Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Abnormal White Matter Integrity in Chronic Users of Codeine-Containing Cough Syrups: A Tract-Based Spatial Statistics Study

Because codeine is a popular drug and results in cognitive deficits, the authors assessed 30 chronic users and 30 controls with DTI. Chronic codeine users showed lower fractional anisotropy in 4 brain regions and higher scores on the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale. It appears that chronic codeine-containing syrup abuse may be associated with disruptions in brain white matter integrity and that these microstructural deficits may be linked to higher impulsivity in chronic users. BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Codeine-containing cough syrups have become one of the most popular drugs of abuse in young people in the world. Chronic codeine-containing cough syrup abuse is related to impairments in a broad range of cognitive functions. However, the potential brain white matter impairment caused by chronic codeine-containing cough syrup abuse has not been reported previously. Our aim was to investigate abnormalities in the microstructure of brain white matter in chronic users of codeine-containing syrups and to determine whether these WM abnormalities are related to the duration of the use these syrups and clinical impulsivity. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Thirty chronic codeine-containing syrup users and 30 matched controls were evaluated. Diffusion tensor imaging was performed by using a single-shot spin-echo-planar sequence. Whole-brain voxelwise analysis of fractional anisotropy was performed by using tract-based spatial statistics to localize abnormal WM regions. The Barratt Impulsiveness Scale 11 was surveyed to assess participants' impulsivity. Volume-of-interest analysis was used to detect changes of diffusivity indices in regions with fractional anisotropy abnormalities. Abnormal fractional anisotropy was extracted and correlated with clinical impulsivity and the duration of codeine-containing syrup use. RESULTS: Chronic codeine-containing syrup users had significantly lower fractional anisotropy in the inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus of the bilateral temporo-occipital regions, right frontal region, and the right corona radiata WM than controls. There were significant negative correlations among fractional anisotropy values of the right frontal region of the inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus and the right superior corona radiata WM and Barratt Impulsiveness Scale total scores, and between the right frontal region of the inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus and nonplan impulsivity scores in chronic codeine-containing syrup users. There was also a significant negative correlation between fractional anisotropy values of the right frontal region of the inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus and the duration of codeine-containing syrup use in chronic users. CONCLUSIONS: Chronic codeine-containing syrup abuse may be associated with disruptions in brain WM integrity. These WM microstructural deficits may be linked to higher impulsivity in chronic codeine-containing syrup users.
Reversible inhibition by human serum lipoproteins of cell proliferation

Normal human serum or plasma was studied for the presence of inhibitors of cell proliferation by assaying inhibition of incorporation of labeled thymidine into acid‐insoluble fraction using human FL cells. Lipoprotein fraction obtained by gel filtration through Sepharose 4B and by KBr density gradient centrifugation was found to play a major part of the inhibitory activity of the serum. It was also shown that the inhibitory activity resides in low‐density lipoprotein (LDL). The addition of the lipoprotein fraction to growing FL cells caused an early decrease in the transport of uridine and thymidine across the membrane. This change in the permeability of membrane was followed by the preferential inhibition of DNA synthesis and a reduction in the percentage of mitotic cells in the cell population. The inhibition of the growth was reversible and was observed in various types of cells irrespective of species.
Complications of Elbow Arthroscopy

