Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Systemic infections due to Streptococcus pneumoniae relatively resistant to penicillin in a children's hospital: clinical management and outcome.

Streptococcus pneumoniae isolates relatively (0.1 microgram/mL < minimum inhibitory concentration < or = 1.0 microgram/mL) resistant to penicillin (RRP) have been recovered worldwide, but reports of therapy and outcome of systemic infections due to these strains are limited. This retrospective study of prospectively identified patients reviews the clinical features, management, and outcome of 19 children with systemic infections due to S pneumoniae. From January 1, 1989 to December 31, 1991, 13 of 244 blood (5.3%) and 4 of 32 cerebrospinal fluid (12.5%) pneumococcal isolates were relatively resistant to penicillin. The serotypes were as follows: 14 (12 isolates), 6 (4 isolates), 19 (2 isolates), 23 (1 isolates). One peritoneal fluid isolate and one joint fluid isolate were also relatively resistant to penicillin. The mean age of the 19 patients was 30 months (range 5 to 104 months), and five children had underlying disorders. Eleven children (nine inpatients) were treated initially with a parenteral cephalosporin. Six patients were treated as outpatients, and all had (occult) bacteremia. Three of these patients received ceftriaxone intramuscularly in the emergency department; five were treated with amoxicillin/clavulanic acid, and one received amoxicillin. Seven of 13 children treated in the hospital became afebrile in 48 hours. Three others were afebrile from the time of admission. Repeat blood cultures obtained within 24 to 48 hours after therapy was initiated were sterile in 10 children. All but one child responded to initial therapy. The recovery of S pneumoniae isolates relatively resistant to penicillin has increased in our hospital during the last 3 years. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Synthesis, distribution, and levels of an egg lipoprotein from the apple snail Pomacea canaliculata (Mollusca: Gastropoda).

The site of synthesis of mollusc lipoproteins is hitherto unknown and was investigated for perivitellin 2 (PV2), an egg lipoprotein found in the freshwater snail Pomacea canaliculata. Tissues (albumen gland, gonad-digestive gland complex, and muscle) from vitellogenic females were incubated in vitro with 14C-leucine at 25 degrees C for 12 hr. At the end of incubation, soluble proteins from tissue homogenates and medium were analyzed for de novo protein synthesis by electrophoresis and HPLC, and radiolabeled proteins were quantified by liquid scintillation. Two albumen gland radiolabeled proteins (67 and 31 kDa) co-migrated with the subunits of PV2, and they represented 6.0% of the total labeled protein in that tissue. Western blot analysis confirmed the presence of PV2 only in the albumen gland. In vivo experiments where adult females were injected with 3H-leucine revealed that PV2 was not present in hemolymph. ELISA analysis in all tissues of the snail confirmed the PV2 presence only in the albumen gland and developing eggs with levels of 26 and 98 mg/g protein, respectively. Therefore, the albumen gland is the only site for PV2 synthesis, and no extra-gland synthesis, circulation, or accumulation could be found. PV2 subunits were further characterized analyzing N-terminal sequences which showed no homology with other proteins.
The DrrAB Efflux System of Streptomyces peucetius Is a Multidrug Transporter of Broad Substrate Specificity*

