Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Inhibition of Iron-Catalyzed Oxidations by Attainable Uric Acid and Ascorbic Acid Levels: Therapeutic Implications for Alzheimer’s Disease and Late Cognitive Impairment

Background: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) has become one of the major health problems of the developed world. Previous studies have shown that oxidant-induced changes occur in cerebral tissue in AD and in late-onset amnestic mild cognitive impairment. The oxidative damage begins early and involves free radical-mediated effects that cause lipid peroxidations and oxidative protein and nucleic acid damages which begin before the cardinal neuropathologic manifestations. Impaired cerebral iron homeostasis and iron accumulation are postulated to be primary and seminal in the pathogenesis. Objective: To demonstrate that the Fenton reaction involving hydrogen peroxide and iron at very low concentrations as has been found in human plasma and cerebrospinal fluid may produce promptly oxidations which may be inhibited by preventive use of uric acid and ascorbic acid as hydrophilic antioxidants. Methods: A photometric study in vitro at physiologic pH using concentrations of uric acid and ascorbic acid readily attainable in human extracellular fluids. Results: Uric acid levels of 0.5 and 6.0 mg/dl (below the saturation level for urate precipitation) and ascorbic acid at a level readily attainable in blood plasma inhibited significantly and completely, respectively, oxidations caused by reactions of 20 µM concentrations of hydrogen peroxide with free bivalent iron at 9.8 µM and at a low hemoglobin level of 12 mg/dl of saline. Conclusion: Results suggest that supplemental use orally of ascorbic acid combined with use of metabolic precursor to uric acid, like inosine or hypoxanthine, has the potential for preventing or attenuating the progression of AD and amnestic mild cognitive impairment.
Concepts in Head and Neck Surgery

This book, based on one master surgeon's personal experience, is not meant to be a complete text. It contains chapters that are not covered in depth in many other works on head and neck surgery, eg, psychological evaluation and preparation of the patient to accept his condition following eradication of the tumors, scalp tumors, neurogenous tumors, juvenile nasopharyngeal angio-fibroma, mesenchymal tumors, minor salivary tumors, head and neck tumors in children, and laryngotracheal rehabilitation. The general construction of the book is excellent. The print, illustrations, and drawings are clear. A fine task has been accomplished by the publishers. However, the various flaps illustrated in an oversimplified fashion may cause the novice to have disastrous results. The volume points up the fact that any surgeon who undertakes to eradicate a malignancy about the head and neck takes upon himself a grave responsibility. He must not only have the acumen and judgement to
Children Are Less Susceptible to Exercise-Induced Muscle Damage than Adults: A Preliminary Investigation

The aim of the present study was to investigate whether children showed similar signs of muscle overuse like adults after intense exercise. One child group (n = 10) and one adult group (n = 10) of males both had to perform five series of bench press exercises at an intensity of 80% of maximum strength until exhaustion. Maximum isometric strength, subjective perception of muscle pain, was measured before, immediately after, 48 hr, 72 hr, and 1 week after the exercise. Serum creatine kinase (CK) activity was measured before, 48 hr, 72 hr, and 1 week after the exercise. The adults showed all symptoms of muscle overuse: reduced strength, muscle pain, and elevated CK activities until 3 days after the exercise. In contrast, the children experienced only some light muscle pain, but neither showed reduced strength nor elevated CK activities. It is concluded that children’s muscles can easier withstand physical stress than adult muscles.
Acute myocarditis: multiparametric cardiac MR imaging.

