Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Metallothionein immunoexpression in oral leukoplakia.

OBJECTIVES to report the immunoexpression of metallothionein in oral leukoplakia and to correlate with histological grade and clinical localization. Leukoplakia is the most common potentially malignant lesion of the oral cavity. As the histological study of oral leukoplakia can not predict precisely the malignant transformation of this lesion, and metallothionein is a protein that has been associated with carcinogenesis, this study could be auxiliary in this histological assessment of this lesion. STUDY DESIGN samples of oral leukoplakia (35 cases) and of normal oral mucosa (10 cases) were evaluated. Oral leukoplakia was graded in: hyperkeratosis without dysplasic change (9 cases), mild dysplasia (8 cases), moderated dysplasia (10 cases), and severe dysplasia (8 cases). Immunohistochemistry for the metallothionein was performed and the Mann-Whitney test was used in statistical analysis. RESULTS metallothionein was identified in squamous cells of the all samples. The metallothionein stain in all cases exhibit a mosaic pattern and was predominantly in compartments cytoplasmatic and nuclear simultaneously. The total stain was significantly higher in moderate dysplasia when compared with normal oral mucosa, hyperkeratosis, and mild dysplasia. CONCLUSION it was suggested that the metallothionein may be a marker to moderate dysplasia and may play a role in oral carcinogenesis.
Properties of wood flour/expanded polystyrene waste composites modified with diammonium phosphate flame retardant

The objective of the study was to evaluate properties of waste plastic composite samples manufactured from expanded polystyrene waste (EPS) and sawdust containing diammonium phosphate (DAP) as flame retardant. Thermal degradation along with dimension stability and mechanical characteristics of the specimens as a function of DAP content were determined. The wood fiber/EPS composite modified with DAP content up to 20 wt% resulted in the best linear burning rate. The rate of thermal degradation of samples also substantially decreased while limiting oxygen index and char residual increased. Overall dimension stability in the form of water absorption and thickness swelling along with flexural characteristics of the samples were found comparable to those of commercial wood plastic composites. The wood fiber/EPS containing DAP showed high potential for use as wood composite products with adequate fire resistance. POLYM. COMPOS. , 36:604–612, 2015. © 2014 Society of Plastics Engineers
Neurotoxicity of Lidocaine Involves Specific Activation of the p38 Mitogen-activated Protein Kinase, but Not Extracellular Signal–regulated or c-jun N-Terminal Kinases, and Is Mediated by Arachidonic Acid Metabolites

Background:Pharmacologic inhibition of the p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) leads to a reduction in lidocaine neurotoxicity in vitro and in vivo. The current study investigated in vitro the hypotheses that lidocaine neurotoxicity is specific for dorsal root ganglion cells of different size or phenotype, involves time-dependent and specific activation of the p38 MAPK, that p38 MAPK inhibitors are only effective if applied with local anesthetic, and that p38 MAPK activation triggers activation of lipoxygenase pathways. Methods:The authors used primary sensory neuron cultures and pheochromocytoma cell line cultures to detect time-dependent activation of the p38 MAPK or related pathways such as extracellular signal–regulated kinases and c-jun N-terminal kinases. Cells were divided by size or by immunoreactivity for calcitonin gene–related peptide or isolectin B4, indicative of nociceptive phenotype. The authors also investigated whether arachidonic acid pathways represent a downstream effector of the p38 MAPK in local anesthetic–induced neurotoxicity. Results:All types of dorsal root ganglion cells were subject to neurotoxic effects of lidocaine, which were mediated by specific activation of the p38 MAPK but not extracellular signal–regulated kinases or c-jun N-terminal kinases. Neuroprotective efficacy of p38 MAPK inhibitors declined significantly when administered more than 1 h after lidocaine exposure. Activation of p38 MAPK preceded activation of arachidonic acid pathways. Neurotoxicity of lidocaine, specific activation of p38 MAPK, and neuroprotective effects of a p38 MAPK inhibitor were further confirmed in pheochromocytoma cell line cultures. Conclusions:Specific and time-dependent activation of the p38 MAPK is involved in lidocaine-induced neurotoxicity, most likely followed by activation of lipoxygenase pathways.
The development of the St Andrew's-Swansea Neurobehavioural Outcome Scale: Validity and reliability of a new measure of neurobehavioural disability and social handicap