Background: Although the potential complications of elbow arthroscopy, including nerve injuries, have been described, the prevalence of their occurrence has not been well defined. The purpose of this paper is to describe the serious and minor complications in a large series of patients treated with elbow arthroscopy. Methods: A retrospective review of 473 consecutive elbow arthroscopies performed in 449 patients over an eighteen-year period was conducted. Of the 473 cases, 414 were followed for more than six weeks. The most common final diagnoses were osteoarthritis (150 cases), loose bodies (112), and rheumatoid or inflammatory arthritis (seventy-five). The arthroscopic procedures included synovectomy (184), débridement of joint surfaces or adhesions (180), excision of osteophytes (164), diagnostic arthroscopy (154), loose-body removal (144), and capsular procedures such as capsular release, capsulotomy, and capsulectomy (seventy-three). Results: A serious complication (a joint space infection) occurred after four (0.8%) of the arthroscopic procedures. Minor complications occurred after fifty (11%) of the arthroscopic procedures. These complications included prolonged drainage from or superficial infection at a portal site after thirty-three procedures, persistent minor contracture of 20° or less after seven, and twelve transient nerve palsies (five ulnar palsies, four superficial radial palsies, one posterior interosseous palsy, one medial antebrachial cutaneous palsy, and one anterior interosseous palsy) in ten patients. The most significant risk factors for the development of a temporary nerve palsy were an underlying diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis (p < 0.001) and a contracture (p < 0.05). There were no permanent neurovascular injuries, hematomas, or compartment syndromes in our series, and all of the minor complications, except for the minor contractures, resolved without sequelae. Conclusions: Our results indicate that the prevalence of temporary or minor complications following elbow arthroscopy may be greater than previously reported. However, serious or permanent complications were uncommon.
An Experimental Study of Accent in French and English

Various attempts have been made to express the difference which is felt between French and English accent; for example, French accent has frequently been described as a caress, while English accent has been compared to a blow. Such rather impressionistic terminology has been found suggestive and helpful in teaching, but it represents an attempt to treat the complex phenomenon of accentuation as if it were more simple than it is. In order to make a quantitative study of accent, it is necessary to measure the various elements which constitute it. The object of the present paper is to describe the method used in making a comparative study of the nature of accent in French and English and to present a summary of the results of this investigation.
ANESTHESIA DURING GESTATION AND ITS EFFECTS ON NEWBORN VIABILITY

During the gestation period, canine females go through physiological changes which can influence the way the anesthetics are absorbed, metabolized and excreted. Furthermore, the pharmacokinetics of the drugs vary from mother to newborn. The drugs administered will pass through the placental barrier and carry across from dam to fetuses. For this reason, choosing the right anesthetic protocol for cesarean section can represent a challenge for a doctor, who has to keep in mind the well-being of both the dam and the fetuses. While choosing the anesthetic protocol to be used, the anesthetist will have to consider all of the above criteria, seeking to minimize the cardiological, vascular and neurological depression of the fetuses. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the different anesthetic protocols which can be used, and to assess the benefits, as well of the disadvantages that each of the available medications and methods can present. The options of anesthetic procedures being considered during the caesarean section in canines are represented by general anesthesia or local anesthesia combined with general anesthesia. Of equal importance are the preoperative assessment and the potential recovery time of the mother, which can influence the immediate maternal care given to the newborns.
Rapid initiation of repigmentation in vitiligo with Dead Sea climatotherapy in combination with pseudocatalase (PC‐KUS)

Background Low catalase levels and cellular vacuolation in the epidermis of patients with vitiligo support major oxidative stress in this compartment. There is now in vivo evidence for increased epidermal hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) accumulation in this patient group by utilizing noninvasive Fourier Transform Raman spectroscopy (FT Raman). Epidermal H2O2 can be removed with a topical application of narrow band UVB activated pseudocatalase cream (PC‐KUS). (Mn/EDTA‐bicarbonate complex, patent No. EPO 58471 1 A), yielding initiation of repigmentation. Dead Sea climatotherapy is another successful treatment modality for vitiligo, but the mode of action has escaped definition so far.
Exploring Temporal Structure of Trajectory Components for Action Recognition

