Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mice from a genetically resistant background lacking the interferon gamma receptor are susceptible to infection with Leishmania major but mount a polarized T helper cell 1-type CD4+ T cell response

Mice with homologous disruption of the gene coding for the ligand- binding chain of the interferon (IFN) gamma receptor and derived from a strain genetically resistant to infection with Leishmania major have been used to study further the role of this cytokine in the differentiation of functional CD4+ T cell subsets in vivo and resistance to infection. Wild-type 129/Sv/Ev mice are resistant to infection with this parasite, developing only small lesions, which resolve spontaneously within 6 wk. In contrast, mice lacking the IFN- gamma receptor develop large, progressing lesions. After infection, lymph nodes (LN) and spleens from both wild-type and knockout mice showed an expansion of CD4+ cells producing IFN-gamma as revealed by measuring IFN-gamma in supernatants of specifically stimulated CD4+ T cells, by enumerating IFN-gamma-producing T cells, and by Northern blot analysis of IFN-gamma transcripts. No biologically active interleukin (IL) 4 was detected in supernatants of in vitro-stimulated LN or spleen cells from infected wild-type or deficient mice. Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction analysis with primers specific for IL-4 showed similar IL-4 message levels in LN from both types of mice. The IL-4 message levels observed were comparable to those found in similarly infected C57BL/6 mice and significantly lower than the levels found in BALB/c mice. Anti-IFN-gamma treatment of both types of mice failed to alter the pattern of cytokines produced after infection. These data show that even in the absence of IFN-gamma receptors, T helper cell (Th) 1-type responses still develop in genetically resistant mice with no evidence for the expansion of Th2 cells.
Computer-Assisted Navigation for the Treatment of Brain Aneurysms

Endovascular therapy provides a minimally invasive solution for the treatment of brain aneurysms. Interventional neuroradiologists navigate microcathers, platinum coils and stents from the femoral artery to treat the pathological target vessel under fluoroscopic guidance. The procedure involves a clinically significant radiation dose to the patient and the clinical team. We have developed a multi-modality navigation platform providing real-time visualization of the position of endovascular tools without radiation exposure. The system integrates magnetic tracking of surgical devices, and 3D visualization of their position inside a reconstructed model of the vasculature. Preliminary phantom tests have demonstrated an accuracy of 3.8 mm. By merging imaging and localization data, this prototype can provide 3D real-tune navigation in brain arteries
Vancomycin-resistance Enterococcal Colonization in Hospitalized Patients in Relation to Antibiotic Usage in a Tertiary Care Hospital of North India

Background: Alarming rise of vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) is a global cause of concern. Several factors have been held responsible for such rise, of which antibiotic usage is a prominent one. Objective: This study was undertaken to determine the intestinal VRE colonization rate amongst hospitalized patients in relation to use of various antibiotics in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of a tertiary care university hospital, India. Materials and Methods: Stool samples were collected weekly from all the patients in the adult ICU for a period of 6 months and processed for isolation and phenotypic and genotypic characterization of VRE isolates. Patient and treatment details were noted and cases (those with VRE in stool) and controls (those without VRE in stool) were compared statistically. Further, a multivariate analysis was done to identify those antibiotics as independent risk factors for VRE colonization. Results: VRE colonization was found in 34.56% (28/81) of the patients studied, with the majority 75% (21/28) carrying the vanAgene. The cases had significantly more (P < 0.05) duration of hospital stay and antibiotic exposure. Intake of metronidazole, vancomycin, and piperacillin-tazobactam were identified as significant risk factors both in univariate and multivariate analysis. Conclusion: A potential reservoir of VRE was thus revealed even in low VRE prevalence setting. Based on this high colonization status, restriction of empirical antibiotic use, reviewing of the ongoing antibiotic policy, and active VRE surveillance as an integral part of infection control strategy were suggested.
Vandalism Detection in Wikidata

Wikidata is the new, large-scale knowledge base of the Wikimedia Foundation. Its knowledge is increasingly used within Wikipedia itself and various other kinds of information systems, imposing high demands on its integrity. Wikidata can be edited by anyone and, unfortunately, it frequently gets vandalized, exposing all information systems using it to the risk of spreading vandalized and falsified information. In this paper, we present a new machine learning-based approach to detect vandalism in Wikidata. We propose a set of 47 features that exploit both content and context information, and we report on 4 classifiers of increasing effectiveness tailored to this learning task. Our approach is evaluated on the recently published Wikidata Vandalism Corpus WDVC-2015 and it achieves an area under curve value of the receiver operating characteristic, ROC-AUC, of 0.991. It significantly outperforms the state of the art represented by the rule-based Wikidata Abuse Filter (0.865 ROC-AUC) and a prototypical vandalism detector recently introduced by Wikimedia within the Objective Revision Evaluation Service (0.859 ROC-AUC).
Hyperhomocysteinemia Associated With Decreased Renal Transsulfuration Activity in Dahl S Rats

