Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Status of Essential Trace Minerals and Oxidative Stress in Viral Hepatitis C Patients with Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

Background: Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) may be an important factor leading to altered trace mineral homeostasis, thereby accelerating the progression of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. Our aim was to determine whether NAFLD influenced the status of certain essential trace minerals and oxidative stress in chronic HCV-infected patients. Design and Methods: Blood biochemical parameters were determined in a group of 30 healthy, non-obese, non-diabetic participants (CNL group), and hepatitis C patients without NAFLD (HCV group, n = 30) and with NAFLD (HCV-NAFLD group, n = 32). Results: Concentrations of thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS; a measure of oxidative stress), C-reactive protein (CRP), ferritin, aminotransferases, lipid profiles, and insulin metabolism were markedly abnormal in both patient groups than in CNL subjects. Compared to patients in the HCV group, those with HCV-NAFLD group had lower high-density lipoprotein concentrations, higher low-density lipoprotein and homeostasis model assessment-insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) values, disrupted antioxidant enzyme activities, and elevated TBARS concentrations, as well as decreased plasma concentrations of trace minerals zinc (Zn) and selenium (Se) and increased copper (Cu). The alterations in mineral homeostasis were also linked to TBARS, CRP, ferritin, lipoproteins, and HOMA-IR values in the HCV-NAFLD group. Conclusions: There is a progressive deterioration in the homeostasis of minerals (Zn, Se, and Cu) in HCV-NAFLD patients, which may reflect greater oxidative stress and inflammation. These results suggest that the disturbance in mineral metabolism by NAFLD has an impact on the effectiveness of treatment for chronic HCV infection.
Classifying Single Trial EEG: Towards Brain Computer Interfacing

Driven by the progress in the field of single-trial analysis of EEG, there is a growing interest in brain computer interfaces (BCIs), i.e., systems that enable human subjects to control a computer only by means of their brain signals. In a pseudo-online simulation our BCI detects upcoming finger movements in a natural keyboard typing condition and predicts their laterality. This can be done on average 100-230ms before the respective key is actually pressed, i.e., long before the onset of EMG. Our approach is appealing for its short response time and high classification accuracy (>96%) in a binary decision where no human training is involved. We compare discriminative classifiers like Support Vector Machines (SVMs) and different variants of Fisher Discriminant that possess favorable regularization properties for dealing with high noise cases (inter-trial variablity).
Multistage decoding for an internally coded fibre-optic time-hopping/optical code division multiple access communication system

A multistage decoder for the internally convolutionally coded fibre-optic time-hopping code division multiple access system recently introduced is considered. In this system, the decoder consists of several stages. The first stage is implemented using one of the single-user decoders introduced. The following stages are maximum likelihood (ML) decoders each of which use the decisions made by the previous stage. The performance of the proposed decoder is evaluated by a Monte Carlo simulation. Numerical results show that a multistage decoder with only two stages greatly outperforms the single-stage decoder with negligible increase in complexity. The authors also derive the Chernoff bound for the ML decoder with known interference, which is the ultimate performance of the multistage decoder.
Effects of late sodium current enhancement during LQT-related arrhythmias. A simulation study

Long QT syndrome is a repolarization disorder characterized by marked prolongation of QT interval. A clear consequence of long QT syndrome is the occurrence of a polymorphic ventricular tachycardia called Torsade de Pointes, which has been related to early after depolarizations (EADs) formation. This repolarizing disorder has been observed under pathological situations, such as heart failure, oxidative stress, ventricular hypertrophy and/or in the presence of pure class III antiarrhythmics. Under such pathologies electrophysiological changes affect the electrical activity of the cell. Lately, the enhancement of late sodium current (INaL) and its role has become a source of interest. In this work, a mathematical model of INaL has been proposed and incorporated to the ten Tussher model of the human ventricular action potential (AP), specifically in M cells. We simulated and analyzed the effects of INaL enhancement in combination with LQT-related pathologies and administration of IKr blockers, on the AP. This study demonstrates that INaL prolongs AP duration (APD) in a rate-dependent manner. Indeed, a 10-fold increase of INaL prolongs APD in 80% for a stimulation rate of 1 Hz and 100% for 0.25 Hz. Also, intracellular sodium concentration [Na+]i significantly increases in the presence of enhanced INaL, increasing the probability of EADs formation through calcium overload in cells prone to develop EADs.
Clinical response to alefacept: results of a phase 3 study of intramuscular administration of alefacept in patients with chronic plaque psoriasis

