Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Use of Adipose-Derived Mesenchymal Stem Cells in Keratoconjunctivitis Sicca in a Canine Model

Keratoconjunctivitis sicca (KCS) or dry eye disease (DED) is an immune-mediated multifactorial disease, with high level of prevalence in humans and dogs. Our aim in this study was to investigate the therapeutic effects of allogeneic adipose-derived mesenchymal stromal cells (Ad-MSCs) implanted around the lacrimal glands in 12 dogs (24 eyes) with KCS, which is refractory to current available treatments. Schirmer tear test (STT) and ocular surface integrity were assessed at 0 (before treatment), 3, 6, and 9 months after treatment. Average STT values and all clinical signs showed a statistically significant change (P < 0.001) during the follow-up with reduction in all ocular parameters scored: ocular discharge, conjunctival hyperaemia, and corneal changes, and there were no signs of regression or worsening. Implanted cells were well tolerated and were effective reducing clinical signs of KCS with a sustained effect during the study period. None of the animals showed systemic or local complications during the study. To our knowledge, this is the first time in literature that implantation of allogeneic Ad-MSCs around lacrimal glands has been found as an effective therapeutic alternative to treat dogs with KCS. These results could reinforce a good effective solution to be extrapolated to future studies in human.
Drilling delamination outcomes on glass and sisal reinforced plastics

Nowadays, fibre reinforced plastics are used in a wide variety of applications. Apart from the most known reinforcement fibres, like glass or carbon, natural fibres can be seen as an economical alternative. However, some mistrust is yet limiting the use of such materials, being one of the main reasons the inconsistency normally found in their mechanical properties. It should be noticed that these materials are more used for their low density than for their high stiffness. In this work, two different types of reinforced plates were compared: glass reinforced epoxy plate and sisal reinforced epoxy plate. For material characterization purposes, tensile and flexural tests were carried out. Main properties of both materials, like elastic modulus, tensile strength or flexural modulus, are presented and compared with reference values. Afterwards, plates were drilled under two different feed rates: low and high, with two diverse tools: twist and brad type drill, while cutting speed was kept constant. Thrust forces during drilling were monitored. Then, delamination area around the hole was assessed by using digital images that were processed using a computational platform previously developed. Finally, drilled plates were mechanically tested for bearing and open-hole resistance. Results were compared and correlated with the measured delamination. Conclusions contribute to the understanding of natural fibres reinforced plastics as a substitute to glass fibres reinforced plastics, helping on cost reductions without compromising reliability, as well as the consequence of delamination on mechanical resistance of this type of composites.
Dystroglycan expression in the wild type and mdx mouse neural retina: Synaptic colocalization with dystrophin, dystrophin‐related protein but not laminin

Alpha‐ and β‐dystroglycan (α‐ and β‐DG) are members of a dystrophin‐associaced glycoprotein complex (DGC) in skeletal muscle which binds to agrin and laminin, and has been postulated to be involved in myoneural synapse formation. The absence of functional dystrophin in Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and in one of its animal models, the mdx mouse, leads to a reduction of α‐ and β‐DG in muscle, and is often associated with mental retardation and abnormal retinal synaptic transmission in DMD. Using immunohistochemistry, we find that a‐ and β‐DG are expressed in the outer plexiform layer of both wild type and mdx retina, where both dystrophin and dystrophin‐related protein (DRP), but not laminin are present. In situ hybridization identifies two neuronal populations, photoreceptors and retinal ganglion cells, that express DG mRNA. α‐ and β‐DG are also expressed in the inner limiting membrane and around blood vessels where they colocalize with laminin and DRP. Western blot analysis revealed the expression of several dystrophin isoforms in wild type and mdx retina, possibly explaining the unaltered expression of α‐ and β‐dystroglycan in the mdx central nervous system (CNS). Our results support the hypothesis that a‐ and β‐DG can interact with dystrophin and DRP in the CNS and perform functions analogous to those of the DGC in muscle. © 1995 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
First-line treatment of EGFR-mutant non-small-cell lung cancer: the role of erlotinib and other tyrosine kinase inhibitors

Epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors (EGFR TKIs) were initially established as second- or third-line treatment of advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Subsequent studies, including IPASS, OPTIMAL, and EURTAC, have demonstrated that these TKIs are effective first-line therapeutic options in patients with tumors harboring activating mutations in the EGFR gene. The TKIs are better tolerated than conventional chemotherapy, with frequent yet mild side effects such as rash and diarrhea, and rarely interstitial lung disease. Because most patients on TKIs develop resistance due to a variety of mechanisms, the use of TKIs in the acquired-resistance setting and in the setting of earlier-staged cancers is being extensively studied. Here we review the major trials leading to the established use of EGFR TKIs in NSCLC, followed by discussion of recently completed and ongoing trials using the next-generation EGFR inhibitor afatinib.
Evidence That Acetylsalicylic Acid Attenuates Inflammation in the Walls of Human Cerebral Aneurysms: Preliminary Results

Background Inflammatory cells and molecules may play a critical role in formation and rupture of cerebral aneurysms. Recently, an epidemiologic study reported that acetylsalicylic acid (ASA) decreases the risk of aneurysm rupture. The goal of this study was to determine the effects of ASA on inflammatory cells and molecules in the walls of human cerebral aneurysms, using radiographic and histological techniques. Methods and Results Eleven prospectively enrolled patients harboring unruptured intracranial aneurysms were randomized into an ASA‐treated (81 mg daily) group (n=6) and an untreated (control) group (n=5). Aneurysms were imaged at baseline using ferumoxytol‐enhanced MRI to estimate uptake by macrophages. After 3 months, patients were reimaged before undergoing microsurgical clipping. Aneurysm tissues were collected for immunostaining with monoclonal antibodies for cyclooxygenase‐1 (COX‐1), cyclooxygenase‐2 (COX‐2), microsomal prostaglandin E2 synthase‐1 (mPGES‐1), and macrophages. A decrease in signal intensity on ferumoxytol‐enhanced MRI was observed after 3 months of ASA treatment. Expression of COX‐2 (but not COX‐1), mPGES‐1, and macrophages was lower in the ASA group than in the control group. Conclusions This study provides preliminary radiographical and histological evidence that ASA may attenuate the inflammatory process in the walls of human cerebral aneurysms. Clinical Trial Registration URL: http://www.clinicaltrials. gov. Unique identifier: NCT01710072.
Navigating the paradox: An examiniation of compliance-gaining and relational development in hostage incidents

This study sought to examine potential relationships between compliance-gaining strategy use and the outcome of hostage negotiation events. Persuasion has been identified as being a critical yet understudied part of the negotiation process. Utilizing the theory of Speech Acts, this study argued that compliance-gaining strategies play an essential role in the hostage recovery process. Specifically, compliance-gaining strategies allow the negotiator to exercise persuasion during the negotiation process while also building an interaction context that allows the hostage taker to feel as if the negotiator is working with, rather than against, the perpetrator. This type of relationship allows the negotiator to exert a greater degree of influence in the incident. Through analyzing nine hostage incidents, this study was able to identify compliance-gaining tactics that related to the outcome of hostage events. Compliance-gaining tactics that reduce relational distance were related to peaceful outcomes and compliance-gaining tactics that increased relational distance were related to unsuccessful outcomes. This study also found that the use of compliance-gaining tactics was particularly important in the final Resolution stage of hostage incidents. In examining the ways that the parties respond to the use of compliance-gaining techniques, the hostage takers’ use of Agreement or Disagreement were discovered to be related to incident outcome. Practical applications for negotiation professionals, disciplinary contributions, and study limitations were also discussed.
Influence of individual and neighbourhood socioeconomic status on mortality among black, Mexican-American, and white women and men in the United States

