Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Placental trophoblasts resist infection by multiple human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) type 1 variants even with cytomegalovirus coinfection but support HIV replication after provirus transfection

Whether cell-free human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) can productively infect placental trophoblasts (which in turn could transmit the virus into the fetal circulation) is controversial but essential to know for the evaluation of alternative routes (such as cell-mediated infection or trophoblast damage). We have addressed infection factors such as cell purity, source, culture methods, and activation states as well as virus variant and detection methods to conclusively determine the outcome of trophoblast challenge by free virus. Pure (> 99.98%) populations of trophoblasts from 11 different placentas were challenged at a multiplicity of infection (MOI) as high as 6 with five different HIV-1 variants, three of which are non-syncytium-forming, macrophage-tropic isolates from infected infants, with and without coinfection with cytomegalovirus; these preparations were monitored for productive infection for up to 3 weeks after challenge by five different criteria, the most sensitive of which were cocultivation with target cells that can detect virus at an MOI of 10(-7) and HIV DNA PCR that detects 30 virus copies per 10(5) cells. Infection was never detected. However, molecularly cloned T-cell (pNL4-3)- and macrophage (pNLAD8)-tropic provirus plasmids, when transfected into primary trophoblasts, yielded productive infections, indicating that trophoblasts do not suppress late-stage virus replication and assembly. Because of the purity of the trophoblast preparations, the extended length of the infection culture period, the number of trophoblast preparations and virus types examined, the sensitivity of the bioassays and molecular detection assays, and the observations that trophoblasts can support virus replication from provirus, the results of this study strongly argue that free virus cannot infect primary villous trophoblasts.
Epithelial remodeling as basis for machine-based identification of keratoconus.

PURPOSE To develop and evaluate automated computerized algorithms for differentiation of normal and keratoconus corneas based solely on epithelial and stromal thickness data. METHODS Maps of the corneal epithelial and stromal thickness were generated from Artemis-1 very high-frequency ultrasound arc-scans of 130 normal and 74 keratoconic subjects diagnosed by combined topography and tomography examination. Keratoconus severity was graded based on anterior curvature, minimum corneal thickness, and refractive error. Computer analysis of maps produced 161 features for one randomly selected eye per subject. Stepwise linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and neural network (NN) analysis were then performed to develop multivariate models based on combinations of selected features to correctly classify cases. The sensitivity, specificity, and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) were determined for each classifier. RESULTS Stepwise LDA resulted in a six-variable model that provided an AUC of 100%, indicative of complete separation of keratoconic from normal corneas. Leave-one-out analysis resulted in 99.2% specificity and 94.6% sensitivity. Neural network analysis using the same six variables resulted in an AUC of 100% for the training set. Test set performance averaged over 10 trials gave a specificity of 99.5 ± 1.5% and sensitivity of 98.9 ± 1.9%. The LDA function values correlated with keratoconus severity grade. CONCLUSIONS The results demonstrate that epithelial remodeling in keratoconus represents an independent means for differentiation of normal from advanced keratoconus corneas.
Rb1 and Trp53 cooperate to suppress prostate cancer lineage plasticity, metastasis, and antiandrogen resistance

