Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Decision-making in burst fractures of the thoracolumbar and lumbar spine

The most common site of injury to the spine is the thoracolumbar junction which is the mechanical transition junction between the rigid thoracic and the more flexible lumbar spine. The lumbar spine is another site which is more prone to injury. Absence of stabilizing articulations with the ribs, lordotic posture and more sagitally oriented facet joints are the most obvious explanations. Burst fractures of the spine account for 14% of all spinal injuries. Though common, thoracolumbar and lumbar burst fractures present a number of important treatment challenges. There has been substantial controversy related to the indications for nonoperative or operative management of these fractures. Disagreement also exists regarding the choice of the surgical approach. A large number of thoracolumbar and lumbar fractures can be treated conservatively while some fractures require surgery. Selecting an appropriate surgical option requires an in-depth understanding of the different methods of decompression, stabilization and/or fusion. Anterior surgery has the advantage of the greatest degree of canal decompression and offers the benefit of limiting the number of motion segments fused. These advantages come at the added cost of increased time for the surgery and the related morbidity of the surgical approach. Posterior surgery enjoys the advantage of being more familiar to the operating surgeons and can be an effective approach. However, the limitations of this approach include inadequate decompression, recurrence of the deformity and implant failure. Though many of the principles are the same, the treatment of low lumbar burst fractures requires some additional consideration due to the difficulty of approaching this region anteriorly. Avoiding complications of these surgeries are another important aspect and can be achieved by following an algorithmic approach to patient assessment, proper radiological examination and precision in decision-making regarding management. A detailed understanding of the mechanism of injury and their unique biomechanical propensities following various forms of treatment can help the spinal surgeon manage such patients effectively and prevent devastating complications.
Phase transition in the controllability of temporal networks

The control of complex systems is an ongoing challenge of complexity research. Recent advances using concepts of structural control deduce a wide range of control related properties from the network representation of complex systems. Here, we examine the controllability of complex systems for which the timescale of the dynamics we control and the timescale of changes in the network are comparable. We provide both analytical and computational tools to study controllability based on temporal network characteristics. We apply these results to investigate the controllable subnetwork using a single input, present analytical results for a generic class of temporal network models, and preform measurements using data collected from a real system. Depending upon the density of the interactions compared to the timescale of the dynamics, we witness a phase transition describing the sudden emergence of a giant controllable subspace spanning a finite fraction of the network. We also study the role of temporal patterns and network topology in real data making use of various randomization procedures, finding that the overall activity and the degree distribution of the underlying network are the main features influencing controllability.
Making the grade: describing inherent requirements for the initial teacher education practicum

ABSTRACT This study explores the development, description, and illustration of inherent requirement (IR) statements to make explicit the requirements for performance on an initial teacher education (ITE) practicum. Through consultative group processes with stakeholders involved in ITE, seven IR domains were identified. From interviews with academics, first-person narratives (vignettes) were developed to illustrate pre-service teachers’ performance in complex professional practice scenarios. The narratives were rated by university staff and pre-service teachers in relation to three of the IR domains: self-awareness, social awareness, and sustained professional conduct. Narratives were placed along a continuum of performance using Rasch-model statistical analysis. The findings suggest that the IR domains and the narratives illustrating them could be valuable resources for making explicit required performance standards. The findings suggest that the development of explicit IR statements has the potential to improve all stakeholders’ awareness of professional practice requirements and enhance course outcomes for all ITE students.
Effect of the mode of feeding of fats on serum cholesterol levels and plasma fibrinolytic activity of monkeys.

The effects of "continuous" and "intermittent" feeding of a high fat diet to two groups of monkeys have been compared. Although the food intake was nearly the same in both groups, body weight was higher in animals fed intermittently that in those fed continuously at the end of the experimental period. This difference, however, was not statistically significant. Serum cholesterol concentration was significantly higher and plasma fibrinolytic activity significantly lower in the intermittently fed group than in the continuously fed group. The results indicate the importance of the mode of distribution of fat in the daily diet.
Symposium on ‘ Behavioural nutrition and energy balance in the young ’ Environmental determinants of healthy eating : in need of theory and evidence

Johannes Brug*, Stef P. Kremers, Frank van Lenthe, Kylie Ball and David Crawford EMGO-Institute, VU University Medical Center, Van der Boechorststraat 7, 1081 BT Amsterdam, The Netherlands Department of Health Education and Promotion, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands Department of Public Health, Erasmus University Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands Centre for Physical Activity and Nutrition Research, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia
Pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics and tolerability of multiple oral doses of linagliptin, a dipeptidyl peptidase‐4 inhibitor in male type 2 diabetes patients

Aims: To investigate the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties of multiple oral doses of the dipeptidyl peptidase‐4 (DPP‐4) inhibitor linagliptin (BI 1356) in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus.
L-Thyroxine Treatment of Patients with Subclinical HypothyroidismReduce Inflammation