Action recognition is one of the most important components for video analysis. In addition to objects and atomic actions, temporal relationships are important characteristics for many actions and are not fully exploited in many approaches. We model the temporal structures of midlevel actions (referred to as components) based on dense trajectory components, obtained by clustering individual trajectories. The trajectory components are a higher level and a more stable representation than raw individual trajectories. Based on the temporal ordering of trajectory components, we describe the temporal structure using Allen's temporal relationships in a discriminative manner and combine it with a generative model using bag of components. The main idea behind the model is to extract midlevel features from domain‐independent dense trajectories and classify the actions by exploring the temporal structure among these midlevel features based on a set of relationships. We evaluate the proposed approach on public data sets and compare it with a bag‐of‐words–based approach and state‐of‐the‐art application of the Markov logic network for action recognition. The results demonstrate that the proposed approach produces better recognition accuracy.
The dosimetry for a coronary artery stent coated with radioactive 188Re and 32P

Radiation dose distributions have been calculated for 188Re and 32P activity on a coronary artery stent. The doses have been calculated both as a function of position along the stent and of depth into the artery wall. Comparisons of the dose from identical activities of 188Re and 32P on the stent show that the major differences arise from the different half-lives of the two activities. Coating the activity onto three surfaces of the stent rather than just the outside surface is found to reduce the dose by approximately 8 to 9%. Similarly, the effect of ignoring the attenuation in the stainless steel of the stent is to increase doses by 11 to 17%. Consideration is also given to the effect of the prolonged treatment times associated with a radioactive stent compared with the more common treatment over several minutes. It is shown that extended treatment may require between two and eight times the single dose to achieve the same effect depending on factors such as the radionuclide used, the dose required and the assumed cell survival curve. On the assumption that an instantaneous dose of 18 Gy at a depth of 1 mm into the artery would be required for successful prevention of neointimal hyperplasia, activities required for a stent coated with 188Re and 32P are tabulated.
Prevalence, Awareness, Treatment, and Control of Hypertension Among People Over 40 Years Old in a Rural Area of South Korea: The Chungju Metabolic Disease Cohort (CMC) Study

The present study was aimed to assess the prevalence, awareness, treatment, control of hypertension, and the related risk factors in a Korean population. A cross-sectional study was conducted in a rural area of South Korea from 2005 to 2006. Subjects (n = 6388) were selected from individuals aged 40 years or older by stratified random cluster sampling. The age-adjusted prevalence of hypertension was 43.8 % (43.1 % in men, 44.9 % in women). The awareness, treatment, and control of hypertension were 60.1%, 91.7%, and 27.2%, respectively. In men, old age (≥ 60 years old) and low waist circumference (< 90 cm) were positively associated with higher awareness and treatment, whereas body mass index (BMI) was negatively associated with blood pressure (BP) control. Women aged 60 years or older were more aware of their condition, more treated, and more in control of their BP as well. In women, high BMI and a family history of diabetes mellitus were positively associated with higher awareness and treatment, whereas low waist circumference (< 80 cm) was negatively associated with BP control. Our findings indicate that appropriate health care should be given to hypertensive subjects on the basis of these risk factors and according to their sex.
Dendritic Cells Pulsed with a Recombinant Chlamydial Major Outer Membrane Protein Antigen Elicit a CD4+ Type 2 Rather than Type 1 Immune Response That Is Not Protective

