Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Are Intestinal bacteria involved in the etiology of rheumatoid arthritis?

Observations in bowel‐related joint diseases give support to this hypothesis. In Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, the bowel wall inflammation is complicated in about 20% of the patients by joint inflammation. Bowel infection by Salmonella, Shigella and Yersinia can provoke joint inflammation and supports an etiological link between bowel bacteria and arthritis. The arthropathic properties of the most abundant group of intestinal bacteria, i.e. the obligate anaerobic bacteria, were studied in an animal model. Cell wall fragments (CWF), with peptidoglycan as the major component, from some Eubacterium and Bifidobacterium species induced a severe chronic polyarthritis in Lewis rats after a single intraperitoneal injection. Eubacterium was found in numbers of 108‐109 per gram in stools of healthy subjects and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients. CWF of isolated strains of E. aerofaciens were arthropathic. Soluble peptidoglycan polysaccharide complexes (PG‐PS) originating from the obligate anaerobic flora were purified from human intestinal contents. PG‐PS from ileostomy fluid that proved to be less processed by intestinal enzymes induced chronic arthritis in rats after a single administration in oil in the base of the tail. It was concluded that the human intestinal bowel contains soluble bacterial cell wall products that are arthropathic in an animal model. Peptidoglycan (PG) or its subunits was reported to be present in mammalian tissues. Immunohistochemical studies from our group showed the presence of intestinal PG‐PS in sections of normal rat spleen. Bacterial cell wall or PG‐induced joint inflammation in rats is proven to be absolutely dependent on functional T cells. T‐cell lines were isolated from the lymph nodes of rats with an E. aerofaciens CWF arthritis. A helper T‐cell line B13 was in vivo arthritogenic in knee or ankle joints upon intravenous injection in rats and proliferated in vitro on syngeneic spleen cells alone, but was additionally stimulated by intestinal PG‐PS and E. aerofaciens CWF. It was postulated that the arthritogenic T cells that seem to be autoreactive are, in fact, recognizing bacterial PG‐PS on antigen‐presenting cells (APC). It is generally accepted that RA is a T‐cell‐dependent process and that therefore the reaction is directed at small peptides bound by the major histocompatibility complex of APC. The only peptides present in arthritis inducing intestinal PG‐PS and in CWF are PG peptides interlinking the sugar chains. We feel that the immunoreaction against PG peptides plays a pivotal role in experimental and human arthritis of an unknown etiology.
Impaired formation of vasodilators in peripheral tissue in essential hypertension is normalized by exercise training: role of adenosine and prostacyclin

Objectives: This study examined vascular function and the adenosine system in skeletal muscle of patients diagnosed with essential hypertension (n = 10) and of normotensive (n = 11) patients, before and after aerobic training. Methods: Before and after 8 weeks of aerobic training, the patients completed experiments in which leg blood flow was determined during infusion of adenosine, acetylcholine and during exercise (20 W); muscle interstitial fluid and femoral venous plasma were sampled via microdialysis probes during baseline conditions, exercise and adenosine infusion and resting muscle biopsies were obtained from muscle vastus lateralis. Results: Before training, leg vascular conductance in response to arterial adenosine infusion was similar in the hypertensive and normotensive groups and the individual vascular response was positively correlated to that of both acetylcholine infusion (r 2 = 0.66, P < 0.001) and exercise (r 2 = 0.72, P < 0.001). Before training, interstitial adenosine concentrations during exercise and prostacyclin (PGI2) concentrations after adenosine infusion were lower in the hypertensive than the normotensive group (P < 0.05). In the hypertensive group, training did not affect the vasodilatory response to arterially infused adenosine but increased the formation of interstitial adenosine and PGI2 and lowered blood pressure. In the normotensive group, training resulted in lower (P < 0.05) leg vascular conductance in response to arterial adenosine infusion. Conclusion: The present data suggest that essential hypertension is associated with a reduced capacity to form adenosine and PGI2 at the skeletal muscle microcirculatory level, which is likely to contribute to the increased peripheral vascular resistance related to the disease. This impairment in vasodilator formation can be normalized by aerobic training.
Newborn screening for Krabbe's disease

Live newborn screening for Krabbe's disease (KD) was initiated in New York on August 7, 2006, and started in Missouri in August, 2012. As of August 7, 2015, nearly 2.5 million infants had been screened, and 443 (0.018%) infants had been referred for followup clinical evaluation; only five infants had been determined to have KD. As of August, 2015, the combined incidence of infantile KD in New York and Missouri is ∼1 per 500,000; however, patients who develop later‐onset forms of KD may still emerge. This Review provides an overview of the processes used to develop the screening and followup algorithms. It also includes updated results from screening and discussion of observations, lessons learned, and suggested areas for improvement that will reduce referral rates and the number of infants defined as at risk for later‐onset forms of KD. Although current treatment options for infants with early‐infantile Krabbe's disease are not curative, over time treatment options should improve; in the meantime, it is essential to evaluate the lessons learned and to ensure that screening is completed in the best possible manner until these improvements can be realized. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Open Clinical Trial on Using Nifuroxazide Compared to Probiotics in Treating Acute Diarrhoeas in Adults

