. There are three groups of drugs relevant to the management of cardiac arrest: vasopressors, antiarrhythmics, and other drugs such as sodium bicarbonate, calcium, magnesium, atropine, fibrinolytic drugs, and corticosteroids.
Graph removal lemmas

The graph removal lemma states that any graph on n vertices with o(n^{v(H)}) copies of a fixed graph H may be made H-free by removing o(n^2) edges. Despite its innocent appearance, this lemma and its extensions have several important consequences in number theory, discrete geometry, graph theory and computer science. In this survey we discuss these lemmas, focusing in particular on recent improvements to their quantitative aspects.
HFE mutations in an inflammatory arthritis population.

OBJECTIVES To determine the value of screening patients with inflammatory arthritis for haemochromatosis-associated mutations in the HFE gene. METHODS We screened 1000 patients with inflammatory arthritis and 1000 controls for the HFE gene mutations that are associated with haemochromatosis. The arthritis patients were diagnosed between 1989 and 1995 and their blood DNA was archived as part of the Norfolk Arthritis Register project. RESULTS Five out of 1000 (0.005) patients in the arthritis group were homozygous for the HFE C282Y mutation. This frequency is the same as the frequency of 5/1000 (0.005) for C282Y homozygosity observed in the normal population. It is slightly above the predicted frequency of homozygosity of 0.0044 derived from the gene frequency in the normal population. CONCLUSIONS These data suggest that most of the C282Y homozygotes occurred in this arthritis group by chance and that their arthritis was incidental to their HFE genotype. This implies that screening for HFE mutations among patients with inflammatory arthritis would infrequently identify patients whose arthritis might benefit from additional treatment.
Correlation between Bilirubin Glucuronidation and Estradiol-3-Gluronidation in the Presence of Model UDP-Glucuronosyltransferase 1A1 Substrates/Inhibitors

Inhibition of UDP-glucuronosyltransferase (UGT) 1A1-catalyzed bilirubin glucuronidation by drug compounds may potentially be of clinical concern. However, in drug discovery and development settings, bilirubin is less than an ideal in vitro probe for assessing the potential of a chemical entity to inhibit bilirubin glucuronidation. In part, this is due to the propensity of bilirubin to photodegrade and to the instability of its metabolites. To this end, the utility of estradiol-3-glucuronidation as a surrogate in vitro predictor for interactions with bilirubin was evaluated. The glucuronidation kinetics of bilirubin and estradiol were carefully characterized with recombinant UGT1A1 expressed in human embryonic kidney 293 cells. Consistent with previous reports, estradiol-3-glucuronidation displayed sigmoidal kinetics, whereas bilirubin glucuronidation exhibited typical hyperbolic kinetics. The two compounds also mutually inhibited the metabolism of the other. Sixteen UGT1A1 substrates/inhibitors were evaluated as effectors of each reaction. Fourteen compounds inhibited both bilirubin and estradiol glucuronidation. However, two compounds (ethinylestradiol and daidzein) exhibited mixed effects (concentration-dependent activation and inhibition) on estradiol-3-glucuronidation, whereas bilirubin glucuronidation was inhibited by both compounds. In addition, 7-ethyl-10-hydroxycamptothecin, a substrate of UGT1A1 (reported Km = 24 μM) seemed to be a weak inhibitor of bilirubin glucuronidation (IC50 = 356.4 μM) but a partial inhibitor of estradiol-3-glucuronidation. The IC50 values of the inhibitors against estradiol-3-glucuronidation were strongly correlated with IC50 values against bilirubin glucuronidation, resulting in an R2 value of 0.9604 (activator excluded) or 0.8287 (activator included). Thus, estradiol-3-glucuronidation can serve as a good surrogate for predicting inhibition of bilirubin glucuronidation with the caveat that occasionally compounds may demonstrate activation of estradiol-3-glucuronidation.
Sentence beginnings in Present-day English, Present-day Dutch and Old English

The main typological difference between Present-Day English on the one hand and Present-Day Dutch and Old English on the other is that the former is an SVO language and the latter two are both verb-second languages. Some synchronic studies of Dutch and English have connected this syntactic difference with differences these languages display in what is allowed as a subject and as a non-subject clause-initial constituent. The aim of the corpus-based pilot study presented in this paper is twofold: (i) to verify whether these differences are really due to the verb-second syntax by looking at a third language that is also verb-second: Old English; (ii) to establish how the differences in preferences are reflected in a corpus.
Massive Fibrin Formation with Consecutive Impairment of Fibrinolysis in Patients with Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest

