Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
CEM-101 Activity against Gram-Positive Organisms

ABSTRACT The in vitro activity of CEM-101, a new fluoroketolide, was determined against Gram-positive organisms with various macrolide susceptibility profiles. Experiments for determination of the MICs and minimum bactericidal concentrations (MBCs), timed killing, single-step and multistep mutation rates, the erythromycin induction of resistance, postantibiotic effect (PAE), and drug interactions were performed for CEM-101; and the results were compared to those obtained with telithromycin, macrolides, and lincosamides. The MBCs of CEM-101 remained lower overall than those of telithromycin, and CEM-101 displayed a 2-fold greater potency than the ketolide. Timed-killing curve testing showed that CEM-101 had greater bactericidal activity than telithromycin (a ≥3-log10-CFU/ml decrease in the initial inoculum at 24 h) against the staphylococcal isolates tested. The propensity of CEM-101 to cause resistance was low, as determined from the rates of resistance determined in single-step mutational studies (<10−8 or 10−9). In multipassaging studies, mutants of two strains (both of which were USA300 isolates) resistant to CEM-101 emerged. That number was comparable to the number resistant to clindamycin but less than the number resistant to telithromycin. Erythromycin induced CEM-101 resistance in Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus pneumoniae, similar to telithromycin; however, in seven of eight beta-hemolytic streptococci, CEM-101 resistance induction was not observed. CEM-101 showed a significant concentration- and exposure-dependent PAE against the strains tested, with the values ranging from 2.3 to 6.1 h for Gram-positive organisms (these times were longer than those for telithromycin). No antagonism was found in synergy analyses, with enhanced inhibition being most noted for combinations with CEM-101 and ceftriaxone, gentamicin, and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole. Overall, this new antimicrobial agent (CEM-101) showed good antimicrobial characteristics compared with those of the agents in its class and exhibited measured parameter values similar or superior to those of utilized comparators, indicating that CEM-101 warrants further clinical evaluation.
Wikipedia-Based Kernels for Text Categorization

In recent years several models have been proposed for text categorization. Within this, one of the widely applied models is the vector space model (VSM), where independence between indexing terms, usually words, is assumed. Since training corpora sizes are relatively small - compared to ap infin what would be required for a realistic number of words - the generalization power of the learning algorithms is low. It is assumed that a bigger text corpus can boost the representation and hence the learning process. Based on the work of Gabrilovich and Markovitch [6], we incorporate Wikipedia articles into the system to give word distributional representation for documents. The extension with this new corpus causes dimensionality increase, therefore clustering of features is needed. We use latent semantic analysis (LSA), kernel principal component analysis (KPCA) and kernel canonical correlation analysis (KCCA) and present results for these experiments on the Reuters corpus.
EFFICACY OF ESTRADIOL IN PERIMENOPAUSAL DEPRESSION: SO MUCH PROMISE AND SO FEW ANSWERS

Controversy regarding the antidepressant efficacy of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) stems almost from its inception and reflects the same methodological inconsistencies that have compromised efforts to determine whether the perimenopause is accompanied by an increase in mood symptoms or depression. Methodologic differences of note (other than study design) include menopausal state (perimenopause vs. postmenopause), determination of state (earlier studies used age as a proxy measure), baseline symptomatology (asymptomatic vs. depressive symptoms vs. syndromic depression), route of hormone administration (transdermal vs. oral), and symptom or syndrome measure. Zweifel and O'Brien's 1997 meta‐analysis included 26 studies of the effects of menopausal HRT on depressed mood and revealed an overall effect size of 0.68. This moderate to large effect size, showing lower ratings of depressed mood in treated patients compared with controls, implicated HRT as a potential treatment of or prophylactic for depression in menopausal women. Since this publication, multiple studies have aimed to discern the relationship between HRT and menopausal mood.
Implementation of a pharmacist-managed heart failure medication titration clinic.

