Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
REDISTRIBUTION OF MIXED LYMPHOCYTE CULTUREREACTIVE CELLS AFTER ANTIGEN ADMINISTRATION

SUMMARY Mixed lymphocyte culture (MLC) reactivity of blood and splenic lymphocytes has been followed in rats after i.v. administration of semiallogeneic lymphoid cells. One day after injection of antigen there is a marked decrease in blood MLC reactivity, with a concomitant increase in MLC reactivity of spleen cells. By 2 weeks after injection, MLC reactivity of both blood and splenic lymphocytes has returned to normal levels. The specific depression of blood lymphocyte MLC reactivity observed in the 1st week after antigen injection can be abolished by prior administration of antibody directed against the injected lymphoid cells. These results are interpreted as reflecting an antigen-mediated sequestration of MLC-reactive cells from the circulating pool in the spleen. This shift can be prevented by giving antibody together with the antigen.
[Psychiatric and neuropsychological characterization of a group of adults referred to a university outpatient clinic for ADHD].

BACKGROUND Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has always been classified as a psychiatric disorder of childhood. Very little research has been done into the nature of adult ADHD. AIM To obtain insight into the clinical profile of a group of adults referred to an outpatient clinic for diagnostic assessment of ADHD. METHOD A group of 225 adults diagnosed with ADHD were studied and compared with 101 adults who had been referred to the same outpatient clinic but had been given a different diagnosis. All referred patients were diagnosed according to dsm-iv criteria for ADHD and underwent neuropsychological tests. RESULTS The diagnosis of ADHD was confirmed in 69% of the patients. In the ADHD group 72% were male and the average age was 32. Half of these patients had a co-morbid disorder. The 2 groups did not differ in psychopathology but the ADHD group used nicotine and alcohol more frequently. Neuropsychological tests revealed more signs of subjective distractibility in the non-ADHD group, whereas in the objective tests it was the ADHD group who gave a poorer performance. CONCLUSION This study describes the clinical profile of a group of adults referred to an outpatient clinic for ADHD. The ADHD group differed from the non-ADHD group in a number of demographical, psychiatric and neuropsychological parameters.
Synchrotron nanoscopy imaging study of scalp hair in breast cancer patients and healthy individuals: Difference in medulla loss and cortical membrane enhancements

Nanoscopic synchrotron X‐ray imaging was performed on scalp hair samples of patients with breast cancer and healthy individuals to investigate any structural differences as diagnostic tool. Hair strands were divided into 2‐3 segments along the strands from root to tip, followed by imaging either in projection or in CT scanning with a monochromatic 6.78‐keV X‐ray using zone‐plate optics with a resolving power of 60 nm. All the examined cancer hairs exhibited medulla loss with cancer stage‐dependent pattern; complete loss, discontinuous or trace along the strands. In contrast, medullas were well retained without complete loss in the healthy hair. In the CT‐scanned axial images, the cortical spindle compartments had no contrast in the healthy hair, but appeared hypointense in contrast to the surrounding hyperintense cortical membrane complex in the cancer hair. In conclusion, observation of medulla loss and cortical membrane enhancements in the hair strands of breast cancer patients demonstrated structural variations in the cancer hair, providing a new platform for further synchrotron X‐ray imaging study of screening breast cancer patients. Microsc. Res. Tech. 79:23–30, 2016. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Interleukin-13 Protects Mouse Intestine From Ischemia and Reperfusion Injury Through Regulation of Innate and Adaptive Immunity

