Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Health-Related Quality of Life (Hr-Qol) in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

Background: Quality of life is an important aspect in diabetes because poor quality of life leads to diminished self-care, which in turn leads to worsened glycemic control, increased risks for complications, and exacerbation of diabetes overwhelming in both the short run and the long run. Aims: The aim of our study is to examine the health-related quality of life of diabetic patients in rural India. Materials and Methods: This case-control study was done among type 2 diabetes mellitus patients attending Medicine Outpatient department of a 780-bedded rural medical college located in central India. We used the World Health Organization Quality of Life Questionnaire — short version (WHOQOL-BREF) to assess quality of life. Results: The HRQOL among diabetics and non-diabetic controls is comparable to each other with bad physical health, bad psychological health, deteriorating social relationships, and bad environmental conditions affecting the HRQOL of both the groups equally. The overall HRQOL of the total study population (cases and controls) was poor. Conclusion: The finding of this study will help in health promotion in rural medical practice in India. It would beckon the much awaited avenue of holistic care of a diabetic patient with equal importance to the mental wellbeing and quality of life, as compared to physical well being.
No benefits of hypothermia in patients treated with hemicraniectomy for large ischemic stroke

Background Space-occupying middle cerebral artery brain infarcts are associated with the development of brain edema, which may lead to cerebral herniation and death despite early hemicraniectomy. Aims To evaluate the benefit of therapeutic hypothermia in patients with space-occupying cerebral infarction treated with hemicraniectomy within 48 h of stroke onset. Methods Patients aged 18–60 years with space-occupying cerebral infarction treated with hemicraniectomy within 48 h and hypothermia (33–34°C) were selected from a single university hospital between 2001 and 2010 (n = 53). Patients treated with hemicraniectomy alone served as comparison group (n = 58), originating from three randomized controlled trials evaluating the effects of early decompressive surgery (DECIMAL, DESTINY, HAMLET). Primary outcome was the score on the modified Rankin scale at 12 months dichotomized between modified Rankin scale 0–3 and modified Rankin scale 4–6. Secondary outcome measures were modified Rankin scale score 0–4 and survival. Risk ratios were adjusted with Poisson regression. Results Mean patient age was 48 years. Median time from stroke onset to hemicraniectomy was 23.5 h in both treatment groups. Treatment with hypothermia had no effect on the primary outcome (modified Rankin scale 0–3 versus 4–6 (13/53 (25%) versus 24/58 (41%)); adjusted risk ratio 0.66, 95% confidence interval 0.38–1.13). Fewer patients treated with hypothermia had a modified Rankin scale score of 0–4 (21/53 (40%) versus 42/58 (72%); adjusted risk ratio 0.53, 95% confidence interval 0.37–0.76) and fewer patients survived (26/53 (49%) versus 46/58 (79%); adjusted risk ratio 0.60, 95% confidence interval 0.44–0.82). Conclusions In patients with space-occupying cerebral infarction, treatment with hypothermia had no additional benefit on functional outcome compared with treatment with hemicraniectomy alone.
Ionic events during the volume response of human peripheral blood lymphocytes to hypotonic media. II. Volume- and time-dependent activation and inactivation of ion transport pathways

Hypotonic dilution of human peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) induces large conductive permeabilities for K+ and Cl-, associated with the capacity of the cells to regulate their volumes. When rapid cation leakage is assured by the addition of the ionophore gramicidin, the behavior of the anion conductance pathway can be independently examined. Using this technique it is demonstrated that the volume- induced activation of Cl- transport is triggered at a threshold of approximately 1.15 X isotonic cell volume. If the volume of a cell is increased to this level or above, the Cl- transport system is activated, whereas if the volume of a swollen cell is decreased below the threshold value, the Cl- transport is inactivated. Activation and inactivation are independent of the relative volume changes and of the actual cellular Na+, K+, or Cl- concentrations, as well as of the changes in membrane potential in PBL. When net salt movement and thus volume change are inhibited by specific blockers of K+ transport (e.g., quinine, or Ca2+ depletion), volume-induced Cl- conductance shows a time-dependent inactivation, with a half-time of 5-8 min. The Cl- conductance, when activated, appears to involve an all-or-none response. In contrast, volume-induced K+ conductance is a graded response, with the increase in K+ flux being roughly proportional to the hypotonicity-induced increase in cell volume. The data indicate that during lymphocyte volume response in hypotonic media, anion conductance increases by orders of magnitude, exceeding the K+ conductance, so that the rate of the volume decrease (KCl efflux) is determined by a graded alteration in K+ conductance. When the cell volume approaches the isotonic value, it is stabilized by the inactivation of the anion conductance pathway.
Explaining recent declines in adolescent pregnancy in the United States: the contribution of abstinence and improved contraceptive use.