Background: DrrAB is dedicated to export of doxorubicin in Streptomyces peucetius, an organism that produces this anticancer drug. Whether this prototype system can export other drugs has not been investigated. Results: DrrAB exports multiple drugs efficiently. Conclusion: Substrate specificity of DrrAB overlaps with known bacterial and human multidrug resistance proteins. Significance: This study suggests common mechanisms and origin for DrrAB and other MDR proteins. The soil bacterium Streptomyces peucetius produces two widely used anticancer antibiotics, doxorubicin and daunorubicin. Present within the biosynthesis gene cluster in S. peucetius is the drrAB operon, which codes for a dedicated ABC (ATP binding cassette)-type transporter for the export of these two closely related antibiotics. Because of its dedicated nature, the DrrAB system is believed to belong to the category of single-drug transporters. However, whether it also contains specificity for other known substrates of multidrug transporters has never been tested. In this study we demonstrate under both in vivo and in vitro conditions that the DrrAB system can transport not only doxorubicin but is also able to export two most commonly studied MDR substrates, Hoechst 33342 and ethidium bromide. Moreover, we demonstrate that many other substrates (including verapamil, vinblastine, and rifampicin) of the well studied multidrug transporters inhibit DrrAB-mediated Dox transport with high efficiency, indicating that they are also substrates of the DrrAB pump. Kinetic studies show that inhibition of doxorubicin transport by Hoechst 33342 and rifampicin occurs by a competitive mechanism, whereas verapamil inhibits transport by a non-competitive mechanism, thus suggesting the possibility of more than one drug binding site in the DrrAB system. This is the first in-depth study of a drug resistance system from a producer organism, and it shows that a dedicated efflux system like DrrAB contains specificity for multiple drugs. The significance of these findings in evolution of poly-specificity in drug resistance systems is discussed.
Stepping up to a new level: effects of blurring vision in the elderly.

PURPOSE . To determine the effects of blurring vision on whole-body center-of-mass (CM) dynamics and foot-clearance parameters in elderly individuals performing a single step up to a new level. METHODS . Twelve healthy subjects (mean age, 72.3 +/-4.17 years) performed a single step up to a new level (heights of 73 and 146 mm). Trials were undertaken with vision optimally corrected and with vision diffusively blurred by light-scattering lenses (cataract simulation). CM and foot-clearance parameter data were assessed by analyzing data collected by a five-camera, three-dimensional (3-D) motion analysis system. RESULTS . When vision was blurred, subjects took 11% longer to execute the stepping task (P < 0.05), mediolateral displacement of the point of application of the ground reaction force vector (i.e., weighted average of all pressures over the area in contact with the ground; the so called center of pressure, CP) decreased from 37.6% of stance width to 28.3% (P < 0.01), maximum distance between the mediolateral position of the CM and CP decreased by 9.8 mm (P < 0.01), and toe clearance (distance between tip of shoe and edge of step) increased in both the horizontal (28%) and vertical (19%) direction (P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS . These findings suggest that when vision was blurred, subjects used a twofold safety-driven adaptation: First, to increase dynamic stability they ensured that the horizontal position of their CM was kept close to the center of the base of support and second, they increased horizontal and vertical toe clearance while swinging their lead limb forward to reduce the risk of tripping.
Improved visualization and quantitative analysis of fluorescent membrane sterol in polarized hepatic cells

Dehydroergosterol is a natural yeast sterol which has recently been employed for direct observation of intracellular sterol transport by UV microscopy. Here, methods are described for improved visualization and quantification of dehydroergosterol in the membranes of polarized HepG2 cells. Using a new online assay, it is shown that dehydroergosterol derived from a cyclodextrin complex inserted into the plasma membrane with a half time of t1/2 ∼ 34 s. Based on a detailed bleaching analysis of dehydroergosterol, slightly different bleaching rates for dehydroergosterol in the basolateral and canalicular membrane were found, indicating different fluorophore environments. Bleaching correction in concert with 3D imaging allows for detection of dehydroergosterol enrichment in microvilli of the canalicular membrane forming the biliary canaliculus. Evidence is provided that some dehydroergosterol accumulating in a subapical compartment or apical recycling compartment can rapidly (t1/2 ∼ 2 min) exchange in vesicles towards the biliary canaliculus while the majority of dehydroergosterol does not redistribute from this compartment. The rapidly exchanging pool resembles only a small portion of the total subapical compartment or apical recycling compartment‐associated dehydroergosterol (about 15–30%). Kinetic modelling supports the theory that the subapical compartment or apical recycling compartment to biliary canaliculus transport pathway for sterol is unidirectional. This pathway might be important for rapid biliary transport of free sterol produced by hydrolysis of cholesteryl esters derived from high density lipoprotein.
Implications of Augmented Renal Clearance on Drug Dosing in Critically Ill Patients: A Focus on Antibiotics

