Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease as a risk factor for stroke‐related seizures

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a risk factor for cardiovascular disorders and different types of stroke. The present retrospective study investigates whether COPD is also a risk factor for the development of seizures in stroke patients. The study population consisted of 237 patients with stroke‐related seizures. The control population was composed of 939 patients, admitted for a stroke between 2002 and 2004 and who did not develop epileptic spells on a follow up of 2 years. The stroke type and aetiology, and the vascular risk factors, including COPD, were compared. The seizure patients were older (P = 0.009) and had more arterial hypertension (P = 0.046) and cardiac‐embolic strokes (P = 0.045) than the control group. On logistic regression only partial anterior circulation syndrome/infarct (PACS/I) and COPD (P < 0.001) emerged as independent risk factors for the development of seizures in stroke patients. The occurrence of seizures was not related to the severity of the COPD or to its type of treatment. The present study confirms that seizures occur most frequently in patients with a PACS/I. Although we were unable to demonstrate why COPD is a risk factor for seizures in stroke patients, its frequent associated nocturnal oxygen desaturation seems to be the most plausible explanation. Further prospective are needed to assess the role of COPD as a possible independent risk factor for stroke‐related seizures.
Rumor Source Identification in Social Networks with Time-Varying Topology

Identifying rumor sources in social networks plays a critical role in limiting the damage caused by them through the timely quarantine of the sources. However, the temporal variation in the topology of social networks and the ongoing dynamic processes challenge our traditional source identification techniques that are considered in static networks. In this paper, we borrow an idea from criminology and propose a novel method to overcome the challenges. First, we reduce the time-varying networks to a series of static networks by introducing a time-integrating window. Second, instead of inspecting every individual in traditional techniques, we adopt a reverse dissemination strategy to specify a set of suspects of the real rumor source. This process addresses the scalability issue of source identification problems, and therefore dramatically promotes the efficiency of rumor source identification. Third, to determine the real source from the suspects, we employ a novel microscopic rumor spreading model to calculate the maximum likelihood (ML) for each suspect. The one who can provide the largest ML estimate is considered as the real source. The evaluations are carried out on real social networks with time-varying topology. The experiment results show that our method can reduce $60 - 90$ percent of the source seeking area in various time-varying social networks. The results further indicate that our method can accurately identify the real source, or an individual who is very close to the real source. To the best of our knowledge, the proposed method is the first that can be used to identify rumor sources in time-varying social networks.
Development of a Rapid Method for Simultaneous Recovery of Diverse Microbes in Drinking Water by Ultrafiltration with Sodium Polyphosphate and Surfactants

ABSTRACT The ability to simultaneously concentrate diverse microbes is an important consideration for sample collection methods that are used for emergency response and environmental monitoring when drinking water may be contaminated with an array of unknown microbes. This study focused on developing a concentration method using ultrafilters and different combinations of a chemical dispersant (sodium polyphosphate [NaPP]) and surfactants. Tap water samples were seeded with bacteriophage MS2, Escherichia coli, Enterococcus faecalis, Cryptosporidium parvum, 4.5-μm microspheres, Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium, Bacillus globigii endospores, and echovirus 1. Ten-liter tap water samples were concentrated to ∼250 ml in 12 to 42 min, depending on the experimental condition. Initial experiments indicated that pretreating filters with fetal bovine serum or NaPP resulted in an increase in microbe recovery. The addition of NaPP to the tap water samples resulted in significantly higher microbe and microsphere recovery efficiencies. Backflushing of the ultrafilter was found to significantly improve recovery efficiencies. The effectiveness of backflushing was improved further with the addition of Tween 80 to the backflush solution. The ultrafiltration method developed in this study, incorporating the use of NaPP pretreatment and surfactant solution backflushing, was found to recover MS2, C. parvum, microspheres, and several bacterial species with mean recovery efficiencies of 70 to 93%. The mean recovery efficiency for echovirus 1 (49%) was the lowest of the microbes studied for this method. This research demonstrates that ultrafiltration can be effective for recovering diverse microbes simultaneously in tap water and that chemical dispersants and surfactants can be beneficial for improving microbial recovery using this technique.
Targeting motifs in GLUT4

The trafficking of the insulin-sensitive glucose transporter, GLUT4, is the paradigm of how cells control the movement of membrane proteins through intricate pathways of transport in response to external stimuli, and how, by doing so, regulate their function. The GLUT4 intracellularly sequestered in resting adipocytes and muscle cells becomes exposed on their surface in response to an increase in insulin levels and muscle contraction, where it facilitates glucose uptake. Ceasing of the stimuli is followed by endocytosis of the GLUT4 molecules exposed on the plasma membrane and their recycling to the original stores, where they are retained. This review discusses current understanding of the organelles that host GLUT4 and the motifs that mediate its trafficking.
Dendritic BC200 RNA in aging and in Alzheimer's disease

