Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Increased Numbers of ESAT-6- and Purified Protein Derivative-Specific Gamma Interferon-Producing Cells in Subclinical and Active Tuberculosis Infection

ABSTRACT Numbers of gamma interferon (IFN-γ)-producing cells reactive to ESAT-6 antigen were increased in recent converters to purified protein derivative positivity and in tuberculosis patients but not in unvaccinated or Mycobacterium bovis BCG-vaccinated healthy donors. ESAT-6-reactive IFN-γ-producing cells in recent converters and tuberculosis patients recognized similar synthetic peptides. Thus, ESAT-6 is a potential candidate for use in detection of early, as well as active, tuberculosis and for control of the disease.
Targeted delivery of nucleic acidsto skin using microneedles

Nucleic acid therapies may have significant potential for effectively treating genetic, hyper-proliferative or malignant skin conditions caused by aberrant gene expression. To be effective, the restorative pDNA or inhibitive siRNA must access the viable skin layers and cells in a stable and functional form, preferably without painful administration. Microneedles are able to penetrate the stratum corneum skin barrier in a minimally invasive manner to allow targeted delivery of therapeutic macromocules. To date, there are limited studies reporting the delivery of nucleic acids, particularly siRNA, to the skin using microneedle devices. A range of in vitro, ex vivo and in vivo skin models was developed to characterise nucleic acid delivery and functional response. In vitro studies conducted in both continuous and primary keratinocyte cultures provided proof-of-concept of efficient and non-toxic cell uptake and gene silencing with siRNA and moderately efficient gene expression with pDNA. In initial studies, pDNA and siRNA was pre-complexed with lipid-based transfection reagents, however, in the case of siRNA, coating of the lipoplexes onto microneedles resulted in a reduction in functionality. Hence, modified self-delivery (sd) siRNA formulations were used in subsequent microneedle delivery experiments. Stainless steel microneedles coated with reporter pDNA or sd-siRNA were successful in penetrating the stratum corneum barrier of ex vivo viable human breast skin. It was difficult to demonstrate equivocally both plasmid gene expression and functional gene silencing in the skin explants, which only remain viable for short periods. Delivery of pDNA and sd-siRNA to in vivo mouse skin however, resulted in demonstrable gene expression and gene silencing, particularly evident at the protein level, in an established transgenic reporter mouse skin model. Overall, these investigations generally support the use of the coated steel microneedles for the simple and potentially self-administrable delivery of nucleic acids to the skin.
Susceptibility of Yersinia pestis to novel and conventional antimicrobial agents.

OBJECTIVES To determine the susceptibility of southern African strains of Yersinia pestis to novel as well as conventional antimicrobial agents. MATERIALS AND METHODS The MICs of 28 strains of Yersinia pestis from a southern African plague focus were determined by agar dilution. RESULTS The most active agents were cefditoren and the fluoroquinolones, both conventional and novel. The in vitro activity of macrolides was poor against this member of the Enterobacteriaceae. CONCLUSION Further investigation of the novel quinolones olamufloxacin (HSR 903) and ABT 492 in animal models of plague would seem to be justified.
Serotonin transporter polymorphism and borderline or antisocial traits among low-income young adults

Objectives The short allele of the serotonin transporter linked polymorphic region, 5HTTLPR has been associated with anxiety, major depressive disorder and suicidality. The impulsive self- and other-damaging behaviors seen in borderline personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder also have substantial comorbidity with depression but are associated with more severe environmental stressors. This study tested the hypothesis of an association between the short allele of the 5HTTLPR and borderline or antisocial traits in young adulthood. Methods The 5HTTLPR was genotyped among 96 young adults from low to moderate income families (62 adults without and 34 adults with borderline personality disorder or antisocial personality disorder traits). Traits of borderline and antisocial personality disorders were assessed with the Structured Clinical Interview for Diagnosis-Axis II. Results The number of short 5HTTLPR alleles were significantly related to incidence of borderline personality disorder or antisocial personality disorder traits and also to each set of traits independently. Male sex and quality of care in infancy were also associated with incidence of borderline personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder traits but did not account for the association with the short allele. Depressive disorders were not associated with the short allele in this sample. Conclusions Young adults of lower socioeconomic status who carry the short 5HTTLPR allele may be especially vulnerable to developing antisocial or borderline traits by young adulthood.
Is Mini‐Mental Score Examination Scoring a New Predictor of Uncontrolled Hypertension?