Background: Nifuroxazide is well known and often used anti-diarrhoeal medicine which has been pushed back from routine practice in recent years and often replaced with probiotics. Even probiotics are accepted and placed in some therapeutic guidelines for diarrhoea treatment, there are no enough evidence for its effectiveness and no comparative efficacy data with nifuroxazide in treatment of acute diarrhea. Patients and Methods: In open, prospective observational study, the efficacy and safety of nifuroxazide were compared with a probiotic containing lactic acid bacteria in the treatment of acute diarrhoea. A total number of 169 adult patients were included in this study, who administered nifuroxazide in the dose of 200 mg/4 times a day, while they took preparation containing lactic acid bacteria (1,2 x 107 live lyophilised lactic-acid bacteria) three times a day for three days. Results: Mean time to last unformed stool (TLUS) in a group which was treated with nifuroxazide was two days, while it took five days for the stool normalisation in the group using probiotic (p=0.0001). Conclusions: Orally administered nifuroxazide has demonstrated better efficiency as compared to probiotic in treating acute diarrhoea, and both medicines have shown the same safety and tolerance in this study.
MIC check: A correlation tactic for ESE data

Empirical software engineering researchers are concerned with understanding the relationships between outcomes of interest, e.g. defects, and process and product measures. The use of correlations to uncover strong relationships is a natural precursor to multivariate modeling. Unfortunately, correlation coefficients can be difficult and/or misleading to interpret. For example, a strong correlation occurs between variables that stand in a polynomial relationship; this may lead one mistakenly, and eventually misleadingly, to model a polynomially related variable in a linear regression. Likewise, a non-monotonic functional, or even non-functional relationship might be entirely missed by a correlation coefficient. Outliers can influence standard correlation measures, tied values can unduly influence even robust non-parametric rank correlation, measures, and smaller sample sizes can cause instability in correlation measures. A new bivariate measure of association, Maximal Information Coefficient (MIC) [1], promises to simultaneously discover if two variables have: a) any association, b) a functional relationship, and c) a nonlinear relationship. The MIC is a very useful complement to standard and rank correlation measures. It separately characterizes the existence of a relationship and its precise nature; thus, it enables more informed choices in modeling non-functional and nonlinear relationships, and a more nuanced indicator of potential problems with the values reported by standard and rank correlation measures. We illustrate the use of MIC using a variety of software engineering metrics. We study and explain the distributional properties of MIC and related measures in software engineering data, and illustrate the value of these measures for the empirical software engineering researcher.
Clinical significance of skin biopsies in the diagnosis and management of graft-vs-host disease in early postallogeneic bone marrow transplantation.

OBJECTIVE To determine the value of skin biopsies in the management of suspected graft-vs-host disease (GVHD) within 30 days of allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (BMT). DESIGN Retrospective study based on review of a BMT database. SETTING Leukemia/BMT ward of a tertiary care, university teaching hospital. PATIENTS One hundred and eighty-seven consecutive patients who received allogeneic BMT between January 1, 1994, and June 30, 1997, at Vancouver General Hospital, Vancouver, British Columbia. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES (1) Skin biopsy frequency for patients with rashes suggestive of acute GVHD; (2) clinical significance of skin biopsy in the management of patients with suspected acute GVHD after BMT; (3) relationship between severity of clinical GVHD and the likelihood to receive GVHD therapy; and (4) relationship between biopsy status or biopsy result and outcome of BMT (acute and chronic GVHD, transplant-related mortality, and overall and event-free survival). RESULTS During the early post-BMT period (<30 days after BMT), 88 patients had rashes suggestive of acute GVHD; of these, 51 (58%) underwent skin biopsy to confirm the diagnosis. Skin biopsies were performed more often for higher clinical stages of cutaneous GVHD. There was no significant difference between the patients with positive biopsy findings and those with negative findings, either in the clinical severity of acute GVHD or in likelihood to receive treatment for GVHD. Most (85%) of the patients who underwent biopsies and received GVHD therapy had treatment initiated before skin biopsies were performed or before the results were available. The higher the clinical grade of overall acute GVHD, the more likely it was that the patients were treated for GVHD (P<.001). The outcome of BMT was not influenced by the skin biopsy status or biopsy result. CONCLUSIONS The biopsy findings correlated poorly with the clinical severity of skin rash suggestive of acute GVHD soon after BMT. The decision to treat suspected acute GVHD depended not on skin biopsy findings but rather on clinical severity of acute GVHD. In this regard, skin biopsy has a limited role in the management of patients early after allogeneic BMT.
Comprehensive mRNA Expression Profiling Distinguishes Tauopathies and Identifies Shared Molecular Pathways