Elevated plasma homocysteine (Hcys) has been reported to participate in the development of arterial and glomerular sclerosis in Dahl salt-sensitive hypertensive (SS) rats. The mechanism resulting in hyperhomocysteinemia in these animals remains unknown. Disposal of Hcys in the kidneys plays an important role in regulating the plasma Hcys level. We, therefore, examined the activities and expressions of the enzymes involved in the metabolism of Hcys in the kidneys of SS rats, compared with that of Brown Norway rats and SSBN13 rats, a consomic subcolony of SS rats that carries a substituted chromosome 13 from Brown Norway rats. High-performance liquid chromatography analysis demonstrated that plasma Hcys levels were significantly higher in SS rats. The conversion of S-adenosylhomocysteine into Hcys via S-adenosylhomocysteine hydrolase by renal tissue was not different among these 3 rat strains. However, the metabolic rate of Hcys into cysteine was markedly reduced in the SS rat kidneys. The mRNA and protein levels of cystathionine &bgr;-synthase (CBS), one of the key enzymes in the transsulfuration pathway in the kidneys, were significantly lower in SS rats. In microdissected nephron segments, CBS mRNA was shown to be mainly present in renal proximal tubules (PTs). The mRNA levels of CBS in the PTs were also significantly decreased in SS rats, accompanied by a reduced CBS activity in PTs. We conclude that hyperhomocysteinemia is associated with a decreased activity and expression of CBS in renal PTs because of the defect of chromosome 13 in SS rats.
Characterization of the intron-encoded U19 RNA, a new mammalian small nucleolar RNA that is not associated with fibrillarin

We have characterized a new member (U19) of a group of mammalian small nuclear RNAs that are not precipitable with antibodies against fibrillarin, a conserved nucleolar protein associated with most of the small nucleolar RNAs characterized to date. Human U19 RNA is 200 nucleotides long and possesses 5'-monophosphate and 3'-hydroxyl termini. It lacks functional boxes C and D, sequence motifs required for fibrillarin binding in many other snoRNAs. Human and mouse RNA are 86% homologous and can be folded into similar secondary structures, a finding supported by the results of nuclease probing of the RNA. In the human genome, U19 RNA is encoded in the intron of an as yet not fully characterized gene and could be faithfully processed from a longer precursor RNA in HeLa cell extracts. During fractionation of HeLa cell nucleolar extracts on glycerol gradients, U19 RNA was associated with higher-order structures of approximately 65S, cosedimenting with complexes containing 7-2/MRP RNA, a conserved nucleolar RNA shown to be involved in 5.8S rRNA processing in yeast cells.
Seroprevalence of rubella antibodies among adult Egyptian females aged 20-30 years. Is there a need for rubella vaccination?

INTRODUCTION Egypt adopted a comprehensive strategy to eliminate measles and rubella by conducting a catch up campaign (in 2008) targeting children and young adults in the age group 10-19 years. This study aimed to explore the seroprevalence of rubella among females aged 20 to 30 years in order to provide the Ministry of Health with information to develop future strategies for rubella supplemental immunization activities among women of childbearing age before marriage and conception. METHODS A total of 339 females in the age group 20 to 30 were selected. The study group comprised women who attended the central laboratory of the Ministry of Health for checking up before travelling abroad as pre-travel requirements for visa application. The collected serum samples were tested for rubella-specific IgG antibodies. RESULTS The overall prevalence of rubella antibodies in the study group was 88.2%. Around 5.0% of females, who reported that they had been vaccinated, were susceptible to rubella. Age, history of measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccination and past history of rubella infection were considered factors associated with seropositivity for rubella. CONCLUSION The seroprevalence rate of rubella antibodies among our female study group was considered low.
Fine‐needle aspiration of spinal osteoblastoma in a patient with lymphangiomatosis

Diagnosis of osteoblastoma by fine‐needle aspiration (FNA) is rare, as in most patients, excisional biopsy is performed. We report a case of FNA diagnosis of a spinal osteoblastoma in a lymphangiomatosis patient. The patient had a history of lymphangiomatosis since birth with lymphangiomas removed from various locations, and had radiograph evidence of multifocal vertebral involvement. He presented with an enlarging C3 posterior element vertebral lesion. Clinically and radiologically, it was suspicious for lymphangiomatosis involvement. A computed tomography (CT)‐guided FNA yielded a moderately cellular specimen. Lesional cells exhibited plasmacytoid features, fine chromatin, smooth nuclear membranes, and binucleation, in a background of occasional osteoclastic cells, spindle cells, and osteoid matrix. A cytological diagnosis of osteoblastoma was favored and confirmed with follow‐up surgical biopsy. We believe that this is the first case reporting an osteoblastoma diagnosed by FNA in a lymphangiomatosis patient. We describe the clinical and cytological findings of osteoblastoma and its differential diagnosis. Diagn. Cytopathol. 2006;34:295–297. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Integrated high-quality rectifier-regulators