Essential hypertension is an important risk factor for target organ damage. The brain is among the target organs infrequently visited. The authors evaluated whether an abnormal Mini‐Mental Score Examination (MMSE) score predicts uncontrolled hypertension even if office blood pressure is normal. Seventy‐seven hypertensive patients were included. The cognitive function of each patient was assessed using MMSE and a customized brain magnetic resonance imaging study. Patients were classified into normal cognitive function group and mild, moderate, and severe cognitive impairment groups. A significance level of P=. 05 was used. There was a higher percentage of uncontrolled BP in every cognitive impairment class. In patients older than 65 years, MMSE score had a sensitivity and specificity of 94% and 83%, respectively, in the prediction of uncontrolled hypertension. MMSE is a simple test to run in the clinic to predict whether patients have well‐controlled blood pressure.
Some Geometry and Combinatorics for the S-Invariant of Ternary Cubics

In earlier papers [Wilson 04, Totaro 04], the S-invariant of a ternary cubic ƒ was interpreted in terms of the curvature of related Riemannian and pseudo-Riemannian metrics. This is clarified further in Section 3 of this paper. In the case that ƒ arises from the cubic form on the second cohomology of a smooth projective threefold with second Betti number three, the value of the S-invariant is closely linked to the behavior of this curvature on the open cone consisting of Kähler classes. In this paper, we concentrate on the cubic forms arising from complete intersection threefolds in the product of three projective spaces, and investigate various conjectures of a combinatorial nature arising from their invariants.
N-Butyl Cyanoacrylate Versus Conventional Suturing for Fixation of Meshes in an Incisional Hernia Model

ABSTRACT Background: Chronic pain and related complications reported after the use of perforating fixation devices in hernia surgery have led to the use of tissue sealants. Fibrin sealant is a feasible option for mesh fixation; however data on cyanoacrylate glues are limited. Methods: 32 Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into two groups and a 1.5 cm abdominal wall defect was created on each animal. The lesions were then repaired with 2 × 2 cm polypropylene meshes, fixed with n-butyl-cyanoacrylate in the first group and with polypropylene sutures in the second group. The rats were sacrificed on the 21st and 42nd days. The presence of infection, recurrence, and abdominal adhesions were evaluated, followed by biomechanical testing and histological examination. Results: No mesh infection or hernia recurrences were recorded. There was no statistically significant difference between neither the adhesion scores nor the mean broken pressure of the two groups. Cyanoacrylate sealing was found equivalent to suturing in terms of tissue ingrowth, fibrosis, inflammatory infiltration, abscess formation, and necrosis. Furthermore, cyanoacrylate resulted in less foreign body reaction. Conclusions: Mesh fixation by cyanoacrylate may be considered as an alternative to suture fixation.
Enhanced cooperative filter for wildfire monitoring

This paper proposes a multi-UAV based wildfire monitoring algorithm to estimate fire rate of spread and therefore to further assess fire growth through fire front contour estimation. The proposed algorithm allows for convergent estimation with reasonable accuracy. It is achieved by online position and temperature measurements from a fleet of UAVs. The effectiveness of the algorithm is demonstrated in an independent fire simulation environment.
Reduction in experimental infarct size by recombinant human superoxide dismutase: insights into the pathophysiology of reperfusion injury.