Background. Ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury is a major factor leading to intestinal dysfunction or graft loss after intestinal surgery or transplantation. This study investigated the cytoprotective effects and putative mechanisms of interleukin (IL)-13 after intestinal I/R injury in the mouse. Methods. Mouse warm intestinal I/R injury induced by clamping the superior mesenteric artery for 100 min with tissue analysis at 4 and 24 hr after reperfusion. Treated animals received intravenous recombinant murine IL-13 (rIL-13) and anti-IL-13 antibody, whereas controls received saline. Results. rIL-13 administration markedly prolonged animal survival (100% vs. 50% in saline controls) and resulted in near normal histopathological architecture. rIL-13 treatment also significantly decreased myeloperoxidase activity. Mice conditioned with rIL-13 had a markedly depressed Toll-like receptor-4 expression and increased the expression of Stat6, antioxidant hemeoxygenase-1, and antiapoptotic A20, Bcl-2/Bcl-xl, compared with that of controls. Unlike in controls, the expression of mRNA coding for IL-2/interferon-&ggr;, and interferon-&ggr;-inducible protein (IP)-10/monocyte chemotactic protein-1 remained depressed, whereas that of IL-13/IL-4 reciprocally increased in the mice treated with rIL-13. Administration of anti-IL13 antibody alone or in combination with rIL-13 resulted in outcomes similar to that seen in controls. Conclusions. This study demonstrates for the first time that IL-13 plays a protective role in intestinal warm I/R injury and a critical role in the regulation of Stat6 and Toll-like receptor-4 signaling. The administration of IL-13 exerts cytoprotective effects in this model by regulating innate and adaptive immunity while the removal of IL-13 using antibody therapy abrogates this effect.
Multilingual Recurrent Neural Networks with Residual Learning for Low-Resource Speech Recognition

The shared-hidden-layer multilingual deep neural network (SHL-MDNN), in which the hidden layers of feed-forward deep neural network (DNN) are shared across multiple languages while the softmax layers are language dependent, has been shown to be effective on acoustic modeling of multilingual low-resource speech recognition. In this paper, we propose that the shared-hidden-layer with Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) recurrent neural networks can achieve further performance improvement considering LSTM has outperformed DNN as the acoustic model of automatic speech recognition (ASR). Moreover, we reveal that shared-hidden-layer multilingual LSTM (SHL-MLSTM) with residual learning can yield additional moderate but consistent gain from multilingual tasks given the fact that residual learning can allievate the degradation problem of deep LSTMs. Experimental results demonstrate that SHL-MLSTM can relatively reduce word error rate (WER) by 2.1-6.8\% over SHL-MDNN trained using six languages and 2.6-7.3\% over monolingual LSTM trained using the language specific data on CALLHOME datasets. Additional WER reduction, about relatively 2\% over SHL-MLSTM, can be obtained through residual learning on CALLHOME datasets, which demonstrates residual learning is useful for SHL-MLSTM on multilingual low-resource ASR.
Fusion of 4D echocardiography and cine cardiac magnetic resonance volumes using a salient spatio-temporal analysis

An accurate left (LV) and right ventricular (RV) function quantification is important to support evaluation, diagnosis and prognosis of cardiac pathologies such as the cardiomyopathies. Currently, diagnosis by ultrasound is the most cost-effective examination. However, this modality is highly noisy and operator dependent, hence prone to errors. Therefore, fusion with other cardiac modalities may provide complementary information and improve the analysis of the specific pathologies like cardiomyopathies. This paper proposes an automatic registration between two complementary modalities, 4D echocardiography and Magnetic resonance images, by mapping both modalities to a common space of salience where an optimal registration between them is estimated. The obtained matrix transformation is then applied to the MRI volume which is superimposed to the 4D echocardiography. Manually selected marks in both modalities are used to evaluate the precision of the superimposition. Preliminary results, in three evaluation cases, show the distance between these marked points and the estimated with the transformation is about 2 mm.
Foods Inducing Typical Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease Symptoms in Korea

Background/Aims Several specific foods are known to precipitate gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) symptoms and GERD patients are usually advised to avoid such foods. However, foods consumed daily are quite variable according to regions, cultures, etc. This study was done to elucidate the food items which induce typical GERD symptoms in Korean patients. Methods One hundred and twenty-six Korean patients with weekly typical GERD symptoms were asked to mark all food items that induced typical GERD symptoms from a list containing 152 typical foods consumed daily in Korea. All patients underwent upper gastrointestinal endoscopy followed by 24-hour ambulatory esophageal pH monitoring. The definition of “GERD” was if either of the 2 studies revealed evidence of GERD, and “possible GERD” if both studies were negative. Results One hundred and twenty-six cases (51 GERD and 75 possible GERD) were enrolled. In 19 (37.3%) of 51 GERD cases and in 17 (22.7%) of 75 possible GERD cases, foods inducing typical GERD symptoms were identified. In the GERD group (n = 19), frequent symptom-inducers were hot spicy stews, rice cakes, ramen noodles, fried foods, and topokki. In the possible GERD group (n = 17), frequent symptom-inducers were hot spicy stews, fried foods, doughnuts, breads, ramen noodles, coffee, pizza, topokki, rice cakes, champon noodles, and hotdogs. Conclusions In one-third of GERD patients, foods inducing typical symptoms were identified. Hot spicy stews, rice cakes, ramen noodles, fried foods, and topokki were the foods frequently inducing typical symptoms in Korea. The list of foods frequently inducing typical GERD symptoms needs to be modified based on their own local experiences.
Conducting polymer coated neural recording electrodes

