Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multidimensional Prognostic Index and pro-adrenomedullin plasma levels as mortality risk predictors in older patients hospitalized with community-acquired pneumonia: a prospective study.

BACKGROUND To evaluate the prognostic accuracy of proadrenomedullin (proADM) in comparison with and in addition to the Multidimensional Prognostic Index (MPI), a validated predictive tool for mortality derived from a comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA) to predict one-month mortality risk in older patients hospitalized with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP). METHODS All patients aged 65 years and older, consecutively admitted to an acute geriatric ward with a diagnosis of CAP from February to July 2012. At admission and at discharge they were submitted to a standard CGA in order to calculate MPI. Moreover, plasma samples were taken at baseline and after one, three and five days of hospitalization for the analysis of pro-ADM. RESULTS Fifty patients (mean age 86.2±7.5 years), with 31 at high risk of mortality (MPI-3) were enrolled. ProADM and MPI, both at admission and at discharge, were significant predictor of mortality. As expected, MPI at admission showed lower predictive accuracy than MPI at discharge (survival C-statistic 0.667 vs. 0.851). The addition of proADM to the MPI at admission significantly increased accuracy in predicting one-month mortality (C-statistics from 0.667 to 0.731, P=0.018 at baseline; from 0.667 to 0.733, P=0.008 at 1 day; from 0.633 to 0.724; P=0.019 at 3 days; from 0.667 to 0.828; P=0.003 at 5 days). Conversely, adding pro-ADM to the MPI at discharge did not significantly improve the model's prognostic accuracy. CONCLUSIONS ProADM may significantly improve the prognostic accuracy of the MPI at admission in hospitalized elderly patients with CAP.
PlGF Knockdown Decreases Tumorigenicity and Stemness Properties of Spheroid Body Cells Derived from Gastric Cancer Cells

Placental growth factor (PlGF) a member of the vascular endothelial growth factor family regulates some cell processes such as survival, growth of vascular endothelial cells, invasiveness, and also involves in pathological angiogenesis and metastasis in most cancers. Cancer stem cells are believed to be the main reason for the tumor relapse and resistance to therapy. These cells have various characteristics as same as normal tissue‐specific adult stem cells including self‐renewability and potent to differentiate into various cell types. However, the function of PlGF in gastric cancer stem cells is not well understood. We have investigated the effect of PlGF knockdown on the tumorigenicity and stem cell properties of spheroid body cells derived from two human gastric cancer cell lines. In this study, we isolated spheroid body cells which have stemness properties from MKN‐45 and AGS without using growth factors. Validation of spheroid body cells was confirmed by various methods. Then the effects of PlGF knockdown were investigated on in vitro tumorigenicity, differentiation, migration, angiogenesis, and transcription levels of stemness markers of spheroid body cells. Our findings indicated that isolation of spheroid body cells from MKN‐45 and AGS cells without using growth factors is an easy and inexpensive method to isolate cancer stem cells and knockdown of PlGF in spheroid body cells reduced in vitro tumorigenicity and stemness properties of spheroid body cells such as Self‐renewal ability, colony forming, migratory, and MMPs activities and decreased ability to differentiation and angiogenesis. J. Cell. Biochem. 118: 851–859, 2017. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Engineering of Corneal Tissue through an Aligned PVA/Collagen Composite Nanofibrous Electrospun Scaffold

Corneal diseases are the main reason of vision loss globally. Constructing a corneal equivalent which has a similar strength and transparency with the native cornea, seems to be a feasible way to solve the shortage of donated cornea. Electrospun collagen scaffolds are often fabricated and used as a tissue-engineered cornea, but the main drawback of poor mechanical properties make it unable to meet the requirement for surgery suture, which limits its clinical applications to a large extent. Aligned polyvinyl acetate (PVA)/collagen (PVA-COL) scaffolds were electrospun by mixing collagen and PVA to reinforce the mechanical strength of the collagen electrospun scaffold. Human keratocytes (HKs) and human corneal epithelial cells (HCECs) inoculated on aligned and random PVA-COL electrospun scaffolds adhered and proliferated well, and the aligned nanofibers induced orderly HK growth, indicating that the designed PVA-COL composite nanofibrous electrospun scaffold is suitable for application in tissue-engineered cornea.
ASSAY OPTIMIZATION AND REGULATION OF UREASE ACTIVITY IN TWO MARINE DIATOMS

