Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Changes in Aqueductal CSF Stroke Volume in Shunted Patients with Idiopathic Normal-Pressure Hydrocephalus

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Aqueductal CSF stroke volume (ACSV) measured by phase-contrast MR imaging is a tool for selection of surgical patients with idiopathic normal-pressure hydrocephalus (iNPH). The aim of the present study was to investigate whether there is a relationship between clinical outcome and changes in ACSV in patients with iNPH who have been shunted. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Sixty-five shunted patients with iNPH underwent clinical evaluation and ACSV measurements 7–30 days before and 1, 3, 6, and 12 months after surgery. RESULTS: Two patients were excluded from the study for the occurrence of a perioperative complication. In a group of 35 clinically improved patients, the mean preoperative ACSV (157.01 μL) decreased to 18% one month after ventriculoperitoneal shunt (VPS) and ≤49% at 12 months post-VPS. In a group of 15 unimproved patients, the lower mean preoperative ACSV (84.2 μL) decreased to 14.3% one month post-VPS and ≤34% at 12 months post-VPS. In the other 8 improved patients who developed a subdural fluid collection (SDFC), ACSV values decreased by 43%–75% in the 3 months post-VPS. A postoperative ACSV increase was noted in 6 patients with a shunt system malfunction. One patient experienced both SDCF and shunt malfunction. CONCLUSIONS: ACSV decreases in all patients in whom the VPS system works properly, with the rate of ACSV decrease being higher in the patients who show clinical improvement. Postoperative ACSV increase suggests shunt malfunction. A precipitous drop of ACSV values after VPS may be the consequence of increased drainage and herald the occurrence of SDFC.
Development of a high-throughput method to evaluate serum bactericidal activity using bacterial ATP measurement as survival readout

Serum Bactericidal Activity (SBA) assay is the method of choice to evaluate the complement-mediated functional activity of both infection- and vaccine-induced antibodies. To perform a typical SBA assay, serial dilutions of sera are incubated with target bacterial strains and complement. The conventional SBA assay is based on plating on agar the SBA reaction mix and counting the surviving bacterial colony forming units (CFU) at each serum dilution. Even with automated colony counting, it is labor-intensive, time-consuming and not amenable for large-scale studies. Here, we have developed a luminescence-based SBA (L-SBA) method able to detect surviving bacteria by measuring their ATP. At the end of the SBA reaction, a single commercially available reagent is added to each well of the SBA plate, and the resulting luminescence signal is measured in a microplate reader. The signal obtained is proportional to the ATP present, which is directly proportional to the number of viable bacteria. Bactericidal activity is subsequently calculated. We demonstrated the applicability of L-SBA with multiple bacterial serovars, from 5 species: Citrobacter freundii, Salmonella enterica serovars Typhimurium and Enteritidis, Shigella flexneri serovars 2a and 3a, Shigella sonnei and Neisseria meningitidis. Serum bactericidal titers obtained by the luminescence readout method strongly correlate with the data obtained by the conventional agar plate-based assay, and the new assay is highly reproducible. L-SBA considerably shortens assay time, facilitates data acquisition and analysis and reduces the operator dependency, avoiding the plating and counting of CFUs. Our results demonstrate that L-SBA is a useful high-throughput bactericidal assay.
Fault-Tolerant Distributed Computing in Full-Information Networks

In this paper, we use random-selection protocols in the full-information model to solve classical problems in distributed computing. Our main results are the following: An O(log n)-round randomized Byzantine agreement (BA) protocol in a synchronous full-information network tolerating t < n/(3+epsi) faulty players (for any constant epsi > 0). As such, our protocol is asymptotically optimal in terms of fault-tolerance. An O(1)-round randomized BA protocol in a synchronous full-information network tolerating t = O(n/((log n)1.58)) faulty players. A compiler that converts any randomized protocol Piin designed to tolerate t fail-stop faults, where the source of randomness of Piin is an SV-source, into a protocol Piout that tolerates min(t, n/3) Byzantine faults. If the round-complexity of Piin is r, that of Piout is O(r log* n). Central to our results is the development of a new tool, "audited protocols". Informally "auditing" is a transformation that converts any protocol that assumes built-in broadcast channels into one that achieves a slightly weaker guarantee, without assuming broadcast channels. We regard this as a tool of independent interest, which could potentially find applications in the design of simple and modular randomized distributed algorithms
Merkel cell polyomavirus DNA in immunocompetent and immunocompromised patients with respiratory disease

