Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Spontaneous Middle Fossa Encephalocele and Cerebrospinal Fluid Leakage: Diagnosis and Management

Objective: To evaluate the clinical presentation, operative findings, and surgical management of patients with spontaneous middle fossa encephalocele (SMFE) and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) leakage repaired using a middle fossa craniotomy (MFC) approach. Study Design: Retrospective. Setting: Tertiary referral center. Patients: Fifteen consecutive patients with 16 SMFE repaired using an MFC approach between January 1999 and April 2006 were included. Interventions: Patients were evaluated clinically and radiologically with computed tomography or magnetic resonance imaging. Encephaloceles were approached via MFC, and the cranial base was repaired in multilayered fashion using a variety of materials, including hydroxyapatite cement. Patients were followed clinically after discharge. Main Outcome Measures: Postoperative complications, including CSF leak and the need for surgical revision, are evaluated. Patient factors, diagnostic testing, and operative findings are reviewed. Results: Diagnosis was made using clinical and radiologic evaluation in most patients. β2-Transferrin testing was occasionally used in the diagnostic workup. Intraoperatively, multiple defects of the floor of the middle fossa were found in more than half of patients. Fifteen SMFE in 14 patients were successfully repaired via MFC alone. One patient required revision with a combined transmastoid/MFC approach due to recurrent CSF leakage. Hydroxyapatite cement was used for repair of the cranial base in 9 patients without complication. Conclusion: An MFC approach can be used to repair SMFE with CSF leakage with a high level of success. Hydroxyapatite cement is a safe and useful adjunct to aid in reconstruction of the cranial base defects in cases of SMFE.
Do Sinus Computed Tomography Findings Predict Olfactory Dysfunction and its Postoperative Recovery in Chronic Rhinosinusitis Patients?

Background Olfactory dysfunction secondary to chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) is a mixed disorder of conductive and sensorineural olfactory impairment. Although endoscopic sinus surgery has some beneficial effects on olfaction, the outcomes are challenging to predict. The aim of this study was to assess the olfactory outcomes after surgery, to investigate the correlation between the severity of regional computed tomography (CT) findings and olfactory performance, and to identify the predictors of postoperative outcomes based on unilateral olfactory threshold analysis. Methods This study included 167 CRS nostrils of 97 patients with/without polyps (68/99 nostrils) undergoing sinus surgery between January 2007 and December 2011. Olfactory function was evaluated using the butanol threshold test (BTT) before and 6 months after surgery. Clinical and nasal factors from sinus CT scan (sinuses, ostiomeatal complex, olfactory cleft [OC], nasal polyps, and unilateral Lund-Mackay CT score) were analyzed to correlate them with pre- and postoperative olfactory performances. Results Eighty-two percent of the CRS nostrils had anosmia or hyposmia. After surgery, 42% of them showed an improvement in BTT score. Despite improvement, most of the subjects remained with residual hyposmia. The BTT scores deteriorated after surgery in 23% of the total subjects. The disease severity of the OC, posterior ethmoid, and frontal sinus were the significant risk factors for CRS-related anosmia. The strongest risk factor for anosmia was totally obstructed OC (odds ratio [OR], 16.56; 95% CI, 4.31-63.71; p = 0.000). The nostrils with anosmia or partly opacified anterior ethmoid benefited from surgery with respect to olfaction. Conclusion Our results can give support to the combined use of the butanol threshold and sinonasal CT findings in the evaluation of olfaction in CRS patients and help us counsel the patients about the likelihood of postoperative olfactory recovery.
Experimental IgA nephropathy induced by oral immunization

