Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Podocyte involvement in lupus nephritis based on the 2003 ISN/RPS system: a large cohort study from a single centre.

OBJECTIVE The podocyte lesion in LN is still an intriguing controversy. We assess the associations between podocyte lesions and clinico-pathological features in a large cohort of LN patients. METHODS The clinico-pathological data of 202 patients with renal biopsy-proven LN were retrospectively studied. The degree of podocyte lesions was assessed morphologically and its correlations with clinico-pathological parameters were further analysed. RESULTS The podocyte foot processes of most LN patients significantly effaced, reflected by the median foot process width (FPW) of 1397.39 nm, and 13 patients met the histological criteria of lupus podocytopathy. The FPW was correlated with proteinuria (r = 0.509, P < 0.001) and the cut-off value of FPW, >1240 nm, could differentiate nephrotic proteinuria from non-nephrotic proteinuria with sensitivity 81.5% and specificity 62.7%. The FPW varied significantly with different types of LN, and the patients with combined LN presented with the most severe lesions. The complete remission rate was significantly higher and the long-term renal outcome was better in the group with calcineurin inhibitors than that with other regimens in patients with FPW >1240 nm. CONCLUSION Podocyte damage was common in LN. Pure lupus podocytopathy might act as an extreme form of lupus podocyte lesion, and more patients might present with severe podocyte effacement concealed in different types of LN, which needs further investigation.
Mediastinal Gray Zone Lymphoma

Aim. To identify aggressively behaving classical Hodgkin lymphoma (CHL) of mediastinum and primary mediastinal B-cell lymphoma (PMBCL) and to classify them as mediastinal gray zone lymphoma(MGZL) and to define a minimum immunopanel for the diagnosis of MGZL. Materials and Methods. Ninety-two mediastinal B-cell lymphomas were reviewed with a wide immunopanel and were classified as CHL, PMBCL, or MGZL. CHL with an expression of 3 or 4 transcription factors performed worse, and hence the CHL with ≥3 transcription factors were classified as MGZL-CHL. In PMBCL, the cases with a weak or negative CD20 and positive CD15 as well as those cases showing cyclin E positivity with a negative or focal LCA and any one of the transcription factors were classified as MGZL-PMBCL. Results. The MGZL cases expanded from 9 to 28 cases after using an extended immunopanel. CHL and PMBCL had a disease-free survival rate of 86.8% and 69.2% and an overall survival rate of 97.4% and 80.8%, respectively. MGZL-CHL and MGZL-PMBCL had a disease-free survival rate of 33% and 40% and an overall survival rate of 66.7% and 60%, respectively. Conclusion. Thus, the MGZL may be a wider category than we think and hence the use of a wide immunopanel is recommended to identify the aggressively behaving mediastinal B-cell lymphomas.
I-Care - A Health Promotion System for Active Ageing

I-Care is a health promotion system designed to: a) monitor vital signs of patients in real time; b) improve the patients’ knowledge of the disease, aiming to increase their motivation to develop healthy habits; c) motivate the patients through their interaction with doctors, friends and other patients with the same disease. The system works through the web, being suitable for many platforms. A group of three people was monitored during four weeks, generating some interesting conclusions about different ways to motivate people to get older in a more active and healthy way. The test subjects were from 56 to 67 years, both male and female, with hypertension, overweight and diabetes. The adopted methodology was both quantitative and qualitative. Results showed that the proposed system can improve significantly the health of the monitored patients, developing in the participants a better understanding about their health situation.
Prevalence and clinical characteristics of psychotic versus nonpsychotic major depression in a general psychiatric outpatient clinic

Background: Psychotic major depression (PMD) is a severe mental disorder characterized by high levels of illness severity, chronicity, impairment, and treatment resistance. However, most past research on PMD has been conducted in inpatient hospital samples, and relatively little is known about PMD patients presenting for treatment in the community specifically. Methods: In this study, we examined the prevalence and clinical characteristics of PMD in a large sample (n=2,500) of treatment‐seeking outpatients who were administered structured clinical interviews by trained diagnosticians. Results: Of the patients diagnosed with major depression, 5.3% had psychotic features. PMD patients were more likely to be members of a racial/ethnic minority and to have lower educational attainment compared to those with nonpsychotic major depression. In addition, PMD patients were found to have greater current depression severity, suicidal ideation, and social and work impairment. These patients also were more likely to have histories of suicide attempts and psychiatric hospitalizations, to report an earlier age of illness onset, and to meet criteria for chronic depression. In terms of psychiatric comorbidity, PMD patients had higher rates of certain anxiety disorders as well as more somatoform and cluster A personality disorders. Conclusions: Results indicated that PMD was present in a relatively small percentage of treatment‐seeking outpatients but was associated with disproportionately high levels of severity and impairment. Similarities and differences between the current findings and those from past research are discussed, including clinical implications for the identification and treatment of PMD in routine practice settings. Depression and Anxiety, 2009. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Methylnaltrexone for opioid-induced constipation in advanced illness.

