Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Immunomodulatory Effect of Zidovudine (ZDV) on Cytotoxic T Lymphocytes Previously Exposed to ZDV

ABSTRACT In a previous study, zidovudine (ZDV) was shown to cause a concentration-dependent inhibition of antigen-specific cytotoxic T-lymphocyte (CTL) clonal expansion (S. Francke, C. G. Orosz, K. A. Hayes, and L. E. Mathes, Antimicrob. Agents Chemother. 44:1900-1905, 2000). However, this suppressive effect was lost if exposure to ZDV was delayed for 24 to 48 h during the antigen sensitization period, suggesting that antigen-primed CTL may be less susceptible than naive T lymphocytes to the suppressive effects of ZDV. The present study was undertaken to determine if naive T lymphocytes were more sensitive to the suppressive effects of ZDV than T lymphocytes previously exposed to antigen. The 50% inhibitory concentration (IC50) values of ZDV were determined on naive and antigen-primed T-cell responses in an alloantigen system. Lymphocyte cultures with continuous antigen exposure (double prime) were more resistant to ZDV suppression (IC50 = 316 μM) than were naive lymphocytes (IC50 = 87.5 μM). Interestingly, lymphocytes that were antigen primed but deprived of antigen during the final 7 days of culture (prime/hold) were exquisitely sensitive to ZDV suppression (IC50 = 29.3 μM). The addition of 80 μM ZDV during the initial priming of the single-prime (prime/hold) and double-prime cultures did not select for a more drug-resistant cell population. The differences in ZDV sensitivities are likely a reflection of the physiological properties of the lymphocytes related to their activation state.
Plant functional traits of dominant native and invasive species in mediterranean-climate ecosystems.

The idea that dominant invasive plant species outperform neighboring native species through higher rates of carbon assimilation and growth is supported by several analyses of global data sets. However, theory suggests that native and invasive species occurring in low-resource environments will be functionally similar, as environmental factors restrict the range of observed physiological and morphological trait values. We measured resource-use traits in native and invasive plant species across eight diverse vegetation communities distributed throughout the five mediterranean-climate regions, which are drought prone and increasingly threatened by human activities, including the introduction of exotic species. Traits differed strongly across the five regions. In regions with functional differences between native and invasive species groups, invasive species displayed traits consistent with high resource acquisition; however, these patterns were largely attributable to differences in life form. We found that species invading mediterranean-climate regions were more likely to be annual than perennial: three of the five regions were dominated by native woody species and invasive annuals. These results suggest that trait differences between native and invasive species are context dependent and will vary across vegetation communities. Native and invasive species within annual and perennial groups had similar patterns of carbon assimilation and resource use, which contradicts the widespread idea that invasive species optimize resource acquisition rather than resource conservation.
Tree height influence on ERS interferometric phase in boreal forest

The European Remote Sensing 1/2 (ERS-1/2) "tandem" coherence has been shown to provide estimates of stem volume in boreal forest in agreement with in situ data. Tree height estimation from ERS interferometric phase represents a further step in the investigations concerning the retrieval of biophysical parameters using repeat-pass synthetic aperture radar (SAR) interferometry. At two test sites located in Sweden and Finland, sets of respectively nine and eight ERS "tandem" interferograms were available. Images acquired under stable winter weather conditions and during nighttime were found to be less affected by atmospheric artifacts. Reduction of atmospheric artifacts in interferograms was performed with a phase screen estimated over a dense grid of open areas. Nonetheless, at each test site, only a limited set of pairs was useful for tree height investigations. Under stable winter conditions, the interferometric tree height obtained from an inversion of the differential interferometric phase at stand level was found to be much lower than the true tree height. Spread and uncertainty in the interferometric tree height measurements were caused by phase noise and residual atmospheric artifacts. Using the semiempirical interferometric water cloud model (IWCM), the modeled interferometric tree height was generally in reasonable agreement with the measurements, showing the need of a phase term in interferometric modeling of forests. The inversion of the IWCM for tree height retrieval showed the strong effect of phase noise and atmospheric artifacts on the estimates. Hence, tree height retrieval from ERS repeat-pass SAR interferometry seems to have limited forestry applications. The results also indicate under what conditions the forest influence is small on digital elevation models derived from repeat-pass interferometry.
Selection-Based Language Model for Domain Adaptation using Topic Modeling

