Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
HLA-mismatched/haploidentical hematopoietic stem cell transplantation without in vitro T cell depletion for chronic myeloid leukemia: Improved outcomes in patients in accelerated phase and blast crisis phase

Background. Allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT) remains the only proven curative therapy for chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), but lack of human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-matched sibling or unrelated donors has restricted its application. Recently, we developed an effective method for haploidentical allo-HSCT achieving comparable outcomes to HLA-identical transplantation. Aim. To evaluate the outcomes of CML patients who underwent haploidentical allo-HSCT. Methods. Ninety-three patients were treated with a modified busulfan(BU)/cyclophosphamide (CY)2 regimen, including antithymocyte globulin followed by unmanipulated blood and marrow transplantation. Results. Our data showed that the cumulative incidence of acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) was 64.52%, and grade III–IV was 26.45%, 61.79% had chronic GVHD, and 28.93% had extensive chronic GVHD. Non-relapse mortality varied at 8.72% (100 days), 20.72% (1 year) and 20.72% (2 years). Probability of 1-year and 4-year leukemia-free survival was similar in chronic phase (CP) 1, CP2/CR2, accelerated phase, and blast crisis patients. Probability of 4-year overall survival varied as 76.5% (CP1), 85.7% (CP2/CR2), 73.3% (accelerated phase), and 61.5% (blast crisis). Multivariate analysis indicated that factors affecting transplantation outcomes were HLA-B+DR mismatches versus others for II–III acute GVHD and III–IV acute GVHD, the stage of disease at transplantation for relapse, and the time from diagnosis to transplantation for leukemia-free survival, overall survival, and transplantation-related mortality. In our protocol, survival of HSCT for advanced CML was similar to stable stage. Conclusions. For patients lacking an HLA-identical related donor, haploidentical relatives are alternative HSCT donors.
Molecular Epidemiology of Campylobacter jejuni Isolates from Wild-Bird Fecal Material in Children's Playgrounds

ABSTRACT In many countries relatively high notification rates of campylobacteriosis are observed in children under 5 years of age. Few studies have considered the role that environmental exposure plays in the epidemiology of these cases. Wild birds inhabit parks and playgrounds and are recognized carriers of Campylobacter, and young children are at greater risk of ingesting infective material due to their frequent hand-mouth contact. We investigated wild-bird fecal contamination in playgrounds in parks in a New Zealand city. A total of 192 samples of fresh and dried fecal material were cultured to determine the presence of Campylobacter spp. Campylobacter jejuni isolates were also characterized by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and multilocus sequence typing (MLST), and the profiles obtained were compared with those of human isolates. C. jejuni was isolated from 12.5% of the samples. MLST identified members of clonal complexes ST-45, ST-682, and ST-177; all of these complexes have been recovered from wild birds in Europe. PFGE of ST-45 isolates resulted in profiles indistinguishable from those of isolated obtained from human cases in New Zealand. Members of the ST-177 and ST-682 complexes have been found in starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) in the United Kingdom, and these birds were common in playgrounds investigated in New Zealand in this study. We suggest that feces from wild birds in playgrounds could contribute to the occurrence of campylobacteriosis in preschool children. Further, the C. jejuni isolates obtained in this study belonged to clonal complexes associated with wild-bird populations in the northern hemisphere and could have been introduced into New Zealand in imported wild garden birds in the 19th century.
A Phase II Study of ABT-751 in Patients with Advanced Non-small Cell Lung Cancer