A new family of AC-DC converters is derived which integrate the functions of low-harmonic rectification, low-frequency energy storage, and wide-bandwidth output voltage control into a single converter containing one, two, or four active switches. These converters utilize a discontinuous conduction mode input inductor, an internal energy storage capacitor, and transformer secondary circuits which resemble the bridge, forward, flyback, or Cuk DC-DC converters. A large-signal equivalent circuit model for this family is presented, which uses the "loss-free resistor" concept. Design strategies and experimental results are given. High-performance regulation with satisfactory line-current harmonics is demonstrated with conventional duty-ratio control. Further improvements in line current are possible by simultaneous duty-ratio and switching-frequency control.
Shallow VS Imaging of the Groningen Area from Joint Inversion of Multimode Surface Waves and H/V Spectral Ratios

The Groningen gas field in the northern Netherlands is subject to production-induced earthquakes and has quickly become one of the seismologically best-instrumented areas on Earth. Accurate quantification of seismic hazard from potential future earthquakes requires accurate shallow velocity structure for ground-motion prediction. Toward this end, we present a shear-wave velocity model developed through the joint inversion of multimode Loveand Rayleigh-wave dispersion curves (DCs) and H/V spectral ratio (HVSR) measurements. We obtain local DCs from azimuthally averaged frequency–time analysis of the cross correlation of the ambient seismic field (ASF) between pairs of stations. HVSR is measured at each station from the directional energy density, that is, the autocorrelation of the ASF for all components. We simultaneously fit these observables at each station of the dense Loppersum array to infer a 1D velocity model from the surface to a depth of ∼900 m. In the frequency range considered (∼1–7 Hz), Rayleigh-wave DCs show high modal complexity, which makes clear identification of the modes challenging and leads us to downweight their contribution to the result. Fundamentaland higher-mode Love-wave dispersion is much clearer. We find good agreement between our model and independently derived models of shallow structure, which validates our approach and supports the value of HVSR analysis as a tool to map subsurface properties. Electronic Supplement: Frequency–time diagrams, theoretical kx , omega diagrams, example joint inversion for site 235587, and example of horizontal-to-vertical (H/V) spectral ratio (HVSR) at station site 235587.
Long-Term Changes in Dwarf Pine (Pinus mugo Turra) Cover and Growth in the Orava Beskid Mountains, Slovakia

Dwarf pine (Pinus mugo Turra) thickets are a substantial land cover in high-elevation mountain ecosystems in Europe, where they fulfill important functions in soil conservation and as wildlife habitat. In many areas across Europe these thickets have rapidly expanded over the past decades because of changing climate and land use, highlighting the need to better understand how species spread relates to growth traits and changing environmental conditions. We quantified changes in dwarf pine cover by elevation on 2 mountains in the Western Carpathians (Central Europe) over 64 years (Babia hora) and 40 years (Pilsko), and we linked them to species growth responses to climate using archival photogrammetry and stem length measurements. We correlated mean growth chronologies with mean monthly temperature and precipitation to assess the main climatic factors driving growth. The total expansion of dwarf pine cover was substantial (28.6% in Babia hora and 57.1% in Pilsko), but the rate of expansion varied with elevation, site, and intra- and interspecific competition. The largest expansion occurred in the open stands of the high elevations (1550–1650 m). Statistically significant positive correlations between growth and temperature were recorded for the most recent growing season and for the preceding growing season. However, despite rising temperatures over time, mean species growth during the last 20 years decreased slightly. The correlation of growth with precipitation was mostly positive but not statistically significant. Thus, the impact of changing climate appeared too weak to overcome other influential factors (eg decline in grazing and intra- and interspecific competition).
Thrombospondin‐1 is part of a Slug‐independent motility and metastatic program in cutaneous melanoma, in association with VEGFR‐1 and FGF‐2

Differently from most transformed cells, cutaneous melanoma expresses the pleiotropic factor thrombospondin‐1 (TSP‐1). Herein, we show that TSP‐1 (RNA and protein), undetectable in four cultures of melanocytes and a RGP melanoma, was variously present in 13 cell lines from advanced melanomas or metastases. Moreover, microarray analysis of 55 human lesions showed higher TSP‐1 expression in primary melanomas and metastases than in common and dysplastic nevi. In a functional enrichment analysis, the expression of TSP‐1 correlated with motility‐related genes. Accordingly, TSP‐1 production was associated with melanoma cell motility in vitro and lung colonization potential in vivo. VEGF/VEGFR‐1 and FGF‐2, involved in melanoma progression, regulated TSP‐1 production. These factors were coexpressed with TSP‐1 and correlated negatively with Slug (SNAI2), a cell migration master gene implicated in melanoma metastasis. We conclude that TSP‐1 cooperates with FGF‐2 and VEGF/VEGFR‐1 in determining melanoma invasion and metastasis, as part of a Slug‐independent motility program.
Study of the relationship between cigarette smoking, alcohol drinking and cognitive impairment among elderly people in China.

