Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Is Mechanical Embolectomy Performed in Nonanesthetized Patients Effective?

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: In centers performing endovascular treatment for patients with AIS, there is variability in placing patients under general anesthesia. Nonanesthetized patients might move during the procedure leading to complications and prolonging the time to revascularization due to lack of cooperation. However, general anesthesia can lead to a delay of the procedure, an inability to assess the patient during the procedure, and fluctuations of blood pressure. Our center does not routinely either use general anesthesia or sedate patients. We report our experience with nonanesthetized patients undergoing emergent mechanical embolectomy. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We performed a retrospective analysis of 66 consecutive patients enrolled in the MERCI Registry at our center from June 2007 to June 2009. A univariate statistical analysis was performed by using the Fisher exact test for categoric variables and the Student t test for continuous variables in comparing use of general anesthesia with nonanesthetized patient demographics, procedural times, procedural complications, good outcome, and mortality. RESULTS: Nine patients (13.6%) were placed under general anesthesia, and 57 (86.4%) were awake. Higher baseline NIHSS scores and older age were statistically associated with general anesthesia. No significant difference occurred between groups in the time to groin puncture or procedural times. Revascularization rates were 77% for general anesthesia patients and 70% for nonanesthetized patients (P = .331). The nonanesthetized group had better outcomes, but we did not control these outcomes for other factors. Complications were much more frequent in the general anesthesia patients (22%) than in the nonanesthetized patients (3.5%) (P = .0288). CONCLUSIONS: Performing mechanical embolectomy in nonanesthetized patients at our institution does not prolong procedure time, decrease revascularization rates, increase complication rates, or decrease good outcome. Mechanical embolectomy in nonanesthetized patients is effective and should be considered an option in the treatment of the patient with AIS.
Assessment of knowledge , attitude and practice ( KAP ) of osteoporosis and its predictors among university students : cross sectional study , UAE

Correspondence: Ammar Abdulrahman Jairoun, Public Health and Safety Department, Consumer Product Safety Section, Dubai Municipality, UAE, E-mail: d r_Ammar_91_@ hotmail.com ABSTRACT Background: Osteoporosis is a chronic disease and its clinical consequences which take place are detected late, it progresses silently and its signs and symptoms are mostly discovered after a fracture has already occurred. Aim: to evaluate the knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) of university students towards osteoporosis, and identify the set of key demographic and socio-economic factors that jointly influence the KAP of osteoporosis in the United Arabs Emirates (UAE). Design and Setting: This was a descriptive cross sectional study conducted amongst a random sample of medical and nonmedical students from Ajman university, united Arab Emiratis (UAE). The study was carried out by a self-administered questionnaire. It was composed of demographic, knowledge, attitude and practice information on osteoporosis. Results: A total of 400 subjects participated in the study, and completed the whole questionnaire. Among these participants, 50 % were male, 90.5% were single, 17% had UAE nationality, and 10.8% complained about a bone disease. The average KAP score was 69% with a 95% confidence interval (CI) [68%, 71%]. This meant that on an awareness scale of 0 to 100, the participants scored the average of 69 points in KAP towards osteoporosis. The results of the statistical modeling showed that the gender is a strong determinant of knowledge, attitude and practice of osteoporosis among university students. Conclusion: This study showed a satisfactory level of knowledge, attitude, and practice regarding osteoporosis. There was a poor scoring for some individual KAP items. It has been important to organize educational program to properly address these items that were under scored.
Structural studies by X‐ray diffraction on metal substituted desulforedoxin, a rubredoxin‐type protein