Summary Hypoxia and ischaemia influence blood coagulation and fibrinolysis. This study has been made to determine whether human cardiopulmonary arrest causes fibrin formation and reduction of fibrinolysis. Serial levels of fibrinopeptide A (FPA), fibrinopeptide Bβ15-42 (FPBβ15-42), D-dimer, tissue plasminogen activator antigen concentration (t-PA antigen), t-PA activity, plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 antigen concentration (PAI-1 antigen), and PAI-1 activity were determined in 63 patients with out-of-hospital cardiopulmonary arrest. In the resuscitated patients, the markedly elevated FPA (194.8 ± 54.2 ng/ml) at the beginning of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) significantly decreased to 32.4 ± 9.1 ng/ml at 24 h after admission (p <0.01), however, this was still about 20 times that of the normal controls. FPBβ15-42 and D-dimer increased from the start of CPR to 60 min (189.3 ± 97.4 ng/ml; p <0.01 and 7726 ± 3556 ng/ml; p <0.001, respectively), and then decreased at 24 h after arrival at the Emergency Department (40.4 ±11.1 ng/ml and 5434 ± 1049 ng/ml, respectively). At 30 min after arrival, FPA and FPBβ15-42 significantly differed between the resuscitated patients and the patients who died (p <0.001 and P <0.05, respectively). Although t-PA antigen and t-PA activity was elevated at the time of arrival, 24 h thereafter, no t-PA activity was detected. At 24 h after admission, PAI-1 antigen and PAI-1 activity were significantly increased (472.2 ± 145.5 ng/ml; p <0.001 and 103.6 ± 36.1 IU/ml; p <0.001, respectively). In conclusion, during and after CPR in patients with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, massive fibrin generation with consecutive impairment of fibrinolysis were observed. These fibrin-mediated events may have some role in the derangement of vital organ function after cardiac arrest.
Variation in reaction norms: Statistical considerations and biological interpretation

Analysis of reaction norms, the functions by which the phenotype produced by a given genotype depends on the environment, is critical to studying many aspects of phenotypic evolution. Different techniques are available for quantifying different aspects of reaction norm variation. We examine what biological inferences can be drawn from some of the more readily applicable analyses for studying reaction norms. We adopt a strongly biologically motivated view, but draw on statistical theory to highlight strengths and drawbacks of different techniques. In particular, consideration of some formal statistical theory leads to revision of some recently, and forcefully, advocated opinions on reaction norm analysis. We clarify what simple analysis of the slope between mean phenotype in two environments can tell us about reaction norms, explore the conditions under which polynomial regression can provide robust inferences about reaction norm shape, and explore how different existing approaches may be used to draw inferences about variation in reaction norm shape. We show how mixed model‐based approaches can provide more robust inferences than more commonly used multistep statistical approaches, and derive new metrics of the relative importance of variation in reaction norm intercepts, slopes, and curvatures.
In vitro fertilization improves childhood growth and metabolism.

BACKGROUND There is limited information regarding the long-term outcome of children born after in vitro fertilization (IVF), although an increase in rare imprinted gene disorders such as Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome has been reported. METHODS We recruited healthy, prepubertal children born at term after singleton pregnancy. The children in the study group were conceived using IVF with fresh embryo transfer, whereas controls were naturally conceived. Anthropometric measurements, bone age, dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry, fasting serum glucose, insulin, lipid profile, IGF-I and -II, and IGF-binding proteins 1, 2, and 3 were performed. RESULTS There were 69 IVF children aged 5.9 +/- 0.2 yr and 71 control children aged 6.9 yr. IVF children were taller than controls when corrected for parents' heights (height sd score of 1.05 +/- 0.1 vs. 0.51 +/- 0.11, P = 0.001) with higher levels of serum IGF-II (850 +/- 24 vs. 773 +/- 24 microg/liter, P = 0.03), higher IGF-I to IGF-binding protein 3 ratio (P = 0.04), and a trend toward higher IGF-I (105 +/- 4 vs. 92 +/- 4 microg/liter, P = 0.06). IVF children had higher high-density lipoprotein (1.67 +/- 0.04 mmol/liter vs. 1.53 +/- 0.04 mmol/liter, P = 0.02), lower triglycerides (0.65 +/- 0.04 mmol/liter vs. 0.78 +/- 0.04 mmol/liter, P = 0.02), and a lower total to high-density lipoprotein cholesterol ratio (2.58 vs. 2.86, P = 0.01). There were no differences in body composition. CONCLUSIONS IVF children are taller with higher IGF-I and IGF-II levels and have a slightly more favorable lipid profile. We speculate that IVF results in epigenetic change through altered methylation of genes involved in growth and metabolism. IVF programs should consider long-term longitudinal follow-up of IVF offspring.
Distortion of secondaries in semi-detached binaries and the cataclysmic variable period minimum

Based on SPH simulations, we quantify the geometrical distortion eect due to tidal and rotational forces on polytropic secondaries in semi-detached binaries. The main eect is an expansion of the polytropic star, with an eect on the radius of5%{12%, depending on the polytropic index and the mass ratio. We apply such distortion eects to the secular evolution of secondaries in cataclysmic variable systems. We focus on systems below the 2{3 h period gap and that approach the minimum period. We nd a signicant increase of the predicted minimum period (4% if changes in the secondary's thermal relaxation are approximately taken into account). Though an improvement, the eect is not big enough to solve the mismatch between predicted and observed minimum period at 80 min.
Concept-to-text Generation via Discriminative Reranking

This paper proposes a data-driven method for concept-to-text generation, the task of automatically producing textual output from non-linguistic input. A key insight in our approach is to reduce the tasks of content selection ("what to say") and surface realization ("how to say") into a common parsing problem. We define a probabilistic context-free grammar that describes the structure of the input (a corpus of database records and text describing some of them) and represent it compactly as a weighted hypergraph. The hypergraph structure encodes exponentially many derivations, which we rerank discriminatively using local and global features. We propose a novel decoding algorithm for finding the best scoring derivation and generating in this setting. Experimental evaluation on the Atis domain shows that our model outperforms a competitive discriminative system both using BLEU and in a judgment elicitation study.