Evading cancer drugs by identity fraud Prostate cancer growth is fueled by male hormones called androgens. Drugs targeting the androgen receptor (AR) are initially efficacious, but most tumors eventually become resistant (see the Perspective by Kelly and Balk). Mu et al. found that prostate cancer cells escaped the effects of androgen deprivation therapy through a change in lineage identity. Functional loss of the tumor suppressors TP53 and RB1 promoted a shift from AR-dependent luminal epithelial cells to AR-independent basal-like cells. In related work, Ku et al. found that prostate cancer metastasis, lineage switching, and drug resistance were driven by the combined loss of the same tumor suppressors and were accompanied by increased expression of the epigenetic regulator Ezh2. Ezh2 inhibitors reversed the lineage switch and restored sensitivity to androgen deprivation therapy in experimental models. Science, this issue p. 84, p. 78; see also p. 29 Prostate cancer cells escape androgen deprivation therapy by morphing into a cell type that does not require androgens. Prostate cancer relapsing from antiandrogen therapies can exhibit variant histology with altered lineage marker expression, suggesting that lineage plasticity facilitates therapeutic resistance. The mechanisms underlying prostate cancer lineage plasticity are incompletely understood. Studying mouse models, we demonstrate that Rb1 loss facilitates lineage plasticity and metastasis of prostate adenocarcinoma initiated by Pten mutation. Additional loss of Trp53 causes resistance to antiandrogen therapy. Gene expression profiling indicates that mouse tumors resemble human prostate cancer neuroendocrine variants; both mouse and human tumors exhibit increased expression of epigenetic reprogramming factors such as Ezh2 and Sox2. Clinically relevant Ezh2 inhibitors restore androgen receptor expression and sensitivity to antiandrogen therapy. These findings uncover genetic mutations that enable prostate cancer progression; identify mouse models for studying prostate cancer lineage plasticity; and suggest an epigenetic approach for extending clinical responses to antiandrogen therapy.
Caries-preventive effectiveness of a fluoride varnish: a randomized controlled trial in adolescents with fixed orthodontic appliances

The aim was to evaluate the efficacy of topical fluoride varnish applications on white spot lesion (WSL) formation in adolescents during treatment with fixed orthodontic appliances. The study design was a double-blinded randomized placebo-controlled trial with two parallel arms. The subjects were 273 consecutive 12- to 15-year-old children referred for maxillary treatment with fixed orthodontic appliances. The patients were randomly assigned to a test or a control group with topical applications of either a fluoride varnish (Fluor Protector) or a placebo varnish every 6th week during the treatment period. The outcome measures at debonding were incidence and progression of WSL on the upper incisors, cuspids and premolars as scored from digital photographs by 2 independent examiners. The attrition rate was 5%. The mean number of varnish applications was 10 (range 4–20) in both groups. The incidence of WSL during the treatment with fixed appliances was 7.4% in the fluoride varnish compared to 25.3% placebo group (p < 0.001). The mean progression score was significantly lower in the fluoride varnish group than in the placebo group, 0.8 ± 2.0 vs. 2.6 ± 2.8 (p < 0.001). The absolute risk reduction was 18% and the number needed to treat was calculated to 5.5. The results from the present study strongly suggest that regular topical fluoride varnish applications during treatment with fixed appliances may reduce the development of WSL adjacent to the bracket base. Application of fluoride varnish should be advocated as a routine measure in orthodontic practice.
NADINE: new approaches to detecting breast cancer by sequential μm-wavelength imaging with the aid of novel frequency analysis techniques

The study focuses on 12 breasts of six breast cancer patients sequential µm-wavelength imaging, taken by two different 3–5 μm wavelength area indium antimony (InSb) photovoltaic cameras. The aim of the study was to compare the functionality of area and pixel-based frequency analyses. Comparisons between these frequency analysis methods were made according to their relevancy to mammographic findings. Another objective of the study was to find reliable imaging conditions by specifying the border conditions for the patient stabilizing imaging bed and managing the imaging situation. According to the results, the match of pixel based frequency analysis to the mammography findings is better than using area frequency analysis. The results also indicate that when the optical axis of the camera in relation to the surface of the breast to be imaged grows to more than 40°, the emissivity changes dramatically and at that point reliable results will not be obtained. Consequently the analysis of the imagined breast requires more images to be fused into one analysis image to cover the whole breast.
COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY IMAGING STRATEGIES AND PERSPECTIVES IN ORBITAL FRACTURES