PURPOSE The development, implementation, and initial results of a pharmacist-managed heart failure (HF) medication titration clinic are described. SUMMARY In a quality-improvement initiative at a Veterans Affairs health care system, clinical pharmacists were incorporated into the hospital system's interprofessional outpatient HF clinic. In addition, a separate pharmacist-managed HF medication titration clinic was established, in which pharmacists were granted an advanced scope of practice and prescribing privileges, enabling them to initiate and adjust medication dosages under specific protocols jointly established by cardiology and pharmacy staff. Pharmacists involved in the titration clinic tracked patients' daily body weight, vital signs, and volume status using telephone-monitoring technology and via patient interviews. A retrospective chart review comparing achievement of target doses of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor (ACEI), angiotensin-receptor blocker (ARB), and β-blocker therapies in a group of patients (n = 28) whose dosage titrations were carried out by nurses or physicians prior to implementation of the pharmacist-managed HF medication titration clinic and a group of patients (n = 27) enrolled in the medication titration clinic during its first six months of operation indicated that target ACEI and ARB doses were achieved in a significantly higher percentage of pharmacist-managed titration clinic enrollees (52.9% versus 31%, p = 0.007). Patients enrolled in the pharmacist-managed HF medication titration clinic also had a significantly higher rate of attainment of optimal β-blocker doses (49% versus 24.7%, p = 0.012). CONCLUSION Implementation of a pharmacist-managed HF medication titration clinic increased the percentage of patients achieving optimal ACEI, ARB, and β-blocker dosages.
Meiosis progression and donor age affect expression profile of DNA repair genes in bovine oocytes

Summary Several genetic and physiological factors increase the risk of DNA damage in mammalian oocytes. Two critical events are: (i) meiosis progression, from maturation to fertilization, due to extensive chromatin remodelling during genome decondensation; and (ii) aging, which is associated with a progressive oxidative stress. In this work, we studied the transcriptional patterns of three genes, RAD51, APEX-1 and MLH1, involved in DNA repair mechanisms. The analyses were performed by real-time quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) in immature and in vitro matured oocytes collected from 17 ± 3-month-old heifers and 94 ± 20-month-old cows. Batches of 30–50 oocytes for each group (three replicates) were collected from ovarian follicles of slaughtered animals. The oocytes were freed from cumulus cells at the time of follicle removal, or after in vitro maturation (IVM) carried out in M199 supplemented with 10% fetal calf serum, 10 IU luteinising hormone (LH)/ml, 0.1 IU follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH)/ml and 1 μg 17β-oestradiol/ml. Total RNA was extracted by Trizol method. The expression of bovine GAPDH gene was used as the internal standard, while primers for bovine RAD51, APEX-1 and MLH1 genes were designed from DNA sequences retrieved from GenBank. Results obtained indicate a clear up-regulation of RAD51, APEX-1 and MLH1 genes after IVM, ranging between two- and four-fold compared with germinal vesicle (GV) oocytes. However, only RAD51 showed a significant transcript increase between the immature oocytes collected from young or old individuals. This finding highlights RAD51 as a candidate gene marker for discriminating bovine immature oocytes in relation to the donor age.
High Frequency of Staphylococcus Saprophyticus Urinary Tract Infections Among Female Adolescents

Staphylococcus saprophyticus is a rarely reported agent of urinary tract infection (UTI) in the pediatric population. In our retrospective 3-year study, S. saprophyticus comprised 24.5% of 106 isolates of UTIs in female adolescents 12–15 years of age who attended an emergency department. Clinicians should be aware of the high prevalence of this etiology when empirically treating UTIs in female adolescents.
The prognostic value of cytology and fluorescence in situ hybridization in the follow‐up of nonmuscle‐invasive bladder cancer after intravesical Bacillus Calmette‐Guérin therapy