To test the hypothesis that IgA nephropathy can result from a mucosal immune response, mice were orally immunized with one of three protein antigens for 14 wk. Such mice exhibited an essentially pure mucosal antibody response characterized by specific IgA-producing plasma cells in exocrine sites and specific IgA antibodies in serum. Furthermore, 73% of immunized mice had IgA and 88% had immunogen deposited in the glomerular mesangium, and 64% of immunized mice examined ultrastructurally had electron-dense mesangial deposits. All three were present concurrently in 57% of the immunized mice. No differences in regard to IgG or IgM were observed between immunized and control mice for any of these parameters. Mucosal immunization therefore can result in a specific immune response that leads to mesangial deposition of immune complexes containing IgA antibody. In its fundamental features the experimental renal lesion resembles that seen in the human disease IgA nephropathy.
Composable Reliability for Asynchronous Systems

Distributed systems designs often employ replication to solve two different kinds of availability problems. First, to prevent the loss of data through the permanent destruction or disconnection of a distributed node, and second, to allow prompt retrieval of data when some distributed nodes respond slowly. For simplicity, many systems further handle crash-restart failures and timeouts by treating them as a permanent disconnection followed by the birth of a new node, relying on peer replication rather than persistent storage to preserve data. We posit that for applications deployed in modern managed infrastructures, delays are typically transient and failed processes and machines are likely to be restarted promptly, so it is often desirable to resume crashed processes from persistent checkpoints. In this paper we present MaceKen, a synthesis of complementary techniques including Ken, a lightweight and decentralized rollback-recovery protocol that transparently masks crash-restart failures by careful handling of messages and state checkpoints; and Mace, a programming toolkit supporting development of distributed applications and application-specific availability via replication. MaceKen requires near-zero additional developer effort--systems implemented in Mace can immediately benefit from the Ken protocol by virtue of following the Mace execution model. Moreover, this model allows multiple, independently developed application components to be seamlessly composed, preserving strong global reliability guarantees. Our implementation is available as open source software.
Calcium absorption by Cav1.3 induces terminal web myosin II phosphorylation and apical GLUT2 insertion in rat intestine

Glucose absorption in rat jejunum involves Ca2+‐ and PKC βII‐dependent insertion of GLUT2 into the apical membrane. Ca2+‐induced rearrangement of the enterocyte cytoskeleton is thought to enhance paracellular flow. We have therefore investigated the relationships between myosin II regulatory light chain phosphorylation (RLC20), absorption of glucose, water and calcium, and mannitol clearance. ML‐7, an inhibitor of myosin light chain kinase, diminished the phloretin‐sensitive apical GLUT2 but not the phloretin‐insensitive SGLT1 component of glucose absorption in rat jejunum perfused with 75 mm glucose. Western blotting and immunocytochemistry revealed marked decreases in RLC20 phosphorylation in the terminal web and in the levels of apical GLUT2 and PKC βII, but not SGLT1. Perfusion with phloridzin or 75 mm mannitol, removal of luminal Ca2+, or inhibition of unidirectional 45Ca2+ absorption by nifedipine exerted similar effects. ML‐7 had no effect on the absorption of 10 mm Ca2+, nor clearance of [14C]‐mannitol, which was less than 0.7% of the rate of glucose absorption. Water absorption did not correlate with 45Ca2+ absorption or mannitol clearance. We conclude that the Ca2+ necessary for contraction of myosin II in the terminal web enters via an L‐type channel, most likely Cav1.3, and is dependent on SGLT1. Moreover, terminal web RLC20 phosphorylation is necessary for apical GLUT2 insertion. The data confirm that glucose absorption by paracellular flow is negligible, and show further that paracellular flow makes no more than a minimal contribution to jejunal Ca2+ absorption at luminal concentrations prevailing after a meal.
Governing Alone and With Partners

Seeking to close the gap between expectations and capacity, presidents have utilized a broad interpretation of executive power to control administrative affairs. However, the emergence of a post–New Public Management environment characterized by loosely constructed networks and a surge of governmental activity has required an evolution in the tools needed to govern. In exploring this dynamic through a constitutional governance model, it becomes evident that a new ethos of presidential governance is starting to develop that is marked by a mixture of governing alone and governing with partners. This dynamic potentially enables more effective and responsible execution of public laws.
Prior Selection for Panel Vector Autoregressions