Merkel cell polyomavirus (MCPyV) was identified originally in association with a rare but aggressive skin cancer, Merkel cell carcinoma. The virus has since been found in the respiratory tract of some patients with respiratory disease. However, the role of MCPyV in the causation of respiratory disease has not been established. To determine the prevalence of MCPyV in 305 respiratory samples from immunocompetent and immunocompromised patients and evaluate their contribution to respiratory diseases, specimens were screened for MCPyV using single, multiplex, or real‐time PCR; co‐infection with other viruses was examined. Of the 305 samples tested, 10 (3.27%) were positive for MCPyV. The virus was found in two groups of patients: in 6 (2%) nasopharyngeal aspirate samples from children aged 26 days to 7 months who were immunocompetent; and in 4 (1.3%) of nasopharyngeal aspirate samples taken from patients aged 41 to 69 years who were severely immunosuppressed from leukemia or transplant therapy. Both groups had upper or lower respiratory tract infection. Co‐infections with other viruses were found in 30% of the MCPyV positive samples. The data present a pattern of infection similar to that seen with the polyomaviruses JC and BK in which the virus is acquired during childhood, probably by the respiratory route. The viruses then establish latency and become reactivated in the event of immunosuppression. J. Med. Virol. 83:2220–2224, 2011. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Current Controversies in Fluid Resuscitation in Acute Pancreatitis: A Systematic Review

Acute pancreatitis (AP) is a common inflammatory disorder of the pancreas resulting in considerable morbidity and mortality. Aggressive intravenous fluid resuscitation generally is recommended in all patients with AP and remains the cornerstone of management of these patients. However, the optimal rate, type, and the goal of resuscitation remain unclear. The purpose of this review was to give an insight about the pathophysiologic alterations in the pancreatic microcirculation that occur in AP, the markers for early recognition of severity of pancreatitis, the optimal fluid, and timing and extent of fluid resuscitation. An early elevated hematocrit, blood urea nitrogen, or creatinine should prompt clinicians to institute more intensive early resuscitation measures. Crystalloids are the currently recommended fluids for management of these patients. Current studies are underway to determine the optimal end points of fluid resuscitation that determine outcome. Abbreviations AP - acute pancreatitis BUN - blood urea nitrogen CVP - central venous pressure SAP - severe acute pancreatitis SIRS - severe inflammatory response syndrome
Development of Children's Mental Representations: Effects of Age, Sex, and School Experience

In the present study mental representations in drawings by 158 young children, ages 2 ½ to 6 yr. old were analysed. The aim was to investigate whether the accuracy of mental representations increased with age and how this development progressed. Also tested were whether the inferred mental representations differed for boys and girls and whether preschool experience affected the drawings. As expected, mental representation increased in complexity with age as measured by Goodenough's score, and girls' mental representations (drawings) were significantly more elaborate than boys. Moreover, attending school early seemed to affect mental representations of the 3-yr. -olds but not the 4-yr. -olds. Results are discussed in terms of internal and external factors in mental representation in drawing a man.
Phosphodiesterase-5 Inhibitor in Eisenmenger Syndrome: A Preliminary Observational Study