Background: Subclinical hypothyroidism (SCH) has been found to be associated with cardiovascular disease including atherosclerosis which is also called inflammatory disorder. The objective of this study was, to investigate the efficacy of L-thyroxine therapy on inflammation in patients with SCH and to determine whether treatment of SCH would reduce inflammation. Methods: Twenty patients with thyroid stimulating hormone levels between 5 and 10 mU/L and twenty healthy persons (control) were enrolled to the study. 0.025-0.075 mg/d L-thyroxine therapy was given to the patients. Patients were followed till they became euthyroid. C-reactive protein (CRP), lipid profile and thyroid function tests were evaluated. CRP was determined by a high sensitivity immunoassay. Results: CRP, total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) were significantly elevated in patients with subclinical hypothyroidism compared to the control group at baseline (p<0.01, p<0.05, p<0.001, respectively). L-thyroxine therapy significantly decreased CRP (p<0.01) and low-density lipoprotein in treatment group (p<0.05). Nevertheless, no significant change was found in other lipid parameters. Conclusion: These findings demonstrate that patients with SCH are characterized by inflammatory disorders and higher lipid profile.
Increased soluble IL-7 receptor concentrations associate with improved IL-7 therapy outcomes in SIV-infected ART-treated Rhesus macaques

The use of interleukin-7 (IL-7) as an immunorestorative therapeutic has proven effective in HIV infection, cancer and bone marrow transplantation. Mediating its activity through membrane-bound IL-7 receptor α (mCD127), IL-7 therapy increases T-cell numbers and survival. A soluble form, sCD127, is found in plasma, and we have previously identified increased plasma sCD127 concentrations in HIV infection. Furthermore, patients with high sCD127 exhibited the best viral control, implicating a role for IL-7 or sCD127 directly in improved virologic/immunologic outcomes. The role of the cytokine IL-7 in elevating sCD127 levels was addressed here through assessment of retrospective samples obtained from SIV-infected antiretroviral (ART)-treated Rhesus macaques. IL-7 was administered in clustered weekly doses, allowing for an assessment prior, during and following IL-7 administration. The levels of sCD127 remained relatively unchanged during both early SIV infection and following initiation of ART. However, treatment with IL-7 increased sCD127 concentrations in most animals, transiently or persistently, paralleling increased T-cell numbers, correlating significantly with CD8+ T-cell levels. In addition, proliferating CD4+ or CD8+ T-cells (measured by Ki67) increased in association with elevated sCD127 concentrations. Finally, a high concentration of sCD127 in IL7-treated animals was associated with increased retention of T-cells (measured by BrDU). In addition, a lack, or loss of viral control was associated with more pronounced and frequent elevations in plasma sCD127 concentrations with IL-7 therapy. In summary, plasma sCD127 levels in SIV-infected ART-treated macaques was associated with therapeutic IL-7 administration, with higher sCD127 levels in macaques demonstrating the best T-cell responses. This study furthers our knowledge regarding the interrelationship between increased IL-7 levels and elevated sCD127 levels that may have implications for future IL-7 immunotherapeutic approaches in HIV-infected patients.
Nazi indoctrination and anti-Semitic beliefs in Germany

Significance Attempts at modifying public opinions, attitudes, and beliefs range from advertising and schooling to “brainwashing. ” Their effectiveness is highly controversial. We demonstrate that Nazi indoctrination––with its singular focus on fostering racial hatred––was highly effective. Germans who grew up under the Nazi regime are much more anti-Semitic today than those born before or after that period. These findings demonstrate that beliefs can be modified massively through policy intervention. We also show that it was probably Nazi schooling that was most effective, and not radio or cinema propaganda. Where schooling could tap into preexisting prejudices, indoctrination was particularly strong. This suggests that confirmation bias may play an important role in intensifying attitudes toward minorities. Attempts at modifying public opinions, attitudes, and beliefs range from advertising and schooling to “brainwashing. ” Their effectiveness is highly controversial. In this paper, we use survey data on anti-Semitic beliefs and attitudes in a representative sample of Germans surveyed in 1996 and 2006 to show that Nazi indoctrination––with its singular focus on fostering racial hatred––was highly effective. Between 1933 and 1945, young Germans were exposed to anti-Semitic ideology in schools, in the (extracurricular) Hitler Youth, and through radio, print, and film. As a result, Germans who grew up under the Nazi regime are much more anti-Semitic than those born before or after that period: the share of committed anti-Semites, who answer a host of questions about attitudes toward Jews in an extreme fashion, is 2–3 times higher than in the population as a whole. Results also hold for average beliefs, and not just the share of extremists; average views of Jews are much more negative among those born in the 1920s and 1930s. Nazi indoctrination was most effective where it could tap into preexisting prejudices; those born in districts that supported anti-Semitic parties before 1914 show the greatest increases in anti-Jewish attitudes. These findings demonstrate the extent to which beliefs can be modified through policy intervention. We also identify parameters amplifying the effectiveness of such measures, such as preexisting prejudices.
Epidemiological characteristics of pulmonary pneumocystosis and concurrent infections in pigs in Jeju Island, Korea

