Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Diversification of cardiomyogenic cell lineages during early heart development.

The vertebrate heart is composed of a limited number of well-characterized cell types and therefore is an excellent system in which to study lineage-determination events and organogenesis. The diversification of atrial and ventricular myogenic lineages is evident in the morphology, physiology, and molecular composition of the fully formed heart and is essential to the circulatory and endocrine functions of the heart. Recent work from our laboratory and others has examined the origins of the atrial and ventricular myocyte cell lineages from the earliest stages of development. These studies have addressed where these lineages arise in the early vertebrate embryo, when diversified cell lineages are first evident in the primitive heart, and what mechanisms result in the separation of these lineages. Much of the information regarding myocyte lineage diversification has been obtained by study of the early chicken embryo because of its accessibility and potential for embryological manipulation. Additional studies in the mouse, frog, and zebra fish have significantly advanced our knowledge of early vertebrate cardiogenesis. Taken together, these studies demonstrated that the separation of atrial and ventricular myogenic lineages occurs before heart chamber formation and that the determination of these lineages is primarily based on the anteroposterior polarity of the heart progenitors in the very early embryo. In the present communication, we review the origins of the lineages and molecular events involved in generating atrial and ventricular myocyte populations. The chicken has been used as a model system in which to study the organogenesis of the heart in vertebrates.1 Fate-mapping studies of the early chicken embryo have followed the origins of the cardiovascular system from the very earliest stages of embryogenesis and have determined that the cells that will become the heart are one of the first mesodermal cell types to emerge from the primitive streak (Figure⇓, …
Patterns of analgesia for fractured neck of femur in Australian emergency departments

Objectives: Fractured neck of femur is a common ED problem and poor pain management in this patient group can contribute significantly to their morbidity. The present study aims to describe current practices for managing pain in patients with fractured neck of femur in Australian ED and to identify real or potential barriers to providing analgesia.
Early onset seizures in stroke.

A 43-year-old woman with medical history of hypertension, myocardial infarction, ischemic cardiomyopathy, and systolic heart failure with an ejection fraction of 20% to 25% on a recent echocardiogram developed sudden onset of left hemiparesis, left hypoesthesia, left gaze deviation, and mutism. Two hours after symptom onset her initial National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale score was 25. A computed tomography of the head was unremarkable, but a computed tomography angiogram showed a distal right middle cerebral artery occlusion. She was given intravenous tissue-type plasminogen activator, but soon after tissue-type plasminogen activator administration, the patient had a generalized tonic clonic seizure. A repeat computed tomography of the head immediately after the seizure showed no hemorrhage, and the patient received mechanical thrombectomy for a her right middle cerebral artery occlusion. She was started on levetiracetam for secondary seizure prevention. MRI showed multiple areas of diffusion restriction involving all vascular territories consistent with a cardioembolic source and her history of dilated cardiomyopathy. She was started on anticoagulation. Importantly there were both cortical and subcortical areas with diffusion positive signal. Electroencephalography showed severe diffuse encephalopathy without epileptiform discharges. She made a good recovery and her discharge National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale score was only 4. She had no more seizures and was discharged home on warfarin, statin, and levetiracetam with seizure restrictions. Two months later she had a minimal hemiparesis and returned to work. She had no further seizures. Although it was explained that the plan had only been to continue anticonvulsants for 3 months, she wanted to drive as soon as possible and elected to continue anticonvulsants indefinitely. Stroke is …
Predictors of physical activity 6 months postintervention in the active for life initiative.

BACKGROUND Understanding who is most and least likely to remain active after the completion of physical activity (PA) interventions can assist in developing more targeted and effective programs to enhance prolonged behavior change. The purpose of this study was to examine predictors of meeting PA recommendations 6 months postintervention in participants enrolled in Active for Life. METHODS Participants from 2 behavioral PA programs [158 Active Choices (AC); 1025 Active Living Every Day (ALED)] completed surveys 6 months after completion of the active intervention. Analyses examined predictors of meeting PA recommendations at follow-up. RESULTS The following were significant predictors: In ALED: self-report health status, satisfaction with body function, and self-efficacy at baseline; PA status at posttest; changes in self-efficacy, perceived stress, and satisfaction with body function and appearance from baseline to posttest. In AC: PA status at post-test. CONCLUSIONS The ultimate goal of health promotion programs is to teach the behavioral skills necessary to sustain behavior change once an active intervention is complete. The findings from this study suggest that predicting PA behavior after cessation of PA interventions may not be straightforward, and predictor variables may operate differently in different intervention approaches.
Factors Influencing Compliance with Oral Hygiene Practices Among Upper Primary School Children at Eldoret Town in Uasin Gishu County, Kenya

