Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of Helicobacter pylori Infection Combined with CagA and Pepsinogen Status on Gastric Cancer Development among Japanese Men and Women: A Nested Case-Control Study

Background: Although accumulating evidence suggests that Helicobacter pylori plays a role in gastric carcinogenesis, the magnitude of the risk remains uncertain. Aim: We aimed to estimate the magnitude of the risk of gastric cancer associated with H. pylori infection by a large case-control study nested within a prospective cohort. Possible effect modification by CagA status, and serum pepsinogen status, as a marker of atrophic gastritis, was also considered to see its effect on developing gastric cancer. Subjects and Methods: Subjects (n = 123,576) were followed up from 1990 to 2004; 511 gastric cancer cases matched to 511 controls were used in the analysis. Plasma immunoglobulin G antibody to H. pylori, CagA, and pepsinogen I and II were measured. Results: The adjusted odds ratio (95% confidence interval) of gastric cancer associated with H. pylori infection was 5.1 (3.2-8.0). Assuming all CagA-positive subjects are true H. pylori positives doubled this risk. Atrophic gastritis was also associated with an elevated risk of gastric cancer and the risk increased further with pepsinogen levels. Conclusions: Subjects with pepsinogen levels indicative of severe atrophic gastritis may need careful examination regularly regardless of H. pylori infection. Those who have other pepsinogen levels but who are H. pylori seropositive are likely to benefit from H. pylori eradication therapy. Considering both the cost and the potential for misclassification that may occur using multiple serologic tests, caution is needed in interpreting or extrapolating these findings into a screening strategy. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2006;15(7):1341–7)
The effect of cigarette smoking on the development of AIDS in HIV‐1-seropositive individuals

ObjectiveTo determine whether HIV-1-seropositive cigarette smokers progress more rapidly to AIDS than HIV-1-seropositive non-smokers. SettingThe genitourinary medicine outpatient department of St Mary's Hospital, London, which is a London University teaching hospital (tertiary care centre). Subjects and designCase series of 84 individuals with AIDS who provided accurate details of their smoking habits before their AIDS-defining diagnosis. Main outcome measureProgression time to AIDS in relation to smoking habit. ResultsProgression time to AIDS (all diagnoses) was significantly reduced in HIV-1-seropositive smokers: median time to AIDS was 8.17 months for smokers (n = 43) and 14.50 months for non-smokers (n = 41) (P = 0.003). Smokers developed Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP) more rapidly than non-smokers, with a median time to PCP of 9.0 months, compared with 16.0 months for non-smokers (P = 0.002). Smoking had no significant effect on progression time to AIDS when not due to PCP. ConclusionCigarette smoking by HIV-1-seropositive individuals is associated with a more rapid development of AIDS and should be discouraged.
Multi-Granular Aspect Aggregation in Aspect-Based Sentiment Analysis

Aspect-based sentiment analysis estimates the sentiment expressed for each particular aspect (e.g., battery, screen) of an entity (e.g., smartphone). Different words or phrases, however, may be used to refer to the same aspect, and similar aspects may need to be aggregated at coarser or finer granularities to fit the available space or satisfy user preferences. We introduce the problem of aspect aggregation at multiple granularities. We decompose it in two processing phases, to allow previous work on term similarity and hierarchical clustering to be reused. We show that the second phase, where aspects are clustered, is almost a solved problem, whereas further research is needed in the first phase, where semantic similarity measures are employed. We also introduce a novel sense pruning mechanism for WordNet-based similarity measures, which improves their performance in the first phase. Finally, we provide publicly available benchmark datasets.
Examining Thrombin Hydrolysis of the Factor XIII Activation Peptide Segment Leads to a Proposal for Explaining the Cardioprotective Effects Observed with the Factor XIII V34L Mutation*

