Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Glutamate-Bound NMDARs Arising from In Vivo-like Network Activity Extend Spatio-temporal Integration in a L5 Cortical Pyramidal Cell Model

In vivo, cortical pyramidal cells are bombarded by asynchronous synaptic input arising from ongoing network activity. However, little is known about how such ‘background’ synaptic input interacts with nonlinear dendritic mechanisms. We have modified an existing model of a layer 5 (L5) pyramidal cell to explore how dendritic integration in the apical dendritic tuft could be altered by the levels of network activity observed in vivo. Here we show that asynchronous background excitatory input increases neuronal gain and extends both temporal and spatial integration of stimulus-evoked synaptic input onto the dendritic tuft. Addition of fast and slow inhibitory synaptic conductances, with properties similar to those from dendritic targeting interneurons, that provided a ‘balanced’ background configuration, partially counteracted these effects, suggesting that inhibition can tune spatio-temporal integration in the tuft. Excitatory background input lowered the threshold for NMDA receptor-mediated dendritic spikes, extended their duration and increased the probability of additional regenerative events occurring in neighbouring branches. These effects were also observed in a passive model where all the non-synaptic voltage-gated conductances were removed. Our results show that glutamate-bound NMDA receptors arising from ongoing network activity can provide a powerful spatially distributed nonlinear dendritic conductance. This may enable L5 pyramidal cells to change their integrative properties as a function of local network activity, potentially allowing both clustered and spatially distributed synaptic inputs to be integrated over extended timescales.
Idiopathic Localized Unilateral Hyperhidrosis in a Child

Abstract: Idiopathic unilateral circumscribed hyperhidrosis is an extremely rare form of increased sweat production that occurs within a sharply demarcated area on the face or upper extremities of otherwise healthy patients. There are no associated neurovascular or metabolic abnormalities. We report idiopathic localized unilateral hyperhidrosis on the upper extremity of a healthy 4‐year‐old girl.
Drug Abuse in Nigerian Schools: A Study of Selected Secondary Institutions in Bayelsa State, South-South, Nigeria

Drug abuse is becoming increasingly problematic in Nigeria. A number of recent studies suggest that almost all Nigerian youth experiment with drugs at some point, particularly alcohol and nicotine. The foremost concern is the number of these youth that will form an addiction to serious substances, jeopardizing their own health and safety and creating difficulties for their families and the public at large. Drug use, it is widely accepted, has negative consequences for the academic, social, psychological and physical development of users. This study aims to explore the perceptions of public secondary school students around drugs and substance abuse and how these perceptions influence their behaviours. This study was carried out in four secondary schools in Bayelsa State, Nigeria. The data obtained was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The findings of this study reveal that the perceptions the students with regards to drugs and substance abuse contributed considerably to their behaviour on these issues.
Natural dynamics of spring-like running: Emergence of selfstability

In this study, the stability of conservative spring-mass running using a fixed angle of attack is addressed. For a given initial condition, different angles of attack result in periodic movement patterns. We apply a simple stride-to-stride analysis to prove the stability. Spring-like leg operation together with angle of attack control enables selfstabilised running.
Report on Experiments and Clinical Cases ― Susceptibility to Measles , Rubella , Mumps , and Varicella-zoster Viruses among Healthcare Workers

Background: It is important to identify and immunize susceptible healthcare workers to prevent and control hospital infections. Our aim was to evaluate the specific antibodies against the measles, mumps, and rubella viruses and the varicella zoster virus among healthcare workers in a tertiary-care hospital. Patients and Methods: A total of 284 healthcare workers (89 men and 195 women; mean age, 33.5 ± 11 years), including 111 nurses, 87 physicians, 34 laboratory technicians, and 52 members of the housekeeping staff, of Van Training and Research Hospital were enrolled in this study. Antibodies were detected with an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Results: The numbers of workers with serological susceptibility to mumps, measles, rubella, or chicken pox were 26 (9.2%), 18 (6.3%), 7 (2.5%), and 5 (1.8%), respectively. Although the difference was not statistical significant, the rate of seroprevalence of antibodies was lowest for measles (90.8%; p>0.05). Susceptibility to measles, mumps, and rubella, and chicken pox was more prevalent among young healthcare workers (p<0.001). Not all healthcare workers born before 1957 were immune to these vaccine-preventable diseases. Conclusion: These data confirm that screening and vaccination of susceptible healthcare workers is essential regardless of age. (J Nippon Med Sch 2012; 79: 453―458)
Morphological Annotation of the Lithuanian Corpus

