Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A silver spoon.

An invitation to write the prefatory chapter for the Annual Review of Physiology provokes mixed feelings. There is no question as to the honor it confers; a glance at the list of previous invitees attests to that. On the other hand, it signals the unwanted passage of time, and it implies that the invitee, after 50 years of physiology, should have profound and useful things to say about the past and future. Alas, I must confess at the outset that the pearls of wisdom within my shelLhave been slow to mature, and they are still too small to spread before the sophisticated readers of this Annual Reviews volume. I can only use them as decorations for a personal narrative.
The role of coaggregation between Porphyromonas gingivalis and Fusobacterium nucleatum on the host response to mixed infection.

AIM To evaluate the role of coaggregation between Porphyromonas gingivalis and Fusobacterium nucleatum on the virulence of the mixed infection in mice. MATERIALS AND METHODS Inhibition of coaggregation was carried out using lactose. In vitro, inhibition of coaggregation was verified using a coaggregation assay. In vivo, the virulence of the mixed infection, with and without coaggregation, was examined in a model of experimental periodontitis in mice. The local host response to the mixed infection, with or without coaggregation, was examined using the subcutaneous chamber model of infection. RESULTS Lactose inhibited the coaggregation between P. gingivalis and F. nucleatum at all the tested concentrations (1-0.0625 M). Surprisingly, the addition of lactose to the mixed infection increased the severity of experimental periodontitis (as measured by alveolar bone loss) compared with mixed infection with coaggregating bacteria. The addition of lactose to the mixed infection resulted in mild attenuation of TNFα and IL-1β levels. In addition, inhibition of coaggregation resulted in inhibition of the phagocytosis of F. nucleatum and augmentation of the phagocytosis of P. gingivalis. CONCLUSIONS The ability of P. gingivalis and F. nucleatum to coaggregate may limit their ability to induce experimental periodontitis in a mixed infection model. Moreover, there is a shift in the phagocytosis pattern of the bacteria with the annulment of coaggregeaiton, with a reduction in F. nucleatum phagocytosis and amplification of P. gingivalis phagocytosis. The increased virulence of the mixed infection without coaggregation may surprisingly lay in the sustention of F. nucleatum in the infected sites.
Evaluation of turmeric (Curcuma longa) effect on biochemical and pathological parameters of liver and kidney in chicken aflatoxicosis

Abstract Context: Aflatoxins as potent mycotoxins can influence vital parameters in chickens. Turmeric was used in decreasing toxic effect of mycotoxins on vital organs, traditionally. Objective: The study compared the protective effect of turmeric and MycoadTR in broilers exposed to aflatoxin. Materials and methods: Chickens (270) were divided into six groups. The chickens were fed a basal diet, turmeric extract (5 mg/kg diet), MycoadTR (25 mg/kg diet), productive aflatoxin (3 mg/kg diet), aflatoxin plus turmeric extract (3 versus 5 mg/kg diet), and aflatoxin plus MycoadTR (3 versus 25 mg/kg diet) in basal diet. At 28 d old, we determined plasma concentration of total protein, albumin, triglyceride, cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein (HDL), low-density lipoprotein (LDL), calcium, potassium, phosphorous, uric acid, aspartate transferase (AST), and alanine aminotransferase (ALT). Furthermore, liver and kidney were sampled for pathological examination. Results: Chickens fed turmeric with aflatoxin had significant lower ALT, AST, and uric acid than chickens fed aflatoxin (11.4 ± 0.79, 228 ± 9, and 6 ± 0.4 versus 17.2 ± 1.7, 283 ± 5, and 7.7 ± 0.1) whereas, total protein, calcium, and HDL values in chickens fed aflatoxin plus turmeric increased significantly (2.66 ± 0.16, 8.4 ± 0.2, and 920 ± 4.1 versus 1.7 ± 0.17, 7 ± 0.2, and 690 ± 4.8). Pathological examination revealed severe congestion, degeneration, and necrosis in liver and kidney in chickens that received aflatoxin. Discussion and conclusion: The study showed that turmeric may provide protection against the toxic effects of aflatoxin on liver and kidney.
Effects of surface treatments on the bond strength of glass hybrid restorative system repaired with hybrid composite resin