Objective: The objective of this study was to demonstrate the sensitivity and specificity of multislice computed tomography (CT) for diagnosis of orbital fractures following different protocols, using an independent workstation. Materials and methods: CT images of 36 patients with maxillofacial fractures (symptomatic to orbit region) who were submitted to multislice CT scanning were analyzed, retrospectively. The images were interpreted based on 5 protocols, using an independent workstation: 1) axial (original images); 2) multiplanar reconstruction (MPR); 3) 3D images; 4) association of axial/MPR/3D images and 5) coronal images. The evaluated anatomical sites were divided according to the orbital walls: lateral (with or without zygomatic frontal process fracture); medial; superior (roof) and inferior (anterior, medial). The collected data were analyzed statistically using a validity test (Youden's J index; p<0.05). The clinical and/or surgical findings (medical records) were considered as the gold standard to corroborate the diagnosis of the anatomical localization of the orbital fracture. Results: 3D-CT scanning presented sensitivity of 78.9%, which was not superior to that of MPR (84.0%), axial/MPR/3D (90.5%) and coronal images (86.1%). On the other hand, the diagnostic value of axial images was considered limited for orbital fractures region, with sensitivity of 44.2%. Conclusions: Except for the axial images, which presented a low sensitivity, all methods evaluated in this study showed high specificity and sensitivity for the diagnosis of orbital fractures according to the proposed methodology. This protocol can add valuable information to the diagnosis of fractures using the association of axial/MPR/3D with multislice CT.
Low-Frequency Variability in Shallow-Water Models of the Wind-Driven Ocean Circulation. Part I: Steady-State Solution*

Successive bifurcations—from steady states through periodic to aperiodic solutions—are studied in a shallowwater, reduced-gravity, 2‰-layer model of the midlatitude ocean circulation subject to time-independent wind stress. The bifurcation sequence is studied in detail for a rectangular basin with an idealized spatial pattern of wind stress. The aperiodic behavior is studied also in a North Atlantic‐shaped basin with realistic continental contours. The bifurcation sequence in the rectangular basin is studied in Part I, the present article. It follows essentially the one reported for single-layer quasigeostrophic and 1‰-layer shallow-water models. As the intensity of the north‐ south-symmetric, zonal wind stress is increased, the nearly symmetric double-gyre circulation is destabilized through a perturbed pitchfork bifurcation. The low-stress steady solution, with its nearly equal subtropical and subpolar gyres, is replaced by an approximately mirror-symmetric pair of stable equilibria. The two solution branches so obtained are named after the inertial recirculation cell that is stronger, subtropical or subpolar, respectively. This perturbed pitchfork bifurcation and the associated Hopf bifurcations are robust to changes in the interface friction between the two active layers and the thickness H2 of the lower active layer. They persist in the presence of asymmetries in the wind stress and of changes in the model’s spatial resolution and finitedifference scheme. Time-dependent model behavior in the rectangular basin, as well as in the more realistic, North Atlantic‐shaped one, is studied in Part II.
Syntactic Features for Evaluation of Machine Translation

Automatic evaluation of machine translation, based on computing n-gram similarity between system output and human reference translations, has revolutionized the development of MT systems. We explore the use of syntactic information, including constituent labels and head-modier dependencies, in computing similarity between output and reference. Our results show that adding syntactic information to the evaluation metric improves both sentence-level and corpus-level correlation with human judgments.
Route Capacity Estimation Based Admission Control and QoS Routing for Mesh Networks

Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) is a promising key technology for next generation wireless backhauling that is expected to support various types of applications with different quality-of-service (QoS) demands. Advanced antenna techniques, novel scheduling algorithms and routing schemes have attracted increased research interests aiming to optimize the performance of WMNs and satisfy their vast and diverse traffic requirements. However, in such networks, uncontrolled admission of arbitrary large number of data flows, together with the distributed and dynamic nature of WMNs, can highly increase the wireless channel interference with catastrophic subsequence for the whole network. To overcome this difficulty, we provide a mathematical model to analyze and estimate the real-time "route capacity" associated with time-varying QoS requirements. This allows us to take admission control decisions for new data flows in a way that we can increase the resource utilization while maintaining all good QoS levels for users with different grade-of-service (GoS). Numerical and extensive simulations results show that the proposed scheme achieves higher network goodput while it significantly reduces the outage and session blocking probability if compared to other techniques.
Third Molar Development in the Estimation of Chronologic Age in American Blacks as Compared With Whites *