Bayesian shrinkage priors have been very popular in estimating vector autoregressions (VARs) of possibly large dimensions. Many of these priors are not appropriate for multi-country settings, as they cannot account for the type of restrictions typically met in panel vector autoregressions (PVARs). With this in mind, new parametric and semi-parametric priors for PVARs are proposed, which perform valuable shrinkage in large dimensions and also allow for soft clustering of variables or countries which are homogeneous. The implication of these new priors for modeling interdependencies and heterogeneities among different countries in a panel VAR setting, is discussed. Monte Carlo evidence and an empirical forecasting exercise show clear and important gains from the new priors compared to existing popular priors for VARs and PVARs.
Self-Controlling Dominance Particle Swarm Optimization

A well-known problem faced by Pareto Based Multi Objective Optimization Algorithms, including Multi-Objective Particle Swarm Optimization (MOPSO) algorithms is the deterioration of its search ability when the number of objectives scales up. In the literature some techniques were proposed to overcome these limitations, between them the modification of the domination relation. This work aims to propose a new MOPSO algorithm called SCDAS-SMPSO which uses the Self-Controlling Dominance Area of Solutions (S-CDAS) technique to modify the domination relation and increase the selection pressure needed in many-objective optimization. The new MOPSO is compared through experiments with other two MOPSOs in terms of convergence and diversity in many-objective scenarios. The results were analyzed through different quality indicators and statistical tests.
A profile-based location strategy and its performance

Future microcellular personal communications systems (PCS) will be characterized by high user density and high mobility. It is expected that registrations will incur a large amount of the radio link signaling traffic. A profile-based strategy (PBS) is proposed to reduce the signaling traffic on the radio link by increasing the intelligence within the fixed network. The fixed network performance of the PBS was investigated previously. This paper compares its radio bandwidth and call setup delay performance to the typical geographic based location tracking schemes in evolving digital cellular and cordless standards. We investigate the conditions under which the PBS performs better than the traditional scheme. Results of this work together with the previous work indicate that over a wide range of parameters it may be possible to reduce both the radio bandwidth and fixed network signaling load for a modest increase in call setup delay.
Neisseria gonorrhoeae-Induced Human Defensins 5 and 6 Increase HIV Infectivity: Role in Enhanced Transmission1

Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) increase the likelihood of HIV transmission. Defensins are part of the innate mucosal immune response to STIs and therefore we investigated their role in HIV infection. We found that human defensins 5 and 6 (HD5 and HD6) promoted HIV infection, and this effect was primarily during viral entry. Enhancement was seen with primary viral isolates in primary CD4+ T cells and the effect was more pronounced with R5 virus compared with X4 virus. HD5 and HD6 promoted HIV reporter viruses pseudotyped with vesicular stomatitis virus and murine leukemia virus envelopes, indicating that defensin-mediated enhancement was not dependent on CD4 and coreceptors. Enhancement of HIV by HD5 and HD6 was influenced by the structure of the peptides, as loss of the intramolecular cysteine bonds was associated with loss of the HIV-enhancing effect. Pro-HD5, the precursor and intracellular form of HD5, also exhibited HIV-enhancing effect. Using a cervicovaginal tissue culture system, we found that expression of HD5 and HD6 was induced in response to Neisseria gonorrhoeae (GC, for gonococcus) infection and that conditioned medium from GC-exposed cervicovaginal epithelial cells with elevated levels of HD5 also enhanced HIV infection. Introduction of small interfering RNAs for HD5 or HD6 abolished the HIV-enhancing effect mediated by GC. Thus, the induction of these defensins in the mucosa in the setting of GC infection could facilitate HIV infection. Furthermore, this study demonstrates the complexity of defensins as innate immune mediators in HIV transmission and warrants further investigation of the mechanism by which defensins modulate HIV infection.
Role of diet in the development of immune tolerance in the context of allergic disease