Molecular markers reliably predicting failure or success of Bacillus Calmette‐Guérin (BCG) in the treatment of nonmuscle‐invasive urothelial bladder cancer (NMIBC) are lacking. The aim of our study was to evaluate the value of cytology and chromosomal aberrations detected by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) in predicting failure to BCG therapy. Sixty‐eight patients with NMIBC were prospectively recruited. Bladder washings collected before and after BCG instillation were analyzed by conventional cytology and by multitarget FISH assay (UroVysion®, Abbott/Vysis, Des Plaines, IL) for aberrations of chromosomes 3, 7, 17 and 9p21. Persistent and recurrent bladder cancers were defined as positive events during follow‐up. Twenty‐six of 68 (38%) NMIBC failed to BCG. Both positive post‐BCG cytology and positive post‐BCG FISH were significantly associated with failure of BCG (hazard ratio (HR)= 5.1 and HR= 5.6, respectively; p < 0.001 each) when compared to those with negative results. In the subgroup of nondefinitive cytology (all except those with unequivocally positive cytology), FISH was superior to cytology as a marker of relapse (HR= 6.2 and 1.4, respectively). Cytology and FISH in post‐BCG bladder washings are highly interrelated and a positive result predicts failure to BCG therapy in patients with NMIBC equally well. FISH is most useful in the diagnostically less certain cytology categories but does not provide additional information in clearly malignant cytology. © 2009 UICC
Evaluating service delivery for speech and swallowing problems following paediatric brain injury: an international survey.

RATIONALE, AIMS AND OBJECTIVES Little is documented about contemporary management of speech and swallowing disorders associated with paediatric acquired brain injury (ABI). It is therefore challenging for clinicians in this field to benchmark their clinical management against current evidence or practices undertaken in other centres. To address this issue, we aimed to provide much-needed baseline data on speech and language pathology management of speech and swallowing disorders associated with childhood ABI. Key objectives were to: (i) determine whether clinicians use formalized referral criteria, clinical guidelines, protocols or care pathways; and (ii) to document the specific assessment and treatment approaches used. METHODS Speech and language pathology managers and clinicians at 31 major paediatric rehabilitation centres across Australia, New Zealand, the UK and Ireland were invited to participate in an online survey. RESULTS Fifty-one speech and language pathologists responded representing 26 centres (84% response rate). Routine referrals of ABI patients to speech and language pathology occurred relatively infrequently in these centres (12%). Centres utilized assessment protocols (23%) and guidelines (35%) more frequently than treatment guidelines (8%). Multidisciplinary care pathways were applied by 31%. Most centres used adult-based motor speech assessments and informal ('in-house developed') swallowing assessment tools. CONCLUSIONS The limited use of referral criteria, protocols, care pathways and guidelines invites the possibility of unequal care, and less than optimal outcomes. Reliance on adult-based or in-house assessments is inappropriate, yet frequently a necessity due to an absence of paediatric-specific tools in this field. Further research is required in parallel with the formation of consensus groups to support the development of: (i) paediatric-specific assessment tools and management approaches; and (ii) clinical protocols and guidelines.
Entangling Mechanical Motion with Microwave Fields

Optomechanically Entangled Quantum entanglement allows engineered quantum systems to exceed classical information processing bounds. Palomaki et al. (p. 710, published online 3 October; see the Perspective by Hammerer) extend this quantum resource into the domain of micromechanical oscillators by demonstrating entanglement between a microwave field and a mechanical oscillator. The mechanical part of the entangled state could then be transferred to a second microwave field. Quantum entanglement is demonstrated between a macroscopic mechanical oscillator and a microwave field. [Also see Perspective by Hammerer] When two physical systems share the quantum property of entanglement, measurements of one system appear to determine the state of the other. This peculiar property is used in optical, atomic, and electrical systems in an effort to exceed classical bounds when processing information. We extended the domain of this quantum resource by entangling the motion of a macroscopic mechanical oscillator with a propagating electrical signal and by storing one half of the entangled state in the mechanical oscillator. This result demonstrates an essential requirement for using compact and low-loss micromechanical oscillators in a quantum processor, can be extended to sense forces beyond the standard quantum limit, and may enable tests of quantum theory.
Obesity and Diabetes Mellitus