Background Recognition of psoriasis as a T‐cell‐mediated immune disease has led to the development of various therapeutic approaches directed against the pathogenic T cells. Alefacept, a novel and selective biological recombinant protein, binds CD2 on T cells to block T‐cell activation and proliferation and interacts with FcγRIII receptors on accessory cells to produce selective T‐cell apoptosis.
Profile Analysis of the Universal Nonverbal Intelligence Test Standardization Sample

Abstract A normative typology was developed and applied using multivariate profile analysis of subtest scores of the Universal Nonverbal Intelligence Test (UNIT) standardization sample. Multistage cluster analyses were applied to the standardization sample for the UNIT Extended Battery, comprising all six subtests; and the UNIT Standard Battery, comprising four subtests. The results yielded a seven-profile cluster solution for the Extended Battery, and a six-profile cluster solution for the Standard Battery. Tight profile clusters that were separated extremely well from each other were produced. Demographic prevalence trends and replication rates of the resultant clusters are similar to other studies, but help to describe the cluster composition. Additionally, the results lend support to the UNIT's underlying factor structure. Finally, user-friendly methods of determining whether clinical profiles are unique when compared to the profiles identified in the standardization sample are discussed.
Biomedical Issues of Dietary fiber β-Glucan

β-glucan is a polysaccharide in the form of fiber and the main element of fiber in grains such as barley, oats, yeast and mushrooms. Many studies have examined the efficacy of β-glucan in terms of the lipid lowering effects, blood sugar reduction, weight reduction, immune modulator, and anticarcinogenic effect. However, there is no comprehensive review article on the biomedical issues regarding β-glucan. The authors searched for systematic reviews and clinical experiments for each relevant topic and reviewed the biomedical effects of β-glucan, for the purpose of developing research strategies for the future.
Cerebral Potentials Preceding Visually Triggered Saccades

Saccades are ballistic movements of the eyes that direct the fovea to a selected part of the visual environment for maximum acuity. As with other ballistic movements, cerebral potentials have been reported to precede saccades that are made either in a self-paced, voluntary manner (Becker et al., 1972) or in response to a target light (Kurtzberg and Vaughan, 1979). One of the problems for investigation of the potentials preceding stimulus-elicited as compared to voluntary saccades is the contribution of the evoked potential to the visual stimulus. In the present experiment a target light appears a t the left or right and the subject is required simply to saccade to the target, or else move the eyes the same distance in the opposite direction. This paradigm has been used by Hallet ( 1 978) who referred to the two required responses as “normal” saccades and “anti-” saccades, respectively. It is thought that the normal task should activate whatever mechanism usually functions to direct the eyes to visual stimuli, and that the antitask requires more voluntary initiative to move the eyes. Even though for both of these conditions the visual stimulus is exactly the same prior to the start of the saccade, there might be some effect over blocks of trials of the difference in stimulation following the saccade (foveal versus peripheral). I t might be the case that a foveal stimulus in some sense “reinforces” the previous normal saccade. To control for this possibility the following experiment included stimulus conditions in which the target light changed positions at the onset of the saccade so that, for example, an antisaccade would result in a target appearing at the fovea.
MILITARY EXPENDITURE AND ECONOMIC GROWTH