To determine the importance of reperfusion injury and the ability of the free-radical scavenger recombinant human superoxide dismutase (h-SOD) to prevent it, open-chest dogs underwent 90 min of proximal circumflex coronary artery occlusion, and only at the moment of reperfusion received either h-SOD (400,000 IU bolus into the left atrium followed by a 300,000 IU iv infusion over 1 hr) or saline. After 48 hr the surviving animals were killed and measurements were made of the risk region (by postmortem angiography) and infarct size (by gross pathology). All measurements were made by investigators blinded to treatment given, and the code was broken only at the end of the study. Hemodynamic variables and collateral flow during ischemia were similar in the two groups. Infarct size in control animals (n = 8) averaged 22.4 +/- 3.1% of the left ventricle and 52.2 +/- 7.1% of the risk region, compared with 13.3 +/- 0.8% of the left ventricle and 33.6 +/- 2.1% of the risk region in h-SOD-treated dogs (n = 8) (p less than .05). Infarcts in treated animals were not only smaller, but also exhibited a distinctive "patchiness," suggesting protection along vascular distributions. Furthermore, analysis of the relationship between infarct size and collateral flow measured during ischemia in the two groups indicated that protection by h-SOD was greatest in animals with the lowest collateral flows. This study supports the concept that reperfusion of ischemic myocardium results in a separate component of cell damage, presumably linked to the generation of oxygen free radicals on reflow. Since the h-SOD preventable reperfusion component of injury was most pronounced in hearts with the most severe ischemia, scavenging of oxygen radicals at the time of reflow may offer a novel and particularly promising therapeutic approach for the protection of ischemic myocardium.
Semi-supervised feature selection via multiobjective optimization

In previous work, we have shown that both unsupervised feature selection and the semi-supervised clustering problem can be usefully formulated as multiobjective optimization problems. In this paper, we discuss the logical extension of this prior work to cover the problem of semi-supervised feature selection. Our extensive experimental results provide evidence for the advantages of semi-supervised feature selection when both labelled and unlabelled data are available. Moreover, the particular effectiveness of a Pareto-based optimization approach can also be seen.
In Vivo Micro-Image Mosaicing

Recent advances in optical imaging have led to the development of miniature microscopes that can be brought to the patient for visualizing tissue structures in vivo. These devices have the potential to revolutionize health care by replacing tissue biopsy with in vivo pathology. One of the primary limitations of these microscopes, however, is that the constrained field of view can make image interpretation and navigation difficult. In this paper, we show that image mosaicing can be a powerful tool for widening the field of view and creating image maps of microanatomical structures. First, we present an efficient algorithm for pairwise image mosaicing that can be implemented in real time. Then, we address two of the main challenges associated with image mosaicing in medical applications: cumulative image registration errors and scene deformation. To deal with cumulative errors, we present a global alignment algorithm that draws upon techniques commonly used in probabilistic robotics. To accommodate scene deformation, we present a local alignment algorithm that incorporates deformable surface models into the mosaicing framework. These algorithms are demonstrated on image sequences acquired in vivo with various imaging devices including a hand-held dual-axes confocal microscope, a miniature two-photon microscope, and a commercially available confocal microendoscope.
Thin-Film Lubrication of Dented Surfaces

Surface microfeatures introduced to conformal surfaces have been proved in the last decade to provide beneficial tribological performances. They were found to significantly improve load capacity, wear resistance, or friction coefficient in applications that involve mechanical seals, piston rings, thrust bearings, or ultra-high-density magnetic disc drives. Recent studies have suggested that such an approach could be used to improve the lubrication capabilities under thin-film lubrication of highly loaded non-conformal contacts. However, surface micro-features influence the film thickness and pressure distribution within concentrated contacts that could result in surface failures. In this paper, thin-film colorimetric interferometry has been used to study the effects of an artificially produced micro-dent on film thickness distribution within thin-film lubricated contacts. Obtained results have shown that the behavior of dented surfaces significantly depends on the slide-to-roll ratio. An increase in the lubricant film thickness has been observed just upstream of the trailing edge of the micro-dent when the disc is moving slower than the ball with the micro-dent. In the reverse conditions, for a positive slide-to-roll ratio, the presence of the micro-dent within the concentrated contact results in the film thickness reduction located downstream of the leading edge of the micro-dent. This reduction can cause the local film breakdown of very thin films. Nevertheless, it has been observed that highly viscous boundary films can avoid it and rubbing surfaces have been completely separated using the formulated oil even under very thin lubrication conditions.
Optical Analysis of Impact Features in Aerogel From the Orbital Debris Collection Experiment on the MIR Station