As the development of information technologies makes progress, large morphologically annotated corpora become a necessity, as they are necessary for moving onto higher levels of language computerisation (e. g. automatic syntactic and semantic analysis, information extraction, machine translation). Research of morphological disambiguation and morphological annotation of the 100 million word Lithuanian corpus are presented in the article. Statistical methods have enabled to develop the automatic tool of morphological annotation for Lithuanian, with the disambiguation precision of 94%. Statistical data about the distribution of parts of speech, most frequent wordforms, and lemmas, in the annotated Corpus of The Contemporary Lithuanian Language is also presented.
Six-month assessment of a phase I trial of angiogenic gene therapy for the treatment of coronary artery disease using direct intramyocardial administration of an adenovirus vector expressing the VEGF121 cDNA.

OBJECTIVE To summarize the 6-month follow-up of a cohort of patients with clinically significant coronary artery disease who received direct myocardial injection of an E1-E3- adenovirus (Ad) gene transfer vector (Ad(GV)VEGF121.10) expressing the human vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) 121 cDNA to induce therapeutic angiogenesis. BACKGROUND Therapeutic angiogenesis describes a novel approach to the treatment of vascular occlusive disease that uses the administration of growth factors known to induce neovascularization of ischemic tissues. METHODS Direct myocardial injection of Ad(GV)VEGF121.10 into an area of reversible ischemia was carried out in 21 patients as an adjunct to conventional coronary artery bypass grafting (group A, n = 15) or as sole therapy using a minithoracotomy (group B, n = 6). RESULTS No evidence of systemic or cardiac-related adverse events related to vector administration was observed up to 6 months after therapy. Trends toward improvement in angina class and exercise treadmill testing at 6-month follow-up in the sole therapy group suggest the effects of this therapy are persistent for > or =6 months. CONCLUSIONS This study suggests that direct myocardial administration of Ad(GV)VEGF121.10 appears to be well tolerated in patients with clinically significant coronary artery disease. Initiation of phase II evaluation of this therapy appears warranted.
The clinical and neuroanatomical phenotype of FUS associated frontotemporal lobar degeneration

Frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) is genetically and pathologically heterogeneous. Until recently, two main pathological subtypes were recognised, defined by the presence of tau positive or tau negative, ubiquitin positive neuronal inclusions. However, the identification of TDP-43 as a major constituent of ubiquitinated inclusions led to descriptions of a smaller subgroup of patients with ubiquitin positive but TDP-43 negative pathology. Recently, the major constituent of the inclusions in such cases has been identified as FUS (‘fused-in sarcoma’) protein, implicated in RNA processing.1 We retrospectively reviewed all cases ascertained via a tertiary level cognitive disorders clinic between 1992 and 2009 with a clinical diagnosis of FTLD and neuropathological confirmation (post mortem or brain biopsy during life). Five of 100 patients were found to have FUS pathology (FUS1 with neuronal intermediate filament inclusion disease and four other cases with atypical FTLD with ubiquitin-positive inclusions). FUS1 was previously described as having young onset sporadic Pick's disease.2 The patient presented with an 18 month history of progressive behavioural change with apathy, social withdrawal, reduced speech and fatuous giggling. The patient had also developed increased difficulty using their hands for everyday tasks. On examination the patient was distractible with impoverished, dysarthric speech and bilateral limb apraxia but no other neurological signs. Neuropsychometry demonstrated executive impairment and dyscalculia but normal naming and visuoperceptual skills. The patient was unable to perform tests of episodic memory. The condition deteriorated over the next 3 months with worsening apathy, development of urinary incontinence and falls. The patient was subsequently lost to follow-up. …
Derepression of the Plant Chromovirus LORE1 Induces Germline Transposition in Regenerated Plants

