Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Androgen‐independent Effects of Serenoa repens Extract (Prostasan®) on Prostatic Epithelial Cell Proliferation and Inflammation

Extracts from Serenoa repens are widely used for the treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) and traditionally for prostatitis. In the present study we evaluated the biological effects of Serenoa repens extract (Prostasan®) on prostate cells beyond its known antiandrogenic actions. Prostasan® inhibited epidermal growth factor (EGF) and lipopolysaccharide (LPS) induced proliferation of the prostatic epithelial, androgen independent cell line PC‐3. At effective concentrations of 50 µg/mL, Prostasan® partly displaced EGF from EGF receptor (EGFR) but fully blocked EGF‐induced cell proliferation of PC‐3 cells. Similarly, Prostasan® inhibited LPS‐induced proliferation of PC‐3 cells without affecting LPS activation of the NFĸB pathway via toll‐like receptor‐4 (TLR‐4). Additionally, Prostasan® reduced the constitutive secretion of monocyte chemotactic protein‐1 (MCP‐1), the LPS‐induced secretion of IL‐12 and inhibited MCP‐1 and granulocyte‐macrophage colony‐stimulating factor (GM‐CSF) production in the presence of LPS on PC‐3 cells. Taken together, our results suggest that S. repens extracts, in addition to other reported effects on BPH development and prostatitis, inhibits EGF‐dependent growth and proinflammatory responses of the prostate epithelial cells. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Antimicrobial Potential of Australian Macrofungi Extracts Against Foodborne and Other Pathogens

Basidiomycetous macrofungi have therapeutic potential due to antimicrobial activity but little information is available for Australian macrofungi. Therefore, the present study investigated 12 Australian basidiomycetous macrofungi, previously shown to have promising activity against Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli, for their antimicrobial potential against a range of other clinically relevant micro‐organisms. Fruiting bodies were collected from across Queensland, Australia, freeze‐dried and sequentially extracted with water and ethanol. The crude extracts were tested at 10 mg/mL and 1 mg/mL against six pathogens including two Gram‐positive and two Gram‐negative bacteria along with two fungi using a high throughput 96‐well microplate bioassay. A degree of specificity in activity was exhibited by the water extract of Ramaria sp. (Gomphaceae) and the ethanol extracts of Psathyrella sp. (Psathyrellaceae) and Hohenbuehelia sp. , which inhibited the growth of the two fungal pathogens used in the assay. Similarly, the ethanol extract of Fomitopsis lilacinogilva (Fomitopsidaceae) was active against the Gram‐positive bacteria B. cereus only. Activity against a wider range of the microorganisms used in the assay was exhibited by the ethanol extract of Ramaria sp. and the water extract of Hohenbuehelia sp. (Pleurotaceae). These macrofungi can serve as new sources for the discovery and development of much needed new antimicrobials. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
PATHOLOGIC FEATURES OF HERPES ZOSTER: A NOTE ON GENICULATE HERPES

Herpes zoster, or zona, is a common nervous disease known since ancient times but still possessing many enigmatic features. From the contributions of von Barensprung,1Head and Campbell,2Lhermitte and Nicolas3and many others the broad outlines of this condition may be sketched. The present day conception of herpes zoster embraces the following assumptions and facts: The disease is probably due to a filtrable virus, similar to, if not identical with, that of varicella, which provokes an acute inflammatory reaction in isolated spinal or cranial sensory ganglia, the posterior gray matter of the spinal cord and the adjacent leptomeninges. The clinical manifestations are a vesicular cutaneous eruption, radicular neuralgia and, less often, segmental palsies and sensory loss. The association of the cutaneous eruption with a disease of the peripheral nerves was brilliantly deduced from clinical data by von Barensprung1ain 1861, and in 1862 he described
Life styles and nutritional status of children from different ecological areas of El Salvador.