ABSTRACT: Third molar (M3) development determined from dental radiographs in American blacks (African Americans; n=637) aged 14–24 years was contrasted against American whites (n=563) from a previous study using the method of Demirjian et al. Differences were assessed using descriptive statistics and the parametric proportional hazards model. For each developmental stage, the probability of an individual being at least 18 years old was evaluated. As in other M3 studies, there were highly significant modal differences, but the age ranges at each stage overlapped considerably. Black–white differences were highly significant with developmental stages occurring in blacks a year or so earlier. Gender differences also varied significantly, both with increasing age and between races. The empirical likelihood that an African American male with fully developed M3's is at least 18 years old is 93% and that for African American female is 84%. Corresponding risks for whites are 90% and 93%.
The Pharmacological Frontiers in Treatment Resistant Major Depression

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a major burden for society, with a year-prevalence of 5% in the adult population. Usually MDD is treated with psychotherapy or serotonergic and noradrenergic antidepressants. With the first antidepressant, often a Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor (SSRI), 30-40% of patients achieve symptomatic remission. This rate increases to 67% after ≥4 trials with different classes of antidepressants (Rush et al., 2006). However, non-response (<50% improvement of symptom-severity) occurs frequently and is associated with prolonged suffering by patients and their family members, but also prolonged hospitalisations and increased suicide-rates.
PDAs as cognitive aids for people with multiple sclerosis.

OBJECTIVE Cognitive impairment is a common symptom for people with multiple sclerosis (MS). This study evaluated the effects of an occupational therapy training protocol using personal digital assistants (PDAs) as assistive technology for people with cognitive impairment related to MS. METHODS Twenty participants were trained to use PDAs by an occupational therapist. Assessments of functional performance were taken at the start of an 8-week pretreatment period, at the beginning and end of training, and 8 weeks after the conclusion of training. RESULTS Participants demonstrated the ability to learn how to use basic PDA functions and retain learning for at least 8 weeks. Functional performance increased significantly with PDA use, and this gain was maintained at 8-week follow-up. CONCLUSION This study provides evidence of an association between an intervention providing training in the use of a PDA and improvements in the everyday function of people with cognitive impairment related to MS.
Users' guides to the medical literature: XXIII. Qualitative research in health care B. What are the results and how do they help me care for my patients? Evidence-Based Medicine Working Group.

The second part of this 2-part series on how to interpret qualitative research addresses, "what are the results," and, "how do they help me care for my patients? " Qualitative analysis is a process of summarizing and interpreting data to develop theoretical insights that describe and explain social phenomena such as interactions, experiences, roles, perspectives, symbols, and organizations. Key results are often illustrated with excerpts from interview transcripts, field notes, or documents. The results of a qualitative research report are best understood as an empirically based contribution to ongoing dialogue and exploration. Empirically based theory evolves from a process of exploration, discovery, analysis, and synthesis. Each concept should be defined carefully in a way that is meaningful to the reader. Concepts should be adequately developed and illustrated when theoretical conclusions are drawn. Arguments should be explained and justified. The qualitative research report ideally should address how the findings relate to other theories in the field. The qualitative study can provide a useful road map for understanding and navigating similar social settings interactions, or relationships. JAMA. 2000;284:478-482
Reelin is a positional signal for the lamination of dentate granule cells

