Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Repeat Left Atrial Catheter Ablation: Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Prediction of Endocardial Voltage and Gaps in Ablation Lesion Sets

Background—Studies have reported an inverse relationship between late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) signal intensity and left atrial (LA) endocardial voltage after LA ablation. However, there is controversy regarding the reproducibility of atrial LGE CMR and its ability to identify gaps in ablation lesions. Using systematic and objective techniques, this study examines the correlation between atrial CMR and endocardial voltage. Methods and Results—Twenty patients who had previous ablation for atrial fibrillation and represented with paroxysmal atrial fibrillation or atrial tachycardia underwent preablation LGE CMR. During the ablation procedure, high-density point-by-point Carto voltage maps were acquired. Three-dimensional CMR reconstructions were registered with the Carto anatomies to allow comparison of voltage and LGE signal intensity. Signal intensities around the left and right pulmonary vein antra and along the LA roof and mitral lines on the CMR-segmented LA shells were extracted to examine differences between electrically isolated and reconnected lesions. There were a total of 6767 data points across the 20 patients. Only 119 (1.8%) of the points were ⩽0.05 mV. There was only a weak inverse correlation between either unipolar (r=−0.18) or bipolar (r=−0.17) voltage and LGE CMR signal intensities with low voltage occurring across a large range of signal intensities. Signal intensities were not statistically different for electrically isolated and reconnected lesions. Conclusions—This study demonstrates that there is only a weak point-by-point relationship between LGE CMR and endocardial voltage in patients undergoing repeat LA ablation. Using an objective method of assessing gaps in ablation lesions, LGE CMR is unable to reliably predict sites of electrical conduction.
Changes in distribution of nuclear matrix antigens during the mitotic cell cycle

We examined the distribution of nonlamin nuclear matrix antigens during the mitotic cell cycle in mouse 3T3 fibroblasts. Four monoclonal antibodies produced against isolated nuclear matrices were used to characterize antigens by the immunoblotting of isolated nuclear matrix preparations, and were used to localize the antigens by indirect immunofluorescence. For comparison, lamins and histones were localized using human autoimmune antibodies. At interphase, the monoclonal antibodies recognized non-nucleolar and nonheterochromatin nuclear components. Antibody P1 stained the nuclear periphery homogeneously, with some small invaginations toward the interior of the nucleus. Antibody I1 detected an antigen distributed as fine granules throughout the nuclear interior. Monoclonals PI1 and PI2 stained both the nuclear periphery and interior, with some characteristic differences. During mitosis, P1 and I1 were chromosome-associated, whereas PI1 and PI2 dispersed in the cytoplasm. Antibody P1 heavily stained the periphery of the chromosome mass, and we suggest that the antigen may play a role in maintaining interphase and mitotic chromosome order. With antibody I1, bright granules were distributed along the chromosomes and there was also some diffuse internal staining. The antigen to I1 may be involved in chromatin/chromosome higher-order organization throughout the cell cycle. Antibodies PI1 and PI2 were redistributed independently during prophase, and dispersed into the cytoplasm during prometaphase. Antibody PI2 also detected antigen associated with the spindle poles.
A perfect storm: Wolf Parkinson White syndrome, Ebstein's anomaly, biventricular non-compaction, and bicuspid aortic valve.

A 14-year-old African boy presented for routine clinical assessment to evaluate a systolic murmur. The surface electrocardiogram showed sinus rhythm and the left postero-septal accessory pathway of Wolf Parkinson White syndrome ( Panel A ). Transthoracic echocardiography demonstrated features of Ebstein's anomaly ( Panel B and see Supplementary data online, Video …
Fetal responses to placental insufficiency: an update