OBJECTIVES We explored the relative contributions of declining sexual activity and improved contraceptive use to the recent decline in adolescent pregnancy rates in the United States. METHODS We used data from 1995 and 2002 for women 15 to 19 years of age to develop 2 indexes: the contraceptive risk index, summarizing the overall effectiveness of contraceptive use among sexually active adolescents (including nonuse), and the overall pregnancy risk index, calculated according to the contraceptive risk index score and the percentage of individuals reporting sexual activity. RESULTS The contraceptive risk index declined 34% overall and 46% among adolescents aged 15 to 17 years. Improvements in contraceptive use included increases in the use of condoms, birth control pills, withdrawal, and multiple methods and a decline in nonuse. The overall pregnancy risk index declined 38%, with 86% of the decline attributable to improved contraceptive use. Among adolescents aged 15 to 17 years, 77% of the decline in pregnancy risk was attributable to improved contraceptive use. CONCLUSIONS The decline in US adolescent pregnancy rates appears to be following the patterns observed in other developed countries, where improved contraceptive use has been the primary determinant of declining rates.
Evaluation and Uncertainty Estimation of the Latest Radar and Satellite Snowfall Products Using SNOTEL Measurements over Mountainous Regions in Western United States

Snow contributes to regional and global water budgets, and is of critical importance to water resources management and our society. Along with advancement in remote sensing tools and techniques to retrieve snowfall, verification and refinement of these estimates need to be performed using ground-validation datasets. A comprehensive evaluation of the Multi-Radar/Multi-Sensor (MRMS) snowfall products and Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM (Global Precipitation Measurement) (IMERG) precipitation products is conducted using the Snow Telemetry (SNOTEL) daily precipitation and Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) datasets. Severe underestimations are found in both radar and satellite products. Comparisons are conducted as functions of air temperature, snowfall intensity, and radar beam height, in hopes of resolving the discrepancies between measurements by remote sensing and gauge, and finally developing better snowfall retrieval algorithms in the future.
Potential use of taurine against pterygium formation.

Dear Editor: Pterygium is a fibrovascular lesion involving the ocular surface and is characterized by proliferation, inflammatory infiltration, fibrosis, angiogenesis, and extracellular matrix breakdown (Fig. 1). The mechanism of pterygium formation remains incompletely understood. Ultraviolet radiation possibly induces ocular surface changes, and in particular, affects stem cells in the corneoscleral limbus. Such changes may be further exacerbated by other environmental factors, such as infection with human papillomavirus or oxidative stress. At the molecular level, alterations in the expression of tumor suppressor genes such as p53, induction of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP), and alterations in the expression of various growth factors are observed. Several treatment modalities, primarily including surgical interventions, for pterygium are available. Because bare sclera excision is associated with a high recurrence rate, pterygium excision is often combined with conjunctival autograft transplantation or mitomycin C therapy, b radiation therapy, or other adjunctive therapies to reduce the recurrence rates. At present, however, there is no consensus regarding the ideal treatment for patients with this disease. On the other hand, it was shown that transforming growth factor-b (TGF-b) was involved in the regulation of many physiologic and pathophysiologic processes. The presence of activated fibroblasts in pterygium tissue is possibly attributable to the actions of TGF-b, given the overexpression of this growth factor in pterygium tissue as compared to that in normal conjunctiva, as previously reported. This would be a good opportunity to introduce new modalities, especially dietary factors that alter the identified genes, and expression of inflammatory and growth factors effective on pterygium formation. Taurine, a sulphur-containing amino acid that has been found to be naturally present in seafood and meat, may play an important role in several essential biologic processes such as development of the central nervous system and retina, membrane stabilization, and immunity. However, data
Boosting Autofermentation Rates and Product Yields with Sodium Stress Cycling: Application to Production of Renewable Fuels by Cyanobacteria

ABSTRACT Sodium concentration cycling was examined as a new strategy for redistributing carbon storage products and increasing autofermentative product yields following photosynthetic carbon fixation in the cyanobacterium Arthrospira (Spirulina) maxima. The salt-tolerant hypercarbonate strain CS-328 was grown in a medium containing 0.24 to 1.24 M sodium, resulting in increased biosynthesis of soluble carbohydrates to up to 50% of the dry weight at 1.24 M sodium. Hypoionic stress during dark anaerobic metabolism (autofermentation) was induced by resuspending filaments in low-sodium (bi)carbonate buffer (0.21 M), which resulted in accelerated autofermentation rates. For cells grown in 1.24 M NaCl, the fermentative yields of acetate, ethanol, and formate increase substantially to 1.56, 0.75, and 1.54 mmol/(g [dry weight] of cells·day), respectively (36-, 121-, and 6-fold increases in rates relative to cells grown in 0.24 M NaCl). Catabolism of endogenous carbohydrate increased by approximately 2-fold upon hypoionic stress. For cultures grown at all salt concentrations, hydrogen was produced, but its yield did not correlate with increased catabolism of soluble carbohydrates. Instead, ethanol excretion becomes a preferred route for fermentative NADH reoxidation, together with intracellular accumulation of reduced products of acetyl coenzyme A (acetyl-CoA) formation when cells are hypoionically stressed. In the absence of hypoionic stress, hydrogen production is a major beneficial pathway for NAD+ regeneration without wasting carbon intermediates such as ethanol derived from acetyl-CoA. This switch presumably improves the overall cellular economy by retaining carbon within the cell until aerobic conditions return and the acetyl unit can be used for biosynthesis or oxidized via respiration for a much greater energy return.
Data-Driven Zero-Sum Neuro-Optimal Control for a Class of Continuous-Time Unknown Nonlinear Systems With Disturbance Using ADP