Oral health is an important part of general health of body while poor oral hygiene can be a source of many diseases and especially among children. Compliance with practices enhances oral health, individual self esteem, social acceptability among the peers and general health. The practices that prevent and reduce oral diseases include tooth brushing; tooth flossing; use of fluoridated toothpaste for brushing and mouth rinsing and lower consumption of sugary foods and beverages. Regular dental visits are a practice that helps in early detection and prevention of dental diseases. Several factors influence compliance with oral hygiene practices among the children. The study was done to investigate factors that influence compliance with oral hygiene practices among upper primary school children at Eldoret Town. First and foremost the study established the compliance of the children with oral hygiene practices. Specifically factors considered in this study were family and school characteristics. The research design was a descriptive cross-section survey conducted in four primary schools in Eldoret Town of Uasin Gishu County, Kenya. The sample comprised three hundred and sixteen (316) upper primary school children. Results showed that majority (70.3%) of the respondents brushed their teeth using toothbrush twice daily and 63.6% used fluoridated toothpaste. Only 24.3% used dental floss while 54.6% had never visited a dentist for checkups in-spite of having knowledge. There was a significant correlation between compliance with oral hygiene practices and family and school characteristics (r=0.425, p<0.001 and r=0.238, p<0.001) respectively. The study concluded that children in upper primary school were compliant with tooth brushing using fluoridated toothpaste. However, they were non-compliant with the use of dental floss and going for dental check-up. The study also concluded that family characteristics (role models, motivation/encouragement, financial ability) and school characteristics (oral health curriculum, teachers trained in oral health, working school health team, safe environment with adequate water, free from unhealthy foods) influenced the compliance with oral hygiene practices of children.
Parental resistance and social worker skills: towards a theory of motivational social work

Parental resistance is a ubiquitous feature of child and family social work, yet there has been limited research or theoretical work directed at the issue. This paper identifies social and individual reasons why parents may be resistant. Five principle causes of parental resistance are discussed, namely social structure and disadvantage, the context of child protection work, parental resistance to change, denial or minimization of abuse or neglect and the behaviour of the social worker. It is argued that motivational interviewing (MI) provides particularly useful skills and concepts for firstly reducing the social worker contribution to resistance and secondly minimizing the resistance related to other reasons for resistance. Key adaptations required in the strategic aims of MI if it is to be used in child protection work are identified and discussed, the most important of which is maintaining a focus on the child's welfare and safety. It is concluded that MI offers an opportunity to improve practice by increasing parental engagement and to make a contribution to social work theory by combining an attention to both broader social structure and the micro-skills required in social work interviews.
A Retrospective Evaluation of Radiotherapy for the Treatment of Local Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma Recurrence After Initial Complete Surgical Resection

Introduction Our purpose was to assess the efficacy of radiation therapy in the treatment of locoregional recurrence of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma recurrence after curative resection. Methods Patients with local esophageal squamous cell carcinoma recurrence who were treated at the Cancer Prevention and Treatment Center of Sun Yat-sen University from January 1990 to December 2002 and whose initial treatment was complete surgical resection (N = 152) were included. Of the 152 patients, 60 patients received treatment with radiation therapy, and the others did not receive radiation. None of the included patients received chemotherapy or radiotherapy before surgery. The Kaplan-Meier method was used to calculate the cumulative survival rate. Results The median survival time was 16.0 ± 2.7 months for those who received radiotherapy versus 6.5 ± 1.6 months for those who did not (P < 0.001). The median survival time was greater (22.3 ± 4.0 months) for patients who receive a dosage greater than 50 Gy compared with those patients who received a dosage of 50 Gy or less (7.7 ± 0.3 months; P = 0.033). The overall 3- and 5-year survival rates were 16.4% and 10.4%, respectively. The 1-, 2-, and 3- year recurrence-free survival rates were 56.1 ± 4.3%, 32.9 ± 4.1%, and 22.0 ± 3.7%, respectively. Conclusion Radiotherapy may help improve the survival rate in patients with local esophageal squamous cell carcinoma recurrence after complete surgical resection who have no history of radiotherapy.
Effect of alternating standing and sitting on blood pressure and pulse wave velocity during a simulated workday in adults with overweight/obesity