Reelin is required for the proper positioning of neurons in the cerebral cortex. In the reeler mutant lacking reelin, the granule cells of the dentate gyrus fail to form a regular, densely packed cell layer. Recent evidence suggests that this defect is due to the malformation of radial glial processes required for granule cell migration. Here, we show that recombinant reelin in the medium significantly increases the length of GFAP-positive radial glial fibers in slice cultures of reeler hippocampus, but does not rescue either radial glial fiber orientation or granule cell lamination. However, rescue of radial glial fiber orientation and granule cell lamination was achieved when reelin was present in the normotopic position provided by wild-type co-culture, an effect that is blocked by the CR-50 antibody against reelin. These results indicate a dual function of reelin in the dentate gyrus, as a differentiation factor for radial glial cells and as a positional cue for radial fiber orientation and granule cell migration.
Assessment of a Standardized ROS Production Profile in Humans by Electron Paramagnetic Resonance

Despite the growing interest in the role of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in health and disease, reliable quantitative noninvasive methods for the assessment of oxidative stress in humans are still lacking. EPR technique, coupled to a specific spin probe (CMH: 1-hydroxy-3-methoxycarbonyl-2,2,5,5-tetramethylpyrrolidine) is here presented as the method of choice to gain a direct measurement of ROS in biological fluids and tissues. The study aimed at demonstrating that, differently from currently available “a posteriori” assays of ROS-induced damage by means of biomolecules (e.g., proteins and lipids) spin-trapping EPR provides direct evidence of the “instantaneous” presence of radical species in the sample and, as signal areas are proportional to the number of excited electron spins, lead to absolute concentration levels. Using a recently developed bench top continuous wave system (e-scan EPR scanner, Bruker) dealing with very low ROS concentration levels in small (50 μL) samples, we successfully monitored rapid ROS production changes in peripheral blood of athletes after controlled exercise and sedentary subjects after antioxidant supplementation. The correlation between EPR results and data obtained by various enzymatic assays (e.g., protein carbonyls and thiobarbituric acid reactive substances) was determined too. Synthetically, our method allows reliable, quick, noninvasive quantitative determination of ROS in human peripheral blood.
Aligning Sentences in Parallel Corpora

In this paper we describe a statistical technique for aligning sentences with their translations in two parallel corpora. In addition to certain anchor points that are available in our data, the only information about the sentences that we use for calculating alignments is the number of tokens that they contain. Because we make no use of the lexical details of the sentence, the alignment computation is fast and therefore practical for application to very large collections of text. We have used this technique to align several million sentences in the English-French Hansard corpora and have achieved an accuracy in excess of 99% in a random selected set of 1000 sentence pairs that we checked by hand. We show that even without the benefit of anchor points the correlation between the lengths of aligned sentences is strong enough that we should expect to achieve an accuracy of between 96% and 97%. Thus, the technique may be applicable to a wider variety of texts than we have yet tried.
Prevention and Treatment of Venous Thromboembolism in Patients with IBD: A Trail Still Climbing

Abstract:Venous thromboembolism (VTE) represents one of the most common and life-threatening extraintestinal complications of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Therefore, the prevention of VTE is essential and foremost involves the assessment of individual patient risk factors for VTE and, consequently, the correction of those risk factors that are modifiable. Mechanical and pharmacological prophylaxis are highly effective at preventing VTE in patients hospitalized for acute disease, and they are recommended by the leading guidelines for hospitalized patients with IBD. Unfortunately, several recent surveys reported that prophylaxis against VTE is still poorly implemented because of concerns about its safety and a lack of awareness of the magnitude of thrombotic risk in patients with IBD. Therefore, further efforts are required to increase the thromboprophylaxis rate in these patients to bridge the gap between the best care and standard care and, consequently, to avoid preventable VTE-associated morbidity and mortality. This review provides insight on the critical points that persist on the prevention and treatment of VTE in patients with IBD.
Mastoid Cavity after Cochlear Implant Surgery with the Mastoid Saving Surgical Approach Method

Methods: Preand postoperative protocolair prepared CT-scans of the mastoid cavity of patients who were operated for cochlear implantation were studies. 79 patients were included in this study. All patients were operated by the two authors using a mastoid saving surgical suprameatal approach for cochlear implantation . The postoperative CT-scans were evaluated after 6 months or more after surgery. Changes of the state of the mastoid observed by CT scan were documented.