Transposable elements represent a large proportion of the eukaryotic genomes. Long Terminal Repeat (LTR) retrotransposons are very abundant and constitute the predominant family of transposable elements in plants. Recent studies have identified chromoviruses to be a widely distributed lineage of Gypsy elements. These elements contain chromodomains in their integrases, which suggests a preference for insertion into heterochromatin. In turn, this preference might have contributed to the patterning of heterochromatin observed in host genomes. Despite their potential importance for our understanding of plant genome dynamics and evolution, the regulatory mechanisms governing the behavior of chromoviruses and their activities remain largely uncharacterized. Here, we report a detailed analysis of the spatio-temporal activity of a plant chromovirus in the endogenous host. We examined LORE1a, a member of the endogenous chromovirus LORE1 family from the model legume Lotus japonicus. We found that this chromovirus is stochastically de-repressed in plant populations regenerated from de-differentiated cells and that LORE1a transposes in the male germline. Bisulfite sequencing of the 5′ LTR and its surrounding region suggests that tissue culture induces a loss of epigenetic silencing of LORE1a. Since LTR promoter activity is pollen specific, as shown by the analysis of transgenic plants containing an LTR::GUS fusion, we conclude that male germline-specific LORE1a transposition in pollen grains is controlled transcriptionally by its own cis-elements. New insertion sites of LORE1a copies were frequently found in genic regions and show no strong insertional preferences. These distinctive novel features of LORE1 indicate that this chromovirus has considerable potential for generating genetic and epigenetic diversity in the host plant population. Our results also define conditions for the use of LORE1a as a genetic tool.
Steered molecular dynamics simulations of force‐induced protein domain unfolding

Steered molecular dynamics (SMD), a computer simulation method for studying force‐induced reactions in biopolymers, has been applied to investigate the response of protein domains to stretching apart of their terminal ends. The simulations mimic atomic force microscopy and optical tweezer experiments, but proceed on much shorter time scales. The simulations on different domains for 0.6 nanosecond each reveal two types of protein responses: the first type, arising in certain β‐sandwich domains, exhibits nanosecond unfolding only after a force above 1,500 pN is applied; the second type, arising in a wider class of protein domain structures, requires significantly weaker forces for nanosecond unfolding. In the first case, strong forces are needed to concertedly break a set of interstrand hydrogen bonds which protect the domains against unfolding through stretching; in the second case, stretching breaks backbone hydrogen bonds one by one, and does not require strong forces for this purpose. Stretching of β‐sandwich (immunoglobulin) domains has been investigated further revealing a specific relationship between response to mechanical strain and the architecture of β‐sandwich domains. Proteins 1999;35:453–463. © 1999 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Measuring Ambiguity in HLA Typing Methods

In hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, donor selection is based primarily on matching donor and patient HLA genes. These genes are highly polymorphic and their typing can result in exact allele assignment at each gene (the resolution at which patients and donors are matched), but it can also result in a set of ambiguous assignments, depending on the typing methodology used. To facilitate rapid identification of matched donors, registries employ statistical algorithms to infer HLA alleles from ambiguous genotypes. Linkage disequilibrium information encapsulated in haplotype frequencies is used to facilitate prediction of the most likely haplotype assignment. An HLA typing with less ambiguity produces fewer high-probability haplotypes and a more reliable prediction. We estimated ambiguity for several HLA typing methods across four continental populations using an information theory-based measure, Shannon's entropy. We used allele and haplotype frequencies to calculate entropy for different sets of 1,000 subjects with simulated HLA typing. Using allele frequencies we calculated an average entropy in Caucasians of 1.65 for serology, 1.06 for allele family level, 0.49 for a 2002-era SSO kit, and 0.076 for single-pass SBT. When using haplotype frequencies in entropy calculations, we found average entropies of 0.72 for serology, 0.73 for allele family level, 0.05 for SSO, and 0.002 for single-pass SBT. Application of haplotype frequencies further reduces HLA typing ambiguity. We also estimated expected confirmatory typing mismatch rates for simulated subjects. In a hypothetical registry with all donors typed using the same method, the entropy values based on haplotype frequencies correspond to confirmatory typing mismatch rates of 1.31% for SSO versus only 0.08% for SBT. Intermediate-resolution single-pass SBT contains the least ambiguity of the methods we evaluated and therefore the most certainty in allele prediction. The presented measure objectively evaluates HLA typing methods and can help define acceptable HLA typing for donor recruitment.
Antibiotic resistance in Enterobacteriaceae: mechanisms and clinical implications

Resistance of the Enterobacteriaceae to antibiotics, especially of the β lactam type, is increasingly dominated by the mobilization of continuously expressed single genes that encode efficient drug modifying enzymes. Strong and ubiquitous selection pressure has seemingly been accompanied by a shift from “natural” resistance, such as inducible chromosomal enzymes, membrane impermeability, and drug efflux, to the modern paradigm of mobile gene pools that largely determine the epidemiology of modern antibiotic resistance. In this way, antibiotic resistance is more available than ever before to organisms such as Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae that are important causes of major sepsis. Modulation of the phenotype by host bacteria makes gene transmission less obvious and may in part explain why tracking and control of carbapenem resistance has been particularly problematic in the Enterobacteriaceae. This review discusses the underlying principles and clinical implications of the mobility and fixation of resistance genes and the exploitable opportunities and potential threats arising from apparent limitations on diversity in these mobile gene pools. It also provides some illustrative paradoxes and clinical corollaries, as well as a summary of future options.
Accreditation of medical laboratories in the European Union

Abstract Background: Using a questionnaire, the EC4 (European Communities Confederation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine) has collated an inventory of the accreditation procedures for medical laboratories in the EU. Results and discussion: Accreditation of medical laboratories in the countries of the EU is mostly carried out in cooperation with national accreditation bodies. These national accreditation bodies work together in a regional cooperation, the European Cooperation for Accreditation (EA). Professionals are trained to become assessors and play a prominent role in the accreditation process. The extent of the training is diverse, but assessors are kept informed and up-to-date by annual meetings. The frequency of assessments and surveillance visits differs from country to country and ranges from 1 to 4 years. More harmonisation is needed in this respect, based on a frequency that can be pragmatically handled by laboratory professionals. In the majority of EA bodies, accreditation is carried out on a test-by-test basis. Many professionals would prefer accreditation of the entire service provided within the actual field of testing (i.e., haematology, immunology, etc.), with accreditation granted if the majority of tests offered within a service field fulfil the requirements of the ISO 15189 standard. The scope of accreditation is a major point of discussions between the EC4 Working Group on Accreditation and representatives of accreditation bodies in the EA Medical Laboratory Committee. Clin Chem Lab Med 2007;45:268–75.
Second-Look Arthroscopic Assessment and Clinical Results of Modified Pull-Out Suture for Posterior Root Tear of the Medial Meniscus