Objective: Reducing prolonged sitting at work has been recommended by an expert panel, but whether intermittent standing improves vascular health is unclear. We aimed to test whether using a sit–stand desk could reduce blood pressure (BP) and pulse wave velocity (PWV) during a simulated workday. Methods: Overweight/obese adults with pre-to-Stage 1 hypertension completed a randomized crossover study with two simulated workday conditions: STAND–SIT (alternating standing and sitting condition every 30 min) and SIT (continuous sitting condition). Oscillometric BP was measured hourly. Carotid–femoral, carotid–radial, and carotid–ankle PWV were measured in the morning, mid-day, and late afternoon using tonometry. Results: Participants [n = 25, 64% male, 84% white, mean (SD) age: 42 (12) years] had average resting SBP of 132 (9) mmHg and DBP of 83 (8) mmHg. In linear mixed models, STAND–SIT resulted in a significantly lower DBP (mean ± SE: −1.0 ± 0.4 mmHg, P = 0.020) and mean arterial pressure (MAP) (−1.0 ± 0.4 mmHg, P = 0.029) compared with SIT. SBP (−0.9 ± 0.7 mmHg, P = 0.176) was not different across conditions. Carotid–ankle PWV was significantly lower during the STAND–SIT vs. SIT condition (−0.27 ± 0.13 m/s, P = 0.047), whereas carotid–femoral PWV (−0.03 ± 0.13 m/s, P = 0.831) and carotid–radial PWV (−0.30 ± 0.18 m/s, P = 0.098) were not. Changes in MAP partially explained changes in PWV. Conclusion: Interrupting prolonged sitting during deskwork with intermittent standing was a sufficient stimulus to slightly, but statistically significantly, decrease DBP, MAP, and carotid–ankle PWV. Though the clinical significance of the observed effects is modest, regular use of a sit–stand desk may be a practical way to lower BP and PWV while performing deskwork.
When the Past is Lost: Focal Retrograde Amnesia. Focus on the“Functional” Form

We report the clinical findings and neuropsychological profiles of a sample of patients exhibiting a focal retrograde amnesia (FRA) seen consecutively during the period 1992–2007. The cohort comprised 13 patients, five males, with a mean age of 30 years (range 16–49). They were given a neurologic examination, psychiatric interview and formal neuropsychological examination (all but one) during the amnesic phase, underwent neuroimaging, and were followed up for six months to ten years. All presented with an acute amnesia characterized by an impaired recollection of memories predating the acute event, with spared or minimally and transiently affected anterograde memory, thus consistent with FRA. The events triggering FRA varied widely: mild to severe head injury, road accident without head injury, seizure, dissociative fugue, BDZ overdose, posttraumatic headache, syncope, migraine attack, acute distress. The neuropsychological hallmark of FRA was a selective or prominent impairment of autobiographical memory. The defect was often so severe as to cover most or all of the patients' lives and, in some cases, to erase the knowledge of their own identity. Conventional neuroimaging (brain CT and MRI) was unimpressive. Cerebral SPECT/PET disclosed unilateral frontal hypoperfusion in three (two left). All but one patient fully recovered, time of recovery ranging from three days to six months. FRA is a condition reflecting a block of memory function triggered by heterogeneous events, including both physical and psychic insults. Analogies shared with the more frequently encountered and better known condition of transient global amnesia suggests common pathogenetic mechanisms. A tentative nosographic classification of FRA is finally offered.
Application of LSSVM by ABC in energy commodity price forecasting

The importance of the hyper parameters selection for a kernel-based algorithm, viz. Least Squares Support Vector Machines (LSSVM) has been a critical concern in literature. In order to meet the requirement, this work utilizes a variant of Artificial Bee Colony (known as mABC) for hyper parameters selection of LSSVM. The mABC contributes in the exploitation process of the artificial bees and is based on Levy mutation. Realized in crude oil price forecasting, the performance of mABC-LSSVM is guided based on Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) and Root Mean Square Error (RMSPE) and compared against the standard ABC-LSSVM and LSSVM optimized by Genetic Algorithm. Empirical results suggested that the mABC-LSSVM is superior than the chosen benchmark algorithms.
Hardware and software design for a National Instrument-based magnetic induction tomography system for prospective biomedical applications

Magnetic induction tomography (MIT) is a new and emerging type of tomography technique that is able to map the passive electromagnetic properties (in particular conductivity) of an object. Excitation coils are used to induce eddy currents in the medium, and the magnetic field produced by the induced eddy current is then sensed by the receiver coils. Because of its non-invasive and contactless feature, it becomes an attractive technique for many applications (especially in biomedical area) compared to traditional contact electrode-based electrical impedance tomography. Due to the low contrast in conductivity between biological tissues, an accurate and stable hardware system is necessary. Most MIT systems in the literature employ external signal generators, power amplifiers and highly stable down-conversion electronics to obtain a satisfactory phase measurement. However, this would increase design complexity substantially. In this paper, a National Instrument-based MIT system is developed at the University of Bath, aiming for biomedical applications. The system utilizes National Instrument products to accomplish all signal driving, switching and data acquisition tasks, which ease the system design whilst providing satisfactory performance. This paper presents a full-scaled medical MIT system, from the sensor and system hardware design, eddy current model verification to the image reconstruction software: the performance of this MIT instrumentation system is characterized in detail, including the system accuracy and system stability. The methods of solving eddy current problem are presented. The reconstructed images of detecting the presence of saline solutions are also included in this paper, which show the capability of national instrument products to be developed into a full-scaled biomedical MIT system, by demonstrating the practical experimental results.
ADH4 gene variation is associated with alcohol and drug dependence: results from family controlled and population-structured association studies