This paper introduces a selection-based LM using topic modeling for the purpose of domain adaptation which is often required in Statistical Machine Translation. The performance of this selection-based LM slightly outperforms the state-of-theart Moore-Lewis LM by 1.0% for EN-ES and 0.7% for ES-EN in terms of BLEU. The performance gain in terms of perplexity was 8% over the Moore-Lewis LM and 17% over the plain LM. 1 Domain Adaptation in Statistical Machine Translation Domain adaptation is one important research area in Statistical Machine Translation (SMT) as well as other areas of NLP such as parsing. Domain adaptation tries to ensure that the performance is not radically decreased even if we translate a text in a test set whose genre is different from the parallel corpus which is used to build the system. Without loss of generality, the decoder of an SMT system can be written in the form of the noisy channel model argminE P (E|F )PLM (E) where the two components, the set of P (E|F ) and that of PLM (E), are the targets that we do domain adaptation on: the set of P (E|F ) is called a phrase table (or a rule table) and that of PLM (E) is called a language model (for simplicity, the model is written in the simplest form without indices). Hence, one approach to domain adaptation in SMT aims at obtaining a domain-adapted phrase table and language model [1]. In particular, it is observed in several papers that the domain adaptation of the language model is often the most effective route in domain adaptation. In this context, we explore domain-adapted language models using topic modeling [2] in this paper. Note that there is an alternative approach which applies transfer learning [3] for domain adaptation, which is not pursued in this paper. In the following, we focus on the domain adaptation of language models and we leave the topic of translation model domain adaptation as further work. The special setting for SMT would be the following: (1) there is a tendency that if a training corpus becomes big, e.g. more than a million sentences, we may need to think about the corpus as a combination of different genres, and (2) we may have some information about the genre of a test set as a whole or for each sentence (it is rare that we do not have any information about the genre of the test set). 2 Selection-Based Language Models Let us prepare n kinds of language models {PLM1 , . , PLMn} (we sometimes call this “a pool of language models” in the following) and a selection function f(s) where s denotes a test sentence and The topic modeling for translation model can be found in [4]. Main differences are the usage of crossentropy and interpolation. The topic modeling for system combination in SMT can be found in [5].
The Routledge Concise History of Southeast Asian Writing in English

1. Introduction 2. Southeast Asia: Historical Contexts 3. Linguistic Contexts 4. Malaysian & Singaporean writing to 1965 5. Filipino writing to 1965 6. Narrative Fiction 1965-90 7. Poetry 1965-90 8. Drama 1965--90 9. Expatriate, Diasporic & Minoritarian writing 10. Contemporary Fiction 11. Contemporary Poetry 12. Contemporary Drama 13. From the Contemporary to the Future 14. Bibliography. Index
Review of the Lynch syndrome: history, molecular genetics, screening, differential diagnosis, and medicolegal ramifications

More than one million patients will manifest colorectal cancer (CRC) this year of which, conservatively, approximately 3% (∼30,700 cases) will have Lynch syndrome (LS), the most common hereditary CRC predisposing syndrome. Each case belongs to a family with clinical needs that require genetic counseling, DNA testing for mismatch repair genes (most frequently MLH1 or MSH2) and screening for CRC. Colonoscopy is mandated, given CRC's proximal occurrence (70–80% proximal to the splenic flexure). Due to its early age of onset (average 45 years of age), colonoscopy needs to start by age 25, and because of its accelerated carcinogenesis, it should be repeated every 1 to 2 years through age 40 and then annually thereafter. Should CRC occur, subtotal colectomy may be necessary, given the marked frequency of synchronous and metachronous CRC. Because 40–60% of female patients will manifest endometrial cancer, tailored management is essential. Additional extracolonic cancers include ovary, stomach, small bowel, pancreas, hepatobiliary tract, upper uroepithelial tract, brain (Turcot variant) and sebaceous adenomas/carcinomas (Muir‐Torre variant). LS explains only 10–25% of familial CRC.
The Comparative Skills of Monolinguals and Bilinguals in Perceiving Phoneme Sequences