An in vitro urease enzyme assay was developed for the marine diatoms Thalassiosira pseudonana Hasle et Heimdal (clone 3H) and T. weissflogii (Grunow) Fryxell et Hasle (clone Actin). This assay involves the colorimetric measurement of ammonium following the hydrolysis of urea in crude cell homogenates and it is the first assay to account for the rate of nitrogen assimilation in both species grown on urea as the sole nitrogen source. Urease activity was found to be present regardless of nitrogen source, although activities showed distinctly different patterns depending on the species examined and form of nitrogen supplied. Under nitrogen‐replete conditions, urease activity in T. pseudonana was present constitutively when grown on NH4+ and upregulated when grown on NO3− or urea. In nitrogen‐replete T. weissflogii, urease activity was present at high constitutive levels regardless of the nitrogen source and showed no upregulation. Nitrogen starvation did not upregulate activity in either species.
Development and evaluation of a novel high-throughput image-based fluorescent neutralization test for detection of Zika virus infection

Zika virus (ZIKV) is an emerging arbovirus belonging to the genus flavivirus that comprises other important public health viruses, such as dengue (DENV) and yellow fever (YFV). In general, ZIKV infection is a self-limiting disease, however cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome and congenital brain abnormalities in newborn infants have been reported. Diagnosing ZIKV infection remains a challenge, as viral RNA detection is only applicable until a few days after the onset of symptoms. After that, serological tests must be applied, and, as expected, high cross-reactivity between ZIKV and other flavivirus serology is observed. Plaque reduction neutralization test (PRNT) is indicated to confirm positive samples for being more specific, however it is laborious intensive and time consuming, representing a major bottleneck for patient diagnosis. To overcome this limitation, we developed a high-throughput image-based fluorescent neutralization test for ZIKV infection by serological detection. Using 226 human specimens, we showed that the new test presented higher throughput than traditional PRNT, maintaining the correlation between results. Furthermore, when tested with dengue virus samples, it showed 50.53% less cross reactivity than MAC-ELISA. This fluorescent neutralization test could be used for clinical diagnosis confirmation of ZIKV infection, as well as for vaccine clinical trials and seroprevalence studies.
The patient experience of Raynaud’s phenomenon in systemic sclerosis

RP is the most common manifestation of SSc and a major cause of disease-related morbidity. This review provides a detailed appraisal of the patient experience of SSc-RP and potential implications for disease classification, patient-reported outcome instrument development and SSc-RP clinical trial design. The review explores the clinical features of SSc-RP, the severity and burden of SSc-RP symptoms and the impact of SSc-RP on function, work and social participation, body image dissatisfaction and health-related quality of life in SSc. Where management of SSc-RP is concerned, the review focuses on the 'patient experience' of interventions for SSc-RP, examining geographic variation in clinical practice and potential barriers to the adoption of treatment recommendations concerning best-practice management of SSc-RP. Knowledge gaps are highlighted that could form the focus of future research. A more thorough understanding of the patient experience could support the development of novel reported outcome instruments for assessing SSc-RP.
Molecular Markers Discriminate Closely Related Species Encarsia diaspidicola and Encarsia berlesei (Hymenoptera: Aphelinidae) : Biocontrol Candidate Agents for White Peach Scale in Hawaii