Desulforedoxin (Dx), isolated from the sulfate reducing bacterium Desulfovibrio gigas, is a small homodimeric (2 × 36 amino acids) protein. Each subunit contains a high‐spin iron atom tetrahedrally bound to four cysteinyl sulfur atoms, a metal center similar to that found in rubredoxin (Rd) type proteins. The simplicity of the active center in Dx and the possibility of replacing the iron by other metals make this protein an attractive case for the crystallographic analysis of metal‐substituted derivatives. This study extends the relevance of Dx to the bioinorganic chemistry field and is important to obtain model compounds that can mimic the four sulfur coordination of metals in biology. Metal replacement experiments were carried out by reconstituting the apoprotein with In3+, Ga3 +, Cd2+, Hg2+, and Ni2+ salts. The In3 + and Ga3+ derivatives are isomorphous with the iron native protein; whereas Cd2+, Hg2+, and Ni2+ substituted Dx crystallized under different experimental conditions, yielding two additional crystal morphologies; their structures were determined by the molecular replacement method. A comparison of the three‐dimensional structures for all metal derivatives shows that the overall secondary and tertiary structures are maintained, while some differences in metal coordination geometry occur, namely, bond lengths and angles of the metal with the sulfur ligands. These data are discussed in terms of the entatic state theory.
The organising vision for telehealth and telecare: discourse analysis

Objective To (1) map how different stakeholders understand telehealth and telecare technologies and (2) explore the implications for development and implementation of telehealth and telecare services. Design Discourse analysis. Sample 68 publications representing diverse perspectives (academic, policy, service, commercial and lay) on telehealth and telecare plus field notes from 10 knowledge-sharing events. Method Following a familiarisation phase (browsing and informal interviews), we studied a systematic sample of texts in detail. Through repeated close reading, we identified assumptions, metaphors, storylines, scenarios, practices and rhetorical positions. We added successive findings to an emerging picture of the whole. Main findings Telehealth and telecare technologies featured prominently in texts on chronic illness and ageing. There was no coherent organising vision. Rather, four conflicting discourses were evident and engaged only minimally with one another's arguments. Modernist discourse presented a futuristic utopian vision in which assistive technologies, implemented at scale, would enable society to meet its moral obligations to older people by creating a safe ‘smart’ home environment where help was always at hand, while generating efficiency savings. Humanist discourse emphasised the uniqueness and moral worth of the individual and tailoring to personal and family context; it considered that technologies were only sometimes fit for purpose and could create as well as solve problems. Political economy discourse envisaged a techno-economic complex of powerful vested interests driving commodification of healthcare and diversion of public funds into private business. Change management discourse recognised the complicatedness of large-scale technology programmes and emphasised good project management and organisational processes. Conclusion Introduction of telehealth and telecare is hampered because different stakeholders hold different assumptions, values and world views, ‘talk past’ each other and compete for recognition and resources. If investments in these technologies are to bear fruit, more effective inter-stakeholder dialogue must occur to establish an organising vision that better accommodates competing discourses.
A Scale Measure the Attitude of Farmers towards Zero Tillage Technology

Attitude plays a pivotal role in influencing one’s behavior with respect to a particular psychological object. As corollary of this fact, the farmer’s attitude towards zero tillage technology largely determines the nature and extent of acceptance of scientific farm technology in modernizing agriculture. Thus, attitude of farmers forms essential components for better implementation and success of improved farm technology. It is therefore crucial to identify the attitude of farmers towards zero tillage to take up such step which are required to make ZTT a success. Keeping this in view the present study was designed to construct a standardized scale to measure the attitude of farmers towards zero tillage technology.
A Culture Model of Reactive Astrocytes: Increased Nerve Growth Factor Synthesis and Reexpression of Cytokine Responsiveness

Abstract: Reactive gliosis, which occurs in response to damage to the central nervous system, has been recognized for years but is not yet understood. We describe here a tissue culture model of reactive astrocytes used to characterize their properties. Cultures are prepared 1 week following 6‐hydroxydopamine (6‐OHDA) lesion of rat substantia nigra and compared with astrocytes cultured from normal adult rats or rats injected with saline only. Astrocytes from the 6‐OHDA‐lesioned side contained elevated levels of glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and GFAP mRNA and were intensely immunoreactive for GFAP, vimentin, and two epitopes that in vivo are found only on reactive astrocytes. The basal content of nerve growth factor (NGF) mRNA and NGF in astrocytes from 6‐OHDA‐lesioned rats was significantly higher relative to control astrocytes. Two inflammatory cytokines, interleukin‐1β and interferon‐γ, increased synthesis of NGF up to 20‐fold in the reactive cells, whereas there was no response in the normal adult astrocytes. Astrocytes from postnatal day 2 rats shared many of the properties of the reactive adult astrocytes. These cultures offer the possibility to characterize the cellular and molecular properties of reactive astrocytes and to determine the factors responsible for activation of astrocytes.
Reconstructing the history of star formation in rich cluster cores