Purpose of review Diet is arguably one of the most significant environmental exposures during early development. Here, we explore the effects of key perinatal dietary exposures on immune development and susceptibility to allergic disease. Recent findings Dietary changes are at the centre of the emerging epigenetic paradigms that underpin the rise in many modern diseases. There is growing evidence that exposures in pregnancy and the early postnatal period can modify gene expression and disease susceptibility. Specific nutrients, including antioxidants, oligosaccharides, polyunsaturated fatty acids, folate and other vitamins, have documented effects on immune function. Some have also been implicated in modified risk of allergic disease in observational studies. Intervention studies are largely limited to trials with polyunsaturated fatty acids and oligosaccharides, showing preliminary but yet unconfirmed benefits in allergy prevention. Avoidance of food allergens in pregnancy, lactation or infancy has provided no clear evidence in allergy prevention and is no longer recommended. Rather there is focus on their role in tolerance induction. Summary Modern dietary changes are clearly implicated in the rising propensity for inflammatory immune responses. These dietary changes, which appear to be providing less tolerogenic conditions during early immune programming, may provide important avenues for preventing disease.
The expression of a putative insulin-like growth factor-I receptor gene in the liver of the developing chick.

The biological activity of insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) is mediated by a transmembrane glycoprotein (type-1 IGF receptor or IGF-I receptor) that shows considerable sequence homology with the insulin receptor. In order to detect the expression of this gene in chicken liver tissue, a plasmid was constructed containing a fragment of chicken IGF-I receptor cDNA. The cDNA fragment corresponded to nucleotides 326-599 of the human IGF-I receptor cDNA and showed 86.1 and 69.3% homology at the nucleotide level and 96.7 and 80.2% homology at the amino acid level with the human IGF-I receptor and insulin receptor respectively. The construct was used to generate an antisense RNA probe for the detection of IGF-I receptor mRNA transcripts in 1- and 4-week-old chick liver tissue. IGF-I receptor gene expression was initially detected by the reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction using synthetic chicken IGF-I receptor oligonucleotides. Amplified fragments of the correct size were detected in both RNA samples. Northern blots were also used to detect IGF-I receptor mRNA transcripts in the liver RNA samples. The results indicated that the amount of receptor mRNA decreased significantly between 1 and 4 weeks after hatch. In contrast, chicken beta-actin gene expression remained constant over this period. A major IGF-I receptor RNA transcript (11 kb) was observed in blots from 1-week-old livers, less abundant transcripts were also observed ranging in size from 8 to 9 kb. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Age‐related accumulation of LFA‐1high cells in a CD8+CD45RAhigh T cell population

The differential expression of CD45 isoforms has been suggested as a marker for stages of post‐thymic T cell development, that is, CD45RA+CD45R0− T cells and CD45RA−CD45R0+ T cells are supposed to be virgin and memory cells respectively. Recently, several adhesion molecules have been shown to be up‐regulated on the cell surface of memory T cells, and have been suggested to serve as a memory marker. In this study, we investigated the levels of LFA‐1 expression on T cells in various subpopulations defined by CD45 isoform expression in donors of various ages.
Alterations in brain activation during cholinergic enhancement with rivastigmine in Alzheimer’s disease

Background: Rivastigmine enhances cholinergic activity and has been shown in clinical trials to decrease the rate of deterioration in Alzheimer’s disease. It remains unclear where in the brain it exerts its effect. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) can be used to measure changes in brain function and relate these to cognition. Objectives: To use fMRI to study brain activation with rivastigmine treatment. Methods: The effect on brain activation of a single dose of rivastigmine was tested in seven patients with mild Alzheimer’s disease using fMRI during face encoding, and in five patients during a parametric working memory task. Results: During face encoding, rivastigmine increased bilateral activation in the fusiform gyrus. Brain activation was also enhanced in the prefrontal cortex in a simple working memory task. When working memory load was further increased, not only was increased activation seen, but in certain areas there was also decreased activation. Conclusions: These findings link the previously observed increase in cognitive performance in Alzheimer’s disease after treatment with a cholinesterase inhibitor to altered brain activation. Although the results cannot be generalised to the Alzheimer’s disease population at large, they provide evidence that in mild Alzheimer’s disease, rivastigmine enhances brain activation in the fusiform and frontal cortices. This is compatible with the concept of cholinergic circuitry.
Effects of intradialytic exercise training on health-related quality of life indices in haemodialysis patients