ABSTRACT Chlamydia trachomatis is an obligate intracellular bacterium that infects the oculogenital mucosae. C. trachomatis infection of the eye causes trachoma, the leading cause of preventable blindness. Infections of the genital mucosae are a leading cause of sexually transmitted diseases. A vaccine to prevent chlamydial infection is needed but has proven difficult to produce by using conventional vaccination approaches. Potent immunity to vaginal rechallenge in a murine model of chlamydial genital infection has been achieved only by infection or by immunization with dendritic cells (DC) pulsed ex vivo with whole inactivated organisms. Immunity generated by infection or ex vivo antigen-pulsed DC correlates with a chlamydia-specific interleukin 12 (IL-12)-dependent CD4+ Th1 immune response. Because of the potent antichlamydial immunizing properties of DC, we hypothesized that DC could be a powerful vehicle for the delivery of individual chlamydial antigens that are thought to be targets for more conventional vaccine approaches. Here, we investigated the recombinant chlamydial major outer membrane protein (rMOMP) as a target antigen. The results demonstrate that DC pulsed with rMOMP secrete IL-12 and stimulate infection-sensitized CD4+ T cells to proliferate and secrete gamma interferon. These immunological properties implied that rMOMP-pulsed DC would be potent inducers of MOMP-specific CD4+ Th1 immunity in vivo; however, we observed the opposite result. DC pulsed ex vivo with rMOMP and adoptively transferred to naive mice generated a Th2 rather than a Th1 anti-MOMP immune response, and immunized mice were not protected following infectious challenge. We conclude from these studies that the immunological properties of ex vivo pulsed DC are not necessarily predictive of the immune response generated in vivo following adoptive transfer. These findings suggest that the nature of the antigen used to pulse DC ex vivo influences the Th1-Th2 balance of the immune response in vivo.
Finding Spirituality and Nursing Presence

The concepts of spirituality and nursing presence are difficult for nursing students to comprehend, identify, and apply. Yet holistic nursing practice obligates nurse educators to teach students about these abstract concepts. The purpose of this article is to describe a nursing faculty’s approach to encourage baccalaureate students to explore and develop an understanding of the concepts of spirituality and nursing presence in light of their clinical practice. A clinical placement in a faith-based community crisis center for the poor and homeless is part of a semester-long, psychiatric/mental health clinical course. At the crisis-center day shelter, students (N = 188) develop an interactive advocacy relationship with the clients and witness both spiritual care and nursing presence. Seminar-driven, topic-focused discussions foster reflective thinking application of these difficult concepts. Without exception, the students affirm that this is an experience of self-discovery and maturation in understanding spirituality and nursing presence in nursing practice.
Self-Reported Neurological Clinical Manifestations of Metal Toxicity in Metal-on-Metal Hip Arthroplasty

Adverse reactions to metal particle debris have been increasingly reported as a complication following large head metal-on-metal (MoM) hip arthroplasty. Elevated metal ion levels are a cause for concern. The aim of this study is to evaluate whether exposure to cobalt is associated with patient characteristics and symptoms of neuropathy, representing nervous system dysfunction. A cross-sectional study was conducted comparing patients with a MoM total hip arthroplasty and patients with a conventional hip arthroplasty. They received three questionnaires, one to assess neurotoxic complaints and two standardised self-administered questionnaires to identify symptoms that are suggestive of peripheral neuropathy. Current and historical data were available for whole blood cobalt levels in all patients. We analysed potential predictive factors for cobalt based on five different cut-off levels (0-2, 2-4, 4-10, 10-20, >20 µg/L). We performed 723 MoM total hip arthroplasties in 643 patients in our clinic. The response rate was 89%. Male-female ratio was 236/280, median age 63.6 years (30-72) with a mean follow-up of 50.6 months (20-86). We also sent the questionnaires to 98 patients in the control group. An increase in the incidence of reported symptoms was not consistent with higher serum cobalt levels. Female gender was the only consistent predictive factor for serum cobalt at different cobalt cut-off levels in the multivariate analysis. The study population did not show an increase in reported symptoms with elevated cobalt levels. Neurotoxic symptoms and whole blood cobalt levels did not show a consistent relationship with different dichotomised levels of cobalt exposure.
Evaluation in health education. A review of progress, possibilities, and problems.