Objective. Neural recording electrodes suffer from poor signal to noise ratio, charge density, biostability and biocompatibility. This paper investigates the ability of conducting polymer coated electrodes to record acute neural response in a systematic manner, allowing in depth comparison of electrochemical and electrophysiological response. Approach. Polypyrrole (Ppy) and poly-3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene (PEDOT) doped with sulphate (SO4) or para-toluene sulfonate (pTS) were used to coat iridium neural recording electrodes. Detailed electrochemical and electrophysiological investigations were undertaken to compare the effect of these materials on acute in vivo recording. Main results. A range of charge density and impedance responses were seen with each respectively doped conducting polymer. All coatings produced greater charge density than uncoated electrodes, while PEDOT-pTS, PEDOT-SO4 and Ppy-SO4 possessed lower impedance values at 1 kHz than uncoated electrodes. Charge density increased with PEDOT-pTS thickness and impedance at 1 kHz was reduced with deposition times up to 45 s. Stable electrochemical response after acute implantation inferred biostability of PEDOT-pTS coated electrodes while other electrode materials had variable impedance and/or charge density after implantation indicative of a protein fouling layer forming on the electrode surface. Recording of neural response to white noise bursts after implantation of conducting polymer-coated electrodes into a rat model inferior colliculus showed a general decrease in background noise and increase in signal to noise ratio and spike count with reduced impedance at 1 kHz, regardless of the specific electrode coating, compared to uncoated electrodes. A 45 s PEDOT-pTS deposition time yielded the highest signal to noise ratio and spike count. Significance. A method for comparing recording electrode materials has been demonstrated with doped conducting polymers. PEDOT-pTS showed remarkable low fouling during acute implantation, inferring good biostability. Electrode impedance at 1 kHz was correlated with background noise and inversely correlated with signal to noise ratio and spike count, regardless of coating. These results collectively confirm a potential for improvement of neural electrode systems by coating with conducting polymers.
The functional organization of the hippocampal dentate gyrus and its relevance to the pathogenesis of temporal lobe epilepsy

Temporal lobe seizures are frequently associated with a characteristic pattern of hippocampal pathology (hippocampal sclerosis), as well as pathology in other temporal lobe structures. Despite more than a century of study, the relationship between pathology and epileptogenesis remains unclear. Endfolium sclerosis, which is characterized by the loss of dentate hilar neurons that are presumed to govern dentate granule cell excitability, is evident whenever hippocampal sclerosis exists and is the only temporal lobe pathology in some patients. Because prolonged seizures or head trauma produce endfolium sclerosis and granule cell hyperexictability in experimental animals, hilar neuron loss may be the common pathological denominator and primary network defect underlying development of a hippocampal seizure “focus. ” Physiological studies suggest that vulnerable hilar mossy cells normally excite neurons that mediate granule cell inhibition. Recent anatomical studies indicate that the axons of mossy cells project longitudinally, out of the lamellar plane in which their cell bodies lie. If mossy cells in one lamella excite inhibitory neurons in surrounding lamellae, neocortical excitation of one segment of the granule cell layer may produce lateral inhibition and limit neocortical excitation to the targeted lamella. In patients who have had status epilepticus, prolonged febrile seizures, head trauma, or encephalitis, loss of dentate mossy cells may deafferent inhibitory neurons, render them “dormant,” and thereby disinhibit an encephalitis, loss of dentate mossy cells may deafferent inhibitory neurons, render them “dormant,” and thereby disinhibit an enlarged expanse of the granule cell layer. The selective loss of neurons that normally govern lateral inhibition in the dentate gyrus may cause functional delamination of the granule cell layer and result in synchronous, multilamellar discharges in response to cortical stimuli. Repetitive seizures may ultimately produce the full pattern of hippocampal and mesial temporal sclerosis by destroying cells within the seizure circuit that were not injured irreversibly by the initial insult. Thus, hippocampal pathology may be both the cause and effect of seizures that originate in the temporal lobe.
Detection and evaluation of endocrine‐disruption activity in water samples from Portuguese rivers