Five groups of subjects, two monolingual in English or French, three bilingual in French and English, but one native in English, the second native in French, and the third native in both languages, were measured for their accuracy in perceiving initial phoneme sequences. All groups were most accurate in perceiving sequences that occurred in both languages and least accurate with sequences occurring in neither language. Sequences occurring in one of the two languages fell between these extremes with French sequences yielding significantly higher accuracy than English sequences. The bilinguals who were native in English or native in both languages were superior to the other three groups on the tasks. Errors tended to be distortions in the direction of the subject's native language. The most common error was a replacement of the initial phoneme accompanied by accurate perception of the second phoneme.
Conservative treatment in a patient with diabetic osteomyelitis: antibiotic treatment is sufficient for complete bone regeneration in selected cases

Diabetic foot ulcers are commonly complicated by bone involvement and osteomyelitis. Diagnosing diabetic osteomyelitis can be problematic. However, positive findings at clinical examination and X-ray may set the diagnosis. Recent guidelines suggest that selected cases of diabetic osteomyelitis can be treated conservatively with antibiotics. We report on the successful treatment of a 52-year-old man with diabetes with osteomyelitis in the distal phalanx of a toe. On X-ray, the affected phalanx appeared completely eroded. However, regeneration of the bone tissue was observed following outpatient treatment with antibiotics. We therefore encourage doctors to provide conservative treatment for selected cases of diabetic osteomyelitis.
THE EVOLUTION OF AGRICULTURE IN BEETLES (CURCULIONIDAE: SCOLYTINAE AND PLATYPODINAE)

Abstract Beetles in the weevil subfamilies Scolytinae and Platypodinae are unusual in that they burrow as adults inside trees for feeding and oviposition. Some of these beetles are known as ambrosia beetles for their obligate mutualisms with asexual fungi—known as ambrosia fungi—that are derived from plant pathogens in the ascomycete group known as the ophiostomatoid fungi. Other beetles in these subfamilies are known as bark beetles and are associated with free-living, pathogenic ophiostomatoid fungi that facilitate beetle attack of phloem of trees with resin defenses. Using DNA sequences from six genes, including both copies of the nuclear gene encoding enolase, we performed a molecular phylogenetic study of bark and ambrosia beetles across these two subfamilies to establish the rate and direction of changes in life histories and their consequences for diversification. The ambrosia beetle habits have evolved repeatedly and are unreversed. The subfamily Platypodinae is derived from within the Scolytinae, near the tribe Scolytini. Comparison of the molecular branch lengths of ambrosia beetles and ambrosia fungi reveals a strong correlation, which a fungal molecular clock suggests spans 60 to 21 million years. Bark beetles have shifted from ancestral association with conifers to angiosperms and back again several times. Each shift to angiosperms is associated with elevated diversity, whereas the reverse shifts to conifers are associated with lowered diversity. The unusual habit of adult burrowing likely facilitated the diversification of these beetle-fungus associations, enabling them to use the biomass-rich resource that trees represent and set the stage for at least one origin of eusociality. Corresponding Editor: S. Pitnick
Detection of Mycobacterium abscessus from Deep Pharyngeal Swabs in Cystic Fibrosis

Society of America and the Society of Healthcare Epidemiology of America guidelines for developing an institutional program to enhance antimicrobial stewardship. Clin Infect Dis 2007;44: 159–177. 4. Wagner B, Filice GA, Drekonja D, et al. Antimicrobial stewardship programs in inpatient hospital settings: a systematic review. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2014;35:1209–1228. 5. Leuthner DK, Doern GV. Antimicrobial stewardship programs. J Clin Microbiol 2013;51:3916–3920.
Inhibition of phosphatidylinositol 3‐kinase signaling negates the growth advantage imparted by a mutant epidermal growth factor receptor on human glioblastoma cells