Life styles and the nutritional status of children were studied in a coffee, a cotton (intensive) and a basic grain (subsistence) growing region of El Salvador, as well as in populations living in the slums of the capital city, San Salvador. The objectives of the paper were to identify ecological regions with greater magnitude of growth retardation and to describe living patterns that require different social and economic actions in order to reduce the number of people living in deprived conditions in the country. The data includes information on quantitative characteristics of the population and their environment, summaries of anthropological reports describing life styles and infants’ and children's diets from representative communities of each region, and weight and height of children from 6 to 59 months of age. A higher proportion of children suffering from weight‐for‐age, and height‐for‐age retardation was observed in the coffee and subsistence regions compared with the intensive and urban slums. The.
Robust color texture features based on ranklets and discrete Fourier transform

We present a set of multiscale, multidirectional, rotation-invariant features for color texture characterization. The proposed model is based on the ranklet transform, a technique relying on the calculation of the relative rank of the intensity level of neighboring pixels. Color and texture are merged into a compact descriptor by computing the ranklet transform of each color channel separately and of couples of color channels jointly. Robustness against rotation is based on the use of circularly symmetric neighborhoods together with the discrete Fourier transform. Experimental results demonstrate that the approach shows good robustness and accuracy.
Mental Health Services in Childhood: The Role of Family Adversity

Objective: Much of the research on the effects of childhood adversity on mental health has focused on adults. The objective of our study was to examine the individual and cumulative effect of childhood adversity on mental health service use among children. Methods: We used data from the 2011-2012 National Survey of Children’s Health (n = 79 834) to determine the use of mental health services in the past 12 months among children aged 2-17. The independent variables of interest were experiencing any 1 of 9 adverse family experiences (AFEs). We used logistic regression models to determine if each AFE was associated with mental health service use. We also examined AFEs as a continuous measure, representing the number of AFEs (ranging from 0 to 9) that summed them individually, and we examined age-by-AFE and age-by-need interaction terms. We adjusted all models for confounders. Results: Compared with not experiencing an AFE, experiencing all AFEs was associated with higher odds of mental health service use. Neighborhood violence was associated with the greatest increase in odds of mental health service use (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] = 2.35; 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.00-2.77). When measured as a continuous scale, each additional AFE was associated with higher odds of mental health service use (aOR = 1.33; 95% CI, 1.28-1.37). The effect of AFEs on mental health service use decreased with age. Conclusions: The observed association between AFEs and use of mental health services may be attributable to more severe or poorly managed mental illness among these children. Efforts are needed to increase access to and quality of mental health care among children affected by AFEs.
A Study of the Epidemiology of Chronic Epilepsy in Northern Israel

Case histories of 735 patients suffering from chronic epilepsy were examined. These patients are in continual treatment in a neurological clinic of the Workers Sick Fund of the Histadrut, whose area of responsibility contains 316,017 insured members. We attempted to determine the incidence of epilepsy in these patients according to age and sex of the patients, region of origin, and possible etiological factors amongst the different groups of origin. The great majority of these patients is of European‐American origin (322), the smallest number is of Afro‐Asian origin (149).
Progress in the use of aerially applied Fastac® (alpha-cypermethrin) for the control of the sugarcane borer Eldana saccharina (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae.), and an assessment of its commercial impact.

Four field-scale aerial application trials for E. saccharina control were conducted with Fastac applied six times (once every two weeks) and eight times (once every three weeks) to carryover crops from September to December. The insecticide was applied at a rate of 200 ml product/ha by means of a microlight aircraft fitted with CDA spray heads Results showed that damage was significantly lower in the treated than the untreated cane, estimates being 73% and 67% of control estimate (six applications and eight applications respectively) in the final survey. Similarly, E. saccharina numbers were significantly lower in the treated cane, estimates being 79% and 76% of the control estimate (six applications and eight applications respectively), based on transformed data. Estimates of ERC% at harvest showed that this was significantly higher in treated cane in two of the four trials conducted, but there were no differences in ERC% estimates between the two insecticide treatments. In the region of the industry where the trials were conducted, this approach to E. saccharina control is being used commercially. Evidence is presented which shows that this approach has had an impact on E. saccharina levels in commercial carry-over crops, so improving farm economics. It is concluded that aerial application of Fastac can suppress E. saccharina infestations and the commercial use of this approach shows promise.
Cranberry Juice Extract, A Mild Prooxidant with Cytotoxic Properties Independent of Reactive Oxygen Species