Augmented renal clearance (ARC) has been reported in approximately 30–65% of patients in the intensive care unit (ICU) despite the presence of a normal serum creatinine concentration. In certain ICU patient populations (e.g., patients with sepsis or trauma), the incidence increases to roughly 50–85%. Risk factors for ARC include the following: age younger than 50–55 years, male sex, higher diastolic blood pressure, fewer comorbidities, and a lower Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II (APACHE II) or modified Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) score at ICU admission. In addition, patient populations with the highest reported incidence of ARC include those with major trauma, sepsis, traumatic brain injury, subarachnoid hemorrhage, and central nervous system infection. Due to the high incidence of ARC in patients with a normal serum creatinine concentration, clinicians should consider screening ICU patients deemed high risk by using the ARC scoring system or the identification and assessment algorithm provided in this review. In addition, an 8‐hour continuous urine collection should be considered to assess a measured creatinine clearance for evaluating the necessity of medication dosage adjustments. There is a clear association between ARC and subtherapeutic antibiotic concentrations as well as literature suggesting worse clinical outcomes; thus, the risk of underdosing antibiotics in a patient with ARC could increase the risk of treatment failure. This review examines strategies to overcome ARC and summarizes current pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic literature in patients with ARC in an effort to provide dosing guidance for this patient population.
Enhancers Are Major Targets for Murine Leukemia Virus Vector Integration

ABSTRACT Retroviral vectors have been used in successful gene therapies. However, in some patients, insertional mutagenesis led to leukemia or myelodysplasia. Both the strong promoter/enhancer elements in the long terminal repeats (LTRs) of murine leukemia virus (MLV)-based vectors and the vector-specific integration site preferences played an important role in these adverse clinical events. MLV integration is known to prefer regions in or near transcription start sites (TSS). Recently, BET family proteins were shown to be the major cellular proteins responsible for targeting MLV integration. Although MLV integration sites are significantly enriched at TSS, only a small fraction of the MLV integration sites (<15%) occur in this region. To resolve this apparent discrepancy, we created a high-resolution genome-wide integration map of more than one million integration sites from CD34+ hematopoietic stem cells transduced with a clinically relevant MLV-based vector. The integration sites form ∼60,000 tight clusters. These clusters comprise ∼1.9% of the genome. The vast majority (87%) of the integration sites are located within histone H3K4me1 islands, a hallmark of enhancers. The majority of these clusters also have H3K27ac histone modifications, which mark active enhancers. The enhancers of some oncogenes, including LMO2, are highly preferred targets for integration without in vivo selection. IMPORTANCE We show that active enhancer regions are the major targets for MLV integration; this means that MLV preferentially integrates in regions that are favorable for viral gene expression in a variety of cell types. The results provide insights for MLV integration target site selection and also explain the high risk of insertional mutagenesis that is associated with gene therapy trials using MLV vectors.
Superlattice structure in the antiferromagnetically ordered state in the Hubbard model on the Ammann-Beenker tiling

We study magnetic properties in the half-filled Hubbard model on the Ammann-Beenker tiling. First, we focus on the domain structure with locally eightfold rotational symmetry to examine the strictly localized confined states for the tight-binding model. We count the number of vertices and confined states in the larger domains generated by the deflation operations systematically. Then, the fraction of the confined states, which plays an important role for magnetic properties in the weak coupling limit, is obtained as $p=1/2{\ensuremath{\tau}}^{2}$, where $\ensuremath{\tau}(=1+\sqrt{2})$ is the silver ratio. It is also found that the wave functions for confined states are densely distributed in the system and thereby the introduction of the Coulomb interactions immediately induces the finite staggered magnetizations. Increasing the Coulomb interactions, the spatial distribution of the magnetizations continuously changes to those of the Heisenberg model. We discuss crossover behavior in the perpendicular space representation and reveal the superlattice structure in the spatial distribution of the staggered magnetizations.
Introduction of a new Dataset and Method for Detecting and Counting the Pistachios based on Deep Learning