This paper is concerned with a new data-driven zero-sum neuro-optimal control problem for continuous-time unknown nonlinear systems with disturbance. According to the input-output data of the nonlinear system, an effective recurrent neural network is introduced to reconstruct the dynamics of the nonlinear system. Considering the system disturbance as a control input, a two-player zero-sum optimal control problem is established. Adaptive dynamic programming (ADP) is developed to obtain the optimal control under the worst case of the disturbance. Three single-layer neural networks, including one critic and two action networks, are employed to approximate the performance index function, the optimal control law, and the disturbance, respectively, for facilitating the implementation of the ADP method. Convergence properties of the ADP method are developed to show that the system state will converge to a finite neighborhood of the equilibrium. The weight matrices of the critic and the two action networks are also convergent to finite neighborhoods of their optimal ones. Finally, the simulation results will show the effectiveness of the developed data-driven ADP methods.
Manufacture of high bulk paper using alkali swollen kraft pulp

Abstract Effects of alkali swelling of kraft pulp fibers and the order of alkali swelling and beating treatments on paper bulk and paper strength were evaluated in terms of NaOH concentration in order to produce high bulk sheet (i. e., high porous and low density sheet). Effects of replacement of part of furnish with the alkali swollen pulp on paper properties were also investigated. It was found that alkali swelling of pulp fiber can increase the bulk of handsheet. NaOH concentration and beating treatment influenced paper bulk and paper strength. Alkali swollen pulp without beating showed the highest handsheet bulk. The paper bulk of alkali swollen pulp with pre-beating was higher than that with post-beating. Paper strength decreased with increasing the bulk of handsheet. In addition, replacement of part of furnish with alkali swollen pulps increased paper bulk, adversely decreasing paper strength. The highest improvement in paper bulk was achieved with the addition of alkali swollen SwBKP without beating.
Intracranial ependymomas of childhood: long-term outcome and prognostic factors.

A detailed outcome analysis was performed on 40 children with intracranial ependymomas treated at our institution between 1975 and 1993 to identify those factors that were predictive of overall and progression-free survival. Three patients (7.5%) who were treated in the first 5 years of the study died within 3 months of surgery and were excluded from further outcome assessments. Eight (22%) of the 37 patients who survived the perioperative period had evidence of leptomeningeal dissemination at presentation, on the basis of either imaging (three children) and/or cytological (six children) results. The 5- and 10-year progression-free survival rates among these 37 patients were 45.1 and 36.1%, respectively; overall survival rates were 57.1 and 45.0%, respectively. The site of progression was local in 17 of 19 patients with progressive disease. Three factors were found to have a significant association (P < or = 0.05) with the outcome on both univariate and multivariate analyses: 1) the extent of the resection, 2) the age of the patient at diagnosis, and 3) the duration of the symptoms before diagnosis. The 5-year progression-free and overall survivals were 8.9 and 22%, respectively, among patients who had evidence of residual disease on postoperative imaging studies, compared with 68 and 80% rates among patients with no apparent residual disease (P = 0.0001 and P < 0.0001, respectively). Patients younger than 3 years fared significantly worse than older children (5-year progression-free and overall survival rates of 12 and 22%, respectively, in the younger children versus 60 and 75% in older children (P = 0.003 and P = 0.01, respectively). In addition, patients with a duration of symptoms before diagnosis of < 1 month had a worse outcome than those with a more protracted course (5-year progression-free and overall survival rates of 33 and 33%, respectively, versus rates of 53 and 64%, respectively (P = 0.02 for both). Neither the finding of evidence for dissemination at presentation nor the detection of anaplastic histological features (e.g., dense cellularity or high numbers of mitoses) were associated with a significantly worse outcome in this series. The combination of variables that had the strongest association with both favorable and unfavorable outcomes was the combination of the age of the patient and the resection extent. Only 2 of 17 patients older than 3 years with gross total resections have died, whereas 13 of 20 children who were either younger than 3 years or had radiologically incomplete resections have died (P < 0.0001). (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
Polynomial Interpretations over the Natural, Rational and Real Numbers Revisited