In de novo glioblastoma multiforme, loss of the tumour suppressor protein PTEN can coincide with the expression of a naturally occurring mutant epidermal growth factor receptor known as ΔEGFR. ΔEGFR signals constitutively via the phosphatidylinositol 3‐kinase (PI3K)/protein kinase Akt and mitogen‐activated protein kinase pathways. In human U87MG glioblastoma cells that lack PTEN, ΔEGFR expression enhances tumourigenicity by increasing cellular proliferation. Inhibition of PI3K signaling with the pharmacologic inhibitor wortmannin, or by the reconstitution of physiological levels of PTEN to dephosphorylate the lipid products of PI3K, negated the growth advantage imparted by ΔEGFR on U87MG cells. PTEN reconstitution suppressed the elevated PI3K signaling, without affecting mitogen‐activated protein kinase signaling and caused a delay in G1 cell cycle progression that was concomitant with increased cyclin‐dependent protein kinase inhibitor p21CIP1/WAF1 protein levels. Our study provides insight into the mechanism by which ΔEGFR may contribute to glioblastoma development. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Non-Compliance With Treatment in Patients Suffering From Schizophrenia: a Study To Evaluate Possible Contributing Factors

Background. Various factors have been associated with non-compliance with treatment in schizophrenia. The aim of this study was to examine this association using standardised measures. Method. Compliance was determined and socio-demographic and illness variables recorded. Insight, subjective response to medication and relatives' knowledge and attitude about schizophrenia were measured. Results. Non-compliant patients were younger, had shorter durations of illness, had an episodic course of illness, reported side-effects less frequently, made incorrect attributions to current positive symptoms more frequently and had a more negative subjective response to medication. Key relatives of non-compliant patients were more often employed. Conclusions. Patients need to experience for themselves the merits of taking medication before accepting the need to take them long-term. Psychoeducational and cognitive-behavioural interventions need to be targeted at changing attribu tions to current positive symptoms. The presence of a key person in the community is crucial to improve compliance.
Potent antitumor effects of ZD6474 on neuroblastoma via dual targeting of tumor cells and tumor endothelium

Among children with relapsed or refractory neuroblastoma, the prognosis is poor and novel therapeutic strategies are needed to improve long-term survival. As with other solid tumors, high vascular density within neuroblastoma is associated with advanced disease, and therapeutic regimens directed against the tumor vasculature may provide clinical benefit. The receptor tyrosine kinase RET is widely expressed in neuroblastoma and is known to activate key signal transduction pathways involved in tumor cell survival and progression including Ras/mitogen-activated protein kinase and phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase/Akt. We investigated the effect of dual targeting of tumor cells and tumor endothelium with ZD6474, a small-molecule tyrosine kinase inhibitor of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) receptor 2, epidermal growth factor receptor, and RET. ZD6474 inhibited the phosphorylation of RET in neuroblastoma cells and had a direct effect on tumor cell viability in seven neuroblastoma cell lines. In a human neuroblastoma xenograft model, ZD6474 inhibited tumor growth by 85% compared with treatment with vehicle alone. In contrast, no significant inhibition of tumor growth was observed after treatment with bevacizumab, an antihuman VEGF monoclonal antibody, or the epidermal growth factor receptor inhibitor erlotinib, either alone or in combination. Immunohistochemical analysis showed that ZD6474 treatment led to an increase in endothelial cell apoptosis along with inhibition of VEGF receptor-2 activation on tumor endothelium. In conclusion, dual targeting of tumor cells, potentially through RET inhibition, and tumor vasculature with ZD6474 leads to potent antitumor effects. This approach merits further investigation for patients with neuroblastoma. [Mol Cancer Ther 2008;7(2):418–24]
Percutaneous Dilational Tracheotomy in Solid-Organ Transplant Recipients.