Purpose: To determine the tolerability and efficacy of ABT-751, an oral antimitotic agent that inhibits polymerization of microtubules, in patients with advanced taxane-refractory non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC). Patients and Methods: Eligibility was limited to patients with recurrent or metastatic NSCLC who had received one to two cytotoxic chemotherapy regimens, had a performance status of zero to one, and adequate organ function. Treatment included ABT-751 200 mg daily for 21 consecutive days, followed by 7 days off drug. Objectives were to determine response rate, time to tumor progression, survival, and tolerability of ABT-751. Results: All 35 enrolled patients were assessable for survival, response, and tolerability. Median time to tumor progression and overall survival were 2.1 and 8.4 months, respectively. The objective response rate was 2.9%. One patient achieved a partial response that was ongoing 567 days after initial documentation. Treatment was well tolerated; fatigue, constipation, and dehydration were the only treatment related, grade three adverse events occurring in more than one patient. Incidence of grade 3/4 hematologic and blood chemistry toxicities was acceptable, and ABT-751 was not associated with myelosuppression. Conclusions: ABT-751 associated toxicity was acceptable. The median time to progression and overall survival as demonstrated for ABT-751 were comparable to other agents considered active in this patient population and to current treatments approved for second-line NSCLC. The novel antimitotic targeting of ABT-751 in combination with the compound’s acceptable nonmyelosuppressive toxicity profile and efficacy similar to agents currently in use in this setting, warrant further evaluation of this compound in combination with other cytotoxic agents in advanced NSCLC.
Performance Analysis of CGS, a k-Coverage Algorithm Based on One-Hop Neighboring Knowledge

Controlled greedy sleep (CGS) is a recent k-coverage algorithm based on one-hop neighboring knowledge. This paper presents the controlled greedy Sleep algorithm and highlights its best use cases thanks to performance analysis. Studies have been performed within a ring topology. This specific topology enables CGS validation and the design of an energetic model. They are used to compare CGS performance results with the maximal performances that could be expected. The ring topology allows us to determine analytically the minimum, maximum and relative values of our performances criteria which are: the quality, the cost and the duration of the k-coverage. According to the previous criteria we show in this paper that CGS is before anything designed to guarantee the maximum quality of coverage. We prove the CGS robustness when there are message losses. We show that CGS relative performances are improved when the overdosing and the communication cost increase. This is mostly because sensors just need to send at most three CGS messages per period and only need to know their one-hop neighbors.
Emotional memory for musical excerpts in young and older adults

The emotions evoked by music can enhance recognition of excerpts. It has been suggested that memory is better for high than for low arousing music (Eschrich et al., 2005; Samson et al., 2009), but it remains unclear whether positively (Eschrich et al., 2008) or negatively valenced music (Aubé et al., 2013; Vieillard and Gilet, 2013) may be better recognized. Moreover, we still know very little about the influence of age on emotional memory for music. To address these issues, we tested emotional memory for music in young and older adults using musical excerpts varying in terms of arousal and valence. Participants completed immediate and 24 h delayed recognition tests. We predicted highly arousing excerpts to be better recognized by both groups in immediate recognition. We hypothesized that arousal may compensate consolidation deficits in aging, thus showing more prominent benefit of high over low arousing stimuli in older than younger adults on delayed recognition. We also hypothesized worst retention of negative excerpts for the older group, resulting in a recognition benefit for positive over negative excerpts specific to older adults. Our results suggest that although older adults had worse recognition than young adults overall, effects of emotion on memory do not seem to be modified by aging. Results on immediate recognition suggest that recognition of low arousing excerpts can be affected by valence, with better memory for positive relative to negative low arousing music. However, 24 h delayed recognition results demonstrate effects of emotion on memory consolidation regardless of age, with a recognition benefit for high arousal and for negatively valenced music. The present study highlights the role of emotion on memory consolidation. Findings are examined in light of the literature on emotional memory for music and for other stimuli. We finally discuss the implication of the present results for potential music interventions in aging and dementia.
How Do Turkish-Dutch Bilingual Children Interpret Pronouns and Reflexives in Dutch?

This study compared the comprehension of Dutch reflexives (zichzelf 'SE-self') and pronouns (hem 'him') by Turkish-Dutch bilingual children (n=33) to the comprehension of English reflexives (himself) and pronouns (him) by Turkish-English bilingual children (n=39) documented by Marinis and Chondrogianni (2011). The children were administered a Picture Verification Task in which they had to judge whether the sentence matched the picture. Test sentences were of the type [NP says [NP V NP]], where the embedded subject could be a referential NP (the rabbit) or a QP (every rabbit), and the embedded object a pronoun or a reflexive. Differences were found in the QP antecedent conditions: the Turkish-Dutch bilingual children performed target-like on the reflexives but not on the pronouns; the Turkish-English bilingual children performed at chance on the reflexives but scored target-like on the pronouns. When these findings were compared to the Dutch monolingual and English monolingual children's results respectively, it was found that the bilingual children showed similar patterns to the monolingual children. Although language-specific properties of Dutch and English are likely to be at play, the possibility of cross-linguistic influence from Turkish is considered, too.
Safety of leflunomide plus infliximab combination therapy in rheumatoid arthritis.

