Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
OSTEOARTHRITIS OF THE HIP

Osteoarthritis of the hip is synonymous with malum coxae or morbus coxae senilis, hypertrophic arthritis, degenerative arthritis, wear-and-tear arthritis, and arthritis deformans. The weight-bearing joints are most often and most severely involved. Arthritis of this type is rare before the age of 30 and fairly common among patients more than 60 years of age. It is a part of the aging process, similar to graying of the hair, wrinkling of the skin, or arteriosclerosis. Just as with graying of the hair, in some persons the process manifests itself early in life, in others late. The minimal traumas of life-the wear and tear of everyday activities-affect most the weight-bearing joints. Any articulation which is mechanically deficient will “burn out” much earlier than will one which functions perfectly. Subluxation of the hip, congenital dislocation, Legg-CalvbPerthes disease and slipped femoral epiphysis, each leaving deformity within the joint, are among the more common causes of osteoarthritis of the hip. Direct trauma to the hip joint, pre-existent rheumatoid arthritis, pyarthrosis at an earlier period of life, and aseptic necrosis of the femoral head also may result in the development of osteoarthritis at a relatively early age.
Negative Role of Colony-Stimulating Factor-1 in Macrophage, T Cell, and B Cell Mediated Autoimmune Disease in MRL-Faslpr Mice1

Inflammation in the kidney and other tissues (lung, and salivary and lacrimal glands) is characteristic of MRL-Faslpr mice with features of lupus. Macrophages (Mφ) are prominent in these tissues. Given that 1) Mφ survival, recruitment, proliferation, and activation during inflammation is dependent on CSF-1, 2) Mφ mediate renal resident cell apoptosis, and 3) CSF-1 is up-regulated in MRL-Faslpr mice before, and during nephritis, we hypothesized that CSF-1-deficient MRL-Faslpr mice would be protected from Mφ-mediated nephritis, and the systemic illness. To test this hypothesis, we compared CSF-1-deficient MRL-Faslpr with wild-type strains. Renal pathology is suppressed and function improved in CSF-1-deficient MRL-Faslpr mice. There are far fewer intrarenal Mφ and T cells in CSF-1-deficient MRL-Faslpr vs wild-type kidneys. This leukocytic reduction results from suppressed infiltration, and intrarenal proliferation, but not enhanced apoptosis. The CSF-1-deficient MRL-Faslpr kidneys remain preserved as indicated by greatly reduced indices of injury (nephritogenic cytokines, tubular apoptosis, and proliferation). The renal protective mechanism in CSF-1-deficient mice is not limited to reduced intrarenal leukocytes; circulating Igs and autoantibodies, and renal Ig deposits are decreased. This may result from enhanced B cell apoptosis and fewer B cells in CSF-1-deficient MRL-Faslpr mice. Furthermore, the systemic illness including, skin, lung, and lacrimal and salivary glands pathology, lymphadenopathy, and splenomegaly are dramatically suppressed in CSF-1-deficient MRL-Faslpr as compared with wild-type mice. These results indicate that CSF-1 is an attractive therapeutic target to combat Mφ-, T cell-, and B cell-mediated autoimmune lupus.
A prospective clinical study to evaluate the effect of manual and power toothbrushes on pre-existing gingival recessions.

AIM To evaluate gingival recession changes after six months of brushing with an oscillating-rotating power toothbrush (PT) or an ADA reference manual toothbrush (MT). METHODS AND MATERIALS Healthy subjects with pre-existing recession were assigned to brush with either a PT (n=55) or an ADA reference MT (n=54) according to a prospective randomized, controlled, single-blind, parallel group design. Participants were asked to brush their teeth twice daily for two minutes each with the same fluoride toothpaste. Clinical attachment loss and probing pocket depths (PPDs) were measured at six sites per tooth to the nearest mm by one calibrated examiner at baseline and after six months. Gingival recession was calculated as the differences between clinical attachment loss and PPDs overall and separately at individual sites. RESULTS As compared with baseline, overall recession at six months was reduced from 2.35 +/- 0.35 mm to 1.98 +/- 0.55 mm (p<0.001) in the PT group and from 2.26 +/- 0.31 mm to 1.90 +/- 0.45 mm (p<0.001) in the MT group. The data showed 40% (power) and 38% (manual) of all recession sites improved by at least 0.5 mm while 51% and 54% remained unchanged. Eight percent and 7% recessions increased over time. Differences between groups were not statistically significant at either timepoint. CONCLUSION Both the PT and the MT significantly reduced pre-existing gingival recession after six months of brushing. This may have been due to improved brushing technique (i.e., Hawthorne effect). CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE Based on these six-month data, concern that power tooth brushing results in a higher risk for gingival recession is not warranted.
MYD 88 L 265 P in Waldenström macroglobulinemia , immunoglobulin M monoclonal gammopathy , and other B-cell lymphoproliferative disorders using conventional and quantitative allele-speci fi c polymerase chain reaction