A cranberry juice extract (CJE), rich in proanthocyanidins, had weak prooxidant properties, generating low levels of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and superoxide. Generation of H2O2 was pH dependent, increasing at alkaline pH, and was lowered in the presence of catalase and, to a lesser extent, of superoxide dismutase (SOD). Growth inhibition and cytotoxicity were noted towards human oral carcinoma HSC‐2 cells, with midpoint cytotoxicity at 200 µg/mL CJE, but not towards human gingival HF‐1 fibroblasts. Being a mild prooxidant, CJE toxicity was unaffected by exogenous catalase and pyruvate, scavengers of H2O2, but triggered intracellular synthesis of reduced glutathione, as confirmed by cell staining with Cell Tracker™ Green. The presence of exogenous SOD potentiated the toxicity of CJE, possibly by stabilizing the CJE phenols and hindering their degradative autooxidation. Conversely, ‘spent’ CJE, i.e. CJE added to cell culture medium and incubated for 24 h at 37 °C prior to use, was much less toxic to HSC‐2 cells than was freshly prepared CJE. These differences in toxicity between SOD‐stabilized CJE, freshly prepared CJE, and ‘spent’ CJE were confirmed in HSC‐2 cells stained with aceto‐orcein, which also indicated that the mode of cell death was by the induction of apoptosis. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Latero‐Oblique Radiography as a Diagnostic Tool for Equine Cervical Osteoarthritis

Reasons for performing study Equine cervical osteoarthritis is a common disease known to contribute to both neck pain and cervical vertebral compressive myelopathy. There are no published studies demonstrating the usefulness of latero-oblique radiography as a diagnostic tool for cervical osteoarthritis. Objectives To determine the sensitivity, specificity and positive and negative predictive values of latero-oblique radiography as a diagnostic tool for cervical articular process joint osteoarthritis. Study design Prospective cadaver study. Methods Latero-oblique radiographs and CT images were collected, and post mortem examinations performed, on 27 cadaver necks from Thoroughbred-type horses of various ages and sexes. Two equine clinicians independently reviewed each set of images for the presence of osteoarthritis. The authors, under the guidance of a veterinary pathologist, reviewed all articular process joints for bony changes indicative of osteoarthritis. Results The prevalence of osteoarthritis identified on CT images was 57.9% (Assessor A) and 23% (Assessor B). The prevalence of lesions identified on post mortem examination was 25.6%. Latero-oblique radiography showed a low sensitivity for identifying osteoarthritis when compared to both CT imaging (6.3–16.1%) and post mortem examination (2.2–4.4%). However, it showed a high specificity when compared to both CT imaging (92.1–97.8%) and post mortem examination (87.2–95.0%). The positive predictive value for identifying osteoarthritis was moderate (40.9–80.0%) when compared to CT imaging and poor (4.2–18.2%) when compared to post mortem examination. The negative predictive value was moderate when compared to both CT imaging (42.9–76.3%) and post mortem examination (78.0–79.8%). Conclusions Latero-oblique radiography has low sensitivity, but high specificity for the detection of cervical osteoarthritis when compared to both CT imaging and post mortem examination. Further investigation comparing the sensitivity, specificity and positive and negative predictive values of latero-oblique radiography vs. laterolateral radiography would determine whether taking latero-oblique radiographs, which can be more difficult to obtain and interpret, is necessary for the diagnosis of cervical osteoarthritis in practice. Ethical animal research: Ethical committee oversight not currently required by this congress: The study was performed on material obtained from an abattoir. Sources of funding: None. Competing interests: None.
Malnutrition and Associated Factors among Adult Individuals Receiving Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy in Health Facilities of Hosanna Town, Southern Ethiopia