Background Understanding the aetiologies of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease (AD), Pick's disease (PiD), Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP) and Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is often hampered by the considerable clinical and molecular overlap between these diseases and normal ageing. The development of high throughput genomic technologies such as microarrays provide a new molecular tool to gain insight in the complexity and relationships between diseases, as they provide data on the simultaneous activity of multiple genes, gene networks and cellular pathways. Methodology/Principal Findings We have constructed genome wide expression profiles from snap frozen post-mortem tissue from the medial temporal lobe of patients with four neurodegenerative disorders (5 AD, 5 PSP, 5 PiD and 5 FTD patients) and 5 control subjects. All patients were matched for age, gender, ApoE-ε and MAPT (tau) haplotype. From all groups a total of 790 probes were shown to be differently expressed when compared to control individuals. The results from these experiments were then used to investigate the correlations between clinical, pathological and molecular findings. From the 790 identified probes we extracted a gene set of 166 probes whose expression could discriminate between these disorders and normal ageing. Conclusions/Significance From genome wide expression profiles we extracted a gene set of 166 probes whose expression could discriminate between neurological disorders and normal ageing. This gene set can be further developed into an accurate microarray-based classification test. Furthermore, from this dataset we extracted a disease specific set of genes and identified two aging related transcription factors (FOXO1A and FOXO3A) as possible drug targets related to neurodegenerative disease.
Subtle cognitive impairment in elders with Mini‐Mental State Examination scores within the ‘normal’ range

The Mini‐Mental State Examination (MMSE) is commonly used as a screening test for dementia, yet MMSE scores above the cut‐off for dementia (24–30) are widely thought to have limited utility, particularly in older persons. The study investigates whether scores within this range can be indicative of pre‐symptomatic levels of cognitive impairment.
Structural Elucidation of Novel Saponins in the Sea Cucumber Holothuria lessoni

Sea cucumbers are prolific producers of a wide range of bioactive compounds. This study aimed to purify and characterize one class of compound, the saponins, from the viscera of the Australian sea cucumber Holothuria lessoni. The saponins were obtained by ethanolic extraction of the viscera and enriched by a liquid-liquid partition process and adsorption column chromatography. A high performance centrifugal partition chromatography (HPCPC) was applied to the saponin-enriched mixture to obtain saponins with high purity. The resultant purified saponins were profiled using MALDI-MS/MS and ESI-MS/MS which revealed the structure of isomeric saponins to contain multiple aglycones and/or sugar residues. We have elucidated the structure of five novel saponins, Holothurins D/E and Holothurinosides X/Y/Z, along with seven reported triterpene glycosides, including sulfated and non-sulfated saponins containing a range of aglycones and sugar moieties, from the viscera of H. lessoni. The abundance of novel compounds from this species holds promise for biotechnological applications. OPEN ACCESS Mar. Drugs 2014, 12 4440
Impact of chronic condition status and severity on the time to first dental visit for newly Medicaid-enrolled children in Iowa.

OBJECTIVE To assess the extent to which chronic condition (CC) status and severity affected how soon children had a dental visit after enrolling in Medicaid. Data Source. Enrollment and claims data (2003-2008) for newly Medicaid-enrolled children ages 3-14 in Iowa. STUDY DESIGN 3M Clinical Risk Grouping methods were used to identify CC status (no/yes) and CC severity (less severe/more severe). Survival analysis was used to identify the factors associated with earlier first dental visits after initially enrolling in Medicaid. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Children with a CC were 17 percent more likely to have earlier first dental visits after enrolling in Medicaid (p < .0001). There was no significant difference by CC severity. Children who lived in a dental health professional shortage area and those who did not utilize primary medical care had significantly later first Medicaid dental visits, whereas these factors failed to reach statistical significance for children with a CC. CONCLUSION While newly Medicaid-enrolled children with a CC were significantly more likely to have earlier first dental visits, we failed to detect a relationship between CC severity and the time to first Medicaid dental visit. The determinants of first Medicaid dental visits were heterogeneous across subgroups of newly Medicaid-enrolled children. Future studies should identify the sociobehavioral factors associated with CCs that are potential barriers to earlier first Medicaid dental visits for newly Medicaid-enrolled children.
The Impact of Coverage on Bug Density in a Large Industrial Software Project