In the blood coagulation cascade, thrombin cleaves fibrinopeptides A and B from fibrinogen revealing sites for fibrin polymerization that lead to insoluble clot formation. Factor XIII stabilizes this clot by catalyzing the formation of intermolecular cross-links in the fibrin network. Thrombin activates the Factor XIII a2 dimer by cleaving the Factor XIII activation peptide segment at the Arg37-Gly38 peptide bond. Using a high performance liquid chromatography assay, the kinetic constants K m , k cat, andk cat/K m were determined for thrombin hydrolysis of fibrinogen Aα-(7–20), Factor XIII activation peptide-(28–41), and Factor XIII activation peptide-(28–41) with a Val34 to Leu substitution. This Val to Leu mutation has been correlated with protection from myocardial infarction. In the absence of fibrin, the Factor XIII activation peptide-(28–41) exhibits a 10-fold lower k cat/K m value than fibrinogen Aα-(7–20). With the Factor XIII V34L mutation, decreases in K m and increases ink cat produce a 6-fold increase ink cat/K m relative to the wild-type Factor XIII sequence. A review of the x-ray crystal structures of known substrates and inhibitors of thrombin leads to a hypothesis that the new Leu generates a peptide with more extensive interactions with the surface of thrombin. As a result, the Factor XIII V34L is proposed to be susceptible to wasteful conversion of zymogen to activated enzyme. Premature depletion may provide cardioprotective effects.
Parotid Gland Injections of Botulinum Toxin A Are Effective in Treating Sialorrhea in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

Objective: The objective of this study was to determine the safety and efficacy of botulinum toxin A in ameliorating refractory sialorrhea and improving quality of life in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Materials and Methods: Six patients with bulbar ALS received bilateral parotid gland injections of botulinum toxin A. Results: No adverse effects occurred. Tissue use decreased in 5 of 7 patients at a dose of 10 units and in 3 of 4 patients at a dose of 20 units. Self-reported quality of life did not change in most. Conclusions: Parotid gland injections of botulinum toxin appear safe and may be helpful in some patients with ALS for the treatment of sialorrhea.
UvA-DARE ( Digital Academic Repository ) Illness perceptions and work participation : a systematic review

Purpose Self-regulatory processes play an important role in mediating between the disease and the health outcomes, and potentially also work outcomes. This systematic review aims to explore the relationship between illness perceptions and work participation in patients with somatic diseases and complaints. Methods The bibliographic databases Medline, PsycINFO and Embase were searched from inception to March 2008. Included were cross-sectional or longitudinal studies, patients with somatic diseases or complaints, illness perceptions based on at least four dimensions of the common sense model of self-regulation, and work participation. Results Two longitudinal and two cross-sectional studies selected for this review report statistically significant findings for one or more illness perception dimensions in patients with various complaints and illnesses, although some dimensions are significant in one study but not in another. Overall, non-working patients perceived more serious consequences, expected their illness to last a longer time, and reported more symptoms and more emotional responses as a result of their illness. Alternatively, working patients had a stronger belief in the controllability of their condition and a better understanding of their disease. Conclusions The limited number of studies in this review suggests that illness perceptions play a role in the work participation of patients with somatic diseases or complaints, although it is not clear how strong this relationship is and which illness perception dimensions are most useful. Identifying individuals with maladaptive illness perceptions and targeting interventions toward changing these perceptions are promising developments in improving work participation.
On the performance of cloud storage applications with global measurement

In recent years, Dropbox, Google, and Microsoft have been competing in the market of consumer cloud storage (CCS) services. While once the key comparative metric, storage capacity per user has outgrown the needs of most users. Today, third-party applications based on CCS's RESTful Web APIs are becoming a primary way for users to utilize their expanded storage resources. Unfortunately, there is very little visibility into the performance of these Web APIs, even though they are primary determinants of the end user experience on these storage applications. In this paper, we report results from a comprehensive measurement study of the Web APIs of five popular CCS providers. Our results reveal significant differences and limitations in API performance, which result in performance bottlenecks visible to the user through the storage application. We analyze the underlying system designs of the five providers' Web APIs, and present the performance implications of their different design choices. Our research provides practical guidance for service providers to optimize their API performance, for developers to improve the experience of third-party applications, and for users to pick appropriate services that best match their requirements.
Pseudo-Random Binary Sequence Selection for Delay and Add Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum Modulation Scheme