Bing Center for Waldenström’s Macroglobulinemia, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA; Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA; Division of Hematology, Niguarda Ca’ Granda Hospital, Milan, Italy; Department of Hematology Oncology, University of Pavia Medical School and Fondazione Istituto Di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico Policlinico San Matteo, Pavia, Italy; Department of Medical Oncology and Jerome Lipper Multiple Myeloma
Phoneme and word recognition in the auditory ventral stream

Spoken word recognition requires complex, invariant representations. Using a meta-analytic approach incorporating more than 100 functional imaging experiments, we show that preference for complex sounds emerges in the human auditory ventral stream in a hierarchical fashion, consistent with nonhuman primate electrophysiology. Examining speech sounds, we show that activation associated with the processing of short-timescale patterns (i.e., phonemes) is consistently localized to left mid-superior temporal gyrus (STG), whereas activation associated with the integration of phonemes into temporally complex patterns (i.e., words) is consistently localized to left anterior STG. Further, we show left mid- to anterior STG is reliably implicated in the invariant representation of phonetic forms and that this area also responds preferentially to phonetic sounds, above artificial control sounds or environmental sounds. Together, this shows increasing encoding specificity and invariance along the auditory ventral stream for temporally complex speech sounds.
Proline Availability Regulates Proline-4-Hydroxylase Synthesis and Substrate Uptake in Proline-Hydroxylating Recombinant Escherichia coli

ABSTRACT Microbial physiology plays a crucial role in whole-cell biotransformation, especially for redox reactions that depend on carbon and energy metabolism. In this study, regio- and enantio-selective proline hydroxylation with recombinant Escherichia coli expressing proline-4-hydroxylase (P4H) was investigated with respect to its interconnectivity to microbial physiology and metabolism. P4H production was found to depend on extracellular proline availability and on codon usage. Medium supplementation with proline did not alter p4h mRNA levels, indicating that P4H production depends on the availability of charged prolyl-tRNAs. Increasing the intracellular levels of soluble P4H did not result in an increase in resting cell activities above a certain threshold (depending on growth and assay temperature). Activities up to 5-fold higher were reached with permeabilized cells, confirming that host physiology and not the intracellular level of active P4H determines the achievable whole-cell proline hydroxylation activity. Metabolic flux analysis revealed that tricarboxylic acid cycle fluxes in growing biocatalytically active cells were significantly higher than proline hydroxylation rates. Remarkably, a catalysis-induced reduction of substrate uptake was observed, which correlated with reduced transcription of putA and putP, encoding proline dehydrogenase and the major proline transporter, respectively. These results provide evidence for a strong interference of catalytic activity with the regulation of proline uptake and metabolism. In terms of whole-cell biocatalyst efficiency, proline uptake and competition of P4H with proline catabolism are considered the most critical factors.
Controlled Assembly of Glucuronoxylans onto Cellulose Fibres