Water samples (n = 183) from Portuguese rivers were tested for the presence of endocrine disruptors using the recombinant yeast assay (RYA) combined with chemical identification of compounds having endocrine‐disruption properties by liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry. Ten selected locations were sampled monthly for a period of 20 months, from April 2001 to December 2002. More than 90% of samples showed either no detectable or low levels of estrogenicity (<0.1 ng/L of estradiol equivalents). The remaining samples (17 in total, 9.3%) showed estrogenicity values ranging from 0.1 to 1.7 ng/L of estradiol equivalents; only two samples showed values greater than 1 ng/L of estradiol equivalents. Most highly estrogenic samples (13 of 17 samples) originated in five sampling sites clustered in two zones near Porto and Lisbon. Chemical analysis detected alkylphenolic compounds (octyl‐ and nonylphenol plus nonylphenol ethoxylates) in all samples, albeit at concentrations less than 1 μg/L for each compound in 80% of samples. Total analyte concentration exceeded 10 μg/L in only 10 samples, with all but one of those originating from only two sampling sites. In these two locations, a good correlation was observed between the concentrations of octylphenol, nonylphenol, and to a lesser extent, bisphenol A in the samples and their estrogenicity values as calculated by RYA. We conclude that estrogenic activity can be explained by alkylphenol contamination in only these sites; for the remainder, we propose that pesticides and urban waste may be the main factors responsible for estrogenic contamination.
Essential Role of Insulin Receptor Substrate 1 (IRS-1) and IRS-2 in Adipocyte Differentiation

ABSTRACT To investigate the role of insulin receptor substrate 1 (IRS-1) and IRS-2, the two ubiquitously expressed IRS proteins, in adipocyte differentiation, we established embryonic fibroblast cells with four different genotypes, i.e., wild-type, IRS-1 deficient (IRS-1−/−), IRS-2 deficient (IRS-2−/−), and IRS-1 IRS-2 double deficient (IRS-1−/−IRS-2−/−), from mouse embryos of the corresponding genotypes. The abilities of IRS-1−/− cells and IRS-2−/− cells to differentiate into adipocytes are approximately 60 and 15%, respectively, lower than that of wild-type cells, at day 8 after induction and, surprisingly, IRS-1−/− IRS-2−/− cells have no ability to differentiate into adipocytes. The expression of CCAAT/enhancer binding protein α (C/EBPα) and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (PPARγ) is severely decreased in IRS-1−/−IRS-2−/− cells at both the mRNA and the protein level, and the mRNAs of lipoprotein lipase and adipocyte fatty acid binding protein are severely decreased in IRS-1−/−IRS-2−/− cells. Phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI 3-kinase) activity that increases during adipocyte differentiation is almost completely abolished in IRS-1−/−IRS-2−/− cells. Treatment of wild-type cells with a PI 3-kinase inhibitor, LY294002, markedly decreases the expression of C/EBPα and PPARγ, a result which is associated with a complete block of adipocyte differentiation. Moreover, histologic analysis of IRS-1−/− IRS-2−/− double-knockout mice 8 h after birth reveals severe reduction in white adipose tissue mass. Our results suggest that IRS-1 and IRS-2 play a crucial role in the upregulation of the C/EBPα and PPARγ expression and adipocyte differentiation.
Experimental Study of 3D Localized Boundary-Layer Receptivity to Free-Stream Vortices by Means of Two-Source Method

Abstract : The investigation of mechanisms of excitation of the boundary-layer instability waves by various external perturbations represents an important aspect of the laminar-turbulent transition problem and has a crucial significance for both basic research of transition and practical applications. A review of recent studies in this field related to 3D receptivity problems for 2D and 3D boundary layers can be found. Most of previous experimental investigations were devoted to the receptivity to surface perturbations (roughness and vibrations) and to acoustic waves. Meanwhile, the excitation of instability waves by free-stream turbulence can also play a very important role and influence the transition process. The present paper is devoted to an experimental investigation of the 3D receptivity of Blasius boundary layer to non-stationary vortical free-stream disturbances due to their scattering on localized (in streamwise and spanwise directions) surface vibrations. There is only one available quantitative experimental study of a similar receptivity problem performed for unsteady free-stream vortices. A scattering of a weak vortex street (with 2D spanwise vorticity) on a localized two-dimensional surface roughness has been studied in this work in the Blasius flow. The results of this experiment were found to be in a good agreement with the 2D receptivity theory. Three-dimensional receptivity to non-stationary free-stream vortices has not been studied in previous experiments at all. The scattering of free-stream vortices on surface vibrations was not studied even for purely two-dimensional case.
Comparison of PET and fMRI activation patterns during declarative memory processes