We found strong associations between ADH4 gene variation and alcohol and drug dependence by the Hardy–Weinberg Disequilibrium (HWD) test and case–control association analysis in an initial study. The present study aimed to confirm these findings by controlling for population stratification and admixture effects to which the HWD test and case–control association methods may be vulnerable. In addition to 365 unrelated healthy controls and 560 unrelated cases in the initial study, we evaluated 104 small nuclear families with affected offspring who had diagnoses of alcohol and/or drug dependence. Seven single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) at the ADH4 gene locus were genotyped in all subjects, and 38 unlinked ancestry-informative markers were also genotyped in unrelated cases and controls. Structured association analysis demonstrated that the genotypes of six ADH4 markers were associated with alcohol dependence, and all seven ADH4 markers were associated with drug dependence (P=10−6–0.047). Logistic regression analysis showed that: (i) the genotypes of SNP2 (rs1042363) were significantly associated with alcohol dependence and drug dependence (mainly cocaine dependence), and the genotypes of SNP3 (rs1126671) were also significantly associated with alcohol dependence and (ii) one seven-variant haplotype and one diplotype were significantly associated with alcohol dependence and other seven-variant diplotypes were significantly associated with drug dependence (including cocaine and opioid dependence). Transmission disequilibrium test, haplotype-based haplotype relative risk and genotype-based haplotype relative risk analyses all confirmed the association of the ADH4 markers with alcohol dependence and drug dependence. Using rigorous study designs that account for possible population stratification, these findings confirm and extend our original observations indicating that variation at ADH4 predisposes to alcohol and drug dependence.
The [O iii] emission line luminosity function of optically selected type-2 AGN from zCOSMOS

Aims. We present a catalog of 213 type-2 AGN selected from the zCOSMOS survey. The selected sample covers a wide redshift range (0.15 \textless z \textless 0.92) and is deeper than any other previous study, encompassing the luminosity range 10(5.5) L-circle dot \textless L-[OIII] \textless 10(9.1) L-circle dot. We explore the intrinsic properties of these AGN and the relation to their X-ray emission (derived from the XMM-COSMOS observations). We study their evolution by computing the [OIII]lambda 5007 angstrom line luminosity function (LF) and we constrain the fraction of obscured AGN as a function of luminosity and redshift. Methods. The sample was selected on the basis of the optical emission line ratios, after applying a cut to the signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) of the relevant lines. We used the standard diagnostic diagrams ([O III]/H beta versus [N II]/H alpha and [OIII]/H beta versus [S II]/H alpha) to isolate AGN in the redshift range 0.15 \textless z \textless 0.45 and the diagnostic diagram [O III]/H beta versus [O II]/H beta to extend the selection to higher redshift (0.5 \textless z \textless 0.92). Results. Combining our sample with one drawn from SDSS, we found that the best description of the evolution of type-2 AGN is a luminosity-dependent density evolution model. Moreover, using the type-1 AGN LF we were able to constrain the fraction of type-2 AGN to the total (type-1 + type-2) AGN population. We found that the type-2 fraction decreases with luminosity, in agreement with the most recent results, and shows signs of a slight increase with redshift. However, the trend with luminosity is visible only after combining the SDSS+zCOSMOS samples. From the COSMOS data points alone, the type-2 fraction seems to be quite constant with luminosity.
COX-2 Expression Does Not Correlate with Microvessel Density in Breast Cancer

Background:Cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), implicated in carcinogenesis and tumour progression in many cancers including breast cancer, is hypothesised to cause progression by promoting angiogenesis. The exact mechanism of such action is not known and the clinical evidence of such interaction is weak. We studied COX-2 expression and microvessel density (MVD) in malignant breast tissues. Methods:COX-2 expression was analysed by immunohistochemistry in 89 breast cancer cases. MVD was assessed by CD31 immunohistochemistry using the Chalkey count method. COX-2 expression and MVD data were correlated with each other and with other prognostic factors. Results: COX-2 expression, observed in 70 (79%) cases, correlated positively with tumour type (p = 0.037) and tumour grade (p = 0.045), but negatively with oestrogen receptor (p = 0.013). It did not correlate with tumour size, axillary lymph node status, progesterone receptor and HER-2 status. MVD varied from 2.09 to 40.38, correlated positively with tumour grade (p = 0.050) and tumour size (p = 0.044), but negatively with progesterone receptor (p = 0.040). MVD did not correlate with tumour type, axillary lymph node status, oestrogen receptor and HER-2. There was no correlation between COX-2 expression and MVD (p = 0.702). Conclusions: COX-2 expression does not correlate with angiogenesis in breast cancer. Angiogenesis in breast cancer may be dependent on multiple genes, rather than on COX-2 alone.