Small untranslated BC1 and BC200 RNAs are translational regulators that are selectively targeted to somatodendritic domains of neurons. They are thought to operate as modulators of local protein synthesis in postsynaptic dendritic microdomains, in a capacity in which they would contribute to the maintenance of long-term synaptic plasticity. Because plasticity failure has been proposed to be a starting point for the neurodegenerative changes that are seen in Alzheimer's disease (AD), we asked whether somatodendritic levels of human BC200 RNA are deregulated in AD brains. We found that in normal aging, BC200 levels in cortical areas were reduced by >60% between the ages of 49 and 86. In contrast, BC200 RNA was significantly up-regulated in AD brains, in comparison with age-matched normal brains. This up-regulation in AD was specific to brain areas that are involved in the disease. Relative BC200 levels in those areas increased in parallel with the progression of AD, as reflected by Clinical Dementia Rating scores. In more advanced stages of the disease, BC200 RNA often assumed a clustered perikaryal localization, indicating that dendritic loss is accompanied by somatic overexpression. Mislocalization and overexpression of BC200 RNA may be reactive–compensatory to, or causative of, synaptodendritic deterioration in AD neurons.
Nurses' Physical Restraint Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices: The Effectiveness of an In-Service Education Program

Background: Physical restraints are commonly used to reduce treatment interference risk and protect patient safety. However, nurses still hold misconceptions about the use of physical restraints in acute care settings. Teaching nursing staff accurate knowledge and proper skills, cultivating positive attitudes, and rectifying irregularities in physical restraint use are all necessary to improve patient care. Purpose: The aim of this study was to examine the effectiveness of a short-term in-service education program in improving nurses' knowledge, attitudes, and self-reported practices related to physical restraint use. Methods: Convenience sampling was used in this quasi-experimental study at two different branches of one hospital in southern Taiwan. The two branches were randomly assigned as either the intervention or control group. Fifty-nine nurses at one branch were assigned to the intervention group, and 70 nurses in the other branch were assigned to the control group. The developed 90-minute in-service education program was given to nurses in the intervention group. The questionnaire included demographic data and three scales (Knowledge of Physical Restraint Use, Attitudes of Physical Restraint Use, and Practice of Physical Restraint Use). These scales were used to measure critical study variables prior to and 2 weeks after the intervention. Results: Results found a significant improvement in the intervention group in terms of knowledge (p = .000), attitudes (p = .007), and self-reported practices (p = .048) related to physical restraint use after program completion. However, there were no significant differences in participant attitudes toward the use of physical restraints between intervention and control groups after program completion. Conclusions and Implications for Practices: Physical restraint knowledge and skills improved after the 90-minute in-service education program. Findings highlight the need to provide a short-term in-service education program on physical restraint use in acute care settings.
Teachers' Expectancies: Determinants of Pupils' IQ Gains

Within each of 18 classrooms, an average of 20% of the children were reported to classroom teachers as showing unusual potential for intellectual gains. Eight months later these “unusual” children (who had actually been selected at random) showed significantly greater gains in IQ than did the remaining children in the control group. These effects of teachers' expectancies operated primarily among the younger children.
Stress and coping in caregivers of patients awaiting solid organ transplantation

Goetzinger AM, Blumenthal JA, O’Hayer CV, Babyak MA, Hoffman BM, Ong L, Duane Davis R, Smith SR, Rogers JG, Milano CA, Smith AD, Kuo PC, Palmer SM. Stress and coping in caregivers of patients awaiting solid organ transplantation. Clin Transplant 2012: 26: 97–104. © 2011 John Wiley & Sons A/S.
Chemostratigraphic Evidence of Deccan Volcanism from the Marine Osmium Isotope Record

Continental flood basalt (CFB) volcanism is hypothesized to have played a causative role in global climate change and mass extinctions. Uncertainties associated with radiometric dating preclude a clear chronological assessment of the environmental consequences of CFB volcanism. Our results document a 25% decline in the marine 187Os/188Os record that predates the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary (KTB) and coincides with late Maastrichtian warming. We argue that this decline provides a chemostratigraphic marker of Deccan volcanism and thus constitutes compelling evidence that the main environmental consequence of Deccan volcanism was a transient global warming event of 3° to 5°C that is fully resolved from the KTB mass extinction.
RNA editing of hepatitis B virus transcripts by activation-induced cytidine deaminase