ABSTRACT We genetically characterized Encarsia diapsidicola Silvestri and Encarsia berlesei Howard (Hymenoptera: Aphelinidae) by two molecular methods: phylogenetic analysis of the cytochrome oxidase subunit I gene (COI) and intersimple sequence repeat-polymerase chain reaction (ISSR-PCR) DNA fingerprinting. These two closely related endoparasitoids are candidate biological control agents for the white peach scale, Pseudaulacaspis pentagona Targioni-Tozetti (Hemiptera: Diaspididae), in Hawaii. We developed species-specific COI molecular markers that discriminated the two species, and we tested the utility of the E. diaspidicola-specific COI marker to detect parasitism of white peach scale. The COI sequence data uncovered 46-bp differences between the two Encarsia spp. The level of COI genetic divergence between the two species was 9.7%, and the two clustered into their own clade on a parismonious phylogram. ISSR-PCR readily discriminated the two Encarsia spp. because each was observed with fixed species-specific banding patterns. The COI molecular markers were specific for each species because cross-reactivity was not observed with nontarget species. The E. diaspidicola-specific COI markers were successful at detecting parasitism of white peach scale by E. diaspidicola by 24 h. Both molecular marker types successfully discriminated the two Encarsia spp. , whereas the COI markers will be useful as tools to assess levels of parasitism in the field and to study competitive interactions between parasitoids.
Leaf endophytic fungus interacts with precipitation to alter belowground microbial communities in primary successional dunes

ABSTRACT Understanding interactions between above‐ and belowground components of ecosystems is an important next step in community ecology. These interactions may be fundamental to predicting ecological responses to global change because indirect effects occurring through altered species interactions can outweigh or interact with the direct effects of environmental drivers. In a multiyear field experiment (2010‐2015), we tested how experimental addition of a mutualistic leaf endophyte (Epichloë amarillans) associated with American beachgrass (Ammophila breviligulata) interacted with an altered precipitation regime (±30%) to affect the belowground microbial community. Epichloë addition increased host root biomass at the plot scale, but reduced the length of extraradical arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungal hyphae in the soil. Under ambient precipitation alone, the addition of Epichloë increased root biomass per aboveground tiller and reduced the diversity of AM fungi in A. breviligulata roots. Furthermore, with Epichloë added, the diversity of root‐associated bacteria declined with higher soil moisture, whereas in its absence, bacterial diversity increased with higher soil moisture. Thus, the aboveground fungal mutualist not only altered the abundance and composition of belowground microbial communities but also affected how belowground communities responded to climate, suggesting that aboveground microbes have potential for cascading influences on community dynamics and ecosystem processes that occur belowground. &NA; Graphical Abstract Figure. Symbiotic fungi living inside of a grass species alters the response of soil fungi and bacteria to precipitation.
Temporal and Devoicing Analysis Fricative

Duration and devoicing of Portuguese fricatives have been studied using a set of corpora that include nonsense words following Portuguese phonological rules, and real words; these were recorded by four subjects (2 male, 2 female). Results show that fricative duration varies most with voicing (voiceless are longer), and also significantly by speaker, place, and position within word. Devoicing occurs most often word-finally, and varies significantly by place; devoicing occurs more often than in English.
Orientation of the Mitotic Spindle in the Development of Tubular Organs

Formation of organs that consist primarily or exclusively of tubes is essential for metazoan development. Increasing evidence suggests that the morphogenesis and homeostasis of these tubular organs depend on proper orientation of the mitotic spindle during cell division. Consequently, improper spindle orientation can perturb spatial arrangement of daughter cells, resulting in congenital malformations or dysfunctions of tubular organs. Over the past decade, the association of spindle misorientation with brain diseases and cancer has been extensively studied. However, few studies have explored the effects of spindle misorientation on developmental disorders impacting tubular organs. Here, we examine and interpret recent literature that shows how tubular organ development relies on proper spindle orientation and discuss how defects in this cellular process are associated with the pathogenesis of tubular organ diseases. J. Cell. Biochem. 118: 1630–1633, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Effects of mechanical stretching on electrical treeing characteristics in EPDM