Aim: To assess the bonding strength of the Equia Forte resin modified glass ionomer cement to the hybrid composite material by applying different surface treatments. Methodology: 140 samples as 70 Equia Forte and 70 G-eanial composites were produced as 8 mm diameter 3 mm high cylindrical standardized samples. The samples were divided into 7 groups to treat surfaces. G-eanial composite resins as 4 mm diameter 3 mm high was placed onto the samples and polymerized. Then 1000 thermal cycle was applied and samples were mounted in the universal testing machine. Obtained bond strength values were recorded as Newton. One way Anova and Scheffe post hoc tests were performed for statistics. Results: In the G-aenial group, the highest bond strength was obtained with laser-bond method (N=17.71, P<0.05) and the lowest bonding strength was obtained with only laser-treated method (N=3.45, P<0.05). In the Equia group, the highest bond strength was obtained with air abrasion-bond method (N=9.29, P<0.05) and the lowest bonding strength was obtained with only laser-treated method (N=0.00, P<0.05). Conclusion: The fact that sufficient bond strength could not be reached by any surface treatment in Equia Forte may suggest that replacing the Equia Forte instead of repairs may be a better choice.
Acute Sirolimus Overdose: A Multicenter Case Series

Background There are few data relating to sirolimus overdose in the medical literature. Our objectives were to describe all cases of overdose with sirolimus reported to Swiss, German and Austrian Poisons Centres between 2002-2013. Methods An observational case-series analysis was performed to determine circumstances, magnitude, management and outcome of sirolimus overdose. Results Five cases of acute sirolimus overdose were reported – three in young children and two in adults. Four were accidental and one was with suicidal intent. Two patients developed symptoms probably related to sirolimus overdose: mild elevation of alkaline phosphatase, fever and gastroenteritis in a 2.5-year-old male who ingested 3 mg, and mild changes in total cholesterol in an 18-year-old female after ingestion of 103 mg. None of these events were life-threatening. Serial blood concentration measurements were performed starting 24 h after ingestion of 103 mg in a single case, and these followed a similar pharmacokinetic time-course to measurements taken after dosing in the therapeutic range. Conclusions Acute sirolimus overdose occurred accidentally in the majority of cases. Even large overdoses appeared to be well-tolerated, however children might be at greater risk of developing complications. Further study of sirolimus overdose is needed.
Illness insight and recovery: how important is illness insight in peoples' recovery process?

TOPIC This account reflects on the topic of illness insight and recovery. PURPOSE The purpose of the account is to clarify our understanding about the importance of illness insight in peoples' recovery process, especially when relating the question of illness insight to the question of identity. SOURCES USED The writing is based on research literature related to illness insight and on personal recovery experiences. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE It is helpful to consider the integration of the issue of illness insight when addressing the questions and consequences of diagnosis, and to assist individuals to work through the false analogy between illness and identity while supporting the transformation from patient to person. It is also necessary for clinicians to develop a clear understanding of peoples' actual needs and gain more knowledge about peoples' own views and experiences in relation to the importance of illness insight in the recovery process.
SIFT descriptors for Arabic handwriting recognition

In this paper, a new recognition system for off-line Arabic handwritten words is presented. The proposed system uses for the first time scale invariant feature transform SIFT descriptors to extract features from Arabic handwritten words. It is also based on keypoints matching for achieving classification. In our method, word's images are divided vertically into five frames; from each frame a set of keypoints using SIFT descriptors is extracted and compared to classes' models which includes the most discriminating keypoints extracted from words samples of the same class. Finally, the recognition process was achieved through a keypoints matching procedure, using the Euclidean distance. The paper presents also a new large Arabic handwritten word database. This database provides a new framework for benchmarking and gives a new freely available handwritten word dataset. Several tests have been performed using our new database and the well known IFN/ENIT database for comparison purposes. The reported results show the robustness and efficiency of the proposed approach.
Context-Sensitive Rewriting Strategies

Contex-sensitive rewriting is a simple rewriting restriction which is formalized by imposing fixed restrictions on replacements. Such a restriction is given on a purely syntactic basis: it is given on the arguments of symbols of the signature and inductively extended to arbitrary positions of terms built from those symbols. The termination behavior is not only preserved but usually improved and several methods have been developed to formally prove it. In this paper, we investigate the definition, properties, and use of context-sensitive rewriting strategies, i.e., particular, fixed sequences of context-sensitive rewriting steps. We study how to define them in order to obtain efficient computations and to ensure that context-sensitive computations terminate whenever possible. We give conditions enabling the use of these strategies for root-normalization, normalization, and infinitary normalization. We show that this theory is suitable for formalizing the definition and analysis of real computational strategies which are used in programming languages such as OBJ or ELAN.
Convex approaches to model wavelet sparsity patterns

Statistical dependencies among wavelet coefficients are commonly represented by graphical models such as hidden Markov trees (HMTs). However, in linear inverse problems such as deconvolution, tomography, and compressed sensing, the presence of a sensing or observation matrix produces a linear mixing of the simple Markovian dependency structure. This leads to reconstruction problems that are non-convex optimizations. Past work has dealt with this issue by resorting to greedy or suboptimal iterative reconstruction methods. In this paper, we propose new modeling approaches based on group-sparsity penalties that leads to convex optimizations that can be solved exactly and efficiently. We show that the methods we develop perform significantly better in de-convolution and compressed sensing applications, while being as computationally efficient as standard coefficient-wise approaches such as lasso.
Honest and dishonest communication in social Hymenoptera