Recently, correlation delay shift keying (CDSK) has been proposed as a modulation scheme for noncoherent detection which inherits the advantages of conventional spread-spectrum communications using a chaotic reference signal. The CDSK modulation scheme transmits the sum of a chaotic reference signal with its delayed modulated version. In this paper, we consider the utilisation of pseudo-random binary sequences (PRBS) instead of chaotic reference signals. This new modulation scheme is defined as the delay and add direct sequence (DADS) modulation scheme. DADS offers some interesting properties compared to CDSK, mainly the possibility to select some PRBS which improves the BER performance. To this end, a new criterion for PRBS selection is proposed. Theoretical analysis and simulation results show that the BER performance of CDSK is comparable to DADS with arbitrary PRBS, however the DADS performance can be improved by 3 dB with PRBS selection.
Charges and Complications Associated With the Medical Evaluation of Febrile Young Infants

Background: Since 1983, no study has evaluated the costs and complications involved in the inpatient evaluation of antibiotic therapy for febrile infants aged 29 to 60 days. Methods: A prospective quality indicator/quality assurance study of low-risk febrile young infants (FYIs) was conducted during a 16-month period after a retrospective pilot study. One investigator (C.C.) followed the medical course of enrolled FYIs, including 3 standardized scheduled phone follow-ups with the subject's parent and primary care provider (PCP) within the 2 weeks after discharge. Results: Sixty-two subjects were enrolled during the 16-month period (58 admitted and 4 discharged subjects). Two (3%) subjects who met low-risk criteria developed a serious bacterial infection, both urinary tract infections. No cases of true bacteremia or bacterial meningitis were diagnosed. Seventeen subjects (29.3%) developed a complication during the admission. The mean length of inpatient stay was 49.0 hours (range, 18.1-65.4 hours). The mean charge for hospitalization was $6202 (range, $2818-$9880). Scheduled phone follow-up was successful on days 2 (77.4%), 7 (85.4%), and 14 (83.9%) after discharge. All patients were reported as improved (100%), and most parents preferred discharge to admission (66%-70%). In the 2 weeks after discharge, only 45 (72.6%) of 62 subjects had followed up with their PCPs. Conclusions: This prospective quality indicator/quality assurance study demonstrates that inpatient evaluation of low-risk FYIs results in high charges and potentially preventable complications. Hospitalization is contrary to the wishes of most parents in this study; however, the rate of appropriate follow-up with a PCP in this study is concerning.
Calcium current activated upon hyperpolarization of Paramecium tetraurelia

Hyperpolarization of Paramecium tetraurelia under conditions where K+ currents are suppressed elicits an inward current that activates rapidly toward a peak at 25-80 ms and decays thereafter. This peak current (Ihyp) is not affected by removing Cl ions from the microelectrodes used to clamp membrane potential, or by changing extracellular Cl- concentration, but is lost upon removing extracellular Ca2+. Ihyp is also lost upon replacing extracellular Ca2+ with equimolar concentrations of Ba2+, Co2+, Mg2+, Mn2+, or Sr2+, suggesting that the permeability mechanism that mediates Ihyp is highly selective for Ca2+. Divalent cations also inhibit Ihyp when introduced extracellularly, in a concentration- and voltage-dependent manner. Ba2+ inhibits Ihyp with an apparent dissociation constant of 81 microM at - 110 mV, and with an effective valence of 0.42. Ihyp is also inhibited reversibly by amiloride, with a dissociation constant of 0.4 mM. Ihyp is not affected significantly by changes in extracellular Na+, K+, or H+ concentration, or by EGTA injection. Also, it is unaffected by manipulations or mutations that suppress the depolarization-activated Ca2+ current or the various Ca(2+)-dependent currents of Paramecium. We suggest that Ihyp is mediated by a novel, hyperpolarization-activated calcium conductance that is distinct from the one activated by depolarization.
A factor analytic and psychometric examination of pathology of separation-individuation.