OBJECTIVE To analyse the safety of leflunomide plus infliximab combination therapy, in adult rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients. PATIENTS A retrospective study of 17 adult patients with active RA (DAS 28 = 5.94 +/- 0.88 at baseline) who were treated with a combination of leflunomide plus infliximab after failure of treatment with other DMARDs. 13 patients were treated for a minimum of 3 months with leflunomide without toxicity before beginning infliximab. Treatment was begun simultaneously with both drugs in 4 patients. Side effects (clinical and biological) and efficacy (DAS 28) were evaluated at each infliximab infusion (3 mg/kg at week 0, 2, 6 and then every 8 weeks). RESULTS Thirteen patients experienced 20 types of side effects and 8 of them stopped the combination therapy. The causes of discontinuation were congestive heart failure (1 case), hypertension with thoracic pain (2 cases), eczematous skin patches (2 cases) and neutropenia (3 cases). No death was registered. Nine RA patients continuted the therapy with a median follow-up of 22 weeks. Only 4 of them experienced no side effects. Eight patients were positive for antinuclear antibodies (ANA) and 1 for double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) antibodies at study entry. After treatment, 13 and 5 patients tested positive respectively for ANAs and dsDNA antibodies. There was no relationship between discontinuation and ANA/dsDNA positivity. CONCLUSION In this cohort, adverse events were not very different from those seen in patients on either treatment alone and the combination of leflunomide plus infliximab did not appear to be as badly tolerated as described in a previous study.
DUYGUSAL ÖZ-YETERLİK ÖLÇEĞİNİN TÜRKÇEYE UYARLANARAK TEK VE DÖRT FAKTÖRLÜ YAPISININ PSİKOMETRİK ÖZELLİKLERİNİN İNCELENMESİ

Bu arastirmanin amaci Kirk, Shutte ve Hine (2008) tarafindan gelistirilen Duygusal Oz-Yeterlik Olceginin Turkceye uyarlama calismalarinin yapilarak olcegin psikometrik ozelliklerinin incelenmesidir. Olcek ozgun halinde tek boyutta 32 maddeden olusan besli Likert tipi bir olcme aracidir. Arastirmanin katilimcilarini Dokuz Eylul Universitesi, Buca Egitim Fakultesinde egitim alan 411 universite ogrenci olusturmustur (%56,20’si kadin, n= 231; %43,80’si erkek n= 180). Ceviri islemleri sonrasinda dil gecerligi yapilan olcegin hedef formu ve ozgun formu arasinda onemli iliskilerin varligi belirlenmistir. Yapi gecerligi calismasinda Betimleyici ve Dogrulayici Faktor Analizleriyle olcegin ozgun formunu koruduguna ulasilmistir. Ayrica olcegin kuramsal olarak ortaya konan dort boyutlu yapiya da Duygulari Algilama, Duygulari Dusunceyi Destekleyici Olarak Kullanma, Duygulari Anlama ve Duygulari Duzenleme olarak sahip oldugu anlasilmistir. Ic tutarlilik ve test tekrar test guvenirligi calismalari sonucunda olcegin kararli bir olcme araci olduguna ulasilmistir. Ayirt edici gecerlilik calismasinda Duygulari Duzenleme, Duygulari Dusunceyi Destekleyici Olarak Kullanma ve Duygusal Oz-Yeterlikte arastirma katilimcilarinin ortalamalarinin onlarin cinsiyetlerine gore onemli farkliliklar gostermedigi anlasilmakla birlikte kadinlarin Duygulari Anlama ve Duygulari Algilama duzeylerinin erkeklere gore onemli duzeyde daha yuksek oldugu belirlenmistir.
ExoS Rho GTPase-activating Protein Activity Stimulates Reorganization of the Actin Cytoskeleton through Rho GTPase Guanine Nucleotide Disassociation Inhibitor*

