Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Long-Term Costs of Stroke Using 10-Year Longitudinal Data From the North East Melbourne Stroke Incidence Study

Background and Purpose— Stroke is costly, although little is known about the long-term costs of survivors of stroke. In previous cost-of-illness studies, lifetime costs have been modeled based on estimates to 5 years after stroke. Building on previous work from the North East Melbourne Stroke Incidence Study (NEMESIS), we aimed to describe resource use at 10 years and recalculate the lifetime societal costs of ischemic and hemorrhagic (intracerebral hemorrhage) stroke. Methods— Ten-year patient-level resource use data were obtained and updated prices and population demographic statistics for 2010 were applied to our cost-of-illness models. We incorporated incidence data from a larger study region of NEMESIS than that used in the previous model and new 10-year survival and recurrent stroke rates. One-way sensitivity and probabilistic multivariable uncertainty analyses were undertaken. Results— For ischemic stroke, the overall average annual direct costs at 10 years (US dollars [USD] 5207) were comparable to those for survivors between 3 and 5 years (USD5438). However, the contribution of some costs varied (eg, medications contributed 13% at 5 years and 20% at 10 years). For intracerebral hemorrhage, annual direct costs were considerably (24%) greater at 10 years than estimated using 3 to 5 year data. Greater average lifetime costs per case were found using the updated models (ischemic stroke: previous model USD51806 and current USD68 769; intracerebral hemorrhage: previous model USD43 786 and current USD54 956 per case). Following sensitivity and multivariable uncertainty analyses, the findings were robust. Conclusions— Costs to 10 years after stroke have not previously been reported. Our findings demonstrate the importance of estimating resource use over longer periods for forecasting lifetime estimates.
Bortezomib for Acute Antibody‐Mediated Rejection in Liver Transplantation

Antibody‐mediated rejection (AMR) is an uncommon, but challenging type of rejection after solid organ transplantation. We review three cases of AMR in ABO‐compatible liver transplant recipients. These cases were characterized by severe acute rejection resistant to steroids and antithymocyte globulin, histologic evidence of plasma cell infiltrates, C4d positivity and high serum anti‐HLA donor‐specific antibodies. All three patients were treated with bortezomib, a proteasome inhibitor effective in depleting plasma cells. After treatment, all patients had improved or normal liver function tests, resolution of C4d deposition and significant decline in their HLA donor‐specific antibodies.
Primary adrenal insufficiency in adult population: a Portuguese Multicentre Study by the Adrenal Tumours Study Group

Introduction Primary adrenal insufficiency (PAI) is a rare but severe and potentially life-threatening condition. No previous studies have characterized Portuguese patients with PAI. Aims To characterize the clinical presentation, diagnostic workup, treatment and follow‐up of Portuguese patients with confirmed PAI. Methods This multicentre retrospective study examined PAI patients in 12 Portuguese hospitals. Results We investigated 278 patients with PAI (55.8% were females), with a mean age of 33.6 ± 19.3 years at diagnosis. The most frequent presenting clinical features were asthenia (60.1%), mucocutaneous hyperpigmentation (55.0%) and weight loss (43.2%); 29.1% of the patients presented with adrenal crisis. Diagnosis was established by high plasma ACTH and low serum cortisol in most patients (43.9%). The most common aetiology of PAI was autoimmune adrenalitis (61.0%). There were 38 idiopathic cases. Autoimmune comorbidities were found in 70% of the patients, the most frequent being autoimmune thyroiditis (60.7%) and type 1 diabetes mellitus (17.3%). Seventy-nine percent were treated with hydrocortisone (mean dose 26.3 ± 8.3 mg/day) mostly in three (57.5%) or two (37.4%) daily doses. The remaining patients were treated with prednisolone (10.1%), dexamethasone (6.2%) and methylprednisolone (0.7%); 66.2% were also on fludrocortisone (median dose of 100 µg/day). Since diagnosis, 33.5% of patients were hospitalized for disease decompensation. In the last appointment, 17.2% of patients had complaints (7.6% asthenia and 6.5% depression) and 9.7% had electrolyte disturbances. Conclusion This is the first multicentre Portuguese study regarding PAI. The results emphasize the need for standardization in diagnostic tests and etiological investigation and provide a framework for improving treatment.
Toward Developing A New Occupational Exposure Metric Approach for Characterization of Diesel Aerosols