Background: In resource limited settings, many human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infected individuals lack access to sufficient quantities of nutritious foods, which poses additional challenges to the success of anti-retroviral therapy. Morbidity and mortality related to human immune deficiency virus infection in the developing world remain unacceptably high, despite major advances in human immune deficiency virus therapy and increased international funding for care. Objective: To determine magnitude of malnutrition and identify factors associated with it among adult people on highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART) in health facility of Hosanna town. Methods: Institutional based cross-sectional survey was conducted from March 20 to April30, 2014 on 340 adult people on anti-retroviral therapy at antiretroviral therapy clinics of Hosanna town. Sample clients were selected by simple random sampling technique. Data were collected by face-to-face interview using structured pretested questionnaire, record review using check list and anthropometric measurements. Bi-variate analysis and multivariable logistic regression models were done using SPSS version 16 to identify factors associated with malnutrition. Results: Overall, the prevalence of malnutrition (Body Mass Index (BMI) < 18.5 kg/m2) in this study was 31.2%. Household food insecurity (AOR = 2.51, 95% CI: 1.31 - 4.81), inadequate diversified diet (AOR = 0.44, 95% CI: 0.23 - 0.84), low meal frequency (AOR = 0.29, 95% CI: 0.11 - 0.76), clinical staging four (AOR = 5.23, 95% CI: 1.42 - 19.35), clinical staging three (AOR = 3.91, 95% CI: 1.57, 9.73), presence of opportunistic infections (AOR = 2.62, 95% CI: 1.49 - 4.59) and nutritional support (AOR = 0.45, 95% CI: 0.23 - 0.89) were independent predictors of malnutrition. Conclusion: Malnutrition (BMI < 18.5 kg/m2) was high in adult people on anti-retroviral therapy at anti-retroviral therapy clinics of Hossana town. Only Anti-Retroviral Therapy is not enough to improve the health status of people on HAART. Further, interventional initiatives should focus in improving household food security, diversity of diet, meal frequency, clinical staging and prevention and control of opportunistic infections in adult HIV infected individuals receiving highly active anti-retroviral therapy.
Mental Health Promotion in a Rural Context: Research and Realities from a Community-based Initiative in Northern Ireland

This paper describes the development of mental health promotion strategies for rural communities in Northern Ireland. The initial phase of a community‐based project targeting depression and suicide is examined. The paper brings together practitioner and research perspectives on an analysis of the factors that made this initiative possible and facilitated its development to date. The paper is written in two sections. Section one describes the process and practical experience of planning and implementing the initial phase of the project. Section two reports on the community needs assessment study. The research approach adopted is outlined and the implications of the findings are discussed.
3D Face Reconstruction by Learning from Synthetic Data

Fast and robust three-dimensional reconstruction of facial geometric structure from a single image is a challenging task with numerous applications. Here, we introduce a learning-based approach for reconstructing a three-dimensional face from a single image. Recent face recovery methods rely on accurate localization of key characteristic points. In contrast, the proposed approach is based on a Convolutional-Neural-Network (CNN) which extracts the face geometry directly from its image. Although such deep architectures outperform other models in complex computer vision problems, training them properly requires a large dataset of annotated examples. In the case of three-dimensional faces, currently, there are no large volume data sets, while acquiring such big-data is a tedious task. As an alternative, we propose to generate random, yet nearly photo-realistic, facial images for which the geometric form is known. The suggested model successfully recovers facial shapes from real images, even for faces with extreme expressions and under various lighting conditions.
Regularized 3D Modeling from Noisy Building Reconstructions

In this paper, we present a method for regularizing noisy 3D reconstructions, which is especially well suited for scenes containing planar structures like buildings. At horizontal structures, the input model is divided into slices and for each slice, an inside/outside labeling is computed. With the outlines of each slice labeling, we create an irregularly shaped volumetric cell decomposition of the whole scene. Then, an optimized inside/outside labeling of these cells is computed by solving an energy minimization problem. For the cell labeling optimization we introduce a novel smoothness term, where lines in the images are used to improve the regularization result. We show that our approach can take arbitrary dense meshed point clouds as input and delivers well regularized building models, which can be textured afterwards.
Sparsity Invariant CNNs