Polynomial interpretations are a useful technique for proving termination of term rewrite systems. They come in various flavors: polynomial interpretations with real, rational and integer coefficients. As to their relationship with respect to termination proving power, Lucas managed to prove in 2006 that there are rewrite systems that can be shown polynomially terminating by polynomial interpretations with real (algebraic) coefficients, but cannot be shown polynomially terminating using polynomials with rational coefficients only. He also proved the corresponding statement regarding the use of rational coefficients versus integer coefficients. In this article we extend these results, thereby giving the full picture of the relationship between the aforementioned variants of polynomial interpretations. In particular, we show that polynomial interpretations with real or rational coefficients do not subsume polynomial interpretations with integer coefficients. Our results hold also for incremental termination proofs with polynomial interpretations.
Regression test selection for Java software

Regression testing is applied to modified software to provide confidence that the changed parts behave as intended and that the unchanged parts have not been adversely affected by the modifications. To reduce the cost of regression testing, test cases are selected from the test suite that was used to test the original version of the software---this process is called regression test selection. A safe regression-test-selection algorithm selects every test case in the test suite that may reveal a fault in the modified software. Safe regression-test-selection technique that, based on the use of a suitable representation, handles the features of the Java language. Unlike other safe regression test selection techniques, the presented technique also handles incomplete programs. The technique can thus be safely applied in the (very common) case of Java software that uses external libraries of components; the analysis of the external code is note required for the technique to select test cases for such software. The paper also describes RETEST, a regression-test-selection algorithm can be effective in reducing the size of the test suite.
Imbalanced Base Excision Repair in Response to Folate Deficiency Is Accelerated by Polymerase β Haploinsufficiency*

The mechanism by which folate deficiency influences carcinogenesis is not well established, but a phenotype of DNA strand breaks, mutations, and chromosomal instability suggests an inability to repair DNA damage. To elucidate the mechanism by which folate deficiency influences carcinogenicity, we have analyzed the effect of folate deficiency on base excision repair (BER), the pathway responsible for repairing uracil in DNA. We observe an up-regulation in initiation of BER in liver of the folate-deficient mice, as evidenced by an increase in uracil DNA glycosylase protein (30%, p < 0.01) and activity (31%, p < 0.05). However, no up-regulation in either BER or its rate-determining enzyme, DNA polymerase β (β-pol) is observed in response to folate deficiency. Accordingly, an accumulation of repair intermediates in the form of DNA single strand breaks (37% increase, p < 0.03) is observed. These data indicate that folate deficiency alters the balance and coordination of BER by stimulating initiation without subsequently stimulating the completion of repair, resulting in a functional BER deficiency. In directly establishing that the inability to induce β-pol and mount a BER response when folate is deficient is causative in the accumulation of toxic repair intermediates, β-pol-haploin-sufficient mice subjected to folate deficiency displayed additional increases in DNA single strand breaks (52% increase, p < 0.05) as well as accumulation in aldehydic DNA lesions (38% increase, p < 0.01). Since young β-polhaploinsufficient mice do not spontaneously exhibit increased levels of these repair intermediates, these data demonstrate that folate deficiency and β-pol haploinsufficiency interact to increase the accumulation of DNA damage. In addition to establishing a direct role for β-pol in the phenotype expressed by folate deficiency, these data are also consistent with the concept that repair of uracil and abasic sites is more efficient than repair of oxidized bases.
Five new Penicillium species in section Sclerotiora: a tribute to the Dutch Royal family

Current literature accepts 17 species in Penicillium section Sclerotiora. Several produce colonies in bright yellow to orange colours and have monoverticillate conidiophores, apart from P. herquei, P. malachiteum and P. nodositatum, which are biverticillate. The focus of this paper is to refine the concepts of the species currently accepted in the section and introduce five new species, named after the Dutch Royal family as P. vanoranjei, P. maximae, P. amaliae, P. alexiae and P. arianeae. Penicillium vanoranjei produces orange (Dutch = oranje) colonies in culture, and is named after Willem-Alexander Claus George Ferdinand, ‘Zijne Koninklijke Hoogheid de Prins van Oranje’ (translated from Dutch as: ‘His Royal Highness the Prince of Orange’) and his family, to coincide with his coronation. We review the current taxonomic positions of P. lilacinoechinulatum and P. nodositatum, both currently considered to be synonyms of P. bilaiae. Sequence data generated in this study show that both species are phylogenetically distinct. Penicillium lilacinoechinulatum is closely related to P. amaliae sp. nov., whereas P. nodositatum does not belong to Penicillium sensu stricto. All species were compared morphologically and phylogenetically, based on β-tubulin and calmodulin DNA data. A table summarising the morphological characters of all species is included, together with photomicrographs and recommended DNA markers for identification.