Activation-induced cytidine deaminase (AID) is essential for the somatic hypermutation (SHM) and class-switch recombination (CSR) of Ig genes. The mechanism by which AID triggers SHM and CSR has been explained by two distinct models. In the DNA deamination model, AID converts cytidine bases in DNA into uridine. The uridine is recognized by the DNA repair system, which produces DNA strand breakages and point mutations. In the alternative model, RNA edited by AID is responsible for triggering CSR and SHM. However, RNA deamination by AID has not been demonstrated. Here we found that C-to-T and G-to-A mutations accumulated in hepatitis B virus (HBV) nucleocapsid DNA when AID was expressed in HBV-replicating hepatic cell lines. AID expression caused C-to-T mutations in the nucleocapsid DNA of RNase H-defective HBV, which does not produce plus-strand viral DNA. Furthermore, the RT-PCR products of nucleocapsid viral RNA from AID-expressing cells exhibited significant C-to-T mutations, whereas viral RNAs outside the nucleocapsid did not accumulate C-to-U mutations. Moreover, AID was packaged within the nucleocapsid by forming a ribonucleoprotein complex with HBV RNA and the HBV polymerase protein. The encapsidation of the AID protein with viral RNA and DNA provides an efficient environment for evaluating AID’s RNA and DNA deamination activities. A bona fide RNA-editing enzyme, apolipoprotein B mRNA editing catalytic polypeptide 1, induced a similar level of C-to-U mutations in nucleocapsid RNA as AID. Taken together, the results indicate that AID can deaminate the nucleocapsid RNA of HBV.
Maximizing Academic Success for Foster Care Students: A Trauma-Informed Approach.

Foster children are an invisible population. Moved from one foster care placement to another, they are shuffled through life. Their complex needs due to abuse and neglect compound the challenges they will encounter as they work through their P–12 education. While Zetlin (2006) and Zetlin, MacLeod, & Kimm (2013) have identified children in foster care as one of the most academically vulnerable groups of learners in schools today, Wolanin (2005) has noted that people outside of the child welfare system know very little about the foster care system. This lack of information creates an unfortunate disadvantage for the student, teacher, and administrator, creating a significant disconnect. In addition to academic struggles, foster youth face a bleak future in many areas of their lives. Pecora et al. (2005) reported that 56.3% of foster youth alumni earned a high school diploma, 22.2% experienced homelessness, 16.8% received Temporary Aid to Needy Families or General Assistance, 33.2% live at or below the poverty line, 54.4% report mental health concerns, 25.2% are diagnosed with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, and 62% report having less than $250 in total financial assets.
NEUROENDOCRINE AND BEHAVIORAL RESPONSE PATTERNS TO PSYCHOLOGIC STRESS AND THE PROBLEM OF THE TARGET TISSUE IN CEREBROVISCERAL PATHOLOGY *

Psychologic stress has been implicated as a contributing factor to carcinogenesis by numerous clinical observations. During the past two decades a number of careful clinical investigations appeared to furnish support for these implications (Bacon et al., 1952; Blumberg et al., 1954; Miller and Jones, 1948). Substantial clinical evidence was presented by Kissen and a number of other competent investigators in a volume edited by Kissen and Leshan (1964). In the same volume, Bahnson and Bahnson suggested a theoretical model of somatic and psychologic regression in relation to cancer. Experimental work on animals yielded contradictory results. Voskresenskaia (1948) and Petrova (1955) reported that the cutaneous application of coal tar to dogs with chronic experimental neuroses led to the development of malignant tumors, whereas coal tar applications to control dogs failed to produce such tumors. Similar results were obtained in mice by Petrova (1955), Khaletskaia (1954) and by Raushenbakh et al. ( 1952). Petrova reported that neurotic dogs also frequently exhibited spontaneous malignant tumors. Kavetskii ( 1958), in summarizing the extensive work conduclted in his laboratory as well as in other laboratories in the U.S.S.R. , concluded that disturbances in higher nervous functions generally facilitated the development of malignant neoplasms. Andervont (1944) reported that female strain C3H mice kept in separate cages developed mammary tumors earlier than did their litter mates kept eight to a cage. Muhlbuck ( 195 1 ) observed that the incidence of mammary tumors in Dilute-Brown Strain (Little) mice was highest ,in the females that were reared in individual cages. In this connection it is of interest to mention the report of a well-controlled experiment by Louis N. Katz (1964) to the effect that chickens kept in isolation (at the age of about eight weeks) developed more atherosclerosis than the control chickens kept in groups. Moreover, the isolated chickens were in poor physical condiltion and many of them died, suggesting a general biologic deterioration induced by isolation. On the other hand, Rashkis (1952) using forced swimming as a stressor in Swiss albino mice, reported that this stress increased survival time of the mice inoculated with ascites tumors or treated with methylcholanthrene. Similarly, Marsh et af . (1959) reported that stress in mice induced by avoidance shuttlebox experiments or by confinement within a screen envelope led to a decrease in the size of the tumors induced by subcutaneous Ehrlich tumor transplants. This discrepancy is most likely due t o the fact that Rashkis and Marsh, in contradistinotion to the other investigators, used stress involving muscular expression and, moreover, applied the stress for a relatively short period of time. It should be remembered that in the experiments of Marsh confinement within a screen envelope involved some struggling on the part of the mice. 6t appears that it is
Cytokine Production by Naive and Primary Effector CD4+ T Cells Exposed to Norepinephrine