Disturbance of normal fetal growth can result in a decrease in weight, or altered body proportion at birth. Fetuses that fail to reach their genetically predetermined growth potential due to intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) following placental insufficiency are at increased risk for adverse short and long term outcomes that can extend all the way into adult life. Because of its diverse impacts, placental disease has been the research focus of a variety of biomedical subspecialties. Consequently, considerable information on IUGR has been published outside the obstetric core literature. Many of these observations may not appear salient in the context of clinical prenatal care. However, obstetricians and fetal medicine specialists are the primary caregivers to pinpoint, manage and co-ordinate research in these high risk pregnancies. Research and development on necessary new therapeutic strategies is most likely to be effective if the multiple interactions between fetal condition and outcomes can be identified and successfully modified prenatally. As these relationships are clarified, the focus of clinical fetal medicine is likely to shift from improvement of perinatal mortality and morbidity to enhancing the life-quality in survivors. It is the aim of this review to illustrate the multisystem fetal effects of placental insufficiency and how this information may stimulate future research.
4 Microwave Assisted Disinfection Method in Dentistry

Control of cross-infection has been a subject of interest to the dentistry area over the last few decades, due to the concern about the transmission of infectious-contagious diseases, such as AIDS, hepatitis, tuberculosis, pneumonia, and herpes, between the dental patients and dental personnel and the dental office and dental prosthesis laboratory (Codino & Marshall, 1976; Infection control in the dental office, Council on Dental Materials and Devices, 1978; Sande et al., 1975). This concern began in the 1970s, when the microorganism Mycobacterium tuberculosis was isolated in patients’ molds (Ray & Fuller, 1963) and it was found that Mycoplasma pneumoniae was transmitted to laboratory technicians when they performed wear on contaminated dentures (Sande et al., 1975). Several items, such as instruments (Tarantino et al., 1997), dental burs (Rizzo, 1993), impressions (Abdelaziz et al., 2004), gypsum casts (Berg et al., 2005; Davis et al., 1989), dental appliances (Rohrer & Bulard, 1985), and others are often heavily contaminated with microorganisms from saliva and blood. Powell et al. (1990) also observed that 67% of all the materials received in the laboratories, among them crowns, molds wax records, and dentures, were contaminated with pathogenic microorganisms. The constant exposure of dental personnel and instruments to saliva and blood in virtually every procedure is an ever present hazard and potential contributor to the transmission of infection. Therefore, the use of an inadequate disinfection procedure in the handling of dental materials not only places the unwary staff at risk, but also results in a high level of avoidable cross-contamination. Dental practitioner has a legal and ethical responsibility to prevent infections in patients and staff members and an interest in protecting her-himself from contracting a disease from a patient. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the United States (Kohn et al., 2004) have recommended sterilization and disinfection procedures to guarantee the safety of dental treatment in the dental health care settings. Typical methods of sterilization and disinfection include dry heat at 160 to 180°C for two hours, wet steam under pressure at 121°C for at least 15 minutes (autoclaving), immersion in chemical solutions, gamma radiation, and ethylene dioxide gas. However, these methods can be time-consuming and some of them require special and costly equipment, knowledgeable operative personnel, and constant surveillance. In order to overcome these limitations, microwave irradiation has
Do We Perceive Others Better than Ourselves? A Perceptual Benefit for Noise-Vocoded Speech Produced by an Average Speaker

In different tasks involving action perception, performance has been found to be facilitated when the presented stimuli were produced by the participants themselves rather than by another participant. These results suggest that the same mental representations are accessed during both production and perception. However, with regard to spoken word perception, evidence also suggests that listeners’ representations for speech reflect the input from their surrounding linguistic community rather than their own idiosyncratic productions. Furthermore, speech perception is heavily influenced by indexical cues that may lead listeners to frame their interpretations of incoming speech signals with regard to speaker identity. In order to determine whether word recognition evinces similar self-advantages as found in action perception, it was necessary to eliminate indexical cues from the speech signal. We therefore asked participants to identify noise-vocoded versions of Dutch words that were based on either their own recordings or those of a statistically average speaker. The majority of participants were more accurate for the average speaker than for themselves, even after taking into account differences in intelligibility. These results suggest that the speech representations accessed during perception of noise-vocoded speech are more reflective of the input of the speech community, and hence that speech perception is not necessarily based on representations of one’s own speech.
Cross-Cultural Adaptation and Psychometric Testing of the Brazilian Version of the Self-Care of Heart Failure Index Version 6.2