Our study begins by revisiting the photometric Butcher–Oemler effect using data from seven CNOC clusters at We construct the foreground/background-corrected colour–magnitude diagrams for these clusters. Our analysis shows that the CNOC clusters reproduce the trend of increasing blue galaxy fraction with redshift as seen by Butcher & Oemler. We use these data to investigate the history of star formation in clusters by connecting these clusters as snapshots at different redshifts. We address two key issues. First, we ask whether the simple fading and passive evolution of the blue galaxies is consistent with the properties of galaxies in nearby clusters, such as the Coma cluster. We find that the evolution of star-forming field galaxies towards redder colour (once the star formation ceases on entry into the cluster environment) can successfully reconstruct colours and magnitudes of galaxies in the local cluster. There is no requirement for widespread disruption of these galaxies. Since the blue galaxies fade as they age, the fainter galaxies on the present-day colour–magnitude relation tend to have more extended star formation histories than their bright counterparts. However, this effect is not sufficient to cause a sizeable age variation for the galaxies along the colour–magnitude relation, implying that the slope is dominated by variations in metal abundance. Secondly, we address the nature of the Butcher–Oemler effect itself. We compare the distribution of galaxies in the colour–magnitude diagrams and hence infer the evolution of the rate at which galaxies have arrived in the cluster. Models in which star formation is abruptly truncated as galaxies are accreted by the cluster have difficulty in reproducing the observed colour distribution. In contrast, if star formation declines on a 1-Gyr time-scale after accretion, the galaxy accretion history we infer is consistent from cluster to cluster and matches well the distribution expected in simple theoretical models. The Butcher–Oemler effect is thus driven both by the declining star formation rates of field galaxies and by a decline in the rate at which fresh galaxies are accreted by the cluster. Our study naturally leads to a comparison of the global star formation histories of galaxies in clusters and the field. We show that the star formation rate per galaxy mass for galaxies in cluster cores is significantly smaller than that of the field environment below due to the truncation of star formation. However, the factor by which star formation is suppressed is dependent on the cluster accretion history. High-quality observations of clusters at higher redshifts are needed to define this relation better.
RhoGTPases at the synapse: An embarrassment of choice

ABSTRACT Activity-dependent modifications in the strength of excitatory synapses are considered to be major cellular mechanisms that contribute to the plasticity of neuronal networks underlying learning and memory. Key mechanisms for the regulation of synaptic efficacy involve the dynamic changes in size and number of dendritic spines, as well as the synaptic incorporation and removal of AMPA-type glutamate receptors (AMPAr). As key regulators of the actin cytoskeleton, the Rho subfamily of GTP-binding proteins play a critical role in synaptic development and plasticity. They shuttle between the active GTP-bound form and the inactive GDP-bound form under the regulation of dedicated guanine nucleotide exchange factors (GEFs) and GTPase-activating proteins (GAPs). More than 80 human GEFs and 70 GAPs have been identified, most of which are expressed in the brain with a specific spatial and temporal expression pattern. However, the function of most GEFs and GAPs in the brain has not been elucidated. In this review, we highlight the novel neuronal function of the synaptic RhoGAP ARHGAP12 and the ID-associated RhoGEF TRIO and further propose 3 possible approaches of neurons utilizing Rho GTPase regulatory proteins to accurately modulate synaptic function.
Innesto: A Searchable Key/Value Store for Highly Dimensional Data