Objective: To assess the effects of intradialytic exercise training on health-related quality of life indices in haemodialysis patients. Subjects/patients: Thirty-five patients on haemodialysis, with a mean (SD) age of 48.8 (13.9) years, volunteered to participate in the study. They were randomized either to rehabilitation group (group A: 19 patients), following a 10-month intradialytic exercise training programme or to control group (group B: 14 patients). After the randomization, two of the patients, one of each group, withdrew from the study for reasons unrelated to exercise training. Method: All patients at the beginning and the end of the study underwent clinical examination, laboratory tests and a treadmill exercise testing with spiroergometric study for the evaluation of their aerobic capacity (Vo2peak). A formal psychosocial assessment, which included affective (Beck Depression Inventory), health-related quality of life (Quality of Life Index, Living Questionnaire of Minnesota, Life Satisfaction Index and Short Form-36 questionnaire) and personality (Eysenck Personality Questionnaire) parameters, was evaluated at beginning and end of the study. The dose of erythropoietin was changed as needed, according to the level of the haemoglobin, aiming to keep it at 11 (2) g/dL during the study. Results: Baseline values were similar between the two groups. After training in group A, Vo2peak was increased by 21.1% (P<0.05) and exercise time by 23.6% (P<0.05). Moreover, group A showed a decrease in self-reported depression (Beck Depression Index) of 39.4% (P<0.001). In addition, trained patients demonstrated a significant improvement in Quality of Life Index (from 6.5 (1.8) to 9.0 (1.3), P<0.001) and Life Satisfaction Index (from 44.8 (8.6) to 53.0 (5.6), P<0.001), and an increase in the Physical Component Scale of the SF-36 (from 40.5 (5.6) to 44.5 (5.5), P<0.05), while the Mental Component Scale remained unchanged. Multiple regression analysis indicated that the improvement in quality of life depended on the participation in exercise programmes, the effects of training and the reduction in the level of depression. No changes were observed in Eysenck Personality Questionnaire by the end of the study, while all the above parameters remained almost unchanged in the controls. Conclusion: The results demonstrated that intradialytic exercise training improves both physical functioning and psychological status in haemodialysis patients, leading to an improvement of patients' quality of life.
Linear Programming in Linear Time When the Dimension Is Fixed

It is demonstrated that the linear programming problem in d variables and n constraints can be solved in O(n) time when d is fixed. This bound follows from a multidimensional search technique which is applicable for quadratic programming as well. There is also developed an algorithm that is polynomial in both n and d provided d is bounded by a certain slowly growing function of n.
Physical Activity and Mobility Function in Elderly People Living in Residential Care Facilities. “Act on Aging”: A Pilot Study

The present study aims at investigating the changes between pre-test and post-test in mobility function, balance, and gait after a physical activity program in a sample of elderly people. Forty-four individuals living in residential care facilities were recruited, with a mean age of 85 (SD = 6.6) in the control group and 84.26 (SD = 7.4) in the intervention group. We collected baseline and post-test measurements for the Tinetti Test. The findings showed that the physical activity intervention had a positive effect on physical functions. There was a statistically significant change between the means of the two groups over time; the intervention groups showed a stable condition with respect to overall mobility function, balance, and gait while the control group showed decreased performance at the post-test. These results underline that even in critical conditions, relatively simple training may promote a more positive adjustment to old age.