Objective. To adapt and evaluate the psychometric properties of the Brazilian version of the SCHFI v 6.2. Methods. With the approval of the original author, we conducted a complete cross-cultural adaptation of the instrument (translation, synthesis, back translation, synthesis of back translation, expert committee review, and pretesting). The adapted version was named Brazilian version of the self-care of heart failure index v 6.2. The psychometric properties assessed were face validity and content validity (by expert committee review), construct validity (convergent validity and confirmatory factor analysis), and reliability. Results. Face validity and content validity were indicative of semantic, idiomatic, experimental, and conceptual equivalence. Convergent validity was demonstrated by a significant though moderate correlation (r = −0.51) on comparison with equivalent question scores of the previously validated Brazilian European heart failure self-care behavior scale. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the original three-factor model as having the best fit, although similar results were obtained for inadequate fit indices. The reliability of the instrument, as expressed by Cronbach's alpha, was 0.40, 0.82, and 0.93 for the self-care maintenance, self-care management, and self-care confidence scales, respectively. Conclusion. The SCHFI v 6.2 was successfully adapted for use in Brazil. Nevertheless, further studies should be carried out to improve its psychometric properties.
Dioxin and diabetes mellitus: an analysis of the combined NIOSH and Ranch Hand data

OBJECTIVES To reanalyze in a similar manner the two principal studies of TCDD (tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin) and diabetes in an attempt to reconcile disparate results. METHODS Data from 990 United States Air Force veterans (Ranch Hand) and 1275 referents were reanalyzed, and a NIOSH population of 267 chemical workers and 227 referents. The Ranch Hand veterans had lower concentrations of lipid adjusted serum TCDD (median 12 parts per trillion (ppt)) than the NIOSH workers (median 75 ppt) when examined in the late 1980s. An analysis was conducted of the combined data sets, adopting a uniform approach to outcome definition, data analysis, and covariate control. RESULTS The combined exposed groups did not differ markedly from the combined non-exposed groups for prevalence of diabetes (odds ratio (OR) 1.17, 95% confidence interval (95% CI) 0.92 to 1.48), with no evidence of heterogeneity of exposure effect between studies. Also virtually no difference was found between combined exposed and non-exposed groups in mean fasting serum glucose (difference in log serum glucose 0.002, 95% CI −0.006 to 0.010), and there was little evidence in either study of a dose-response trend for fasting serum glucose. An increasing trend was found (p=0.0001) in prevalence of diabetes with increased TCDD (at the time of examination or at time of last exposure) among the Ranch Hand population, with excess risk largely confined to the highest 8% of the exposed group (>78 ppt serum TCDD), which had an OR of 3.21 (95% CI 1.81 to 5.72) versus those with <10 ppt TCDD. However, no such positive dose-response was found in the NIOSH population. CONCLUSIONS There was little overall evidence that the exposed workers were at higher risk than the non-exposed workers of diabetes or abnormal fasting glucose. However, the Ranch Hand subjects showed a positive dose-response for diabetes, whereas the more highly exposed NIOSH subjects did not. The reason for the difference in diabetes dose-response trends between the two studies is unknown.
Human-Robot Interface Using System Request Utterance Detection Based on Acoustic Features