The Mir Environmental Effects Package (MEEP) was deployed on the Mir station and retrieved after 18 months in space. The payload included the orbital debris collector (ODC), designed and built at the Johnson Space Center to capture and return analyzable residues of the man-made and natural particulate environment in low-Earth orbit for a detailed assessment of its compositional makeup and potential origins. The ODC exposed 2 identical trays, with highly porous, low-density SiO2 aerogel as the basic collector medium, pointed in opposite directions. The aerogel was expected to gently decelerate and capture hypervelocity particles, as opposed to other media that resulted in melting or vaporization of many impactors. Even cursory examination of the returned ODC collectors revealed a surprising variety of impact features. The compositional analyses using scanning electron "miccroscope-energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy concentrated on a survey-type inventory of diverse particle types and associated impact features. Detections, in the form of carrot-shaped tracks and shallow pits, included metallic Al, stainless steel, soldering compounds, human waste, and paint flakes. Many pits contained no detectable impactor residue (it was assumed to have vaporized), but most of the tracks contained analyzable residue. The study showed that aerogel would be useful for future low-velocity impact analysis.
Crowdsourcing MapReduce: JSMapReduce

JSMapReduce is an implementation of MapReduce which exploits the computing power available in the computers of the users of a web platform by giving tasks to the JavaScript engines of their web browsers. This article describes the implementation of JSMapReduce exploiting HTML 5 features, the heuristics it uses for distributing tasks to workers, and reports on an experimental evaluation of JSMapReduce.
Children at Risk: Risk Factors for Low Back Pain in the Elementary School Environment

Study Design. A prevalence survey of 101 randomly selected elementary schools in the Israel Central District. Objectives. To identify and describe risk factors for low back pain that exist in the elementary school environment. Summary of Background Data. Recent surveys report a high prevalence of low back pain in children and adolescents that increases with age, with a correlation between low back pain in adolescence and that experienced in adulthood. Environmental risk factors have been associated with the development of low back pain in children. Because of the significant amount of time children spend in their school environment, risk factors need to be identified in this environment. Methods. A questionnaire, completed by school nurses, measured risk factors among 10,000 children in elementary schools in Israel. These included backpack and student weight, the availability of storage facilities, the appropriateness of chair and desk height to student height, seating arrangements during frontal lessons, and physical activity at recess. Results. Between 30% and 54% of students carried >15% of their body weight. Nearly 15% of the first graders and 20% of sixth graders had inappropriate chairs. In 74% of the classes, students sat with their side facing the teacher and in 35% students sat with their backs. In 6% of schools, no physical activity is offered at recess. Conclusions. Shortcomings were found in all areas investigated. There is an urgent need for health promotion programs to increase awareness and reduce risks in the school environment.
EBIC: an evolutionary‐based parallel biclustering algorithm for pattern discovery

Motivation: Biclustering algorithms are commonly used for gene expression data analysis. However, accurate identification of meaningful structures is very challenging and state‐of‐the‐art methods are incapable of discovering with high accuracy different patterns of high biological relevance. Results: In this paper, a novel biclustering algorithm based on evolutionary computation, a sub‐field of artificial intelligence, is introduced. The method called EBIC aims to detect order‐preserving patterns in complex data. EBIC is capable of discovering multiple complex patterns with unprecedented accuracy in real gene expression datasets. It is also one of the very few biclustering methods designed for parallel environments with multiple graphics processing units. We demonstrate that EBIC greatly outperforms state‐of‐the‐art biclustering methods, in terms of recovery and relevance, on both synthetic and genetic datasets. EBIC also yields results over 12 times faster than the most accurate reference algorithms. Availability and implementation: EBIC source code is available on GitHub at https://github.com/EpistasisLab/ebic. Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Recombinant Neuregulin 1 Does Not Activate Cardiomyocyte DNA Synthesis in Normal or Infarcted Adult Mice