Effects of mechanical stretching, produced after the expansion of cable accessories, on the electrical tree growth characteristics of EPDM (Ethylene Propylene Diene Monomer) are reported in the present work. FFV (fractional free volume) and CED (cohesion energy density), which were respectively related to free path of electrons and molecular chains splitting during electrical tree propagation process, were calculated through molecular dynamics simulations under different stretching ratios. A needle-plane electrode system with the stretching ratio ranging from 0 to 30% was used to investigate the electrical treeing characteristics in the experimental study. The simulation results show that the FFV becomes larger at higher stretching ratio, which enhances the collision between the hot electron and the molecular chain during the treeing process by extending the free path of the hot electron. While CED tends to become smaller at higher stretching ratio, reducing the cohesion strength for the tree channel crack to grow. Moreover, FFV and CED are investigated during the stretching recovery process, where FFV tends to decrease and CED turns to be larger. The experimental results indicate that mechanical stretching affects the electrical tree inception and propagation characteristics. The inception time of electrical tree becomes shorter as stretching ratio increases from 0 to 30%. Tree length and accumulated damage become larger with increasing the stretching ratio. Electrical tree propagation mechanism considering chemical and physical traps, which are generated under mechanical stretching, are also discussed and analyzed.
Single Anastomosis Sleeve Ileal Bypass: New Step in the Evolution of Bariatric Surgeries

ABSTRACT Purpose: Single anastomosis sleeve ileal bypass (SASI) procedure appears as a new metabolic and bariatric surgery based on Santoro's operation, in which a sleeve gastrectomy is followed by a side–to-side gastroileal anastomosis. The study is aimed to evaluate the short-term outcomes of laparoscopic single anastomosis sleeve ileal bypass with respect to postoperative weight loss and metabolic and nutritional effects on patients. Methods: Forty-five morbidly obese patients with a mean age of 31.2 years and a mean body mass index (BMI) of 43.2 kg/m2 underwent SASI bypass. Postoperatively, all patients were followed up at 1, 3, 6, and 12 months, and during each visit data about their BMI, obesity-related comorbidities, and nutritional status were collected. Results: One year after the surgery, mean BMI decreased to 29.1 kg/m2 and there was significant decrease in plasma level of fasting blood glucose, insulin, and low-density lipoprotein. On the other hand, there was significant increase in high-density lipoprotein plasma level, whereas hemoglobin and albumin plasma level remained normal. Six months after the surgery, calcium plasma level showed mild decrease in two cases, which was improved with multivitamin tablets. In 93% of our patients, multivitamin supplements were stopped after six months of surgery. Conclusions: Laparoscopic SASI bypass has been shown to be an effective, safe, and simple procedure for the treatment of morbid obesity and its associated metabolic consequences. Moreover, it results in minimal postoperative nutritional complications in comparison to other bariatric procedures.
Interactive Effects of Three Core Goal Pursuit Processes on Brain Control Systems: Goal Maintenance, Performance Monitoring, and Response Inhibition

Goal attainment relies in part on one’s ability to maintain a cognitive representation of the desired goal (goal maintenance), monitor the current state vis-à-vis the targeted end state and remain vigilant for lapses in progress (performance monitoring), and inhibit counter-goal behaviors (response inhibition). Because neurocognitive studies have typically examined these three processes in isolation from one another, little is known regarding if and how they interact during goal pursuit. However, these processes frequently co-occur during online, real-world goal pursuit. The present study employed a novel task to investigate how goal maintenance, performance monitoring, and response inhibition interact with one another. We identified functional activations distinct to each of the processes that correspond to results of prior investigations. In addition, we report interactive effects between response inhibition and goal maintenance in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and between performance monitoring and goal maintenance in the superior frontal gyrus and supramarginal gyrus. Implications for studying the neural systems of in situ goals include the need for both experimental designs that distinguish between process, but also more complex, realistic tasks to begin to map interactions among these neurocognitive processes and how they are altered by the presence or absence of one another.
An approach for combining multiple descriptors for image classification