This paper tests the relationship between military expenditure and economic growth by including the impact of the share of military and civilian components of government expenditure in an economic growth model with endogenous technology. In this framework, we empirically consider the hypothesis of a non‐linear effect of military expenditure on economic growth. Differences between the costs and benefits of the defence sector has traditionally explained the non‐linear relationship suggesting that shocks to insecurity may also be a source of non‐linearity as they determine a re‐allocative effect within government expenditure. While parametric partial correlations are in line with empirical findings, the robustness of estimations is tested by using a non‐parametric approach. The negative relationship between military expenditure and growth in countries with high levels of military burden predicted by theory becomes significant only after including a proxy for re‐allocative effects in the growth equation.
Immunoreactivity of glycoproteins isolated from human peripheral nerve and Campylobacter jejuni (O:19)

ABSTRACT Objective: Antibodies to ganglioside GM1 are associated with Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) in patients with serologic evidence of a preceding infection with Campylobacter jejuni. Molecular mimicry between C. jejuni Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and ganglioside GM1 has been proven to be the immunopathogenic mechanism of the disease in the axonal variant of GBS. GM1-positive sera cross-react with several Gal-GalNAc-bearing glycoproteins from the human peripheral nerve and C. jejuni (O:19). This study aimed to examine the immunoreactivity of the digested cross-reactive glycoproteins isolated from the human peripheral nerve and C. jejuni (O:19) with Peanut Agglutinin (PNA) as a marker for the Gal-GalNAc determinant, and with sera from patients with GBS. Materials and Methods: For this purpose, the cross-reactive glycoproteins from peripheral nerve and C. jejuni (O:19) were enzymatically digested with trypsin and the obtained peptides were incubated with PNA and GBS sera. Results: Western blot analysis of the separated peptides revealed several bands showing positive reactivity to PNA and to sera from patients with GBS, present in both digests from peripheral nerve and C. jejuni (O:19). Conclusions: These data indicate the possible molecular mimicry between the cross-reactive glycoproteins present in C. jejuni and human peripheral nerve and its potential role in the development of GBS following infection with C. jejuni (O:19).
Classtering: Joint Classification and Clustering with Mixture of Factor Analysers

In this work we propose a novel parametric Bayesian model for the problem of semi-supervised classification and clustering. Standard approaches of semi-supervised classification can recognize classes but cannot find groups of data. On the other hand, semi-supervised clustering techniques are able to discover groups of data but cannot find the associations between clusters and classes. The proposed model can classify and cluster samples simultaneously, allowing the analysis of data in the presence of an unknown number of classes and/or an arbitrary number of clusters per class. Experiments on synthetic and real world data show that the proposed model compares favourably to state-of-the-art approaches for semi-supervised clustering and that the discovered clusters can help to enhance classification performance, even in cases where the cluster and the low density separation assumptions do not hold. We finally show that when applied to a challenging real-world problem of subgroup discovery in breast cancer, the method is capable of maximally exploiting the limited information available and identifying highly promising subgroups.
Impact of Repeated Bouts of Eccentric Exercise on Skeletal Muscle Morphology and Myogenic Gene Expression Doctor School for Sports Science Bibliographical Data of Most Important Publications