Primary objective: Neurobehavioural disability (NBD) has a major impact on long-term psychosocial outcome following acquired brain injury (ABI). A recent review highlighted that a reliable and valid measure that can adequately capture the subtle and varied characteristics of NBD has yet to be developed. In this paper, the work underpinning the ‘St Andrews-Swansea Neurobehavioural Outcome Scale’ (SASNOS) is described using a conceptual framework underpinned by the WHO ICF. The intention is that SASNOS will provide a reliable and valid means of measuring NBD. Methods and procedures: Three hundred and thirty-six sets of ratings were made regarding ABI and neurologically healthy samples. The initial pool of 117 items was subjected to exploratory factor analysis and Rasch analysis. Reliability and validity of the new measure were determined using a range of appropriate statistical methods. Main outcomes: Forty-nine items were retained, falling into five principal factors. Content and construct validity are calculated. SASNOS has excellent discriminant/diagnostic validity. Inter-rater and test–re-test reliability are good. Conclusions: SASNOS has a range of clinical and research applications and can be employed when measuring outcome. This new measure will enable neurorehabilitation services to directly compare the clinical populations they serve using the same frame of reference for NBD.
Serum levels of myoglobin, creatine phosphokinase, and smooth muscle heavy-chain myosin in patients with ectopic pregnancy.

STUDY OBJECTIVE Serum markers of smooth muscle destruction have been shown to be elevated in ectopic pregnancy, but they remain of questionable clinical utility. Our goal was to determine the clinical utility of 3 markers of smooth muscle destruction: creatine phosphokinase (CPK), smooth muscle heavy-chain myosin (SMHC), and myoglobin. METHODS This was a prospective cohort study, with consecutive enrollment of all women in the first trimester of pregnancy who presented to our urban emergency department with complaints of lower abdominal pain, vaginal bleeding, or both. Patients were excluded from the study if there was a history of recent surgery or major trauma. Data analysis included receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, 95% confidence intervals (CIs), and a regression model. RESULTS A total of 378 patients were enrolled, with 61 patients diagnosed with an ectopic pregnancy, and 317 patients placed in the non-ectopic pregnancy group with other diagnoses. ROC curve analysis revealed an area under the curve of 0.56 (95% CI 0.51 to 0.61) for CPK, 0.63 (95% CI 0.59 to 0.68) for SMHC, and 0.58 (95% CI 0.53 to 0.63) for myoglobin. A regression model analyzing the effects of race, maternal age, estimated gestational age, and serum levels of human chorionic gonadotropin beta-subunit found no significant confounders. CONCLUSION Although there is a statistically significant elevation in the serum levels of SMHC, the range of values seen is too large to allow SMHC to be a useful screening tool.
Markets , Games , and Strategic Behavior : Recipes for Interactive Learning

This draft includes 9 new chapters on Extensive-Form Games, Monopoly/Cournot, Market Institutions and Power, Collusion, Lemons Markets, Asset Markets and Bubbles, Multi-Unit Auctions, Trust and Reciprocity, Voting (unfinished), and Common Pool Resources. A discussion of the Guessing Game has been added to Chapter 3. The more advanced chapters on Bayes’ Rule and Information Cascades have been moved to the final part on Information. The appendices contain many new sets of instructions for non-computerized classroom experiments.
Long-pulse Nd:YAG 1064-nm laser treatment for onychomycosis.

BACKGROUND Recent research shows that lasers can inhibit fungal growth and that Nd:YAG 1064-nm lasers can penetrate as deep as the lower nail plate. The aim of this study was to observe the effect of a long-pulse Nd:YAG 1064-nm laser on 154 nails of 33 patients with clinically and mycologically proven onychomycosis. METHODS Thirty-three patients with 154 nails affected by onychomycosis were randomly assigned to two groups, with the 154 nails divided into three sub-groups (II degree, III degree, and IV degree) according to the Scoring Clinical Index of Onychomycosis. The 15 patients (78 nails) in group 1 were given eight sessions with a one-week interval, and the 18 patients (76 nails) in group 2 were given four sessions with a one-week interval. RESULTS In group 1, the effective rates at 8 weeks, 16 weeks, and 24 weeks were 63%, 62%, and 51%, respectively, and the effective rates in group 2 were 68%, 67%, and 53% respectively. The treatment effect was not significantly different between any sub-group pair (P > 0.05). CONCLUSIONS Long pulse Nd:YAG 1064-nm laser was effective for onychomycosis. It is a simple and effective method without significant complications or side effects and is expected to become an alternative or replacement therapy for onychomycosis.
Série Scientifique Scientific Series No Unbiased Estimator of the Variance of K-fold Cross-validation No Unbiased Estimator of the Variance of K-fold Cross-validation