OBJECTIVE the incidence of cognitive impairment is increasing; however, little is known about the prevalence and risk factors for cognitive impairment of elderly people in China. This report focuses on investigating the relationship between cigarette smoking, alcohol drinking and cognitive impairment in elderly people. METHODS 3012 participants aged 60 years old and over were enrolled from six communities of Chongqing. Cognitive function was measured by the Mini-Mental State Examination and Activities of Daily Living. The chi(2) test and logistic regression was used to find the relationship between cigarette smoking, alcohol drinking and cognitive impairment. RESULT the rate of abnormal cognitive function in elderly people was 11.95%. Smoking was closely related to cognitive impairment (chi(2)=6.59, P=0.027). Alcohol drinking was also associated with cognitive impairment (chi(2)=6.31, P=0.025). In all smokers, current smoking was associated with a significantly increased risk of cognitive impairment (RR 2.33; 95% CI=1.37-5.82). In all people who drink every day, there was a significantly increased risk of cognitive impairment (RR 3.47; 95% CI=1.79-6.71). CONCLUSION smoking and drinking are risk factors for cognitive impairment among elderly people. Cessation of smoking and reduction of drinking could be considered as part of a strategy to reduce the incidence of cognitive impairment.
Biohumanities: Rethinking the Relationship Between Biosciences, Philosophy and History of Science, and Society

We argue that philosophical and historical research can constitute a “Biohumanities” that deepens our understanding of biology itself, engages in constructive “science criticism,” helps formulate new “visions of biology,” and facilitates “critical science communication. ” We illustrate these ideas with two recent “experimental philosophy” studies of the concept of the gene and of the concept of innateness conducted by ourselves and collaborators. We conclude that the complex and often troubled relations between science and society are critical to both parties, and argue that the philosophy and history of science can help to make this relationship work.
Management of Eastern Brown and Tiger Snake Envenomation in Domestic Animals in South Australia

Aims: The aims of this study were to examine the key important clinical features in domestic animals (e.g. dogs and cats) accompanying envenomation by eastern brown or tiger snakes in South Australia, to establish whether routine use of snake venom detection kits (SVDKs) is a useful diagnostic approach for identifying offending snake species and help to improve animal’s condition and survival. Methodology: Clinical records from 155 dogs and cats, with suspected or confirmed snake envenomation were collected from two veterinary practices in South Australia. Chi-square analysis was used to compare patient outcome with diagnostic method, and descriptive analysis were undertaken to compare features between the envenomation cases. Results: Brown snakes were responsible for 97% of cases, with the remaining 3% due to tiger snakes. The most common presenting signs were recumbency and hind limb paresis. Patients were Original Research Article Wright and Ngo; ARRB, 25(4): 1-12, 2018; Article no.ARRB. 40513 2 20% less likely to survive when diagnosis of the offending snake species was made by means other than the use of a SVDK. An inconclusive result occurred approximately 14% of the time when using a SVDK. The overall survival rate for cases that were treated was 81% in dogs and 92% in cats. Conclusion: Species-specific snake diagnosis using a SVDK will lead to improved patient outcome, however care is required when performing and interpreting the test due to a high proportion of contradictory results obtained.
Characterization of Pectinase from Bacillus subtilis Strain Btk 27 and Its Potential Application in Removal of Mucilage from Coffee Beans

The demand for enzymes in the global market is projected to rise at a fast pace in recent years. There has been a great increase in industrial applications of pectinase owing to their significant biotechnological uses. For applying enzymes at industrial scale primary it is important to know the features of the enzyme. Thus, this study was undertaken with aims of characterizing the pectinase enzyme from Bacillus subtilis strain Btk27 and proving its potential application in demucilisation of coffee. In this study, the maximum pectinase activity was achieved at pH 7.5 and 50°C. Also, the enzyme activity was found stimulated with Mg2+ and Ca2+ metal ions. Moreover, it was stable on EDTA, Trixton-100, Tween 80, and Tween 20. Since Bacillus subtilis strain Btk27 was stable in most surfactants and inhibitors it could be applicable in various industries whenever pectin degradation is needed. The enzyme Km and Vmax values were identified as 1.879 mg/ml and 149.6 U, respectively. The potential application of the enzyme for coffee processing was studied, and it is found that complete removal of mucilage from coffee beans within 24 hours of treatment indicates the potential application in coffee processing.