SUMMARY Communication in social insects usually serves the good of the whole society and thus increases the inclusive fitness of all individuals. Hence, cheating and dishonesty are not expected when nestmates are to be alarmed or recruited to food sources. However, kin selection predicts a conflict of interest among individuals about the partitioning of reproduction. Dishonest communication may then be advantageous. Workers usually do not lay eggs in the presence of a fertile queen, but in many species they do so when the queen is removed. This effect has been explained by manipulative, i.e. dishonest, queen control or honest fertility signalling. Numerous studies have documented qualitative and quantitative differences in the pheromone blends of reproductives and non-reproductives. We examine these data for signs of honest signalling, conflict and manipulation.
Fast LV motion estimation using subspace approximation techniques

Cardiac motion estimation is very important in understanding cardiac dynamics and in noninvasive diagnosis of heart disease. Magnetic resonance (MR) imaging tagging is a technique for measuring heart deformations. In cardiac tagged MR images, a set of dark lines are noninvasively encoded within myocardial tissue providing the means for measurement of deformations of the heart. The points along tag lines measured in different frames and in different directions carry important information for determining the three-dimensional nonrigid movement of left ventricle. However, these measurements are sparse and, therefore, multidimensional interpolation techniques are needed to reconstruct a dense displacement field. In this paper, a novel subspace approximation technique is used to accomplish this task. The authors formulate the displacement estimation as a variational problem and then project the solution into spline subspaces. Efficient numerical methods are derived by taking advantages of B-spline properties. The proposed technique significantly improves the authors' previous results reported in A.A. Amini et al., ibid., vol. 17, p. 344-56 (1998) with respect to computational time. The method is applied to a temporal sequence of two-dimensional images and is validated with simulated and in vivo heart data.
Strain based triangular finite element for plate bending analysis

ABSTRACT In this work, the formulation of a new triangular finite element is presented for static and free vibration of plate bending. The developed element which contains the three essential external degrees of freedom at each of the three corner nodes is based on the Reissner/Mindlin theory and the strain-based approach. This element is based on the linear variation of the three bending strains and constant transverse shear strains. The present element performances are evaluated through several tests related to moderated thick and thin plates with various shapes where it is found to be numerically more efficient than the bilinear element.
Alcohol Abuse, Sexual Risk Behaviors, and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Women in Moshi Urban District, Northern Tanzania

Background: To assess the covariates of alcohol abuse and the association between alcohol abuse, high-risk sexual behaviors and sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Methods: Two thousand and nineteen women aged 20 to 44 were randomly selected in a 2-stage sampling from the Moshi urban district of northern Tanzania. Participant’s demographic and socio-economic characteristics, alcohol use, sexual behaviors, and STIs were assessed. Blood and urine samples were drawn for testing of human immunodeficiency virus, herpes simplex virus, syphilis, chlamydia, gonorrhea, trichomonas, and mycoplasma genitalium infections. Results: Adjusted analyses showed that a history of physical (OR = 2.05; 95% CI: 1.06–3.98) and sexual violence (OR = 1.63; 95% CI: 1.05–2.51) was associated with alcohol abuse. Moreover, alcohol abuse was associated with number of sexual partners (OR = 1.66; 95% CI: 1.01–2.73). Women who abused alcohol were more likely to report STIs symptoms (OR = 1.61; 95% CI: 1.08–2.40). Women who had multiple sexual partners were more likely to have an STI (OR = 2.41; 95% CI: 1.46–4.00) compared to women with 1 sexual partner. There was no direct association between alcohol abuse and prevalence of STIs (OR = 0.86; 95% CI: 0.55–1.34). However, alcohol abuse was indirectly associated with STIs through its association with multiple sexual partners. Conclusions: The findings of alcohol abuse among physically and sexually violated women as well as the association between alcohol abuse and a history of symptoms of STIs and testing positive for STIs have significant public health implications. In sub-Saharan Africa, where women are disproportionately affected by the HIV epidemic screening for alcohol use should be part of comprehensive STIs and HIV prevention programs.
Paediatric reference values for the C-terminal fragment of fibroblast-growth factor-23, sclerostin, bone-specific alkaline phosphatase and isoform 5b of tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase

Background Paediatric reference values for novel markers of phosphate homeostasis, bone formation and resorption and their putative relationship to growth are lacking. Methods A total of 424 healthy children, adolescents and young adults (221 males) aged 0.1–21 y, were enrolled in this cross-sectional study. Height, weight and height velocity were assessed. Plasma/serum samples for determination of C-terminal fragment of fibroblast growth factor-23 (cFGF-23), sclerostin, bone alkaline phosphatase (BAP) and tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase 5b (TRAP5b) were available from 222, 264, 352 and 338 individuals, respectively. Calculation of cross-sectional centiles and z-scores was based on median (M), standard coefficient of variation (S) and the Box-Cox power (L) of transformation (LMS method) per age cohort. Correlations between variables as well as with growth were assessed. Results cFGF-23, BAP and TRAP5b were significantly correlated with age (each P < 0.01), with highest values during infancy and adolescence. Serum levels of BAP and TRAP5b were significantly higher in adolescent boys compared with girls (each P < 0.01). In contrast, sclerostin levels were independent of age and gender. BAP and TRAP5b were strongly correlated and both were significantly associated with cFGF-23 and sclerostin as well (each P < 0.01). cFGF-23 was positively correlated with serum phosphate and renal phosphate threshold concentration (each P < 0.01). Height, weight, body mass index and height velocity were weakly correlated with BAP and TRAP5b (each P < 0.05). Conclusions This study provides age- and gender-related centile charts and z-scores for cFGF-23, BAP, TRAP5b and sclerostin and highlights the link between phosphate homeostasis and markers of bone metabolism during growth.
Medication Adherence

Background: ART is a life long treatment and its effectiveness depends critically both on the efficacy of the antiretroviral drugs against the virus, and achieving a very high level of adherence (> 95 %) to the medications. Adherence poses a special challenge and requires commitment from the patient and the health care provider. Objectives: The study evaluated medication adherence, and identified risk factors for non-adherence in HIV-infected ART patients. Methods: In a cross-sectional survey, medication adherence of 118 HIV-infected ART patients who received pretreatment and ongoing adherence counseling and education for 6 months was evaluated using a self-administered studyspecific 16-item questionnaire. Self-reported adherence was calculated as the mean of patients' adherence to the medication schedule and the number of prescribed doses of medications missed. Chi-square statistics was used to test the association of adherence with occupation and education at 95 % CI. Results: The mean age of participants was 33.9 (95 % CI, 29.6-38.2) years; and 82.2 % of participants were aged 2645years; 60.2 % females, 80.5 % attained secondary education at the least; and 77.1 % were employed. All participants reported been counseled on the benefits of ART and medication adherence at ART initiation. On assessment of participants' knowledge of the benefits of ART and medication adherence, 92.2 % were very knowledgeable, 2.9 % reported wrongly that ART is a cure for HIV. The self-reported adherence to medication schedule was 68.9 % (range: 0 % 100 %), of which 83 (70.3 %) reported > 75 % adherence; while adherence to prescribed doses of medications was 89.2 % (range: 20 % 100 %), of which 100 (84.7 %) participants reported > 80 % adherence. Mean self-reported adherence (±SD) was 79.1 % ± 14.4 %. Employment status was associated with poor adherence (P < 0.05), unlike the educational status. The major reasons reported for non-adherence were busy at work or school (33.1 %), forgetfulness (15.5 %), fasting (12.0 %), and travelled away from home (10.6%). Conclusion: The self-reported adherence was relatively poor compared to the desired value of > 95%. Employment status was associated with poor adherence and this may be corroborated by the major reason reported for non-adherence (busy at work or school). Routine adherence monitoring and multiple adherence interventions in clinical practice are recommended.
A descriptive analysis of the foot lesions identified during veterinary treatment for lameness on dairy farms in north Taranaki

Abstract AIM: To analyse the records made during routine veterinary treatment of lame cows, to identify the types of lesions causing lameness of dairy cows in north Taranaki, their relative prevalence and distribution, and some of the cow-associated factors which affect these parameters. METHODS: Data concerning cow age and breed, lesion type, lesion site, and whether the examination was a revisit were collected from records of veterinary visits between December 1995 and July 2007. Data were analysed on a single- or two-factor basis, using χ and, where suitable, calculation of OR. RESULTS: The total number of individual cow treatments recorded was 4,488. The most commonly recorded lesion was white-line disease (WLD) (42% of diagnoses at first examination), and the second was sole injury (29%). Heifers accounted for 19% of cases, similar to the expected replacement rate. Jerseys accounted for 18% of cases, lower than the proportion of purebred Jerseys in the region (27%). There was a significant effect of age and breed on the prevalence and distribution of lesions. There were also significant differences between lesion types in their location, which were also influenced by breed and age. CONCLUSIONS: This study provided a comprehensive overview of the lesions causing lameness in dairy cattle in north Taranaki, and identified some of the factors which influence the development of lesions. More research is needed to better establish the aetiology and pathogenesis of lameness in cattle under New Zealand conditions. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: This study provides baseline data with which veterinarians can compare their results to identify significant patterns on specific farms, which will suggest specific causal factors for lameness on those farms and thus better guide prevention programmes.