PURPOSE To evaluate the diagnostic value of cardiac magnetic resonance (MR) imaging at 3 T in patients suspected of having acute myocarditis by using a multiparametric cardiac MR imaging approach including T1 relaxation time as an additional tool for tissue characterization. MATERIALS AND METHODS Ethics commission approval was obtained for this prospective study, and written informed consent was obtained from all subjects. Twenty four patients with acute myocarditis (mean age ± standard deviation, 34.7 years ± 15.1; 75% men) and 42 control subjects (mean age, 38.7 years ± 10.2; 64% men) were included. Cardiac MR imaging approaches included relative T2 short tau inversion-recovery signal intensity ratio (T2 ratio), early gadolinium enhancement ratio, late gadolinium enhancement, native T1 relaxation times, and extracellular volume fraction. Receiver operating characteristic analysis was performed to compare diagnostic performance. The reference standard was the clinical evidence for acute myocarditis. RESULTS Native T1 relaxation times were significantly longer in patients with acute myocarditis than in control subjects (1185.3 msec ± 49.3 vs 1089.1 msec ± 44.9, respectively; P < .001). Areas under the curve of native T1 relaxation times (0.94) were higher compared with those of other cardiac MR parameters (late gadolinium enhancement, 0.90; T2 ratio, 0.79; extracellular volume fraction, 0.71; early gadolinium enhancement ratio, 0.63; P = .390, .018, .002, and < .001, respectively). Sensitivity (92%), specificity (91%), and diagnostic accuracy (91%) for native T1 relaxation times (cutoff, 1140 msec) were equivalent compared with those of the established combined Lake Louise criteria (sensitivity, 92%; specificity, 80%; diagnostic accuracy, 85%). CONCLUSION Diagnostic performance with native T1 mapping was superior to that with T2 ratio and early gadolinium enhancement ratio, and specificity was higher with native T1 mapping than that with Lake Louise criteria. This study underlines the potential of native T1 relaxation times to complement current cardiac MR approaches in patients suspected of having acute myocarditis.
Role of cell block preparation in neoplastic lesions

Background: Fine needle aspiration cytology of superficial lesion or deep anatomical site is an increasingly common procedure in diagnosis of neoplastic lesions. Sometimes fine needle aspiration does not yield sufficient information for precise diagnosis and the risk of false negative or intermediate diagnosis always exists. In order to overcome these problems, cell block technique has been resorted to make the best use of available material. Materials and Methods: This was a prospective hospital based study conducted in the department of pathology, Manipal Teaching Hospital, Pokhara, Nepal over a period of 2 years from the year 2009 October to 2011. There were total of 49 cases included in the study of which fine needle aspiration cytology smears, cell block and biopsy specimens were available. Results: A total of 49 such cases were included in the study of which fine needle aspiration cytology smears, cell block and biopsy specimens were available. Of all the malignant cases, 12 cases were from lungs aspirate, 10 were from breast, 15 from lymph node and 12 from thyroid. With the combined use of smear and cell block, the diagnostic accuracy of the tumors approaches 100% and also significantly improves diagnostic and sub typing accuracy of malignancies. Cell blocks were found superior in diagnosing neoplasm than smears with diagnostic accuracy of 95.91% and 91.8% respectively. Conclusion: Cell block method allows the recovery and processing of minute amounts of cellular material and facilitates the better classification of tumor when reviewed along with cytological smears. The method is simple to perform and no expertise is required to handle the specimen. Therefore the routine preparation of the cell block improves the accuracy of fine needle aspiration cytology diagnosis. Journal of Pathology of Nepal (2012) Vol. 2, 272-276 DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.3126/jpn.v2i4. 6876
Secure Ant-Based Routing Protocol for Wireless Sensor Network

Optimal path selection in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is one of the challenging tasks. Several efficient routing protocols are proposed for specific scenarios to achieve particular objectives in WSN. However, such networks have many limitations such as low data rates and security threats. In this paper, we propose an adaptive secure routing protocol which is based on bioinspired mechanism. It uses distributed ant-based methodology to select two optimal paths keeping in view route security. Simulation results show that our routing protocol can perform better in many scenarios.
Sticky Platelet Syndrome: A Common Cause of Unexplained Arterial and Venous Thrombosis