Pistachio is a nutritious nut that has many uses in the food industry. Iran is one of its largest producers, and pistachio is considered as a strategic export product for this country. Pistachios are sorted based on the shape of their shell into two categories: Open-mouth and Closed-mouth. The open-mouth pistachios are higher in price, value, and demand than the closed-mouth pistachios. In the countries that are famous in pistachio production and exporting, there are companies that pack the picked pistachios from the trees and make them ready for exporting. As there are differences between the price and the demand of the open-mouth and closed-mouth pistachios, it is considerable for these companies to know precisely how much of these two kinds of pistachios exist in each packed package. In this paper, we have introduced and shared a new dataset of pistachios, which is called Pesteh-Set. Pesteh-Set includes 6 videos with a total length of 164 seconds and 561 moving pistachios. It also contains 423 labeled images that totally include 3927 labeled pistachios. At the first stage, we have used RetinaNet, the deep fully convolutional object detector for detecting the pistachios in the video frames. In the second stage, we introduce our method for counting the open-mouth and closed-mouth pistachios in the videos. Pistachios that move and roll on the transportation line may appear as closed-mouth in some frames and as open-mouth in other frames. With this circumstance, the main challenge of our work is to count these two kinds of pistachios correctly and fast. Our introduced method performs very fast with no need for GPU, and it also achieves good counting results. The computed accuracy of our counting method is 94.75%. Our proposed methods can be remotely performed by using the videos taken from the implemented cameras that could monitor the pistachios.
The Bphi008a Gene Interacts with the Ethylene Pathway and Transcriptionally Regulates MAPK Genes in the Response of Rice to Brown Planthopper Feeding1[C][W][OA]

We examined ways in which the Brown planthopper induced008a (Bphi008a; AY256682) gene of rice (Oryza sativa) enhances the plant’s resistance to a specialist herbivore, the brown planthopper (BPH; Nilaparvata lugens). Measurement of the expression levels of ethylene synthases and of ethylene emissions showed that BPH feeding rapidly initiated the ethylene signaling pathway and up-regulated Bphi008a transcript levels after 6 to 96 h of feeding. In contrast, blocking ethylene transduction (using 1-methylcyclopropene) reduced Bphi008a transcript levels in wild-type plants fed upon by BPH. In vitro kinase assays showed that Bphi008a can be phosphorylated by rice Mitogen-activated Protein Kinase5 (OsMPK5), and yeast two-hybrid assays demonstrated that the carboxyl-terminal proline-rich region of Bphi008a interacts directly with this kinase. Furthermore, bimolecular fluorescence complementation assays showed that this interaction occurs in the nucleus. Subsequently, we found that Bphi008a up-regulation and down-regulation were accompanied by different changes in transcription levels of OsMPK5, OsMPK12, OsMPK13, and OsMPK17 in transgenic plants. Immunoblot analysis also showed that the OsMPK5 protein level increased in overexpressing plants and decreased in RNA interference plants after BPH feeding. In transgenic lines, changes in the expression levels of several enzymes that are important components of the defenses against the BPH were also observed. Finally, yeast two-hybrid screening results showed that Bphi008a is able to interact with a b-ZIP transcription factor (OsbZIP60) and a RNA polymerase polypeptide (SDRP).
Treatment for childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia in Taiwan: Taiwan Pediatric Oncology Group ALL‐2002 study emphasizing optimal reinduction therapy and central nervous system preventive therapy without cranial radiation

Reinduction therapy has improved the outcomes in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). We sought to determine the optimal course(s) of reinduction therapy for standard‐risk (SR, or “low‐risk” in other groups) patients. Also, we evaluated outcomes using triple intrathecal therapy without cranial radiation (CrRT) for central nervous system (CNS) preventive therapy.
Panic disorder subtypes: differential responses to CO2 challenge.