Purpose To identify the structural integrity of the healing site after arthroscopic repair of a posterior root tear of the medial meniscus by second-look arthroscopy and to determine the clinical relevance of the findings. Materials and Methods From January 2005 to December 2010, 20 consecutive patients underwent arthroscopic modified pull-out suture repair for a posterior root tear of the medial meniscus. Thirteen patients were available for second-look arthroscopic evaluation. The healing status of the medial meniscus was classified as complete healing, lax healing, scar tissue healing, and failed healing. We evaluated the correlation between the clinical symptoms and second-look arthroscopic findings. Clinical evaluation was based on the Lysholm knee scores and Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) scores. Results There were 4 cases of complete healing, 4 lax healing, 4 scar tissue healing, and 1 failed healing. The healing status of the repaired meniscus appeared to be related to the clinical symptoms. Patients who achieved complete tissue healing had no complaint. The healing status exhibited no relationship with age, mechanical axis, degree of subluxation, and symptom duration. The mean Lysholm score improved from 34.7 preoperatively to 75.6 at follow-up and the mean HSS score also significantly increased from 33.5 to 82.2. Conclusions We achieved 4 complete and 8 partial healing (lax or scar) of the medial meniscus in this retrospective case series of posterior horn meniscus root repairs performed by 1 surgeon. Further research is needed to clarify why all patients showed clinical improvement despite findings of partial healing on second-look arthroscopy.
Clinical patterns and outcome in epithelioid hemangioendothelioma with or without pulmonary involvement: insights from an internet registry in the study of a rare cancer.

BACKGROUND Epithelioid hemangioendothelioma (EHE) is a rare vascular neoplasm of endothelial origin with clinical behavior intermediate between hemangioma and angiosarcoma. The natural history of EHE is highly variable. This study uses an Internet registry to identify clinical patterns with prognostic significance in EHE. METHODS Cases from the International Hemangioendothioma, Epithelioid Hemangioendothelioma, and Related Vascular Disorders (HEARD) Support Group were evaluated based on demographics, organ involvement, disease progression, presence or absence of pleural effusion, and treatment. Survival among various cohorts was compared using log-rank analysis of Kaplan-Meier plots. RESULTS Two hundred sixty-four patients were identified from April 2004 to November 2009. Fifty-eight cases were excluded because of inadequate information or wrong diagnosis. EHE was more common in female patients (61%). Male gender and age ≥ 55 years were associated with decreased survival. The most commonly affected organs were liver, lung, and bone. No specific organ or combination of organ involvement differentially affected survival, and survival was no different between patients with multiple vs single organ involvement. However, pattern B, defined as lesions without distinct borders (eg, pulmonary infiltrates, pleural effusion, ascites), hemoptysis, or involvement of more than two bones adversely affected survival in all cohorts. CONCLUSION A novel staging system with prognostic value for EHE is proposed. Pleural effusion or other signs of uncontained tumor growth, hemoptysis, and osseous involvement of more than two bones implied worse survival than did localized and discrete tumors, regardless of number of organs involved. A lay registry can provide useful insights into the clinical behavior of a rare cancer.
De Novo Hypokalemia in Incident Peritoneal Dialysis Patients: A 1-Year Observational Study

Hypokalemia occurs frequently in patients undergoing peritoneal dialysis (PD). However, the therapeutic strategy may differ from that of non-PD-related hypokalemia. We investigated clinical features and related factors of de novo hypokalemia in incident PD patients. We retrospectively enrolled 82 normokalemic patients starting PD at Gachon University Gil Hospital, Korea. The patients were divided into hypokalemia (K+<3.5 mEq/L) and normokalemia (3.5 mEq/L≤K+<5.5 mEq/L) groups based on the plasma potassium levels at month 13, and then clinical parameters including peritoneal function and adequacy tests and biochemical parameters were compared. Eight patients who showed hyperkalemia (K+≥5.5 mEq/L) at month 13 were excluded from our analyses. The incidence of hypokalemia in PD patients was 7.3% in a year. The de novo hypokalemia (n=6) and normokalemia (n=68) groups had no significant differences in baseline characteristics. The serum albumin levels and normalized protein equivalent of nitrogen appearance (nPNA) at month 1 were not significantly different between the two groups. At month 13, on the other hand, serum albumin levels and nPNA were significantly lower in the hypokalemia group (P=0.014; P=0.006, respectively). Kt/Vurea, residual renal function, dialysate-peritoneal creatinine ratio, and glucose load were not significantly different between the two groups. Hypokalemia occurring after initiation of PD may largely be associated with poor nutritional status.