The extensive use of diesel-powered equipment in mines makes the exposure to diesel aerosols a serious occupational issue. The exposure metric currently used in U.S. underground noncoal mines is based on the measurement of total carbon (TC) and elemental carbon (EC) mass concentration in the air. Recent toxicological evidence suggests that the measurement of mass concentration is not sufficient to correlate ultrafine aerosol exposure with health effects. This urges the evaluation of alternative measurements. In this study, the current exposure metric and two additional metrics, the surface area and the total number concentration, were evaluated by conducting simultaneous measurements of diesel ultrafine aerosols in a laboratory setting. The results showed that the surface area and total number concentration of the particles per unit of mass varied substantially with the engine operating condition. The specific surface area (SSA) and specific number concentration (SNC) normalized with TC varied two and five times, respectively. This implies that miners, whose exposure is measured only as TC, might be exposed to an unknown variable number concentration of diesel particles and commensurate particle surface area. Taken separately, mass, surface area, and number concentration did not completely characterize the aerosols. A comprehensive assessment of diesel aerosol exposure should include all of these elements, but the use of laboratory instruments in underground mines is generally impracticable. The article proposes a new approach to solve this problem. Using SSA and SNC calculated from field-type measurements, the evaluation of additional physical properties can be obtained by using the proposed approach. Copyright 2012 American Association for Aerosol Research
Crystallographic analyses illustrate significant plasticity and efficient recoding of meganuclease target specificity

Abstract The retargeting of protein–DNA specificity, outside of extremely modular DNA binding proteins such as TAL effectors, has generally proved to be quite challenging. Here, we describe structural analyses of five different extensively retargeted variants of a single homing endonuclease, that have been shown to function efficiently in ex vivo and in vivo applications. The redesigned proteins harbor mutations at up to 53 residues (18%) of their amino acid sequence, primarily distributed across the DNA binding surface, making them among the most significantly reengineered ligand-binding proteins to date. Specificity is derived from the combined contributions of DNA-contacting residues and of neighboring residues that influence local structural organization. Changes in specificity are facilitated by the ability of all those residues to readily exchange both form and function. The fidelity of recognition is not precisely correlated with the fraction or total number of residues in the protein–DNA interface that are actually involved in DNA contacts, including directional hydrogen bonds. The plasticity of the DNA-recognition surface of this protein, which allows substantial retargeting of recognition specificity without requiring significant alteration of the surrounding protein architecture, reflects the ability of the corresponding genetic elements to maintain mobility and persistence in the face of genetic drift within potential host target sites.
Autologous transplantation for diffuse aggressive non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in patients never achieving remission: a report from the Autologous Blood and Marrow Transplant Registry.

PURPOSE To evaluate the results of high-dose chemotherapy and autologous hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation (autotransplants) in patients with diffuse aggressive non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) who never achieve a complete remission with conventional chemotherapy. PATIENTS AND METHODS Detailed records from the Autologous Blood and Marrow Transplant Registry (ABMTR) on 184 patients with diffuse aggressive NHL who never achieved a complete remission with conventional chemotherapy and subsequently received an autotransplant were evaluated. Transplants were performed between 1989 and 1995 and were reported to the ABMTR by 48 centers in North and South America. RESULTS Seventy-nine (44%) of 184 patients achieved a complete remission or a complete remission with residual imaging abnormalities of unknown significance after autotransplantation. Thirty-four (19%) of 184 had a partial remission and 55 (31%) of 184 had no response or progressive disease. Eleven patients (6%) were not assessable for response because of early death. The probabilities of progression-free and overall survival at 5 years after transplantation were 31% (95% confidence interval [CI], 24% to 38%) and 37% (95% CI, 30% to 45%), respectively. In multivariate analysis, chemotherapy resistance, Karnofsky performance status score less than 80 at transplantation, age > or = 55 years at transplantation, receiving three or more prior chemotherapy regimens, and not receiving pre- or posttransplant involved-field irradiation therapy were adverse prognostic factors for overall survival. CONCLUSION High-dose chemotherapy and autologous hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation should be considered for patients with diffuse aggressive NHL who never achieve a complete remission but who are still chemotherapy-sensitive and are otherwise transplant candidates.
Hope: a construct central to living with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Background. Hope plays an integral role in health and illness and may assist individuals to cope in difficult and adverse circumstances, for instance when living with an illness such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which can demand continuous adaptation. Aim. This paper reports the meaning of hope in people living with COPD as described by seven participants involved in a home-based pulmonary maintenance program. Methods. Using an interpretive phenomenological approach a purposive sample of seven participants were interviewed to understand participants' experiences of the phenomena of hope. An interpretative description is provided. Results. Thematic analysis revealed a number of themes, including that hope persists despite chronic illness and the unpredictable dilemmas of living with COPD. Many benefits were found to be gained from involvement in a home-based pulmonary maintenance program, including increasing exercise capacity, hope and wellbeing. Conclusion. Despite the limitations imposed by living with COPD participants revealed a determination to live as normal a life as possible. The pulmonary maintenance program was pivotal in assisting participants to improve exercise capacity, hope and wellbeing. Nurses may have a role to play in helping people with COPD maintain or regain hope.
A Comparison between Matrix Pencil and Root-MUSIC for Direction-of-Arrival Estimation Making Use of Uniform Linear Arrays