Background— Phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitors produce a significant decrease in pulmonary vascular resistance in patients with idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension. We studied the effects of tadalafil, a phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitor, on short-term hemodynamics, tolerability, and efficacy over a 12-week period in patients of Eisenmenger syndrome having a pulmonary vascular pathology similar to idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension. Methods and Results— Sixteen symptomatic Eisenmenger syndrome patients (mean age, 25±8.9 years) were assessed hemodynamically at baseline and 90 minutes after a single dose of tadalafil (1 mg/kg body weight up to a maximum of 40 mg). The same dose was then continued daily for 12 weeks, and the patients were restudied. There was a significant decrease in mean pulmonary vascular resistance immediately (24.75±8.49 to 19.22±8.23 Woods units; P<0.005) and at 12 weeks (19.22±8.23 to 17.02±6.19 Woods units; P=0.03 versus 90 minutes). Thirteen of 16 patients (81.25%) showed a ≥20% decrease in pulmonary vascular resistance and were defined as responders. The mean systemic oxygen saturation improved significantly both immediately (84.34±5.47% to 87.39±4.34%; P<0.005) and at 12 weeks (87.39±4.34% to 89.16±3.8%; P<0.02 versus 90 minutes) without a significant change in systemic vascular resistance. None of the patients had a fall in systemic arterial pressure, worsening of systemic oxygen saturation, or any adverse reactions to the drug. The mean World Health Organization functional class improved from 2.31±0.47 to 1.25±0.44 (P<0.0001), and the 6-minute walk distance improved from 344.56±119.06 to 387.56±117.18 m (P<0.001). Conclusions— Preliminary evaluation of tadalafil has shown efficacy and safety in selected patients with Eisenmenger syndrome, warranting further investigation in this subgroup of patients.
Effect of Recycled Concrete Aggregate Replacement Level on the Fracture Behavior of Concrete

This study presents the results of an experimental investigation that evaluates the effect of recycled concrete aggregate replacement level on the fracture energy of concrete. This study includes five mixes with 0, 30, 50, 70, and 100% recycled concrete aggregate as a coarse aggregate replacement. This experimental program consisted of 20 fracture beams to study the fracture behavior of concrete. The experimental fracture energies were compared with the fracture energy provisions of different design codes and also different analytical equations. Furthermore, statistical data analyses (both parametric and non-parametric) were performed to evaluate whether or not there is any statistically significant difference between the experimental fracture energies of different mixes. Results of these statistical tests show that the mix with higher level of recycled concrete aggregate replacement level has lower fracture energy.
Combining stochastic feature transformation and handset identification for telephone-based speaker verification

The performance of telephone-based speaker verification systems can be severely degraded by the acoustic mismatch caused by telephone handsets. This paper proposes to combine a handset selector with stochastic feature transformation to reduce the mismatch. Specifically, a GMM-based handset selector is trained to identify the most likely handset used by the claimants, and then handset-specific stochastic feature transformations are applied to the distorted feature vectors. To overcome the non-linear distortion introduced by telephone handsets, a 2nd-order stochastic feature transformation is proposed. Estimation algorithms based on the stochastic matching technique and the EM algorithm are derived. Experimental results based on 150 speakers of the HTIMIT corpus show that the handset selector is able to identify the handsets accurately (98.3%), and that both linear and non-linear transformation reduce the error rate significantly (from 12.37% to 5.49%).
Genetic heterogeneity and consanguinity lead to a “double hit”: Homozygous mutations of MYO7A and PDE6B in a patient with retinitis pigmentosa

Purpose Retinitis pigmentosa (RP), the most genetically heterogeneous disorder in humans, actually represents a group of pigmentary retinopathies characterized by night blindness followed by visual-field loss. RP can appear as either syndromic or nonsyndromic. One of the most common forms of syndromic RP is Usher syndrome, characterized by the combination of RP, hearing loss, and vestibular dysfunction. Methods The underlying cause of the appearance of syndromic and nonsyndromic RP in three siblings from a consanguineous Israeli Muslim Arab family was studied with whole-genome homozygosity mapping followed by whole exome sequencing. Results The family was found to segregate novel mutations of two different genes: myosin VIIA (MYO7A), which causes type 1 Usher syndrome, and phosphodiesterase 6B, cyclic guanosine monophosphate-specific, rod, beta (PDE6B), which causes nonsyndromic RP. One affected child was homozygous for both mutations. Since the retinal phenotype seen in this patient results from overlapping pathologies, one might expect to find severe retinal degeneration. Indeed, he was diagnosed with RP based on an abnormal electroretinogram (ERG) at a young age (9 months). However, this early diagnosis may be biased, as two of his older siblings had already been diagnosed, leading to increased awareness. At the age of 32 months, he had relatively good vision with normal visual fields. Further testing of visual function and structure at different ages in the three siblings is needed to determine whether the two RP-causing genes mutated in this youngest sibling confer increased disease severity. Conclusions This report further supports the genetic heterogeneity of RP, and demonstrates how consanguinity could increase intrafamilial clustering of multiple hereditary diseases. Moreover, this report provides a unique opportunity to study the clinical implications of the coexistence of pathogenic mutations in two RP-causative genes in a human patient.
Methods for Biomimetic Remineralization of Human Dentine: A Systematic Review