Summary In this study we have shown that cellulose fibres can be coated with regular micron-sized particles by controlling the assembly process of xylans on the cellulose surfaces. When cotton linters were exposed to a 5% water solution of xylan from birchwood at 110°C, 2 h, pH 8, the substrates showed an increase in weight of approximately 6.5%, and visualization by AFM revealed regular particles on the fibre surfaces. The surface modification process was optimized using an experimental design where time, temperature, and pH were varied. The experiments showed that the amount of xylan deposited on the fibres could be varied from 2% up to 20% depending on treatment conditions. The temperature and time were the most important parameters, while pH was not important in the investigated region. The morphology of the deposited xylan layer, as shown by SEM, was dependent on the amount of xylan on the fibre surfaces. At low yield the fibres were coated with a homogenous layer, while at higher yields (20%) regular particles of micron size were identified by AFM analysis. The mechanism of this assembly process of xylan on cellulose fibre surfaces is discussed.
Mechanisms of spectral and temporal integration in the mustached bat inferior colliculus

This review describes mechanisms and circuitry underlying combination-sensitive response properties in the auditory brainstem and midbrain. Combination-sensitive neurons, performing a type of auditory spectro-temporal integration, respond to specific, properly timed combinations of spectral elements in vocal signals and other acoustic stimuli. While these neurons are known to occur in the auditory forebrain of many vertebrate species, the work described here establishes their origin in the auditory brainstem and midbrain. Focusing on the mustached bat, we review several major findings: (1) Combination-sensitive responses involve facilitatory interactions, inhibitory interactions, or both when activated by distinct spectral elements in complex sounds. (2) Combination-sensitive responses are created in distinct stages: inhibition arises mainly in lateral lemniscal nuclei of the auditory brainstem, while facilitation arises in the inferior colliculus (IC) of the midbrain. (3) Spectral integration underlying combination-sensitive responses requires a low-frequency input tuned well below a neuron's characteristic frequency (ChF). Low-ChF neurons in the auditory brainstem project to high-ChF regions in brainstem or IC to create combination sensitivity. (4) At their sites of origin, both facilitatory and inhibitory combination-sensitive interactions depend on glycinergic inputs and are eliminated by glycine receptor blockade. Surprisingly, facilitatory interactions in IC depend almost exclusively on glycinergic inputs and are largely independent of glutamatergic and GABAergic inputs. (5) The medial nucleus of the trapezoid body (MNTB), the lateral lemniscal nuclei, and the IC play critical roles in creating combination-sensitive responses. We propose that these mechanisms, based on work in the mustached bat, apply to a broad range of mammals and other vertebrates that depend on temporally sensitive integration of information across the audible spectrum.
Elevated Saliva Calcitonin Gene‐Related Peptide Levels During Acute Migraine Predict Therapeutic Response to Rizatriptan

Objectives. — (1) To measure calcitonin gene‐related peptide (CGRP) levels in the saliva of individuals with migraine during the premonitory period, mild headache, moderate to severe headache, and post‐resolution phases as compared with baseline (interictal) CGRP levels. (2) To correlate response to rizatriptan administered during moderate headache with levels of CGRP levels measured in saliva.
Zinc and copper metabolism in acute viral hepatitis

Patients with acute viral hepatitis were found to have decreased serum concentrations of total zinc, increased serum concentrations of diffusible zinc, and increased urinary zinc excretion. As the illness subsided serum concentrations of total zinc rose to normal, serum concentrations of diffusible zinc fell to normal, and urinary zinc excretion decreased. Total serum zinc concentration was related inversely to serum diffusible zinc and directly to plasma levels of retinol-binding protein (RBP) and total protein. Serum diffusible zinc was inversely related to plasma RBP and total protein and directly to plasma bilirubin and serum copper. The changes in serum and urinary zinc may be related to changes in the manner by which zinc is bound to serum proteins, particularly albumin. Total serum copper concentrations were normal in the early, acute phase of this clisease but increased to greater than normal levels as the illness subsided. This increase was accounted for entirely by increases in the concentration of ceruloplasmin copper.
Community-acquired intracranial suppurative infections: A 15-year report