In this paper, we consider convolutional neural networks operating on sparse inputs with an application to depth upsampling from sparse laser scan data. First, we show that traditional convolutional networks perform poorly when applied to sparse data even when the location of missing data is provided to the network. To overcome this problem, we propose a simple yet effective sparse convolution layer which explicitly considers the location of missing data during the convolution operation. We demonstrate the benefits of the proposed network architecture in synthetic and real experiments with respect to various baseline approaches. Compared to dense baselines, the proposed sparse convolution network generalizes well to novel datasets and is invariant to the level of sparsity in the data. For our evaluation, we derive a novel dataset from the KITTI benchmark, comprising 93k depth annotated RGB images. Our dataset allows for training and evaluating depth upsampling and depth prediction techniques in challenging real-world settings and will be made available upon publication.
Therapeutic Failure: Exploring Uncharted Territory in Family Nursing

The need to examine the effectiveness of nursing interventions with families is a persuasive and persistent call for action in our oral and written conversations these days. Within the domain of clinical practice, I believe the nurse frequently has a sense of his or her own effectiveness with a family. Through internal dialogue, the questions are framed as: “Am I being helpful? ” “Does this family seem to be responding to my ideas and suggestions? ” The nurse’s judgement about clinical effectiveness may be corroborated with family members, by others’ observations, or through sophisticated clinical trials. However, at the heart of the interaction between a nurse and a family, each, I suspect, leaves with at least some beginning answers to the effectiveness question. In an attempt to understand expert practice, my colleagues and I recently engaged in research using hermeneutic inquiry that examined therapeutic change with clinical families who showed exemplary change—families who showed dramatic physical, cognitive, behavioral, and/or affective change during our clinical work with them. An analysis of videotaped clinical conversations between the nurse, clinical team, and family offered us an opportunity to focus not so much on the outcome of the interventions that were offered but to describe what happened inside the intervention. A description of practice emerged from this research which focused on beliefs about families, illness, change, and the role of the clinician (see Wright, Watson, & Bell, 1996). Specific clinical macromoves or interventions that seemed pivotal to the change process were identified. The experience of examining therapeutic change was exhilarating. As we reviewed the videotaped conversations between the clinician, clinical team, and the family, new understanding about expert prac-
IL‐6 and IL‐1β in Fever: Studies Using Cytokine‐Deficient (Knockout) Mice a

ABSTRACT: Previous data support the hypothesis that during inflammation, interleukin (IL)‐1β and IL‐6 are involved in fever, in activation of the hypothalamic‐pituitary‐adrenal (HPA) axis, and in the induction of eicosanoids. Most of the pathophysiologic effects of IL‐1β and IL‐6 are mediated by prostaglandins (PGs), modulated by other cytokines, and antagonized by glucocorticoids (GC), a final product of the HPA axis. To further test these relationships, we measured changes in body temperature using biotelemetry in mice deficient in genes for IL‐1β and/or IL‐6 (IL‐1β knockout [KO] and IL‐6 KO) following injection with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) to induce systemic inflammation or turpentine to induce local abscess. Circulating IL‐6, tumor necrosis factor a (TNF‐α), GC, and PGE2 were measured in these mice after treatment. IL‐1β KO mice responded with reduced fever and IL‐6 KO mice with normal fever to a high dose of LPS. In contrast, neither type of KO mice produced fever to turpentine. PGE2 levels (measured in the circulation) were suppressed in both types of KO mice injected with turpentine. IL‐1β KO mice showed deficiency in IL‐6 following turpentine, but not LPS, injection. LPS‐induced increases in TNF‐α did not differ between IL‐1β KO mice and their wild‐type counterparts, whereas IL‐6 KO mice showed exacerbated LPS‐induced circulating TNF‐α. No differences were noted in plasma elevations of GC between KO and wild‐type mice following injection of LPS or turpentine, indicating that IL‐1β and IL‐6 are not required for activation of the HPA axis during inflammation. Our data demonstrate that in the mouse, IL‐1β and IL‐6 are critical for the induction of fever during local inflammation, whereas in systemic inflammation they appear only to contribute to fever.