Measuring quality of test suites is one of the major challenges of software testing. Code coverage identifies tested and untested parts of code and is frequently used to approximate test suite quality. Multiple previous studies have investigated the relationship between coverage ratio and test suite quality, without a clear consent in the results. In this work we study whether covered code contains a smaller number of future bugs than uncovered code (assuming appropriate scaling). If this correlation holds and bug density is lower in covered code, coverage can be regarded as a meaningful metric to estimate the adequacy of testing. To this end we analyse 16000 internal bug reports and bug-fixes of SAP HANA, a large industrial software project. We found that the above-mentioned relationship indeed holds, and is statistically significant. Contrary to most previous works our study uses real bugs and real bug-fixes. Furthermore, our data is derived from a complex and large industrial project.
Complex Femur Fractures in Children: Treatment with External Fixation

Summary External fixation was used to treat complex femur fractures in 10 children. These injuries were associated with head trauma, cerebral palsy, epidermolysis bullosa, open wounds, and failed casting. The duration of external fixation averaged 8 weeks, and the mean follow-up was 5 years 8 months. At follow-up, one patient had 2.6 cm of residual shortening, and two had overgrowth. Complications included one refracture. Three children developed superficial pin site drainage. Although most femur fractures can be treated with traction or casting, external fixation may simplify overall care in children with multiple injuries and is effective in controlling unacceptable femoral shortening and angulation.
Trypanosoma cruzi IV Causing Outbreaks of Acute Chagas Disease and Infections by Different Haplotypes in the Western Brazilian Amazonia

Background Chagas disease is an emergent tropical disease in the Brazilian Amazon Region, with an increasing number of cases in recent decades. In this region, the sylvatic cycle of Trypanosoma cruzi transmission, which constitutes a reservoir of parasites that might be associated with specific molecular, epidemiological and clinical traits, has been little explored. The objective of this work is to genetically characterize stocks of T. cruzi from human cases, triatomines and reservoir mammals in the State of Amazonas, in the Western Brazilian Amazon. Methodology/Principal Findings We analyzed 96 T. cruzi samples from four municipalities in distant locations of the State of Amazonas. Molecular characterization of isolated parasites from cultures in LIT medium or directly from vectors or whole human blood was performed by PCR of the non-transcribed spacer of the mini-exon and of the 24 S alfa ribosomal RNA gene, RFLP and sequencing of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit II (COII) gene, and by sequencing of the glucose-phosphate isomerase gene. The T. cruzi parasites from two outbreaks of acute disease were all typed as TcIV. One of the outbreaks was triggered by several haplotypes of the same DTU. TcIV also occurred in isolated cases and in Rhodnius robustus. Incongruence between mitochondrial and nuclear phylogenies is likely to be indicative of historical genetic exchange events resulting in mitochondrial introgression between TcIII and TcIV DTUs from Western Brazilian Amazon. TcI predominated among triatomines and was the unique DTU infecting marsupials. Conclusion/Significance DTU TcIV, rarely associated with human Chagas disease in other areas of the Amazon basin, is the major strain responsible for the human infections in the Western Brazilian Amazon, occurring in outbreaks as single or mixed infections by different haplotypes.
Investigation of active damping approaches for PI-based current control of grid-connected PWM converters with LCL filters

This paper deals with different active damping approaches for PI-based current control of grid-connected PWM converters with LCL filters which are based on one additional feedback. Filter capacitor current as well as voltage feedback for purpose of resonance damping are analyzed and compared. Basic studies in continuous Laplace domain show that either proportional current feedback or derivative voltage feedback yield resonance damping. Detailed investigations of these two approaches in discrete z-domain taking into account the discrete nature of control implementation, sampling, and PWM are carried out. Several ratios of LCL resonance frequency and control frequency are considered. For high resonance frequencies only current feedback stabilizes the system. For medium resonance frequencies both approaches show good performance. For low resonance frequencies stability gets worse even if voltage feedback offers slighly better damping properties. Measurement results validate the theoretical results.
Angiotensin II type 1 receptor gene polymorphisms in humans: physiology and pathophysiology of the genotypes

Many studies have attempted to relate genetic variants of components of the renin-angiotensin system to complex diseases such as essential hypertension, cardiovascular disease and progressive renal failure. The angiotensin II type 1 receptor (AT1R) gene is an important example of this approach. Many polymorphisms of the AT1R gene have been identified, but the A1166→C polymorphism has been the most extensively studied. The physiological significance of this polymorphism is uncertain because of its location in the 3′-untranslated region of the gene. The present review summarizes association studies of the AT1R gene, focusing on clinical end-points and physiological responses.