Study objectives: This study examines the influence of individual and neighbourhood socioeconomic status (SES) on mortality among black, Mexican-American, and white women and men in the US. The authors had three study objectives. Firstly, they examined mortality rates by both individual level SES (measured by income, education, and occupational/employment status) and neighbourhood level SES (index of neighbourhood income/wealth, educational attainment, occupational status, and employment status). Secondly, they examined whether neighbourhood SES was associated with mortality after controlling for individual SES. Thirdly, they calculated the population attributable risk to estimate the reduction in mortality rates if all women and men lived in the highest SES neighbourhoods. Design: National Health Interview Survey (1987–1994), linked with 1990 census tract (neighbourhood proxy) and mortality data through 1997. Setting/participants: Nationally representative sample of 59 935 black, 19 201 Mexican-American, and 344 432 white men and women (six gender and racial/ethnic groups), aged 25–64 at interview. Main results: Mortality rates for all six gender and racial/ethnic groups were two to four times higher for those with the lowest incomes (lowest quartile) who lived in the lowest SES neighbourhoods (lowest tertile) compared with those with the highest incomes who lived in the highest SES neighbourhoods. For the six groups, the age adjusted mortality risk associated with living in the lowest SES neighbourhoods ranged from 1.43 to 1.61. The mortality risk decreased but remained significant (p values <.05) after adjusting for each of the three individual measures of SES, with the exception of Mexican-American women. Furthermore, the mortality risk associated with living in the lowest SES neighbourhoods remained significant after simultaneously adjusting for all three individual measures of SES for white men (p<0.001) and white women (p<0.05). Deaths would hypothetically be reduced by about 20% for each subgroup if everyone had the same death rates as those living in the highest SES neighbourhoods (highest tertile). Conclusions: Living in a low SES neighbourhood confers additional mortality risk beyond individual SES.
"there is no manual to this mess": Parent-adolescent communication patterns, privacy management, and talks about substance use

Drug experimentation becomes significantly more likely as children reach middle school (Johnston, O'Malley, Bachman, & Schulenberg, 2010), and the risk of alcohol dependence in adulthood is much higher the younger the alcohol use begins (41% for children who begin drinking at age 12 or younger, approximately 17% for those begin drinking at age 18, and 11% if drinking starts at 21) (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2010). Families can be integral to prevention efforts (Booth-Butterfield & Sidelinger, 1998; Brody, Flor, Hollett-Wright, & McCoy, 1998; Ennett, Bauman, Foshee, Pemberton, & Hicks, 2001; Miller-Day, 2008; MillerDay & Dodd, 2004; Miller-Day & Kam, 2009), yet we know very little about the effectiveness of communication about substance abuse. Extant research provides evidence that ongoing interactions between parents and children about drugs are a more common strategy than the oneshot “drug talks” of years past (Miller-Day & Dodd, 2004), and generally, “open communication” between parents and children seems to be a positive factor in family-based prevention processes (Miller-Day, 2008). However, this dissertation fills a gap in the research by providing in-depth descriptions from both parental and adolescent perspectives about the overall family culture that has been established for the first 13 to 17 years of the child’s life, in order to contextualize certain ways of talking about drugs within different families. In addition, this dissertation’s qualitative design contributes ecologically valid data from multiple family members about their subjective experiences of family communication patterns, privacy management, and communication about substance use in general and parental substance use in particular. This dissertation is the result of 85 in-depth, individual interviews with one parent and one of their adolescent children from 40 families in central Pennsylvania and north Florida.
Daily suppression of discrete emotions during the work of police service workers and criminal investigation officers

The aim of the present research among Dutch police officers was to examine whether fluctuations in emotional job demands predict exhaustion through the suppression of discrete emotions. A first diary study (N =25) tested how the suppression of discrete emotions is related to exhaustion at the end of the work shift of police call-center service workers. Results revealed that suppressing anger was positively related to exhaustion at the end of a work shift, whereas suppressing happiness was not. A second study (N=41) among criminal investigation officers showed that the emotions anger, abhorrence, and sadness were among the most common negative emotions that were suppressed as part of the emotional labor of this specialized occupational group. Results of a third (diary) study (N=39) confirmed that emotional dissonance and more particularly the suppression of abhorrence mediated the relationship between emotional job demands and exhaustion at the end of a work shift.
Brown Lemurs (Eulemur fulvus) Can Master the Qualitative Version of the Reverse-Reward Contingency