Recently, efficient image descriptors have shown promise for image classification tasks. Moreover, methods based on the combination of multiple image features provide better performance compared to methods based on a single feature. This work presents a simple and efficient approach for combining multiple image descriptors. We first employ a Naive-Bayes Nearest-Neighbor scheme to evaluate four widely used descriptors. For all features, “Image-to-Class” distances are directly computed without descriptor quantization. Since distances measured by different metrics can be of different nature and they may not be on the same numerical scale, a normalization step is essential to transform these distances into a common domain prior to combining them. Our experiments conducted on a challenging database indicate that z-score normalization followed by a simple sum of distances fusion technique can significantly improve the performance compared to applications in which individual features are used. It was also observed that our experimental results on the Caltech 101 dataset outperform other previous results.
Significant Mean and Extreme Climate Sensitivity of Norway Spruce and Silver Fir at Mid-Elevation Mesic Sites in the Alps

Climate forcing is the major abiotic driver for forest ecosystem functioning and thus significantly affects the role of forests within the global carbon cycle and related ecosystem services. Annual radial increments of trees are probably the most valuable source of information to link tree growth and climate at long-term time scales, and have been used in a wide variety of investigations worldwide. However, especially in mountainous areas, tree-ring studies have focused on extreme environments where the climate sensitivity is perhaps greatest but are necessarily a biased representation of the forests within a region. We used tree-ring analyses to study two of the most important tree species growing in the Alps: Norway spruce (Picea abies) and silver fir (Abies alba). We developed tree-ring chronologies from 13 mesic mid-elevation sites (203 trees) and then compared them to monthly temperature and precipitation data for the period 1846–1995. Correlation functions, principal component analysis and fuzzy C-means clustering were applied to 1) assess the climate/growth relationships and their stationarity and consistency over time, and 2) extract common modes of variability in the species responses to mean and extreme climate variability. Our results highlight a clear, time-stable, and species-specific response to mean climate conditions. However, during the previous-year's growing season, which shows the strongest correlations, the primary difference between species is in their response to extreme events, not mean conditions. Mesic sites at mid-altitude are commonly underrepresented in tree-ring research; we showed that strong climatic controls of growth may exist even in those areas. Extreme climatic events may play a key role in defining the species-specific responses on climatic sensitivity and, with a global change perspective, specific divergent responses are likely to occur even where current conditions are less limited.
The BCR-ABL1-negative myeloproliferative neoplasms: a review of JAK inhibitors in the therapeutic armamentarium

ABSTRACT Introduction: The classical BCR-ABL1-negative myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN) include primary myelofibrosis (PMF), polycythemia vera (PV) and essential thrombocythemia (ET). They are characterized by stem cell-derived clonal proliferation, harbor Janus kinase 2 (JAK2), or calreticulin (CALR), or myeloproliferative leukemia virus oncogene (MPL) driver mutations and exert an over activated JAK-signal transducer and activator of transcription (STAT) pathway. Therefore JAK inhibiting strategies have been successfully investigated in MPN clinical trials. Areas covered: The present review aims to provide a concise overview of the current and future role of JAK inhibitors in the therapeutic armamentarium of MPN. Expert opinion: The JAK1/JAK2 inhibitor ruxolitinib has clearly enriched the therapeutic armamentarium of MPN and is now licenced for more than five years in MF and over three years as second line in PV. Momelotinib, although of limited activity in MPN trials, demonstrated unique property of improving MF associated anemia. Less myelosuppressive or more selective JAK inhibitors like pacritinib, NS-01872 or Itacitinib are new promising agents tested in MF. JAK inhibition has become a cornerstone of MPN therapy and future efforts focus on ruxolitinib-based combinations and new JAK inhibitors.
Statistical Representation of Grammaticality Judgements: the Limits of N-Gram Models

We use a set of enriched n-gram models to track grammaticality judgements for different sorts of passive sentences in English. We construct these models by specifying scoring functions to map the log probabilities (logprobs) of an n-gram model for a test set of sentences onto scores which depend on properties of the string related to the parameters of the model. We test our models on classification tasks for different kinds of passive sentences. Our experiments indicate that our n-gram models achieve high accuracy in identifying ill-formed passives in which ill-formedness depends on local relations within the n-gram frame, but they are far less successful in detecting non-local relations that produce unacceptability in other types of passive construction. We take these results to indicate some of the strengths and the limitations of word and lexical class n-gram models as candidate representations of speakers’ grammatical knowledge.