Impact of repeated bouts of eccentric exercise on skeletal muscle morphology and myogenic gene expression The purpose of this study is to determine the effects of repeated-bouts of eccentric exercise for six consecutive days on the transcriptional alteration of myogenic (MyoD, Myogenin, Myf5, and Myostatin) and cell cycle (P21, Ki-67) regulatory genes as well as on the indirect (CK and LDH activity, MAT, and DOMS) and direct (myofiber and sarcolemma damage) markers of skeletal muscle damage in a group of middle-aged untrained individuals. This was done in an attempt to determine the appropriateness of exercise continuation with damaged muscles. Fifteen healthy untrained males were recruited for this study. The exercise group (n=9) successfully completed six sets of 15 reps of maximum voluntary eccentric contractions, for six consecutive days, using a dynamometer (Multicont-II). The control group (n=6) remained in a sedentary state. Blood and biopsy samples were obtained from all subjects one week prior to exercise, immediately after bout 3 (day 3), and 24h after the last training session at day 7. Blood samples were analyzed for creatine kinase (CK) and lactate-dehydrogenase (LDH) activity. All biopsies were stained with standard haematoxylin-eosin staining and immunohistochemically using antibodies specific for fibronectin and desmin antigens. The results of our study indicated no evidence of gross myofiber damage. In addition no sarcolemma damage and no loss of desmin were observed as stained by anti-fibronectin and anti-desmin antibody respectively. Despite the lack of sarcolemma and myofiber damage, CK and LDH activities were significantly increased at all times measured. The results of mRNA gene expression showed that Myostatin mRNA expression dramatically decreased but the expression patterns of MRFs was impaired such that, with the exception of myogenin that showed a moderate non sustained increase, MyoD and MYf5 response was minimal. Although we observed no gross myofiber and sarcolemma damage in 8 of 9 subjects we cannot ascertain the appropriateness of exercise continuation with affected muscles prior full recovery. This is due to the impaired expression patterns of MRFs. Under these conditions exercise continuation may be associated with impaired muscle growth and/or regeneration.
The Role of Radiotherapy in Hodgkin's Lymphoma: What Has Been Achieved during the Last 50 Years?

Currently, Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL) has an excellent clinical outcome, with overall survival of approximately 90% in early stages of the disease. Based on young age of the majority of patients at the time of diagnosis and their long survival time, increased attention has been focused on long-term toxicity of therapy. While novel, directly targeting antitumor agents, with an excellent safety profile, have been developed for HL treatment, the role of radiotherapy is still debated. Radiotherapy may induce cardiovascular disease and impairment of thyroid or pulmonary function and, most importantly, may lead to development of secondary cancers. As a consequence, the current radiation therapy planning paradigm is mainly focused on a reduction of field size. As it was investigated in clinical trials regional therapy is as effective as extended field radiotherapy, but less toxic. Although chemotherapy is the mainstay of HL treatment, consolidative involved field radiation therapy is still considered to be the standard of care in both early and advanced stages. Recently, further field reduction has been investigated to further decrease the late radiation-induced toxicity. In this paper we describe the role and safety profile of radiotherapy in the past and present and hope for the novel techniques in the future.
An Overview of Helicobacter pylori VacA Toxin Biology

The VacA toxin secreted by Helicobacter pylori enhances the ability of the bacteria to colonize the stomach and contributes to the pathogenesis of gastric adenocarcinoma and peptic ulcer disease. The amino acid sequence and structure of VacA are unrelated to corresponding features of other known bacterial toxins. VacA is classified as a pore-forming toxin, and many of its effects on host cells are attributed to formation of channels in intracellular sites. The most extensively studied VacA activity is its capacity to stimulate vacuole formation, but the toxin has many additional effects on host cells. Multiple cell types are susceptible to VacA, including gastric epithelial cells, parietal cells, T cells, and other types of immune cells. This review focuses on the wide range of VacA actions that are detectable in vitro, as well as actions of VacA in vivo that are relevant for H. pylori colonization of the stomach and development of gastric disease.
An Efficient Bloom Filter Based Solution for Multiparty Private Matching

The issue of privacy becomes more and more important. On the other hand, online collaboration among different parties is almost unavoidable. How to allow collaboration while protecting one’s privacy is an important problem and attracted a lot of attention. Unfortunately, most of the problems in this area still remain unsolved. In this paper, we investigate one of the fundamental problems called multiparty private matching in which N users want to compute the set of records that are present in everyone’s database without revealing unnecessary information such as records not in others’ databases or any intermediate resulting sets. Existing solutions are either inefficient or require a mediator. We propose a bloom-filter based solution, which does not require a trusted third party and is more efficient than all existing solutions. We also show that although bloom filter may return false positive, the probability of getting false positive can be set to very low that could still be useful to a lot of applications.
Septal localization of the SpoIIIE chromosome partitioning protein in Bacillus subtilis