This study aimed to review the laboratory methods on biomimetic remineralization of demineralized human dentine. A systematic search of the publications in the PubMed, TRIP, and Web of Science databases was performed. Titles and abstracts of initially identified publications were screened. Clinical trials, reviews, non-English articles, resin-dentine interface studies, hybrid layer studies, hybrid scaffolds studies, and irrelevant studies were excluded. The remaining papers were retrieved with full texts. Manual screening was conducted on the bibliographies of remaining papers to identify relevant articles. A total of 716 studies were found, and 690 were excluded after initial screening. Two articles were identified from the bibliographies of the remaining papers. After retrieving the full text, 23 were included in this systematic review. Sixteen studies used analogues to mimic the functions of non-collagenous proteins in biomineralization of dentine, and four studies used bioactive materials to induce apatite formation on demineralized dentine surface. One study used zinc as a bioactive element, one study used polydopamine, and another study constructed an agarose hydrogel system for biomimetic mineralization of dentine. Many studies reported success in biomimetic mineralization of dentine, including the use of non-collagenous protein analogues, bioactive materials, or elements and agarose hydrogel system.
Source Code Authorship Analysis For Supporting the Cybercrime Investigation Process

Cybercrime has increased in severity and frequency in the recent years and because of this, it has become a major concern for companies, universities and organizations. The anonymity offered by the Internet has made the task of tracing criminal identity difficult. One study field that has contributed in tracing criminals is authorship analysis on e-mails, messages and programs. This paper contains a study on source code authorship analysis. The aim of the research efforts in this area is to identify the author of a particular piece of code by examining its programming style characteristics. Borrowing extensively from the existing fields of linguistics and software metrics, this field attempts to investigate various aspects of computer program authorship. Source code authorship analysis could be implemented in cases of cyber attacks, plagiarism and computer fraud. In this paper we present the set of tools and techniques used to achieve the goal of authorship identification, a review of the research efforts in the area and a new taxonomy on source code authorship analysis.
Dextran Sulfate Sodium—Induced Inflammation Is Enhanced by Intestinal Epithelial Cell Chemokine Expression in Mice

Dextran sulfate sodium (DSS) induces an inflammatory bowel disease-like colitis in animals. To determine the contribution of epithelium to inflammation in the intestine, we examined the effects of DSS in transgenic mice that specifically secrete macrophage inflammatory protein-2 (MIP-2) from the intestinal epithelium. We first confirmed the production of MIP-2 from intestinal epithelial cells by Western blots in transgenic mice. MIP-2 transgenic mice were therefore an appropriate model to examine the role of epithelial cell chemokines in an inflammatory state induced by DSS. We then examined the neutrophil migration into the intestine and the effect of DSS on this migration by myeloperoxidase staining. There was an increase of myeloperoxidase-positive neutrophils in the intestine from wild-type and transgenic mice after the DSS treatment. Furthermore, the increase of neutrophils under stimulation with DSS was confirmed quantitatively by measuring specific tissue myeloperoxidase activities. It was significantly greater in DSS-treated MIP-2 transgenic mice than in wild-type mice in both the small intestine and colon. These results suggest that the inflammatory effects of DSS on both small intestine and colon are enhanced by MIP-2 secreted by epithelial cells in the transgenic mice. In conclusion, intestinal epithelial cells can act in concert with other inflammatory stimuli in maintaining inflammation.
Comparative evaluation of pH and antibacterial effect of various calcium hydroxide combinations on E. faecalis and its effect on root strength: An in vitro study