Objectives Neuregulin 1 signaling plays an important role in cardiac trabecular development, and in sustaining functional integrity in adult hearts. Treatment with neuregulin 1 enhances adult cardiomyocyte differentiation, survival and/or function in vitro and in vivo. It has also been suggested that recombinant neuregulin 1β1 (NRG1β1) induces cardiomyocyte proliferation in normal and injured adult hearts. Here we further explore the impact of neuregulin 1 signaling on adult cardiomyocyte cell cycle activity. Methods and Results Adult mice were subjected to 9 consecutive daily injections of recombinant NRG1β1 or vehicle, and cardiomyocyte DNA synthesis was quantitated via bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU) incorporation, which was delivered using mini-osmotic pumps over the entire duration of NRG1β1 treatment. NRG1β1 treatment inhibited baseline rates of cardiomyocyte DNA synthesis in normal mice (cardiomyocyte labelling index: 0.019±0.005% vs. 0.003±0.001%, saline vs. NRG1β1, P<0.05). Acute NRG1β1 treatment did result in activation of Erk1/2 and cardiac myosin regulatory light chain (down-stream mediators of neuregulin signalling), as well as activation of DNA synthesis in non-cardiomyocytes, validating the biological activity of the recombinant protein. In other studies, mice were subjected to permanent coronary artery occlusion, and cardiomyocyte DNA synthesis was monitored via tritiated thymidine incorporation which was delivered as a single injection 7 days post-infarction. Daily NRG1β1 treatment had no impact on cardiomyocyte DNA synthesis in the infarcted myocardium (cardiomyocyte labelling index: 0.039±0.011% vs. 0.027±0.021%, saline vs. NRG1β1, P>0.05). Summary These data indicate that NRG1β1 treatment does not increase cardiomyocyte DNA synthesis (and consequently does not increase the rate of cardiomyocyte renewal) in normal or infarcted adult mouse hearts. Thus, any improvement in cardiac structure and function observed following neuregulin treatment of injured hearts likely occurs independently of overt myocardial regeneration.
Effects of the Hydroalcoholic Extract of Zingiber officinale on Arginase I Activity and Expression in the Retina of Streptozotocin-Induced Diabetic Rats

Background Emerging evidence suggests that an increased arginase activity is involved in vascular dysfunction in experimental animals. Zingiber officinale Roscoe, commonly known as ginger, has been widely used in the traditional medicine for treatment of diabetes. Objectives This study aimed at investigating the effects of the hydroalcoholic extract of Z. officinale on arginase I activity and expression in the retina of streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetic rats. Methods In this experimental study, 16 male Wistar rats weighing 200 – 250 g were assessed. Diabetes was induced via a single intraperitoneal injection of STZ (60 mg/kg body weight). The rats were randomly allocated into four experimental groups. Untreated healthy and diabetic controls received 1.5 mL/kg distilled water. Treated diabetic rats received 200, and 400 mg/kg of the Z. officinale extract dissolved in distilled water (1.5 mL/kg). Body weight, blood glucose and insulin concentration were measured by standard methods. The arginase I activity and expression were determined by spectrophotometric and western blot analysis, respectively. Results Our results showed that blood glucose concentration was significantly decreased in diabetic rats treated with the extract compared to untreated diabetic controls (P < 0.01). Treatment with 400 mg/kg of the extract reduced arginase I activity and expression (P < 0.05). A significant elevation in body weight was observed in diabetic rats treated with the extract. Serum insulin was significantly increased in diabetic rats treated with 400 mg/kg of the extract compared to diabetic controls (P < 0.05). Conclusions Our results suggest that the Z. officinale hydroalcoholic extract may potentially be a promising therapeutic option for treating diabetes-induced vascular disorders, possibly through reducing arginase I activity and expression in the retina.