Sticky platelet syndrome (SPS) was first described in 1983. However, not until 1995 did the prevalence of SPS receive significant recognition in the medical literature. In 1995 we began to routinely add an SPS evaluation to patients re ferred for assessment for causation of arterial and venous thromboses to a large thrombosis hemostasis referral center. The results of our first 2-year experience suggest SPS to be a common cause of arterial and venous thromboses. With respect to otherwise unexplained venous thrombosis, the prevalence of SPS approximates that of activated protein C resistance (APC- R). During the past 24 months, we have evaluated 153 patients referred for evaluation of unexplained arterial or venous events. An evaluation for common and uncommon blood coagulation protein defects and SPS has been applied to these patients. It has been found that SPS accounted for about 21 % of otherwise unexplained arterial events (acute myocardial infarction, cere brovascular thrombosis, transient cerebral ischemic attacks, retinal thrombosis, and peripheral arterial thrombosis) and ac counted for about 13.2% of otherwise unexplained venous events (deep vein thrombosis, with or without pulmonary em bolus). These findings strongly suggest SPS to be a common cause of arterial and venous thromboses and a workup for SPS should be considered a routine assay in the workup of indi viduals with otherwise unexplained arterial or venous throm botic events. Because treatment with heparin or warfarin will not alleviate the thrombotic tendency of SPS, but simple aspirin therapy almost always will correct the defect and protect the individual from second events, it is particularly important to define the presence of this defect. Key Words: Thrombosis— Platelet defects—DVT—Coronary thrombosis—Cerebral thrombosis—Recurrent miscarriage.
Insecticide Risk Indicators and Occupational Insecticidal Poisoning in Indoor Residual Spraying

Background: Occupational insecticidal poisoning (OIP) is a global phenomenon, which is even more prevalent among indoor residual sprayworkers and this can pose a serious threat to their health. Objectives: This study aimed to assess spray-workers' management of insecticide risk indicators and occupational insecticidal poisoning. Materials and Methods: An analytical cross-sectional survey was adopted, that involved all of the professional indoor residual spray-workers serving in the Omo-Nada woreda (district), Ethiopia. The survey was conducted between January and April 2011 by administering a pretested questionnaire. All statistical analyses were performed by using SPSS v.19. 0. A two-sided Fisher's exact test was performed to determine associations between the variables. Results: Overall, 52.4% of the study participants had an awareness of the usage of personal protective equipment (PPE), whereas 41.9% were unable to read the pesticide labels. About 75.3% of spray-workers never drink or eat or smoke, while spraying. Statistical analysis (two-sided Fisher's exact test) confirmed that there is no statistically significant association between safe insecticide practice with the spray-worker’s gender (P = 0.332), whereas, there were strong correlations found with age (P = 0.001), educational status (P = 0.001) and years of work experience (P = 0.001). Conclusions: Despite adequate awareness of safe insecticide management, most of the spray-workers were observed to be reluctant to put this knowledge into practice, either due to the inadequacy of PPE or negligence. Furthermore, a sizable faction of these workers still had limited knowledge and erroneous risk perceptions, thus increasing their risk of OIP. Therefore, appropriate communication strategies and training could reduce the occupational risk of insecticide exposure, which would ultimately minimize the related health hazards of insecticidal poisoning.
Travellers and Substance Use—Implications for Service Provision

Abstract Introduction: The Traveller community as ethnic minority experience many risk factors for problematic substance use relating to their life circumstances, which include; “peer pressure, stress, anxiousness, family crisis, community or neighbourhood disorganisation, sibling use, parental use, sensation seeking behaviours and depression” (Fountain, 2006). The extent of Traveller drug use remains unknown due to the lack of ethnic identifiers in reporting systems and a lack of Travellers accessing services (Paveepoint, 2005c). Research Aim: The research aimed to yield an anecdotal presentation of Traveller substance use from the perspectives of drug, social, law and community service providers in Ireland. Methods: The research was qualitative in design and consisted of semi structured interviews with service providers (n = 45) in order to generate a more comprehensive picture of current dominant perceptions of the “experiences and issues relating to drug and alcohol use among Travellers“. Results: The.
Impact of anesthesia on transcranial electric motor evoked potential monitoring during spine surgery: a review of the literature.