Aim: To evaluate and compare the pH and antibacterial property of Ca(OH)2 combined with iodine potassium iodide (IKI) or chlorhexidine (CHX) on E. faecalis and to assess and compare their effect on fracture resistance of root dentin. Materials and Methods: CHX (0.5%) The following test materials were used: Group I Calcium hydroxide + saline, Group II Calcium hydroxide + CHX (0.5%) and Group III Calcium hydroxide + IKI (2%). For antibacterial activity, 60 root dentin blocks (20 in each group) were infected by E. faecalis followed by placement of medicaments. At the end of 24 h and 7 days, 10 samples from each group were randomly chosen and assessed for antibacterial activity. For evaluation of root strength, 30 teeth were used and stored in sterile saline after placement of medicament. At the end of 30 days, samples were subjected to fracture resistance testing on the Universal Strength Testing Machine. Hounsfield strength testing machine, UK pH of the various calcium hydroxide combinations was determined with a digital pH meter. Statistical analysis: Kruskal Wallis test, Mann Whitney U test, and one-way ANOVA test for intergroup comparison and Wilcoxon's signed rank test and student's paired t test for intragroup comparison. Results: Group III showed significantly greater antibacterial activity against E. faecalis, followed by group II and control group. There was no statistically significant change in the pH and root strength values among all the groups. Conclusion: The present study revealed that IKI or CHX in combination with Ca(OH)2 is an effective medicament against E. faecalis.
Paradoxical Increase in TAG and DAG Content Parallel the Insulin Sensitizing Effect of Unilateral DGAT1 Overexpression in Rat Skeletal Muscle

Background The involvement of muscle triacylglycerol (TAG) storage in the onset of insulin resistance is questioned and the attention has shifted towards inhibition of insulin signalling by the lipid intermediate diacylglycerol (DAG). The enzyme 1,2-acylCoA:diacylglyceroltransferase-1 (DGAT1) esterifies a fatty acyl-CoA on DAG to form TAG. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to investigate if unilateral overexpression of DGAT1 in adult rat Tibialis anterior (TA) muscle will increase conversion of the lipid intermediate DAG into TAG, thereby improving muscle insulin sensitivity. Methodology/Principal Findings The DGAT1 gene construct was injected in the left TA muscle of male rats on chow or high-fat (45% kcal) diet for three weeks, followed by application of one 800 V/cm and four 80 V/cm pulses, using the contralateral leg as sham-electroporated control. Seven days after electroporation, muscle specific insulin sensitivity was assessed with a hyperinsulinemic euglycemic clamp using 2-deoxy-[3H]glucose. Here, we provide evidence that unilateral overexpression of DGAT1 in TA muscle of male rats is associated with an increased rather than decreased DAG content. Strikingly, this increase in DAG content was accompanied by improved muscle insulin sensitivity. Interestingly, markers of muscle lipolysis and mitochondrial function were also increased in DGAT1 overexpressing muscle. Conclusions/Significance We conclude that unilateral DGAT1 overexpression can rescue insulin sensitivity, possibly by increasing DAG and TAG turnover in skeletal muscle. In case of a proper balance between the supply and oxidation of fatty acids in skeletal muscle, the lipid intermediate DAG may not exert harmful effects on insulin signalling.
Fixing Numerical Attributes Under Integrity Constraints

Consistent query answering is the problem of computing the answers from a database that are consistent with respect to certain integrity constraints that the database as whole may fail to satisfy. Those answers are characterized as invariant under minimal forms of restoring the consistency of the database. In this context, we study the problem of repairing databases by fixing numerical data at the attribute level. For their relevance in database applications with numerical domains, we consider denial and aggregate constraints. After providing a quantitative definition of database fix, we investigate the computational complexity of different problems, such as the existence and verification of fixes, and deciding consistency of answers to conjunctive aggregate queries. We show tractability for special cases; and provide approximation algorithms for some of the hard cases.