We recently showed that clones of Th1 cells, but not Th2 cells, expressed a functional beta-2-adrenergic receptor (beta2AR) and that either norepinephrine or the beta2AR agonist terbutaline stimulated this receptor to modulate the level of Th1 cytokines produced. In the present study, we show that norepinephrine and terbutaline stimulate the beta2AR to decrease the level of IL-2 produced by freshly isolated murine splenic naive CD4+ T cells from either Balb/C or DO11.10 transgenic mice and activated polyclonally with anti-CD3 and anti-CD28 mAbs. In contrast, the level of cytokines produced by primary effector Th1 and Th2 cells were unaffected when norepinephrine, terbutaline, or cAMP analogs were added at the time of restimulation. These results suggest that a diversity exists among CD4+ T-cell subsets with respect to the level of adrenergic receptor expression, responsiveness to cAMP, stage of cell differentiation, or a combination of the above.
Further study on anion permeability of inhibitory post‐synaptic membrane of cat motoneurones

Coombs, Eccles & Fatt (1955) found that, when activated by the transmitter, the inhibitory post-synaptic membrane of cat motoneurones developed a high permeability to chloride and to three other species of anions, but remained impermeable to five other species of anion. Since all ions in this latter category had a larger size in the hydrated state, it was suggested that the activated inhibitory membrane had a sieve-like structure with a critical pore size. This postulate was tested by Araki, Ito & Oscarsson (1961 a, b) for eighteen additional species of anion, seven penetrating and eleven non-penetrating, and, with the exception of the permeability to the formate ions, all results were explicable by the postulate of a critical pore size. In the present investigation the permeability of the activated inhibitory membrane was tested for ten additional species of anion: hydrosulphide, cyanate, hexafluorophosphate (PF6), chromate, monocbloroacetate (CH2C1CO2), iodate, monobromoacetate (CH2BrCO2), benzoate, hypophosphite, lactate.
A life-course approach to assess the relationship between social and psychological circumstances and gingival status in adolescents.

BACKGROUND Several models have been proposed to explain the causes of periodontal diseases. None have adopted the life-course approach. OBJECTIVE To investigate the relationship between social, psychosocial and biological conditions experienced in early life and through the life course and gingival bleeding on probing. METHODS A two-phase study was carried out in Brazil. In Phase I, 652 13-year-olds were clinically examined and interviewed. In Phase II, 311 families were randomly selected for an interview to collect information on the teenager's state at birth and selected impacts in their early years of life. Clinical examination included assessment of dental caries, periodontal and dental trauma status. The data analysis used logistic regression and the models were determined using stepwise procedure. FINDINGS Adolescents who were born in a non-brick house, who were living in an overcrowded house at 13 years of age, those whose mother had less than 8 years of education, who were at a lower school grade for their age, those who reported high levels of paternal punishment and those who were from reconstituted families were significantly more likely to experience high levels of bleeding gums after probing. CONCLUSION Early life and life-course experiences were important determinants of the level of gingival bleeding after probing in adolescents.
Imatinib as the first‐line treatment of patients with chronic myeloid leukemia diagnosed in the chronic phase: Can we compare real life data to the results from clinical trials?

Imatinib (IM) dramatically improved the prognosis of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), particularly with newly diagnosed patients in a chronic phase (CP) [1]. The most robust source of data about IM efficacy in this setting is the IRIS trial. However, every day clinical practice data are still scarce. We analyzed IM efficacy and safety in the first-line therapy of 152 consecutive adult CP-CML patients from a defined region. The estimated 4-year cumulative incidences of complete hematologic, complete cytogenetic, major, and complete molecular responses were 95.3%, 80.6%, 65.4%, and 39.2%, respectively. The 4-year probability of overall and progression-free survival (PFS) defined as with the IRIS [2] was 91.5% and 78.1%, respectively. We thus confirmed very good IM efficacy also in patients not participating in clinical trials. However, the estimated 4-year event-free survival (EFS), which also counted failure events according to valid recommendations [3] or IM discontinuation due to intolerance, was only 60.7%. The 4-year probability of an alternative treatment-free survival, our newly defined parameter, which better reflects the proportion of patients remaining on IM despite an event, was 67.6%. Therefore, more appropriate selection and unification of survival analyses end-points is desirable to describe and compare IM real efficacy.