CIRANO Le CIRANO est un organisme sans but lucratif constitué en vertu de la Loi des compagnies du Québec. Le financement de son infrastructure et de ses activités de recherche provient des cotisations de ses organisations-membres, d'une subvention d'infrastructure du ministère de la Recherche, de la Science et de la Technologie, de même que des subventions et mandats obtenus par ses équipes de recherche. CIRANO is a private non-profit organization incorporated under the Québec Companies Act. Its infrastructure and research activities are funded through fees paid by member organizations, an infrastructure grant from the Ministère de la Recherche, de la Science et de la Technologie, and grants and research mandates obtained by its research teams. ASSOCIÉ AU :. Institut de Finance Mathématique de Montréal (IFM 2). Laboratoires universitaires Bell Canada. Réseau de calcul et de modélisation mathématique [RCM 2 ]. Réseau de centres d'excellence MITACS (Les mathématiques des technologies de l'information et des systèmes complexes) Les cahiers de la série scientifique (CS) visent à rendre accessibles des résultats de recherche effectuée au CIRANO afin de susciter échanges et commentaires. Ces cahiers sont écrits dans le style des publications scientifiques. Les idées et les opinions émises sont sous l'unique responsabilité des auteurs et ne représentent pas nécessairement les positions du CIRANO ou de ses partenaires. This paper presents research carried out at CIRANO and aims at encouraging discussion and comment. The observations and viewpoints expressed are the sole responsibility of the authors. They do not necessarily represent positions of CIRANO or its partners. Résumé / Abstract L'erreur de prédiction, donc la perte attendue sur des données futures, est la mesure standard pour la qualité des modèles d'apprentissage statistique. Quand la distribution des données est inconnue, cette erreur ne peut être calculée mais plusieurs méthodes de rééchantillonnage, comme la validation croisée, peuvent être utilisées pour obtenir un estimateur non-biaisé de l'erreur de prédiction. Cependant pour comparer des algorithmes d'apprentissage, il faut aussi estimer l'incertitude autour de cet estimateur d'erreur future, car cette incertitude peut être très grande. Cependant, les estimateurs ordinaires de variance d'une moyenne pour des échantillons indépendants ne peuvent être utilisés à cause du recoupement des ensembles d'apprentissage utilisés pour effectuer la validation croisée. Le résultat principal de cet article est qu'il n'existe pas d'estimateur non-biaisé universel (indépendant de la distribution) de la variance de la validation croisée, en se basant sur les mesures d'erreur faites durant la validation croisée. …
Cryopreserved Ex Vivo-Expanded Allogeneic Myeloid Progenitor Cell Product Protects Neutropenic Mice from a Lethal Fungal Infection

Severe neutropenia induced by chemotherapy or conditioning for hematopoietic cell transplantation often results in morbidity and mortality due to infection by opportunistic pathogens. A system has been developed to generate ex vivo-expanded mouse myeloid progenitor cells (mMPCs) that produce functional neutrophils in vivo upon transplantation in a pathogen challenge model. It has previously been demonstrated that transplantation of large numbers of freshly isolated myeloid progenitors from a single donor provides survival benefit in radiation-induced neutropenic mice. In the present work, an ex vivo-expanded and cryopreserved mMPC product generated from an allogeneic donor pool retains protective activity in vivo in a lethal fungal infection model. Infusion of the allogeneic pooled mMPC product is effective in preventing death from invasive Aspergillus fumigatus in neutropenic animals, and protection is dose dependent. Cell progeny from the mMPC product is detected in the bone marrow, spleen, blood, and liver by flow cytometry 1 week postinfusion but is no longer evident in most animals 4 weeks posttransplant. In this model, the ex vivo-generated pooled allogeneic mMPC product (i) expands and differentiates in vivo; (ii) is functional and prevents death from invasive fungal infection; and (iii) does not permanently engraft or cause allosensitization. These data suggest that an analogous ex vivo-expanded human myeloid progenitor cell product may be an effective off-the-shelf bridging therapy for the infectious complications that develop during hematopoietic recovery following hematopoietic cell transplantation or intensive chemotherapy.
The Univariate Closure Conditions of All Fully Parallel Planar Robots Derived From a Single Polynomial

The real roots of the univariate polynomial closure condition of a planar parallel robot determine the solutions of its forward kinematics. This paper shows how the univariate polynomials of all fully parallel planar robots can be derived directly from that of the widely known 3-RPR robot by simply formulating these polynomials in terms of distances and oriented areas. This is a relevant result because it avoids the case-by-case treatment that requires different sets of variable eliminations to obtain the univariate polynomial of each fully parallel planar robot.
Doctor, Can You See My Squats?: Understanding Bodily Communication in Video Consultations for Physiotherapy

This paper investigates the challenges of bodily communication during video-based clinical consultations. While previous works describe the lack of eye contact and gestures over video, it is unclear how these limitations impact the course of a clinical consultation, particularly in a domain like physiotherapy where the focus is on improving body movements and functioning. To contribute to this understanding, we conducted observations of 10 naturally occurring video and face-to-face consultations for physiotherapy. We found that clinicians rely on a variety of incidental bodily cues and fine-details of body movements to assess and examine the patient. These bodily cues were noticeable during face-to-face consultations; however, a variety of bodily cues got missed over video. Consequently, video consultations became conversational where the clinicians used verbal conduct to get a fair understanding of the patient's health. To guide design of future video consultation systems, we reflect on our understanding as 4 design sensitivities: Visual Acuity, Field-of-view, Clinical Asymmetries, and Time Sequence.
Amoxicillin Is Effective against Penicillin-Resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae Strains in a Mouse Pneumonia Model Simulating Human Pharmacokinetics