Behavioral flexibility that requires behavioral inhibition has important fitness consequences. One task commonly used to assess behavioral inhibition is the reverse-reward task in which the subject is rewarded by the non selected items. Lemurs were tested for their ability to solve the qualitative version of the reverse-reward task with the choice between identical quantities of different food items instead of different quantities of the same food. Two of four subjects mastered the task without a correction procedure and were able to generalize the acquired rule to novel combinations of food. One of the two subjects competent on the quality version of the task could transfer this ability to different quantities of the same food. Our results are compared to lemurs’ performances when tested under the quantitative version in a previous study and those of capuchin monkeys tested under a similar paradigm. The whole results suggest that the qualitative version of the reverse-reward task may be easier to master than its quantitative counterpart and that lemurs perform better than capuchin monkeys as they were able to later transfer the learning rule to the quantitative version of the task.
The Urban-Rural Income Gap and Inequality in China

Using new household survey data for 1995 and 2002, we investigate the size of China's urban-rural income gap, the gap's contribution to overall inequality in China, and the factors underlying the gap. Our analysis improves on past estimates by using a fuller measure of income, adjusting for spatial price differences and including migrants. Our methods include inequality decomposition by population subgroup and the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition. Several key findings emerge. First, the adjustments substantially reduce China's urban-rural income gap and its contribution to inequality. Nevertheless, the gap remains large and has increased somewhat over time. Second, after controlling for household characteristics, location of residence remains the most important factor underlying the urban-rural income gap. The only household characteristic that contributes substantially to the gap is education. Differences in the endowments of, and returns to, other household characteristics such as family size and composition, landholdings, and Communist Party membership are relatively unimportant. Copyright © 2007 The Authors; Journal compilation © International Association for Research in Income and Wealth 2007.
The global severity of chronic graft-versus-host disease, determined by National Institutes of Health consensus criteria, is associated with overall survival and non-relapse mortality

Background The 2005 National Institutes of Health Consensus Development Conference on chronic graft-versus-host disease proposed major changes in the classification and grading of severity of chronic graft-versus-host disease. Design and Methods We aimed to study the association of the proposed chronic graft-versus-host disease classification and global severity with transplantation outcomes among a consecutive series of patients who received pharmacokinetically-targeted doses of intravenous busulfan and fludarabine conditioning followed by transplantation of allogeneic peripheral blood stem cells. Results From a total cohort (n = 242) of patients surviving more than 100 days after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, 181 (75% of those at risk) had some manifestations of graft-versus-host disease after day 100. Of these, at onset 13 (7%) had late acute graft-versus-host disease, 62 (34%) had classic chronic graft-versus-host disease, and 106 (59%) had the overlap subtype of chronic graft-versus-host disease. The global severity of the chronic graft-versus-host disease was mild in 25% of cases, moderate in 46%, and severe in 29%. Multivariable modeling demonstrated the independent association of global severity of chronic graft-versus-host disease with overall survival (moderate/severe versus mild; HR 2.9, 95% CI 1.8–4.7, P<0.0001) and non-relapse mortality (moderate versus mild; HR 3.86, 95% CI 1.17–12.73, P=0.03, and severe versus mild (HR 10.06, 95% CI 3.07–32.97, P<0.001). The type of onset of progressive chronic graft-versus-host disease and the platelet count at the time of diagnosis of the disease were significantly associated with overall survival. The occurrence and severity of chronic graft-versus-host disease was also significantly associated with primary disease relapse. Conclusions Patients with moderate to severe chronic graft-versus-host disease, as determined by National Institutes of Health Consensus criteria, have an inferior overall survival and worse non-relapse mortality. Clinical and research advances are needed to improve the outcomes of affected patients.
Optimality Theory and language change in Spanish