BACKGROUND Constipation is a distressing side effect of opioid treatment. As a quaternary amine, methylnaltrexone, a mu-opioid-receptor antagonist, has restricted ability to cross the blood-brain barrier. We investigated the safety and efficacy of subcutaneous methylnaltrexone for treating opioid-induced constipation in patients with advanced illness. METHODS A total of 133 patients who had received opioids for 2 or more weeks and who had received stable doses of opioids and laxatives for 3 or more days without relief of opioid-induced constipation were randomly assigned to receive subcutaneous methylnaltrexone (at a dose of 0.15 mg per kilogram of body weight) or placebo every other day for 2 weeks. Coprimary outcomes were laxation (defecation) within 4 hours after the first dose of the study drug and laxation within 4 hours after two or more of the first four doses. Patients who completed this phase were eligible to enter a 3-month, open-label extension trial. RESULTS In the methylnaltrexone group, 48% of patients had laxation within 4 hours after the first study dose, as compared with 15% in the placebo group, and 52% had laxation without the use of a rescue laxative within 4 hours after two or more of the first four doses, as compared with 8% in the placebo group (P<0.001 for both comparisons). The response rate remained consistent throughout the extension trial. The median time to laxation was significantly shorter in the methylnaltrexone group than in the placebo group. Evidence of withdrawal mediated by central nervous system opioid receptors or changes in pain scores was not observed. Abdominal pain and flatulence were the most common adverse events. CONCLUSIONS Subcutaneous methylnaltrexone rapidly induced laxation in patients with advanced illness and opioid-induced constipation. Treatment did not appear to affect central analgesia or precipitate opioid withdrawal. (Clinical Trials.gov number, NCT00402038 [ClinicalTrials.gov].).
Comparison of the DiSCmini Aerosol Monitor to a Handheld Condensation Particle Counter and a Scanning Mobility Particle Sizer for Submicrometer Sodium Chloride and Metal Aerosols

We evaluated the robust, lightweight DiSCmini (DM) aerosol monitor for its ability to measure the concentration and mean diameter of submicrometer aerosols. Tests were conducted with monodispersed and polydispersed aerosols composed of two particle types (sodium chloride [NaCl] and spark-generated metal particles, which simulate particles found in welding fume) at three different steady-state concentration ranges (Low, <103; Medium, 103–104; and High, >104 particles/cm3). Particle number concentration, lung deposited surface area (LDSA) concentration, and mean size measured with the DM were compared with those measured with reference instruments, a scanning mobility particle sizer (SMPS), and a handheld condensation particle counter (CPC). Particle number concentrations measured with the DM were within 16% of those measured by the CPC for polydispersed aerosols. Poorer agreement was observed for monodispersed aerosols (±35% for most tests and +101% for 300-nm NaCl). LDSA concentrations measured by the DM were 96% to 155% of those estimated with the SMPS. The geometric mean diameters measured with the DM were within 30% of those measured with the SMPS for monodispersed aerosols and within 25% for polydispersed aerosols (except for the case when the aerosol contained a substantial number of particles larger than 300 nm). The accuracy of the DM is reasonable for particles smaller than 300 nm, but caution should be exercised when particles larger than 300 nm are present. [Supplementary materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene for the following free supplemental resources: manufacturer-reported capabilities of instruments used, and information from the SMPS measurements for polydispersed test particles. ]
Human umbilical cord matrix-derived stem cells exert trophic effects on β-cell survival in diabetic rats and isolated islets