Two studies are described that attempt to determine if standard-scale-reduction techniques could yield a construct-valid diagnostic screen of pathology of separation-individuation for use in nonclinical university settings. In Study 1 (N = 210), a measure of pathology of separation-individuation (PATHSEP) was reduced successfully to a single, internally consistent factor, accounting for 36% of the variance. In Study 2 (N = 304), these items also coalesced around a single factor, accounting for 35% of the variance. Study 2 also showed that PATHSEP is correlated moderately and positively with indices of insecure attachment, with the Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression Scale, and with indices of psychiatric symptomatology (Hopkins Symptom Checklist). PATHSEP also was associated with a poorer profile of adjustment to college. Males reported more pathology of separation-individuation than did females. Evidence supports the construct validity of a shortened version of PATHSEP. Directions for future research are noted.
Influence of peaking capacitors in reducing rise times of high-voltage nanosecond pulses

High-voltage (a few hundred kilovolt), short pulses (microseconds to to nanoseconds) have been found to be effective for various biological decontamination applications, such as cleaning of water with bacteria/algae. Marx generators are most commonly used for this purpose. A serious disadvantage of Marx generators is the increase in rise times due to series inductance. To alleviate this effect, peaking capacitors have been used to produce early time, fast-rising pulses that the Marx generators otherwise cannot supply due to their relatively high series inductance. This paper presents the results of the design and development of a 600-kV, 50-ns-rise-time, and /spl sim/250-ns-duration pulse generator using a peaking capacitor. A 132-kV condenser-type bushing of 650-kV BIL and 230-pF capacitance was used as a peaking capacitor to reduce rise time. The effect of the peaking capacitor was also studied employing circuit modeling of the generator and the influence of various parameters was investigated. There is a good correlation between the experimental and the numerical results.
Low-Complexity End-to-End Performance Optimization in MIMO Full-Duplex Relay Systems

In this paper, we deal with the deployment of full-duplex relaying in amplify-and-forward (AF) cooperative networks with multiple-antenna terminals. In contrast to previous studies, which focus on the spatial mitigation of the loopback interference (LI) at the relay node, a joint precoding/decoding design that maximizes the end-to-end (e2e) performance is investigated. The proposed precoding incorporates rank-1 zero-forcing (ZF) LI suppression at the relay node and is derived in closed-form by solving appropriate optimization problems. In order to further reduce system complexity, the antenna selection (AS) problem for full-duplex AF cooperative systems is discussed. We investigate different AS schemes to select a single transmit antenna at both the source and the relay, as well as a single receive antenna at both the relay and the destination. To facilitate comparison, exact outage probability expressions and asymptotic approximations of the proposed AS schemes are provided. In order to overcome zero-diversity effects associated with the AS operation, a simple power allocation scheme at the relay node is also investigated and its optimal value is analytically derived. Numerical and simulation results show that the joint ZF-based precoding significantly improves e2e performance, while AS schemes are efficient solutions for scenarios with strict computational constraints.
Refinement of localization results in wireless networks using weighted Universal Improvement Schemes

In this paper, we present an extension of our concept of the Universal Improvement Scheme (UnIS) investigated in our previous work. The main focus of UnIS is to improve the localization results of unknown wireless nodes, aka mobiles, in the network with prepositioned reference nodes, aka anchors. The UnIS algorithm uses some additional information known a priori about the network. This information is represented by distances, known before the experiment, between couples of mobile nodes being localized. In this work, the optimization of the UnIS algorithm is proposed. According to our previous observations, we introduce a novel weighted UnIS (W-UnIS) approach that uses different weighting criteria to achieve a higher improvement ratio. We compare the effectiveness of W-UnIS scheme to its predecessor using the data collected in a deployed wireless sensor network testbed. The obtained results indicate that the localization error can be reduced significantly using our new W-UnIS approach.
Chronic High Fructose Intake Reduces Serum 1,25 (OH)2D3 Levels in Calcium-Sufficient Rodents