Key/value data storage systems serve as the fundamental component of scalable cloud-based services. However, the scalability of existing key/value data stores comes at the cost of a narrow data access API. We present Innesto, a distributed key/value data store that provides search as part of its API. Search allows data items to be retrieved based on constraints on multiple different attributes. Innesto's strong consistency data model and its transactional interface bring much of the power of traditional relational databases to cloud-scale performance. Our evaluation of Innesto shows it offers these extra features with competitive performance compared to an industrial key/value data store such as Cassandra which offers an inferior feature set.
Electric pulse current stimulation increases electrophysiological properties of If current reconstructed in mHCN4-transfected canine mesenchymal stem cells

The ‘funny’ current, also known as the If current, play a crucial role in the spontaneous diastolic depolarization of sinoatrial node cells. The If current is primarily induced by the protein encoded by the hyperpolarization-activated cyclic nucleotide-gated channel 4 (HCN4) gene. The functional If channel can be reconstructed in canine mesenchymal stem cells (cMSCs) transfected with mouse HCN4 (mHCN4). Biomimetic studies have shown that electric pulse current stimulation (EPCS) can promote cardiogenesis in cMSCs. However, whether EPCS is able to influence the properties of the If current reconstructed in mHCN4-transfected cMSCs remains unclear. The present study aimed to investigate the effects of EPCS on the If current reconstructed in mHCN4-transfected cMSCs. The cMSCs were transfected with the lentiviral vector pLentis-mHCN4-GFP. Following transfection, these cells were divided into two groups: mHCN4-transfected cMSCs (group A), and mHCN4-transfected cMSCs induced by EPCS (group B). Using a whole cell patch-clamp technique, the If current was recorded, and group A cMSCs showed significant time and voltage dependencies and sensitivity to extracellular Cs+. The half-maximal activation (V1/2) value was −101.2±4.6 mV and the time constant of activation was 324±41 msec under −160 mV. In the group B cells the If current increased obviously and activation curve moved to right. The absolute value of V1/2 increased significantly to −92.4±4.8 mV (P<0.05), and the time constant of activation diminished under the same command voltage (251±44 vs. 324±41, P<0.05). In addition, the mRNA and protein expression levels of HCN4, connexin 43 (Cx43) and Cx45 were upregulated in group B compared with group A, as determined by reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction and western blot analyses. Transmission electron micrographs also confirmed the increased gap junctions in group B. Collectively, these results indicated that reconstructed If channels may have a positive regulatory role in EPCS induction. The cMSCs transfected with mHCN4 induced by EPCS may be a source of effective biological pacemaker cells.
Exploring symptoms of somatization in chronic widespread pain: latent class analysis and the role of personality

Chronic widespread musculoskeletal pain (CWP) is a condition manifesting varied co-symptomatology and considerable heterogeneity in symptom profiles. This poses an obstacle for disease definition and effective treatment. Latent class analysis (LCA) provides an opportunity to find subtypes of cases in multivariate data. In this study, LCA was used to investigate whether and how individuals with CWP could be classified according to 12 additional somatic symptoms (migraine headaches, insomnia, stiffness, etc.). In a second step, the role of psychological and coping factors for the severity of these co-symptoms was investigated. Data were available for a total of N = 3,057 individuals (mean age = 56.6 years), with 15.4% suffering from CWP. In the latter group, LCA resulted in a three-class solution (ngroup1 = 123; ngroup2 = 306; ngroup3 = 43) with groups differing in a graded fashion (i.e., severity) rather than qualitatively for somatic co-symptom endorsements. A consistent picture emerged, with individuals in the first group reporting the lowest scores and individuals in group 3 reporting the highest. Additionally, more co-symptomatology was associated with higher rates of anxiety sensitivity and depression, as well as more extraversion and emotional instability. No group differences for any of the coping strategies could be identified. The findings suggest that CWP has several detectable subtypes with distinct psychological correlates. The identification of CWP subgroups is important for understanding disease mechanisms and refining prognosis as well as stratifying patients in clinical trials and targeting specific treatment at the subgroups most likely to respond.
Lack of Resistance to Integrase Inhibitors among Antiretroviral-Naive Subjects with Primary HIV-1 Infection, 2007–2013