ABSTRACT High-dose oral amoxicillin (3 g/day) is the recommended empirical outpatient treatment of community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) in many European guidelines. To investigate the clinical efficacy of this treatment in CAP caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae strains with MICs of amoxicillin ≥2 μg/ml, we used a lethal bacteremic pneumonia model in leukopenic female Swiss mice with induced renal failure to replicate amoxicillin kinetics in humans given 1 g/8 h orally. Amoxicillin (15 mg/kg of body weight/8 h subcutaneously) was given for 3 days. We used four S. pneumoniae strains with differing amoxicillin susceptibility and tolerance profiles. Rapid bacterial killing occurred with an amoxicillin-susceptible nontolerant strain: after 4 h, blood cultures were negative and lung homogenate counts under the 2 log10 CFU/ml detection threshold (6.5 log10 CFU/ml in controls, P < 0.01). With an amoxicillin-intermediate nontolerant strain, significant pulmonary bacterial clearance was observed after 24 h (4.3 versus 7.9 log10 CFU/ml, P < 0.01), and counts were undetectable 12 h after treatment completion. With an amoxicillin-intermediate tolerant strain, 24-h bacterial clearance was similar (5.4 versus 8.3 log10 CFU/ml, P < 0.05), but 12 h after treatment completion, lung homogenates contained 3.3 log10 CFU/ml. Similar results were obtained with an amoxicillin-resistant and -tolerant strain. Day 10 survival rates were usually similar across strains. Amoxicillin with pharmacokinetics simulating 1 g/8 h orally in humans is bactericidal in mice with pneumonia due to S. pneumoniae for which MICs were 2 to 4 μg/ml. The killing rate depends not only on resistance but also on tolerance of the S. pneumoniae strains.
TeV blazar variability: the firehose instability?

Recently observed minute-time-scale variability of blazar emission at TeV energies has imposed severe constraints on jet models and TeV emission mechanisms. We focus on a robust jet instability to explain this variability. As a consequence of the bulk outflow of the jet plasma, the pressure is likely to be anisotropic, with the parallel pressure P|| in the forward jet direction exceeding the perpendicular pressure P⊥. Under these circumstances, the jet is susceptible to the firehose instability, which can cause disruptions in the large-scale jet structure and result in variability of the observed radiation. For a realistic range of parameters, we find that the growth time-scale of the firehose instability is ≈ a few minutes, in good agreement with the observed TeV variability time-scales for Mrk 501 and PKS 2155−304.
Implementation Issues in an Innovative Rural Substance Misuser Treatment Program

This article is essentially the story of the development, implementation, and testing of a treatment protocol designed specifically for rural individuals who are substance misusers. Although the treatment protocol that emerged from this process seemed to be valuable for clients, the researchers were not able to establish with statistical significance that it was better than conventional treatment. In some ways, this was a failure. This article explores some of the possible reasons why new treatment approaches, tested in real clinical situations, may have difficulty establishing their effectiveness. The factors involved are many and complex.
Infant Cardiac CT Angiography with 64-Slice and 256-Slice CT: Comparison of Radiation Dose and Image Quality Using a Pediatric Phantom

Background The aims of this study were to investigate the image quality and radiation exposure of pediatric protocols for cardiac CT angiography (CTA) in infants under one year of age. Methodology/Principal Findings Cardiac CTA examinations were performed using an anthropomorphic phantom representing a 1-year-old child scanned with non-electrocardiogram-gated (NG), retrospectively electrocardiogram-gated helical (RGH) and prospectively electrocardiogram-gated axial (PGA) techniques in 64-slice and 256-slice CT scanners. The thermoluminescent dosimeters (TLD) were used for direct organ dose measurement, while dose-length product and effective mAs were also used to estimate the patient dose. For image quality, noise and signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) were assessed based on regions-of-interest drawn on the reconstructed CT images, and were compared with the proposed cardiac image quantum index (CIQI). Estimated dose results were in accordant to the measured doses. The NG scan showed the best image quality in terms of noise and SNR. The PGA scan had better image quality than the RGH scan with 83.70% dose reduction. Noise and SNR were also corresponded to the proposed CIQI. Conclusions/Significance The PGA scan protocol was a good choice in balancing radiation exposure and image quality for infant cardiac CTA. We also suggested that the effective mAs and the CIQI were suitable in assessing the tradeoffs between radiation dose and image quality for cardiac CTA in infants. These results are useful for future implementation of dose reduction strategies in pediatric cardiac CTA protocols.