Background: The aim of this study was to retrospectively evaluate the characteristics, treatment, and prognosis of patients with intracranial suppurative infection (ISI) by review of clinical, radiological, and laboratory findings. Methods: The data collected from all patients who had been diagnosed with ISI and followed up at the Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology Department of the study site between 1998 and 2013 were reviewed. Results: Of the 23 ISI patients identified, the mean age was 38.21 ± 12.61 years (range: 19–67 years, median: 34) and mean symptom duration was 22.25 ± 20.22 days. Headache was the most common symptom, the frontal lobe the most common localization of ISI, and mastoiditis due to chronic suppurative otitis media the most common source of infection causing ISI. Proteus mirabilis, Pseudomonas spp. , Peptostreptococcus spp. , Enterococcus avium, Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex, and Toxoplasma gondii were isolated from the specimens collected from 6 (37.5%) of the 16 patients who underwent invasive procedures. Of these 16 patients, 2 underwent craniotomy, 12 burr hole aspiration, and 2 stereotactic biopsy. The rate of recurrence was 0% and the rates of sequelae and fatality were both 8%. Conclusions: ISI should be considered in male patients presenting with headache and neurological signs and symptoms, whether with or without fever, on admission for early diagnosis and provision of timely, adequate therapy and, if required, surgical intervention to reduce mortality and sequelae rates.
Acute Effects of Different Multivitamin Mineral Preparations with and without Guaraná on Mood, Cognitive Performance and Functional Brain Activation

Previous work has identified the positive effects of the acute administration of a multivitamin-guaraná preparation during an effortful executive/working memory task. Here, we aimed to differentiate the effects of multivitamins with and without guaraná and to examine the neural substrates of such effects using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Following a double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomised, balanced crossover design, 20 participants (mean age 29 ± 5.54 years) consumed multivitamin preparations with or without guaraná (Berocca® Performance and Boost, respectively) and a placebo. Thirty minutes post-treatment, they underwent neurocognitive assessment, consisting of a 10 min Cognitive Demand Battery, with mood ratings taken immediately before and after the battery. Five additional participants underwent post-treatment fMRI scanning during Rapid Visual Information Processing and Inspection Time activation tasks. The multivitamin with guaraná treatment was associated with significantly enhanced Serial Threes performance and self-rated contentment. fMRI revealed that both multivitamin treatments increased activation in areas associated with working memory and attentional processing, with the effect being greater in the multivitamin with guaraná condition. These data confirm the acute benefits of multivitamins with guaraná on mood and cognitive performance. Furthermore, they demonstrate for the first time increased brain activation from multivitamin preparations both with and without guaraná, as measured using fMRI.
Efficient 3D Object Detection using Multiple Pose-Specific Classifiers

We propose an efficient method for object localization and 3D pose estimation. A two-step approach is used. In the first step, a pose estimator is evaluated in the input images in order to estimate potential object locations and poses. These candidates are then validated, in the second step, by the corresponding pose-specific classifier. The result is a detection approach that avoids the inherent and expensive cost of testing the complete set of specific classifiers over the entire image. A further speedup is achieved by feature sharing. Features are computed only once and are then used for evaluating the pose estimator and all specific classifiers. The proposed method has been validated on two public datasets for the problem of detecting of cars under several views. The results show that the proposed approach yields high detection rates while keeping efficiency.
Wall stresses in the carotid bifurcation: Effects of wall non-homogeneity and correlation with intimal thickness

A finite element model of the human carotid bifurcation was developed to investigate the possibility that pressure-induced arterial wall stresses lead to the formation of atherosclerosis. The effect of material non-homogeneity was investigated by measuring the distribution of collagen and elastin in cadaver specimens and applying different material constants where appropriate. Both the homogeneous and non-homogeneous models included the residual stresses. The histology results revealed that the outer wall of the apex contained proportionally more collagen. Elsewhere, relative distributions of collagen and elastin were uniform through the thickness. The finite element model results demonstrated that the area of highest stress concentration was the lateral wall of the carotid sinus. The outer wall stress at the apex was higher for the non-homogeneous model owing to the higher collagen content there, but the stresses elsewhere in the model were relatively unaffected. A statistical comparison of the stress distribution to previously published data on intimal thickness showed that areas with a high ratio of inner to outer wall stress coincided with greatest intimal thickening (r = 0.800, P < 0.00005). The inclusion of material non-homogeneity had little effect on this correlation.
Modeling Lung Cancer Risk in Case-Control Studies Using a New Dose Metric of Smoking