ABSTRACT Human umbilical cord matrix-derived stem cells (uMSCs), owing to their cellular and procurement advantages compared with mesenchymal stem cells derived from other tissue sources, are in clinical trials to treat type 1 (T1D) and type 2 diabetes (T2D). However, the therapeutic basis remains to be fully understood. The immunomodulatory property of uMSCs could explain the use in treating T1D; however, the mere immune modulation might not be sufficient to support the use in T2D. We thus tested whether uMSCs could exert direct trophic effects on β-cells. Infusion of uMSCs into chemically induced diabetic rats prevented hyperglycemic progression with a parallel preservation of islet size and cellularity, demonstrating the protective effect of uMSCs on β-cells. Mechanistic analyses revealed that uMSCs engrafted long-term in the injured pancreas and the engraftment markedly activated the pancreatic PI3K pathway and its downstream anti-apoptotic machinery. The pro-survival pathway activation was associated with the expression and secretion of β-cell growth factors by uMSCs, among which insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1) was highly abundant. To establish the causal relationship between the uMSC-secreted factors and β-cell survival, isolated rat islets were co-cultured with uMSCs in the transwell system. Co-culturing improved the islet viability and insulin secretion. Furthermore, reduction of uMSC-secreted IGF1 via siRNA knockdown diminished the protective effects on islets in the co-culture. Thus, our data support a model whereby uMSCs exert trophic effects on islets by secreting β-cell growth factors such as IGF1. The study reveals a novel therapeutic role of uMSCs and suggests that multiple mechanisms are employed by uMSCs to treat diabetes. Summary: The newly identified paracrine role of umbilical cord stem cells highlights their therapeutic utilities to treat not only the autoimmune-mediated type 1 diabetes but also type 2 diabetes.
Universal privacy‐preserving platform for SecaaS services

With the rapid growth of the Security‐as‐a‐Service market, concerns about privacy in exposing customer security policies to Cloud Service Providers have become critical. To resolve these issues, several solutions have been proposed over the past few years, each for a different kind of security service. However, as the number of security services outsourced into a cloud continues to grow, the need for a unified solution has become significant. This article introduces and presents a universal privacy‐preserving platform for SecaaS services that is based on a hybrid cloud architecture for maintaining the confidentiality of the customer's security policy. It is shown that this platform can be applied to all security services whose security policies can be represented in the form of a decision tree. This includes the vast majority of existing cloud‐based security services. With the small number of computationally‐expensive operations performed in a private cloud, the solution also does not require the implementation of a performant security engine on the customer's premises, allowing full advantage to be taken of private cloud offloading. It is also shown that the platform achieves better performance results than other existing solutions of this type. These findings were confirmed by experimental results.
Development of a Nonlinear Piezoelectric Energy Harvester for Alternating Air Load

The demand for energy-harvesting technology is steadily growing in the field of self-powered wireless sensor systems for use in pneumatic systems. The purpose of this research was to study an energy harvester excited by alternating air load in a pneumatic system. The harvester was designed to consist of a power chamber and a compressed chamber, and to the bottom of the power chamber a piezoelectric patch as been affixed. The harvester is excited by the changing pressure, which can be adjusted through changing volume, and the alternating air pressure energy can be harvested through the deformation of the piezoelectric patch. A test system was built and a prototype device was tested under various experimental conditions. The test results show that the energy generation performance of the harvester can be influenced by varying the volume compression parameters, with the output voltage increasing when the flow increases. The maximal output voltage and power are 24.7 V and 1.06 mW, respectively. An effective power of 0.28 mW was measured across the 200 kΩ resistor at a pressure of 200 kPa and a cycle time of 2.5 s with a flow of 150 L/min.
3-D depth migration via McClellan transformations

Three‐dimensional seismic wavefields may be extrapolated in depth, one frequency at a time, by two‐dimensional convolution with a circularly symmetric, frequency‐ and velocity‐dependent filter. This depth extrapolation, performed for each frequency independently, lies at the heart of 3-D finite‐difference depth migration. The computational efficiency of 3-D depth migration depends directly on the efficiency of this depth extrapolation. McClellan transformations provide an efficient method for both designing and implementing two‐dimensional digital filters that have a particular form of symmetry, such as the circularly symmetric depth extrapolation filters used in 3-D depth migration. Given the coefficients of one‐dimensional, frequency‐ and velocity‐dependent filters used to accomplish 2-D depth migration, McClellan transformations lead to a simple and efficient algorithm for 3-D depth migration. 3-D depth migration via McClellan transformations is simple because the coefficients of two‐dimensional depth .
Grouped variable approximate factor analysis

We introduce a generalization of the approximate factor model for which the observable variables belong to a nite number of groups. The error terms of variables that belong to di erent groups are assumed to be at most weakly correlated, but the correlation between the errors of variables that belong to the same group is not restricted. We propose an approximate instrumental variables method to estimate the model, prove consistency and provide rates of convergence. Monte carlo simulations provide evidence of the performance of the approximate instrumental variables estimator relative to the principal components estimator of Stock and Watson (2002a). We nd that if the grouped variable structure exists and is exploited in the construction of the estimator, then the approximate instrumental variables estimator is superior to the principal components estimator. In cases where the variables have an approximate factor structure, the approximate instrumental variables estimator has a similar performance to the principal components estimator.
Neutral Models of Microbiome Evolution