Accepted for publication November 1989 The quality of evaluation in health education has been an important obstacle to better interventions, and wider acknowledgement of the importance of health education in improving public health. In the past, the urgency of immediate health problems, the practical orientation of health educators, and the complex nature of evaluation in health education have usually meant that interventions were established on the basis of limited research, and with little or no consideration given to the need to evaluate. Progress in evaluation has been painfully slow. In the past two decades greater attention has been given to the need to evaluate, particularly in the United States, and there has been a corresponding development in the quality and range of examples of well evaluated health education projects and programmes. This paper has been developed on a review of the growing literature on the subject of evaluation in health education, and illustrates key issues with examples from a range of evaluated programmes. A framework for evaluating health education programmes is proposed and suggestions are made for improved health education research.
Inhibitory KIR / HLA ligand incompatibility between sexual partners confers protection against HIV-1 transmission Running title : KIR / HLA incompatibility and HIV-1 transmission

Laboratory of Immunology, Department of Biomedical Sciences, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium; HLA and Molecular Hematology Laboratory, Universitair Ziekenhuis Brussel (UZ Brussel), Brussels, Belgium; Laboratory of Immunology, Department of BacteriologyVirology, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Le Dantec, Cheikh Anta Diop University, Dakar, Senegal; Department of Infectious Diseases, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Fann, Cheikh Anta Diop University, Dakar, Senegal; Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Antwerp, Belgium
REPRODUCTIVE BURDEN, LOCOMOTOR PERFORMANCE, AND THE COST OF REPRODUCTION IN FREE RANGING LIZARDS

Abstract A reduction in the locomotor capacity of gravid females is considered to be a cost of reproduction if it leads to an increased risk of mortality. In this study, we measured the change in endurance between gravid and postgravid female side-blotched lizards (Uta stansburiana) as a test of the cost of reproduction. We also altered reproductive investment in some females by direct ovarian manipulation (yolkectomy), which decreased reproductive burden by 30%. Regardless of experimental treatment, all females had lower endurance when gravid. Endurance was 28% lower in gravid females from the yolkectomy treatment and 31% lower in the unmanipulated females relative to postoviposition females. The experimental reduction in clutch mass resulted in a 21% increase in endurance of gravid yolkectomy females relative to control females. Postovipositional endurance was significantly higher in the yolkectomized females than unmanipulated females, which suggests that the cost of reproduction carries over to postoviposition performance. Unmanipulated females exhibited a significant negative association between endurance and size-specific burden. Endurance was not correlated with clutch size or size-specific burden in the yolkectomy females. Survivorship to the second clutch was higher in the yolkectomy females. The results from a logistic regression showed the probability of survival to the second clutch was significantly and positively associated with endurance after controlling for the effects of treatment. Our analyses demonstrated that the decrement in performance associated with current reproductive investment represents a cost of reproduction expressed as diminished locomotor performance and lowered survivorship to the next clutch. Corresponding Editor: J. Losos
Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy, Subcortical White Matter Disease and Dementia: Literature Review and Study in OPTIMA

Cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) is of increasing clinical and research interest as the ability to detect it and its consequences by neuroimaging in living subjects has advanced. There is also increasing interest in understanding its possible role in the development of intracerebral hemorrhage, Alzheimer's disease (AD) and vascular dementia. In this article, the literature on this subject is reviewed and novel findings relating CAA to subcortical white matter damage in 224 subjects in the Oxford project to Investigate Memory and Ageing (OPTIMA) are reported. The relationship between CAA and subcortical tissue damage in the OPTIMA subjects was found to be critically dependent on ApoE genotype, there being a positive relationship between measures of CAA and subcortical small vessel disease in ApoEε4 carriers and a significant negative relationship in ApoEε2 carriers. These findings draw attention, as have many other studies, to the importance of ApoE genotype as a major risk factor not only for dementia but also for damage to blood vessels in the aging brain.
A 7ps-Jitter 0.053mm2 Fast-Lock ADDLL with Wide-Range and High-Resolution All-Digital DCC

An ADDLL is designed to achieve low jitter, fast lock time and nearly 50% duty cycle with an open-loop duty-cycle corrector. The ADDLL operates over a frequency range from 440MHz to 1.5GHz with 15 cycles of maximum lock-in time and occupies 0.053mm2 in 0.18mum 1.8V CMOS. The peak-to-peak jitter is 7ps at 1.5GHz and the power consumption is 43mW.