Summary Aim: In this study neuronal correlates of encoding and retrieval in paired association learning were compared using two different neuroimaging methods: positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Methods: 6 right-handed normal male volunteers took part in the study. Each subject underwent six 0-15-butanol PET scans and an fMRI study comprising four single epochs on a different day. The subjects had to learn and retrieve 12 word pairs which were visually presented (highly imaginable words, not semantically related). Results: Mean recall accuracy was 93% in the PET as well as in the fMRI experiment. During encoding and retrieval we found anterior cingulate cortex activation, and bilateral prefrontal cortex activation in both imaging modalities. Furthermore, we demonstrate the importance of the precuneus in episodic memory. With PET the results demonstrate frontopolar activations whereas fMRI fails to show activations in this area probably due to susceptibility artifacts. In fMRI we found additionally parahippocampal activation and due to the whole-brain coverage cerebellar activation during encoding. The distance between the center-of-mass activations in both modalities was 7.2 ± 6.5 mm. Conclusion: There is a preponderance of commonalities in the activation patterns yielded with fMRI and PET. However, there are also important differences. The decision to choose one or the other neuroimaging modality should among other aspects depend on the study design (single subject vs. group study) and the task of interest.
Thiol/disulfide homeostasis in pregnant women with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome

Abstract Background Repetitive episodes of hypoxia and reoxygenation during sleep in patients with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) resemble an ischemia-reperfusion injury. We aimed to test the hypothesis that oxidative stress occurs in pregnant women with OSAS. We also aimed to compare thiol/disulfide homeostasis with ischemia-modified albumin (IMA) and total antioxidant capacity (TAC) as markers of ischemia-reperfusion injury in pregnant women with and without OSAS and healthy control. Methods This study included 29 pregnant women with OSAS, 30 women without OSAS in the third trimester applying for periodic examinations, and 30 healthy women. Serum IMA and TAC (using the ferric reducing power of plasma method) were measured. Serum thiol/disulfide homeostasis was determined by a novel automated method. Results The mean age of the pregnant women with OSAS was 31.0 ± 4.7 years with a mean gestational age of 36.5 ± 3.0 weeks. The mean age of pregnant women without OSAS was 29.8 ± 4.9 years with a mean gestational age of 36.9 ± 2.7 weeks. The mean age of the nonpregnant control group was 29.7 ± 6.4 years. Both native thiol (291 ± 29 μmol/L versus 314 ± 30 μmol/L; p = .018) and total thiol (325 ± 32 versus 350 ± 32, p = .025) levels were lower in pregnant women with OSAS compared to pregnant women without OSAS, respectively (p < .01). Conclusions This is the first study demonstrating the thiol/disulfide homeostasis in pregnant women with OSAS. Native thiol and total thiol levels were lower in pregnant women with OSAS compared to those without OSAS. However, dynamic thiol/disulfide homeostasis parameters cannot provide valuable information to discriminate OSAS in pregnant women.
Prolonged Quercetin Administration Diminishes the Etoposide-Induced DNA Damage in Bone Marrow Cells of Rats

The DNA damage in bone marrow cells induced by etoposide (E) injected intraperitoneally to rats (100 mg/kg b.w.) decreased to the control level when quercetin (Q) was administered subcutaneously for 10 consecutive days (40 mg/kg b.w.per day) before E was injected. The antioxidant power (FRAP assay) increased significantly after Q or E compared with control rats but did not change when Q preceded the E injection. The superoxide dismutase activity significantly increased in Q+E-treated rats compared with quercetin given alone. The study provides evidence that Q protects bone marrow cells against long-lived E-induced DNA damage and alters the redox balance in lung tissue.