ExoS is a bifunctional Type III cytotoxin of Pseudomonas aeruginosa with N-terminal Rho GTPase-activating protein (RhoGAP) and C-terminal ADP-ribosyltransferase domains. Although the ExoS RhoGAP inactivates Cdc42, Rac, and RhoA in vivo, the relationship between ExoS RhoGAP and the eukaryotic regulators of Rho GTPases is not clear. The present study investigated the roles of Rho GTPase guanine nucleotide disassociation inhibitor (RhoGDI) in the reorganization of actin cytoskeleton mediated by ExoS RhoGAP. A green fluorescent protein-RhoGDI fusion protein was engineered and found to elicit actin reorganization through the inactivation of Rho GTPases. Green fluorescent protein-RhoGDI and ExoS RhoGAP cooperatively stimulated actin reorganization and translocation of Cdc42 from membrane to cytosol, and a RhoGDI mutant, RhoGDI(I177D), that is defective in extracting Rho GTPases off the membrane inhibited the actions of RhoGDI and ExoS RhoGAP on the translocation of Cdc42 from membrane to cytosol. A human RhoGDI small interfering RNA was transfected into HeLa cells to knock down 90% of the endogenous RhoGDI expression. HeLa cells with knockdown RhoGDI were resistant to the reorganization of the actin cytoskeleton elicited by type III-delivered ExoS RhoGAP. This indicates that ExoS RhoGAP and RhoGDI function in series to inactivate Rho GTPases, in which RhoGDI extracting GDP-bound Rho GTPases off the membrane and sequestering them in cytosol is the rate-limiting step in Rho GTPase inactivation. A eukaryotic GTPase-activating protein, p50RhoGAP, showed a similar cooperativity with RhoGDI on actin reorganization, suggesting that ExoS RhoGAP functions as a molecular mimic of eukaryotic RhoGAPs to inactivate Rho GTPases through RhoGDI.
Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Science and Technology 1086 Melanization and Hemocyte Homeostasis in the Freshwater Crayfish , Pacifastacus leniusculus

Noonin, C. 2013. Melanization and Hemocyte Homeostasis in the Freshwater Crayfish, Pacifastacus leniusculus. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Science and Technology 1086. 48 pp. Uppsala. ISBN 978-91-554-8774-4. Blood cells or hemocytes play important roles in immunity. They are a major source of many immune-related molecules such as antibodies in adaptive immunity of vertebrates and prophenoloxidase (proPO) in invertebrates. In the crayfish Pacifastacus leniusculus, the proPO-system has been reported to be an important component of immune responses against microorganisms. In this study, several mutant strains of Aeromonas hydrophila were used to reveal that LPS (lipopolysaccharide) is an important factor for the pathogenicity of A. hydrophila, strongly inducing the proPO system and melanization. This proPO activating system is a multistep process, which has to be tightly controlled to avoid the harmful side effects of toxic intermediates. Many regulating factors have been reported to fine-tune the proPO-system. In this study, the cleavage of caspase-1-like activity was shown to be a novel negative regulator of PO activity in crayfish. Moreover, the fragments obtained by cleavage of proPO by the proPOactivating enzyme and caspase-1-like protein increased bacterial clearance. Thus, the peptides generated also have important biological functions. In addition to being a source of immune proteins, hemocytes also participate in phagocytosis, encapsulation, and nodulation. An infection normally causes a reduction of hemocyte numbers. Consequently, hemocyte homeostasis is important for maintaining appropriate hemocyte numbers in the circulation of the animal. This study shows that the reactive oxygen species level in the anterior proliferation center of crayfish hematopoietic tissue (HPT), together with cell proliferation, was increased during infection. Pl-β-thymosins were proposed to be involved in hemocyte homeostasis by increasing stem cell migration and thus increasing the circulating hemocyte number. Crayfish hemocyte numbers, as well astakine (Ast1 and Ast2) expression in hemocytes and HPT, were previously shown to be under circadian regulation. Here, we show that Ast1, Ast2, and proPO exhibit rhythmic expression in the crayfish brain similarly to their orthologs, prokineticin 1, prokineticin 2 and tyrosinase, respectively, in the zebrafish brain. Tyrosinase expression was detected in zebrafish brain cells while PO-positive cells were identified as hemocytes that had infiltrated into the crayfish brain. Therefore, this information suggests a close relationship between crayfish hemocytes and the crayfish brain as well as vertebrate neurons.
A MultiPhase Field Concept: Numerical Simulations of Moving Phase Boundaries and Multiple Junctions