The present chapter discusses Optimality-Theoretic approaches to language change in Spanish, reviewing a number of works that invoke not only the interaction of faithfulness and markedness constraints, but also the role of perceptual, cognitive, systemic and external influences on linguistic structure and change at the level of segment and segmental inventory, syllable- and prosodic structure, and intersecting points of morphology, and mentions formal considerations that impact these. The chapter concludes with an appendix that attempts to list all works published to date that treat language change and variation in Spanish and Hispano-Romance from an OT perspective.
Cannabinoid Agonists Stimulate [3H]GABA Release in the Globus Pallidus of the Rat When Gi Protein-Receptor Coupling Is Restricted: Role of Dopamine D2 Receptors

The motor effects of cannabinoids in the globus pallidus appear to be caused by increases in interstitial GABA. To elucidate the mechanism of this response, we investigated the effect of the selective cannabinoid type 1 receptor (CB1) cannabinoid agonist arachidonyl-2-chloroethylamide (ACEA) on [3H]GABA release in slices of the rat globus pallidus. ACEA had two effects: concentrations between 10-8 and 10-6 M stimulated release, whereas higher concentrations (IC50 ≈ 10-6 M) inhibited it. Another cannabinoid agonist, WIN-55,212-2, also had bimodal effects on release. Studies of cAMP production indicate that under conditions of low Gi/o, availability the coupling of CB1 receptors with Gi/o proteins can be changed into CB1:Gs/olf coupling; therefore, we determined the effects of conditions that limit Gi/o availability on [3H]GABA release. Blockers of Gi/o protein interactions, pertussis toxin and N-ethylmaleimide, transformed the inhibitory effects of ACEA on GABA release into stimulation. It also has been suggested that stimulation of D2 receptors can reduce Gi/o availability. Blocking D2 receptors with sulpiride [(S)-5-aminosulfonyl-N-[(1-ethyl-2-pyrrolidinyl)methyl]-2-methoxybenzamidersqb] or depleting dopamine with reserpine inhibited the ACEA-induced stimulation of release. Thus, the D2 dependence of stimulation is consistent with the proposal that D2 receptors reduce Gi/o proteins available for binding to the CB1 receptor. In summary, CB1 receptor activation has dual effects on GABA release in the globus pallidus. Low concentrations stimulate release through a process that depends on activation of dopamine D2 receptors that may limit Gi/o protein availability. Higher concentrations of cannabinoid inhibit GABA release through mechanisms that are independent of D2 receptor activation.
Community Analysis of a Mercury Hot Spring Supports Occurrence of Domain-Specific Forms of Mercuric Reductase

ABSTRACT Mercury is a redox-active heavy metal that reacts with active thiols and depletes cellular antioxidants. Active resistance to the mercuric ion is a widely distributed trait among bacteria and results from the action of mercuric reductase (MerA). Protein phylogenetic analysis of MerA in bacteria indicated the occurrence of a second distinctive form of MerA among the archaea, which lacked an N-terminal metal recruitment domain and a C-terminal active tyrosine. To assess the distribution of the forms of MerA in an interacting community comprising members of both prokaryotic domains, studies were conducted at a naturally occurring mercury-rich geothermal environment. Geochemical analyses of Coso Hot Springs indicated that mercury ore (cinnabar) was present at concentrations of parts per thousand. Under high-temperature and acid conditions, cinnabar may be oxidized to the toxic form Hg2+, necessitating mercury resistance in resident prokaryotes. Culture-independent analysis combined with culture-based methods indicated the presence of thermophilic crenarchaeal and gram-positive bacterial taxa. Fluorescence in situ hybridization analysis provided quantitative data for community composition. DNA sequence analysis of archaeal and bacterial merA sequences derived from cultured pool isolates and from community DNA supported the hypothesis that both forms of MerA were present. Competition experiments were performed to assess the role of archaeal merA in biological fitness. An essential role for this protein was evident during growth in a mercury-contaminated environment. Despite environmental selection for mercury resistance and the proximity of community members, MerA retains the two distinct prokaryotic forms and avoids genetic homogenization.