The 787 amino acid SpoIIIE protein of Bacillus subtilis is required for chromosome partitioning during sporulation. This process differs from vegetative chromosome partitioning in that it occurs after formation of the septum, apparently by transfer of the chromosome through the nascent septum in a manner reminiscent of plasmid conjugation. Here we show that SpoIIIE is associated with the cell membrane, with its soluble C‐terminal domain located inside the cell. Immunofluorescence microscopy using affinity‐purified anti‐SpoIIIE antibodies shows that SpoIIIE is targeted near the centre of the asymmetric septum, in support of a direct role for SpoIIIE in transport of DNA through the septum. We also report on the isolation of a mutation affecting the N‐terminal hydrophobic domain of SpoIIIE that interferes with targeting to the septum and blocks DNA transfer. This mutation also causes de‐localization of the activity of the normally prespore‐specific sigma factor, σF, consistent with the notion that SpoIIIE can form a seal between the chromosomal DNA and the leading edge of the division septum.
Targeting the Akt/mammalian target of rapamycin pathway for radiosensitization of breast cancer

The phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)/Akt pathway is known to be activated by radiation. The mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) is downstream of Akt, and we investigated the effects of radiation on Akt/mTOR signaling in breast cancer cell models. RAD001 (everolimus), a potent derivative of the mTOR inhibitor rapamycin, was used to study the effects of mTOR inhibition, as the role of mTOR inhibition in enhancing radiation remains unexplored. RAD001 decreased clonogenic cell survival in both breast cancer cell lines MDA-MB-231 and MCF-7, although the effect is greater in MDA-MB-231 cells. Irradiation induced Akt and mTOR signaling, and this signaling is attenuated by RAD001. The radiation-induced signaling activation is mediated by PI3K because inhibition of PI3K with LY294002 inhibited the increase in downstream mTOR signaling. Additionally, caspase-dependent apoptosis is an important mechanism of cell death when RAD001 is combined with 3 Gy radiation, as shown by induction of caspase-3 cleavage. An increase in G2-M cell cycle arrest was seen in the combination treatment group when compared with controls, suggesting that cell cycle arrest may have been a contributing factor in the increased radiosensitization seen in this study. We conclude that RAD001 attenuates radiation-induced prosurvival Akt/mTOR signaling and enhances the cytotoxic effects of radiation in breast cancer cell models, showing promise as a method of radiosensitization of breast cancer. [Mol Cancer Ther 2006;5(5):1183–9]
Malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors associated with neurofibromatosis type 1: a clinicopathologic and molecular study of 17 patients.

OBJECTIVE To identify potential prognostic factors and criteria for early detection of malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors associated with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1). DESIGN Retrospective study of malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors in a cohort of 395 patients with NF1 followed up between October 1, 1988, and January 1, 1999; review of the clinical and histological characteristics of treatment and course; and analysis of p53 mutations and overexpression in tumors. SETTING Teaching hospital referral neurofibromatosis center for adults. PATIENTS Seventeen patients with NF1 (9 males and 8 females). Mean +/- SD patient age at diagnosis was 32 +/- 14 years. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES (1) Clinical symptoms, (2) comparison of p53 mutations and overexpression in benign vs malignant tumors; and (3) median survival. RESULTS Twelve patients had high-grade tumors. All tumors except 1 developed on preexisting nodular or plexiform neurofibromas. Pain and enlarging mass were the first and predominant signs. None of the benign tumors displayed significant p53 staining or p53 mutations. Six of 12 malignant tumors significantly overexpressed p53, and 4 of 6 harbored p53 missense mutations. Median survival was 18 months overall, 53 months in peripheral locations, and 21 months in axial locations. CONCLUSIONS Malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors are highly aggressive in NF1. They mostly arise from plexiform or nodular neurofibromas. Investigations and deep biopsy of painful and enlarging nodular or plexiform neurofibromas should be considered in patients with NF1. Late appearance of p53 mutations and overexpression precludes their use as predictive markers of malignant transformation.