OBJECTIVES Solid-organ transplant recipients may require percutaneous dilational tracheotomy because of prolonged mechanical ventilation or airway issues, but data regarding its safety and effectiveness in solid-organ transplant recipients are scarce. Here, we evaluated the safety, effectiveness, and benefits in terms of lung mechanics, complications, and patient comfort of percutaneous dilational tracheotomy in solid-organ transplant recipients. MATERIALS AND METHODS Medical records from 31 solid-organ transplant recipients (median age of 41.0 years [interquartile range, 18.0-53.0 y]) who underwent percutaneous dilational tracheotomy at our hospital between January 2010 and March 2015 were analyzed, including primary diagnosis, comorbidities, duration of orotracheal intubation and mechanical ventilation, length of intensive care unit and hospital stays, the time interval between transplant to percutaneous dilational tracheotomy, Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II score, tracheotomy-related complications, and pulmonary compliance and ratio of partial pressure of arterial oxygen to fraction of inspired oxygen. RESULTS The median Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II score on admission was 24.0 (interquartile range, 18.0-29.0). The median interval from transplant to percutaneous dilational tracheotomy was 105.5 days (interquartile range, 13.0-2165.0 d). The only major complication noted was left-sided pneumothorax in 1 patient. There were no significant differences in ratio of partial pressure of arterial oxygen to fraction of inspired oxygen before and after procedure (170.0 [interquartile range, 102.2-302.0] vs 210.0 [interquartile range, 178.5-345.5]; P = .052). However, pulmonary compliance results preprocedure and postprocedure were significantly different (0.020 L/cm H2O [interquartile range, 0.015-0.030 L/cm H2O] vs 0.030 L/cm H2O [interquartile range, 0.020-0.041 L/cm H2O); P = . 001]). Need for sedation significantly decreased after tracheotomy (from 17 patients [54.8%] to 8 patients [25.8%]; P = .004]). CONCLUSIONS Percutaneous dilational tracheotomy with bronchoscopic guidance is an efficacious and safe technique for maintaining airways in solidorgan transplant recipients who require prolonged mechanical ventilation, resulting in possible improvements in ventilatory mechanics and patient comfort.
Portrayal of organ donation and transplantation on American primetime television

Harbaugh C, Afana M, Burdick S, East J, Kodali S, Lee J, Patel S, Rangrass G, Ranney D, Sood V, Lynch R, Sonnenday CJ, Englesbe MJ, Mathur AK. Portrayal of organ donation and transplantation on American primetime television. Clin Transplant 2011: 25: E375–E380. © 2011 John Wiley & Sons A/S.
Binge drinking and illicit drug use among adolescent students

ABSTRACT OBJECTIVE To estimate the prevalence of illicit drug use and its association with binge drinking and sociodemographic factors among adolescent students. METHODS This is a cross-sectional study with probabilistic conglomerate sampling, involving 1,154 students, aged 13 to 19 years old, from the public school system, in the city of Olinda, State of Pernambuco, Brazil, carried out in 2014. We used the Youth Risk Behavior Survey questionnaire, validated for use with Brazilian adolescents. The Chi-square test (≤ 0.05) and Poisson regression analysis were used to estimate the prevalence ratios, with 95% confidence intervals. RESULTS Use in life of illicit drugs was four times more prevalent among students who reported binge drinking (95%CI 3.19–5.45). Being in the age group of 16 to 19 years, being male, and having no religion were also significantly associated with illicit drug use. CONCLUSIONS The prevalence of use in life of illicit drugs was higher in this study than in other studies carried out in Brazil and it was strongly associated with binge drinking. This factor was associated with gender, age, and religion.
A new hybrid MMC with integrated energy storage

As the penetration level of wind power increases, displacing conventional power generation with wind power will reduce the inertia of power system and decrease the frequency stability. Energy storage devices with only 5% energy storage of wind farm's rated capacity can produce the same virtual inertia as a same capacity synchronous generator. To reduce the additional costs of individual energy storage devices, this paper proposes a new hybrid modular multilevel converter (HMMC) with integrated battery energy storage. It has the capability of smoothing battery current and reducing battery voltage, while possessing DC fault ride-through capability with no additional costs in comparison with previous work on energy storage MMC. Voltage balancing, control strategy and parameter design are discussed in the paper, while simulation results illustrate three working states (charging, discharging, and idle) of battery and power balancing of submodules. If the proposed new submodule accounts for half of the cells, the new HMMC is able to provide sufficient virtual inertia for the wind farm with capacitor voltage requirement only 5% higher than conventional MMC.