OBJECT Transcranial motor evoked potential (TcMEP) monitoring is frequently used in complex spinal surgeries to prevent neurological injury. Anesthesia, however, can significantly affect the reliability of TcMEP monitoring. Understanding the impact of various anesthetic agents on neurophysiological monitoring is therefore essential. METHODS A literature search of the National Library of Medicine database was conducted to identify articles pertaining to anesthesia and TcMEP monitoring during spine surgery. Twenty studies were selected and reviewed. RESULTS Inhalational anesthetics and neuromuscular blockade have been shown to limit the ability of TcMEP monitoring to detect significant changes. Hypothermia can also negatively affect monitoring. Opioids, however, have little influence on TcMEPs. Total intravenous anesthesia regimens can minimize the need for inhalational anesthetics. CONCLUSIONS In general, selecting the appropriate anesthetic regimen with maintenance of a stable concentration of inhalational or intravenous anesthetics optimizes TcMEP monitoring.
Spontaneous Renal Artery Dissection Complicated by Renal Infarction

A previously healthy 44-year-old woman, with no notable medical history developed left flank pain. To rule out left renal infarction, enhanced abdominal computed tomography (CT) was done and a wedge shaped hypointense lesion was identified in the left posteromedial aspect of the interpolar region. Renal angiography revealed an isolated renal artery dissection that was causing renal infarction due to narrowing of the main stem of the left renal artery. The patient experienced pain with severe uncontrolled hypertension. The patient was successfully treated by percutaneous angioplasty and renal artery stenting. (Korean J Urol 2008;49:376-378)
Right Ventricular Functional Reserve in Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension

Background— Right ventricular (RV) functional reserve affects functional capacity and prognosis in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). PAH associated with systemic sclerosis (SSc-PAH) has a substantially worse prognosis than idiopathic PAH (IPAH), even though many measures of resting RV function and pulmonary vascular load are similar. We therefore tested the hypothesis that RV functional reserve is depressed in SSc-PAH patients. Methods and Results— RV pressure-volume relations were prospectively measured in IPAH (n=9) and SSc-PAH (n=15) patients at rest and during incremental atrial pacing or supine bicycle ergometry. Systolic and lusitropic function increased at faster heart rates in IPAH patients, but were markedly blunted in SSc-PAH. The recirculation fraction, which indexes intracellular calcium recycling, was also depressed in SSc-PAH (0.32±0.05 versus 0.50±0.05; P=0.039). At matched exercise (25 W), SSc-PAH patients did not augment contractility (end-systolic elastance) whereas IPAH did (P<0.001). RV afterload assessed by effective arterial elastance rose similarly in both groups; thus, ventricular-vascular coupling declined in SSc-PAH. Both end-systolic and end-diastolic RV volumes increased in SSc-PAH patients to offset contractile deficits, whereas chamber dilation was absent in IPAH (+37±10% versus +1±8%, P=0.004, and +19±4% versus –1±6%, P<0.001, respectively). Exercise-associated RV dilation also strongly correlated with resting ventricular-vascular coupling in a larger cohort. Conclusions— RV contractile reserve is depressed in SSc-PAH versus IPAH subjects, associated with reduced calcium recycling. During exercise, this results in ventricular-pulmonary vascular uncoupling and acute RV dilation. RV dilation during exercise can predict adverse ventricular-vascular coupling in PAH patients.
Too little for early interventions? Examining the policy-practice gap in English health visiting services and organization