Backgrounds: Generally, a prevalence of obesity increasing constantly represents one of major health care and social problems. Many researchers indicate that obesity has a risk factor for type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), but some persons believe that obesity may occur T2DM. GLP-1 and GIP as incretin hormone are secreted in response to ingestion of nutrients. In the circulation, they are rapidly inactivated by dipeptidyl peptidase-4. We report interesting findings on secretion of incretin after test meal (TM) in Japanese patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1 DM) and T2DM associated with or without obesity. Materials and Methods: In Japan, â§ 25 kg/m2 in BMI are defined as obesity. After overnight fast, subjects were ingested of TM (550 kcal) comprised of 60% carbohydrate, 23% fat and 17% protein. Based on GLP-1, patients with T1DM (n=10) were treated with multiple daily injections of insulin (MDI) or CSII. Non-obese (n=23) and obese (n=24) patients with T2DM with micro- and macroangiopathy were treated with oral drugs for various disease. Based on GIP, patients with T1DM (n=15) and T2DM (n=29) were treated with MDI or CSII for T1DM and oral drugs for T2DM, respectively. Results: Basal and postprandial levels of plasma active GLP-1 (p-GLP-1) after TM in Japanese patient with T1DM and T2DM are similar to those with control, but basal and postprandial ratio of p-GLP-1/glucose are low compared with controls. AUCs of plasma GIP at early-phase were significant negatively and positively related to BMI in patients with T1DM and T2DM, respectively. Conclusions: Japanese patients with T2DM regards of obesity may have a low secretion of GLP-1, which may be due to genetic factors. However, there is no T2DM in obese persons without low secretion of GLP-1. Therefore, risk factors for DM are important to diagnose T2DM.
Risk of recurrence after discontinuation of antiepileptic drug therapy in children with epilepsy

Objectives: The numerous antiepileptic drug (AED) withdrawal studies published in the last 40 years have relied mainly on heterogeneous study groups. There is still no general agreement on the criteria to predict safe discontinuation. The goal of this study was to assess the outcome of AED withdrawal in epileptic children. Materials and Methods: Three hundred and eight children with epilepsy were enrolled, and these patients followed at least 1 year after drug withdrawal. Time to seizure relapse and predictive factors were analyzed by survival methods. Results: Among the 308 patients, 179 (58.1%) were boys and 129 (41.9%) were girls and the mean age at the seizure onset was 60.41 ± 36.54 months (2-144 months). The recurrence occurred in 73 (23.7%) patients. Mental retardation, history of febrile seizure, etiological of epilepsy, abnormal first electroencephalogram (EEG), abnormal neuroimaging findings, and total number of AED before remission were significantly associated with relapse risk according to univariate analysis. In the multivariate analysis, abnormal first EEG and number of AED before remission (polytherapy) were the risk factors influencing seizure recurrence. Conclusions: In our study, recurrence rate was 23.7% in children and most occurred during the 1st year. The potential risk factors of recurrence are history of febrile seizure, mental retardation, etiological of epilepsy, abnormal first EEG, abnormal neuroimaging findings, and total number of AED before remission. However, we found abnormal first EEG and polytherapy as risk factors of recurrence in multivariate analysis.
Fungal Invertase Expression in Solid-State Fermentation

Summary In this study invertase activity expression in Aspergillus niger Aa-20 was evaluated under different concentrations of two substrates using solid-state fermentation (SSF) on polyurethane foam. Glucose was used as repressor and sucrose was the inducer. Invertase production increased when glucose was present in the medium (up to 100 g/L); however, higher concentration than this reduced the enzyme production. Induction-repression ratio obtained using any glucose concentration was at least 2.5 times higher than that under basal conditions (without inducer).
Medicaid Reform in the 1990s