Epidemiological characteristics of swine pulmonary Pneumocystis (P.) carinii and concurrent infections were surveyed on Jeju Island, Korea, within a designated period in 172 pigs submitted from 54 farms to the Department of Veterinary Medicine, Jeju National University. The submitted cases were evaluated by histopathology, immunohistochemistry, PCR/RT-PCR, and bacteriology. P. carinii infection was confirmed in 39 (22.7%) of the 172 pigs. Histopathologically, the lungs had moderate to severe lymphohistioctyic interstitial pneumonia with variable numbers of fungal organisms within lesions. Furthermore, porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) and porcine circovirus type 2 (PCV-2) co-infection was a common phenomenon (12.8%, 20.5%, and 48.7% were positive for PRRS, PCV-2, or both, respectively, as determined by PCR/RT-PCR). Infection was much more concentrated during winter (December to March) and 53.8% of the infected pigs were 7- to 8-weeks old. In addition, three pigs showed co-infection with bacteria such as Pasteurella multocida and Streptococcus suis. The results of the present study suggest that the secondary P. carinii infection is common following primary viral infection in swine in Korea. They further suggest that co-infection of P. carinii might be enhanced by the virulence of primary pathogens or might have synergistic effects in the pigs with chronic wasting diseases.
Intersubject Synchronization of Cortical Activity During Natural Vision

To what extent do all brains work alike during natural conditions? We explored this question by letting five subjects freely view half an hour of a popular movie while undergoing functional brain imaging. Applying an unbiased analysis in which spatiotemporal activity patterns in one brain were used to “model” activity in another brain, we found a striking level of voxel-by-voxel synchronization between individuals, not only in primary and secondary visual and auditory areas but also in association cortices. The results reveal a surprising tendency of individual brains to “tick collectively” during natural vision. The intersubject synchronization consisted of a widespread cortical activation pattern correlated with emotionally arousing scenes and regionally selective components. The characteristics of these activations were revealed with the use of an open-ended “reverse-correlation” approach, which inverts the conventional analysis by letting the brain signals themselves “pick up” the optimal stimuli for each specialized cortical area.
An Information Theory Perspective for the Binary STT-MRAM Cell Operation Channel

Spin-torque transfer magnetic random access memory (STT-MRAM) has emerged as a promising nonvolatile memory technology, with advantages, such as scalability, speed, endurance, and power consumption. This paper presents an STT-MRAM cell operation channel model with write and read operations for information theorists and error correction code designers. This model considers the effects of process variations and thermal fluctuations and considers all principle flaws during the fabrication and operation processes. With this model, evaluations are not only made for the write channel, the read channel, but also the write and read channel with metrics, such as operation failure rate, bit error rate, channel ergodic capacity, and channel outage probability at certain outage capacity. Moreover, it is proved that the distributions of written-in bit states are not uniformly distributed and are proportional to their respective write success probabilities. Finally, simulation results show that practical code rates and code block lengths can guarantee reliable performances only if the operation success rate difference between state 1 and state 0 is small enough.
Behaviour of a New Composite Mesh for the Repair of Full-Thickness Abdominal Wall Defects in a Rabbit Model

Introduction Composite biomaterials designed for the repair of abdominal wall defects are composed of a mesh component and a laminar barrier in contact with the visceral peritoneum. This study assesses the behaviour of a new composite mesh by comparing it with two latest-generation composites currently used in clinical practice. Methods Defects (7x5cm) created in the anterior abdominal wall of New Zealand White rabbits were repaired using a polypropylene mesh and the composites: PhysiomeshTM; VentralightTM and a new composite mesh with a three-dimensional macroporous polyester structure and an oxidized collagen/chitosan barrier. Animals were sacrificed on days 14 and 90 postimplant. Specimens were processed to determine host tissue incorporation, gene/protein expression of neo-collagens (RT-PCR/immunofluorescence), macrophage response (RAM-11-immunolabelling) and biomechanical resistance. On postoperative days 7/14, each animal was examined laparoscopically to quantify adhesions between the visceral peritoneum and implant. Results The new composite mesh showed the lowest incidence of seroma in the short term. At each time point, the mesh surface covered with adhesions was greater in controls than composites. By day 14, the implants were fully infiltrated by a loose connective tissue that became denser over time. At 90 days, the peritoneal mesh surface was lined with a stable mesothelium. The new composite mesh induced more rapid tissue maturation than PhysiomeshTM, giving rise to a neoformed tissue containing more type I collagen. In VentralightTM the macrophage reaction was intense and significantly greater than the other composites at both follow-up times. Tensile strengths were similar for each biomaterial. Conclusions All composites showed optimal peritoneal behaviour, inducing good peritoneal regeneration and scarce postoperative adhesion formation. A greater foreign body reaction was observed for VentralightTM. All composites induced good collagen deposition accompanied by optimal tensile strength. The three-dimensional macroporous structure of the new composite mesh may promote rapid tissue regeneration within the mesh.
Decreasing the risk of diabetic retinopathy in a study of case management: the California Medi-Cal Type 2 Diabetes Study.