Abstract The main objective of this paper is to compare the performance of matrix pencil and root-MUSIC (with and without spatial smoothing) algorithms for angles-of-arrival estimation. Multiple snapshots collected by a uniform linear array have been considered for both algorithms. A number of simulations were carried out taking into account both estimation accuracy and computer time requirements. Matrix pencil seems to be more appropriate when a small number of snapshots are available and the processing must be performed in coherent environments and in real time. For the case where there are a large number of snapshots, better choices are either root-MUSIC if the signals are lowly correlated or root-MUSIC with spatial smoothing for the coherent case.
Automatic decision support by rule exhaustion decision tree algorithm

Decision tree is a landmark approach to automatic decision support. From a visualize decision tree, people can easily understand how the rules are produced. In this paper, the objective function is treated as an attribute of the classification rules. The proposed algorithm determines the value of the objective function firstly, and then determines other attribute values one by one to form a classification rule. A novel classification indicator is proposed which considers the samples deflection due to different attributes and the criterion of forming a classification rule. Based on this indicator, we could elect the superior attributes to classify the samples and discover new classification rules quickly and exhaustively. Synthetic random samples and rules are produced for experiment verification. The novel learning method shows its superiority to the classical ID3 decision tree in the experiments. The former not only spends less time and produces more rules than the latter, but also achieves a better precision than the latter.
High-Grade B-Cell Neoplasm with Surface Light Chain Restriction and Tdt Coexpression Evolved in a MYC-Rearranged Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma: A Dilemma in Classification

According to World Health Organization (WHO) classification (2008), B-cell neoplasms are classified into precursor B-cell or a mature B-cell phenotype and this classification was also kept in the latest WHO revision (2016). We are reporting a male patient in his fifties, with tonsillar swelling diagnosed as diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), germinal center. He received 6 cycles of RCHOP and showed complete metabolic response. Two months later, he presented with severe CNS symptoms. Flow cytometry on bone marrow (BM) showed infiltration by CD10-positive Kappa-restricted B-cells with loss of CD20 and CD19, and downregulation of CD79b. Moreover, the malignant population showed Tdt expression. BM Cytogenetics revealed t(8;14)(q24;q32) within a complex karyotype. Retrospectively, MYC and Tdt immunostains performed on original diagnostic tissue and came negative for Tdt and positive for MYC. It has been rarely reported that mature B-cell neoplasms present with features of immaturity; however the significance of Tdt acquisition during disease course was not addressed before. What is unique in this case is that the emerging disease has acquired an immaturity marker while retaining some features of the original mature clone. No definitive WHO category would adopt high-grade neoplasms that exhibit significant overlapping features between mature and immature phenotypes.
The Impact of Demographic and Socio-Psychological Factors on Consumers Ethnocentric Tendencies in Croatia

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to determine the impact of demographic, socio-psychological factors and the intensity of ethnocentric tendencies among Croatian consumers that will lead to the conceptualization of consumers ethnocentric profile in Croatia. The research was conducted using the questionnaire method on a sample of 1000 respondents in Croatia. The resultswere processed using a multivariate statistic that is used for the factor and descriptive inferential statistical analysis. Statistics showed the causes of consumer ethnocentrism to be psychological,associated with the structure of consumer’s social environment which cannot develop in isolation but as part of a set of socio-psychological, economic,political and demographic influences. As a result, consumer’s ethnocentrism cannot be fully identified only assumed. Consumer’s ethnocentrism will depend on country, values, customs and behavioral patterns. The statistical analysis concluded regardless of gender the consumer who is expressing high ethnocentric tendencies would be older, less educated, with low income, highly religious and is dissatisfied with their life in Croatia.
Twenty‐year outcome for individuals with autism and average or near‐average cognitive abilities

Previous studies found substantial variability in adult outcome for people with autism whose cognitive functioning was within the near‐average and average ranges. This study examined adult outcome for 41 such individuals (38 men and 3 women) originally identified through an epidemiological survey of autism in Utah. Mean age at the time of their previous cognitive assessment was 7.2 years (SD=4.1, range=3.1–25.9 years) and at follow‐up was 32.5 years (SD=5.7 years, range=22.3–46.4 years). Outcome measures included standardized assessments of diagnostic status, cognitive ability, and adaptive behavior. Additional information collected concerned demographic variables, indicators of independence, social relationships, medical and psychiatric conditions, and social service use. Outcomes for this sample were better than outcomes described in previous work on individuals with similar cognitive functioning. For example, half of the participants were rated as “Very Good” or “Good” on a global outcome measure. As in previous studies, there was considerable variability in measured cognitive ability over time. Over half of the sample had large gains or losses of cognitive ability of greater than 1 standard deviation. Cognitive gain was associated with better outcome, as was better adaptive functioning. While all participants had baseline IQs in the nonimpaired range, there was limited evidence to support the use of other early childhood variables to predict adult outcome.
The Dutch Transplantation in Vasculitis (DUTRAVAS) Study: Outcome of Renal Transplantation in Antineutrophil Cytoplasmic Antibody–associated Glomerulonephritis