There has been an explosion of research on host-associated microbial communities (i.e.,microbiomes). Much of this research has focused on surveys of microbial diversities across a variety of host species, including humans, with a view to understanding how these microbiomes are distributed across space and time, and how they correlate with host health, disease, phenotype, physiology and ecology. Fewer studies have focused on how these microbiomes may have evolved. In this paper, we develop an agent-based framework to study the dynamics of microbiome evolution. Our framework incorporates neutral models of how hosts acquire their microbiomes, and how the environmental microbial community that is available to the hosts is assembled. Most importantly, our framework also incorporates a Wright-Fisher genealogical model of hosts, so that the dynamics of microbiome evolution is studied on an evolutionary timescale. Our results indicate that the extent of parental contribution to microbial availability from one generation to the next significantly impacts the diversity of microbiomes: the greater the parental contribution, the less diverse the microbiomes. In contrast, even when there is only a very small contribution from a constant environmental pool, microbial communities can remain highly diverse. Finally, we show that our models may be used to construct hypotheses about the types of processes that operate to assemble microbiomes over evolutionary time.
Enhancing Spatial Knowledge With Discrete Euclidean Virtual 3D Display Interfaces: Design Options

Getting lost within Internet applications has been addressed with limited success by treating hypertext navigation as analogous to spatial navigation. One alternative for shopping-specific interfaces is to create discrete virtual three-dimensional (3D) Euclidian spaces for web navigation. Equivalent configural spatial knowledge acquisition was obtained from searches in discrete HTML Euclidian environments and comparable desktop 3D virtual environments (Couture, Colle, & Reid, 2005, International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction). However, between-store spatial knowledge was not optimal for both discrete HTML and continuous desktop virtual environments. Also, walking longer distances between stores is undesirable. These issues are addressed with two design options. In Experiment 1, better between-store spatial knowledge was acquired in linear and clustered arrangements of adjacent stores than with hallway travel between stores. In Experiment 2, map menu teleportation, selecting a store teleportation destination from a map menu, did not spatially disorient participants. Design implications for several domains were discussed.
Greater Omental Lymph Node Flap for Upper Limb Lymphedema with Lymph Nodes–depleted Patient

Background: The greater omentum is supplied by the right, middle, and left omental arteries, which arise from the right and left gastroepiploic arteries. All or part of the greater omentum can be harvested based on this blood supply for free tissue transfer. It has stimulated new interest in its use as the donor site in the treatment of lymphedema. For patients who have failed other management options or have limited peripheral lymph node donor sites, the greater omental lymph node flap may offer the best chance for lymphedema treatment. Methods: We report a 59-year-old woman with a history of left breast cancer who was treated with left modified radical mastectomy and axillary lymph node dissection and developed left upper extremity Grade IV lymphedema. She received vascularized groin lymph node transfer and lymphaticovenous anastomosis, but the result was not satisfactory. She also had nasopharyngeal cancer that was treated with radiotherapy to the head and neck, making use of the submental lymph nodes flap impossible. Due to a lack of other options of lymph node donor sites, the split greater omental lymph node flap (GOLF) was used. Results: After surgery, it showed an arm circumference reduction of 42.9% above the elbow and 36.4% below the elbow at an 8-month follow-up. There was no intraabdominal complication. Conclusions: The split GOLF has shown good results in a peripheral lymph node–depleted lymphedema patient. Using a laparoscopic technique for flap harvest has less risk of donor site morbidity and hides scarring.
Human body area factors for radiation exchange analysis : standing and walking postures

Effective radiation area factors (feff) and projected area factors (fp) of unclothed Caucasians’ standing and walking postures used in estimating human radiation exchange with the surrounding environment were determined from a sample of adults in Canada. Several threedimensional (3D) computer body models were created for standing and walking postures. Only small differences in feff and fp values for standing posture were found between gender (male or female) and body type (normalor overweight). Differences between this study and previous studies were much larger: ≤0.173 in fp and ≤0.101 in feff. Directionless fp values for walking posture also had only minor differences between genders and positions in a stride. However, the differences of mean directional fp values of the positions dependent on azimuth angles were large enough, ≤0.072, to create important differences in modeled radiation receipt. Differences in feff values were small: 0.02 between the normal-weight male and female models and up to 0.033 between positions in a stride. Variations of directional fp values depending on solar altitudes for walking posture were narrower than those for standing posture. When both standing and walking postures are considered, the mean feff value, 0.836, of standing (0.826) and walking (0.846) could be used. However, fp values should be selected carefully because differences between directional and directionless fp values were large enough that they could influence the estimated level of human thermal sensation.