OBJECTIVE Diabetic retinopathy affects >60% of people with type 2 diabetes during the first 2 decades of the disease and is ameliorated by good glycemic control. This study tested whether intensive diabetes case management could prevent or delay diabetic retinopathy in patients with established type 2 diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS This study was part of a randomized, controlled clinical trial of diabetes case management in type 2 diabetes in southern California counties serving low income ethnic minority populations. Subjects were randomized to intervention (diabetes case management) or control (traditional treatment) groups. Subjects with at least two retinal photographs (n = 149) were included in this analysis to assess the effect of intervention on development or progression of diabetic retinopathy. RESULTS Progression of retinopathy in the intervention group was not significantly less than in the control group (P = 0.226). However, those in the intervention group with no evidence of retinopathy at baseline were less likely to develop diabetic retinal changes (5/48) during a mean follow-up of 23.1 months than those in the control group (10/34, chi(2) = 4.805, P = 0.028). This difference remained significant in a logistic regression model that controlled for potential confounders (odds ratio 5.35 [95% CI 1.14-25.12]). CONCLUSIONS This study shows that a relatively short duration of case management instituted before the onset of clinically identifiable retinopathy significantly diminished the risk of developing retinopathy in patients with type 2 diabetes. The findings also emphasized the retinal disease burden in this population, with development and progression of retinopathy occurring in <2 years.
Analysis of the Major Hexose Transporter Genes in Wine Strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Saccharomyces cerevisiae maintains a large family of hexose transporters encoded by the HXT genes. The major transporter genes, HXT1 through HXT7, were sequenced from four vineyard isolates and two commercial wine yeast strains and compared to the sequences in the Saccharomyces Genome Database for strain S288C and to those available for two additional wine strains V5 and RM11-1a. Base pair changes leading to differences in amino acid sequence were found for all seven transporters. Differences ranged from none to eight amino acid variations for the sequenced strains, depending upon the strain and the gene, in comparison with S288C. In contrast, RM11-1a displayed high degeneracy with multiple in-frame stop mutations for HXT1, HXT4, and HXT6. Several wine strain sequences for the HXT4 gene contained an identical additional 16 amino acids at the C-terminus. Transporter protein levels were analyzed in a wine yeast strain (UCD932) using green fluorescent protein tagging. HXT5, not shown to be expressed in previous studies, was expressed in UCD932 during fermentation. Expression of HXT4, a prominently expressed transporter in laboratory media, was not detected. Deletion of HXT1, HXT3, or HXT5 did not result in a discernable phenotype in UCD932 under the fermentation conditions used in this study as compared with the wild type strain. However, the strain lacking HXT3 was unable to complete the fermentation in media containing 5% exogenous ethanol. This result suggests that correct expression of HXT3 may play a role in ethanol tolerance.
Empirical determination of geometric parameters for selective omission in a road network

ABSTRACT Selective omission in a road network is a necessary operation for road network generalization. Most existing selective omission approaches involve one or two geometric parameters at a specific scale to determine which roads should be retained or eliminated. This study proposes an approach for determining the empirical threshold for such a parameter. The idea of the proposed approach is to first subdivide a large road network, and then to use appropriate threshold(s) obtained from one or several subdivisions to infer an appropriate threshold for the large one. A series of experiments was carried out to validate the proposed approach. Specifically, the road network data for New Zealand and Hong Kong at different scales (ranging from 1:50,000 to 1:250,000) were used as the experimental data, and subdivided according to different modes (i.e. administrative boundary data, a regular grid of different sizes, different update years, and different road network patterns). Not only geometric parameters, but also structural and hybrid parameters of existing selective omission approaches were involved in the testing. The experimental results show that although the most appropriate thresholds obtained from different subdivisions are not always the same, in most cases, the appropriate threshold ranges often overlap, especially for geometric parameters, and they also overlap with those obtained from the large road network data. This finding is consistent with the use of different subdivision modes, which verifies the effectiveness of the proposed approach. Several issues involving the use of the proposed approach are also addressed.