For a mobile robot to serve people in actual environments, such as a living room or a party room, it must be easy to control because some users might not even be capable of operating a computer keyboard. For nonexpert users, speech recognition is one of the most effective communication tools when it comes to a hands-free (human-robot) interface. This paper describes a new mobile robot with hands-free speech recognition. For a hands- free speech interface, it is important to detect commands for a robot in spontaneous utterances. Our system can understand whether user's utterances are commands for the robot or not, where commands are discriminated from human- human conversations by acoustic features. Then the robot can move according to the user's voice (command). In order to capture the user's voice only, a robust voice detection system with AdaBoost is also described.
Seroprevalence of Salmonella and Mycoplasma in commercial broilers, backyard chickens, and spent hens in the region of Triângulo Mineiro, State of Minas Gerais, Brazil

Avian salmonellosis and mycoplasmosis are infectious diseases that, in addition of causing lack of flock uniformity, represent a hazard to human health. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the seroprevalence of mycoplasmosis and salmonellosis in commercial broilers, backyard chickens, and spent hens slaughtered at a processing plant with local health inspection in Uberlândia, MG, Brazil. A total of 210 samples were randomly collected at the time of bleeding. Samples were submitted to rapid plate serum agglutination test (RSA) for the classification of Salmonella pullorum, Salmonella gallinarum, Mycoplasma gallisepticum and Mycoplasma synoviae. In order to increase result specificity, mycoplasmosis-positive samples were submitted to hemagglutination inhibition test (HI). No samples presented detectable antibodies against Salmonella pullorum or Salmonella gallinarum in the RSA test. Only Mycoplasma synoviae was detected in 14% of the backyard chickens and 0.74% in commercial broilers, whereas no antibodies were detected in spent hens. The seroprevalence rates found in the present study emphasize the need of keeping chicken flocks free from disease using effective biosafety systems.
Fenobam: A Clinically Validated Nonbenzodiazepine Anxiolytic Is a Potent, Selective, and Noncompetitive mGlu5 Receptor Antagonist with Inverse Agonist Activity

Fenobam [N-(3-chlorophenyl)-N′-(4,5-dihydro-1-methyl-4-oxo-1H-imidazole-2-yl)urea] is an atypical anxiolytic agent with unknown molecular target that has previously been demonstrated both in rodents and human to exert anxiolytic activity. Here, we report that fenobam is a selective and potent metabotropic glutamate (mGlu)5 receptor antagonist acting at an allosteric modulatory site shared with 2-methyl-6-phenylethynyl-pyridine (MPEP), the protypical selective mGlu5 receptor antagonist. Fenobam inhibited quisqualate-evoked intracellular calcium response mediated by human mGlu5 receptor with IC50 = 58 ± 2 nM. It acted in a noncompetitive manner, similar to MPEP and demonstrated inverse agonist properties, blocking 66% of the mGlu5 receptor basal activity (in an over expressed cell line) with an IC50 = 84 ± 13 nM. [3H]Fenobam bound to rat and human recombinant receptors with Kd values of 54 ± 6 and 31 ± 4 nM, respectively. MPEP inhibited [3H]fenobam binding to human mGlu5 receptors with a Ki value of 6.7 ± 0.7 nM, indicating a common binding site shared by both allosteric antagonists. Fenobam exhibits anxiolytic activity in the stress-induced hyperthermia model, Vogel conflict test, Geller-Seifter conflict test, and conditioned emotional response with a minimum effective dose of 10 to 30 mg/kg p.o. Furthermore, fenobam is devoid of GABAergic activity, confirming previous reports that fenobam acts by a mechanism distinct from benzodiazepines. The non-GABAergic activity of fenobam, coupled with its robust anxiolytic activity and reported efficacy in human in a double blind placebo-controlled trial, supports the potential of developing mGlu5 receptor antagonists with an improved therapeutic window over benzodiazepines as novel anxiolytic agents.
Genetic and pharmacologic inhibition of the Ca2+ influx channel TRPC3 protects secretory epithelia from Ca2+-dependent toxicity.