Aim This paper explores the variable provision of English health visiting services, despite government emphasis on the need to reduce health inequalities through early interventions and provide support to families with pre-school children. Background There is increasing evidence of the importance to later health of early child development; that is from prenatal to eight years of age. In this population group, the strongest evidence for health improvement emphasizes support for families (especially mothers) until the infant is at least two to three years of age. In the last four to five years, English government policy has focused strongly on this important life stage, particularly noting its relevance in reducing health inequalities. Simultaneously, the health visiting workforce, arguably the occupational group most closely associated with this form of work, has reduced by 10%; and there is evidence of extreme variability in the way services are provided across the country. Methods Three sources of data were analysed to discover whether the variation in health visiting services relates to need, levels of deprivation or whether other factors are influential in planning provision. The ratio of health visitors to pre-school children was mapped to indices of multiple deprivations across 144 Primary Care Trusts. Survey data were examined for evidence of links, or not, to levels of deprivation and, finally, 30 Children and Young People’s Plans (CYPPs) were analysed to explore strategic planning about the distribution and type of services. Findings Health visiting service provision appears unrelated to areas of deprivation; although, the survey data offered some evidence that individual practitioners focused efforts on the most deprived clients on their caseloads, regardless of location. At a strategic level, the CYPPs made little mention of pre-school children or their needs and offered only limited descriptions of preventive health services. Policy recommendations are made about strengthening service provision in this field.
Studies on ethylene glycol poisoning: One patient – 154 admissions

Objective. Fomepizole is the antidote of choice in toxic alcohol poisonings. Potential side effects from frequent use of fomepizole were studied in a patient admitted 154 times with ethylene glycol (EG) poisoning. The intra-individual correlation between the serum-ethylene glycol (serum-EG) and the osmolal gap (OG) EG-kinetics, and other laboratory parameters were also studied. Methods. Combined pro- and retrospective collection of material from three different hospitals, and results from autopsy. Results. A 26-year-old female with a dissociative disorder was admitted with EG poisoning a total of 154 times. Her admission data revealed a median pH of 7.31 (range 6.87–7.49), pCO2: 4.2 kPa (1.2–6.7) (32 mmHg [9–50]), HCO–3: 15 mmol/L (4–26) (15 mEq/L [4–26]), base deficit (BD): 10 mmol/L (− 4 to 27) (10 mEq/L [–4 to 27]), serum-creatinine 65 μmol/L (40–133) (0.74 mg/dL [0.45–1.51]), OG 81 mOsm/kgH2O (25–132), and serum-EG 44 mmol/L (4–112) (250 mg/dL [25–700]). She was treated with fomepizole 99 times, ethanol 60 times (with a combination of both six times), and dialysis 73 times. The correlation between serum-EG and OG was good (r2 = 0.76). She was finally found dead outside hospital with an EG blood concentration of 81 mmol/L (506 mg/dL). An autopsy revealed calcium oxalate crystals in the kidneys, slight liver steatosis, and slight edema of the lungs. Discussion. The frequent use of fomepizole in this young patient was not associated with any detectable side effects; neither on clinical examination and lab screening, nor on the later autopsy. Regarding the sequelae from the repetitive EG-poisoning episodes, her kidney function seemed to normalize after each overdose. She was treated with buffer and antidote without hemodialysis 81 times without complications, supporting the safety of this approach in selected cases.
VEGFR3 inhibition chemosensitizes lung adenocarcinoma A549 cells in the tumor-associated macrophage microenvironment through upregulation of p53 and PTEN

In lung adenocarcinoma, loss of p53 and PTEN in tumors are associated with decreased response to chemotherapy and decreased survival. A means to pharmacologically upregulate p53 and PTEN protein expression could improve the prognosis of patients with p53- and PTEN-deficient tumors. In the present study we revealed that vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 3 (VEGFR3) inhibition in lung adenocarcinoma cells was associated with improved expression levels of both p53 and PTEN in the tumor-associated macrophage (TAM) microenvironment. Inhibition of VEGFR3 in lung adenocarcinoma cells was associated with growth arrest and decreased migration and invasion. The upregulation of p53 and PTEN protein expression after VEGFR3 inhibition decreased chemotherapy resistance and improved chemosensitivity in co-cultured A549 cells in which p53 and PTEN expression were decreased. Finally, we demonstrated that TAMs promoted the expression of VEGF-C and its receptor VEGFR3. Western blot analysis revealed the co-cultured A549 cells with TAMs are a primary source of VEGF-C and VEGFR3 in the tumor microenvironment. Our studies revealed that VEGFR3 inhibition may be a pharmacological means to upregulate p53 and PTEN protein expression and improve the outcome of patients with p53- and PTEN-deficient tumors.