Background Data on the outcome of renal transplantation in antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody–associated glomerulonephritis (AAGN) patients are still limited. In particular, how disease recurrence in the renal allograft defines graft outcome is largely unknown. Therefore, we conducted a multicenter observational clinical and histopathological study to establish recurrence rate of AAGN in the allograft and the impact of recurrence on allograft survival. Methods Using the nationwide Dutch Pathology Registry (PALGA), we retrospectively collected clinical and histopathological data of consecutive AAGN patients who had developed end-stage renal failure and received a kidney allograft in 1 of 6 Dutch university hospitals between 1984 and 2011. Transplant biopsies were scored using the Banff '09 classification. Renal disease recurrence was scored using the histopathological classification of AAGN. Results The posttransplantation recurrence rate of AAGN was 2.8% per patient year, accumulating to recurrence in a total of 11 of 110 AAGN patients within the first 5 years after transplantation. Four of these 11 patients lost their graft, with 1-year and 5-year graft survival rates of 94.5% and 82.8%, respectively. By multivariate analysis, AAGN recurrence was independently associated with subsequent graft loss. Conclusions In this study in 110 Dutch patients, the recurrence rate of AAGN within 5 years after kidney transplantation appeared slightly higher than in previous reports. Moreover, recurrence of AAGN contributed independently to kidney allograft loss, emphasizing the importance of clinical vigilance, because early treatment might be critical to rescuing the allograft.
Skin Cancer Surveillance Behaviors Among Childhood Cancer Survivors

The risk of developing skin cancer is elevated among childhood cancer survivors (CCS), particularly among those treated with radiation. This survey study examined the skin cancer surveillance behaviors of 94 CCS. Approximately 48% of CCS had ever conducted skin self‐examination (SSE) and 31% had ever received a physician skin examination. Rates of physician skin examination were 2.5 times higher among CCS treated with radiation compared to those without radiation. However, rates of SSEs did not differ based on treatment history. These findings highlight the need to promote skin cancer surveillance as an important aspect of CCS survivorship care.
Neuropsychologic functioning in autism: Profile of a complex information processing disorder

Neurobehavioral theories of autism have hypothesized core deficits in sensory input or perception, basic attentional abilities or generalized attention to extrapersonal space, anterograde memory, auditory information processing, higher order memory abilities, conceptual reasoning abilities, executive function, control mechanisms of attention, and higher order abilities across domains. A neuropsychologic battery designed to investigate these hypotheses was administered to 33 rigorously diagnosed autistic individuals with IQ scores greater than 80, and 33 individually matched normal controls. Stepwise discriminant function was used to define the profile of neuropsychologic functioning across domains. The neuropsychologic profile in these autistic individuals was defined by impairments in skilled motor, complex memory, complex language, and reasoning domains, and by intact or superior performance in the attention, simple memory, simple language, and visual–spatial domains. This profile is not consistent with mental retardation or with a general deficit syndrome, but rather with a selective impairment in complex information processing that does not involve visual–spatial processing. This profile is not consistent with a single primary deficit, but with a multiple primary deficit model in which the deficit pattern within and across domains is reflective of the complexity of the information processing demands. This neuropsychologic profile is furthermore consistent with the neurophysiologic characterization of autism as a late information processing disorder with sparing of early information processing. (JINS, 1997, 3, 303–316)
Enteric Viruses in Turkey Flocks: A Historic Review

In this review, diagnostic techniques and viral agents involved in enteric diseases affecting turkeys are described. Data from field observations and laboratory researches have been reported in turkey flocks for over 70 years, and several viruses have been identified. After a period of 30 years of inoculation experiments and neutralization studies, adequate visualization of the viruses was achieved using electronic microscopy. During the following years, several studies were then conducted to isolate and classify those viruses using cell-culture, embryo-propagation, serological tests, genome electropherotyping by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of double-stranded RNA viruses, and recently, nucleic acid studies. Thus, since the 1990s, the nucleic- acid technology has focused on genomic surveys and on the detection of specific segments of the genome of each virus using the polymerase- chain reaction, resulting in several prevalence studies and phylogenetic analyses of different isolates and proper classification of the viruses.