Many approaches have been taken to adjust for smoking in modeling cancer risk. In case-control studies, these metrics are often used arbitrarily rather than being based on the properties of the metric in the context of the study. Depending on the underlying study design, hypotheses, and base population, different metrics may be deemed most appropriate. We present our approach to evaluating different smoking metrics. We examine the properties of a new metric, “logcig-years”, that we initially derived from using a biological model of DNA adduct formation. We compare this metric to three other smoking metrics, namely pack-years, square-root pack-years, and a model in which smoking duration and intensity are separate variables. Our comparisons use generalized additive models and logistic regression to examine the relationship between the logit probability of cancer and each of the metrics, adjusting for other covariates. All models were fit using data from a lung cancer study of 1,275 cases and 1,269 controls that has focused on gene-smoking relationships. There was a very significant, linear relationship between logcig-years and the logit probability of lung cancer in this sample, without any need to adjust for smoking status. These properties together were not shared by the other metrics. In this sample, logcig-years captured more information about smoking that is important in lung cancer risk than the other metrics. In conclusion, we provide a general framework for evaluating different smoking metrics in studies where smoking is a critical variable.
ViChaR: A Dynamic Virtual Channel Regulator for Network-on-Chip Routers

The advent of deep sub-micron technology has recently highlighted the criticality of the on-chip interconnects. As diminishing feature sizes have led to increases in global wiring delays, network-on-chip (NoC) architectures are viewed as a possible solution to the wiring challenge and have recently crystallized into a significant research thrust. Both NoC performance and energy budget depend heavily on the routers' buffer resources. This paper introduces a novel unified buffer structure, called the dynamic virtual channel regulator (ViChaR), which dynamically allocates virtual channels (VC) and buffer resources according to network traffic conditions. ViChaR maximizes throughput by dispensing a variable number of VCs on demand. Simulation results using a cycle-accurate simulator show a performance increase of 25% on average over an equal-size generic router buffer, or similar performance using a 50% smaller buffer. ViChaR's ability to provide similar performance with half the buffer size of a generic router is of paramount importance, since this can yield total area and power savings of 30% and 34%, respectively, based on synthesized designs in 90 nm technology
Phase transition and noise sensitivity of ℓp-minimization for 0 ≤ p ≤ 1

Recovering a sparse vector x<sub>0</sub> ∈ ℝ<sup>N</sup> from its noisy linear observations, y ∈ ℝ<sup>n</sup> with y = Ax<sub>0</sub> + w, has been the central problem of compressed sensing. One of the classes of recovery algorithms that has attracted attention is the class of ℓ<sub>p</sub>-regularized least squares (LPLS) that seeks the minimum of 1/2 ∥y - Ax∥<sub>2</sub><sup>2</sup> + λ∥x∥<sub>p</sub><sup>p</sup> for p ∈ [0, 1]. In this paper we employ the Replica method<sup>1</sup> from statistical physics to analyze the global minima of LPLS. Our paper reveals several surprising asymptotic properties of LPLS: (i) The phase transition curve of LPLS is the same for every 0 ≤ p <; 1. These phase transition curves are much higher than the phase transition curve for p = 1. (ii) The phase transition curve of LPLS for every value of 0 ≤ p ≤ 1 depends only on the sparsity level and does not change with the distribution of the non-zero coefficients of x<sub>0</sub>. (iii) Despite the equality of the phase transition curves, different values of p show different performances once a small amount of measurement noise, w, is added.
Re-Assessing the Long-Term Underperformance of UK Initial Public Offerings

Previous work has identified that IPOs underperform a market index, and the purpose of this paper is to examine the robustness of this finding. We re-examine the evidence on the long-term returns of IPOs in the UK using a new data set of firms over the period 1985-92, in which we compare abnormal performance based on a number of alternative methods including a calendar-time approach. We find that, using an event-time approach, there are substantial negative abnormal returns to an IPO after the first three years irrespective of the benchmark used. However, over the five years after an IPO, abnormal returns exhibit less dramatic underperformance, and the conclusion on negative abnormal returns depends on the benchmark applied. Further if these returns are measured in calendar time, we find that the (statistical) significance of underperformance is even less marked.