Background US guidelines recommend genotyping for persons newly diagnosed with HIV infection to identify transmitted drug resistance mutations associated with decreased susceptibility to nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors, non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors and protease inhibitors. To date, testing for integrase strand transfer inhibitor (INSTI) mutations has not been routinely recommended. We aimed to evaluate the prevalence of transmitted INSTI mutations among persons with primary HIV-1 infection in Seattle, WA, USA. Methods Persons with primary HIV-1 infection have enrolled in an observational cohort at the University of Washington Primary Infection Clinic since 1992. We performed a retrospective analysis of plasma specimens collected prospectively from the 82 antiretroviral-naive subjects who were enrolled from 2007–2013, after FDA-approval of the first INSTI. Resistance testing was performed by consensus sequencing. Results Specimens for analysis had been obtained a median of 24 (IQR 18–41, range 8–108) days after the estimated date of HIV-1 infection. All subjects were infected with HIV-1 subtype B except for one subject infected with subtype C. Consensus sequencing identified no subjects with major INSTI mutations (T66I, E92Q, G140S, Y143C/H/R, S147G, Q148H/K/R, N155H). Using exact binomial CIs, the upper bound of the 95% CI was 4.4%. Conclusions Although our sample size was small, this study does not support the need at this time to evaluate integrase mutations as part of routine consensus sequencing among persons newly diagnosed with HIV-1 infection. However, it is likely that the prevalence of transmitted INSTI mutations may increase with the recent commercial introduction of additional INSTIs and presumably greater INSTI use among persons living with HIV-1.
Response of males and females to high-force eccentric exercise

It has previously been shown that females incur less muscle damage than males after strenuous exercise, but limited data are available for humans. To determine possible differences between the sexes in humans, the response to high-force eccentric exercise was examined in a large sample of women (n = 83) and men (n = 82). The participants performed a bout of eccentric exercise of the elbow flexors consisting of 70 maximal repetitions. Isometric strength, resting elbow angle and muscle soreness were measured before, immediately after (except soreness) and then daily for 7 days after exercise. There was a significant loss in strength among both groups (69% for women and 63% for men) (P≪0.01) immediately after exercise; at 168 h post-exercise, women still had a 27% strength loss and men had a 24% strength loss. No significant difference in strength loss or recovery rate was found between men and women. Soreness reached peak values 32-48 h post-exercise (P≪0.01), with no significant difference between men and women. Range of motion decreased significantly until 3 days after exercise (14.6° or 0.255 rad loss for women; 12.2° or 0.213 rad loss for men) (P≪0.01); at 168 h post-exercise, the women and men still showed a loss of 4.8° (0.084 rad) and 4.0° (0.07 rad), respectively. There was a significant interaction of sex x time (P≪0.01); a post-hoc test indicated that the women experienced a greater loss in range of motion at 72 h than men and this difference was maintained to 168 h post-exercise (P≪0.01). Thus, our results do not support the contention that women have a lower response to eccentric exercise than men.
Gender and Peer Effects in Social Networks

We investigate whether peer effects at work differ by gender and whether the gender difference in peer effects-if any-depends on work organization, precisely the structure of social networks. We develop a social network model with gender heterogeneity that we test by means of a real-effort laboratory experiment. We compare sequential networks in which information on peers flows exclusively downward (from peers to the worker) and simultaneous networks where it disseminates bi-directionally along an undirected line (from peers to the worker and from the worker to peers). We identify strong gender differences in peer effects, as males' effort increases with peers' performance in both types of network, whereas females behave conditionally. While they are influenced by peers in sequential networks, females disregard their peers' performance when information flows in both directions. We reject that the difference between networks is driven by having one's performance observed by others or by the presence of peers in the same session in simultaneous networks. We interpret the gender difference in terms of perception of a higher competitiveness of the environment in simultaneous than in sequential networks because of the bi-directional flow of information.