The 1990s saw considerable change in the Medicaid program. At the beginning of the decade, Medicaid was still primarily a program that provided health care coverage to persons receiving cash assistance under the Aid to Families with Disabled Children (AFDC) or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) programs, although expansions of eligibility for low income pregnant women and children had already begun shifting the focus of coverage away from cash recipients. Health care providers were reimbursed directly for services rendered, and little was offered in the way of care management. While fee-for-service (FFS) reimbursement remains important, by the end of the decade State Medicaid programs had taken on a new role as purchasers of managed health care and case management services. At the same time, many States relaxed eligibility standards for Medicaid, extending coverage to higher income pregnant women and children or, in some cases, to the general low income uninsured population. In these States, Medicaid reform was a component of a broader effort to increase access to health insurance generally, and to encourage the development of managed care. The States were not the only actors in the Medicaid reform arena. Congress enacted a number of reforms at the national level, including changes in the laws governing Medicaid payments to disproportionate share hospitals (DSH), welfare reform, repeal of the Boren Amendment and enactment of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). As we enter the first decade of the 21st Century, these various reform movements continue to develop, and their full implications are not yet clear. One thing that is certain, however, is that Medicaid reform has thrown into relief the program's broad reach and its relationships to multiple constituencies. It has also highlighted the administrative, logistical, and political challenges inherent in any attempt to reform a large public program such as Medicaid. This special issue of the Health Care Financing Review features eight articles that examine various aspects of Medicaid reform, their impact and possible future directions for the reform movement. Together they provide an overall view of the impact, successes, and challenges of Medicaid reform, and the prospects for the future.
Impact of school‐based dental program performance on the oral health‐related quality of life in children

OBJECTIVE To assess the association between the performance of school-based dental programs (SBDPs) and oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) in school children, in the province of Yogyakarta, Indonesia, taking into account untreated caries and sociodemographic factors. METHODS A cross-sectional survey was administered with 1906 children aged 12 and participating in SBDPs. Four SBDPs were chosen to represent good and poor performance in urban and rural areas. Caries was assessed using World Health Organization (WHO) criteria, whereas the children were interviewed for the OHRQoL and sociodemographic data. The OHRQoL was assessed using the Condition-Specific Child-Oral Impact on Daily Performances (CS Child-OIDP) index related to dental caries. RESULTS The mean CS Child-OIDP score was 1.63 (SD ± 3.20) for good performance SBDP and 6.89 (SD ± 8.85) for poor performance SBDP. Analysis by negative binomial regression showed that being served by a poorly performing SBDP (RR = 4.45, 95% CI = 3.87-5.13), and to some extent living in a rural area and being a girl, were significantly associated with a greater risk of having a lower quality of life than were the counterparts. Untreated caries did not show an association with OHRQoL. CONCLUSION There are substantial indications that SBDP performance is related to children's OHRQoL.
A multiple-factor decision analysis framework for manufacturing outsourcing

The competitiveness of the global market and availability of multiple outsourcing options have greatly increased the complexity of making 'good' outsourcing decisions. Improving the decision-making process when faced with a complex decision situation requires a systematic decision-making framework. We propose such a framework for making strategic manufacturing outsourcing decisions that benefits from prominent decision analysis tools. We envision a multiple factor outsourcing decision model and specifically advocate the use of: 1 value-focused thinking to identify the outsourcing objectives; 2 a combination of an influence diagram and a decision tree to model the decision situation; 3 the cumulative prospect theory as an alternative to traditional utility theory for modelling the risk behaviour of the decision maker; 4 the prospect stochastic dominance to establish pair-wise dominance between outsourcing choices. We have developed a procedure for dividing the outsourcing choices into dominated and non-dominated sets, and rank ordering the elements of non-dominated set to identify the best strategy.
Seroprevalence of Chagas Infection in the Donor Population

We retrospectively calculated the prevalence and epidemiologic characteristics of Chagas infection in the New York blood donor population over three years utilizing the New York Blood Center's database of the New York metropolitan area donor population. Seventy Trypanosoma cruzi positive donors were identified from among 876,614 donors over a 3-year period, giving an adjusted prevalence of 0.0083%, with 0.0080% in 2007, 0.0073% in 2008, and 0.0097% in 2009. When filtered only for self-described “Hispanic/Latino” donors, there were 52 Chagas positive donors in that 3-year period (among 105,122 self-described Hispanic donors) with an adjusted prevalence of 0.052%, with 0.055% in 2007, 0.047% in 2008, and 0.053% in 2009. In conclusion, we found a persistent population of patients with Chagas infection in the New York metropolitan area donor population. There was geographic localization of cases which aligned with Latin American immigration clusters.