BACKGROUND & AIMS Excessive Ca2+ influx mediates many cytotoxic processes, including those associated with autoimmune inflammatory diseases such as acute pancreatitis and Sjögren syndrome. Transient receptor potential (canonical) channel (TRPC) 3 is a major Ca2+ influx channel in pancreatic and salivary gland cells. We investigated whether genetic or pharmacologic inhibition of TRPC3 protects pancreas and salivary glands from Ca2+-dependent damage. METHODS We developed a Ca2+-dependent model of cell damage for salivary gland acini. Acute pancreatitis was induced by injection of cerulein into wild-type and Trpc3-/- mice. Mice were also given the Trpc3-selective inhibitor pyrazole 3 (Pyr3). RESULTS Salivary glands and pancreas of Trpc3-/- mice were protected from Ca2+-mediated cell toxicity. Analysis of Ca2+ signaling in wild-type and Trpc3-/- acini showed that Pyr3 is a highly specific inhibitor of Tprc3; it protected salivary glands and pancreas cells from Ca2+-mediated toxicity by inhibiting the Trpc3-mediated component of Ca2+ influx. CONCLUSIONS TRPC3-mediated Ca2+ influx mediates damage to pancreas and salivary glands. Pharmacologic inhibition of TRPC3 with the highly selective TRPC3 inhibitor Pyr3 might be developed for treatment of patients with acute pancreatitis and Sjögren syndrome.
Purification and Characterization of Intact and Truncated Forms of the Escherichia coli Biotin Carboxyl Carrier Subunit of Acetyl-CoA Carboxylase (*)

Biotin biosynthesis and retention in Escherichia coli is regulated by the multifunctional protein, BirA. The protein acts as both the transcriptional repressor of the biotin biosynthetic operon and as a ligase for covalent attachment of biotin to a unique lysine residue of the biotin carboxyl carrier protein (BCCP) subunit of the acetyl-CoA carboxylase. Biotinyl-5′-AMP is the activated intermediate for the ligase reaction and the allosteric effector for DNA binding. We have purified and characterized apoBCCP and a truncated form containing the COOH-terminal 87 residues (apoBCCP87). Molecular masses of the proteins measured using matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry conformed to the expected values. The assembly states of apoBCCP and apoBCCP87 were determined using sedimentation equilibrium ultracentrifugation. Nearly quantitative enzymatic transfer of biotin from BirA-biotinyl-5′-AMP to the apoBCCP forms was assessed using two methods, mass spectrometric analysis of acceptor proteins after incubation with BirA-bio-5′-AMP and a steady state fluorescence assay. The BirA catalyzed rates of transfer of biotin from bio-5′-AMP to apoBCCP and apoBCCP87 were measured by stopped-flow fluorescence. Kinetic parameters estimated from these measurements indicate that the intact and truncated forms of the acceptor protein are functionally identical.
Rainfall distribution of five landfalling tropical cyclones in the northwestern Australian region

Rain gauge data, satellite IR brightness temperature and radar-estimated rain rate for five tropical cyclones from the 2005–06 to 2009–10 seasons that made landfall along the northwestern coast of Australia are analysed. It is the first time that the spatial rainfall distribution of landfalling tropical cyclones in the southern hemisphere has been systematically investigated. It is found that the distributions of rainfall are more concentrated in the right side of the track of the landfall tropical cyclones, which is the offshore flow position. Potential mechanisms responsible for this observed asymmetry in rainfall distribution are discussed. These include the tropical cyclone motion direction, deep-tropospheric vertical wind shear and land-sea contrast in surface properties. Topography is considered to have less effect since Western Australia is relatively flat. The rainfall maxima are found in the front and downshear quadrants for these tropical cyclones, which is consistent with previous studies. The changes in vertical wind shear when these tropical cyclones moved to the south are largely attributed to the prevailing environmental flow. Three numerical simulations are performed; one with a realistic land surface, one with all topography removed and one with all land removed. These simulations show that the land surface effects play an important role in determining the asymmetry in rainfall distribution, which explains why in some cases the observed maximum rainfall does not follow closely the vertical wind shear direction when making landfall.