Excessive fructose consumption inhibits adaptive increases in intestinal Ca2+ transport in lactating and weanling rats with increased Ca2+ requirements by preventing the increase in serum levels of 1,25(OH)2D3. Here we tested the hypothesis that chronic fructose intake decreases 1,25(OH)2D3 levels independent of increases in Ca2+ requirements. Adult mice fed for five wk a high glucose-low Ca2+ diet displayed expected compensatory increases in intestinal and renal Ca2+ transporter expression and activity, in renal CYP27B1 (coding for 1α-hydroxylase) expression as well as in serum 1,25(OH)2D3 levels, compared with mice fed isocaloric glucose- or fructose-normal Ca2+ diets. Replacing glucose with fructose prevented these increases in Ca2+ transporter, CYP27B1, and 1,25(OH)2D3 levels induced by a low Ca2+ diet. In adult mice fed for three mo a normal Ca2+ diet, renal expression of CYP27B1 and of CYP24A1 (24-hydroxylase) decreased and increased, respectively, when the carbohydrate source was fructose instead of glucose or starch. Intestinal and renal Ca2+ transporter activity and expression did not vary with dietary carbohydrate. To determine the time course of fructose effects, a high fructose or glucose diet with normal Ca2+ levels was fed to adult rats for three mo. Serum levels of 1,25(OH)2D3 decreased and of FGF23 increased significantly over time. Renal expression of CYP27B1 and serum levels of 1,25(OH)2D3 still decreased in fructose- compared to those in glucose-fed rats after three mo. Serum parathyroid hormone, Ca2+ and phosphate levels were normal and independent of dietary sugar as well as time of feeding. Thus, chronically high fructose intakes can decrease serum levels of 1,25(OH)2D3 in adult rodents experiencing no Ca2+ stress and fed sufficient levels of dietary Ca2+. This finding is highly significant because fructose constitutes a substantial portion of the average diet of Americans already deficient in vitamin D.
Biological Nomenclatures: A Source of Lexical Knowledge and Ambiguity

There has been increased work in developing automated systems that involve natural language processing (NLP) to recognize and extract genomic information from the literature. Recognition and identification of biological entities is a critical step in this process. NLP systems generally rely on nomenclatures and ontological specifications as resources for determining the names of the entities, assigning semantic categories that are consistent with the corresponding ontology, and assignment of identifiers that map to well-defined entities within a particular nomenclature. Although nomenclatures and ontologies are valuable for text processing systems, they were developed to aid researchers and are heterogeneous in structure and semantics. A uniform resource that is automatically generated from diverse resources, and that is designed for NLP purposes would be a useful tool for the field, and would further database interoperability. This paper presents work towards this goal. We have automatically created lexical resources from four model organism nomenclature systems (mouse, fly, worm, and yeast), and have studied performance of the resources within an existing NLP system, GENIES. Using nomenclatures is not straightforward because issues concerning ambiguity, synonymy, and name variations are quite challenging. In this paper we focus mainly on ambiguity. We determined that the number of ambiguous gene names within the individual nomenclatures, across the four nomenclatures, and with general English ranged from 0%-10.18%, 1.187%-20.30%, and 0%-2.49% respectively. When actually processing text, we found the rate of ambiguous occurrences (not counting ambiguities stemming from English words) to range from 2.4%-32.9% depending on the organisms considered.
Theaflavins attenuate hepatic lipid accumulation through activating AMPK in human HepG2 cellss⃞ Published, JLR Papers in Press, August 24, 2007.

Black tea is one of the world's most popular beverages, and its health-promoting effects have been intensively investigated. The antiobesity and hypolipidemic effects of black tea have attracted increasing interest, but the mechanisms underlying these phenomena remain unclear. In the present study, the black tea major component theaflavins were assessed for their hepatic lipid-lowering potential when administered in fatty acid overload conditions both in cell culture and in an animal experimental model. We found that theaflavins significantly reduced lipid accumulation, suppressed fatty acid synthesis, and stimulated fatty acid oxidation. Furthermore, theaflavins also inhibited acetyl-coenzyme A carboxylase activities by stimulating AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) through the LKB1 and reactive oxygen species pathways. These observations support the idea that AMPK is a critical component of decreased hepatic lipid accumulation by theaflavin treatments. Our results show that theaflavins are bioavailable both in vitro and in vivo and may be active in the prevention of fatty liver and obesity.