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to investigate the possibility of a differential sensitivity to CO2 in patients diagnosed with panic disorder subtypes that were defined by the presence of prominent respiratory symptoms. METHOD The authors used a 35% CO2 and 65% O2 mixture as a challenge agent. Fifty-one unmedicated subjects with DSM-III-R panic disorder, who were divided into respiratory (N = 28) and nonrespiratory (N = 23) subtypes by their symptom profiles, underwent a CO2 challenge procedure. Patients in the two groups were compared with regard to physiological and psychological measures, pulmonary function tests, panic rates, and smoking habits. RESULTS The patients in the respiratory group were significantly more sensitive to CO2 than were the patients in the nonrespiratory group. The respiratory group also had higher scores on the Panic and Agoraphobia Scale and had a longer duration of illness; both of these factors can be indicators of illness severity. In addition, the respiratory group's higher cigarette consumption (mean = 12.46 package-years, SD = 2.49) may have been a contributory factor not only for illness severity but also for the pathogenesis of panic disorder. CONCLUSIONS The CO2 challenge procedure appears to be a good dissection tool in the understanding of different subtypes of panic disorder. Moreover, there may be a more specific association with prominent respiratory symptom subtype and CO2 hypersensitivity.
Effects of cycling and rigor crossbridges on the conformation of cardiac troponin C.

The results of work by several investigators indicate that crossbridge attachment serves as a positive feedback mechanism that transiently increases the Ca2+ affinity of troponin C (TnC) during each normal heartbeat. To monitor structural changes in the cardiac isoform of TnC (cTnC) associated with Ca2+ binding and crossbridge attachment in muscle, we labeled cTnC with the sulfhydryl-specific fluorescent probe 2-(4'-iodoacetamidoanilino)naphthalene-6-sulfonic acid (IAANS). When IAANS-labeled cTnC (cTnCIAANS) was substituted for endogenous TnC, the fluorescence intensity of cardiac and skeletal muscle preparations increased substantially during rigor crossbridge attachment in the absence of Ca2+ (pCa 9.2). In cardiac muscle, the fluorescence signal increased the same amount in rigor and maximal activation, whereas in skeletal muscle, it was higher in rigor (rigor: cardiac and skeletal = 1; pCa 4.0: cardiac = 0.98 +/- 0.13, skeletal = 0.59 +/- 0.05). This indicates that crossbridge attachment alone is capable of influencing the structure of cTnCIAANS. Because the relative fluorescence intensity of cTnCIAANS was more sensitive to Ca2+ than was force in both preparations (cardiac: pCa50 fluorescence = 6.05 +/- 0.05, pCa50 force = 5.51 +/- 0.11; skeletal: pCa50 fluorescence = 5.94 +/- 0.13, pCa50 force = 5.65 +/- 0.14), we measured the Ca2+ sensitivity of the strong crossbridge attachment (sinusoidal stiffness was measured by imposing 1 kHz at 0.1-0.2% muscle length) in rat trabeculae. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Sélection sexuelle chez un papillon acoustique : étude évolutive du signal mâle et de la préférence femelle

Le processus de selection intersexuelle peut impliquer plusieurs mecanismes differents dans le choix du partenaire. Chez la pyrale Achroia grisella, les femelles choisissent les mâles en se basant sur des caracteres de leur chant d'avertissement ultrasonique, et de precedentes etudes ont montre que ce choix peut procurer, a une femelle discriminante, certains benefices genetiques indirects. Dans cette these, j'ai continue a explorer le mecanisme de benefices indirects chez cette espece en 1) determinant avec plus de precision un parametre acoustique, l‟amplitude du chant, qui influence le choix des femelles et en 2) examinant la covariance genetique entre les traits du chant mâle et ceux de la preference femelle. J'ai constate qu'en plus de preferer des chants mâles emis avec une plus grande amplitude et une plus grande puissance acoustique, les femelles font egalement une discrimination en faveur des chants comprenant des forts « pics d'amplitude ». Cependant, mes analyses genetiques moleculaires de la relation entre les traits du signal mâle et ceux de la preference femelle, n'ont revele aucune covariance significative, comme predit par la theorie de la selection sexuelle. Ces derniers resultats fournissent un apercu important concernant l‟existence d‟un tempo reduit de la selection sexuelle, dans les populations naturelles.