We present numerical simulations which support the formal asymptotic analysis relating a multiorder parameter Allen--Cahn system to a multiphase interface problem with curvature-dependent evolution of the interfaces and angle conditions at triple junctions. Within the gradient energy of the Allen--Cahn system, the normal to an interface between phases i and j is modeled by the irreducible representations $(u_i\nabla u_j - u_j\nabla u_i)/{|u_i\nabla u_j - u_j\nabla u_i|}$, where ui and uj are the ith and jth components of the vectorial order parameter $\bu\in \rz^N$. In the vectorial case, the dependence of the limiting surface tensions and mobilities on the bulk potentials of the Allen--Cahn system is not given explicitly but in terms of all the N components of the planar stationary wave solutions. One of the issues of this paper is to find bulk potentials which allow a rather easy access to the resulting surface tensions and mobilities. We compare numerical computations for planar and circular phase bound.
Pyroelectric properties and orthorhombic to rhombohedral electric field induced phase transition in relaxor-ferroelectric single crystals

The pyroelectric coefficients of 0.72Pb(Mg/sub 1/3/Nb/sub 2/3/)O/sub 3/-0.28PbTiO/sub 3/ (PMN-28PT), 0.67Pb(Mg/sub 1/3/Nb/sub 2/3/)O/sub 3/-0.33PbTiO/sub 3/ (PMN-33PT) and 0.92Pb(Zn/sub 1/3/Nb/sub 2/3/)O/sub 3/-0.08PbTiO/sub 3/ (PZN-8PT) single crystals, oriented and poled along the [001]/sub c/, [101]/sub c/ and [111]/sub c/ directions (C: pseudocubic) have been measured using a dynamic method. In otherwise pseudoorthorhombic samples of PZN-8PT, a room temperature rhombohedral phase can be stabilized by poling along the [111]/sub c/ direction at sub zero temperatures. By strain measurement and in situ polarized light microscopy, the corresponding orthorhombic to rhombohedral electric-field induced phase transition has been observed in [111]c-oriented PZN-SPT upon application of a unipolar field. This last result reiterates the universality of the electric field induced phase transition in ferroelectric materials, especially in such crystals near the morphotropic phase boundary where phases are nearly degenerate.
Contributions of the left and right hemisphere in language : investigating the effects of unilateral brain damage (stroke) on metaphor processing

It is widely accepted that the left hemisphere of the brain is specialised and dominant for language comprehension and production and that those with left hemisphere damage often display profound language disruption (Geschwind, 1965). The importance of the left hemisphere is shown by communication problems or extreme difficulty in producing speech following damage to this brain region. In contrast, following right hemisphere damage, disruption to language is less perceptible to the casual observer. The evidence base currently available acknowledges a critical role for the right hemisphere in processing inferred or implied information by maintaining relevant facts and/or suppressing irrelevant ones but the exact role of the right hemisphere and its coordination with the left is open for debate (Johns, Tooley and Traxler, 2008). Two theories have been proposed to explain communication/language difficulties in individuals with right hemisphere damage: (i) the “coarse semantic coding” hypothesis and (ii) the “suppression deficit” hypothesis. The “coarse semantic coding” hypothesis proposes that damage to the right hemisphere causes an over reliance on fine coding assumed to be undertaken by the left hemisphere in the comprehension of language, implying the recall of most literal interpretations. The “suppression deficit” hypothesis proposes that damage in the right hemisphere means multiple activations of meanings of words are not attenuated leading to ineffective suppression of inappropriate interpretations. This project investigated competing evidence for each of these hypotheses by studying the processing abilities of individuals with depressed unilateral brain function caused by stroke or innovatively produced by transcranial DC stimulation (tDCS), on semantic judgement tasks using metaphorical language. The results demonstrated the strongest of evidence for the coarse semantic coding hypothesis when the data from participants with damage to the right hemisphere, both caused by stroke and simulated by tDCS was considered. Overall, the study has furthered the understanding of the role of the right hemisphere in language comprehension and demonstrated the contribution of the tDCS methodology in the field.